but by far the greater part of those needs had to be met in other ways.
During the first nine months of 1847, it was figured that the United
States exported more than $12,000,000 in specie to Mexico. Many drafts
on the principal American cities were sold there, and those on the
quartermasters at New Orleans, Philadelphia, Washington and New York
amounted to nearly $8,000,000 before December, 1847. Payments were also
made in the United States on the certificates of officers acting in the
field; and about the first of August, 1847, Belmont, the New York agent
of the Rothschilds, arranged with our administration to place funds in
the hands of any paymaster or quartermaster named by Scott. In general
the large financial operations made necessary by the transfers of money
were skilfully, honestly and safely conducted. Some $24,000,000 were
distributed by the pay department through its thirty-five officers,
for instance, and nothing was lost by accident, robbery, theft or
capture.[33.24]
[THE COST OF THE WAR]
The total money cost of the war on the American side has been given
at very low and at very high amounts, and none of the estimates
inspires much confidence. The excess expenditures of the army and navy
appear to have been $63,605,621; of which $49,000,000 were raised by
selling bonds and treasury notes, and were substantially added to the
national debt. But these figures by no means answer the question. To
the apparent cost we must add twelve millions paid later to Mexico,
the American claims of which we relieved her, the war expenses of the
treasury department, bounty lands, pensions, valid claims for damages,
and other liabilities of many kinds gradually discharged after peace
returned; and from the total must be subtracted the bonds and treasury
notes then available for issue and the actual worth of ships, ordnance
and other materials required for the war and left over. Evidently it is
not feasible to reach a satisfactory conclusion, but as a very bold
guess one may suggest a hundred millions.[33.25]
Even were that a close estimate, however, it would mean little. On the
one hand lives, physical and mental sufferings, personal losses of
every description, much national obloquy and a thousand minor factors
would need to be considered, and on the other our gain in territory,
in recognized power, in military and naval efficiency, in national
self-consciousness and in particulars not so obvious. One thing,
however, is clear. The war cost far less money than its opponents had
expected. Webster solemnly predicted in December, 1846, that should
it end the following spring, our debt would be a hundred millions,
but on the first of July, 1848, the debt was less than sixty-six
millions.[33.26]
XXXIV
THE WAR IN AMERICAN POLITICS
1846-1848
In Mexico the war had far more intimate relations with politics than
it had in our own country. Here invading troops did not scatter our
civil authorities, Presidents did not rise and fall, cabinets did
not organize and melt away, revolutions and revolts did not hover
continually at the door. Every part of the country contributed to the
result. Supplies were voted, and troops assembled according to law.
We have therefore studied Mexican politics in connection with events
as these occurred, and reserved American politics to be surveyed more
comprehensively; but this does not imply any lack of significance in
the second topic.[34.1]
At first the war seemed extremely popular. The rush to volunteer
showed that. A tone of opposition prevailed in New England, but it was
quiet--hardly perceptible. May 21, 50,000 people gathered in front of
the city hall at New York and called for vigorous measures. Hostilities
appeared to be regarded by all as a just punishment for the long series
of Mexican insults, barbarities and outrages. The country called;
patriotism responded, and other considerations helped. Democratic
politicians believed their party would gain prestige and strength. A
great and common purpose would bind it firmly together. Many offices
and appointments would follow, and almost everybody would gain some
profit in a business way. Taylor's "victories" on the Rio Grande
intensified the enthusiasm. "Upon the duties which the present crisis
invoked," exclaimed the Philadelphia _North American_, "our country
has but one heart," and an invasion of the enemy's territory "will
meet the approbation of the entire American public." Accordingly the
first session of the Twenty-ninth Congress pushed its work far into the
summer of 1846--even after Senator Fairfield wrote, "All nature [is]
hissing"--and embodied the government's policy in laws.[34.2]
[THE WAR SOON UNPOPULAR]
But this mood changed surprisingly. When Congress adjourned, it was in
bad humor, and the country sympathized with it. News of the occupation
of California produced little enthusiasm, for it had been expected. The
fighting at Monterey excited interest, but it was followed at once by a
long armistice, and it had no permanent effect on the downward course
of public sentiment. Instead of glorying in the war, the Democrats now
defended it feebly, and a great many regarded it as a grave political
blunder. The fall Congressional elections went strongly against them.
