THE WAR WITH MEXICO: ITS CAUSE: CHARGED ON THE CONDUCT OF MR.
CALHOUN: MR. BENTON'S SPEECH.
Mr. BENTON: The senator from South Carolina (Mr. Calhoun) has
boldly made the issue as to the authorship of this war, and as
boldly thrown the blame of it upon the present administration. On
the contrary, I believe himself to be the author of it, and will
give a part of my reasons for believing so. In saying this, I do
not consider the march to the Rio Grande to have been the cause of
the war, any more than I consider the British march upon Concord
and Lexington to have been the cause of the American Revolution,
or the crossing of the Rubicon by Cæsar to have been the cause of
the civil war in Rome. In all these cases, I consider the causes
of war as pre-existing, and the marches as only the effect of
these causes. I consider the march upon the Rio Grande as being
unfortunate, and certainly should have advised against it if I had
been consulted, and that without the least fear of diminishing my
influence in the settlement of the Oregon question--a fear which
the senator from South Carolina says prevented him from interposing
to prevent the war which he foresaw. My opinion of Mr. Polk--and
experience in that very Oregon case has confirmed it--did not
authorize me to conjecture that any one would lose influence with
him by giving him honest opinions; so I would have advised against
the march to the Rio Grande if I had been consulted. Nor do I see
how any opinion adverse to the President's was to have the effect of
lessening his influence in the settlement of the Oregon question.
That question was settled by us, not by the President. Half the
democratic senators went contrary to the President's opinion, and
none of them lost influence with him on that account; and so I can
see no possible connection between the facts of the case and the
senator's reason for not interfering to save his country from the
war which, he says, he saw. His reason to me is unintelligible,
incomprehensible, unconnectable with the facts of the case. But the
march on the Rio Grande was not the cause of the war; but the causes
of this event, like the causes of our own revolutionary war, were
in progress long before hostilities broke out. The causes of this
Mexican war were long anterior to this march; and, in fact, every
circumstance of war then existed, except the actual collision of
arms. Diplomatic intercourse had ceased; commerce was destroyed;
fleets and armies confronted each other; treaties were declared
to be broken; the contingency had occurred in which Mexico had
denounced the existence of war; the incorporation of Texas, with a
Mexican war on her hands, had produced, in legal contemplation, the
_status belli_ between the two countries: and all this had occurred
before the march upon the Rio Grande, and before the commencement of
this administration, and had produced a state of things which it was
impossible to continue, and which could only receive their solution
from arms or negotiation. The march to the Rio Grande brought on
the collision of arms; but, so far from being the cause of the war,
it was itself the effect of these causes. The senator from South
Carolina is the author of those causes, and therefore the author
of the war; and this I propose to show, at present, by evidence
drawn from himself--from his public official acts--leaving all the
evidence derived from other sources, from private and unofficial
acts, for future production, if deemed necessary.
The senator from South Carolina, in his effort to throw the blame
of the war upon the President, goes no further back in his search
for causes than to this march upon the Rio Grande: upon the same
principle, if he wrote a history of the American Revolution, he
would begin at the march upon Lexington and Concord, leaving out
of view the ten years' work of Lord North's administration which
caused that march to be made. No, the march upon the Rio Grande was
not the cause of the war: had it not been for pre-existing causes,
the arrival of the American army on the Mexican frontier would have
been saluted with military courtesy, according to the usage of all
civilized nations, and with none so much as with the Spaniards.
Complimentary visits, dinners, and fandangos, balls--not cannon
balls--would have been the salutation. The causes of the war are
long anterior; and I begin with the beginning, and show the senator
from South Carolina an actor from the first. In doing this, I am
acting in defence of the country, for the President represents
the country. The senator from South Carolina charges the war upon
the President: the whole opposition follow him: the bill under
discussion is forgotten: crimination of the President is now the
object: and in that crimination, the country is injured by being
made to appear the aggressor in the war. This is my justification
for defending the President, and showing the truth that the senator,
in his manner of acquiring Texas, is the true cause of the war.
