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and adopt a measure which shall cut off this country from the possibility of retreat from this war, till Mexico shall submit to lismemberment to the extent of only a little less than one half of her empire. When the war would end, after such a measure should once be adopted, it is not within any man's wisdom to tell; it would end only, we believe, with the utter extinction of her national existence-or of ours. Of all the races of men on this globe, not one has exhibited such obstinacy of resistance, when they have had to fight for country and nationality; not one has shown a will so utterly incapable of being broken and subdued, by whatever calamity and oppression however long continued, and brought under the yoke or rule of a conqueror, as this same GothoSpanish race with which we are dealing in Mexico. That the President does not dare to hope for any ready submission of Mexico to his present ultimatum, though seeking to put it out of the power of this country to retreat from this position, is quite apparent from other parts of the Message. How he contemplates dealing with the case in such an event, is not left without some intelligent indication, which shows to our own mind, clearly enough, the desperate infatuation and madness of folly in which he is indulging.

The proposition of the President to Congress speaks, as we have said, of New Mexico and the Californias as "the CONQUESTS which we have already made;" and he asks Congress to proceed at once to render these conquests secure and available to the country, by measures which shall make it impossible for us ever to surrender them, except in the way in which we have acquired them--namely, as conquests, to some superior power. To this complexion, then, in the face of all the solemn disclaimers of the President, as this war come at last. It turns out o be a war of conquest. It was called a war for the vindication of our honor, and he redress of grievances. Mexico had ailed to pay some three or five millions of dollars which she owed our citizens, and he war has been prosecuted to compel er to make payment. Under two allegaions, both grossly and notoriously false in act: first, that Mexico could never pay this lebt in money, and, therefore, must give us

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territory; and next, that she had refused to give us any indemnity whatever for the debt; the President now declares that we must regard certain vast territories of that power, already overrun by our arms, as CONQUESTS, and proceed to render them secure and available as such. The territories have been already conquered, and subdued by our arms, and are now held in our military occupation, and the object of the war henceforward must be, to secure these conquests, and render them permanent and available. At the conferences in September, an effort was made to turn this conquest into an apparent purchase. It failed, and now the transaction is acknowledged as a conquest. It was a conquest all the while, but it was intended to soften its features, by forcing Mexico to yield it in the way of a sale and for a consideration in money. The trick failed, and nothing was left but to call it by its right name.

It is true, the President still manifests his inveterate disposition to put a disguise on the transaction. In the same paper, and almost in the same breath, in which he refers to the territories taken and occupied by our forces as "conquests," and calls upon Congress to secure and make them permanent us such, he ventures to quote his own language in a former Message, declaring that "the war has not been waged with a view to conquest," but " with a view to obtain an honorable peace, and thereby secure ample indemnity for the expenses of the war, as well as to our much injured citizens who hold large pecuniary demands against Mexico." And to this he now adds: "Such, in my judgment, continues to be the true policy, indeed, the only policy which will probably secure a permanent peace." The juggle of indemnity is still kept up. The war has been waged for indemnity, and not for conquest; and in order to give the case some faint plausibility, he continues to intimate-in the face of demonstrable facts

that the war has been prosecuted to obtain indemnity "for the expenses of the war," as well as for the claims of our citizens. He would have the country believe that the expenses of the war have constituted one of his demands against Mexico; that instead of claiming only a debt of three or five millions, he had claimed this,

and a hundred millions more as due from Mexico on account of the cost of the war. But not one word of this is true. He made no demand through Mr. Trist for these expenses. Mr. Trist expressly renounced any such claim or pretension in the Project of a Treaty he presented. The President was ready to stipulate for the payment of our citizens by our own government, and for the payment to Mexico of twenty millions more, if Mexico would sanction and confirm our conquest of New Mexico and Upper California, by a cession and a treaty of peace, and the country should pay its own expenses of the war. It is not true, then, that the war was waged to obtain indemnity for these expenses, and the President's own Project of a treaty tendered to Mexico, is proof positive to the contrary. There stands the luminous record of that transaction-the conferences in September-and there it will stand forever, to confound all attempts that have been made, or shall be made, to mistify and darken the true nature of this business. The only indemnity for which the war could be said, with any semblance of truth, to have been waged, was indemnity for a debt of three or five millions of dollars. No other indemnity was asked or sought for by the President; and even this indemnity was tendered by Mexico, and was rejected by the President -affording a clear demonstration that it was not indemnity at all, in any shape, not even indemnity for our just claims, which constituted the real object of the war from the beginning. The real object was the acquisition of territory. Hence, the expeditions so promptly set on foot, after the war broke out, to Santa Fé and to California, with orders which clearly indicated, from the very first, the settled purpose of the President, not merely that those provinces should be conquered and held by military occupation, as a means of inducing Mexico to come to just terms of accommodation with us, but that, being conquered, "they should never be surrendered to Mexico." This was the design from the beginning, often boldly denied, all along attempted, awkwardly enough, to be disguised, and finally admitted and avowed. Up to the time of the conferences in September, the President flattered himself that Mexico, in her extremity and