Every reverse could be explained, of course--in Pennsylvania a heavy
storm, in New York the opposition of "every most pestilential and
reckless form of law-hating faction," apathy here, lack of organization
there--but the _National Intelligencer_, chief organ of the Whigs,
brushed explanations aside, and coldly remarked, "We presume that our
President and his Cabinet are by this time convinced that they have
forfeited the public confidence--the confidence, that is, of their own
party; that of the other they never possessed"; and by mid-winter the
political outlook for the war seemed extremely dark.[34.3]
The reasons for this change were complex and interesting. The
people--Democrats and Whigs alike--knew they did not want Polk for
chief executive. To the millions demanding, "Who is James K. Polk?" the
answer had been given, "He is President of the United States"; but this
excellent retort silenced instead of satisfying. Disagreeable ideas
prevailed regarding the methods of his nomination and his election.
Many viewed him as an Accident, an Unpleasant Surprise, a Surreptitious
Incumbent; and his unpopularity not only was a disadvantage in itself,
but colored the interpretation placed upon everything he did or
said.[34.4]
Besides this initial difficulty, he was not considered a large enough
man for the place, and the Cabinet seemed too much of a piece with
him in that respect. The public did not hear Polk's confidential
declaration, "I intend to be myself President of the United States."
They were not aware that he risked a great deal to avoid having Calhoun
and Flagg, a New York man of unusual ability, in his official family.
But they felt like the Washington correspondent of the Boston _Atlas_,
who said, They are "little fellows," and "were they all thrown in a bag
together, it would make little difference which came out first"; and
they suspected that Polk aimed to eliminate all possible competitors.
Many, indeed, believed it should be so. "Who would not regret," asked
Senator Mangum, "to see the choice of this great and free people thrown
into shadow by over-topping talent?" The President was inaugurated on
a cold, rainy, cheerless day, and sentiment, among those who counted,
resembled the weather.[34.4]
The policy of the administration confirmed these impressions. Polk had
no great ideas, no inspiring imagination, no kindling enthusiasm, no
moving eloquence, no contagious humor, no winning personality. He was
not exactly a "burning bush" of patriotism, hallowing the ground about
him, and forcing men to put off their grimy, everyday shoes of selfish
designs. To sway the nation or even the Democrats in any grand way lay
beyond him. He was a partisan, to be sure, but without a party. His
trumpet note--has shed "American blood upon the American soil"--came
from a newspaper. Almost his only resource, therefore, was patronage,
and the business of trading offices for support is essentially a
mean one. It makes intrigue a profession, creates many enemies while
it creates few friends and renders confidence well-nigh impossible.
Without calling the President "mendacious," one can understand how J.
K. Paulding came to say, that he possessed no honesty of purpose, no
frankness of heart. Tossing out a plump lie now and then would have
given less offence than continual secretiveness and evasion caused.
Polk described the cunning Pillow as "one of the shrewdest men you ever
knew." That gave Polk's measure, and political necessities developed
his natural disposition. "This little mole," Blair called him. Blair
was prejudiced; but for a different _bête noire_ he would have chosen a
different name.[34.5]
[POLK DISLIKED]
New York state affairs had an especially bad effect on Polk's
reputation and influence. Knowing that he had played the part of Jacob,
the Supplanter, to Van Buren's Esau at the Baltimore convention, and
not expecting to be forgiven, Polk probably felt thoroughly distrustful
of the Locofocos from the beginning. Silas Wright's declining
positively to run for the Vice Presidency on his ticket doubtless
gave offence. His bad faith in refusing to accept Flagg, apparently
to save himself from being overshadowed, after virtually agreeing to
do it, seemed inexcusable. His taking Marcy into the Cabinet at the
behest of an active but rather unscrupulous remnant of the "irregular"
Conservatives heightened the dissatisfaction of the substantial
elements. The defeat of the New York Democrats in the fall elections
of 1846, which was charged by the regulars to treachery on the part
of the Conservatives, created still further trouble. Making factional
appointments, and especially choosing for a high post at New York
City a "poor, stupid dutchman by the name of Bouck," as an extremist
called him, seemed to the faithful nothing less than party treason. In
thus alienating the ablest and best Democrats of the state, who were
trusted and admired by the party as a whole, and supporting a faction
that had no national standing, the President made a great mistake.
