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THE WAR WITH IVTEXICO. 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 HON. A. H. SEYIEE, OF ARKANSAS, 
 
 IN THE SENATE OF TFIE UNITED STATES, JANUARY 4, 1848, 
 
 On the Bill reported from the Committee on Military Jlffairs to raise, for a limited time, 
 
 an additional Military Force. 
 
 Mr. SEVIER said: 
 
 Mr. President: If the discussion with which 
 we have been honored for the last two or three 
 weeks had been confined to the merits of the bill 
 which proposes to add ten regiments to our mili- 
 tary establishment in Mexico, it is very certain 
 that I should have taken no part in this debate. 
 My inexperience, practically and in theory in mili- 
 tary affairs, would have been my apology for my 
 silence. It is not my purpose now to dwell at any 
 length upon the merits of this bill. I shall vote 
 for it, because such a measure has been asked of 
 us by the proper constitutional authorities of our 
 country, to whom belong the management of all 
 our wars; and because it has been favorably re- 
 commended by the experienced and intelligent 
 gentlemen of the Military Committee, to whom 
 the investigation of such a subject properly be- 
 longs. I shall vote for it, because I regard it as 
 an essential measure to obtain, what we all profess 
 so much to desire, a speedy and permanent peace 
 with Mexico; and until that peace shall be had, as 
 a wise financial arrangement, by which our treas- 
 ury will be relieved, to a sensible extent, from 
 the burdens which this war has thrown upon it. 
 For these general reasons, avoiding all details, I 
 shall vote tor the bill with great pleasure. 
 
 My chief object in addressing you to-day, sir, 
 is to defend the President, for whom I feel a high 
 personal regard, and the party of which he is at 
 present the representative, and to which I belong, 
 from the unmerited censures which have been cast 
 upon both in reference to the origin of this war, its 
 mode of prosecution, and its ultimate objects. 
 Upon each of these three points, upon which we 
 have had such eloquent and elaborate discourses, 
 I purpose, if my health and strength will sustain 
 me, to make some observations. 
 
 The causes which led to this war have been 
 properly described as being immediate, and, more 
 or less, remote. The immediate cause of the war, 
 if the message of the President, if the report of 
 General Taylor, and our own journals, are to be 
 credited, is to be found in the attack made by the 
 Mexican army upon the commands of Captains 
 Thornton and Hardee, on the 24lh of April, 1846, 
 on the. east side of the Rio Grande, about fifty 
 miles above Fort Brown, in which sixteen soldiers 
 of the army of the United States were killed or 
 wounded, and the residue of the detachment, con- 
 sisting in all of sixty-three men and officers, were 
 captured by the army of Mexico, and carried off 
 by their captors in triumph to the city of Mata- 
 
 Pfiiited at tlie Congressional Globe Otflce. 
 
 moro3. Upon the report of General Taylor of 
 this affliir, under date of the 26th of April, the 
 President predicated his war message of the 11th 
 of May; and upon this message, accompanied by 
 this report, we passed the act of the 13th of May 
 recognizing the war with Mexico. 
 
 The remote causes of the war have been traced 
 to the acquisition of Louisiana in 1803 — to the 
 cession of Texas to Spain in 1819 — to the violation 
 of the treaty of 1839, on the part of Mexico, which ^ 
 provided for the adjustment and payment of the 
 claims of our citizens by Mexico — and to the col- 
 onization of Texas, its revolution, independence,, 
 and, finally, its admission into this Union. In any 
 of these causes, whatever may have been their in- 
 fluence, singly or collectively, in producing this 
 war, the President had not the slightest agency. 
 When Louisiana was acquired, he was a minor; 
 when Texas was ceded to Spain, he was a very 
 young man and not in our councils; when the 
 treaty of 1839 was violated by Mexico, he was 
 acting as the Governor of a distant State; and the 
 reselutions for the annexation of Texas were 
 passed in the time of President Tyler, and before 
 he came into power. 
 
 Yet I am free to confess that the party to which 
 he belongs have had, in their day and generation, 
 a good deal to do with all of those questions. The 
 party to which I refer acquired Louisiana, pur- 
 chased the Floridas, obtained the treaty for the 
 settlement of the claims of our citizens by Mex- 
 ico, and, finally, for good or for evil, the same 
 party have brought Texas back into this Union, 
 where, at all hazards and at any sacrifices, they 
 intend to keep her, and every part and parcel of 
 her. And while upon this subject I may add, 
 that if any territory is acquired of Mexico as the 
 penalty of this war, the country will be indebt- 
 ed for such acquisition to the same party; as it 
 is already indebted for every territorial addition 
 which has been made to the country since the war 
 of independence, and that these acquisitions have 
 been made in the face of opposition as violent 
 as the opposition which is now encountered, and 
 against objections very similar to those which are 
 now made. 
 
 Sir, before passing sentence of condemnation 
 upon the policy of the President, and particularly 
 upon those grave questions, upon which we have 
 had such merciless reviews, I think truth and jus- 
 tice alike require that we should look at the con- 
 dition of the country, at home and abroad, in 
 refei-ence to these great questions, at the time that 
 
 ^ 
 
the President came into power on the 4th of March, 
 1845. On that day it was his fortune to iulierit 
 from his predecessors, tlie settlement of two grave 
 questions, in which otiier countries than our own 
 claimed an interest. One of these was the Texas 
 question, and the other, the Oregon controversy. 
 One affecting the pride and interest of Mexico, and 
 the other the pride and interest of England; and 
 both, the pride and interest of the United States. 
 
 After all that has occurred, I hope I shall be 
 pardoned for glancing at the rise, progress, and 
 maturity of these twin sisters, and of their influ- 
 ences in England and in Mexico, and of both 
 against the United Stales, until the one was ami- 
 cably settled by the treaty of June, 1846, and until 
 the other involved us in the war in which we are 
 now engaged. 
 
 Sir, we all know that, after the successful revolt 
 of Mexico from Spain, Texas was colonized by 
 citizens from the United States, at the instance, 
 in the first place, of Iturbide, her Emperor, and 
 afterwards, at the instance of the Republic of Mex- 
 ico. This policy of colonization was a wise one, 
 and in imitation of the policy of Spain and France, 
 when those Powers held possessions on this con- 
 tinent. We all know that, in the course of events 
 in that country, of which I need not speak, Texas 
 revolted from Mexico, and that her revolution 
 was successful; that her independence followed, 
 and that that independence was afterwards ac- 
 knowledged by England, France, Belgium, and 
 the United States. We all know that, after she 
 had achieved her independence, Texas twice ap- 
 
 Jlied — first under the administration of President 
 ackson, and afterwards under that of President 
 Van Buren — for admission into this Union; and 
 that each of those applications, out of deference 
 to Mexico, and out of deference to the opinions of 
 the world, were refused. In 1843, for reasons 
 which I need not fully go into, Texas was invited 
 by the Government of the United States to cf me 
 into this Union. Security to southern institutions 
 was one of the inducements on the part of the Uni- 
 ted States. Trade, commerce, navigation, the 
 extension of our territorial domain in a desirable 
 direction, security to the Union in its most vulner- 
 able point, and the monopoly of southern products, 
 upon which the chief Powers of Europe depend- 
 ed, and which dependence was regarded as more 
 efficient, and cheap, and safe for the preservation 
 of our peace, than standing armies, were the other 
 inducements to that measure. 
 
 Texas came upon our invitation, and, in 1844, 
 entered into a treaty with the Government of the 
 United States, by which she agreed to give up her 
 sovereignty and independence, and become one of 
 the Slates of this Confederacy. That treaty was 
 submitted to the Senate for its ratification, and met 
 with very determined and zealous opposition in 
 this Chamber — the entire voice of one party, then 
 in the majority, and a respectable portion of the 
 other, were against it. The conflict of opinion 
 between the advocates and opponents of the treaty, 
 created a good deal of excitement. In the midst 
 of our discussion upon it, a copy of that treaty, 
 with the documents accompanymg it, without the 
 sanction of the Senate, found its way into the 
 columns of the public press of the country. The 
 publicity of that treaty, with the documents which 
 belonged to it, carried into the country the ex- 
 citement which had been created in the Senate in 
 
 regard to it. The time of these occurrences was 
 in the spring of 1844, and but a few weeks before 
 the assemblage of the two conventions at Baltimore 
 of the two great parties of this country for the selec- 
 tion of their candidates for the offices of President 
 and Vice President of the United Stales. Cotem- 
 poraneously with these occurrences, the two distin- 
 guished and acknowledged leaders of these great 
 parties simultaneously came out against the treaty 
 and the immediate annexation oif Texas to this 
 Union. These letters added to the excitement then 
 prevailing in the country. The conventions met. 
 The Whig convention nominated, as it ought to have 
 done, their distinguished leader, eminently quali- 
 fied as fully imbodying in himself the principles of 
 that party, including Uieir hostility to the treaty, 
 and to the immediate annexation of Texas. The 1 
 other convention, on account of the supposed j 
 heresy of their chief in reference to the Texas |. 
 question, superseded him, and nominated anotherf 
 favorable to the Texas issues. The treaty was 
 rejected, but the issue was made up and presented 
 to the country for its decision at the ballot-box. 
 That issue was decided in November, 1844, and 
 in favor of the Texas candidate. Mr. Tyler had 
 yet one session of Congress left under which to 
 administer the affairs of this country. In this 
 short fragment of his term, a joint lesolution for 
 the annexation of Texas was introduced in the 
 House of Representatives by a prominent Whig 
 of the State of Tennessee. That resolution re- 
 newed the excitement upon this Texas question. 
 It passed ultimately by nearly a party vote. All 
 the Whig party, I believe, but three or four from' 
 the State of Tennessee, voted against it. That reso- 
 lution came to the Senate, and brought with it the 
 excitement from the Plouse. It was referred to 
 our Committee on Foreign Relations, and that 
 committee reported adversely upon it. The friends 
 of the House resolution, to save the measure, were 
 forced into a compromise with their friends. This 
 compromise was made by adding to the House 
 resolutions, as an alternative proposition, the reso- 
 lution which had been offered by the Senator from 
 Missouri, [Mr. Benton.] At the proper stage of 
 the proceedings this amendment was offered, for 
 which every Democrat voted, and against which 
 every Whig but three (Johnson of Louisiana, 
 Merrick of Maryland, and Henderson of Missis- 
 sippi,) cast their votes. The amendment having 
 been adopted, the final vote came on. And who 
 that was here at that time can ever forget it? It was 
 at night. The House had adjourned, and I be- 
 lieve every member of i^ was here witnessing our 
 proceedings. Our galleries were crowded until 
 they could be crowded no more; every door, and 
 window, and avenue to our Chamber was filled 
 with eager and anxious spectators. Every resi- 
 dent representative of any foreign Power or State 
 was also here, and among the rest the minister from 
 Mexico. Any material change in the resolutions 
 was known to be fatal to the whole measure, anJ 
 several were proposed. Democracy was then in a 
 minority in this body. Every Senator was in his 
 place, and justly felt his rissponsibi'ity. Every- 
 thing, in short, depended upon the firmness and 
 courage with which Johnson of Louisiana, Mer- 
 rick of Maryland, and Henderson of Mississippi, 
 could and would resist the importunities of some 
 and withstand the deiumciations of others of their 
 political fiiends. In this moment of hope and 
 
