General Scott rested his army for two months at Puebla, and in the beginning of August resumed his march upon the capital, with an army of about eleven thousand men. On the 18th, he arrived within ten miles of the city, and found himself confronted by an army of nearly thirty thousand men, commanded by President Santa Anna himself.
On the morning of the 19th, the struggle began, and lasted through the 20th. Three distinct battles were fought—Contreras, San Antonio, and Cherubusco. The Mexicans outnumbered Scott's army three to one, and fought desperately to save their capital, but all to no avail. After killing, wounding, and capturing between seven and eight thousand Mexicans, General Scott dispersed the remainder of their army and opened his way into the city. The General was willing, however, to save the proud Mexicans from the humiliation of seeing their capital in the hands of the invader, and agreed to an armistice for the purpose of negotiating a peace.
On August 8th, 1846, President Polk had asked of Congress that two millions of dollars be placed at his disposal for use in negotiating a treaty of peace with Mexico. It was quite evident from this that the President was going to demand a large cession of territory from Mexico. Mexico had not yet paid any of the claims awarded by the Claims Commission of 1840 to the citizens of the United States. There were also millions of dollars of claims unadjudged. And then there was the war indemnity, which would undoubtedly be required. Two millions of dollars, in addition to all this, to be paid by the victorious party for peace, could mean nothing less, or other, than a vast territorial cession from the vanquished. It was evident to all that California and New Mexico, already in the possession ofthe United States, must constitute the sacrifice which Mexico must make.
Mr. McKay, of North Carolina, immediately introduced into the House of Representatives a bill making the appropriation asked by the President. Discussion upon the bill was scarcely under way, when a Northern Democrat, a supporter of the War and of the policy of territorial extension, Mr. David Wilmot, of Pennsylvania, moved to amend the bill by inserting in it the condition that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude should exist in any territory acquired by treaty from Mexico. The House passed the bill, with the Wilmot proviso, as it was termed, on the day of its introduction, August 8th. Territorial extension, but not slavery extension, was its principle, and therefore the South voted almost solidly against it. The bill appeared in the Senate on the 10th, which was the last day of the session, and was still under discussion when the hour for the adjournment of the bodysine diearrived. It was thought by some competent judges that the Senate would have passed the bill, if it had then come to a vote, and would have thus settled, at the outset, the question of slavery extension; but this is at least doubtful. At the moment, the South had four more votes in the Senate than the North, and it is probable that the Whig Senators from the South would have united with their Democratic brethren upon this question.
At the beginning of the session of 1846-47, the President again preferred his request for an appropriation for the same purpose, and during the month of January, 1847, bills were introduced into the two Houses, providing an appropriation of three millions of dollars for the President's use in his negotiations with Mexico.
When the House took up its bill for consideration, on February 1st, Mr. Wilmot immediately asked permission to move the attachment of his proviso to the appropriation, and made a strong argument in favor of the same. On the 15th, the proviso was again voted, but by a reduced majority. The members from the South voted, this time, solidly against it. A few Northern Democrats voted with them; among these was Stephen A. Douglas.
On March 1st, Senator Upham, of Vermont, introduced an amendment to the Senate bill, of the same tenor as the Wilmot proviso in the House, and urged its adoption in a strong and convincing argument. It really seemed as if the victory for Free-soil in the new acquisitions, whatever they might be, was about to be won, when, to the surprise of at least a considerable number of the Senators, General Cass, of Michigan, who was thought to have indicated his favor to the Wilmot proviso at the last session, made a determined effort against Mr. Upham's motion. Mr. Cass declared the measure premature, and contended that its only effect, if passed, at the moment would be to weaken the Government by internal dissensions upon the slavery question, and consequently encourage the Mexicans to continue the War. He urged the Senators to stand solidly together for the vigorous prosecution of the War to its successful close, and then, after the peace, take up the internal questions arising out of the settlement. The Senate rejected Mr. Upham's amendment, passed the bill without it, and, on the last day of the session, the House accepted the bill as it passed the Senate. Mr. Cass's idea that the anti-slavery proviso would embarrass the President in his negotiations with Mexico, and wouldencourage the Mexicans to continue the War seems to have convinced the House as well as the Senate.
