In some way, we know not exactly how, Dr. Whitman learned that the United States Government might be induced to sacrifice Northern Oregon in ignorance of its true value; and, in the latter part of the year 1842, he set out from the mission on the Walla Walla to go to Washington and inform the Government of the real character of the country which he had explored. He arrived in Washington in March of 1843, and gave President Tyler such full and truthful information concerning the great value of Oregon north of the Columbia as settled the fate of that region.
Dr. Whitman had come also for another purpose. He saw clearly that the way to get Oregon was to colonize it. President Tyler's Administration supported himin this view and purpose. The Administration caused Dr. Whitman's descriptions of Oregon to be printed and distributed throughout the United States, and also his offer to lead a colony to take possession of the country. The place of rendezvous appointed by him was Westport, near the site of the present Kansas City, and the time was June of 1843. Nearly a thousand people, with two hundred wagons, met him there, and were successfully led by him back to the Walla Walla. He arrived there with this large colony in October of 1843; and news of his safe arrival reached Washington in January of 1844.
The decisive movement for the possession of Oregon was thus made. Claims based upon discovery, or treaty, or privileges for hunting, trapping, or trading, must all give way before actual colonization. British diplomacy was confused by the success of the movement, while the people of the United States were filled with pride and enthusiasm at the achievement.
The moment had come, at last, when the United States could deal with Great Britain from the basis of actual conditions, instead of from the point of view of international theory. The connection of the Oregon question with the question of the annexation of Texas in the Democratic platform of 1844, was, therefore, by no means far fetched or artificial. It was, indeed, a clever stroke of practical politics, but it was suggested by existing conditions.
The Democrats had struck a high note in the international questions, one which was bound to catch the ear of the younger men throughout the country. Moreover, the policy in both cases rested upon sound national principles. Texas, at least to the Nueces, and Oregon, at least to the northern water shed of the Columbia, belongedgeographically to the United States, and they were settled, so far as they were settled at all, by Anglo-Americans. On the other hand, the slaveholders of the South were not particularly pleased with the connection of the two questions. Some of them had already come to doubt whether the annexation of Texas alone would subserve their interests, since the slave population might be thereby drawn away from the border slaveholding Commonwealths, and these Commonwealths might then abolish slavery by their own several acts; and now that it must be paid for by the addition of a region to the Northern side, large enough to hold a dozen such Commonwealths as New York, the price appeared to them too great. Mr. Waddy Thompson, of South Carolina, the Minister to the Mexican Government, was decidedly of this opinion; and from an original friend of annexation he became a determined opponent. To the far-seeing mind, it was certainly very questionable whether the annexation of Texas would prove any advantage to the slavery interest, and it was certain that the possession of Oregon would not.
But they would subserve, they have subserved, the interests of a true national development. The Democrats of 1844 builded better than they knew, when they made the "re-annexation of Texas and the re-occupation of Oregon" the issues of the campaign of that year. In the platform the Oregon question was given the precedence. The country, however, understood the stratagem, and the question of annexation assumed the foremost place in the great contest.
THE "RE-ANNEXATION OF TEXAS AND THE RE-OCCUPATION OF OREGON"
THE "RE-ANNEXATION OF TEXAS AND THE RE-OCCUPATION OF OREGON"
The Popularity of the Democratic Position, and Mr. Clay's Letter of August 16th—The Abolitionists Declare against Mr. Clay—The Triumph of Polk—Tyler's Recommendation to Annex Texas by a Joint Resolution or an Act—The Resolution for Annexation in the House of Representatives—Passage of an Enabling Act for Texas by the House of Representatives—The Resolution in the Senate, and Mr. Archer's Inconsistencies—The Senate's Amendment to the Resolution of the House—The Concurrence of the House in the Senate's Amendment, and the Passage of the Act for Admission—The British Proposition in Regard to Oregon—The American Proposition—Polk's recommendation in Regard to the Matter—The Debate upon the President's Recommendation—The Conclusion Reached by Congress—The President's Retort upon Congress—The Oregon Treaty.