fear, involving such interests to the United States 
 and the future fate of the Republic of Texas, the 
 vote was taken, and the resolution, as amended, 
 was carried by a vote of 27 to 25. The resolutions 
 were sent to the House and the anDendment con- 
 curred in, and on the 1st of March approved by 
 President Tyler, and on the 3d of that month was 
 sent a messenger to Texas with the resolutions, and 
 the first of the two offered to Texas for her accept- 
 ance, and on the night succeeding that day the term 
 of President Tyler and of the session of the Con- 
 gress that passed these resolutions expiredtogether. 
 On the 4ih of March, President Polk came into 
 power, and two days thereafter, on the 6th, the 
 minister from Mexico filed his protest, demanded 
 and obtained his passport, and left the United 
 States for Mexico, and our minister, in a few 
 weeks thereafter, followed the example, and re- 
 turned to his own country. Such, sir. was the 
 condition of this Texas question when President 
 Polk came into power on the 4th of March, 1845. 
 He found the public faith of the country p'edged 
 to tlie annexation of Texas, and regarded it as his 
 duty to see that that faith was preserved inviolate. 
 He found that the resolutions for the admission of 
 Texas, though obligatory upon the United Slates, 
 for a given time in any event, had yet to be ap- 
 proved of by Texas before they could be obliga- 
 tory on her, and finally upon both governments. 
 To obtain this approval by Texas, however anx- 
 ious to give it, under her form of government, 
 required time. Her Congress had first to be as- 
 sembled to authorize a convention of her people, 
 and that convention had to be organized, and had 
 to discuss, and consider, and decide upon the 
 terms which had been offered by the United 
 States. He found that, to prevent her acceptance 
 of the terms which had been offered by the United 
 States, Mexico was threatening to invade her, 
 and that the Congress and convention had each 
 asked the interposition of the United States to 
 prevent it. He found our diplomatic intercourse 
 iwith Mexico angrily and abruptly broken off. 
 And how, sir, has the President managed the 
 many difficulties connected with this question.' 
 Has he managed them with wisdom, prudence, 
 and forbearance.' — in a manner worthy 'of himself 
 and the great country of which he is the Chief 
 Magistrate.' — with an eye single to the public 
 good, and v/ith the commendable view and temper 
 to soothe the pride and restore the friendly rela- 
 tions with Mexico, and, at the same time, to pro- 
 tect the interest and honor of the United States.' — 
 and, above all, has he anxiously sought to sup- 
 press resentments, and to avoid a war between the 
 two countries.' These, sir, in my judgment, are the 
 'proper inquiries for us to make, and upon these 
 inquiries I beg leave to make a few remarks. 
 
 Anticipating the favorable reception by Texas 
 of the resolution of Congress, providing for her 
 admission into this Union; apprehending, from in- 
 telligence which he had received from that quarter, 
 an invasion of Texas by Mexico; earnestly urged 
 by the Congress and Convention of Texas to pre- 
 vent that invasion; i\^e President, on the 15th of 
 June, 1845, ordered our fleet to the Gulf of Mexi- 
 co, and General Taylor, then at Fort Jesup, on 
 the western frontier of Louisiana, to move with his 
 forces to the mouth of the Sabine, on the Gulf of 
 Mexico; or, in his discretion, to some other point 
 
 judgment, at the proper time, would be most con- 
 venient for the embarkation of his troops for the 
 western frontier of Texas. In this order. General 
 Taylor was further informed that his ultimate des- 
 tination was the Rio Grande; and, in the same 
 order, he was also infornfed not to enter Texas 
 until he should learn that Texas had assented to 
 the terms of annexation which had been offered 
 her by the United States, or until required to do so 
 by our minister at Texas. This is the substance 
 of the first order to General Taylor. There were 
 orders of the 8th and 30th of July, and of the 23d 
 August, 1845. The substance of all these orders, 
 apart from mere military detail, was, that he was 
 to regard the Rio Grande as the point of his ulti- 
 mate destination; that he was to protect Texas 
 from invasion up to that river; and in no event 
 permit armed troops from Mexico to cross it, as 
 such an act would be regarded by the United 
 Slates as an act of hostility. In executing these 
 orders, he was directed to be careful not to do any- 
 thing to irritate Mexico or to provoke hostilities; 
 and that if Mexico had any military establishment 
 on the east side of th? Rio Grande (which by the 
 by she had) not to disturb it; and should he find 
 on the east side of that river any private citizens 
 or settlers claiming to belong to Mexico, not to 
 molest them. Such, sir, is the purport and sub- 
 stance of these several orders, in the wisdom and 
 policy of all of which that distinguished general 
 most fully concurred , as his correspondence abund- 
 antly proves. And where, let me ask, in what 
 public document, in what history of any age or of 
 any country, in what wild romance even, have we 
 proofs of more prudence, caution, and forbearance 
 than are to be found in the several orders of which 
 I have given the substance.' Where do we find 
 the development of greater solicitude, while firmly 
 resolved to protect the rights of his own country, 
 to avoid giving offence, real or fancied, to an ad- 
 versary, than we find in the conduct of the Presi- 
 dent as exhibited in the documents to which I have 
 referred .' 
 
 General Taylor obeyed the order of the 15th of 
 June, and moved immediately with his command, 
 not to the Gulf or its navigable waters, but to the 
 barracks in the vicinity of New Orleans, and there 
 he remained until he received, in the month of 
 July, the intelligence from our minister at Texas 
 that Texas had assented to the terms of annex- 
 ation, and had voluntarily thereby become an 
 integral part of this Union. Learning this, that 
 General then, in further compliance with his in- 
 structions, embarked his troops for the frontier 
 of the State of Texas. After some delays and 
 difficulties connected with his stores and transport- 
 ation, and some hesitation as to the proper point, 
 of which the selection had been left to his discre- 
 tion, we find him, on the 15th of August, at Cor- 
 pus Christi, on the south side of the mouth of the 
 Nueces river. Here he remained, usefully em- 
 ployed in making preparations for any service that 
 might be required of him by either the folly or 
 madness of Mexico, or the orders of his own Gov- 
 ernment. On the IGth of October, General Taylor 
 is informed that information had been received by 
 the department rendering it probable that no se- 
 rious attempt would be made to invade Texas, 
 although Mexico still continued to threaten incur- 
 sions. Here, sir, with your permission, I will 
 
 in the Gulf or its navigable waters, which in his t leave for a while our gallant old General and our 
 
distinguished Secretary of War, with their happy- 
 prospects of peace before them, and invite your 
 attention to this Texas question in another quarter, 
 and to its management by otlier agents. 
 
 The President informs us, that in September, 
 1845, he received information from Mexico which 
 induced him to beheve that the Government of that 
 Republic was, at that time, favorably disposed to 
 settle by negotiation all the difRcul'ies existing be- 
 tween the two countries. Relying upon this intel- 
 ligence, Mr. Buchanan, our Secretary of State, on 
 the 17ih of September, 1845, addressed a letter to 
 Mr. Black, our consul at the city of Mexico, di- 
 recting him to ascertain if the intelligence which 
 had been communicated by him and others was 
 well founded; and if so, to assure the Government 
 of Mexico that the Gfovernment of the United 
 States would waive all etiquette, and send to that 
 country immediately an envoy clothed with full 
 powers to settle amicably, and on the most liberal 
 terms, every cause of difficulty unhappily subsist- 
 ing between the two countries. Mr. Black replied 
 to this letter of our Secretary of State, under date 
 of the 17th of October, informing our Government 
 that an envoy would be received from this country, 
 for the purposs of settling by negotiation all of the 
 difficulties; and Mr. Black enclosed, with this de- 
 spatch, the correspondence which had taken place 
 upon this subject between himself and the Secre- 
 tary of Stale of the Government of Mexico, of the 
 dates of the 13th and 15th of October, 1845, show- 
 ing on the part of Mexico their agreement to receive 
 from this country an envoy, to settle by negotiation 
 every dispute or cause of complaint that existed 
 between Mexico and the United States; and it was 
 asked- on the part of Mexico, as a preliminary, 
 that our fleet, then in the vicinity of Vera Cruz, 
 should be withdrawn. In the month of November, 
 this despatch of Mr. Black of the 17ih of October, 
 with the enclosures referred to, was received at the 
 Department of State, and our squadron was im- 
 mediately withdrawn from Vera Cruz, and Mr. 
 Slidell, our minister, invested with full powers to 
 settle amicably everything with Mexico, was sent 
 to that country. This was the position of this 
 Texas question when Congress met in this city in 
 the month of December, 1845, which was the first 
 Congress under Mr. Polk's administration. In 
 the first annual message of the President, which 
 was at the meeting of this Congress, the President 
 made a full and detailed statement, with a mmute- 
 ness which was almost tiresome, of everything that 
 had been done in relation to this Texas question. 
 He gave us everything emanating from either the 
 State or War Departments having the slightest 
 bearing upon it. He told us that Texas had agreed 
 to our annexation resolutions, and, by so doing, 
 had become a member of this Union. He com- 
 municated the substance of the orders to General 
 Taylor, and particularly, that the point of his ulti- 
 mate destination was the Rio Grande. He told 
 us what intelligence he had received from Mexico 
 respecting the reception of a minister, and that one 
 had been sent to that country. He congratulated 
 us all upon the enlarged extent, bloodlessly achiev- 
 ed, of our territorial domain, reaching, as he in- 
 formed us, from the bay of Fundy, along the 
 Atlantic coast, passing the capes of Florida, and 
 around the Gulf to the Rio Grande. All these 
 things he told us in his message of 1845, which 
 message was read by our Secretary, printed by our 
 
 printer, and read by us again in our chambers, and 
 by the reading portion of our fellow-citizens. And 
 in the same December, an act of Congress was 
 passed, incorporating this whole Gulf coast into 
 a collection district. Where were the eloquent 
 defenders of our Constitution at the time of the 
 passage of this act, and at the time of these Execu- 
 tive disclosures ? Where were our champions of 
 justice when these startling and portentous dis- 
 closures were made? Were they sick, or absent, 
 or dead , or deaf, or blind ? Did it take the sound of 
 the cannon at Palo Alto, and of Resaca, to rouse 
 them from their stupor, and to put their brains 
 and tongues in motion? These are questions 
 which, in my judgment, ought to be answered. 
 