He "has proved himself to be a poor devil," said one of Van Buren's
correspondents; even Tyler's name was less execrated than "Jim Polk's,"
wrote one of Judge McLean's; and for thus weakening the Democrats in
the Empire State, he was naturally blamed in all quarters.[34.6]
A variety of minor yet serious complaints helped fill up the measure.
Polk was equally anxious and unable to harmonize the party, and as he
tried to satisfy clamorous malcontents, it came to be said that he was
always ready to hang an old friend for the sake of gaining two new
ones. Ranking low in ability to judge of character, enjoying but a
limited acquaintance, and placing an unreasonable value upon experience
in Congress, he too often appointed unfit men when he meant well, or
put the right men into the wrong places. Naturally office-seekers
dogged his footsteps, and numberless disappointed aspirants bore
grudges deadlier than stilettos. His wriggling out of emphatic
declarations in favor of our broad Oregon claims excited profound
wrath in the west, and made a bad impression in other sections.
Senator Hannegan proclaimed that if the President accepted the line of
forty-nine degrees, he would be consigned to "a damnation so deep that
the hand of resurrection" would never be able to "drag him forth"; and
he did accept it.[34.7]
The veto of a river and harbor bill that offered captivating
opportunities for looting the treasury brought upon him the woes of
Tyler. The government, said the aggrieved, "is fast degenerating into
a mere quadrennial elective despotism"; Polk "wants the purse of the
nation for his own schemes of presidential ambition." Finally, the
apparent hampering of Taylor and Scott, and the playing off of the
one against the other seemed to a multitude of citizens unworthy of
a President, unpatriotic and mean; and then partisans accused him of
letting Whig generals have all the glory, lest a Democratic warrior
should gain the Presidential nomination in 1848. Truly, "deep and
dismal was the ditch," as B. F. Butler said, into which Polk fell.[34.7]
Moreover a whole sheaf of arrows, not directly aimed at him, struck
his administration. The annexation of Texas rankled still in many
bosoms, and the extremists were implacable. Lowell did not shrink from
recommending secession:
"Ef I'd _my_ way I would ruther
We should go to work an' part,--
They take one way, we take t'other,--
Guess it wouldn't break my heart."
John Quincy Adams contemplated the same extreme remedy, and Giddings
went so far as to write, "Ohio is now a party to no subsisting Union."
Those opposed to the measure felt hostile to the President who had
favored and consummated it; the great number whose theory had been
that it would not lead to war felt obliged to argue now that Polk had
brought about a conflict unnecessarily; and everything in our relations
with Mexico was viewed through a fog of prejudices and animosities
rising from that gory political battlefield. Not a few appointments to
high military positions had seemed to rest on political expediency, and
the battles near the Rio Grande had been followed by a long period of
inactivity, charged by many to the government. Volunteers not accepted
for the war had remarks to make, and troops returning from the front
often used expressions hardly coherent enough to be termed remarks.
The six-months men called out by Gaines belonged in the latter class;
and although Marcy did nothing respecting them save to obey the plain
requirement of the law, citizens of Louisiana applied language to him
that might have kindled sympathy for Judas Iscariot.[34.8]
The government's fiscal system, though of course accepted by many,
excited sharp resentment. Overwhelming the country all at once with
such a combination of new laws--a warehouse act, a sub-treasury bill
and a "free-trade" tariff--was denounced as an unspeakable outrage,
and each of those measures amounted in the opinion of many to a crime.
Gideon Welles thought the idea of reducing our tariff during the war
an "insane project"; and the measure as framed, a compromise between
theory and expediency, satisfied hardly any one. Real free-traders
complained because their principles had been sacrificed, and the New
Englanders because those principles had not been sacrificed enough. The
iron and coal state raged and wept by turns: she had been betrayed, and
"her groans were music" to the arrogant low-tariff section cherished
by the government. Only corruption and intimidation could have carried
such a monstrosity through Congress; and, worse yet, "Sir Robert
Walker" had been truckling to England. "British all over," scribbled
the _American Sentinel_ on the warehousing system; and the tariff
was trailed to a British lair packed with British statesmen, British
capitalists, British manufacturers and British merchants. To please
them our wheels of production were to stop, our banks close, and the
industrious North fall in despair at the feet of an implacable South.
