Meantime, however, domestic discontent was again brewing. A certain Gen. Rangel attempted to revolutionize the government, and is said to have been favored by the partizans of the late administration. The insurgents seized the palace, capturing the president and three of his ministers of state; but they were speedily overpowered and the insurrection suppressed. In June and July of this year all the Mexican papers were loud in their clamors for vengeance. The minister of war, Garcia Condé, wrote despatch after despatch; and, with the usual spirit of national gasconade, denounced our "perfidy," and continually alluded to "the war which Mexico waged against the United States," in consequence of our "treachery." On the 16th of the latter month, he despatched to the minister of foreign relations and justice a note detailing a plan for covering the national frontiers, and asserted that Mexico would maintain her rights by force, or fall in the struggle. "She will not consent," says he, "to give up one half of her territory from the base fear of losing the other!"
Patriotic and stirring as are these declarations, they cannot but be regarded otherwise than as the most inflated bombast when we recollect that they were made in defiance of the United States, and after a failure for seven years to reconquer even Texas, feeble as she was. What just hope could distracted Mexico reasonably entertain of ultimate victory? Several years before this period, her discreet statesmen and reflecting citizens privately acknowledged that Texas was lost forever. Pecuniary embarrassments, political misrule, and repeated revolutions had still more impaired her national strength, and yet, an obstinacy as inveterate as it was silly, forced her to make declarations of intended hostilities which only served to kindle and spread the excitement among the masses.
It is just that we should concede to national pride and honor all they reasonably demand of respect, yet I have greatly misunderstood this spirit of our century, if it does not require nations to be as reasonable in their quarrels as individuals. Empires, kingdoms, states, republics, and men, are equally amenable to the great tribunal of the world's common sense, and all are obliged, if they consult their interests, to yield to the force of circumstances they cannot control. What then becomes of the mere abstract and visionary "right of reconquest" which Mexico asserted, even if she really possessed it after the central usurpation, and destruction of the federal system in 1824? What hope was there in a war with the United States, after a failure in that with Texas? It is true that Mexico had the power to annoy us, and procrastinate her fate; she might oppose and resist; she might develope all the evil passions of her people and let them loose on our armies in irregular warfare; but these, after all were nothing more than spiteful manifestations of impotent malice, disgraceful to the nation that encouraged them. The cause of genuine humanity, which, I believe, in our age, truly seeks for peace, demanded the pacification of Texas. The cruelty with which the war was waged, and the brutal treatment received by some of the prisoners of the Santa Fé expedition in 1841 and 1842, convince us that a strong power should have imposed peace on Mexico. National propriety demanded it; for how long was the "right of reconquest" to continue? England, the proudest nation on earth, acknowledged the independence of the United States after a seven years war. The great powers of Europe interfered to protect oppressed Greece. England has several times interposed in the affairs of Spain and Portugal; and our geographical as well as political affinity to Texas clearly indicated that it was our national interest to establish a firm and friendly government on our border.
There can be no doubt that when General Herrera was, almost unanimously, elected president in August, 1845, he saw things in this light, and was prudently disposed to bend to inevitable fate. Notwithstanding the warlike despatches, speeches, and proclamations of the Mexicans in the earlier part of the year, our secretary of state seems to have sufficiently understood their gasconading habits, to disregard these inflated productions. He therefore authorized Mr. Black, who remained in Mexico as consul, upon Mr. Shannon's withdrawal, to propose that we should send an envoy with full powers to adjust all the questions in dispute between the two countries. Mexico, notwithstanding her open bravado, secretly assented to our proposal, declaring that she would receive "the commissioner of the United States who might come to the capital with full powers to settle the present dispute in a peaceful, reasonable and honorable manner."
Accordingly, Mr. Slidell was hastily despatched so as to be sure of meeting the same persons in power with whom the arrangement had been made; for in Mexico, the delay of even a day may sometimes change a government, and create new or unwilling negotiators. Nevertheless when our minister presented himself in the capital early in December, having travelled rapidly but unostentatiously, so as to avoid exciting ill feeling among the Mexicans as to the purposes of his mission, he found the secretary unprepared to receive him. It was objected that Mr. Slidell's commission had not been confirmed by the senate of the United States and that the president had no constitutional right to send him; that Mexico agreed to receive a commissioner to settle the Texas dispute, and not a resident envoy; that the reception of such an envoy would admit the minister on the footing of a friendly mission during a period of concord between nations, which would not be diplomatically proper so long as our amity was in the least interrupted;—and, finally, that the government had not expected a commissioner until after the session of congress began in January, 1846.