The President had now the tacit consent of Congress to the acquisition of California and New Mexico, and the means to pay for them in hand. And the greater military successes of General Scott from Vera Cruz to the Mexican capital prepared the way for the President to make use of his power.
The President sent Mr. N. P. Trist, of Virginia, to the head-quarters of General Scott with the draft of a treaty to be offered the Mexican Government. It designated the Rio Grande from the Gulf to the point where the River touched the line of New Mexico as the boundary between Mexico and the United States from the Gulf to that point, and provided for the cession of New Mexico and the Californias to the United States, and the privilege of the right of way across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Mr. Trist was instructed, however, that he might withdraw the demands for Lower California and for the right of way across the Isthmus, and might also offer a payment of money, if he should find these things necessary.
After the armistice of August 24th, the Mexican Government sent commissioners to meet Mr. Trist. They promptly rejected Mr. Trist's propositions, and offered, as their ultimatum, the Nueces boundary, the cession of Upper California above the thirty-seventh parallel of latitude for a pecuniary consideration, the payment by the United States of an indemnity for private injuries inflicted by the United States troops during the invasion, etc. Nothing, moreover, was said in their offer concerning the claims of the citizens of the United States against Mexico.
The proposals were so far apart, and the Mexicansbore themselves with so much arrogance, that the negotiations were broken off, the armistice was terminated, and General Scott resumed military operations. On September 8th, he inflicted a crushing defeat upon the Mexicans at Molino del Rey. On the 13th, he stormed successfully the heights of Chapultepec and two gates of the city. And on the 14th, he captured the city.
President Polk now recalled Mr. Trist, and informed Congress of the failure of the negotiations, at the same time intimating that the policy of the Administration would be warà outrance. The opposition to the Administration in Congress declared that the total dismemberment of the Mexican Republic was intended, and raised their voices against it. The outcry helped the Administration, in that it called the attention of the Mexicans to the great danger they were incurring in not accepting the terms of peace which had been offered them.
Mr. Trist did not, however, return to the United States, but waited in and around the City of Mexico for something to turn up. It seems that he did not even acquaint the Mexican Government with the fact of his recall. In the latter part of January, 1848, the Mexican commissioners approached him, and, on February 2nd, they signed with him, at Guadalupe Hidalgo, a treaty of peace, which provided for the Rio Grande boundary between the two Powers, the cession of New Mexico and Upper California to the United States, the payment of $15,000,000 by the United States to Mexico, and the assumption by the United States of all the obligations of Mexico to citizens of the United States incurred before the conclusion of the Treaty.
Mr. Trist immediately took the proposed Treaty toWashington, and President Polk immediately laid it before the Senate for ratification. After three weeks of determined opposition by Senators from both parties and both sections, ratification was voted by the requisite two-thirds majority, on March 16th, 1848. With this the whole political energy of the nation was turned away from the international question to the internal questions involved in the organization of the vast territorial empire upon the Pacific, which had now been added to the United States by the Treaties with Great Britain and Mexico.
THE ORGANIZATION OF OREGON TERRITORY AND THE COMPROMISE OF 1850
THE ORGANIZATION OF OREGON TERRITORY AND THE COMPROMISE OF 1850
Bills for Oregon Territory—Thirty-six Degrees and Thirty Minutes to the Pacific—Mr. Rhett on the Rights of the South in the Territories—The Third Oregon Bill—The Party Platforms of 1848—The President Urges the Organization of California and New Mexico—Mr. Clayton's Attempt at Compromise—Passage of the Oregon Bill by Congress—The Free-soil Party in 1848—The President's Approval of the Oregon Bill—Gold and Silver in California—The Election of Taylor, and the Disaffection of the Northern Democrats—Plans for the Organization of California and New Mexico—The House Bill for the Territorial Organization of Upper California—Mr. Walker's Scheme in the House—Mr. Webster and Mr. Berrien on the Status of Slavery in the Territory Acquired from Mexico—Emigration to California—President Taylor's Scheme—The Convention at Monterey—The Policy of the Administration—The Policy of the Slavery Extensionists—The Elements of the Slavery Question in Congress—Mr. Clay's Plan of Compromise—Objections to Mr. Clay's Plan—California's Application for Admission—Mr. Calhoun's Last Speech—Mr. Webster's March 7th Speech—Mr. Bell's Proposition—The Death of Mr. Calhoun—Mr. Foote's Motion and the Committee of Thirteen—The Report and Recommendations of the Committee—The Debate Upon the Bills Proposed by the Committee, and the Failure to Pass Them—The Temper of the Country—The Succession of Fillmore and His Message of August 6th—The Passage of Bills, Separately, Covering All Questions Contained in Mr. Clay's Compromise Measures.
