... so long as the traders of the British Fur Company have free access to the region of the Rocky Mountains from the various posts ... they will in great measure monopolize the Fur Trade West of the Mississippi , to the almost entire exclusion in the next few years of our trade . The 1844 presidential election was a definitive turning point for the United States . Admitting the Texas Republic by diplomatic negotiations to begin a process of annexation of Texas into the nation was a contentious topic . At the same time , the Oregon Question " became a weapon in a struggle for domestic political power . " At the Democratic National Convention , the party platform asserted " That our title to the whole of the Territory of Oregon is clear and unquestionable ; that no portion of the same ought to be ceded to England or any other power , and that the reoccupation of Oregon and the re-annexation of Texas at the earliest practicable period are great American measures ... " By tying the Oregon dispute to the more controversial Texas debate , the Democrats appealed to expansionist members from both the Northern and Southern states . Enlargement in the Pacific Northwest offered a means of mollifying Northern fears of allowing Texas , another slave state , by a counterbalance of additional free states . Democratic candidate James K. Polk went on to win a narrow victory over Whig candidate Henry Clay , in part because Clay had taken a stand against immediate expansion in Texas . Despite the use of the Oregon Question in the election , according to Edward Miles , the topic was n't " a significant campaign issue " as " the Whigs would have been forced to discuss it . " A popular slogan later associated with Polk and his campaign of 1844 , " Fifty-four Forty or Fight ! " was not actually coined during the election . It only appeared by January 1846 , promoted and driven in part by the Democratic Party associated press . The phrase has since become frequently misidentified as a Polk campaign slogan , even in many textbooks . '' Bartlett 's Familiar Quotations '' attributes the slogan to William Allen . 54 ° 40 ′ was the southern boundary of Russian America , and considered the northernmost limit of the Pacific Northwest . One actual Democratic campaign slogan from this election ( used in Pennsylvania ) was the more mundane " Polk , Dallas , and the Tariff of ' 42 "
Democratic National Convention
1844 Democratic National Convention
Oregon boundary dispute