Prior to running for President, Polk had represented Tennessee in the House of Representatives for fourteen years, four of them as Speaker, and had also served as governor. However, by 1844 he had been out of public office for three years. The way he was able to win public support, and also the presidency, was support for his position “that the re-occupation of Oregon and the re-annexation of Texas at thee earliest practicable period are great American measures.” Behind this Democratic ideal, Polk was able to win the Presidency. He entered the office with a clear set of goals and with plans for attaining them. John Tyler had accomplished the first of Polk’s goals for him in the last days of his presidency, by winning congressional approval for the annexation of Texas in February 1845, and by December, Texas had become a state. Polk himself resolved the Oregon Dispute, for when the British minister in Washington rejected a compromise Polk offered that would establish the US-Canadian border at the 49th parallel. Angry, Polk again asserted the American claim to all of Oregon. There was talk of war on both sides of the Atlantic, and in the US this talk often took the form of the slogan “Fifty-four forty or fight!” (a reference to where the Americans hoped to draw the northern boundary of their part of Oregon). However, neither country really wanted war, and finally, the British government accepted Polk’s original proposal to divide the territory at the 49th parallel. On June 15, 1846, the Senate approved a treaty that fixed the boundary at the 49th parallel, where it remains today. Under Polk, the Mexican War (including the failed Slidell Mission and creation of the Bear Flag Republic through the Bear Flag Revolution) was started, and ended with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. In addition, Polk supported a proposal to extend the Missouri Compromise line through the new territories to the Pacific coast (called popular sovereignty [or "squatter sovereignty"]). The debate over this issue dragged on for many months, and the issue remained unresolved when Polk left office in 1849.