The cession of Texas to Spain in 1819 is the beginning point in
the chain of causes which have led to this war; for unless the
country had been ceded away, there could have been no quarrel with
any power in getting it back. For a long time the negotiator of
that treaty of cession (Mr. J. Q. Adams) bore all the blame of
the loss of Texas; and his motives for giving it away were set
down to hostility to the South and West, and a desire to clip the
wings of the slaveholding States. At last the truth of history
has vindicated itself, and has shown who was the true author of
that mischief to the South and West. Mr. Adams has made a public
declaration, which no one controverts, that that cession was made
in conformity to the decision of Mr. Monroe's cabinet, a majority
of which was slaveholding, and among them the present senator from
South Carolina, and now the only survivor of that majority. He does
not contradict the statement of Mr. Adams: he, therefore, stands
admitted the co-author of that mischief to the South and West which
the cession of Texas involved, and to escape from which it became
necessary, in the opinion of the senator from South Carolina, to get
back Texas at the expense of war with Mexico. This conduct of the
senator in giving away Texas when we had her, and then making war
to get her back, is an enigma which he has never yet condescended
to explain, and which, until explained, leaves him in a state of
self-contradiction, which, whether it impairs his own confidence in
himself or not, must have the effect of destroying the confidence
of others in him, and wholly disqualifies him for the office of
champion of the slaveholding States. It was the heaviest blow they
had ever received, and put an end, in conjunction with the Missouri
compromise, and the permanent location of the Indians west of the
Mississippi, to their future growth or extension as slave States
beyond the Mississippi. The compromise, which was then in full
progress, and established at the next session of Congress, cut off
the slave States from all territory north and west of Missouri, and
south of thirty-six and a half degrees of north latitude: the treaty
of 1819 ceded nearly all south of that degree, comprehending not
only all Texas, but a large part of the valley of the Mississippi
on the Red River and the Arkansas, to a foreign power, and brought
a non-slaveholding empire to the confines of Louisiana and
Arkansas: the permanent appropriation of the rest of the territory
for the abode of civilized Indians swept the little slaveholding
territory west of Arkansas and lying between the compromise line
and the cession line; and left the slave States without one inch
of ground for their future growth. Nothing was left. Even the
then territory of Arkansas was encroached upon. A breadth of
forty miles wide, and three hundred long was cut off from her, and
given to the Cherokees; and there was not as much slave territory
left west of the Mississippi as a dove could have rested the sole
of her foot upon. It was not merely a curtailment, but a total
extinction of slaveholding territory; and done at a time when the
Missouri controversy was raging, and every effort made by Northern
abolitionists to stop the growth of slave States.[8]
[8] At the presidential election of 1824, the Northern States voted
pretty much in a body for Mr. Calhoun, as Vice-President, giving him
near the same vote which they gave Mr. Adams for President. Thus:
_For Mr. Adams._ _For Mr. Calhoun._
New Hampshire, 8 7
Massachusetts, 15 15
Rhode Island, 4 3
Vermont, 7 7
New York, 26 29
I come now to the direct proofs of the senator's authorship of
the war; and begin with the year 1836, and with the month of May
of that year, and with the 27th day of that month, and with the
first rumors of the victory of San Jacinto. The Congress of the
United States was then in session: the senator from South Carolina
was then a member of this body; and, without even waiting for the
official confirmation of that great event, he proposed at once
the immediate recognition of the independence of Texas, and her
immediate admission into this Union. He put the two propositions
together--recognition and admission: and allowed us no further time
for the double vote than the few days which were to intervene before
the official intelligence of the victory should arrive. Here are
some extracts from his speech on that occasion, and which verify
what I say, and show that he was then ready to plunge the country
into the Texian war with Mexico, without the slightest regard to its
treaties, its commerce, its duties, or its character.
(The extracts.)
Here, then, is the proof of the fact that, ten years ago, and
without a word of explanation with Mexico, or any request from
Texas--without the least notice to the American people, or time for
deliberation among ourselves, or any regard to existing commerce--he
was for plunging us into instant war with Mexico. I say, instant
war; for Mexico and Texas were then in open war; and to incorporate
Texas, was to incorporate the war at the same time. All this the
senator was then for, immediately after his own gratuitous cession
of Texas, and long before the invention of the London abolition
plot came so opportunely to his aid. Promptness and unanimity were
then his watchwords. Immediate action--action before Congress
adjourned--was his demand. No delay. Delays were dangerous. We
must vote, and vote unanimously, and promptly. I well remember the
senator's look and attitude on that occasion--the fixedness of
his look, and the magisteriality of his attitude. It was such as
he often favors us with, especially when he is in a "crisis," and
brings forward something which ought to be instantly and unanimously
rejected--as when he brought in his string of abstractions on
Thursday last. So it was in 1836--prompt and unanimous action, and a
look to put down opposition. But the Senate was not looked down in
1836. They promptly and unanimously refused the senator's motion!
and the crisis and the danger--good-natured souls!--immediately
postponed themselves until wanted for another occasion.
The peace of the country was then saved; but it was a respite
only; and the speech of the senator from South Carolina, brief as
it was, becomes momentous as foreshadowing every thing that has
subsequently taken place in relation to the admission of Texas.
In this brief speech we have the shadows of all future movements,
coming in procession--in advance of the events. In the significant
intimation, qualified with the if----"_the Texians prudently managed
their affairs, they (the Senate) might soon be called upon to
decide the question of admission_." In that pregnant and qualified
intimation, there was a visible doubt that the Texians might _not_
be prudent enough to manage their own affairs, and might require
help; and also a visible feeling of that paternal guardianship
which afterward assumed the management of their affairs for them.