distress, or somebody or other in Mexico, by a liberal appliance of the money of this nation, would be brought to act as a party to a compact, by which the acquisition of territory he had resolved to make, instead of standing before the country and the world as a naked conquest, should put on the semblance of a free bargain of sale and purchase. In this he was disappointed. because the government of that country would not consent "to sell Mexican citi zens as a herd of cattle," or "put a price on the attachment of men to the land that

gave them birth." And this has brought him to his confession and his final resolu tion. He now recommends to Congress to consider and adopt New Mexico and both the Californias, as CONQUESTS, which should never be surrendered, but forthwith secured and rendered permanent by complete and unequivocal acts of proprie torship and sovereignty. Since Mexico refused to give us "indemnity," by selling us a portion of these countries for twenty millions of dollars, we must now "adopt measures to indemnify ourselves" by a permanent appropriation of the whole to our own use, without money and without price! In other words, and in more truthful language, he proposes that Congress shall adopt the war, as it presents itself to the country since his rejection of the overtures of peace by Mexico, and her offers of ample indemnity for our pecuniary claims, with the unalterable resolution to hold New Mexico and both the Californias

besides the country on the left bank of the lower Rio Grande-as conquered territory, and "constituent parts of our own country," in defiance of Mexico, and without any compensation to her therefor, but in the abused name of indemnity, and never to make peace with her until she consents to this humiliation and dismem berment.

Here, then, is the great Practical Issue before Congress and the country. We regard it as a new issue, on which Con gress must be deemed free to act, notwith standing its committal to the support of the war previous to the presenting of this issue. We have said that the war, from the period of its renewal after the confer ences in September, was in effect a new war: Not because there was not all the while a wicked purpose of conquest and

dismemberment towards Mexico on the part of the President, but because Congress was in no way to be deemed to have been committed to such a purpose. The war which Congress had recognized and adopted, and for the support of which it had voted supplies of men and money, was not, so far as Congress was a party to it, a war for conquest in any sense, but is to be deemed to have been prosecuted solely for the purpose of compelling Mexico to come to just terms of accommodation with us; to cease her hostility to us on account of the annexation of Texas; to agree to a just and proper boundary between Texas and her dominions; and to pay or seeure to us, or give us full indemnity for, the demands of our citizens on her justice. It was a war, so far as Congress or the country was a party to it, which should have ceased from the hour that Mexico was brought to propose, or accede to, these terms of accommodation. That point was carried-that object of the war was fully gained, as we think we have demonstrated in our former article on the Message. Mexico was ready to give up Texas; to make the desert between the Nueces and the Rio Grande the boundary; and to give us one half of Upper California and the port of San Francisco, for indemaity for our claims. With this the war which Congress was waging against Mexico should have ceased. It was the fault of the President, and not of Mexico, that it did not cease. He set up new claims and pretensions, to which Congress was in no way a party. He demanded the dismemberment of that country—an objeet of the war to which Congress had Given no sanction-which Mexico could not be purchased with money to submit to-and for which, on his own responsibility, he caused the war to be renewed ind prosecuted. And this war it is--a war having now for its precise object the onsummation of the President's avowed urpose of conquering and dismembering Mexico-in support of which the Presilent invites and demands the co-operation f Congress.

