y an amicable exchange
of notes in which each side conceded much to the other. They did not
indeed dispose of the slave trade, but they reached an agreement by
which a joint squadron was to undertake to police efficiently the
African seas in order to prevent American vessels from engaging in that
trade.

Upon the more important matter of boundary, both Webster and Ashburton
decided to give up the futile task of convincing each other as to the
meaning of phrases which rested upon half-known facts reaching back
into the misty period of first discovery and settlement. They abandoned
interpretation and made compromise and division the basis of their
settlement. This method was more difficult for Webster than for
Ashburton, as both Maine and Massachusetts were concerned, and each must
under the Constitution be separately convinced. Here Webster used the
"Red Line" map, and succeeded in securing the consent of these States.
They finally settled upon a boundary which was certainly not that
intended in 1782 but was a compromise between the two conceptions
of that boundary and divided the territory with a regard for actual
conditions and geography. From Passamaquoddy Bay to the Lake of the
Woods, accepted lines were substituted for controversy, and the basis of
peace was thus made more secure. The treaty also contained provision
for the mutual extradition of criminals guilty of specified crimes, but
these did not include embezzlement, and "gone to Canada" was for years
the epitaph of many a dishonest American who had been found out.

The friendly spirit in which Webster and Ashburton had carried on their
negotiations inaugurated a period of reasonable amity between their two
nations. The United States annexed Texas without serious protest; in
spite of the clamor for "fifty-four forty or fight," Oregon was divided
peacefully; and England did not take advantage of the war with Mexico.
Each of these events, however, added to American territory, and these
additions gave prominence to a new and vexing problem. The United
States was now planted solidly upon the Pacific, and its borders were
practically those to which Adams had looked forward. Natural and unified
as this area looks upon the map and actually is today, in 1850
the extent of territorial expansion had overreached the means of
transportation. The Great Plains, then regarded as the Great American
Desert, and the Rockies presented impossible barriers to all but
adventurous