Expansion and Conflict

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ondemned it, as has been noted, and the Democrats accepted it. It was a mere matter of form, then, for the Whig Senate to reject the treaty which had become in a great measure the platform of their opponents. When Congress

y, especially pro-Southern territory, by the new method. Joint resolutions in State legislatures that were evenly divided were not unknown; but for Congress to evade a plain rule of the Constitution requiring two thirds of the Senate by a mere majority of both houses was denounced as the rankest usurpation. Without serious concern as to public opinion in the East or great deference to the President-elect, Tyler and Calhoun hastened messengers to Texas and ordered two regiments of troops, under the command of Colonel Zachar

at he could bring matters to a peaceful conclusion with both Mexico and England. Nor had he failed in his loyalty to the new President during the recent campaign. Still Polk gave James Buchanan, of Pennsylvania, the first place in the Cabinet. Robert J. Walker asked and received the sec

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tically agreed with the British Minister to compromise the conflicting claims to Oregon. Buchanan, being a man of yielding temper, was disposed to the same easy solution of the most dangerous problem of the Administration. The President, however,

as on friendly terms with the leaders of the English governing party, and both he and they were striving to prevent the expansionists from committing an overt act of hostility. Benton, the foremost of expansionists before Tyl

ogram. During the summer and autumn of 1845 their policy had been worked out in detail and discussed among the men who were to be responsible for its execution. In domestic affairs their scheme embraced the settlement of the long-disputed financial policy in a new Independent or Sub-Treasury Bill which Secretary Walker was preparing. The Tariff of 1842, which had offended the Democratic South, was also to be reformed, and Walker had wr

had repealed in 1841. The money of the Government was henceforth to be kept in certain designated sub-treasuries in leading cities like New York, Baltimore, and New Orleans, and drawn upon by the Secretaries of the Treasury when needed. There was thus to be no national bank; and the state banks were to continue

aily winning recruits. Polk and his advisers set themselves the task of securing the passage of a "free-trade tariff" for the United States. Walker submitted an able report in December, 1845. A very high rate was recommended on all luxuries, including wines and liquors; an average duty of twenty-five per cent was to be laid on the great bulk of imports which would

out "treachery" so loudly that summer, in a great mass meeting in Chicago, that the President feared the party was seriously endangered. Still, the three problems over which Clay, Calhoun, and Webster had wrestled since 1816 had been solved. The United States was henceforth to manage its finances independently; the free-trade e

ish people were much excited, and the idea prevailed that this was only a move on the part of the United States to seize Canada, but the British Government renewed the proposition to compromise on the forty-ninth parallel, Vancouver Island to remain in British possession. A treaty to this effect was accepted by both Governments during the summer of 1846. Polk could boast that the Oregon ques

ed in Mexico against the United States, was to be counteracted, the annexation of Texas approved, and all of the claims of American citizens against Mexico were to be definitely satisfied. But as Mexico had no funds in her treasury, Slidell was to assume for the United States all these obligations, and pay the Mexicans $5,000,000 in return for the cession o

s declared and Taylor was ordered to cross the border and "conquer a peace." In August Colonel S. W. Kearny seized New Mexico and set out with a troop of three hundred men to take California. But Commodore John Drake Sloat had been sent to the Pacific with a squadron of the navy to prevent the seizure of Monter

ic general. None was to be found; and Thomas H. Benton, willing that Jackson's plan for his elevation to the Presidency should be fulfilled, asked Polk to make him commander-in-chief of all the forces operating in Mexico. Benton had never had any military experience, and Polk was relieved to find that such an appointment would not be confirmed by the Senate. General Winfield Scott, already quarreling with the Secretary of War

enty thousand soldiers to surround and capture him. Taylor moved forward and met the enemy at Buena Vista, after receiving some raw recruits, on February 23, 1847,

s with him. After much unseemly bickering and the conciliatory services of the British Minister to Mexico, the general and the envoy made peace, and negotiations were opened, only to be broken off by Santa Anna upon his arrival from the north. On August 19 and 20, the battle of Cherubusco seemed to convince the Mexicans that further resistance would be futile, and Trist again offered peace on the terms of 1845, except th

rs of the navy and the army, like Commodore Stockton and Colonel Jefferson Davis, the hero of the battle of Buena Vista, and leading politicians, John A. Dix, Lewis Cass, and Secretary Walker, urged the Government to make an end of Mexico by prompt dismemberment. Although the electio

ilize Mexico." Walker threatened to urge the absorption of Mexico in his report to Congress. The flag should never be hauled down from the ramparts of the captured capital of Mexico. Polk resisted this pressure

helpless neighbor; John Quincy Adams, nearing the end of his career, continued to denounce the whole Mexican movement. But Webster, an ardent candidate now for the Whig nomination in 1848, said little and took this occasion to visit

eventuate in annexation, was being urged, and the rumors of approaching convulsions in Europe were heartening leading members of Congress. Why should not the United States fulfill her destiny? There was none to interfere or make afraid. Senator Foote, of Mississippi, urged in glowing terms the advantages of "extending American liberty" over Central America; Senator Hannegan, of

s of the extremists, promptly approved the work of Trist and Scott, for the general had had much to do with the negotiations. The war had come to an end, though there w

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at had been issued had been readily taken at par and on a low rate of interest-an unprecedented fact in American history. The hard times of the preceding decade seemed to be brought to a conclusion. No one complained at the tariff, and even the veto of the internal improvements bill was passin

GRAPHI

regon, in his voluminous Western history series, and Josiah Royce's California, in the American Commonwealths series, are all valuable. Some special articles of importance are: The Slidell Mission to Mexico, by L. M. Sears, in South Atlantic Quarterly for 1912; E. G. Bourne's The United States and Mexico, 1847-48, in the American Historical Review, vol. v, p. 491; and W. E. Dodd's The West and the War with Mexico, in the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society for 1911. The sources which some may wish to consult are The D