In the admonitions to unanimity, there was that denunciation of
any difference of opinion which afterwards displayed itself in the
ferocious hunting down of all who opposed the Texas treaty. In the
reference to southern slavery, and annoyance to slave property from
Texas, we have the germ of the "_self-defence_" letter, and the
first glimpse of the abolition plot of John Andrews, Ashbel Smith,
Lord Aberdeen--I beg pardon of Lord Aberdeen for naming him in
such a connection--and the World's Convention, with which Mexico,
Texas, and the United States were mystified and bamboozled in April,
1844. And, in the interests of the manufacturing and navigating
States of the north and east, as connected with Texas admission, we
have the text of all the communications to the agent, Murphy, and
of all the letters and speeches to which the Texas question, seven
years afterwards, gave rise. We have all these subsequent events
here shadowed forth. And now, the wonder is, why all these things
were not foreseen a little while before, when Texas was being ceded
to a non-slaveholding empire? and why, after being so imminent and
deadly in May, 1836, all these dangers suddenly went to sleep, and
never waked up again until 1844? These are wonders; but let us not
anticipate questions, and let us proceed with the narrative.
The Congress of 1836 would not admit Texas. The senator from South
Carolina became patient: the Texas question went to sleep; and for
seven good years it made no disturbance. It then woke up, and with a
suddenness and violence proportioned to its long repose. Mr. Tyler
was then President: the senator from South Carolina was potent under
his administration, and soon became his Secretary of State. All the
springs of intrigue and diplomacy were immediately set in motion
to resuscitate the Texas question, and to re-invest it with all
the dangers and alarms which it had worn in 1836. Passing over all
the dangers of annoyance from Texas as possibly non-slaveholding,
_foreseen_ by the senator in 1836, and not foreseen by him in
1819, with all the need for guardianship then foreshadowed, and
all the arguments then suggested: all these immediately developed
themselves, and intriguing agents traversed earth and sea, from
Washington to Texas, and from London to Mexico:--passing over all
this, as belonging to a class of evidence, not now to be used, I
come at once to the letter of the 17th of January, from the Texian
minister to Mr. Upshur, the American Secretary of State; and the
answer to that letter by Mr. CALHOUN, of April 11th of the same
year. They are both vital in this case; and the first is in these
words:
(The letter.)
This letter reveals the true state of the Texian question in
January, 1844, and the conduct of all parties in relation to it.
It presents Texas and Mexico, weary of the war, reposing under
an armistice, and treating for peace; Great Britain and France
acting the noble part of mediators, and endeavoring to make peace:
our own government secretly intriguing for annexation, acting the
wicked part of mischief-makers, and trying to renew the war; and
the issue of its machinations to be unsuccessful unless the United
States should be involved in the renewed hostilities. That was the
question; and the letter openly puts it to the American Secretary
of State. The answer to that question, in my opinion, should have
been, that the President of the United States did not know of the
armistice and the peace negotiations at the time that he proposed to
Texas to do an act which would be a perfidious violation of those
sacred engagements, and bring upon herself the scourge of renewed
invasion and the stigma of perfidy--that he would not have made
such a proposal for the whole round world, if he had known of the
armistice and the peace negotiations--that he wished success to the
peace-makers, both for the sake of Mexico and Texas, and because
Texas could then come into the Union without the least interruption
to our friendly, commercial, and social relations with our sister
republic of Mexico; and that, as to secretly lending the army and
navy of the United States to Texas to fight Mexico while we were at
peace with her, it would be a crime against God, and man, and our
own constitution, for which heads might be brought to the block,
if presidents and their secretaries, like constitutional kings and
ministers, should be held capitally responsible for capital crimes.
This, in my opinion, should have been the answer.
Mr. Nelson refused to lend the army and navy, because to do so was
to violate our own constitution. This is very constitutional and
proper language: and if it had not been reversed, there would have
been no war with Mexico. But it was reversed. Soon after it was
written, the present senator from South Carolina took the chair of
the Department of State. Mr. Pinckney Henderson, whom Mr. Murphy
mentions as coming on with full powers, on the faith of the pledge
he had given, arrived also, and found that pledge entirely cancelled
by Mr. Tyler's answer through Mr. Nelson; and he utterly refused to
treat. The new secretary was in a strait; for time was short, and
Texas must be had; and Messrs. Henderson and Van Zandt would not
even begin to treat without a renewal of the pledge given by Mr.
Murphy. That had been cancelled in writing, and the cancellation
had gone to Texas, and had been made on high constitutional
ground. The new secretary was profuse of verbal assurances, and
even permitted the ministers to take down his words in writing,
and read them over to him, as was shown by the senator from Texas
(General Houston) when he spoke on this subject on Thursday last.
But verbal assurances, or memoranda of conversations, would not do.
The instructions under which the ministers acted required the pledge
to be in writing, and properly signed. The then President, present
senator from Texas, who had been a lawyer in Tennessee before he
went to Texas, seemed to look upon it as a case under the statute
of frauds and perjuries--a sixth case added to the five enumerated
in that statute--in which the promise is not valid, unless reduced
to writing, and signed by the person to be charged therewith,
or by some other person duly authorized by him to sign for him.
