towns and forts in that quarter. Who could have believed-who among that band of noble spirits who assisted in framing this goodly form of Government, and in putting it into operation, could have believed, that the time would arrive so soon when a President of the United States, a man, too, of no particular force, and having no hold on the popular feeling or confidence, would dare to entertain and devise a project for the dismemberment of a neighboring power, and actually begin a war for this object, into the support of which he should finally wheedle or force the nation, and to carry on that war to the point, or prospect, of ultimate and complete success! Yet all this has been done in the time of the tenth President of the United States, and when the Constitution was not yet sixty years old. It would be unreasonable to expect that a President who had deliberately set the Constitution aside in order to make a war, would give that instrument much heed or consideration in conducting his military operations. treachery of some false and corrupted | Mexican chieftain, or he would make the failure of the intrigue the occasion and excuse for a military demonstration, and, if need be, for war. He sent a Minister Plenipotentiary to "reside near that government, as if nothing had happened to interrupt the harmony of the two powers. It was not the object of that mission to find and fix the proper line of boundary between Mexico and Texas, which was simply the duty of the President after Annexation had been consummated, so far as any question of territory was concerned between the two countries. The object was, by threats of war, and judicious pecuniary appliances, to bring Mexico, or some chief or another in Mexico, to consent to sell to the United States large portions of her territory. The Plenipotentiary, it is understood, carried with him proposals for the purchase, 1st, of the country up to the Rio Grande--that very country to which it has been so much insisted our title was clear and unquestionable; 2d, the remainder of New Mexico beyond the Rio Grande; and, 3d, It was important, in order to carry his a part or all, or nearly all, of Upper Cali- war of conquest as promptly as possible fornia. The amount of our claims upon towards the heart of the enemy's country, Mexico-four or five millions of dollars- and at the same time to make the war was to be offered for the first parcel; five popular at home, if it could be made so, millions more for the second; and twenty to take advantage of the national and inor twenty-five millions more, according to stinctive bravery and enterprise of our quantity, for California. The Mexican people, and to accept the services of such government refused to receive Mr. Slidell, as might be disposed to engage in the as a minister resident, until the ground for work of carrying the conquering standard a restoration of friendly relations had been of the country into a foreign land. It was prepared by some proper understanding not difficult to find persons enough who in regard to the offensive measure of An- were willing and anxious to bear commisnexation. Baffled in this attempt, the sions in such a service. But it so happens, President did not hesitate about his course. that none but soldiers regularly enlisted in In anticipation, indeed, of this event, he the army of the United States, and under issued orders to the army to take posses- the command of officers, of all grades, apsion, on the ground of indisputable owner- pointed and commissioned by the United ship and right, of a part of the very terri-States, can, by the Constitution, be emtory which he had been endeavoring to secure by negotiation and purchase. Thus was this shameful war brought on. It began on the Rio Grande; but with so much certainty had the President calculated on this issue, that our naval forces on the coast of Mexico in the Pacific, under the direction of Com. Sloat, were ready, with instructions of a date long previous, on the first notice of hostilities, to make a demonstration on California, and secure the possession of the principal | ployed in a war, the operations of which are to be carried on beyond the limits of the Republic. Militia-and all troops are militia, whose company and field officers are appointed and commissioned by State authority--cannot, by the Constitution, be employed in war, except "to repel invasions." Yet the President called for large bodies of volunteers, which, as they are organized and officered, are only militia, and procured the sanction of Congress to his demand, with the design of sending them, and he did send them, into a foreign | better councils in that body, he would land, in a war of invasion and conquest. It was a natural consequence of a successful war of conquest thus begun and prosecuted, that the President should claim himself to be the conqueror of the countries brought under the power of our arms, and should proceed, in his own name and by his own authority, to establish civil governments over all territories where the submission of the inhabitants should be received, and to institute, in all places under his military occupation, a regular system for the imposition of taxes and the collection of a revenue for the exclusive and independent use of the military chest. The President makes a war of invasion and conquest, employs militia to carry it on, sets up civil governments in conquered places without the aid of Congress, and, finally, undertakes to support his army, in part at least, by a regular Executive system of taxation and revenue. So much for Mr. Polk's observance of the solemn promise which he made to the nation in his inaugural address, and to which he had just then bound himself by a solemn oath. "The Constitution," said he, "will be the chart by which I shall be