On August 6th, 1846, Mr. Douglas, of Illinois, chairman of the committee on Territories, asked the Houseof Representatives to consider a bill prepared by that committee for the organization of Oregon as a Territory. The House consented, and immediately upon the second reading of the bill, Mr. Thompson, of Pennsylvania, a Democrat and friend of the Administration, moved to amend the bill by the provision "that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist in said Territory, except for crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted." The amendment was adopted by a very large majority, and the bill, as thus amended, was passed. On the following day, the bill was presented in the Senate, and referred by that body to its Judiciary committee, which committee did not report the bill during the session.
At the beginning of the next session, Mr. Douglas introduced a new bill for the same purpose. This bill virtually contained the Thompson amendment in the proviso that all the restrictions in the Ordinance of 1787, in regard to the Northwest Territory, should apply to Oregon.
On January 12th, 1847, Mr. Burt, of South Carolina, moved to insert before this proviso the words, "inasmuch as the whole of the said Territory lies north of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes north latitude, known as the line of the Missouri Compromise." The purpose of this was, of course, to commit Congress and the North to that line to the Pacific. This was so evident that the Northern members voted the amendment down. We can, however, hardly charge the invention of this idea to the South Carolinian. On August 8th preceding, Mr. Wick, of Indiana, had moved to amend the Wilmot proviso, so as to make it read, that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude should exist, in any territoryacquired from Mexiconorth of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes.
It was during the debate on this bill, just after Mr. Burt's amendment had been rejected, that Mr. Rhett, of South Carolina, made his noted speech, in which the new view, which the South was now beginning to take upon the rights of the two sections in the Territories, was first pronounced. That view was, briefly expressed, that the "States" were joint owners of the Territories, and "co-Sovereigns" in them; that the general Government was only the agent of the "States" therein, and had only the power "to dispose of, and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory, or other property of the United States," from which power, the power to determine in what property should consist within the Territories could not be derived; and that the "ingress of the citizen" of any "State" into any Territory, "is the ingress of his Sovereign," his "State," who is bound to protect him in his settlement.
Mr. Rhett qualified this conclusion by saying that it did not mean that each "State" should set up government in the Territories over its citizens immigrating into them, but that it meant that the citizens of each "State" should have equal right to enter the Territories and settle and occupy them with their property, with whatever was recognized as property by their respective "States." Stated more clearly, it meant that the general Government must execute the laws of each "State;" defining and protecting property, in each Territory of the Union—of each "State" from which citizens had emigrated into the Territory concerned—and must execute these several "State" laws over the immigrants from the several "States" separately.
In plain, blunt Anglo-Saxon, it meant that the general Government must recognize and protect, as property, in any Territory, anything which was so recognized and protected by any "State" of the Union. It meant the establishment of slavery in every Territory of the Union.
This was a new doctrine in 1847, and it could not immediately prevail, but its appearance is a mark of the progress which the political system of the United States was making toward confederatism and dissolution.
The bill passed the House on January 16th, 1847, by a vote of nearly four to one, and was immediately sent to the Senate. The Senate referred it to its Judiciary committee. The committee reported on it, and the bill was laid on the table, the last day of the session.
During the next session, bills were introduced into both Houses for organizing Oregon as a Territory. On January 10th, 1848, Mr. Douglas, who had been transferred from the House to the Senate, presented in the Senate a bill for the organization of a Territorial government for Oregon, which provided, among other things, that the laws which the Oregon settlers had constructed for themselves should, in so far as they were compatible with the Constitution and laws of the United States, remain in force until the Territorial legislature should change them. These laws excluded slavery. Here was the germ of "squatter-sovereignty," afterward developed by Mr. Douglas in his Kansas-Nebraska bill.