The firmness of the Texian ministers, under the instructions of
President Houston, prevailed; and at last, and after long delay, the
secretary wrote, and signed the pledge which Murphy had given, and
in all the amplitude of his original promise.
The promise was clear and explicit to lend the army and navy to
the President of Texas, to fight the Mexicans while they were at
peace with us. That was the point--at peace with us. Mr. Calhoun's
assumpsit was clear and explicit to that point; for the cases in
which they were to fight were to be before the ratification of the
treaty by the Senate, and consequently before Texas should be in our
Union, and could be constitutionally defended as a part of it. And,
that no circumstance of contradiction or folly should be wanting
to crown this plot of crime and imbecility, it so happened that on
the same day that our new secretary here was giving his written
assumpsit to lend the army and navy to fight Mexico while we were
at peace with her, the agent Murphy was communicating to the Texian
government, in Texas, the refusal of Mr. Tyler, through Mr. Nelson,
to do so, because of its unconstitutionality.
In conformity with the secretary's letter of April 11th, detachments
of the army and navy were immediately sent to the frontiers of
Texas, and to the coast of Mexico. The senator from South Carolina,
in his colloquy with the senator from Texas (General Houston), on
Thursday last, seemed anxious to have it understood that these land
and naval forces were not to _repel_ invasions, but only to _report_
them to our government, for its report to Congress. The paper read
by the senator from Texas, consisting of our secretary's words,
taken down in his presence, and read over to him for his correction
by the Texian ministers, establishes the contrary, and shows that
the repulse of the invasion was in the mean time to be made. And in
fact, any other course would have been a fraud upon the promise.
For, if the invasion had to be made known at Washington, and the
sense of Congress taken on the question of repelling it, certainly,
in the mean time, the mischief would have been done--the invasion
would have been made; and, therefore, to be consistent with himself,
the President in the mean time was bound to repel the invasion,
without waiting to hear what Congress would say about it. And this
is what he himself tells us in his two messages to the Senate,
of the 15th and 31st of May, doubtless written by his Secretary
of State, and both avowing and justifying his intention to fight
Mexico, in case of invasion, while the treaty of annexation was
depending, without awaiting the action of Congress.
(The message.)
Here are the avowals of the fact, and the reasons for it--that
honor required us to fight for Texas, if we intrigued her into a
war. I admit that would be a good reason between individuals, and
in a case where a big bully should involve a little fellow in the
fight again after he had got himself parted; but not so between
nations, and under our constitution. The engagement to fight Mexico
for Texas, while we were at peace with Mexico, was to make war with
Mexico!--a piece of business which belonged to the Congress, and
which should have been referred to them! and which, on the contrary,
was concealed from them, though in session, and present! and the
fact only found out after the troops had marched, and then by dint
of calls from the Senate.
The proof is complete that the loan of the land and naval forces was
to fight Mexico while we were at peace with her! and this becomes a
great turning point in the history of this war. Without this pledge
given by our Secretary of State--without his reversal of Mr. Tyler's
first decision--there could have been no war! Texas and Mexico
would have made peace, and then annexation would have followed of
itself. The victor of San Jacinto, who had gone forth and recovered
by the sword, and erected into a new republic the beautiful domain
given away by our secretary in 1819, was at the head of the Texas
government, and was successfully and honorably conducting his
country to peace and acknowledged independence. If let alone, he
would have accomplished his object; for he had already surmounted
the great difficulty of the first step--the armistice and the
commencement of peace negotiations; and under the powerful mediation
of Great Britain and France, the establishment of peace was certain.
A heavenly benediction rests upon the labors of the peacemaker; and
what is blessed of God must succeed. At all events, it does not
lie in the mouth of any man--and least of all, in the mouth of the
mischief-maker--to say that the peaceful mediation would not have
succeeded. It was the part of all men to have aided, and wished, and
hoped for success; and had it not been for our secretary's letter
of April 11th, authentic facts warrant the assertion that Texas and
Mexico would have made peace in the spring of 1844. Then Texas would
have come into this Union as naturally, and as easily, and with as
little offence to any body, as Eve went into Adam's bosom in the
garden of Eden. There would have been no more need for intriguing
politicians to get her in, by plots and tricks, than there was
for some old hag of a match-making beldame, with her arts and
allurements, her philters and her potions, to get Eve into Adam's
bosom. And thus, the breaking up of the peace negotiations becomes
the great turning point of the problem of the Mexican war.
The pledge of the 11th of April being _signed_, the treaty was
_signed_, and being communicated to the Senate, it was _rejected_:
and the great reason for the rejection was that the ratification
of the treaty would have been WAR with Mexico! an act which the
President and Senate together, no more than President Tyler and his
Secretary of State together, had the power to make.