 But to return to the history of our minister. 
 Our minister arrived in the city of Mexico early 
 in December, and on the eve of a revolution in that 
 country, based, as he informs us, upon the un- 
 popularity of the consent of the President of Mex- 
 ico to receive a minister from the United States. 
 Timidity and selfishness, more than inclination, on 
 the part of Herrera, prevented his Government 
 from receiving our minister. -His mission was 
 refused, upon the ostensible ground that he came 
 as an envoy and not as a commissioner — with too 
 much instead of too little power, and that he had 
 been appointed by the President in the recess, and 
 that that appointment had not been confirmed by 
 the Senate. These were the ostensible motives. 
 The real objections were, that Paredes, one of 
 Herrera 's generals, to whom had been intrusted 
 the command of eight thousand men, for the inva- 
 sion of Texas, pronounced against the Govern- 
 ment of Herrera, on the avowed ground that Her- 
 rera had consented to receive a minister from the 
 United States, with the view of settling all the dif- 
 ficulties between the two republics by negotiation, 
 and that this general was then on his route to the 
 city of Mexico for the purpose of overthrowing 
 the Government, and putting a stop to these con- 
 templated negotiations. These facts were com- 
 municated to our Government by our minister, 
 under date of the 26th of December, and that com- 
 munication was received in this city on the 12th 
 of January, 1846, and on the next day, the order 
 of the 13th of January was given to General Taylor 
 to advance his columns to the Rio Grande. This 
 order was received by General Taylor in the month 
 of February, and executed by him in the latter 
 part of March. 
 
 This is the order, sir, about which we have 
 heard so much. This is the fruit of that forbidden 
 tree, from which has sprung, and is to spring, 
 nothing but wo and disaster to this country. This 
 is the order which has violated the Constitution of 
 the United States, and usurped the constitutional 
 powers of Congress, which stands so preeminent 
 in our history, without law or example to justify 
 it, and which led to the invasion and forcible ap- 
 propriation of the territory of a neighboring power, 
 and changed thefriendly relations of the two coun* 
 tries into that of a state of war. 
 
 Sir, I have already endeavored, I fear with tire- 
 some particularity, to give you , in detail, the circum- 
 stances under which this order was given; and I 
 will now, with your indulgence, make a few obser- 
 vations upon the objections which have been urged 
 against it. The objections to this order, however 
 ramified or numerous, all point to and rest upon 
 Executive prerogative. 
 
I shall not trouble you, sir, with reading ex- 
 tracts from our Constitution, or laws made in 
 pursuance thereof; or from the Federalist, or from 
 Kent or Story, or from adjudicated cases. Such a 
 parade of learning, in such a body as the Senate, 
 would be worse than useless. I hold these posi- 
 tions to be true: that the President is the consti- 
 tutional commander-in-chief of the army and navy 
 of the United States, and, as such, lias the right, 
 witii or without good reason, to order the army of i 
 the United States to any point within the limits of 
 the Uniied States; subject, however, at ail times, 
 to personal punishment, by impeachment, for any 
 corrupt abuse of his power. I hold that, under 
 the Constitution and laws, he has the undoubted 
 right, with or without the sanction of Congress, 
 to suppress an insurrection, or to repel an invasion 
 or threatened invasion of the territorj? of any of 
 the States, or of tiie territory of the United States. 
 If I am right in these positions, and I think no 
 intelligent lawyeC or statesman will controvert 
 tliem, it follows that the order to General Taylor, 
 of the 13th of January, wiiich was to prevent an 
 invasion of the territory of one of the States of this 
 Union, was a constitutional order, which the Presi- 
 dent had the right to give, and which it was the 
 duty of General Taylor to obey. In my view of 
 this case, as the order was to prevent the invasion 
 of Texas, it is a matter of immateriality and per- 
 fect indifference, whether the territory into which 
 the army was marched belonged to IVlexico or to 
 Texas, unless it may be regarded as a circumstance 
 of aggravation or mitigation of the offences of 
 Mexico against this country. 
 
 But, sir, it so happens that the territory into 
 which this army was marched, was the territory 
 of one of the States of this Union, and was not 
 the territory of iVIexico. I am one of those who 
 have ever contended, and do now contend, that the 
 territory lying between the Nueces and the Rio 
 Grande, and below New Mexico, rightfully and 
 properly belongs to Texas, by the title of conquest 
 and possession. I never did contend that the coun- 
 try east of the Rio Grande, and included in New 
 Mexico, did belong to Texas; for she neither con- 
 quered or held possession of it. Yet I remember 
 to have heard an argument in this Chamber, by 
 our present Secretary of the Treasury, of great 
 force and ingenuity, founded upon the laws of na- 
 tions, and which I have never yet seen refuted, in 
 defence of the claim of Texas to this territory also. 
 I am one of those who never did believe, and do 
 not now believe, that the desert, or stupendous 
 desert, as on stupendous occasions it is sometimes 
 stupendously called, (which, by the by, happens 
 to be a large fertile prairie, resembling the famous 
 blue-grass pastures of Kentucky more than any- 
 thing else,) and which has befu located between 
 the Nueces and Rio Grande, ever was the proper 
 boundary of Texas, however suitaljle a boundary 
 it may be, to separate the Anglo-Saxon and Mau- 
 ritanian races. And I will now proceed, sir, to 
 give you the reasons for my faith. 
 
 Afier the battle of San Jacinto, in 1836, the 
 Mexican army retreated to the west side of the 
 Rio Grande, and, from that day to this, that power 
 has had no military establishment on the east side 
 of that river. Nor, prior to the events with our 
 army, in April and May, 1846, has Mexico ever 
 had an army on the east side of that river, except 
 on two stealthy predatory incursions, for roguery 
 
 and plunder, from which her forces retreated again 
 to the west side of that river, more rapidly than 
 they advanced from it. From the battle of San 
 Jacinto to this day, Mexico has exercised no civil 
 jurisdiction on the east side of the Rio Grande. 
 The settlement (if a settlement it can be called) at 
 Brazos Santiago, and the military organization at 
 Laredo, to which reference has been made, for the 
 purpose of sharing the exercise of civil authority, 
 by Mexico, at the former place, and of* military 
 jurisdiction at the latter place, form no just excep- 
 tion to the force of my statement. 
 
 The settlement at Brazos Santiago, which party 
 arithmetic has magnified into a village with a cus- 
 tom-house, consisted of a few miserable shanties, 
 probably a half a dozen in number, which had 
 ijeen built and occasionally occupied by straggling 
 fishermen, vagabonds, and smugglers — never per- 
 manent — here to-day and gone to-morrow; and it 
 is believed, when the nest was full, never, at any 
 one time, exceeding fifty souls in number. It is 
 true, that during the existence of the troubles be- 
 tween Texas and Mexico, importers of goods and 
 merchandise destined for the market of Matamo- 
 ros, for the greater security from seizure by the 
 authorities of Texas, did sometimes land their 
 cargoes at Brazos Santiago; and that, on such oc- 
 casions, an agent from the custom-house at Mata- 
 moros came to that point and received the duties 
 on these goods, prior to their being crossed over 
 to the west side of the Rio Grande, in order that 
 they might by that route be safely introduced into 
 Matamoros. And I believe it is also true, that those 
 goods, while awaiting the arrival of the custom- 
 house agent, and while being prepared for a land 
 transportation from that point up the west side of 
 that river, were temporarily protected by one or 
 more of those shanties. From this information 
 which I have had in regard to the settlement at 
 Brazos Santiago, and in which I place confidence, 
 I infer that there was nothing in the nature of that 
 settlement, if a settlement it can be called, that 
 goes to prove the exercise, on the part of Mexico, 
 of any civil authority at that point. This informa- 
 tion I have had confirmed by a conversation I 
 have recently had with one of our gallant naval 
 officers, who was with our fleet at Brazos, at the 
 arrival of General Taylor at that place. The 
 officer I allude to is Ca|itain Gregory, of the navy. 
 So far from such a settlement establishing the ex- 
 ercise of any such aiuhority, I infer the contrary. 
 It estaljlishes the acknowledged supremacy of 
 Texas on the east side of the river, as well as 
 upon it. 
 
 In regard to the military organization at Laredo, 
 which is relied upon to prove the exercise of mili- 
 tary authority on the part of Mexico, on the east 
 side of the riv.er, I have to say, that I see nothing 
 in that organization calculated to prove the exer- 
 cise of any such authority. Before the revolution 
 of Texas, the citizens of that town, in consequence 
 of their exposure to Indian depredations, were 
 exempt from the decree, or order, or law, or what- 
 ever it was, that deprived all the citizens of Mex- 
 ico, not attached to the army, from owning and 
 liearing arms. It was this decree or order, and 
 the attempt on the part of Mexico to enforce it, 
 that produced the revolution of Texas. The citi- 
 zens of Laredo were exempt from a compliance 
 with this decree, for the special reasons I have 
 referred to. This organization existed before the 
 
6 
 
 revolution, during the revolution, and, for aught I 
 know to tlie contrary, exists to this day. It vk^as an 
 organization with wliicli Texas never interfered, 
 an organization whi(;ii Texas had taken up arms to 
 defend, and which was but a common right ever 
 claimed and exercised by every freeman of that 
 Republic. 
 
 Tiiis nwn,the largest and most important of all 
 the settlements on the east side of the R,io Grande, 
 was twice visited by the army of Texas, and that 
 town as often acknowledged the supremacy of 
 Texas; and that acknowledgment, so far as my 
 information extends, was never after controverted. 
 Such are the explanations, based, as I believe, 
 upon truth, that I have thought proper to give 
 upon the nature and description of those two set- 
 tlements to which reference has been made. 
 
 In 1843, when Texas and Mexico were induced, 
 through the medium of tlie representatives of 
 Prance and England, to agree upon an armistice, 
 nothing was said upon the subject of boundary 
 between those two republics. But in the procla- 
 mation of General Woll, then at the head of the 
 Mexican forces, that general, on proclaiming the 
 termination of the armistice, notified every one not 
 to approach, on the east side of the Rio Grande, 
 within one league of that river, or they would be 
 regarded as enemies, and treated accordingly. 
 That general, on that occasion, said nothing about 
 the Nueces or the stupendous desert. 
 
 These, sir, are the evidences I adduce against 
 the claim of Mexico to any part of the territory 
 lying between the Nueces and Rio Grande, and 
 belov/ New Mexico. 
 
 On the part of Texas, I urge the fact of her ex- 
 pulsion of the civil and mihtary authority of Mex- 
 ico from the east to the west side of the Rio Grande, 
 and of her having kept it there. I urge the fact of 
 her congressional declaration of December, 1836, 
 of the Rio Grande as her boundary. I urge the 
 factof her military establishmentat Corpus Christi, 
 convenient to her settlements, and favorable for 
 the reception of Supplies, fiom which post the army 
 of Texas, at pleasure, fiist undel- General Rusk, 
 and afterwards under General Felix Huston, 
 traversed over the whole of this country without 
 molestation. I urge the fact that Texas had or- 
 ganized this country into counties, and appointed 
 civil officers in it to administer her laws; that she 
 sent her public surveyors into it, and surveyed it, 
 and appropriated these lands to her own use. I 
 urge the fact that Texas iiad established an elec- 
 tion precinct at Corpus Christi, at which the citi- 
 zens residing between the two rivers, if they chose 
 to do so, could vote. What better claim than this, 
 founded upon conquest and continuous possession, 
 can any country have for her territory? It is the 
 title' by which, if not all, the majority of the civil- 
 ized powers of the world hold their possessions. 
 