The House bill, containing substantially the same provision as the bill of the preceding session, was introduced on February 9th, 1848, but this time it met with much more opposition, and the discussion on it revealed the fact that Mr. Rhett's doctrine had, within the year, made many converts.
The bills were dragging along slowly in both Houses, when, on May 29th, the President sent a special message to Congress urging immediate action on the subject. This gave some impetus to the proceedings in both Houses.
On May 21st, Mr. Hale, of New Hampshire, moved to amend the Senate bill by a provision excluding slavery, and insisted upon the power and the duty of Congress to settle the question of slavery in the Territories, and to settle it in the interest of freedom. The debate in the Senate upon Mr. Hale's motion was long and acrimonious, during which the Southerners advanced to more and more radical ground, until Mr. Calhoun and his disciple, Mr. Jefferson Davis, expressed the same constitutional doctrine upon the subject of the extension of slavery to the Territories as Mr. Rhett had done, which was, in brief, that neither Congress nor the inhabitants of a Territory had any constitutional power to abolish slavery in, or exclude it from, a Territory. On June 23rd, Mr. Davis moved to amend the Oregon bill by the provision that nothing in the bill should be so construed as to authorize the prohibition of domestic slavery in said Territory while it remained in the condition of a Territory. The direct contradiction between the two amendments expressed, at last, the difference of attitude now assumed between the North and the South upon the question of the extension of slavery.
It cannot be said, however, that it represented the difference of attitude of the two great parties upon the subject. The National conventions of these parties for the nominations of candidates for the presidency had just been held. The convention of the Democratic party had refused to insert the declaration in its platform that Congress had nopower to interfere with slavery in the Territories, in spite of the fact that the candidate nominated by it, General Cass, had acknowledged a leaning to something akin to that view, some five months previous, in a letter to Mr. Nicholson, of Tennessee, which was probably intended for circulation in the South. The exact wording of Mr. Cass' letter does not warrant us in representing him as holding to anything more, at that time, than that it was sound policy for Congress to leave the matter of the admission of slavery to, or its exclusion from, the Territories to the people of the Territories themselves. It was hardly time for Northern men to take the view of Congressional impotence in the matter held by Messrs. Rhett, Calhoun, and Davis.
On the other hand, the convention of the Whig party had refused to make the principle of the Wilmot proviso a plank in its platform, in fact had dodged the whole question of principles by adopting no platform at all, and by nominating a military man, with no political record at all, for its candidate, the old hero of Buena Vista, General Taylor.
The contradiction of view upon the question of the extension of slavery to the Territories was, thus, not one between the parties, but one between the sections. The parties were yet to be transformed by the differences between the sections. That this was to be the outcome no far-seeing eye ought then to have failed to perceive.
For a fortnight more the confusion produced by the contradictory propositions of Mr. Hale and Mr. Davis paralyzed the efforts of the Senate to pass the Oregon bill, when, on July 6th, 1848, the President sent a special message to Congress urging the immediate organization of Territorial governments for California and New Mexico,which were still under the military régime established at the time of their occupation.
It appeared to some of the Senators that here was now offered the opportunity for settling the whole question of the extension of slavery to the Territories, by compromise; and, on July 12th, Mr. Bright, of Indiana, moved to refer the whole matter of the organization of Territorial governments in Oregon, California, and New Mexico, to a select committee, composed of four Whigs and four Democrats, two of each party from the North and the South, respectively. Mr. Bright's motion was in the form of an amendment or suggestion to a motion made by Mr. Clayton, that the Oregon bill be referred to such a committee. Mr. Clayton accepted Mr. Bright's modification of his motion, and the Senate immediately voted the resolution, and appointed the committee, with Mr. Clayton as chairman.
On the 18th, Mr. Clayton reported the bill from his committee, which provided for the organization of Oregon, with its existing anti-slavery laws, and with the recognition of the power to the Territorial legislature to change them; and for the organization of California and New Mexico, referring the question of the legality of slavery in them to the Territorial courts, with appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States, as a constitutional question. That is, the proposition with reference to slavery in California and New Mexico was, that slaveholders might take their slaves into these Territories upon their own responsibility, and that if any slaveholder should be disturbed in the possession of his slave, he might bring an action in the Territorial courts against the party disturbing him, with the right of appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States, which final tribunal should determine the question as a matterof constitutional law, and, therefore, upon its own independent interpretation of the Constitution.
