Indeed,  when  Dr.  Whitman  arrived  many  still  held
to  the  idea  expressed,  in  his  early  career,  by  General
Jackson  to  President  Monroe  :  "  Concentrate  our  popu-
lation, confine  our  frontier  to  proper  limits,  until  our
country,  in  those  limits,  is  filled  with  a  dense  popula-
tion. It  is  the  denseness  of  our  population  that  gives
strength  and  security  to  our  frontier."

We  have  noticed  Mr.  Benton's  rhetorical  erection  of
the  god  Terminus  on  the  Rocky  Mountains.  In  a  speech


200     OREGON:    THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  POSSESSION.
made  two  years  even  after  the  arrival  and  the  alarming
information  of  Dr.  Whitman,  Mr.  Winthrop  said  :  "  Are
our  western  brethren  straightened  for  elbow-room,  or
likely  to  be  for  a  thousand  years  ?  Have  they  not  too
much  land  for  their  own  advantage  already  ?  .  .  .  I
doubt  whether  the  west  has  a  particle  of  real  interest  in
the  possession  of  Oregon.  .  .  .  The  west  has  no  interest,
the  country  has  no  interest,  in  extending  our  territorial
possessions."  Mr.  Webster  renews  the  declaration  of
General  Jackson  and  Mr.  Winthrop,  when  opposing,  in
1845,  the  admission  of  Texas  :  "  The  government  is  very
likely  to  be  endangered,  in  my  opinion,  by  a  further  en-
largement of  the  territorial  surface,  already  so  vast,  over
which  it  is  extended."

Another  question,  traditional  from  colonial  times,  was
floating  about  Washington  and  affected  the  other,  whether
Oregon  was  worth  having,  when  Dr.  Whitman  appeared.