 It is true, sir, that within this territory, the set- 
 tlements were detached and sparse, and, from the 
 nature of their situation, in such times as tliose, 
 that law and justice may have been but feebly ad- 
 ministered, and that the franchises of a freeman 
 may have been but scantily enjoyed. The Senator 
 from Maryland [.VIr. Pearce] has ridiculed the 
 fact (but his ridicule will not idler the fact) of a 
 precinct having been established at Corpus Christi 
 for the accommodation of all the settlers residing 
 between the two rivers. What ! (he asks,) estab- 
 lish a precinct for these poor fellows to vote at, one 
 
 hundred and fifty miles from the residences of some 
 of them ! Sir, that Senator was born in Maryland, 
 in an old and thickly-settled country, where are to 
 be had, not only all the comforts which man can 
 desire, but also all the political accommodations 
 which the most infirm or indolent could hope for. 
 In new countries, these things are otherwise. At 
 one time, in the history of my own State, which 
 in point of territory is among the largest in the 
 Union, the territory which now forms that State, 
 then a part of Missouri, belonged to the county of 
 New Madrid, and the county seat of which was at 
 the village of New Madrid, on the Mississippi 
 river, some seventy or seventy-five miles below 
 the mouth of the Ohio; and to this county seat the 
 settlers on the Red river had often to come, to 
 attend to their suits and to serve as grand jurors. 
 In tlie discharge of this duty, those people had to 
 travel, if by water, to their county seat, eight hun- 
 dred or a thousand miles; and if by land, four or 
 five hundred miles, through a country nearly des- 
 titute of inhabitants, and much of the way through 
 the woods, and over navigable streams and impass- 
 able creeks. As late as 1819, the county of Ar- 
 kansas was bounded on the south by Louisiana, 
 and on the north by the Slate of Missouri, and 
 measured by the meanders of the Mississippi river, 
 which was its eastern front, a distance of about six 
 hundred miles. The county seat for this county 
 was at the " Old Port of Arkansas," a village ven- 
 erable at least for its age, it having been settled, 
 according to the tradition of the country, cotem- 
 poraneously with St. Louis, Kaskaskia,Vincennes, 
 and Philadelphia, which was, I believe, according to 
 our chronicle: s, in 1685. This county seal — which 
 has seen better days, but which has been of late 
 years becoming " smaller by degrees and beauti- 
 fully less" — was selected, as all county seats in all 
 new countries fire selected, in re'erence to popula- 
 tion, and not territorial centres. It was on the 
 edge of one side of the county, and the remoter 
 settlers, in getting to it, had to travel two or three 
 hundred miles. These inconveniences are but of 
 common occurrence in all new countries, as Sena- 
 tors from the new Stales will testify. When the 
 Senator from Maryland shall hereafter dwell upon 
 this subject, I hope we shall have his syinpathy 
 instead of his ridicule, and that he will content 
 himself by thanking his stars that he was born in 
 Maryland, and not in the wilderness. I hope he 
 will cease to wonder that the poor fellows on the 
 Rio Grande had to travel to San Patricio or Cor- 
 pus Christi to vote or transact their business. 
 Upon the whole, then, I urge this fact also as im- 
 portant, and not trivial, in behalf of the claim of 
 Texas. 
 
 It is probably true that the greater number of 
 the settlers on the Rio Grande were of Spanish 
 origin, and favorably inclined to the cause of Mex- 
 ico. But no matter what their origin or feeling, 
 they were too inconsiderable in numbers to be the 
 object of special attention to either of the belliger- 
 ents. They took no part, generally, in the con- 
 flict between Texas and Mexico, and througli the 
 double motives of policy and humanity, neither of 
 the parties disturbed them. They were left to the 
 enjoyment of their neutrality, their flocks and liule 
 patches of corn, and cotton, and red pepper. The 
 only instance to the contrary, w;>s the order of 
 General Rusk, in 1836, to those settlers to retire to 
 his rear, on the Gaudalou])e, or to the west side 
 
of tlicPcio Grande, which order all of them obeyed, 
 and continued to obey until 1838, when ihey were 
 again permitted to return, and did return, and 
 there they have remained ever since. 
 
 These facts I urge in behalf of the claim of 
 Texns to the territory between tlie Nueces and 
 Rio Grande, and as adverse to the pretensions of 
 Mexico. It is true that Mexico, during all this 
 time, claimed not only the territory in controversy, 
 but the whole of Texas, not to the Nueces, or the 
 desert, which she never mentioned, but to the Sa- 
 bine; and that she blustered and bullied, and talked 
 loudly of invasion, and blood, and thunder, and 
 all that. Thus stood the claim of the respective 
 parties when the treaty of annexation was made 
 in 1844. And this brings me to the action of the 
 United States upon this question of title and bound- 
 ary. The United States, as the successors of Tex- 
 as, and to whom this settlement of her boundary 
 had been committed, could not, consistently with 
 her fidelity and honor to Texas, give up any part 
 of it, without a friendly discussion, by which the 
 United States should be satisfied that the claim of 
 Texas was untenaljle. The United States would 
 have regarded it as treacherous and cowardly to 
 have done so. This discussion, at that time and 
 ever since, the United States were most anxious 
 to have, and to settle it speedily, and upon the 
 most liberal terms, of which there is in our ar- 
 chives the most abundant proof. This discussion 
 the Government of Mexico most peremptorily re- 
 fused, and in consequence of that refusal, the Uni- 
 ted States were unwilling to give up any part of 
 the boundary claimed by Texas. The main op- 
 position to the treaty of that day rested upon the 
 question of boundary — and that part of the bound- 
 ary, mainly, which included the Santa Fe country, 
 or New Mexico, with its forty villages, which had 
 been settled by Spain one hundred years before 
 La Salle had ever seen the Mississippi river, and 
 which Texas had never invaded, much less con- 
 quered. To show that this country was included 
 in the claim of Texas, the Senator from Missouri, 
 [Mr. Benton,] in April, 1844, introduced a reso- 
 lution calling upon President Tyler f)r the bound- 
 ary claimed by Texas. The response to this call 
 was a map, in large red lines, describing that 
 boundary from the mouth to the source of the Rio 
 Grande. Accompanying this map was a memoir 
 of valuable information which had not been called 
 for by the Senator from Missouri, showing the 
 quantity of land, among other things, which we 
 were getting by our treaty, and the computation 
 of those lands included, all lying within the claim 
 of Texas. This was all that the opponents of the 
 treaty desired, and as it came to us, without any 
 explanation in regard to that fact, giving us New 
 Mexico, it was rather more than the friends of the 
 treaty desired. The treaty was rejected. But the 
 policy of the United States, in regard to the man- 
 ner of settling this boundary question, (that is to 
 say by a friendly discussion,) has not been changed. 
 The United States have still considered themselves 
 bound to protect the boundary of Texas until satis- 
 fied it was untenable. The United States had no 
 other course to pursue, under such circumstances, 
 than to prev(mt Mexico from seizing Texas or any 
 part of it, by force. She would have acted un- 
 worthy of herself, and contemptibly in the eyes of 
 the world, if she had pursued any other policy 
 than she has upon this question, under all the cir- 
 
 cumstances. She has not been derelict in her duty 
 to Texas, nor unkind or unjust to Mexico. The 
 President did precisely what the country expected 
 him to do; he tried to settle this boundary in a 
 friendly manner and upon the most liberal terms. 
 He could not effect it. Mexico was preparing to 
 invade it and hold it, and the President anticipated 
 Mexico, and prevented her. In doing this he did 
 his duty, and for v/hich, for one, I thank him. 
 
 But our adversaries say, that in a movement so 
 important, so likely to change the peaceful rela- 
 tions between the two countries into that of a state 
 of war, i: was the duty of the President to have 
 consulted Congress, which was then in session. It 
 is true that Congress was in session in January, 
 1846, when the order was given to General Taylor, 
 and that Congress was not consulted about that 
 order. And why, let me ask, should Congress 
 have been consulted about it? Does not a satis- 
 factory answer, for the omission of the President 
 to consult Congress about this order, suggest itself 
 to Senators ? Have we so soon forgotten the events 
 of ihat period .' Have we forgotten our difficulty 
 then pending with England in regard to the Oregon 
 territory? The anxiety felt everywhere and by 
 every one upon that subject? Have we forgotten 
 the temper displayed by our fellow-citizens at that 
 time; the manifest and eager uprising of the masses 
 of our population upon the popular cry in this 
 country, of a war with England? of the prompt 
 demand for news upon the arrival of every steamer 
 from England? Have we forgotten the debates in 
 England and France, (her ally upon the Oregon 
 and Texas questions,) and the debates in this 
 Chamber, upon the anticipated rupture at that 
 time with this formidable Power? of the neces- 
 sity we all felt for the immediate adjustment of this 
 question, fiiirly and amicably, in order to preserve 
 the peace of the world, and probably England or 
 America, and possibly both, from many and irrep- 
 arable sacrifices? Have we forgotten the influ- 
 ences which this Oregon question had upon the 
 policy of Mexico, and of the Texas question upon 
 the policy of England, by which these two Powers 
 were brought together, and acted in unison against 
 the United States? and in which the cooperation 
 of France was relied upon by the mad and vision- 
 ary, but templing consideration of giving, under 
 the auspices of Paredes and the clergy, a ruler to 
 Mexico, in the person of a prince of" the house of 
 Bourbon? In such a critical position of our affairs, 
 in January, 1846, was the President prepared at 
 that time to recommend Congress to declare war 
 against Mexico, if he had even desired a war, 
 which he never did with that power? No, sir, ]ye 
 was not. He chose, and I think wisely, a differetu 
 line of policy. He chose to settle our difficulties 
 with Mexico, if possible, rather by negotiation 
 than the sword, and acting on this policy he 
 directed our minister, (Mr. Slidell,) notwithstand- 
 ing the refusal by Herrera to receive him, and 
 notwithstanding the revolution, and the avowal of 
 the principles on which it was achieved — he directed 
 that minister, notwithstanding these obstacles, to 
 remain in Mexico, and to make overtures for his 
 reception, to the usurper, with the view of settling 
 every cause of dispute between the two countries. 
 And that minister did remain, and did make these 
 overtures until the 12lh of March, when, on that 
 day, his overtures were definitely and finally re- 
 jected. That chieftain having come into power by 
 
Q. 
 