directed. It will be my first care to administer the government in the true spirit of that instrument, and to assume no power not expressly granted, or clearly implied in its terms.' II. The next rule which we have quoted and laid down as proper and necessary for the government of the President in his official conduct, has been no better kept than that we have just been considering. This rule has reference to the conduct of the President in the matter of our relations with foreign powers. It requires that he shall govern himself in these relations, by the law of justice and of strict right, and that he shall leave all other nations to manage their own internal affairs in their own way. It enjoins upon him the policy and the duty of non-interference, and strict neutrality. In this connection we can only refer to the line of conduct adopted by him towards England in regard to the Oregon question, without pretending to enter into an exposition of that conduct. It was wholly wanting in moderation, truth and dignity, and but for the timely interposition of the Senate, and the adoption of have inevitably brought the two nations into the conflict and strife of arms. Hap-. pily we escaped, in that instance, the consequences which his course and conduct were preparing for us. Unhappily, however, we have not been so fortunate in respect to the line of policy pursued by him towards Mexico. In following the President, now or at any time, through his tortuous course towards the Mexican nation; whenever, in fine, we undertake to look at the various and contradictory reasons offered by him, at sundry times, to justify his proceedings and his war, we shall need, in order to avoid being misled, to keep this main fact constantly in mind, namely, that his design of dismembering Mexico lay at the bottom of the whole affair. When he sent Mr. Slidell to Mexico, not to soothe that power for the loss of Texas, and to fix the boundary between the two countries on just and liberal terms, but to prosecute a dishonest demand for territory, Herrera was at the head of affairs, and every way disposed to make a just and reasonable accommodation with us. Paredes soon after displaced Herrera. This chief did not at all suit the views of the President. What he wanted was a chief who might be approachable, for a consideration, with propositions distasteful and dishonorable to Mexico, and he turned to Santa Anna as the man for his purposes. Santa Anna was then in Cuba, having been expelled from the government and driven into exile by his countrymen. There are abundant grounds for believing that he was invited to return to Mexico by the President, to overthrow Paredes and resume his sway in that distracted country. On the same day on which the President sent his war message to Congress, which was not till he had brought the armies of the two countrie into collision, he dispatched an order to Com. Conner, in the Gulf, to admit Santa Anna to pass freely into Mexico, should he present himself for that object. This was in May. In June he was passed in, according to order, and shortly after succeeded in effecting the proposed revolution. Now the pretence and apology for this intrigue and interference with the internal affairs of Mexico, were, that Paredes was suspected of favoring a monarchical party in that country. In two different procla mations, emanating directly from the Government at Washington, and addressed to the Mexican people, it was avowed and declared that a principal object of the war from the beginning had been to put down the monarchists, and secure the triumph of the republican party and system in that country. That the fatal movement of our troops to the Rio Grande, by which the war was precipitated, and the further prosecution of military operations on the line of that river, had a principal reference to the bringing about of a revolution in the government of Mexico, we suppose admits of no doubt. Hear what is said in one of the proclamations referred to: "Reasons of high policy and of continental American interest precipitated events, in spite of the circumspection (!) of the cabinet at Washington. ... When it was indulging the most flattering hopes of accomplishing its aim by frank explanations and reasonings (!) addressed to the judgment and prudence of the virtuous and patriotic government of Gen. D. J. Herrera (!), the misfortune least looked for dispelled this pleasant hope, [that is to say, Paredes assumed the government,] and at the same time blocked up every avenue which could lead to an honorable settlement between the two nations. The new government discarded the national interests, as well as those of Continental America, and elected in preference foreign influences the most opposed to these interests and the most fatal to the future of Mexican liberty and of the Republican System, which the United States hold it a duty to preserve and protect. Duty, honor, and dignity itself imposed upon us the necessity of not losing a season of which the monarchical party was taking the most violent advantage, for not a moment was to be lost; and we acted with the promptness and decision necessary in a case so urgent," &c. The object which the President had in view the overthrow of Paredes, and the substitution of Santa Anna in his place is doubtless truly enough stated in this manifesto; but the true motive and the ultimate design are not here disclosed. It was altogether foreign to his duty, and a gross violation of every sound principle, for him to interpose, and that too with the army of the United States, to change the government or administration of affairs in Mexico, upon any ground or pretext of serving the cause of "Mexican liberty and of the Republican System," even if that had been the true and honest motive in the case. But we must refuse