WAR AND CONQUEST
The treaty which Upshur and Calhoun negotiated with the Texan envoys in
the spring of 1844 was presented to the Senate in April, and held in
committee until after the two party conventions had met in Baltimore.
The Whigs condemned it, as has been noted, and the Democrats accepted
it. It was a mere matter of form, then, for the Whig Senate to reject
the treaty which had become in a great measure the platform of their
opponents. When Congress reassembled in December the result of the
election had made it plain that Calhoun and Walker, and not Clay and Van
Buren, represented the wishes of the people, though the majority of the
popular vote was exceedingly small.
Tyler seemed anxious to hasten the work of annexation, and he
recommended the accomplishment of his purpose by joint resolution of the
two houses of Congress. Benton, who disliked Tyler and hated Calhoun,
and who had opposed the adoption of the treaty in the preceding spring,
now gave his influence to the Administration, and during the closing
hours of the session the House and the Senate passed the joint
resolution making Texas a State by narrow majorities. There was
widespread opposition to the annexation of new territory, especially
pro-Southern territory, by the new method. Joint resolutions in State
legislatures that were evenly divided were not unknown; but for Congress
to evade a plain rule of the Constitution requiring two thirds of the
Senate by a mere majority of both houses was denounced as the rankest
usurpation. Without serious concern as to public opinion in the East or
great deference to the President-elect, Tyler and Calhoun hastened
messengers to Texas and ordered two regiments of troops, under the
command of Colonel Zachary Taylor, to take position at Corpus Christi on
the southern bank of the Nueces River, and sent a squadron of the navy,
under Commodore Conner, to the mouth of the Rio Grande. This disposition
of the military and naval forces of the United States was made to
protect Texas against a possible invasion by Mexico; but it was sharp
notice that the disputed region between the Nueces and the Rio Grande
would be held for Texas. Tyler retired to his Virginia plantation,
leaving to Polk the more difficult task of securing all Oregon.
Polk had already shown his self-reliance in refusing to appoint Calhoun
Secretary of State. That eminent statesman was thoroughly familiar with
the foreign relations of the Government, and he enjoyed a prestige that
would have distinguished any administration; besides, he was certain
that he could bring matters to a peaceful conclusion with both Mexico
and England. Nor had he failed in his loyalty to the new President
during the recent campaign. Still Polk gave James Buchanan, of
Pennsylvania, the first place in the Cabinet. Robert J. Walker asked and
received the second place--the Treasury. William L. Marcy, of New
York, and John Y. Mason, of Virginia, represented in the Cabinet those
large Democratic constituencies, while George Bancroft, the historian,
spoke for New England, though the people of that section would never
have named him for the honor.
[Illustration: The Presidential Election of 1844]
To the surprise of old political heads Polk announced blandly in his
inaugural that he would proceed to "reoccupy Oregon"; that is, he would
execute the mandate of the Baltimore Convention even at the cost of war
with England! But Calhoun had practically agreed with the British
Minister to compromise the conflicting claims to Oregon. Buchanan, being
a man of yielding temper, was disposed to the same easy solution of the
most dangerous problem of the Administration. The President, however,
restrained his Secretary, and in the annual message of December, 1845,
he asked Congress to give him authority to dissolve the copartnership of
England and the United States with reference to Oregon. This was taken
in both countries as inviting war.
Calhoun regarded this move as likely to be fatal to the retention of
Texas and certain to lose for the country all of Oregon. He returned to
the Senate for the avowed purpose of preventing war. Webster, in the
Senate again, was on friendly terms with the leaders of the English
governing party, and both he and they were striving to prevent the
expansionists from committing an overt act of hostility. Benton, the
foremost of expansionists before Tyler became President, was also ready
to compromise the dispute. This meant that Calhoun, Webster, and Benton
would unite their influence to defeat the foreign policy of the
President if it were not modified to suit their views.
But the new leadership embraced a group of able and bold men: John A.
Dix, of New York; Caleb Cushing, a Whig recruit from Massachusetts;
James M. Mason, of Virginia; Robert Barnwell Rhett, William L. Yancey,
and Jefferson Davis, of the lower South; and David Atchison, Stephen A.
Douglas, Lewis Cass, and William Allen, of the Northwest,--all ardent
expansionists and "big Americans" who would not readily suffer the
defeat of the party program. During the summer and autumn of 1845 their
policy had been worked out in detail and discussed among the men who
were to be responsible for its execution. In domestic affairs their
scheme embraced the settlement of the long-disputed financial policy in
a new Independent or Sub-Treasury Bill which Secretary Walker was
preparing. The Tariff of 1842, which had offended the Democratic South,
was also to be reformed, and Walker had written the new schedules which
Congress was to enact in due time. In order to secure the necessary
Western support for these Southern purposes, the old internal
improvements program was revived in an enlarged rivers and harbors bill.