What will Congress do on this momenous Issue? How will Whig Senators ad a Whig House of Representatives anwer the call and demand which the Presient now makes upon them? Will they

recognize and adopt this war for the conquest and dismemberment of Mexico? The Issue becomes a practical one, since the question must be met by official action. One way or the other it must be decided, and the decision must stand out before the country in official conduct. The object of the war is clearly set forth in the President's Message to secure a boundary on the Rio Grande, the whole of New Mexico on both sides of that river, and the two Californias, by conquest; and, in general terms, the mode or plan of military operations, by which these conquests are to be secured, is

set forth.

I cannot doubt," says the President, "that we should secure and render available the conquests which we have already made; and that, with this view, we should hold and occupy, by our naval and military forces, all the ports, towns, cities and provinces now in our occupation, or which may hereafter fall into our possession. * ** Besides New Mexico and the Californias, there are other Mexican provinces which have been reduced to our possession by conquest. ***They should continue to be held as a means of coercing Mexico to accede to just terms of peace. ***What final disposition it may be proper to make of them must depend on the future progress of the war, and the course which Mexico

may think proper hereafter to pursue."

The plan of military operations is to subjugate all Mexico-not, the President assures us, as an end, but as a means. "It has never been contemplated by me, as an object of the war, to make a permanent conquest of the Republic of Mexico, or to annihilate her separate existence as an independent nation." Still he recommends: 1st. That Congress shall permanently appropriate to the United States forthwith, and never to be surrendered, the provinces of New Mexico and the Californias-nearly one-half of the country within the territorial limits of the Mexican empire. 2d. That we should hold on to all the other provinces, ports, cities and places already in our occupation. 3d. That we should prosecute the war "with increased energy and power in the vital parts of the enemy's country,"-of course, to conquer as far as possible the remaining portions of that country, to be held as the rest, as a means of coercing Mexico to

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accede to just terms of peace." What he means by "just terms of peace," he explains abundantly in the Message. If ever Mexico makes peace with us, it must be by consenting to dismemberment, at least to the extent of losing New Mexico and the two Californias. "What final disposition it may be proper to make of the rest of our conquests must depend on the future progress of the war, and the course which Mexico may think proper to pursue !" The meaning of all this, we say, is plain enough. The President proposes, as the immediate and first object of the war, recommenced by his orders after the conferences in September, to secure to the United States the permanent conquest and possession of New Mexico and the Californias; and he proposes as a means thereto, so far as may be found practicable, the entire conquest and complete subjugation of the whole Mexican country-to be surrendered, or held, in whole or in part, hereafter, according as "the future progress of the war, and the course which Mexico may think proper to pursue," shall seem to render expedient and proper.

The recommendations of the Secretary of War and of the President, and the measures instituted thereupon in the Senate, by the friends of the Executive, for raising thirty new regiments of men-ten regiments of regulars, and twenty regiments of volunteers-in addition to the large force already in the field, and the further force which may be brought into the field under existing laws--and all this for the avowed purpose of widening and extending our military operations and conquests in Mexico-show demonstrably that we are not mistaken when we say, that the grand design of the President is, whether as a means or an end, or let it lead to what it may, to subjugate all Mexico by the power of our arms, as far as it may be found practicable to do so. A few days ago, in debate in the Senate on this subject, General Cass, Chairman of the War Committee, presented a very meagre extract from a letter which he said the Government had received from General Scott, containing "an estimate of the force he [General Scott] deems necessary to carry into effect the plan of operations which is recommended by the Secretary of War." This extract not only furnishes the estimate spo

ken of, but shows plainly enough what the Secretary's "plan of operations" is designed to accomplish in the subjugation of all Mexico:

"Augment this army to fifty thousand men, to enable them to occupy, at the same time, nearly all the State Capitals and other principal cities; to drive guerrilla and other robbing parinto our hands all the ordinary revenues of the ties from the great highways of trade; to seize country, internal as well as external, for the support of the occupation, and to keep the Central Government in constant motion and alarm, until constrained to sue for peace."