"'To your tents, O Israel!'" cried the _National Intelligencer_.[34.9]
[DENUNCIATIONS OF THE WAR]
In countless eyes the war itself soon lost its glamour. Imagining that
our advance to the Rio Grande had been the cause of it, many felt bound
to denounce it as unauthorized, unconstitutional, unjust, aggressive;
and not a few, in dense ignorance of the history, character and views
of the Mexicans, thought, like Professor Kent of Harvard University,
that it was "demoniacal" to make war upon those poor innocents,
as if they had not been shooting one another pretty continuously
and also aching to shoot us. Not reflecting that nations begin to
think of indemnities as soon, at least, as they begin to fight,
and that legitimate advantages might accrue from occupying Mexican
territory, people viewed suspiciously the operations of Taylor, Wool,
Kearny, Stockton and Stevenson, threw up their hands, and exclaimed,
"Conquest!" as if the ground they stood upon and half the world besides
had not been gained by the sword. "Cormorants of territory!" hissed a
Thersites. "Sages and Heroes of the Revolution, lo, the consummation
of your labors!" wailed a Cassandra; Mexico is to be absorbed, and
"the original, moving, burning stimulus" of the crime is the wish to
manufacture glory for Polk, and gratify him with a second term. To
be sure, the nation had officially endorsed the war; but multitudes
were eager to have the nation disgraced, if they could only disgrace
Polk.[34.10]
Toward the future as well as the past frowned the critics of the
administration. Territory seemed likely to be acquired, and it was
feared that slavery would plant its black hoof upon the soil. In
Massachusetts a group of young men, who doubtless believed in freedom
unselfishly, believed also that it was the coming idea, and might
carry them ahead of such conservative leaders as Webster and Winthrop.
Sumner was one of these; and he, without offering proof that slavery
stood behind the war, pushed through the legislature some bloodcurdling
resolutions against the "gigantic crime"; while Lowell, not stopping to
ascertain whether negro servitude could thrive on the Pacific, sounded
an appeal to sectional feelings:
"They jest want this Californy
So's to lug new slave-states in
To abuse ye, an' to scorn ye,
And to plunder ye like sin."[34.11]
From the increased political power of the South, northern agriculture,
commerce and manufactures would suffer. New, sparsely settled states
would have the same authority in the Senate as Massachusetts or
Pennsylvania. The augmenting of Western strength would prove an
injury to older sections. New Orleans would gain ground financially
and commercially at the expense of New York. Annexing new territory
would lessen the value of lands already in the Union. The war would
increase the power of the Executive, and bring home an army of "heroes"
to monopolize the offices. It was most likely to be interminable and
costly, for in the autumn of 1846 Mexico showed no signs of begging
for peace and Taylor no signs of accomplishing anything decisive.
Privateers might ruin our commerce, and the blockade might lead to
European interference. The nation, debased by dwelling upon scenes
of devastation and violence, and by the absorption of aliens low in
the scale of humanity, would become barbarous, cruel, rapacious,
bloodthirsty. Taxes, debt, waste of public funds, corrupt elections,
a great standing army, despotism, fanaticism, civil war, disunion,
the reprobation of mankind and the retribution of heaven would
follow.[34.11]
[POLICY OF THE WHIGS]
Under these circumstances the gyrations and contortions of Whig
politics, viewed as a whole, were curious to observe. At first the
party joined in shouting and voting for stern hostilities. "Doubt,
division, reproach will be unknown," announced the _North American_.
But the Whigs presently saw, as the New York _Tribune_ pointed out,
that a full share of the burden would be theirs, while most of the
glory and profit would fall to the other side. Moreover, these
criticisms of Polk and the war, even when not suggested by the Whigs,
seemed like yellow fields of ripening party advantage. Very soon,
therefore, they withdrew to a respectable, intrenched position: they
would support the war, but on its conclusion Polk and the Democrats
would be called to a strict account. "I have no doubt we shall make
much Capital out of it," wrote a Whig Congressman. Presently, however,
it looked as if the conclusion of the war might lie beyond the next
Presidential election, and most of the party sallied forth impatiently,
sickle in hand.[34.12]
Castigating Polk was the most obvious opportunity for the harvesters,
and they used it with due zeal. Some of the jibes were good-natured.