This was a big plan and the Democratic majorities in House and Senate
were very narrow. The outlook was anything but encouraging, with
Webster, Calhoun, and Benton likely to be in opposition on every point.
But Congress passed the Sub-Treasury Bill, by which most of the
financial measures of the preceding administrations since 1833, resting
on the mere orders of President or Secretary of the Treasury, were
legalized. It was in the main the same law which Van Buren had labored
so long to secure, but which the Whigs had repealed in 1841. The money
of the Government was henceforth to be kept in certain designated
sub-treasuries in leading cities like New York, Baltimore, and New
Orleans, and drawn upon by the Secretaries of the Treasury when needed.
There was thus to be no national bank; and the state banks were to
continue issuing their paper, which was to be the money of the people.
Gold and silver, coined by the government mint at Philadelphia, were
seldom demanded in ordinary business transactions, though coin or
bullion still remained the redemption money of the banks and served as
the basis of exchange with foreign countries.
The South had preached free trade since 1828. Polk and his Secretary of
the Treasury had been prominent exponents of the idea, despite some
campaign bargaining with Pennsylvania. In England Richard Cobden, John
Bright, and Sir Robert Peel were about to secure the repeal of the
age-old protective system, and in both France and Germany the free-trade
agitation was daily winning recruits. Polk and his advisers set
themselves the task of securing the passage of a "free-trade tariff" for
the United States. Walker submitted an able report in December, 1845. A
very high rate was recommended on all luxuries, including wines and
liquors; an average duty of twenty-five per cent was to be laid on the
great bulk of imports which would compete with American cotton, wool,
and iron manufactures; and a long list of articles of every day
consumption on which no duties should be imposed was submitted. Though
the Pennsylvanians denounced the proposed tariff bill as un-Democratic,
it became a law in July, 1846, proved to be successful, and remained the
corner-stone of the Democratic structure till 1861.
The _douceur_, in the form of a bill for liberal internal improvements
for the Northwest, whose leaders all voted for the tariff reductions,
passed both houses of Congress; but the members from the lower South,
led by Robert Barnwell Rhett, protested to the last. Polk accepted their
view and vetoed the bill. Northwestern men cried out "treachery" so
loudly that summer, in a great mass meeting in Chicago, that the
President feared the party was seriously endangered. Still, the three
problems over which Clay, Calhoun, and Webster had wrestled since 1816
had been solved. The United States was henceforth to manage its finances
independently; the free-trade element had won the ascendancy, and there
was not to be another high-tariff campaign until after the Civil War;
and internal improvements on a large national scale were not to be
undertaken until the passage of the Pacific Railway Bill in 1862. The
only cloud above the political horizon was the anger of the Northwestern
Democrats.
There was more danger in carrying forward the program which was intended
to secure to the United States Oregon, California, and New Mexico. But
the first step had already been taken. In April, 1846, both House and
Senate, in spite of the opposition of the older leaders, authorized the
President to give notice to England that joint occupation should cease
at the expiration of a year. The English people were much excited, and
the idea prevailed that this was only a move on the part of the United
States to seize Canada, but the British Government renewed the
proposition to compromise on the forty-ninth parallel, Vancouver Island
to remain in British possession. A treaty to this effect was accepted by
both Governments during the summer of 1846. Polk could boast that the
Oregon question had been settled. Again the Northwestern Democrats, who
had been promised all of Oregon, were sorely disappointed. One of their
most popular leaders declared in the Senate: "James K. Polk has spoken
words of falsehood, and with the tongue of a serpent." Would the
Northwestern wing of the party continue loyal? This may, perhaps, best
be answered when we come to discuss the Wilmot Proviso.
When the Oregon question was at its acutest stage, in the autumn of
1845, Polk sent John Slidell, an adroit politician of Louisiana, to
Mexico, to renew the friendly relations which had been broken off
immediately after the passage of the joint resolution by Congress.
Slidell was authorized to negotiate a treaty by which European
influence, then being exerted in Mexico against the United States, was
to be counteracted, the annexation of Texas approved, and all of the
claims of American citizens against Mexico were to be definitely
satisfied. But as Mexico had no funds in her treasury, Slidell was to
assume for the United States all these obligations, and pay the
Mexicans $5,000,000 in return for the cession of New Mexico, a part of
which was claimed by Texas. Finally Slidell was to purchase California,
if that were found to be possible, and raise the cash payment from
$5,000,000 to $25,000,000. Slidell's mission was supported by a naval
demonstration in Mexican waters, and the meaning of his presence was
made very plain to the people of the distressed republic.