Never was there in so few words, a more complete picture of a subjugated country than that presented in this brief extract, as what should be accomplished and witnessed in Mexico, if General Scott should be furnished with the requisite army, and instructed to execute the Secretary's plan of operations. And precisely what the President is now demanding of Congress is, that it shall adopt and sanction this plan of operations, and give him the means of carrying it into immediate execution. What shall happen when Mexico shall thus be subjugated; when we have permanently appropriated to ourselves New Mexico and the Californias, to secure which is the first avowed object of this complete subjuga tion; and when "nearly all the State Capi tals and other principal cities" shall be conquered and held under our military occupation and authority; in short, when Mexico, as a country, shall be conquered and subjugated, all her revenues, interna! and external, seized into our hands, her Central Government dissolved, or finding no resting place, and the whole empire. indeed, brought under the rule of the mili tary power of this Government—what shall happen then, the President professes not to be able to tell. After helping himself to those countries which are his present timatum, it will depend on the future progress of the war, and the course which Mexico shall think proper to pursue," what disposition shall be made of the residue of the empire. Verily, it was no abstraction this time, with which Mr. Calhoun was dealing, when, recently, he submitted cer tain Resolutions in the Senate, and sounded an alarm to the country, lest we should shortly find ourselves, with or without any

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such purpose, with the Mexican empire on our hands, and the awful question of its disposal-how to hold it, or how to get rid of it-to be met and settled. It was no abstraction which declared, in the language of his second resolution, "That no line of policy in the further prosecution of this war should be adopted, which may lead to consequences so disastrous."

There are now in Mexico, and on their way there, according to official returns, of land forces, about 45,700 men. To these are to be added 5,000 seamen and marines, employed in the same service. In addition to this force, the Executive has authority by existing laws, to raise a further force of 7,000 enlisted soldiers, and 12,500 volunteers for the war. Here is an aggregate force of 70,000 men either in the field, or authorized to be called there immediately. And now the President is asking for authority to raise an additional force of 30,000 men! What part of the motive for this extraordinary demand is to be set down to a desire and determination to make the patronage of the war power in his hands, support the war as long as he chooses to carry it on, and for whatever objects of conquest and robbery, we cannot tell, nor shall we now stop to inquire. We look at this demand as it bears directly on the great question, now brought home to the conscience of every member of the American Congress: Shall this war of the President's, renewed under his orders after just and honorable terms of peace had been tendered by Mexico-a war, having for its avowed object the conquest and dismemberment of Mexico, to an extent which demonstrates that indemnity for our just claims has nothing to do with it, by a plan of military operations which contemplates the complete subjugation of that empire-shall this war of the President's be adopted and sanctioned by Congress, which is the sole war-making power of this Government? For ourselves we shall wait, with confidence, yet not without deep solicitude, for the result of the deliberations of Congress on this momentous question. We cannot but flatter ourselves that the President is now to be arrested in his mad career; that Congress, under the lead of wise and patriotic counsels, will now take its stand on those high duties imposed on it by the Constitution, and

We

save the country from the degradation and ruin which the President and his infatuated party are certainly preparing for it. When the House of Representatives shall be called on for supplies of men and money for this war, we look for an answer from the majority of that body worthy of their noble principles, and of the high trust committed to them. It is not for us to suggest the mode of meeting their responsible duties in this regard. They will find a way of doing all their duty-to our gallant army in Mexico-to the country engaged in war with a foreign power-until a peace, really just and honorable to both partics, shall be effected; they will find a way of doing this, without making themselves, or allowing Congress to make itself, a party to a flagrant war of conquest and robbery, waged upon a weak and almost defenceless power. They will take a fit occasion to announce, by some authoritative action, on the part of that body with whom all supplies must originate, for what objects of the war they will, and for what objects they will not, give the President the means of carrying it on. cannot entertain a doubt that we speak the common sentiment of the Whig party in Congress and throughout the country, when we say, that in the offers made by the Mexican Commissioners to Mr. Trist in September last, a basis was proposed for a peace between the two countries on just terms, which ought to have resulted in a treaty of peace, and which would have resulted in such a treaty, free from every exceptionable condition or demand on the part of Mexico, and entirely acceptable to the people of the United States, if the President had not set up an impertinent and unjustifiable demand, as an ultimatum, for the further dismemberment of Mexico, after she had tendered a cession of territory far exceeding in value the demands he made upon her for indemnity. Such, as we believe, being the settled and abiding sentiment of the Whigs in Congress, they will support the war just so far as it may be necessary to bring Mexico to make a peace with us on terms like these, or on terms equally moderate and just; but they will support no war for the conquest and subjugation of the Mexican nation, or for the destruction, dismemberment or robbery of the Mexican empire. D.D. B.

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