 a revolution predicated upon the question of no 
 nefjotiation with the United States, but war; and 
 expecting at that precise period of time a rupture 
 between the United States and Eiii^land upon the 
 Oregon question, whicli had, at that time, assumed 
 the appearance of proljability, and relying, for tlie 
 reasons before alluded to, upon tiie cooperation of 
 France, and relying also a good deal upon our 
 unhappy divisions upon the Texas question, of 
 which, I have reason to believe, he was well in- 
 formed — that chieftain, for these reasons, on the 
 12thof IVIarch, dismissed Mr.Slidell, and resolved, 
 in the midst of our difficuUies at home and abroad, 
 to invade Texas for the purpose of reconquering 
 it. At that time, on the 12ih of March, when 
 this long ta!ked-of invasion of Texas had been de- 
 termined upon, the movement of General Taylor 
 from Corpus Christi, which was on the 11th of 
 March, and only one day before the final refusal 
 of the reception of our minister, was not and 
 could not have been known by Paredes, or in the 
 city of Mexico. Itv/as not, therefore, the march 
 which either caused the refusal of the reception of 
 our minister by the Government of Mexico, or 
 that provoked that Power into hostilities against 
 the United States, from which this war owes its 
 origin. Are other proofs to establish this fact de- 
 sired? If so, we have them, in the proclamation 
 of General Ampudia, at that time at the head of 
 theinvadingarmy, under date of the 27th of March, 
 at Saltillo, in which he enumerated the causes of 
 complaint against the United Slates; and in tliat 
 list the march of General Taylor from Corpus 
 Christi is not enumerated, but the resolution for 
 the annexation of Texas is enumerated. As Gen- 
 eral Taylor had only arrived at the Rio Grande 
 on the 26ih of March, on the day only preceding 
 the date of that general's proclamation, the move- 
 ment of General. Taylor was probably unknown 
 to him. Are further proofs wanted to show that 
 the admission of Texas into the Union, and not 
 the march of General Taylor, was the cause of 
 offence to Mexico, which produced the revolution, 
 and pushed that Power into hostilities against us? 
 We find this additional proof in the manifesto of 
 Paredes, dated at the national palace on the 23d day 
 of April, 1846, after he had heard of the arrival of 
 General Taylor on the Rio Grande, which arrival 
 he notices in that manifesto, and which he regard- 
 ed as an aggravation of the offences of the United 
 States against Mexico. That chieftain, in that 
 document, informs us, that on assuming the re- 
 sponsibility, in the beginning of the year 1846, he 
 had resolved upon changing the policy of Mexico, 
 from that of weak and temporizing, which had 
 been observed in regard to the United States, in 
 consequence of the perfidy of the United States in 
 incorporating one of the departments of Mexico 
 into its Confederacy, and of its tieachernus viola- 
 tion of the terms of existing treaties, which de- 
 fined the limits of Mexico. That President of 
 Mexico tells us in that document, after a good deal 
 of bluster and bombast, that it was for this reason 
 that Mexico sanctioned the movement which he 
 began at San Luis Potosi, not for the purpose of 
 placing himself in power, but that Mexico "might 
 shine," by the triumphs of a cause, whicli is the 
 cause of the conservative principle of human so- 
 ciety. Are other proofs wanted to show that it 
 was not the march of Taylor's army to the Rio 
 Grande that caused this war? We find them in 
 
 the letter of Commodore Conner, under date of the 
 2d of March, 1846, nine days before General Tay- 
 lor moved from Corpus Christi, in which the Com- 
 modore states, that the papers of the capital state 
 that within the last ten days a large force of nearly 
 eight thousand men had nmrched to the northern 
 frontier. The Commodore attached but little credit 
 tothereportatthe time, but subsequent events have 
 proved that these statements in the papers were not 
 unfounded. Is further proof wanted to show that 
 it was not the march of General Taylor from Cor- 
 pus Christi that brought on this war? If so, we find 
 tliese proofs in the reports of General Taylor, in- 
 forming us of the affair at the Little Colorado — of 
 the rancheros which beset his march, and of his 
 having found, on his arrival on the Rio Grande, 
 1,300 or 2,000 men at Matamoros, and of expected 
 reinforcements under General Ampudia, which 
 could not have been organized and placed in posi- 
 tion within the time which intervened between 
 the breaking up of his camp at Corpus Christi 
 and the arrival of General Taylor on the 22d of 
 March at the Rio Grande? Proofs might be mul- 
 tiplied to show the impossiliility of the march of 
 General Taylor to the Rio Grande having been 
 the cause of this war. Yet, sir, for some time after 
 the arrival of General Taylor on the Rio Grande, 
 no attack was made upon him, and it had been 
 deferred so long that that General, and General 
 Worth, were both of opinion that no attack would 
 be madeuponourarmy; and under this impression, 
 General Worth, on the 13th of April, resigned his 
 commission, and on the 16th of April, left Point 
 Isabel for the United States, and reached Wash- 
 ington on the day only before the news of Thorn- 
 ton's affair — which affair, as before observed, was 
 the cause of the war. After all this proof it is still 
 contended that the President is the cause of this 
 war, because he did not supply General Taylor 
 with more troops. Our unsettled difficulty, which 
 was then at its height, with England, required a 
 portion at least of our small army in other quarters. 
 The public exigencies at that time required a por- 
 tion of our troops on the Atlantic, and on the Cana- 
 dian and Indian frontiers. General Taylor was 
 supplied with all the regulars that could be spared 
 him. But the President gave him full authority, 
 if he needed more troops to repel the threatened 
 invasion, to call for such force as he wanted, upon 
 the Governors of Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, 
 Tennessee, Kentucky, and Texas; and these Gov- 
 ernors were notified to honor General Taylor's 
 call for such numbers of troops as he required. If 
 General Taylor, in whom the President placed full 
 confidence, did not draw for these troops, the fault 
 was in him and not in the President. Volunteers 
 were sent to him by General Gaines without his 
 order, and it was a special ground of complaint on 
 the part of General Taylor that those troops had 
 been sent him; and General Taylor again and 
 again implored the department not to send him 
 troops until he required them. And this confi- 
 dence of the President in General Taylor is very 
 irravely brought forward as a charge against the 
 President. This is really too bud. Will the time 
 never arrive when an adversary can do an adver- 
 sary justice? 
 
 Tlie remaining cause for this war, which I will 
 briefly consider, was the presentation to Texas, for 
 her acceptance, of the first instead of the second of 
 the resolutions of annexation. The first resolution, 
 
9 
 
 as well as the second, and in t^is respect they are 
 identical, authorizes Congress to adjust with Mex- 
 ico the boundary line. In what do these resolu- 
 tions differ? In the first, Texas was authoiizsd to 
 come into the Union without another contest upon 
 a treaty, which required — what never could be had 
 — two-thirds of the Senate to ratify it. In the sec- 
 ond resolution, she had to come in through this 
 gate, through which she never could have passed, 
 or else she had to come in on terms which Texas 
 might or might not have been willing tb accede to, 
 and in no event, without another Texas contest 
 upon the terms of the contract, as well as upon tiie 
 measure itself; which, in the mind of the Presi- 
 dent, it was very desirable to avoid. Has the Sen- 
 ator [Mr. Johnson, of Maryland] read the Jour- 
 nal of our proceedings on these resolutions. Has 
 he discovered that, while as a compromise, every 
 Democrat voted for the second of these resolutions, 
 every Whig, but the immortal three — Merrick, 
 Henderson, and Johnson, of Louisiana — voted 
 against this second resolution ? If he has not read 
 our proceedings which happened before his time, 
 I advise him to do so. He has committed one 
 murder upon his party already, by his manly and 
 able vindication of the war; would it not be safe 
 for him, if he desires to preserve his standing in 
 his political church, not to commit another.'' His 
 party, I can tell him, will not stand such a cata- 
 logue of heresies as those of defending the war, 
 and of bringing Taylor's military judgment into 
 question, or, what is more important in their esti- 
 mation, the propriety of their votes upon any 
 Texas issue. 
 
 Sir, before passing from the inquiries into the 
 causes of this war, which I shall do very shortly, 
 I have yet a duty to perform, and that is, to say a 
 few words upon the examples which have been so 
 triumphantly paraded, and whicli have been so fre- 
 quently referred to, of Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Mad- 
 ison, as exhibiting so striking a contrast to the acts 
 of the President in reference to Taylor's march to the 
 Rio Grande. The examples of 1803 and 1806, in 
 the time of Mr. Jefferson, and in 1813, in the time 
 of Mr. Madison, do present a contrast to the act 
 of Mr. Polk in relation to the Texan boundary, 
 and for the best of all reasons, that the cases refer- 
 red to are entirely dissimilar. The act of 1803, 
 of which Ross's resolution was the foundation, 
 and the right to navigate the Mississippi river the 
 leading motive, and the law of nations the justifica- 
 tion of it, was an aggressive act, and not defensive, 
 and an act to authorize an invasion, and not an act 
 to prevent an invasion. Authorities, it is true, 
 have been read to show that this act was passed to 
 prevent the invasion of this country by France in 
 1803. That contemplated invasion I have con- 
 tradicted for three reasons: the first is, that it was 
 to protect Louisiana against capture and conquest 
 by Great Britain; the second, that the authorities 
 on which it is relied to prove the invasion of the 
 United States bear date in 1802, and the resolution 
 of Mr. Ross, on which the act was founded, was 
 in 1803, and in those resolutions nothing is said 
 about invasion; my third reason is, that if invasion 
 had been apprehended, Mr. Jefferson, to whom all 
 this correspondence, so greatly relied upon by Sen- 
 ators, was directed, would have noticed that threat- 
 ened invasion of this country by France in his 
 annual message of a subsequent date, which he did 
 not. For these reasons I contend that the act was 
 
 aggressive — was for an invasion of Louisiana — 
 and, therefore, very justly and very properly the 
 action of Congress, as accomplices in the medi- 
 tated invasion, was necessary; qnd Congress, in 
 March of 1803, did consent to become the accom- 
 plices of the President in that act of aggression. 
 I have stated the claim, the right of navigation of 
 the Mississippi, which we could not get, either by 
 negotiation or purchase; a claim which it was ne- 
 cessary to assert by force, so long as we had the 
 right to a depot in New Orleans, by virtue of the 
 treaty of 1796. That right expired by its own 
 limitation, and we were unable to get that right to 
 a depot extended , or our right to navigate the Mis- 
 sissippi river to the ocean acknowledged, and were 
 prepared, in the event of a failure to purchase of 
 France a depot for our western produce, or the 
 sanction of that Government to our claim to navi- 
 gation, to assert it. We purchased Louisiana, 
 and therefore no action was ever had under the act 
 of 1803; and out of that purchase of Louisiana 
 grew the difficulties which gave birth to the acts of 
 1806 and 1813. I would ask if it is pretended that 
 in 1806 or in 1813 there were any apprehensions 
 of an invasion of this country by Spain? I have 
 heard and shall heai" of no such allegation. This 
 act, therefore, like that of 1803, was an act of ag- 
 gression, and not designed to prevent an invasion 
 of the territory of the United Stales, but to autho- 
 rize the United States to invade the possessions 
 claimed and occupied by the subjects of the Spanish 
 monarch. On such a subject it was necessary and 
 proper that Congress should be consulted, and 
 Congress was consulted, and assented to the medi- 
 tated invasion. Under the act of 1806 nothing was 
 ever done. Under that of 1813 we took possession 
 of the Mobile country, and subsequently incorpo- 
 rated it into Alabama, where it is to-day. These 
 are the cases, all aggressive, all contemplating an 
 invasion of a country occupied and claimed by 
 other powers with whom we were at peace. If 
 gentlemen cannot see the difference between an 
 aggressive, invasive act and one of self-defence and 
 preventative of invasion, I shall have to conclude 
 that they are duller in intellect than 1 had sup- 
 posed. 
 