The treaty of annexation was signed, and in signing it the
secretary knew that he had made war with Mexico. No less than three
formal notices were on file in the Department of State, in which
the Mexican government solemnly declared that it would consider
annexation as equivalent to a declaration of war; and it was in
allusion to these notices that the Secretary of State, in his
notification to Mexico of the signature of the treaty, said it had
been signed IN FULL VIEW OF ALL POSSIBLE CONSEQUENCES! meaning war
as the consequence! At the same time, he suited the action to the
word; he sent off detachments of the army and navy, and placed them
under the command of President Houston, and made him the judge of
the emergencies and exigencies in which they were to fight. This
authority to the President of Texas was continued in full force
until after the rejection of the treaty, and then only modified by
placing the American diplomatic agent in Texas between President
Houston and the naval and military commanders, and making him the
medium of communication between a foreign President and our forces;
but the forces themselves were not withdrawn. They remained on
the Texian and Mexican frontier, waiting for the _exigencies_ and
_emergencies_ in which they were to fight. During all that time
a foreign President was commander-in-chief of a large detachment
of the army and navy of the United States. Without a law of
Congress--without a nomination from the President and confirmation
by the Senate--without citizenship--without the knowledge of the
American people--he was president-general of our land and sea
forces, made so by the senator from South Carolina, with authority
to fight them against Mexico with whom we were at peace--an office
and authority rather above that of lieutenant-general!--and we are
indebted to the forbearance and prudence of President Houston for
not incurring the war in 1844, which fell upon us in 1846. This is a
point--this secret and lawless appointment of this president-general
to make war upon Mexico, while we were at peace with her--on which
I should like to hear a constitutional argument from the senator
from South Carolina, showing it to be constitutional and proper,
and that of the proposed lieutenant-general unconstitutional and
improper; and upon which he has erected himself into the _foreman_
of the grand-jury of the whole American people, and pronounced a
unanimous verdict for them before he had time to hear from the
ten-thousandth part of them.
The treaty was rejected by the Senate; but so apprehensive was the
senator of immediate war, that, besides keeping the detachments
of the army and navy at their posts, a messenger was despatched
with a deprecatory letter to Mexico, and the offer of a large sum
of money (ten millions of dollars) to purchase peace from her, by
inducing her to treat for a boundary which would leave Texas within
our limits. This was report: and I would not mention it, if the
senator was not present to contradict it, if not correct. Report at
the time said from five to ten millions of dollars: from one of Mr.
Shannon's letters, we may set it down at ten millions. Be it either
sum, it will show that the senator was then secretly willing to pay
an immense sum to pacify Mexico, although he now declares that he
does not know how he will vote in relation to the three millions
responsibly asked by Mr. Polk.
The secretary knew that he had made war with Mexico--that in
accepting the gage three times laid down, he had joined an issue
which that compound of Celtic and Roman blood, called Spanish, would
redeem. I knew it, and said it on this floor, in secret session--for
I did not then choose to say it in public--that if there was but
one man of that blood in all Mexico, and he no bigger than General
Tom Thumb, he would fight. Senators will recollect it. [Mr. Mangum
nodded assent.]
I now come to the last act in this tragedy of errors--the
alternative resolutions adopted by Congress in the last days of
the session of 1844-'45, and in the last moments of Mr. Tyler's
administration. A resolve, single and absolute, for the admission
of Texas as a State of this Union, had been made by the House of
Representatives; it came to this body; and an alternative resolution
was added, subject to the choice of the President, authorizing
negotiations for the admission, and appropriating one hundred
thousand dollars to defray the expenses of these negotiations. A
senator from North Carolina, not now a member of this body, but who
I have the pleasure to see sitting near me (Mr. Haywood), knows
all about that alternative resolution; and his country owes him
good thanks for his labors about it. It was considered by every
body, that the choice between these resolutions belonged to the new
President, who had been elected with a special view to the admission
of Texas, and who was already in the city, awaiting the morning of
the 4th of March to enter upon the execution of his duties; and upon
whose administration all the evils of a mistake in the choice of
these resolutions were to fall. We all expected the question to be
left open to the new President; and so strong was that expectation,
and so strong the feeling against the decency or propriety of
interference on the part of the expiring administration, to snatch
this choice out of the hands of Mr. Polk, that, on a mere suggestion
of the possibility of such a proceeding, in a debate on this floor,
a senator standing in the relation personally, and politically,
and locally to feel for the honor of the then Secretary of State,
declared they would not have the audacity to do it. Audacity was
his word: and that was the declaration of a gentleman of honor and
patriotism, no longer a member of this body, but who has the respect
and best wishes of all who ever knew him. I speak of Mr. McDuffie,
and quote his words as heard at the time, and as since printed and
published by others. Mr. McDuffie was mistaken! They did have the
audacity! They did do it, or rather, HE did it (looking at Mr.
