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Updated: June 26, 2025
Author of "The Mississippi Bubble," "54-40 or Fight," etc. Mining is a legitimate and honorable enterprise. It contributes immensely to the national wealth. It has been the source of some of our great fortunes. Because there is something magical in the suggestion of gold or coal or copper taken out of the ground, sharpers have made mining an instrument of successful deception.
If we had stood firm for the line of 54-40 without threats, it is quite possible that we might have succeeded in the end; but the hypotheses of history are of little practical value, and the fact remains that by the treaty of 1846 we lost a complete control of the Pacific coast."
In fact, Henry Cabot Lodge, in his recent little book, "One Hundred Years of Peace," says: "The loss of the region between the forty-ninth parallel and the line of 54-40 was one of the most severe which ever befell the United States.
The maritime provinces settled by French from Quebec and New England Loyalists were alien in thought from Upper and Lower Canada. The cry "54-40 or fight," the setting up of a provisional government by Oregon, the Riel Rebellion in Manitoba, the rush of California gold miners to Cariboo all were straws in a restless wind blowing Canada's destiny hither and whither.
Whether it could have been obtained without a war is probably doubtful, but it never ought to have been said, officially or otherwise, that we would fight for 54-40 unless we were fully prepared to do so.
This saying was adopted as the slogan for a campaign in the West. It had the same inspiring effect as the later famous "54-40 or fight." People were aroused as in the olden times they had been aroused to the crusades. It became a form of mental contagion to talk of, and finally to accomplish, the journey to the Northwest.
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