The language of the Democratic platform signified that Texas had been once annexed to the United States, as a part of Louisiana, by the Treaty of 1803 with France, and had been sacrificed by the Treaty of 1819 with Spain, and that Oregon had been once occupied by the United States, either under the Treaty of 1803, or under that of 1819, or by the right of the prior discovery of the Columbia River and the establishment of a settlement upon its banks. It is thus that mortal men always seek to purge any movement which they undertake of the taint of innovation, no matter how justifiable in reason that movement may be.
In the beginning of June, the election of Mr. Clay seemed a certainty. As the campaign wore on it became manifest that annexation was rapidly growing in the popular favor, and that Mr. Clay would lose some of his Southern support, unless the opinion which prevailed in that section concerning his opposition to annexation should be modified. With this in view, and under the belief that the state of feeling upon the subject at the North had become less hostile, Mr. Clay caused to be published in an Alabama newspaper, on August 16th, a letter defining again his attitude toward annexation.
No sane and impartial mind can, at this day, see any material difference between the opinion expressed by Mr. Clay in his letter of April 17th, and that in his letter of August 16th. In the former, he took the ground that the United States ought not to annex Texas without the consent of Mexico, or against the decided opposition of a considerable and respectable portion of the Union. In the latter, he said he should be glad to see Texas annexed, if it could be done "without dishonor, without war, with the common consent of the Union, and upon just and fair terms." He added that he did not think the slavery question ought to enter into the consideration at all, that slavery was destined to become extinct in the United States, and that its duration would neither be lengthened nor shortened by the acquisition of Texas.
The Abolitionists, however, could see the question only from a single point of view. They wanted Mr. Clay to say that the annexation of Texas meant permanent slavery extension, and that he opposed it upon that ground. They were not satisfied by Mr. Clay's causing another letter to be published, in theNational Intelligencer,declaring thathis two former letters were entirely consistent with each other, and that he held inflexibly to the principles of the first one. They even went so far in their extravagant fanaticism as to represent to the people that Mr. Clay's election would be more favorable to annexation than that of Mr. Polk.
It is usually said that Mr. Clay's Alabama letter turned a sufficient number of votes to the Abolitionist candidate, Mr. Birney, to cause Mr. Clay to lose the electoral votes of New York and Michigan, and thus insured the election of Mr. Polk, and consequently the annexation of Texas and the War with Mexico. It is probably true that it did cause the loss of New York and Michigan, but it is possible that it held North Carolina, Kentucky, and Tennessee in line. The failure of Mr. Clay is, therefore, more probably to be ascribed to Abolitionist fanaticism than to his own blundering. At any rate, this was the view held by Mr. Greeley, a very competent observer. He said that "the triumph of annexation was secured by the indirect aid of the more intense partisans of abolition."
The result of the election was regarded as the plebiscite upon the question of annexation, and also upon the Oregon question, but more especially upon the former. In his message to Congress at the opening of the session of 1844-45, President Tyler informed Congress that, since the rejection of the Treaty for annexation by the Senate, Mexico had threatened to renew war against Texas, and prosecute the same by barbarous means and methods, and that he had caused the Minister of the United States to Mexico to inform the Mexican Government that the question of annexation was still before the American people, and that, until their decision had been pronounced, any serious invasion of Texas could not beregarded by them with indifference. He declared that, in the late general election, the people had pronounced for immediate annexation; and he recommended that Congress should incorporate the terms of the late agreement for annexation into the form of an act or a joint resolution, which should be binding upon both parties when adopted in like manner by the Texan Congress. He also informed Congress that negotiations had been opened with Great Britain relative to the respective rights of the two Powers in, and over, the Oregon territory.
That part of the message relating to the question of annexation was referred, in the House of Representatives, to the committee on Foreign Affairs, and, on December 12th, Mr. Ingersoll, of Pennsylvania, reported from that committee the draft of a joint resolution for the annexation of Texas. It was simply the articles of the agreement of April 12th preceding put into that form. The principal points of it were, the cession of the territory of Texas to the United States, the transfer of the public lands of Texas to the Government of the United States, the pledge of the United States to assume the debt of Texas up to ten millions of dollars, the guarantee of liberty and property to the citizens of Texas, now to be citizens of the United States, and the accordance of Commonwealth local government to Texas as soon as consistent with the Constitution of the United States.