Calhoun); for it is incontestable that Mr. Tyler was nothing, in
any thing that related to the Texas question, from the time of the
arrival of his last Secretary of State. His last act, in relation
to Texas, was the answer which Mr. Nelson gave for him through the
agent, Murphy, denying his right to lend our forces to the President
of Texas to fight the Mexicans while we were at peace with them:
the reversal of that answer by his new secretary was the extinction
of his power over the Texas question. He, the then Secretary of
State, the present senator from South Carolina, to whom I address
myself, did it. On Sunday, the second day of March--that day which
preceded the last day of his authority--and on that day, sacred
to peace--the council sat that acted on the resolutions--and in
the darkness of a night howling with the storm, and battling with
the elements, as if Heaven warred upon the audacious act (for well
do I remember it), the fatal messenger was sent off which carried
the selected resolution to Texas. The exit of the secretary from
office, and the start of the messenger from Washington, were
coetaneous--twin acts--which come together, and will be remembered
together. The act was then done: Texas was admitted: all the
consequences of admission were incurred--and especially that
consequence which Mr. de Bocanegra had denounced, and which our
secretary had accepted--WAR. The state of war was established--the
_status belli_ was created--and that by the operation of our own
constitution, as well as by the final declaration of Mexico: for
Texas then being admitted into the Union, the war with her extended
to the whole Union; and the duty of protecting her, devolved upon
the President of the United States. The selection of the absolute
resolution exhausted our action: the alternative resolution for
negotiation was defunct: the only mode of admission was the absolute
one, and it made war. The war was made to Mr. Polk's hands: his
administration came into existence with the war upon its hands, and
under the constitutional duty to protect Texas at the expense of
war with Mexico: and to that point, all events rapidly tended. The
Mexican minister, General Almonte, who had returned to Washington
city after the rejection of the treaty of annexation, demanded
his passports, and left the United States. The land forces which
had been advanced to the Sabine, were further advanced to Corpus
Christi; the Mexican troops moved towards the Rio Grande: the fleet
which remained at Vera Cruz, continued there: commerce died out: the
citizens of each country left the other, as far as they could: angry
denunciations filled the press of each country: and when a minister
was sent from the United States, his reception was refused. The
state of war existed legally: all the circumstances of war, except
the single circumstance of bloodshed, existed at the accession of
Mr. Polk; and the two countries, Mexico and the United States, stood
in a relation to each other impossible to be continued. The march
upon the Rio Grande brought on the conflict--made the collision of
arms--but not the war. The war was prepared, organized, established
by the Secretary of State, before he left the department. It was his
legacy to the democracy, and to the Polk administration--his last
gift to them, in the moment of taking a long farewell. And now he
sets up for a man of peace, and throws all the blame of war upon Mr.
Polk, to whom he bequeathed it.
Cicero says that Antony, flying from Rome to the camp of Cæsar in
Cisalpine Gaul, was the cause of the civil war which followed--as
much so as Helen was of the Trojan war. _Ut Helena Trojanis, sic
iste huic reipublica causa belli--causa pestis atque exitii fuit._
He says that that flight put an end to all chance of accommodation;
closed the door to all conciliation; broke up the plans of all
peaceable men; and by inducing Cæsar to break up his camp in Gaul,
and march across the Rubicon, lit up the flames of civil war in
Italy. In like manner, I say that the flight of the winged messenger
from this capital on the Sunday night before the 3d of March,
despatched by the then Secretary of State, in the expiring moment of
his power, and bearing his fatal choice to the capital of Texas, was
the direct cause of the war with Mexico in which we are now engaged.
Like the flight of Antony, it broke up the plans of all peaceable
men, slammed the door upon negotiations, put an end to all chance
for accommodation, broke up the camp on the Sabine, sent the troops
towards Mexico, and lit up the war. Like Antony and Helen, he made
the war; unlike Antony, he does not stand to it; but, copying rather
the conduct of the paramour of Helen, he flies from the conflict
he has provoked! and, worse than Paris, he endeavors to draw along
with him, in his own unhappy flight, the whole American host. Paris
fled alone at the sight of Menelaus: the senator from South Carolina
urges us all to fly at the sight of Santa Anna. And, it may be, that
worse than Paris again, he may refuse to return to the field. Paris
went back under the keen reproach of Hector, and tried to fight:
"For thee the soldier bleeds, the matron mourns,
And wasteful war in all its fury burns."
Stung with this just and keen rebuke--this vivid picture of the ruin
he had made--Paris returned to the field, and tried to fight: and
now, it remains to be seen whether the senator from South Carolina
can do the same, on the view of the ruin which he has made: and,
if not, whether he cannot, at least, cease to obstruct the arms of
others--cease to labor to involve the whole army in his own unmanly
retreat.
Upon the evidence now given, drawn from his public official acts
alone, he stands the undisputed author and architect of that
calamity. History will so write him down. Inexorable HISTORY, with
her pen of iron and tablets of brass, will so write him down: and
two thousand years hence, and three thousand years hence, the boy at
his lesson shall learn it in the book, that as Helen was the cause
of the Trojan, and Antony the cause of the Roman civil war, and Lord
North made the war of the Revolution, just so certainly is JOHN C.
CALHOUN the author of the present war between the United States and
Mexico.