The new Minister was rejected, however, and Taylor was ordered to move
his troops toward the Rio Grande. Mexico resented this, and near
Matamoras on April 24, 1846, came the first pass at arms. Slidell
returned to Washington about the time that the news of this encounter
reached the President. On May 11, war was declared and Taylor was
ordered to cross the border and "conquer a peace." In August Colonel S.
W. Kearny seized New Mexico and set out with a troop of three hundred
men to take California. But Commodore John Drake Sloat had been sent to
the Pacific with a squadron of the navy to prevent the seizure of
Monterey by the English. And to make certainty more certain, Consul
Thomas O. Larkin at Monterey had been instructed, about the time of
Slidell's appointment to Mexico, to be in readiness for any emergency.
Before Kearny could cross the mountains, Larkin and Sloat had taken
possession of California, almost unresisted.
In September, 1846, General Taylor won a brilliant victory at Monterey,
twenty miles south of the Rio Grande, and his forces were being
augmented every day for the march overland to the City of Mexico. Whig
politicians hailed at once the new general as their candidate for the
Presidency in 1848. Naturally the Administration did not care to aid
their opponents in their political plans, and its leaders cast about for
a Democratic general. None was to be found; and Thomas H. Benton,
willing that Jackson's plan for his elevation to the Presidency should
be fulfilled, asked Polk to make him commander-in-chief of all the
forces operating in Mexico. Benton had never had any military
experience, and Polk was relieved to find that such an appointment would
not be confirmed by the Senate. General Winfield Scott, already
quarreling with the Secretary of War, and hence out of favor with the
Administration, was the only alternative. Scott was also a candidate for
the Whig nomination for the Presidency. After much hesitation most of
the troops of Taylor were placed under the command of Scott and
reinforced with still others, and all set sail for Vera Cruz, then as
now the great port of Mexico. The city fell on March 29, 1847, and the
march to the City of Mexico was about to begin.
Meanwhile, Santa Anna had been made commander of all the Mexican armies,
and he, learning of Taylor's weak and isolated position south of
Monterey, hastened with twenty thousand soldiers to surround and capture
him. Taylor moved forward and met the enemy at Buena Vista, after
receiving some raw recruits, on February 23, 1847, and completely routed
him, thus adding to the laurels he had already won and convincing the
country that he had been badly treated by the authorities in
Washington.
Scott began the march to the Mexican capital on April 8. He met resolute
resistance at Cerro Gordo, where on April 17 and 18 a large army of the
enemy was attacked and defeated. At this point Nicholas Trist, envoy
from the President, with instructions to treat with Mexico on the basis
of Slidell's proposals of 1845, arrived. Trist was a clerk in the
Department of State, and Scott refused to recognize or have any
relations with him. After much unseemly bickering and the conciliatory
services of the British Minister to Mexico, the general and the envoy
made peace, and negotiations were opened, only to be broken off by Santa
Anna upon his arrival from the north. On August 19 and 20, the battle of
Cherubusco seemed to convince the Mexicans that further resistance would
be futile, and Trist again offered peace on the terms of 1845, except
that the United States would reduce the amount of money to be paid by
$5,000,000. But the armistice under which the negotiations had been
renewed was broken, and on September 8 and 13, the battles of Molino del
Rey and Chapultepec were fought, and the capital was occupied on
September 14. A revolution in the affairs of Mexico now took place, and
the new Government appointed commissioners on November 22, to treat with
Trist.
However, the news of these battles and victories had aroused the
expansionist instincts of the people of the United States, or at least
of the articulate classes, to the point of demanding the annexation of
the whole of Mexico. Sober newspapers, like the New York _Evening Post_,
officers of the navy and the army, like Commodore Stockton and Colonel
Jefferson Davis, the hero of the battle of Buena Vista, and leading
politicians, John A. Dix, Lewis Cass, and Secretary Walker, urged the
Government to make an end of Mexico by prompt dismemberment. Although
the election of Representatives in 1846 had resulted in giving the Whigs
control of the House, Congress seemed disposed to yield to the popular
clamor as they came together in December, 1847, when the news of the
raising of the American flag over the city of Mexico was fresh in the
public mind.