As we have seen, the President and Mr. Calhoun had thought that the proper way to annex a foreign state to the United States was by means of a treaty, in which the foreign state should cede its territory to the United States; and that the matter of local government for the ceded territory and its population would then be a question of legislation. We have also seen that theopponents of the proposed Treaty in the Senate took the ground, among other things, that Texas was already a state, seeking admission into the Union as a "State" (Commonwealth), and that this could be effected only by an act of Congress. But now the opposition in the House of Representatives to the joint resolution, expressed in the very words of the proposed Treaty, declared that the resolution provided for a cession of territory by a foreign state to the United States, which cession could be made and accepted only through the form of a treaty. The House had never, however, committed itself to the view of the Senate, and the friends of the resolution wasted no time in demonstrating the inconsistency, but sought to so amend the resolution as to make it an act for the formation of a new Commonwealth, or, as it is usually phrased, an act for the admission of a new "State" into this Union.
On January 25th, 1845, the House passed a substitute for the committee's resolution, which substitute was a resolution for enabling the people of Texas to form a Commonwealth constitution and government, preparatory to admission into this Union, and prescribing certain conditions for the assent of Congress to the same.
When this resolution reached the Senate, it was referred to the committee of that body for Foreign Affairs, and on February 4th, Mr. Archer, the chairman of the committee, presented a report from his committee, and a recommendation that the proposition from the House be rejected. The ground for this recommendation, as contained in the report, was that the House had undertaken to do by an act of Congress what could be done only by means of a treaty. And this was from that same Mr. Archer, who, on June 8th preceding, had opposed theratification of the Treaty, on the ground that what was proposed to be effected by a treaty could be done only by means of an act of Congress.
It was not to be expected that the Senate or the country would put up with any such inconsistent trifling. The Senators were, however, much concerned in preserving the treaty-making power of the Senate, and hesitated long, attempting to find the way out of the embarrassment, which they had prepared for themselves, by their attitude, during the preceding session, toward the proposed Treaty. At last, on February 27th, Mr. Walker, of Mississippi, offered an apparent method of escape. He moved to amend the resolution sent from the House by the provision that, if the President should deem it more advisable to negotiate with Texas for her admission into the Union than to submit the joint resolution as an overture to her, he might do so, and then might submit the agreements, which might thus be made, either to the Senate to be approved of as a treaty, or to both Houses to be approved of as an act. Everybody knew, of course, that this was a mere subterfuge to save appearances, and that the President would immediately communicate the joint resolution to the Texan authorities.
The House of Representatives concurred in the Senate's amendment, and the President signed the measure on March 1st, 1845. He immediately submitted the resolution to the Texan authorities, and on December 29th, 1845, Texas was formally admitted as a "State" into this Union.
There is little question that the President and Mr. Calhoun were correct as regards the manner in which a foreign state should be annexed to the United States, but they can hardly be justly blamed or criticised forfollowing the method insisted upon by Congress as the constitutional form and prescript.
In his first annual message President Polk informed Congress that when he came into office he found that Great Britain had proposed to settle the Oregon question by making the divisional line between the possessions of the two Powers, west of the Rocky Mountains, the forty-ninth parallel of latitude to the northeasternmost branch of the Columbia River, and, from this point, the course of the river to the Pacific; that his predecessor had refused this; that he himself had, upon invitation from the British plenipotentiary to make a proposition, offered the forty-ninth parallel from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, although he believed the claim of the United States to the territory up to the parallel of fifty-four degrees and forty minutes to be good; and that this proposition had been rejected by the British minister.
The President further declared that all attempts to compromise with Great Britain had failed, and he recommended that Congress should give the notice, required by the convention of joint occupancy, for the termination of that agreement, as the first step toward asserting the power of the Government over the whole of Oregon. He also recommended the establishment of a line of posts along the Oregon route for the protection of emigrants to Oregon, and the immediate extension of the jurisdiction of the United States Government over the citizens of the United States in Oregon.
This was distinct enough and belligerent enough. The Abolitionists and anti-slavery Whigs, who had been twitting the Administration with indifference about Oregon, now that Texas had been secured, couldcertainly find no fault with the President's attitude toward the question. At any rate, it was a challenge to them which could not be ignored.