He now sets up for the character of pacificator--with what justice,
let the further fact proclaim which I now expose. Three hundred
newspapers, in the summer of 1844, in the pay of the administration
and Department of State, spoke the sentiments of the Department of
State, and pursued as traitors to the United States all who were for
the peaceable annexation of Texas by settling the boundary line of
Texas with Mexico simultaneously with the annexation. Here is the
instruction under which the three hundred acted:
"As the conductor of the official journal here, he has requested
me to answer it (your letter), which request I comply with
readily. With regard to the course of your paper, you can take
the tone of the administration from the * * * *. I think,
however, and would recommend that you would confine yourself to
attacks upon Benton, showing that he has allied himself with the
whigs on the Texas question. Quote Jackson's letter on Texas,
where he denounces all those as traitors to the country who
oppose the treaty. Apply it to Benton. Proclaim that Benton, by
attacking Mr. Tyler and his friends, and driving them from the
party, is aiding the election of Mr. Clay; and charge him with
doing this to defeat Mr. Polk, and insure himself the succession
in 1848; and claim that full justice be done to the acts and
motives of John Tyler by the leaders. Harp upon these strings.
Do not propose the union; 'it is the business of the democrats
to do this, and arrange it to our perfect satisfaction.' _I
quote here_ from our leading friend at the South. Such is
the course which I recommend, and which you can pursue or not,
according to your real attachment to the administration. Look
out for my leader of to-morrow as an indicator, and regard
this letter as of the most strict and inviolate confidence of
character."
I make no comment on this letter, nor read the other parts of it:
a time will come for that. It is an original, and will keep, and
will prove itself. I merely read a paragraph now, to show with what
justice the person who was in the Department of State when these
three hundred newspapers in its pay were thus attacking the men of
peace, now sets up for the character of pacificator!
Mr. CALHOUN. Does he intend to say that I ever wrote such a letter?
Mr. BENTON. I read it. I say nothing.
Mr. CALHOUN. I never wrote such a letter as that!
Mr. BENTON. I have not said so.
Mr. CALHOUN. I take this occasion to say that I never exercised
the slightest influence over that paper. I never had the slightest
connection with it. I never was a subscriber to it, and I very
rarely read it.
Mr. BENTON. It was the work of one of the organs of the
administration, not John Jones, not the _Madisonian_; and the
instruction was followed by three hundred newspapers in the pay of
the Department of State.
I have now finished what I proposed to say, at this time, in
relation to the authorship of this war. I confine myself to the
official words and acts of the senator, and rely upon them to show
that he, and not Mr. Polk, is the author of this calamity. But,
while thus presenting him as the author of the war, I do not believe
that war was his object, but only an incident to his object; and
that all his conduct in relation to the admission of Texas refers
itself to the periods of our presidential elections, and to some
connection with those elections, and explains his activity and
inactivity on those occasions. Thus, in May, 1836, when he was in
such hot and violent haste for immediate admission, the election of
that year was impending, and Mr. Van Buren the democratic candidate;
and if the Texas question could then have been brought up, he
might have been shoved aside just as easily as he was afterwards,
in 1844. This may explain his activity in 1836. In 1840, the
senator from South Carolina was a sort of a supporter of Mr. Van
Buren, and might have thought that one good turn deserves another;
and so nothing was said about Texas at that election--dangerous
as was the least delay four years before; and this may explain
the inactivity of 1840. The election of 1844 was coming on, and
the senator from South Carolina was on the turf himself; and then
the Texas question, with all its dangers and alarms, which had so
accommodatingly postponed themselves for seven good years, suddenly
woke up; and with an activity and vigor proportioned to its long
repose. Instant admission, at all hazards, and at the expense of
renewing hostilities between Mexico and Texas, and involving the
United States in them, became indispensable--necessary to our own
salvation--a clear case of self-defence; and then commenced all
those machinations which ended in the overthrow of Mr. Van Buren
and Mr. Clay for the presidency, and in producing the present war
with Mexico; but without making the senator President. And this may
explain his activity in 1844. Now, another presidential election is
approaching; and if there is any truth in the rule which interprets
certain gentlemen's declarations by their contraries, he will be a
candidate again: and this may explain the reasons of the production
of that string of resolutions which the senator laid upon the table
last week; and upon which he has required us to vote instantly,
as he did in the sudden Texas movement of 1836, and with the same
magisterial look and attitude. The Texas slave question has gone
by--the Florida slave question has gone by--there is no chance for
it now in any of its old haunts: hence the necessity for a new
theatre of agitation, even if we have to go as far as California for
it, and before we have got California. And thus, all the senator's
conduct in relation to Texas, though involving his country in war,
may have had no other object than to govern a presidential election.
