Four years after the end of the War of 1812, Great Britain and the United States agreed their citizens could trade in Oregon country without prejudice to either nation's claim. Both countries strived for that extra influence which could blossom into sovereignty. The "Oregon Question" became an issue of greater concern, accelerating to a salient dispute by the early 1840s. Polk's 1844 residential campaign was based entirely on the quotation printed to the right. Polk was not a volatile statesman: the activist Northwestern U.S. Senator, Lewis Cass, coined the slogan "All Oregon or none, 54-40 or fight." the United States and Imperial Russia agreed in 1823 to limit their spheres of influence to fifty-four degrees, forty minutes north latitude - today's boundary between Alaska and Canada. War between Great Britain and the United States was avoided on June 15, 1846 with the completion of the Convention of Washington which resolved the Oregon Question by establishing the 49th parallel as the international boundary.
There are four great measures... which are to be measures of my administration: one, a reduction of the tariff; another, the independent treasury; a third, the settlement of the Oregon boundary question; and, lastly, the acquisition of California. - James K. Polk, 11th President of the United States.
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