Both Houses entered immediately upon the discussion of the question of giving the notice. As the debate progressed the war fever became allayed, and the conviction grew that the claim to the line of fifty-four forty was extravagant. The majority, at least, saw that the claim by occupation and settlement was the right basis for the determination of the dispute, and that this claim would give the United States the territory only to the line of the northern watershed of the Columbia.
This line does, indeed, reach at points above the forty-ninth parallel, but the fact that this parallel was already the divisional line between the possessions of the two Powers from the Great Lakes to the Rockies, and that the United States had already proposed to Great Britain the continuation of this line to the Pacific, produced the general feeling that the United States should be satisfied with the forty-ninth parallel as the northern boundary of Oregon, rather than risk war for the more northern line. Still, the opponents of the Administration had been so quick to charge the President with indifference to the acquisition of territory, upon which non-slaveholding Commonwealths would be established, that they were now fairly ashamed to lag behind him.
Owing to the course taken by the Senate, Congress did not, however, come to any conclusion upon the recommendation of the President until April 23rd, 1846, and then, in the resolution finally passed, it almost emasculated the President's proposition. It empowered the President to give the notice, but explained that the purpose of the same wasto direct the attention of the two Governments toward the adoption of more earnest measures for the amicable settlement of the question, and it threw upon the President the responsibility as to the time of giving the notice, by placing that matter entirely within his discretion.
The President had already reopened negotiations with Great Britain upon the subject, and, on June 10th, he laid before the Senate a proposal, from the British Envoy, of the forty-ninth parallel for the boundary, and asked the Senate to advise him as to whether he should close with the offer. It was not customary to consult the Senate at this point of the negotiations, but there was precedent for it, and the letter of the Constitution appears to warrant it, and the President was determined to retort upon the Senate, for its action in the matter of the notice, by throwing the responsibility upon that body of sacrificing the claims of the United States to territory above the forty-ninth parallel. He plainly informed the Senate that he would reject the offer unless advised by it to accept.
The Senate was fairly caught in its own net, and had the good sense to refrain from a resistance which would have been only an undignified floundering in meshes prepared by itself. On the 12th, the Senate advised the President to accept the British overture. On the 15th, the President signed the treaty, and, on the 18th, the Senate ratified it by a large majority.
Not many realized, at the moment, that the extension of the sovereignty of the United States to the Pacific above the forty-second parallel of north latitude would require the like extension to the south of it. Once across the Rockies it was inevitable that the natural boundary in the southwest, as well as in the northwest, should be ultimately attained. It came sooner than anybody expected.
THE WAR WITH MEXICO
THE WAR WITH MEXICO
Slidell's Mission to Mexico—The Failure of the Mission—The Concentration of the Mexican Forces at Matamoras—The United States Forces Ordered to the Rio Grande—Hostilities Opened—The Battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma—The Attitude of Congress toward the War—Congressional Approval of the War—The Occupation of New Mexico and Upper California, and the Advance into Mexico—California's Importance—The Battle of Buena Vista—Vera Cruz and Cerro Gordo—Contreras, San Antonio, and Cherubusco—The Plan for a Cession of Territory from Mexico—The Wilmot Proviso—The Fate of the Wilmot Proviso in the Senate—The Proviso Again Voted by the House of Representatives—The Upham Amendment in the Senate—The Amendment Defeated by the Efforts of Mr. Cass—The Wilmot Proviso Dropped in the House—The Mission of Mr. Trist—Rejection of Mr. Trist's Propositions by the Mexicans—Negotiations Broken off—Molino del Rey, Chapultepec, Mexico—The Recall of Mr. Trist, and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo—Ratification of the Treaty.
As we have seen, the Mexican Government had announced to the Government of the United States that the annexation of Texas would be regarded by Mexico as acasus belli. Consequently, as soon as the matter was concluded, the Mexican Envoy left Washington, and all diplomatic relations between the two Powers were suspended. Some six months later, President Polk made overtures for the resumption of these relations, and, upon meeting a somewhat friendly response, commissioned Mr. John Slidell, of Louisiana, to go to Mexico and negotiate a treaty, which should settle all the differences between the two Powers.