 I will now, very briefly, consider the second 
 count of this indictment against the Administra- 
 tion; and that is, as to the manner in which this 
 war has been conducted. When this war was de- 
 clared, with but two dissenting voices in the Senate, 
 and with but fourteen in the House, the President 
 sent in his estimates for the necessary men, and 
 money, and other means, to carry it on success- 
 fully. These estimates of men and money and 
 means, were voted with great unanimity by the two 
 Houses of Congress. The President then devised 
 his plans for carrying on this war; and these plans 
 have been faithfully and brilliantly executed. And 
 what have been the results ? In less than two 
 years, without any previous preparations for such 
 results, the President has overthrown and subdued 
 nearly the whole of Mexico — a country nearly aa 
 large as our own, and containing a population of 
 about seven millions of inhabitants. If such glo- 
 rious results as these, which have marked' and 
 distinguished the prosecution of this war, are not 
 conclusive as to the .skill and energy with which it 
 has been conducted by the Administration, I shall 
 be justified in saying that our opponents are very 
 unreasonable, and very hard to please. Under 
 
10 
 
 what circumstances have those results been achiev- 
 ed? They have been achieved in spite of the op- 
 position party in this country, who, from the be- 
 ginning to this day, have endeavored to embarrass 
 the Executive, by rendering this war odious and 
 unpopular. At the very time that this war was 
 declared — though voting for it, and every measure 
 connected with it — we find it denounced by the 
 Opposition, as unnecessary and unconstitutional. 
 They indicated (as the debates at that time will 
 show) their purpose, at some future period, more 
 suitable, in their judgment, for such a proceeding, 
 than at that time, to bring the President to an ac- 
 count for his sins, in bringing this unnecessary 
 and unconstitutional war upon the country. 
 
 The President has achieved these results m spite 
 of these imputations, and in spite of these appeals 
 to party, to fanaticism, and bigotry, and sectional 
 jealousies.* He has achieved them in spite of the 
 terrors held up to our countrymen in the form of 
 the fatal diseases of the Mexican climate — her 
 deserts, and her mountains, and her invincible 
 Spanish blood. The predictions of their prophets, 
 (and what nation in time of war has ever been 
 without them?) of ruin to our treasury, and bank- 
 ruptcy to the whole country, and of having, after 
 the first or second campaign, a foreign war upon 
 our hands without an army in the field or money 
 in the treasury; these predictions have not been 
 obstacles of sufficient magnitude to interrupt ma- 
 terially, or to prevent, our glorious successes. 
 Such opposition, formidable only to weaker minds, 
 has not deterred our Executive from the vigor- 
 ous prosecution of this war. His triumphs have 
 astounded the Opposition, and surpassed the ex- 
 pectations of his own friends. Ever regretting 
 the existence of this war, and desirous at ail times 
 to close it on honorable terms, he asked for an 
 appropriation of three millions of dollars, at the 
 last session, to enable him to terminate it; and on 
 that occasion, the Opposition, though clamoring for 
 peace, refused, in a body, to vote for it. The cry 
 then was, " Will you buy your peace of Mexico ?" 
 In short, the Opposition denounced the war — they 
 threw obstacles in the way of its prosecution, by 
 endeavoring to render it odious; and when money, 
 and not bullets, is asked, as a peace measwre, that, 
 in its turn, is denounced. What shall we do? 
 What can be done that can and will satisfy our 
 friends over the way? 
 
 Mr. President, the last and chief point which I 
 propose to notice is, the ulterior objects of this 
 war. The ulterior objects of this war are, to ob- 
 tain a speedy and permanent peace, upon just and 
 honorable terms. These terms are, the full pay- 
 ment of the claims of our citizens against Mexico, 
 and a reasonable indemnity for the expenses and 
 sacrifices which this war has cost us. This de- 
 mand is expected in the shape of territory. At 
 the last session of Congress, I was authorized to 
 state, and did state, what territory was regarded 
 as of sufficient value to satisfy our demands, and 
 that that territory was New Mexico and Upper 
 California. This statement, it will be recollected, j 
 was made before the battle of Buena Vista, and 
 before the fall of Vera Cruz and her celebrated 
 castle. These terms, our agent, Mr. Trist, was ! 
 authorized to propose, before our army marched 
 from Vera Cruz. After that agent had received his 
 instructions, our army fought its way to the very 
 gates of the city of Mexico, and there, on the eve of 
 
 the entrance of our victorious army into that city, 
 an armistice was entered into, for the purpose of 
 saving the further effusion of blood, by a treaty. 
 Notwithstanding the favorable change in the pos- 
 ture of our affairs in that country, after the in- 
 structions had been given to Mr. Trist; notwith- 
 standing the many successful but bloody battles 
 our army had fought, after Mr. Trist had received 
 his instructions; the many cities, and castles, and 
 fortifications, the arms and munitions of war, be- 
 longing to the enemy, which our army had taken, 
 subsequent to those instructions; the rout, or cap- 
 ture, or slaughter of her armies, and her capital 
 within our reach, — notwithstanding all these favor- 
 able changes, which occurred after Mr. Trist had 
 received his instructions on our affairs in that coun- 
 try — changes that would have well justified the 
 United States in exacting terms more onerous upon 
 Mexico — we find Mr. Trist, our agent, offering 
 to receive of Mexico Upper California and New 
 Mexico, of both of which we were then in pos- 
 session, at)d, as conquerors, had the unquestion- 
 able right to hold or dispose of. These provinces 
 were not only satisfactory, but were regarded as 
 more than satisfactory: for our agent proposed to 
 give for them, in addition to our demand, import- 
 ant moneyed considerations, besides restoring to 
 her all the residue of our conquests in that coun- 
 try. These terms, too liberal in the estimation of 
 many, were rejected by Mexico. The armistice 
 was then terminated, the capital taken, and her 
 army and government driven from it. These oc- 
 currences having been communicated to our Gov- 
 ernment, Mr. Trist, our agent, was recalled by a 
 letter from the Department of State, on the 6th of 
 October, 1847. And that recall was reiterated' on 
 the 25th of October, and the receipt of the first 
 letter of recall is acknowledged by Mr. Trist in a 
 letter of the date of the 27th of November, 1847. 
 Since the recall of Mr. Trist, there has been no 
 one in Mexico authorized by the Government of 
 the United States to make a treaty with Mexico. 
 But it is well known in Mexico, that the President 
 is willing, and is really anxious, to make a treaty 
 with her. If the terms offered by Mr. Trist had 
 been accepted by Mexico, that treaty would have 
 had the sanction of the President. These terms, 
 now, with probably a slight modification as to 
 boundary, and the withdrawal, in whole or in part, 
 of the moneyed consideration^, would be approved 
 by the President. The President never did desire, 
 and docs not now desire, the whole of Mexico, or 
 the extinction of her nationality, or the incorpora- 
 tion of it, as States or provinces, into this Union. 
 No such policy ever found favor with him. His 
 messages, and all his acts, connected with Mexi- 
 can affairs, furnish abundant proof that he never 
 contemplated or desired any such results. The 
 President, in my judgment, more than any other 
 man in America, desired to avoid this war; and 
 that officer, more, probably, than any other man 
 in America, has ever been most desirous of termi- 
 nating it, speedily and honorably. With this 
 conviction upon my mind, I was not prepared to 
 hear the Senator from Tennessee [Mr. Bell] as- 
 sert that the President did not desire a peace with 
 Mexico, and that the President desired to conquer 
 and hold the whole of Mexico. 
 
 Sir, when that Senator [Mr. Bell] stated that 
 the President did not desire a peace with Mexico, 
 I really supposed he was indulging in a little 
 
11 
 
 humorous irony— in a little pleasantry of wit, 
 whicli he intended as a gentle reproof of the Presi- 
 dent for the eagerness he had ever manifested to 
 make a treaty with Mexico, (an eagerness which 
 many thought rather too beseeching, and a little 
 unbecoming,) and with this impression on my 
 mind, contrasted with his grave demeanor, I was 
 about to conclude that he was one of the most 
 magnificent jokers of the age. But this illusion 
 did not long continue. I soon found my friend 
 preparing very eloquently and very seriously to 
 prove, and that, too, by the President's message, 
 that the President did not desire a peace with 
 Mexico; and with such force and earnestness did 
 he press this matter, that I really began to doubt 
 the conecmess of my own opinions upon the sub- 
 ject. I began to think I had not read the Presi- 
 dent's message undeistandingly, and that I had 
 not correctly comprehended the purport of the 
 many conversations I had had with him and the 
 members of his Cabinet upon this subject. These 
 doubts, however, like my allusion at first, were 
 but momentary. The President, the Senator says, 
 is not anxious to make a peace with Mexico. 
 
 Mr. BELL explained that he had stated that 
 the President was not anxious to make a treaty, 
 unless he could so make it as to obtain security 
 for the future. 
 
 Mr. CASS asked on wliat authority the Sen- 
 ator from Tennessee stated that it was a security 
 a'^ainst the interference of foreign nations. 
 °Mr. BELL replied, that it was a deduction from 
 the policy which had been pursued, and the argu- 
 ments by which it was defended here. He pro- 
 tested against being represented as saying the 
 President was not anxious to make a peace — he 
 ought to be— but that he would not make a peace 
 •which did not offer security for the future. 
 
 Mr. SEVIER. Sir, the President wants a peace 
 with Mexico — a speedy and permanent peace. He 
 would not make a treaty with a man of straw- 
 irresponsible,. and not at the head of that Gov- 
 ernment; but would sign a treaty to-morrow, or 
 to-day, with Hertera and the Congress at Q.uere- 
 taro, if that treaty gave the satisfactory conces- 
 sions. But, " indemnity for the past and security 
 for the future !" What he means by security for 
 the future, is a treaty with a government sufli- 
 ciently stable and permanent to make a treaty, 
 and to close it, and to sign it on parchment — a 
 treaty that will be recognized as such in the eyes of 
 the world. If the President can make a treaty with 
 a government as stable as that of Herrera, or Pa- 
 redes, or Santa Anna, or the present government, 
 whether they be governments de jure or de facto, he 
 will make it, and hold that country responsible for 
 its fulfilment. Bat " indemnity for the past and 
 security for the future," is an expression in the 
 message of the President that seems to be unpal- 
 atable to the Senator from Tennessee. If we all 
 did not know that the President was incapable of 
 it, we might suppose he had plagiarized the ex- 
 pression from Mr. Clay. When the opponents of 
 the last war were pressing that gentleman for a 
 declaration of the objects of Mr. Madison's war, 
 that gentleman replied, the objects were "indem- 
 nity for thepast and security for the future." The 
 avowal was unsatisfactory at that day, as it appears 
 to be in this. 
 
