THE NORTHEASTERN BOUNDARY QUESTION.*

THE period has at length arrived at which this long vexed question has assumed an aspect so critical and delicate, that it addresses itself to the attention of every citizen of the Union as one of paramount importance and interest, with the merits of which every one is bound, by high considerations, to make himself thoroughly acquainted. It is not to be disguised, not only that a collision of force between the parties at issue upon it is possible at a day not far distant, but that, unless a change so total and speedy as to partake somewhat of the miraculous, take place in the counsels and course of Great Britain, in relation to it, such a consummation appears as inevitable as it would be disastrous and lamentable. The strength of a democratic republic, when placed in such a relation towards a neighboring power, consists in that unanimity of opinion, ardor of sentiment, and firmness of resolution, which can only spring from a righteous cause, clearly understood, and patriotically felt, by every citizen. Such a Public Opinion constitutes an irresistible moral power, giving to the cause thus supported an immense advantage over its antagonist, which can never fail to carry it with honor and success through whatever contest may be necessary for the maintenance of its rights. Such a Public Opinion we are anxious to see form itself on the present question, at the point of maturity which it has now reached, in support of the position in which it places us as a nation,-not alone for the sake of the national honor and dignity, but for the influence which the exhibition of such an united and imposing front may be well calculated to have on the course of the other party to the controversy. It may well be regarded as a subject of rejoicing, that this question has not yet been swallowed up in that insatiate vortex of party spirit which we see absorbing every other question of high national concern, as they successively rise to the surface of the public attention. We hope

* Document No. 126. House of Representatives. Executive. Twenty-fifth Congress, Second Session. Maine Boundary-Mr. Greely, &c.

Senate Document No. 319. Message from the President of the United States, transmitting all the correspondence between the United States and Great Britain on the subject of the Northeastern Boundary, in compliance with a resolution of the Senate.

Report of the Committee on Foreign Relations, Mr. Buchanan, Chairman. In Senate of the United States, July 4, 1838,-on the Bill to provide for surveying the Northeastern Boundary Line of the United States, according to the provisions of the Treaty of Peace of seventeen hundred and eighty-three.

that by common consent it shall continue to be kept apart from the partisan struggles which divide and agitate us; and that, whatever direction events may give to it, we shall not again blush for the spectacle we have already more than once had to behold, of a parricidal party in our midst, siding, from selfish motives of political effect, with the stranger and the aggressor, against the common cause of the country. Under these circumstances, we are conscious that we can render no more useful service to the readers of the Democratic Review, than by presenting them as full and clear a view of the merits and history of this most extraordinary controversy, as our limits will permit.

The Treaty of Peace by which our national independence was: acknowledged by the mother country, whose yoke was shaken off by the long agony of our Revolutionary War, was concluded at Paris, on the third of September, 1783. This is the treaty, whose inviolability we are now called on to maintain; and though over half a century has elapsed since its date, the memory of the struggle of which it was the glorious consummation must still give to every jot and tittle of it a peculiar sanctity which cannot appeal in vain to any American bosom. That treaty, of all others, must be held sacred! And if we are ever to submit to the grasping aggressions of foreign power, in disregard of the plighted faith of treaties, it must not, at least, be in the case of that one, and above all, on a point so vital as that of the boundary of the land to whose sovereign independence that document set the solemn and final seal.

By the first article of the Treaty the King of Great Britain "acknowledges the United States, namely, New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, and the rest, (naming them separately) to be free, sovereign, and independent States; that he treats with them as such; and, for himself, his heirs and successors, relinquishes all claims to the government, propriety, and territorial rights of the same, and every part thereof." This language plainly shows the intention: of the parties to have been, that the people of Massachusetts Bay (including Maine) should continue to retain and possess, unimpaired, the sovereignty, title, and territory of that State, in virtueof its then existing and complete independence of the mother country, according to its ancient understood and established boundaries, if, indeed, its boundaries were understood and considered established at the time.

The Treaty then proceeds to define the boundary line between the United States and the possessions of Great Britain, as follows:

And that all disputes which might arise in future on the subject of the boundaries of the said United States may be prevented, it is hereby agreed and declared that the following are, and shall be, their boundaries, to wit:

Article 2. From the NORTHWEST angle of Nova Scotia, to wit: that angle which is formed by a line drawn due north, from the source of the St. Croix river to the high

lands, along the said highlands which divide those rivers that empty themselves into the St. Lawrence from those which fall into the Atlantic Ocean, to the northwesternmost head of the Connecticut river," &c.

And in another part of the description, as follows:

"EAST by a line to be drawn along the middle of the river St. Croix, from its mouth into the Bay of Fundy to its source; and from its source, directly north, to the aforesaid highlands which divide the rivers that fall into the Atlantic Ocean from those which fall into the river St. Lawrence."

Distinct as this description of boundary may seem-introduced for the express purpose of obviating all possible dispute in future on the subject-fifty-five years have not yet sufficed to bring the governments of the two countries to a definite understanding, what was the line of demarcation here intended. On the part of Great Britain it is pretended, that the commissioners who negotiated the Treaty were acting at random, and in the dark, from their ignorance of the country thus described by its topographical characteristics; that the "northwest angle of Nova Scotia" was no definite point, understood and established at the time, but that its location was only to be fixed by the process of running the boundary line here prescribed; that no range of highlands exists answering the terms of this description; that consequently the line here supposed to be laid down proves to be an impossible one, and that the article becomes void from uncertainty and impracticability. It is therefore insisted, that no other alternative remains, than that the two countries should agree upon a new conventional line, to be run somewhere about midway through the territory in dispute, according to the mutual convenience of the two parties.