The Senate debated this bill for a week, during which time the flimsy character of the makeshifts became painfully apparent. The Senate passed the bill, however, on the 26th, and sent it to the House.
The House rejected it, and proceeded with its own bill, and, on August 2nd, passed the latter by a strict sectional vote, and sent it to the Senate for concurrence.
On the 10th, the Senate passed this bill, with an amendment, proposed by Mr. Douglas, extending the Missouri Compromise line of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes to the Pacific. The House immediately rejected the amendment, and the Senate was compelled to recede, or let Oregon go without Territorial government. It wisely voted, on the 12th, to recede from its amendment, and passed the bill, with the Congressional prohibition of slavery, and without compromise as to the settlement of the slavery question in California and New Mexico. Among the Senators who changed their votes upon the amendment were Douglas from the North, and Benton and Houston from the South.
The feeling aroused outside of Congress by the contest within the body was most intense, and had, for its permanent result the organization of the Anti-slavery-extension party. It called itself then the "Free-soil" party. It held a National convention at Buffalo, New York, on August 9th, and nominated Mr. Van Buren for the presidency, on a platform which distinctly affirmed the power of Congress to exclude slavery from the Territories, and its duty to exercise the power. Here was, at last, theprinciple and the party of the future. Those who composed it held to the Union and the Government, vindicated the national character of both, and while they denied none of the constitutional rights of the Southern Commonwealths, and none of the compromises of the Constitution with the slaveholders, yet they refused to allow the great evil under which the country suffered to spread into regions uncontaminated by it.
The President signed the Oregon bill, on August 14th, for the reason, he said, among other reasons, that it preserved the principle of the Missouri Compromise, making the territory north of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes free soil. And in his message of December 5th, following, he urged the speedy organization of California and New Mexico, either upon that principle, or upon the principle of non-interference by Congress with the question of slaveholding in them, or upon the basis of an appeal of the question to the Supreme Court of the United States, which body should interpret the Constitution upon the subject. He said he believed the first way contained the true principle, and was the fair thing, but that he was willing to proceed in either of the other two ways.
At the same time, the President gave official verification to the rumors of the discovery of great quantities of gold and silver in California, which quickened the emigration of the bold and adventurous spirits from all parts of the country to the new El Dorado.
The temper of Congress against slavery extension was even stronger in the session of 1848-49, than in the preceding session. The Whig majority in the House of Representatives remained, and now came a support to the anti-slavery-extension principle of the NorthernWhigs from Northern Democrats, which had not been before accorded. The elections of 1848 had greatly surprised the Northern Democrats. The Whig candidate, General Taylor, carried a majority of the Southern Commonwealths, and was chosen President. The Democrats of the North considered that they had been left in the lurch by the Democrats of the South, and came to the session of 1848-49 with revenge in their hearts. They were disposed to join hands with the Northern Whigs against the extension of slavery into any more of the Territories of the Union. This spirit was, however, far more manifest in the House of Representatives than in the Senate. On December 11th, 1848, Mr. Douglas brought into the Senate a plan for avoiding the question in respect to slavery in California and New Mexico, by immediately erecting the whole of the territory acquired from Mexico into a single Commonwealth, and reserving the right to Congress to create new Commonwealths in that part of this territory lying east of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. This proposition was referred to the Judiciary committee for report; but before the report was presented Mr. Smith, of Indiana, chairman of the committee on Territories, brought in bills for the organization of Upper California and New Mexico, with the slavery restriction of the Ordinance of 1787 in them. On January 9th, 1849, Mr. Berrien, chairman of the Judiciary committee, reported adversely upon Mr. Douglas' proposition, on the grounds, alleged by him, that Congress could not create a Commonwealth, but could only admit a Commonwealth into the Union after it had been created by the sovereign act of the people residing in it, for the performance of which act the status of Territorial organization was necessary, and that Congress could neverconstitutionally disconnect from any Commonwealth any portion of its territory for the purpose of forming it into another Commonwealth, without the consent of the Commonwealth itself.
