"It takes no part in our records ?" "Assuredly not," said Mr.Tyler.

"I only hope the question may never come to a matter of record at all.

Once our country knows that dictation has been attempted with us, even by England herself, the North will join the South in resentment.

Even now, in restiveness at the fancied attitude of England toward Mexico, the West raises the demand that we shall end the joint occupancy of Oregon with Great Britain.

Do you perchance know the watchword which is now on the popular tongue west of the Alleghanies?
It bids fair to become an American _Marseillaise_." "I must confess my ignorance," rejoined Mr.Pakenham.
"Our backwoodsmen have invented a phrase which runs _Fifty-four Forty or Fight_!" "I beg pardon, I am sure, your Excellency ?" "It means that if we conclude to terminate the very unsatisfactory muddle along the Columbia River--a stream which our mariners first explored, as we contend--and if we conclude to dispute with England as well regarding our delimitations on the Southwest, where she has even less right to speak, then we shall contend for _all_ that territory, not only up to the Columbia, but north to the Russian line, the parallel of fifty-four degrees and forty minutes! We claim that we once bought Texas clear to the Rio Grande, from Napoleon, although the foolish treaty with Spain in 1819 clouded our title--in the belief of our Whig friends, who do not desire more slave territory.