On our side it has always been maintained,—and at the late session of Congress resolutions were adopted, unanimously in each House, declaring in substance,-that the line so described is fully and plainly defined; that there is no reasonable cause of doubt as to the meaning of the language; that the terms employed have a fixed and well known meaning in numerous official documents of the British Government; that the description is capable of being accurately applied to the actual features of the country intended to be described; and that, taking the description in the natural and obvious import of the words, and comparing it with the face of the earth, and with the public acts appertaining to the subject, the State of Maine is clearly and unequivocally entitled to the peaceful possession of the whole territory in dispute.

A glance at the map will put the reader in possession of the extent and situation of this disputed territory. Great Britain fixes the "northwest angle of Nova Scotia" at Mar's-Hill, an isolated hill about forty miles north of the source of the St. Croix; and finds the range of highlands along which the line is to run, in a range running in a southwesterly direction between the valleys of the St. John's and the Penobscot. Our claim, however, carries the me

ridian line from the source of the St. Croix about a hundred miles farther north, crossing the St. John's, and reaching to the sources of the numerous small streams which there flow off northwardly, into the St. Lawrence, from the range of elevated land forming the southern parallel enclosure of the valley of that great river,-of the existence of which the direction of that series of small streams is alone ample evidence. This tract embraces about six millions of acres, jutting up, like an intercepting wedge, between the provinces of New Brunswick and Lower Canada,—being about one-third of the whole State of Maine, for the most part wild, and covered with forest, but estimated by the State, from its natural character and capabilities, as territory of a very high value. Its value to Great Britain consists, of course, principally in the convenience, or rather the necessity, of the communication between Quebec and Halifax, which is directly intercepted by the territory in question.

The argument in behalf of the American claim may be thus substantially summed up. That it amounts to absolute and perfect demonstration, establishing the full right of Maine beyond the reach of cavil or question, cannot but be admitted by every candid mind.

The question is not, what line is convenient and desirable to the two British provinces of New Brunswick and Lower Canada,—but what were the true limits of the State of Massachusetts Bay, as intended and defined by the Treaty ?

Originally, the chartered limits of the province of Massachusetts Bay, embracing the country of Sagadehoc, extended expressly to the banks of the St. Lawrence, as also did the limits of Nova Scotia,— these two adjacent provinces being separated by a north and south line, which abutted on the St. Lawrence.

Great Britain, having acquired Canada in 1763, proceeded, by proclamation, to establish the province of Quebec, removing the line of Canada from the St. Lawrence to the highlands south of it, and thus separating from Massachusetts Bay and Nova Scotia, and annexing to Canada, the narrow strip of country occupied by the tributary streams of the St. Lawrence. And here, in the Royal Proclamation of 1763, occurs for the first time that description of boundary by the ligne des versants, which is afterwards adopted on numberless important occasions, and which, when transferred into the Treaty of 1783, as indicating a certain and well understood natural line of boundary, has been mystified away, by British diplomatic ingenuity, into a nonentity and an impossibility. The southern boundary of the Government of Quebec is there laid down as passing "along the highlands which divide the rivers that empty themselves into the said river St. Lawrence, from those which fall into the sea, and also along the north coast of the Bay des Chaleurs, &c."

This new demarcation of limits was confirmed by an Act of Parliament of 1774, which defines the south line of Canada as follows:

Bounded on the south by a line from the Bay of Chaleur, along the highlands which divide the rivers that empty themselves into the St. Lawrence from those which fall into the sea, to a point in forty-five degrees of northern latitude, and the eastern bank of Connecticut river," &c.

This description of the south line of the province of Quebec is continued in the commissions of the successive Governors of that province, issued in 1763, 1767, 1774, and 1777, the last of which remained in force at the time of the conclusion of the Treaty of Peace.

The same definition of limits appears in the commissions given to the Governors of Nova Scotia in 1763, 1773, and 1782, the first of which runs as follows:

We have thought proper to restrain and comprise [the province] within the following limits, viz: to the northward our said province shall be bounded by the southern boundary of Quebec, as far as the western extremity of the Bay of Chaleur," &c.; "to the westward it shall be bounded by a line drawn from Cape Sable across the entrance of the Bay of Fundy to the mouth of the river St. Croix, by the said river to its source, and by a line drawn due north from thence to the southern boundary of Quebec."

All these official acts prescribe one and the same boundary for the Province of Quebec and Nova Scotia, beginning at the Bay of Chaleurs, and stretching from thence along the ligne des versants of the south bank of the St. Lawrence, in a continued and unbroken line, to the head of the Connecticut. This line divided Canada and Nova Scotia until it reached the due north line between Nova Scotia and Maine; then (without any material change of course) it divided Canada and Maine; after which, Canada and New Hampshire.

Of the definite and certain existence and course of this line of demarcation, though never actually surveyed and traced out, there could be no sort of doubt. That it ran in a general northeast and southwest direction, parallel with the course of the great river to whose valley it was the natural southern enclosure, and at no great distance from it, was abundantly proved by the diverging courses of the streams which flowed off to the right hand and the left, into the St. Lawrence and into the sea, respectively. That at the time. of the Treaty it formed the northern boundary of Nova Scotia and Massachusetts Bay, and that its intersection by the meridian line of the source of the St. Croix constituted a certain fixed point, as accurately ascertainable as though it were already surveyed and marked by a monument,-which point was "the northwest angle of Nova Scotia,"-admits of no possibility of fair cavil.

The terms of the definition of boundary in the Treaty have been already given. They differ from the form already so often used to designate this ligne des versants, only in the substitution of