Our northern friends have exceeded my hopes and expectations in
getting themselves and the Union safe through the Texas and Florida
slave questions, and are entitled to a little repose. So far from
that, they are now to be plunged into a California slave question,
long before it could arise of itself, if ever. The string of
resolutions laid on the table by the senator from South Carolina is
to raise a new slave question on the borders of the Pacific Ocean,
which, upon his own principles, cannot soon occur, if ever. He will
not take the country by conquest--only by treaty--and that treaty to
be got by sitting out the Mexicans on a line of occupation. At the
same time, he shows that he knows that Spanish blood is good at that
game, and shows that they sat it out, and fought it out, for 800
years, against the Moors occupying half their country. By-the-by, it
was only 700; but that is enough; one hundred years is no object in
such a matter. The Spaniards held out 700 years against the Moors,
holding half their country, and 300 against the Visigoths, occupying
the half of the other half; and, what is more material, whipped
them both out at the end of the time. This is a poor chance for
California on the senator's principles. His five regiments would be
whipped out in a fraction of the time; but no matter; men contend
more violently for nothing than for something, and if he can get up
a California slave question now, it will answer all the purposes of
a reality, even if the question should never arise in point of fact.
The Senator from South Carolina has been wrong in all this business,
from beginning to ending--wrong in 1819, in giving away Texas--wrong
in 1836, in his sudden and hot haste to get her back--wrong in all
his machinations for bringing on the Texas question of 1844--wrong
in breaking up the armistice and peace negotiations between Mexico
and Texas--wrong in secretly sending the army and navy to fight
Mexico while we were at peace with her--wrong in secretly appointing
the President of Texas president-general of the army and navy of
the United States, with leave to fight them against a power with
whom we were at peace--wrong in writing to Mexico that he took
Texas in view of all possible consequences, meaning war--wrong in
secretly offering Mexico, at the same time, ten millions of dollars
to hush up the war which he had created--wrong now in refusing
Mr. Polk three millions to aid in getting out of the war which he
made--wrong in throwing the blame of this war of his own making upon
the shoulders of Mr. Polk--wrong in his retreat and occupation line
of policy--wrong in expelling old Father Ritchie from the Senate,
who worked so hard for him during the Texas annexation--and more
wrong now than ever, in that string of resolutions which he has laid
upon the table, and in which, as Sylla saw in the young Cæsar many
Mariuses, so do I see in them many nullifications.
In a picture of so many and such dreadful errors, it is hard to
specify the worst, or to dwell upon any one to the exclusion of
the rest; but there is one feature in this picture of enormities
which seems entitled to that distinction: I allude to the pledge
upon which the armistice and the peace negotiations between Mexico
and Texas were broken up in 1844, and those two countries put back
into a state of war, and ourselves involved in the contest. The
story is briefly told, and admits of no dispute. The letter of 17th
of January is the accusing record, from which there is no escape.
Its awful words cannot be read now without freezing up the blood:
"It is known to you that an armistice exists between Mexico and
Texas, and that negotiations for peace are now going on under the
mediation of two powerful sovereigns, mutually friendly. If we yield
to your solicitation to be annexed to the United States, under these
circumstances, we shall draw upon ourselves a fresh invasion from
Mexico, incur the imputation of bad faith, and lose the friendship
and respect of the two great mediating powers. Now, will you, in
the event of our acceding to your request, step between us and
Mexico and take the war off our hands?" This was the letter, and
the terrible question with which it concluded. Mr. Upshur, to whom
it was addressed, gave it no answer. In the forty days that his
life was spared, he gave it no answer. Mr. Nelson, his temporary
successor, gave it an answer; and, speaking for the President of
the United States, positively refused to take annexation on the
awful terms proposed. This answer was sent to Texas, and put an end
to all negotiation for annexation. The senator from South Carolina
came into the Department of State, procured the reversal of the
President's decision, and gave the pledge to the whole extent that
Texas asked it. Without, in the least denying the knowledge of the
armistice, and the negotiations for peace, and all the terrible
consequences which were to result from their breach, he accepts
the whole, and gives the fatal pledge which his predecessors had
refused: and follows it up by sending our troops and ships to fight
a people with whom we were at peace--the whole veiled by the mantle
of secrecy, and pretexted by motives as unfounded as they were
absurd. Now, what says morality and Christianity to this conduct?
Certainly, if two individuals were engaged in strife, and two others
should part them, and put them under an agreement to submit to an
amicable settlement: and while the settlement was going on, another
man, lying behind a hedge, should secretly instigate one of the
parties to break off the agreement and renew the strife, and promise
to take the fight off his hands if he did: what would morality and
Christianity say to this? Surely the malediction of all good men
would fall upon the man who had interfered to renew the strife.
And if this would be the voice of all good men in the case of mere
individuals, what would it be when the strife was between nations,
and when the renewal of it was to involve a third nation in the
contest, and such a war as we now have with our sister republic of
Mexico? This is the feature which stands out in the awful picture:
this is the question which now presents itself to the moral sense
of the civilized world, in judging the conduct of the senator from
South Carolina in writing that letter of the 11th of April, 1844,
aggravated by now throwing upon another the blame of a war for which
he then contracted.