Mr. Douglas immediately modified his bill so as to meet the latter objection; and on January 24th, offered a substitute for his former proposition, which provided for a Commonwealth of California that would not quite cover the territory which the Mexicans included under the title of the Province of Upper California. On Mr. Douglas' own motion, this proposition was referred to a select committee, of which he was appointed chairman; and, on the 29th, he reported a bill from the committee for forming the territory acquired from Mexico into two Commonwealths, to be called California and New Mexico; but the Senate showed so much opposition to the project that it was dropped. More than half the session had now passed, and the Senate appeared to be farther than ever from any consensus in regard to what should be done for California and New Mexico. It was a serious condition of things. The inhabitants of these Territories were importunately demanding the establishment of civil government over them for the protection of life, liberty, and property, and Congress was apparently to do nothing for them during the current session.
On February 19th, Mr. Walker, of Wisconsin, came forward in the Senate with an expedient. He moved to attach to the Civil and Diplomatic Appropriation Bill a provision for extending the Constitution, and the laws of the United States naturally applicable, over all the territory acquired from Mexico, and for authorizing the President to make all needful rules and regulations, and to appoint civil officials, for their execution. The Senate passed this amendment,and sent the Appropriation Bill thus modified back to the House for concurrence.
Meanwhile the bill in the House for the Territorial organization of Upper California, with the slavery prohibition clause in it, was proceeding through a most exciting debate, but with increasing prospect of final passage. On February 27th, it was passed, by an almost sectional vote, and sent to the Senate. The Senate referred it to its committee on Territories, and there it slept as in "the tomb of all the Capulets."
On March 1st, the House took up the Senate's amendment to the Civil and Diplomatic Appropriation Bill, and referred it to the committee on Ways and Means. This committee reported, on March 2nd, an amendment to the Senate's amendment, which provided for the continuance of the status of military possession and of the Mexican laws in all the territory acquired from Mexico, until six months after the close of the next session of Congress. The purpose of this amendment was the continuance of the Mexican law excluding slavery. The House did not, however, adopt this proposition, but sent the Appropriation Bill back to the Senate stripped of the Senate's amendment. The Senate asked a conference upon the subject, which was granted by the House, but the Conference committee could come to no agreement.
The House now passed the proposition of the Ways and Means committee, slightly modified in form, and sent it to the Senate. Mr. Webster moved concurrence with the House in this proposition, and said that it meant no more than the existing status, which would continue if nothing were done. Mr. Berrien contended, on the contrary, that only the private law of the ceding country,the law regulating the relations between individuals, remains in force in the territory ceded, until changed by the positive acts of the country receiving the cession; that the public law of the receiving country is extended at once, by virtue of the occupation, over the cession; and that slavery was a part of the public law of the United States, since both the system of taxation and that of representation rested in part upon it. Mr. Berrien concluded from these postulates of international and constitutional law that, if Congress did nothing in the premises, the President would continue to administer, by means of his military officials, the private law of Mexico, and the public law of the United States, in the territory acquired from Mexico, and that this would allow slaveholders to take their slaves into this territory, and hold them in slavery; but that if Congress, by a positive enactment, should adopt the Mexican laws,en bloc,for this territory, slavery would be thereby excluded from it. In a word, he demonstrated, or thought he did, that the proposition of the House of Representatives contained the principle of the Wilmot proviso. The Senate was so deeply impressed by Mr. Berrien's argument, and so much opposition to the proposition of the House was manifested, that Mr. Webster offered to withdraw his motion, if the Southerners would agree to recede from the Senate's amendment. The bargain was struck, and the Thirtieth Congress expired without having done anything for the governmental organization of California and New Mexico, and without having advanced, in the slightest measure, toward the solution of the fateful question of slavery extension in the vast empire conquered from Mexico.
The official announcement made by President Polk of the mineral wealth of California had increased the excitement for emigration thither to a fever, and by theclose of the spring of 1849, California had a population within her provincial limits numerous enough, according to prevailing conceptions, to make a Commonwealth.