- Owen— Robert—
Morning visit from Mr. Robert Owen, who told me, that he should
leave the City to-morrow, about to embark for England, where he
proposed, to use his best exertions for procuring the amicable
adjustment, of the differences, existing between the Government of that
Country, and the United States, and he enquired if I had read an article
signed by him, in the National Intelligencer of this morning— I had seen
his signature but passed over the article taking it for the repetition
of one published some days since— He told me the substance of it, which
was, that a final settlement should be made, with the least loss of
time, on the base of the 49. degree of Latitude to the Pacific with Van
Couver’s Island to the British, and the free navigation of the Columbia
River for ten years— He hoped that I would concur with him in this
opinion— I told him, that I wished him all possible success in his
exertions to preserve the peace between the two Countries, which I
believed, to be in no sort of danger, but that as to the terms of
settlement, the whole range of my ideas both as to right and expediency,
were directly the reverse of his— That I believed our right, to Latitude
54–40 on the South Sea, was perfect, with the single exception of actual
possession; that Great Britain had no right there, of permanent
possession, at all; that with regard, to War and Peace, considered in
the abstract, 489I agreed with him, and with all
benevolent and humane, throughout the World, I held it in utter
abhorence—as much so, as the Roman mother’s in the days of Horace and of Augustus Caesar.— But that there are and always have
been, as long as the race of men has existed, times and occasions, of
dire necessity for War—and philosophically speaking, I believed that
War, was not a corrupter, but rather a purifier, of the moral character
of Man.— That peace was the period of corruption to the human race, and
I asked him, if he recollected the passage, of the Paradise Lost, in
which the Ark Angel Michael, after the
fall of Adam, foretells to him, the
fortunes of his posterity, in War and Peace, after describing to him all
the horrors of War, draws before him a picture of his condition in
Peace, and such it is, that Adam in contemplating it says—
Mr. Owen, did not recollect the passage in
Milton; probably never having read it. but he expatiated upon his
anticipations of the universal revolution, started by him, and now in
progress, and which will soon, transform and exalt the nature of Man, to
be gouverned, by the laws of God, and not by circumstances, and the Laws
of Man— He thought that his purposes and mine were the same, the
ultimate improvement, and exaltation of the nature of Man and his
condition, upon earth, but the means by which we believe this revolution
is to be effected are widely different. Mr.
Owens visit, delayed my departure for the Capitol, so that when I
reached the House, I found them in session, having laid on the Table, my
motion to reconsider, the vote for taking the Bill out of Committee
yesterday, no longer necessary and they were already in Committee of the
whole on the state of the Union, taking the 490Questions on the several Amendments to the Bill for raising two
additional Regiments of Riflemen— A substitute for the Bill itself, had
already been adopted, by authorizing the President, at his discretion, to increase the number of
Privates in each Company, of the existing Regiments, of Dragoons,
Artillery, and Infantry to any number not exceeding 80. The enlistment
to be, for three years, unless sooner disbanded, by the President— The
Bill was thus reported to the House.— Joseph McDowell of Ohio,
moved to lay it on the Table, which was rejected by yeas and nays 32 to
149.—and then the Bill was passed, by yeas and nays 164 to 15. Bowlin of Ohio moved to go into
Committee of the whole on the state of the Union, to take up the Bill to
raise a Regiment of mounted Riflemen and for establishing Military Posts
on the route to Oregon.— The House accordingly went into Committee
Preston King in the Chair—but
instead of Bowlin’s Bill took up at motion of McKay, the Bill to supply
deficiencies, and appropriations, for certain objects made for the
service of the fiscal year ending June 30. 1846. Upon which a debate
arose, and sharp altercation between W. W.
Paine of Alabama, and R. C.
Winthrop about the Hartford Convention, blue-lights and
the party warfare of 1812. till at 4. o’clock the Committee rose, McKay moved a resolution to close debate on
this Bill, at 3. p.m. tomorrow, and the House adjourned— No evening
visitors, but we read, Benetts
New-York Herald, and Shakespeare at Paris from Littells Living Age—