CHAPTER XI MEXICO AND CALIFORNIA The annexation of Texas brought about war, not with Great Britain or France (as at one time seemed likely), but with Mexico. This indeed was almost inevitable: all the annexationists in the United States were ready for it. The annexationists were probably strongest in the South. "Texas had been settled by Americans, mainly from the South, possessed the system of slavery, and appealed in every way to the pride and interest of those dwelling below Mason and Dixon's line." 1 Texas had declared itself independent in March, 1836, and in just over a year (July 3, 1837) a Texan minister had been formally received at the White House in Washington: this was official recognition, but annexation seemed yet a long way off. The North and East of the United States would have none of it, and it was largely on this ground that Daniel Webster had retired from the State Department in 1843. Nevertheless a treaty, between the United States and Texas, for annexation was almost completed when the new Secretary of State, Abel P. Upshur, was killed by the explosion of a gun on the warship Princeton (February 28, 1844). President Tyler, who was a Virginian and annexationist, next appointed John C. Calhoun, of South Carolina, to be Secretary of State. Calhoun was strongly for annexation and the maintenance of slavery, and he greatly distrusted the apparent altruism of England in working for the abolition of slavery in Texas. He kept an agent, General Duff Green, in Europe, supplied with funds from the State Department, in order to exert influence on foreign opinion. John Quincy Adams, still vigorous in public life, called Duff Green the 1 Meigs, The Life of John C. Calhoun (1917), II, 294. Mason and Dixon were two English engineers who were employed between 1764 and 1767 in defining a boundary between Maryland on the one hand and Delaware and Pennsylvania on the other. 2 Cp. Reeves, op. cit., pp. 124-8. ambassador of slavery at the Court of Great Britain. In 1844 Great Britain was very unpopular in the Southern States. When Calhoun went to Washington as Secretary of State, the first document that he took up was an unopened letter which Pakenham, the British Minister at Washington, had sent to Upshur, just two days before the latter's death. The letter enclosed a copy of a dispatch sent by Aberdeen to Pakenham. In this dispatch, the British Secretary of State stated that Great Britain would do nothing which would disturb the tranquillity of the slave-holding States, or which would affect the prosperity of the United States; but at the same time he wrote that Great Britain did desire the abolition of slavery throughout the world. On April 12, 1844, a treaty of annexation with Texas was signed by Calhoun and by the Texan representatives, and was sent on to the Senate. Meanwhile Calhoun had replied to Aberdeen's dispatch by sending a letter to Pakenham, dated April 18. The letter protested, in moderate terms, against Great Britain's avowal of an intention to procure the abolition of slavery throughout the world; in regard to her own dominions, Great Britain was at perfect liberty to do as she thought best, but an abolitionist policy of Great Britain, applied to Texas, was a vital question for the United States, for it would expose the Texan frontier of the Southern States to inroads of abolitionists. Then followed a defence of slavery, as it was conducted in America. It was a most unfortunate letter. Pakenham, who was aware that it was coming, had tried to dissuade Calhoun from writing it, for the British diplomat knew his trade much too well to engage in a discussion with the State Department on the ethics of slavery. He managed to close the correspondence without ill-feeling on either side. But a worse fate awaited the letter in the Senate, when it went there with the other documents accompanying the treaty. It was greeted as "the supreme example of Southern provincialism." 2 All the abolitionists were against the letter, and against the annexation of Texas, which seemed to be intended by the Southerners as a further rivet in the shackles of the slaves. The treaty therefore failed to obtain a two-thirds majority. Tyler was not to be beaten, however. The Presidential election 1 J. H. Smith, Annexation of Texas, p. 203, referring to F.O. Dispatch of Pakenham, No. 22, April 14, 1844. * Channing, op. cit., V, 543. occurred soon after, and, standing for a second term, he fought the election on the ground of annexation. But Tyler had no great following; Henry Clay, a sort of perpetual candidate, got the nomination of the Whigs; Calhoun and Van Buren divided most of the nominations of the Democrats. Then it occurred to the historian Bancroft to suggest the nomination of Governor Polk of Tennessee, who was being thought of for nomination as Democratic Vice-President. The suggestion came as a ray of light in the general darkness and confusion of the Democratic Convention. Polk was elected, "the first dark horse' in the history of the Presidency." 1 The Tennessee lawyer was destined to accomplish a wonderful work. James Knox Polk was one of the makers of the nineteenth century, and yet there was no especial brilliance about him, only solid worth. He was born on November 2, 1795, in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. His grandfather had been an officer in the Revolutionary Army, his mother is stated to have been a greatgrand-niece of John Knox, the Scottish Reformer. Young Polk, who was the eldest of ten children, was given a sound education in classics and mathematics, subjects which appealed to him because of "his taste for industry and precision." 