Mr. Slidell arrived at Vera Cruz on November 30th, 1845, and found that President Herrera's Administration was afraid to receive him, because the military or war party in Mexico, led by General Paredes, was greatly excited by the attitude of the Administration toward the United States, and threatened revolution. The Mexican Government actually refused audience to Mr. Slidell, on December 21st.
Before the end of the year, President Herrera gave way to General Paredes, who assumed the presidency of the Republic, and, under direction from President Polk, Mr. Slidell announced himself to the new Administration. This was March 1st, 1846. On the 12th, he received the refusal of the Paredes Government to give him audience, and immediately left Mexico.
During the summer of 1845, the Mexican Government had begun to collect troops and munitions of war at Matamoras, on the south bank of the Rio Grande near its mouth. The purpose of all this was without question an expedition across the Rio Grande, and into the region north of it.
By an act of the Texan Congress, of December 19th, 1836, the Rio Grande was designated as the southwestern boundary of Texas. The United States took Texas with this boundary, reserving in the resolution of annexation the right of adjusting the Texan boundaries with foreign states. This meant, of course, that the United States might change the boundary which Texas had given herself, as the result of her successful rebellion, her revolution, against Mexico, by an agreement with Mexico, in so far as Texas was concerned. It further meant that any such change must be made either by an act of the Congress of the United States or by a treaty between the United States and Mexico. Until,however, this adjustment should take place, it was the duty of the President of the United States to defend the boundary with which Texas came into the Union. Moreover, Congress had passed an act, on December 31st, 1845, in which Corpus Christi, a town situated on the south side of the river Nueces, was made an United States port of delivery. The town was, also, the head-quarters of the United States army in Texas, and had been so from the period of annexation.
When now the Mexican Government refused to receive Mr. Slidell, and continued to increase the forces at Matamoras, President Polk felt it to be his duty to defend the line of the Rio Grande. On January 13th, he ordered General Taylor, then in command at Corpus Christi, to advance to the northern bank of the Rio Grande. The General, with his little army of about 2,000 men, arrived upon the Rio Grande, at a point opposite Matamoras, on March 28th, and began fortifying his position.
On April 12th, the Mexican commander, General Ampudia, demanded the withdrawal of Taylor's forces within twenty-four hours, and their retirement across the Nueces, under threat of the appeal to arms. Taylor paid no attention to the demand, and, on the 24th, he received notice from General Arista, the successor of Ampudia, that hostilities were opened.
On the same day, a reconnoitring party of United States dragoons encountered a large detachment of Mexican soldiers, who had just crossed the river farther up, and were all killed or captured. General Taylor moved out from Fort Brown, opposite Matamoras, in order to cover his base of supplies at Point Isabel, and, having accomplished this, faced about again to relieve Fort Brown against assault from Matamoras.While executing this movement he found himself, on May 8th, face to face with a Mexican army numbering three times as many men as his own. Nevertheless, he inflicted a crushing defeat upon the Mexicans in this battle of Palo Alto, and struck them again the next day at Resaca de la Palma, routing them completely, and driving the remnants of this once apparently formidable force across the Rio Grande.
As soon as the news of these events reached Washington, the President informed Congress of them, claimed that war existed by the act of Mexican invasion, and asked for the means for its successful prosecution.
From the reception of this message to the end of the War, the Whigs in both Houses condemned the War, but only a few of them voted against furnishing the means for its prosecution. Strangely enough, they were aided by Mr. Calhoun, who opposed the whole war policy from the beginning to the end. He even opposed recognizing the existence of war. He was getting old and more peaceable in disposition, and also had probably seen, with Mr. Thompson, that any further slavery extension toward the Southwest meant the extinction of slavery in the border Commonwealths, and the greater exposure of the planting section to the influences of Abolition. Some of the Whigs claimed that if war existed at all, it was offensive war, and that the President had exceeded his constitutional powers in bringing it on, and should be impeached for so doing.
The truth of this proposition depended, of course, upon the recognition by the United States of Mexico's title to the territory between the Rio Grande and the Nueces, or, at least, upon the recognition of it as a free zone, a proposition difficult to reconcile with the Actsof Congress annexing Texas, and extending the revenue laws of the United States over this very district. The fact is, it was a defensive war at the outset, and if the Mexicans were excited to their move across the Rio Grande by the appearance of United States troops on the northern bank, they had only to thank themselves for bringing them there by previously massing their own troops on the south bank.