Playing on the powers legally his, the _National Intelligencer_ happily
exclaimed, "Here, there, everywhere at once, civil, military, judicial
and executive, dove of peace, thunderbolt of war, and a perfect serpent
of diplomacy, who was ever so various or so amazing?" Bracketing the
President of the United States with a famous dwarf of the day as "Tom
Thumb's cousin, Jim Thumb," was another merry as well as able fling.
To remark, however, when he sent in a Message, that he came "puffing
and blowing into Congress," went a trifle too far, perhaps; and other
pleasantries exposed themselves distinctly to that criticism. The
Boston _Atlas_ described the war Message as "perfectly characteristic
of its author;--weak, wheedling and sneaking," while some thought it
better to sail on the other tack, and picture "His High Mightiness,"
the arrogant, domineering tyrant of the White House, as planting "his
foot upon the charter of our liberties."[34.13]
Despatching Taylor to the Rio Grande was called "a well-nigh fatal
blunder," even though suggested by the "demon," who was commonly
thought rather shrewd. Letting Santa Anna go back to Mexico seemed to
different Whigs like treason, treachery, folly and idiocy. Polk "takes
his ease on some _sixty-eight dollars per day_," while the soldiers he
has driven to the field subsist on fare that "his very slaves would
loathe," the Whig _Almanac_ luckily discovered. Bribery, duplicity,
falsehood, imbecility, cowardice and infamy were a few of the other
good things found in the President's conduct; and the chief Whig organ
undertook to lay him finally at rest on the greensward in this elegant
fashion: "Why, the very savage of the courtyard in other times--that
most brutal of mankind, the bully of the bailiwick, who chewed up an
ear or nose, or scooped out with thumb a prostrate adversary's eye--was
generous in comparison."[34.13]
In attempting more serious criticism the Whigs met with embarrassments.
The majority of them, whose argument had been that immediate annexation
of Texas would necessarily mean war, could not with inward peace
declare that Polk had brought on the war by sending Taylor to the Rio
Grande; and the great number whose contention had been that Mexico
still owned Texas could not well deny that annexing her province by an
Act of Congress, which amounted on their theory to a constitutional
declaration of war, had created a state of things which made it
entirely proper for Polk to send Taylor there. "Swindlers of 1844, with
your 'peaceable annexation,' do not skulk! Here is the fruit of _your_
doings! Look it in the face!" exclaimed the New York _Tribune_ when
the war bill passed, but it soon appeared more tactful to ignore this
aspect of the matter.[34.14]
[EMBARRASSMENTS OF THE WHIGS]
Other embarrassments remained, however. It was very well for northern
Whigs to indulge in what Carlyle might have called a "running shriek"
against "a pro-slavery war," but they were cautioned to let no echoes
of it cross the Potomac. When a Senator greeted the war Message by
saying he would later read the documents that accompanied it, and
for the present would merely observe that Polk's course was "utterly
unjustifiable," Ritchie paraphrased Master Dogberry at him: "By
virtue of mine office I do suspect thee to be a thief." While some
papers denounced the government for not settling with Mexico by
negotiation, others admitted that Mexico had refused to treat. When
Delano announced for the sake of buncombe that he was "ready to go
shoulder to shoulder with all those who supported the honor of the
country," Thurman replied that it seemed a strange method of supporting
one's country, to declare like Delano, after war had begun, when it
existed both in law and in fact, that it was "illegal, unrighteous,
and damnable." Abraham Lincoln, wishing to distinguish himself before
the home folks, did this feat in the House by revealing, in a manner
suited to his years, that since Mexico had exercised jurisdiction on
the northern bank of the Rio Grande, the first American blood must
have been shed on Mexican, not American, soil; but unhappily the
fact remained that Connecticut had for some time exercised effective
jurisdiction over northeastern Pennsylvania, yet did not own the
territory.[34.15]