2 He went to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1815. After graduating, he studied law, and went into practice at Columbia, Tennessee. In 1823 he was elected to the Tennessee legislature, and thus came to know General Andrew Jackson. Polk was one of those who helped to get the General elected as United States Senator for Tennessee." Few acts of his life gave him, in later years, greater pride than his participation in launching Jackson in his political career; and as the General was ever mindful of the welfare of his political supporters, this incident was no impediment to Polk's own political advancement." From this time Polk's career progressed steadily, although unostentatiously. In 1825 he was chosen to represent his country in the United States House of Representatives. In 1836 he was elected Speaker of the House, during the Presidency of Andrew Jackson. In 1839 he was elected Governor of Tennessee by the votes of the Democratic party, but in 1841, when he stood again, the Whigs carried the election of James C. 1 Channing, op. cit., V, 544. James K. Polk, A Political Biography, by E. I. McCormac (1922), p. 4. McCormac, op. cit., p. 5. Jones. Polk as Governor had done a good work by restoring economy in the affairs of Tennessee State, but he had not become a national figure. When the Presidential election campaign began in 1844, the Democrats, who wanted Van Buren as President, at first put Polk on the same "ticket " as being a good, sound figurehead for the second place, the Vice-Presidency. The partydifficulties and chances that eventually brought out Polk as President showed him to be a man of luck. Since then historians have been apt to look upon him as a rather colourless man, who somehow made no mistakes, perhaps because he was well served. The publication of his Diary 1 (begun on August 26, 1845, and continued throughout his Presidency) disproves this idea. Polk had definite ideas about republicanism, democracy, and the duty of the United States as leader of the American continent. He was the directing force of his own cabinet, and he carried through the difficult triple annexation of Texas, California, and Oregon, in the annus mirabilis of 1846, without a hitch. One of the first things that Polk did as President was to proceed with the annexation of Texas. The Texas Government wanted to send a chargé d'affaires to Washington, but Polk refused to receive such an official. Texas, he said, had "accepted the terms of annexation offered to her by the United States "; and "he considered Texas as being now virtually a part of our own country." 2 He was quite prepared to fight in defence of Texas, and had already sent the American squadron to the Gulf and the American army to the Western frontier, "to defend her territory and her people against the threatened Mexican invasion." 3 The President's view extended further: he saw that the fate of California was dependent upon that of Texas. California, under Mexican sovereignty, was a vast, undeveloped region, with about a hundred thousand Indians, a few thousand whites (probably as many of these were British and American as there were Spanish); and it was even more remote from the centre of Mexican administration than was Texas. The old Spanish settlements, never very numerous, were in decay at this time. Richard H. Dana, in Two Years before the Mast, described them as being in ruins, when he visited California in 1835. Polk was quite willing that the United States should "purchase for 1 The Diary of James K. Polk, edited by M. M. Quaiffe (1910), 4 vols. 2 Diary, I, 18 (September 6, 1845). Ibid. a pecuniary consideration Upper California and New Mexico "1; and with this end in view, he sent the Hon. John Slidell, of New Orleans, on special mission to Mexico; but the Mexican Government refused to receive Slidell. It was clear to anybody that if the United States won the impending war, she would annex, not merely Texas, but New Mexico and California, that is all Mexican territory north of the Rio Grande del Norte. The most recent American historian puts the case with all the robust common sense and realism (so often unjustly criticised) of a European Chancellery : As to California and New Mexico, which lay between that province and Texas, if Mexico made war on the United States on account of this perfectly justifiable annexation, then those provinces might be considered in the light of an indemnity for the expenditure which Mexico would force upon the United States, and in that point of view the seizure of California and New Mexico would be right and proper.2 There is no doubt that the action of the United States was perfectly correct, and that its results have been for the good of America and the whole world. It is only a pity that the Mexican Government could not brave the anger of its own people and simply accept the pecuniary indemnity, and so save a, for them, futile war. Great Britain, which, unlike Mexico, might have got something out of a war, agreed to compromise in its own claims to a huge piece of disputed territory at the same time. The territory was Oregon. Polk had " decided" that the United States should have all this territory as far northwards as latitude 54° 40′ (instead of latitude 49°), and he directed his Secretary of State, Buchanan, to communicate this decision to the British Minister at Washington, Pakenham. Buchanan said that such a communication would bring on war with Great Britain. The President said that he must do his duty," and leave the rest to God and the country." Buchanan said "he thought God would not have much to do in justifying us in a war for the country north of 49°." 8 The President demurred to this view, but agreed to postpone his decision. So negotiations went on and the Oregon question was settled. The war was very troublesome, for Mexico can never be otherwise than a difficult country to conquer. Santa Anna experienced one of his many changes of fortune when he came back from exile in Havana to be commander-in-chief of the Mexican army. But he had no success against Generals Zachary Taylor and Winfield 1 Diary, I, 34. Channing, op. cit., V, 552. 8 Diary, I, 5. |