Polk found his Cabinet divided on the subject of "all Mexico," with the
preponderance of influence in favor of annexation. Buchanan gave out a
public letter in which he said, "Destiny beckons us to hold and civilize
Mexico." Walker threatened to urge the absorption of Mexico in his
report to Congress. The flag should never be hauled down from the
ramparts of the captured capital of Mexico. Polk resisted this pressure,
but he recalled Trist just before the beginning of the final
negotiations with Mexico. On the advice of General Scott, Trist refused
to obey the President, and both he and the general hastened the
negotiations.
Although the Whigs were also infected with the expansionist fever, Henry
Clay came out of his retirement at Ashland, near Lexington, and on
November 13, made an impassioned appeal to the country against the
wickedness of despoiling a helpless neighbor; John Quincy Adams, nearing
the end of his career, continued to denounce the whole Mexican
movement. But Webster, an ardent candidate now for the Whig nomination
in 1848, said little and took this occasion to visit the South and West.
Calhoun made it his especial business in the Senate to defeat what he
thought was the President's purpose, the annexation of all Mexico. But
the prospect of success of these "little Americans" was far from bright.
When the Trist treaty, giving satisfaction on all the points raised in
Slidell's mission and selling to the United States both California and
New Mexico, reached Washington in February, 1848, there was every
temptation to reject it. The ablest members of the Cabinet insisted upon
its rejection; a scheme for the establishment of a protectorate over
Yucatan, which was expected to eventuate in annexation, was being urged,
and the rumors of approaching convulsions in Europe were heartening
leading members of Congress. Why should not the United States fulfill
her destiny? There was none to interfere or make afraid. Senator Foote,
of Mississippi, urged in glowing terms the advantages of "extending
American liberty" over Central America; Senator Hannegan, of Indiana,
fairly represented his section when he said that the time had come for
the United States to take Canada, too, and make the boundaries of North
America the boundaries of the great Republic; and Senator Cass was
making his campaign for the Democratic nomination on the plea that the
time was ripe for the extinguishment of the remnants of European
authority on the continent.
The President, worn out with the toils of office and determined not to
seek renomination, decided to accept the treaty, and the Senate, in
spite of the warmest harangues of the extremists, promptly approved the
work of Trist and Scott, for the general had had much to do with the
negotiations. The war had come to an end, though there were still
further efforts to undo the treaty by seizing Yucatan, and there was
much complaint from leading Senators and Representatives at the alleged
weakness of Polk.
[Illustration: Annexations of 1845-1853]
At a cost of a few thousand lives and some eighty million dollars, eight
hundred thousand square miles of territory had been added to the country
and the long-standing quarrel with Mexico about Texas had been brought
to an end. The Treasury had stood well the heavy strain of war, every
bond that had been issued had been readily taken at par and on a low
rate of interest--an unprecedented fact in American history. The hard
times of the preceding decade seemed to be brought to a conclusion. No
one complained at the tariff, and even the veto of the internal
improvements bill was passing out of the public mind. The South and the
West had carried their program. Polk retired to his home to die a few
months later. There had been no appreciable public demand for his
renomination; and, rather strange to say, both the people and the
historians consigned him to comparative oblivion.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
G. P. Garrison's _Westward Extension_ (1906), in the _American Nation_
series, has given us the best brief general survey of the expansion
movement which closed with the war with Mexico. An exhaustive treatment
of the Texas question is Justin H. Smith's _The Annexation of Texas_
(1911), and George L. Rives's _The United States and Mexico, 1821-1848_
(1913), is almost as complete for the Mexican War. A good history of
Oregon and the Oregon movement has not yet been written; but Robert
Greenhow's _History of Oregon_ (1870), H. H. Bancroft's _Oregon_, in his
voluminous Western history series, and Josiah Royce's _California_, in
the _American Commonwealths_ series, are all valuable. Some special
articles of importance are: _The Slidell Mission to Mexico_, by L. M.
Sears, in _South Atlantic Quarterly_ for 1912; E. G. Bourne's _The
United States and Mexico, 1847-48_, in the _American Historical Review_,
vol. v, p. 491; and W. E. Dodd's _The West and the War with Mexico_, in
the _Journal_ of the Illinois State Historical Society for 1911. The
sources which some may wish to consult are _The Diary of James K. Polk_,
edited by M. M. Quaife and published by the Chicago Historical Society
(1910); Lyon G. Tyler's _The Times of the Tylers_, already mentioned;
John Quincy Adams's _Memoir_, also frequently cited; _The Correspondence
of John C. Calhoun, The Works of Calhoun_ (1853-55), edited by R. K.
Cralle; and the writings of both Clay and Webster as given in the notes
to previous chapters. _Niles's Register_, a weekly periodical published
in Baltimore from 1811 to 1849, is a never-failing resource for the
current of public opinion.