to give the President credit for sincerity in ascribing to himself such a motive. It was not Mexican liberty that he was after-it was Mexican territory. There was no feeling or consideration for Mexico in the matter except such as vultures have for lambs. It was a naked design of dismembering that country, through the treachery and betrayal of a government, or chief, to be set up and established for that purpose, by which he was governed. It was a naked feeling of rapacity which dictated his whole policy. He wanted her territory, and he was resolved to have it. Paredes stood in his way, and he set on foot a plan to revolutionize the government. He believed, undoubtedly, that Santa Anna would be found purchasable, and he procured his return to the country. He began in the stupid belief that when he and Santa Anna together had effected a revolution in the government, there would be nothing left to be done but divide the spoils of their victory between them-he to take the land, and Santa Anna the money. He acted under a delusion, as men of small cunning are very apt to do. All that he accomplished was to give back to Mexico her ablest chief and general; to impose on himself the necessity of making the war naked and undisguised conquest, and to track his way deep in blood over every rood of ground trodden in his path toward's the attainment of his grand object-the dismemberment of a country, for whose "liberty and Republican System" he had professed such tender concern. one of III. But we pass to other topics. And we desire it should be understood that we do not profess to do more in this article, than to indicate and present, in the most general way, the several subjects of political debate, connected with the conduct and policy of Mr. Polk and his administration, and arranged with some regard to order and convenience, which, as we suppose, are likely principally to occupy and employ the thoughts and the polemic strife of parties and political men, in the approaching presidential canvass. They are subjects to which it is probable our own humble labors may be a good deal devoted in the stirring period just now at hand. What, then, shall we say of President Polk and his policy and proceedings, when we come to consider the question-always | tration has been carrying forward. It will a vital one in a republic-whether the government, under his lead, has made, as it was bound to do, the practice of a rigid economy in the public expenditures, a cardinal point in its policy, and whether it has strenuously aimed to avoid creating a public debt? There are some plain facts which must be written down in this take some millions more to replace the stores and munitions which had been gathered in years of peace and laid up for the defence of the country, and which have been expended and destroyed in the career of rapacity and bucaneering ambition, by which the President has illustrated his brief term of official domination. Sixty-five millions of dollars, then, of current expenditure has been as little as could suffice Mr. Polk for carrying on the operations of the government for a single year. At the end of his four years he will have expended in cash, received into the Treasury from ordinary sources of revenue, and including the balance which he found there when he came in, about one hundred and twenty-three millions, and he will have created and saddled upon the country besides a debt of at least one hundred millions more. Mr. Adams's administration cost the country, exclusive of payments on account of the public debt, an average yearly sum of about twelve millions six hundred thousand, or about fifty millions five hundred thousand for four years. This contrasts rather strongly with sixty millions, exclusive of payments on account of public debt, expended in a single year of Mr. Polk's administration. But there was no war in Mr. Adams's time. There was, however, a war-a war with Great Britain, which taxed and tasked the energies of the country to the utmost— during Mr. Madison's administration; and the comparison of expenditure in this case is as little to the advantage of Mr. Polk, The sum of the expenses for the EIGHT years of Mr. Madison's administration was connection. As an example of what the Government is doing, it is found that its expenditures, during the present fiscal year, ending on the first of July next, will not be less, probably, than sixty-five millions of dollars. This is one fact. Another is this: that the public debt at the end of the present fiscal year, supposing the war to have ended by that time, and including twenty-five millions of dollars to pay for Mexican territory-a purchase which gives us no domain, but fastens a perpetual curse upon us-will amount, according to the best calculation we have been able to make, only in ascertained and ascertainable items, to the formidable sum of $98,800,000. If peace shall be made on the basis of the treaty lately ratified by the Senate, which is yet a very doubtful issue, still the expenditures will go on outrunning the revenues of the government; and when the fourth of March, 1849, shall come round, bringing the present term of Mr. Polk to a period, the public debt of the country will not be less than one hundred and ten millions, if it shall be less than one hundred and twenty millions of dollars. At the close of the preceding Administration, the amount of the public debt was just about ten millions of dollars, after deducting the balance left in the Treasury. The amount of debt, therefore, created in the time of this Administration, and which it will leave as a legacy to the country, if circumstances the most favorable shall attend it from this time to its close, will certainly not be less than one hundred millions of dollarsit may be a hundred and twenty millions. All