 The President endeavored, in December, 1846, 
 to make a treaty with Herrera, in the midst of a 
 
 revolution in that country, and only a few days 
 before Herrera was overthrown. He endeavored 
 to make a treaty with Paredes, a military usurper, 
 claiming only to exercise the functions of Presi- 
 dent ad'interim; and when his downfall was threat- 
 ened, and which, in a few months afterwards was 
 consummated, he endeavored, through his agent, 
 Mr. Trist, to make a treaty with Santa Anna, the 
 Dictator of that country, and but a few weeks only 
 preceding his downfall. He has since publicly 
 av.iwed in his message his willingness and hearty 
 desire to make a treaty with Mexico at any future 
 time. Sir, the President wants a peace with that 
 country — his objects are peace, and all of his meas- 
 ures are recommended to get peace. Tliere have 
 been many rumors in this city, and through the 
 country, that this desired oliject of us all — that is, 
 peace with Mexico — has been obtained by General 
 Scott and Mr. Trist. It seems to me that the Sen- 
 ator seems to speak knowingly upon the suliject, 
 and that he wants those on this side of the Cham- 
 ber to commit themselves, for or against it, before 
 they see or know anything about it. 
 Mr. BELL disclaimed any such object. 
 Mr. SEVIER said he was glad to hear the dis- 
 claimer. But these rumors had been so prevalent, 
 and as there seemed to have been some confidence 
 attached to these rumors of peace, he intended to 
 ask the Senator whether he had received informa- 
 tion that Scott or Trist, without the sanction of the 
 Government, which neither of them had, had made 
 a treaty, or were about to make a treaty, or not. I 
 have been about in the city a good deal, among 
 gentlemen of both parties, and have heard rumors 
 of a treaty in every direction, and questions have 
 been asked of me, if I did not know that the news 
 of the treaty had arrived Iiy^telegraph from Peters- 
 burg, or New York; and again, that the treaty 
 was in the city, and that the messenger that brought 
 it was here; and therefore it was, that, when I 
 heard the Senator so repeatedly asking us if we 
 would accept a treaty, ceding us California and 
 New Mexico, I supposed he might have what the 
 Government had not— a copy of the treat^ in his 
 pocket. 
 
 Mr. BELL. Do you know anything about such 
 a treaty ? 
 
 Mr. SEVIER. No, sir. I know nothing about 
 a treaty; but it did appear, sir, as if the Senator 
 had been informed of a treaty, and that he was 
 trying to force us to commit ourselves— to go it 
 blind^— whether we were for it or against it. 
 
 Mr. BELL disavowed any such intention. 
 What he wanted to know was, whether the Ad- 
 ministration regarded the existing Government of 
 Mexico as competetU to give security for the future.' 
 Mr. SEVIER. That question, sir, I have an- 
 swered already: that the Government would, if it 
 could, make a treaty with the present Government 
 in Mexico. And as we have had prophets on the 
 other side, I will now beg to turn prophet myself. 
 I prophesy, when a treaty is made, if it ever be 
 made, that tliat treaty will be decidedly opposed 
 by the gentlemen on the other side. Tliey will 
 oppose it as being too liberal or too rigid to Mex- 
 ico; it will have in it too little or too much for tlieir 
 approbation. I hope I may be mistaken in this 
 prophecy. Put the prophecy down in your memo- 
 randum books, and when the day shall come when 
 we shall have such a treaty to dispose of, it will be 
 seen v.helher 1 have prophesied truly or not. 
 
12 
 
 S!r, the President will be satisfied with a treaty 
 providing for the payment of our claims, and for 
 an indemnity for tlie expenses and sacrifices which 
 the war has cost us. Upper CaHfornia and New- 
 Mexico were regarded as sufficient for all of our 
 demands against JMexico. Something more may 
 or may not now be required. TampiCo and the 
 mountains of Sierra Madre, without other equiv- 
 alents than our demands, witli, probably, the 
 security of some commercial privileges, may be 
 required now. It is not to be expected that the 
 precise terms of a contemplated treaty, before it is 
 made, can, with propriety, be made public. 
 
 Sir, the President never dreamed, at any time, 
 that any one ever thought that his o'jject, hereto- 
 fore or now, was the extinction of the nationality 
 of Mexico. I never heard, sir, from any respect- 
 able source, until the Senator from South Carolina 
 [Mr. Calhoun] introduced his resolutions upon 
 that sulyect, that the President ever had or could 
 have any such scheme in view. The Senator from 
 Tennessee assumes, in the face of the President's 
 message, that such are the designs of the President, 
 and upon that assumption he bases his opposition 
 to the ten-regiment bill. Sir, my honorable friend 
 described to us, with great force and much appa- 
 rent feeling, the cruelty and tyranny of the lash of 
 party, and in the same connection he told us, that 
 he came here this winter prepared to vote for any 
 reasonable amount of men and money, to carry on 
 this war successfully. When I put these state- 
 ments together — the party lash, of which he so 
 justly and bitterly complained, and the change 
 which he confessed had been made in his original, 
 generous intentions towards the Administration, 
 upon the subject of this war, and that of opposi- 
 tion to the bill before us — I could but think that 
 the party lash had been but too successfully applied 
 to him. He found, on his arrival here, that many 
 of his party were not up to his original mark; that 
 some of them were so far below it as to be ad- 
 vocates of the policy to bring back our army the 
 quickest, and shortest, and cheapest way, without 
 peace, or indemnity, or the payment of the claims 
 of our citizens. I could but think that the rigor 
 of party discipline, against his better will and 
 judgment, had forced him to abandon his original 
 position, and to go over to the platform jirepared 
 for him by the Senators from Ohio [Mr. Corwin] 
 and New Hampshire, [Mr. Hale.] Forced into 
 this new position, I thought that lie considered it 
 necessary to assign some reason for this change, 
 and thatreason he found in the position he assumes, 
 that it is the design of the President to seize and 
 hold the whole of Mexico. Sir, that sin, of which 
 the Senator spoke, in the poetic language of Pope, 
 that at first was repulsive, then tolerated, and then 
 embraced, was a description, I thought, fully appli- 
 cable to his transitions, in reference to his change 
 of policy upon the subject of this war, and the 
 substitution of an opposite policy. 
 
 Sir, the Senator from Tennessee desires to drive 
 us, it would appear, to the issue of calling the 
 army back, the cheapest and shortest way, or to 
 take the whole of Mexico. He has made this 
 issue; we have not made it. We take the issue 
 of a prosecution of this war until we force a peace, 
 predicated ujion the terms of paying the claims of 
 our citizens and of indemnifying the country to 
 some extent for the expenses of this war; or the 
 withdrawal of our army, without peace, or indem- 
 
 nity, or the payment of those claims. This is the 
 true issue. But, sir, the Senator from Tennessee 
 is an able and an adroit man. 
 
 Mr. BELL. I do not take that as a compli- 
 ment. 
 
 Mr. SEVIER.* Well, then, sir, I will take it 
 back. But 1 will say, that from his great aliilities, 
 and talents, and influence in Tennessee, and from 
 the issues he made up for the people of that State 
 to decide, that he produced a revolution in public 
 sentiment in that State, and took it from the Dem- 
 ocratic party. He came here with a high reputa- 
 tion for his powers of mind, which led us to expect 
 what we know now by experience. Now, sir, he 
 would make an issue for us of the whole of Mex- 
 ico, or the line of the Rio Grande or the Nueces. 
 This is his own issue, not ours. Yet this is the 
 issue he argues. He assumes that it is the policy 
 of the Administration to take the whole of Mexico; 
 and, so regarding it, he gives us his views at great 
 length, mosteloquenily and powerfully againstsuch 
 a measure. To prove that that is the object of the 
 Administration, he refers to the abolition of the 
 transit duties in Mexico, in which he sees an effort 
 on the part of the United States to conciliate the 
 people of Mexico. I suppose the Senator refers 
 to the order from the Treasury Department to 
 General Scott. That order was given for no such 
 purpose. It was found impossible to collect these 
 transit duties with our machinery in a country 
 like Mexico. They were therefore abolished; and 
 in lieu of those duties, the different departments of 
 Mexico were required by General Scott to furnish 
 him a gross amount, at stated periods, which has 
 been done. The revenues thus collected exceed, 
 according to the statement of General Scott, four- 
 fold the amount that was received under the sys- 
 tem that he abolished. Does the Senator call this 
 electioneering, or an eflTort on the part of the Uni- 
 ted States to conciliate the people of Mexico.' 
 Thinking that this evidence proves the truth of his 
 assumption, that the Administration desires the 
 subjugation of all Mexico, he then proceeds to 
 enumerate, with great force and skill, the objec- 
 tions which he sees in such a measure. Now, sir, 
 if we shall be drawn to such an issue by the em- 
 barrassments flung in t!ie way of our Government 
 at home, and by the encouragement which such 
 opposition gives to the people of Mexieo; which 
 issue is, to retreat ingloriously from that country, 
 leaving an exasperated and perpetual, and prob- 
 ably a pursuing enemy behind us, without peace 
 or indemnity, or the payment of the claims of our 
 citizens; or to take the whole of Mexico, — whatever 
 may be the consequences, I, for one, am ready to 
 say, march on. In such a chain of evils, I am 
 ready to say, that, sir, although against the con- 
 quest of Mexico, and against any more than a rea- 
 sonable cession of territory, if we are to take the 
 issue proposed by the Senator from Tennessee, I 
 will go for tlie whole of Mexico, with all the ob- 
 jections attending it, and there are many which are 
 great, but, in my judgment, not eiuirely insur- 
 mountable. What are they? The Senator enu- 
 merates them. The population of that country is 
 one, and the extent of the country is the other. 
 
 The population of tliat country is aliout seven 
 millions; of this number three-fourths are Indians, 
 illiterate, docile, passive, inoffensive, never desir- 
 ing and nevpr exercising any of the privileges of 
 citizens — never voting, or taking any part in elec- 
 
 [i 
 
18 
 
 tions in that country, or in its revolutions. These 
 Indians are of different tribes, and each of them 
 speaks, as the Senator informs us, a different lan- 
 guage from the others. What shall we do with 
 these Indians? Will we allow them to vote, or to 
 be repiesented ? I would do neither; I would treat 
 them as we do our own Indians — give them agents 
 and laws, and kindness, and education. They are 
 a degraded race in Mexico — they could be made 
 less so under our administration. The Senator 
 from Tennessee is aware of this. Some eighteen 
 or twenty years ago, that Senator introduced and 
 passed a bill to remove all the Indian tribes from 
 out of the States in which they resided, and in 
 which they never voted, nor were they ever repre- 
 sented, to a country set apart for them west of 
 Missouri and Arkansas. There are those tribes 
 now, twenty odd of them, speaking as many lan- 
 guages, all improving and happy — so much so, 
 that on two occasions a bill passed the Senate, with 
 but few dissenting voices, to organize those tribes 
 into a territory, preparatory to admitting them into 
 this Confederacy. We can get along with those 
 Indians with as little trouble as we do with our 
 own. They are less warlike, less enlightened or 
 energetic. What shall we do with the other fourth 
 of tlie population of Mexico, which consists of 
 pure blood, and half-breeds of Indian and Euro- 
 pean blood .' To this class I would apply the prin- 
 ciples of our naturalization laws, and the oath of 
 allegiance. I would treat them with kindness and 
 respect, and protect them in the enjoyment of their 
 property and religion, and ultimately make them, 
 as we do all naturalized foreigners, upon an ecjual- 
 ity with native-born citizens. But the Senator 
 says this cannot be done. They have in their veins 
 the blood of the Visigoths and Celtibereans, a race 
 of people that was never heard to groan. In this 
 
 fioetic description I of course have no confidence, 
 f they suffer, they will sigh, whatever party may 
 say to the contrary. He says they will never be- 
 come reconciled to us, and will assassinate upon 
 every opportunity. I do not believe in irreconcil- 
 iation for general, and not for private griefs, and 
 particularly for benefits conferred. If, however, 
 they will stab and assassinate, there is a remedy 
 in this country for such abuses, and that remedy 
 grows in Kentucky and Missouri, which is vul- 
 garly called " hemp." But these people are Cath- 
 olics — and so they are. Are Catholics opposed to 
 our institutions, in this or that country.' In this 
 country we have not found it so. We have had 
 Catholics in our service, at the head of our armies, 
 in our Cabinet, and on the Supreme Court bench. 
 From Mexico, the Catholics — for they are all Cath- 
 olics — have expelled monarchy, and have copied 
 our Constitution for their form of government. I 
 would extend to Mexico, as we have in this coun- 
 try, unreserved toleration in religious faith. That 
 would be my remedy. 
 