Of course the Abolitionists could see nothing in the matter but a wicked scheme for the extension of slavery. Their attitude was, however, too narrow and bigoted to win much attention. And, as the debate on the President's message progressed, it became manifest that all the elements of the opposition were getting deeper and deeper into the quicksands. The bill for recognizing the existence of war, and authorizing the President to call for 50,000 volunteers, and for appropriating $10,000,000 to defray the expenses of the campaign, was passed by an overwhelming majority, in both Houses, on May 11th and 12th, and approved by the President on the 13th.
The President was now, certainly, authorized to carry the War into Mexico, if, indeed, he needed Congressional authority, at all, after the war had been once begun as defensive war. At any rate, General Taylor's occupation of Matamoras did not occur until May 18th, six days after Congress had recognized war.
The President now ordered General Kearny to occupy New Mexico, Commodores Sloat and Stockton to make sure of Upper California, and General Taylor to prosecute the war upon Mexican soil. Kearny, Sloat, and Stockton quickly accomplished the work assigned them, and without much difficulty, and Taylor advanced, in September, from Matamoras upon Monterey. After athree days siege, he captured the place, on the 24th, and established winter-quarters within its walls.
At the same time, General Kearny sent Colonel Doniphan with a detachment of his army to Monterey, by way of Chihuahua, and marched himself with another detachment to San Diego in California. Doniphan's capture of Chihuahua brought the entire southern valley of the upper Rio Grande under the military control of the United States, and Kearny's successful march into California secured that territory against all eventualities.
The occupation of California was the matter of most vital importance to the United States. It is the way to Asia. Its government by Mexico was a farce. It would have been purchased or seized by Great Britain, or some other commercial Power, if the United States had not taken possession of it. Nothing was known of its vast mineral wealth at the time. Mere greed, therefore, did not prompt the movement. It was a great and correct stroke of public policy, supported by geographical, commercial, and political reasons.
Still Mexico would not yield, and the Administration at Washington now determined to carry the war into the very vitals of the Mexican state. The campaign against the Mexican capital, by way of Vera Cruz, was now resolved on, and General Scott was directed to execute it.
Santa Anna, who had now arrived in Mexico again from Cuba, and had again taken up the reins of government, thought that the army of General Scott would be unable to capture Vera Cruz without a long and painful siege, and planned to advance rapidly from the capital with the main body of his army to the north, crush Taylor, and return to the capital before Scott could pass Vera Cruz.
On February 20th, 1847, General Taylor, whose advance was now some hundred miles to the southwest ofMonterey, suddenly discovered a large Mexican force in front of him. It was Santa Anna, with about twenty thousand of his best troops. Taylor ordered his little army of about five thousand men to retire for a few miles, and take position on the rising ground at Buena Vista. The Mexicans soon caught up, and on the 23rd, Santa Anna demanded unconditional surrender. Taylor promptly declined, and the battle immediately opened. Both sides knew the serious character of the wager. California, New Mexico, and, perhaps, a large part of Texas were staked upon the issue. Before the day closed, Taylor and his little army had won a complete victory, and the Mexicans were in full retreat, after the loss of some two thousand men. Taylor lost about eight hundred men. With this the campaign in the north was closed, and attention turned almost exclusively to the operations of General Scott.
On March 9th, General Scott effected a landing near Vera Cruz, and on the 29th captured that city. He immediately took up his line of march for the city of Mexico.
The first great difficulty which he was compelled to encounter was, naturally, the forcing of the mountain pass of Cerro Gordo, through which the national road from Vera Cruz to the city of Mexico led. Santa Anna had gathered here an army of some fifteen thousand men, and had thrown up strong earthworks commanding the defile. On the morning of April 18th, General Scott stormed the heights of Cerro Gordo, and in a sanguinary battle routed the Mexicans completely. Some three thousand Mexicans were captured, with five thousand muskets and forty-three pieces of artillery. Scott's loss was not over four hundred men. Jalapa, Perote, and Puebla fell into his hands as the immediate consequences of this victory.