this, however, is exclusive of the millions expended, or promised and due, or which will become due, in the shape of bounties in public lands, and other millions with which the Treasury will be burthened for long years to come, in the shape of pensions, and to pay for claims and losses, and all It will be for the country to say whether the odds and ends which are sure to follow any sufficient apology can be found for on after such enterprises as the Adminis- | these vast expenditures and this public ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY-FOUR MILLIONS SIX HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS, or an average of eighteen millions a year; while the sum of the expenses for the FOUR years of Mr. Polk's administration, exclusive of payments on account of debt, will be more than Two HUNDRED MILLIONS; though this will include twenty-five millions to pay mainly for vast barren wastes of desert and mountain in Mexico, or rather for jurisdiction to the Imperial Government at Washington, over such a country, and over the sparse and wretched population that vegetates upon it. debt made and created in Mr. Polk's time. True, we have had a war on our hands, but the country was in profound peace when he took the helm. How came it to be involved in war? A solemn judgment has been pronounced by the representatives of the people, coming most recently from the bosom of their constituency, that the war was unconstitutionally and unnecessarily begun by the Executive Government. That judgment might have added that it was begun for unlawful and criminal objects. Such we believe, to-day, is the sober judgment of the nation. It was a war begun for conquest, spoliation, dismemberment. We had not a just claim upon Mexico which might not have been secured, or a question in dispute with her which might not have been satisfactorily adjusted, by negotiation and through moderate and wise counsels. These vast expenditures, and this oppressive debt, have not resulted from the necessary defence of the country, or of the country's interest or honor. Our soil had not been invaded, nor had our rights been assailed in a way to demand this unreflecting and reckless resort to the ultima ratio of battle and blood. There is not a plausibility even on which the President can rely to justify the precipitation of the country into this conflict. For Mr. Polk with having inconsiderately, and in the indulgence of designs marked with every impress of bold folly, fatal mischief, and flagrant injustice and iniquity, sacrificed, for the time being, and to the extent of the capital and means consumed in this war, those high and grand interests of the American nation to which we have here referred. He has sacrificed whatever a hundred millions or more, spent in this war, might have done, if it had been so employed, in prosecuting works of internal improvement, in promoting useful inventions, popular education, moral cultivation, learning, and all the arts of peace, and thus elevating the character, and multiplying the comforts, conveniences, and enjoyments of the whole body of the nation. And it has been a clear sacrifice, for we have gained nothing by the war. The war was not necessary to satisfy the world of our prowess and skill in arms; and the national glory we have so dearly won, is only a broader and brighter light in which to read our discredit and dishonor on account of the character and design of the war. the conquests we have made, and the extension we have given, or are likely to give, to the area of our dominion, we see little in that to rejoice over. We believe it will prove the bane and the curse of the country. We may, by these acquisitions of vast regions of territory beyond our proper limits, with the ignorant and degraded population that belongs to them, convert the Republic which our fathers created for us into an Empire, and our unpretending National Government into a great Power bearing imperial sway over distant provinces and dependencies; we may multiply the States of our Union by bringing in remote districts with strange names and inhabited by strange people, until we have planted a representation of State soverSo much of the capital of the country eignties, having a few interests in common is actually consumed-capital so much and a thousand interests in conflict, in the needed in a young community like this, Senate of the United States, as numerous, and so essential to the prosecution of or nearly so, as the popular representation works and enterprises for improving the in the House of Representatives; destroyphysical condition of the people, in a coun- ing the necessary constitutional balance try comparatively new and fresh, by far between those two bodies, and putting the the greatest part of which is still a wilder-political power of the Central Government ness, and all of which demands new efforts and operations to bring it into a state completely subdued and fitted to the uses and the highest wants of civilized man in an age of movement and progress. We charge The money expended in war, by far the greater part of it, is so much property or capital destroyed; it is destroyed as certainly as if it had been consumed by fire, or swallowed up in the depths of the sea. At least this is so in this country, and especially when the war is carried on abroad. The men employed in it produce nothing, but are taken away from productive employment, and become mere consumers; and deterioration, injury, destruction and death, wait on all material substances, animate and inanimate, used in carrying it on. | into the hands of these new, strange, distant, foreign States, with only a handful of population altogether-and that of the worst kind-over such States as New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, with popu |