 But the country is a large one, and if added to 
 this, would destroy both. That is only an opin- 
 ion. Every extension of territory thus far has 
 strengthened rather than weakened it. The W higs 
 have ever opposed the extension of territory — it 
 has been their destiny — and always upon the 
 ground that it would endanger our liberties. The 
 only instances of disturbances in the States have 
 been confined to the old ones, and in those near 
 the centre. We have had a convention of malcon- 
 tents at Hartford, Connecticut, a whiskey inscir- 
 
 rection in Pennsylvania, under the auspices, I 
 believe, of Albert Gallatin, and some dissatisfac- 
 tion in Sou'h Carolina, growing out of our reve- 
 nue laws. These, I believe, were all. Let us 
 have something else than speculation upon this 
 subject. But if this country is to be added, he 
 tells us we are to have a standing army to keep 
 the people quiet, and to protect it. A small peace 
 establishment and our navy would be sufficient for 
 both these purposes. Will the people of Yucatan, 
 or Honduras, or New Grenada ever invade it? It 
 is hardly probable. But the debts which Mexico 
 owes abroad and to the church, would you pay 
 those debts? inquires the Senator. I answer, yes; 
 and with the revenues of Mexico — which, under 
 the operation of our finance laws, would easily and 
 speedily be done. But the annexation of Mexico 
 would greatly increase the patronage of the Execu- 
 tive, by the appointment of judges, marshals, dis- 
 trict attorneys, governors, &c.; and such patron- 
 ao;e would cost us a great deal, and make the 
 President dangerous from his increased power. 
 Sir, the cost would be paid from the revenues of 
 the country, and as for patronage, it is the oldest, 
 the most popular, and has really the least in it, of 
 all the fears which ever beset our people. Instead 
 of strengthening it weakens the President. He 
 has generally many applicants for office — he can 
 give it to but one. He that receives it is no more 
 a friend to the President than he was before; and 
 those who wanted the office and do not get it, are 
 often made enemies of the President on account of 
 the disappointment. The man he appoints, though 
 probably influential before, loses his influence by 
 the very fact that his motives are always suspect- 
 ed. No man who has ever had patronage desires it. 
 I have felt this myself. I represent a people who 
 generally care but little about office; yet it has 
 happened that for a vacant office there were more 
 than one application; and the most painful of all 
 my duties here has ever been to choose between 
 my friends. The Senator from Tennessee was 
 once in the War Department, as the Senator from 
 North Carolina [Mr. Badger] was once in the 
 Navy Department. They have had some expe- 
 rience upon this subject of patronage. Do they 
 not well remember how much they were annoyed 
 by it? How difficult it was for them to see gen- 
 tlemen on business, on account of the hordes of 
 office-seekers that surrounded them? Would not 
 those gentlemen have been highly gratified if they 
 could have been relieved of all this trouble? Yes, 
 sir, this cry of patronage, designed to create a jeal- 
 ousy of Executive power, was in full blast when 
 I came here many years ago; and being then a 
 very young man, I was green enough to believe 
 there was something in it. This cry has been in 
 full blast ever since, and will be in full blast when 
 I am dead and gone. If you want to strengthen 
 your Executive, deprive him of patronage alto- 
 gether; if you would serve the country, afford as 
 few occasions for its exercise as possible. 
 
 These, sir, are some of the prominent objections 
 urged by the Senator against the incorporation of 
 all Mexico into this Union. And to render this 
 measure still more odious, he imputes to the Presi- 
 dent, and to the army, and to those who sustain 
 both, the base and ignoble purposes of carrying 
 on the war for " gold and glory." Sir, I have 
 endeavored to show-that this war was inevitable 
 on our part, and that it is prosecuted from the 
 
14 
 
 same inevitable necessity. The Senator compared 
 this war upon Mexico to that of Cortez, under 
 Spanish aulliority, which he said was a war for 
 gold and glury. 
 
 Mr. Bl^LL disclaimed having made any such 
 statement. 
 
 Mr. SEVIER said this gold and glory had been 
 flung in, for some cause wiiicii he did not under- 
 stand. If it was not intended to be alleged that 
 this war was for some such cause, why was it in- 
 troduced.' 
 
 Mr. BELL hoped the Senator would excuse 
 him for interrupting him, but he had said nothing 
 as to the object of this war being for gold and 
 glory; but had said, that between liie commence- 
 ment of the war and the present time, perhaps 
 some motive may have crept in which we did not 
 know of exactly, and which might govern others 
 in voting for a further prosecution of the war. 
 
 Mr. SEVIER. Weil, sir, why did he say that 
 gold and glory was the cause of the war of Cortez, 
 unless he meant to charge upon the officers and men 
 engaged in this war the same unholy ends and 
 purposes which he says governed Cortez and his 
 companions.' If the Senator from Tennessee says 
 the party here, or the Administration, or its friends 
 upon this floor, who vote for this bill, and for a 
 further prosecution of this war, are governed by 
 any such desire of gold and giory, he says that 
 which he cannot sustain, and which is not true. 
 The Administration are guiltless of such motives; 
 the act of Trist, the act of Slidell, the acts of our 
 generals in Mexico, plainly show that such are 
 not the sentiments of this party and this Admin- 
 istration. The Senator also urged as an addition- 
 al reason which would render the acquisition of 
 Mexico unpopular — the removal of the capital 
 from its present location; a necessary consequence, 
 he affirmed, of the adoption of this measure. I 
 hope it will not be done during my time. I have 
 learned the way here, and desire to travel no new 
 roads, to any new capital of the United States. I 
 am content to let it remain where it is. Yet, I can 
 tell that Senator, that the time may come, although 
 he and I may not live to see it, when this capital 
 may be moved, whether Mexico is annexed or 
 not. This is a work which our successors may, 
 or may not, accomplish. These are the reasons, 
 all based upon the assumed fact, that the subju- 
 gation and annexation of all Mexico is the object 
 of the Administration; upon that assumption the 
 Senator justifies his opposition to the bill now be- 
 fore us. These are the facts which are to justify 
 him in voting against supplies and reinforcements 
 to our gallant army in Mexico. It seems to be a 
 sortof Whig destiny, in time of war to vote against 
 supplies and reinforcements to the army of our 
 country. I understand that the Senator, and the 
 party with whom he acts, will not vote a dollar 
 for supplies or reinforcements of any kind to our 
 army in Mexico. Is he willing to let that army 
 perish for want of supplies and reinforcements? 
 Does he expect the country to sustain him and his 
 friends in such a course as this.' No, sir; wo 
 unto that man, in time of war, who shall refuse to 
 vote supplies and reinforcements to the army of 
 our country! 
 
 Mr. BELL. Don't take the proper officers away, 
 and our army will not perish. 
 
 Mr. SEVIER. We have got the proper officers 
 there, and will keep them there. If the army is left 
 
 to perish in Mexico, there will be a heavy respon- 
 sibility upon those who refused it the necessary 
 supplies and reinlbrcements. Would the Senator 
 leave our army in Mexico without reinforcements 
 until the day of danger arrives .' 
 
 Mr. BELL. If the army were really in danger, 
 I would vote any number of men we should re- 
 quire; I thought there was a sufficient force there 
 already, and that the army was in no danger. 
 
 Mr. SEVIER. The Senator used the word 
 " rescue" — that he would be willing to rescue the 
 army from danger. 
 
 Mr. BELL. I disclaim the idea. I said I would 
 not vote supplies until I saw the army in danger; 
 and took the position that 25,000 men, or 30,000 
 men, under Scott, with able and experienced men 
 to command them, were not likely to be in danger. 
 All the documents on this subject go to show that 
 the force now there is amply adequate for neces- 
 sary purposes. I am sure the Senator does not 
 wish to misrepresent me. 
 
 Mr. SEVIER. Very far from it. But I called 
 his attention expressly to this phrase, which struck 
 my ear, for the purpose of an explanation. I used 
 the word " rescue," particularly desiring some ex- 
 planation from the Senator if I had misconceived 
 him, but he was silent. And then I went on with 
 my comments. Then, again, in regard to voting 
 supplies, I thought that he meant to say, he would 
 not vote supplies until he saw the army in danger. 
 
 Mr. BELL. I said that I thought the force at 
 present in Mexico was sufficient. 
 
 Mr. SEVIER. But the head of the army. Gen- 
 eral Scott, advised an addition to his forces; and it 
 was in accordance with that recommendation, and 
 for the purpose of enablijig the .''orce to collect the 
 revenue, to support not only the men we propose 
 to send there by this bill, but those already there, 
 that this bill was proposed. 
 
 Mr. BELL. If the gentleman will allow me, 
 General Scott had estimated how many men would 
 be necessary to carry out the plans of occupying 
 all the States of Mexico. But I presume, if it be 
 intended to get a peace with the existing Govern- 
 ment, an additional force would not be required. If 
 thought that, with regard to the occupation of all 
 the posts, thirty thousand men at present under 
 Scott, in the present circumstances of the coun- 
 try, would be adequate, with the six or seven 
 thousand men cooperating on the line of the Rio 
 Grande. The honorable Senator observed that the 
 state of the army depends upon the discretion of 
 the general commanding under the instructions of 
 the Executive here, and it is only by extending 
 operations in such a manner as in Mexico, that the 
 Administration will ever be able to extricate them- 
 selves from the necessity of holding it entirely, and 
 that ah additional force would be necessary. 
 
 Mr. SEVIER was very happy to hear the explan- 
 ations of the Senator. He had intended to call the 
 Senator's attention to other parts of his speech; 
 but as he was weary of this colloquy, he would 
 pass over them. He would now conclude by sum- 
 ming up what he had endeavored to present to the 
 Senate. He had endeavored to show, first, that 
 the war was inevitable on the part of the United 
 States; secondly, that it had been wisely managed 
 and successfully carried on, in spile of the opposi- 
 tion party of the country; and, thirdly, that the 
 United States had ever been ready and willing, 
 and are still ready and willing, to make peace 
 
15 
 
 with any stable Government of Mexico, on hon- 
 orable and liberal terms; that it never was the 
 design of the Administration to subjugate and an- 
 nex the whole of Mexico; and (hat all the territory 
 the Administration ever desired, or now desires, is 
 
 but a reasonable portion, sufficiently valuable to 
 the United States to defray the claims of our citi- 
 zens against Mexico, and to indemnify the coun- 
 try for the expenses of this war. This, sir, is the 
 platform on which the Administration stands. 
 
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