There may be some force in technical diplomacy, between the mission as agreed on by Messieurs Black and Peña, and the one despatched by Mr. Buchanan, for the letter of credence declares that Mr. Slidell is "to reside near the government of the Mexican republic in the quality of envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary, and that he is well informed of the president's desire to restore, cultivate, and strengthen friendship and good correspondence between us." A point of extreme etiquette raised at such a moment, when both parties were confessedly anxious for peace, naturally excites some inquiry as to its probable origin. Accordingly we find that it was a mere subterfuge, urged by a tottering administration to avert its ruin. The violence of the cabinet against annexation had done its work among the people. When Herrera and Peña accepted, in October, our proposal to treat, they hoped the popular elections, as well as judicious overtures to the departments and citizens, would so modify national opinion as to permit their independent and liberal action. But such forbearance could scarcely be expected from the watchfulness of Mexican intriguers. Herrera was a federalist, but his failure to proclaim the federal system, and to throw himself on that party as soon as he attained power, alienated a large portion of it and made the rest but feeble supporters. The church and the centralists soon coalesced in hostility to his government; and, although his measures were moderate, and all his efforts designed to correct abuses, yet every political symptom denoted his speedy fall. Of all the popular clamors, probably none was louder in the mob and the army, than that which arose in consequence of his effort to negotiate a peace with our Union. General Paredes took advantage of this unpopularity, and, at the head of five thousand of the soldiery, pronounced against the government of the president.
It will be perceived from this sketch how completely this Texas question and the war with our country have been made electioneering and revolutionary elements in Mexico: not, however, with patriotic hopes, or reasonable expectations of reconquest, but with the contemptible anxiety of usurping a temporary power which, for a while, enabled the aspirant to govern the country without the least prospect of settling the difficulty with us or of regaining Texas.[65]
This revolution commenced with the army of reserve stationed at San Luis Potosi, and was seconded by the military men generally. On the 15th of December, 1845, Paredes issued a bombastic proclamation[66] from his headquarters; and, in the latter part of the month the revolutionary forces reached the capital, when a portion of the garrison pronounced in favor of the insurgent chief. This induced an early accommodation between the parties, and finished the outbreak without bloodshed. Yet Paredes, having overthrown Herrera, partly in consequence of his friendly disposition for peace with us, could not now attempt negotiations successfully. Mr. Slidell renewed his offers to the cabinet, but was repulsed and left the country. The lame reliance of Mexico upon bombastic proclamations was again adopted. Yet the people were discontented with Paredes who soon began to manifest the despotic tendency of his nature and education. The military life of this chieftain naturally inclined him towards centralism, but he was altogether unfit either by character or habits for civil authority. As soon as he assumed the reins of government, a party which had long drooped began again to lift its head. The monarchists, led by the Archbishop Manuel Posada y Garduño, and the wily Don Lucas Alaman, soon got possession of the insurgent general. They were joined by a large portion of the higher clergy, some influential men of fortune, a few soldiers, and a number of silly citizens, who promised themselves a futurity of progress and felicity by calling to the Mexican throne a monarch from beyond the sea. This party of royalists was strengthened by dissensions at home, and by the expected attack from the United States. Many reflecting men cherished no hope of national progress so long as the turbulent army was unrestrained by paramount authority. They desired at once to crush freedom and domestic despotism by a foreign prince supported by European soldiery, whilst they believed that the continental sovereigns would greedily seize the opportunity of throwing their forces into America so as to check the aggressive ambition of the United States.[67] As soon as this scheme of Paredes was disclosed, his unpopularity increased. His intemperate habits were well known and destroyed confidence in his judgment. The financial condition of the country was exceedingly embarrassed, and foreigners, who were the usual bankers of the government, refused loans on any terms. Payment was denied by the treasury to all employed in the civil departments, while money was disbursed to none but the army. The freedom of the press moreover was suspended; and, to crown the national difficulties, it was at this very moment that Mexico dreamed of overthrowing the republic at home and establishing a monarchy in its stead, whilst it simultaneously encountered our armies abroad in order to reconquer Texas! With such deplorable fatuity was Mexico misruled, and entangled in a double war upon the rights of her own people and against the United States. It was unfortunate that she fell at this crisis into the hands of a despot and drunkard, whose mind, perplexed between ambition and intemperance, gave a permanent direction to that false public sentiment, which Herrera had been anxious to convert into one of peace and good will towards the United States.
I have thus succinctly narrated the events that led to the war between the United States and Mexico. The annexation of Texas, without the previous assent of Mexico, may have annoyed that government. It was mortifying to patriotic pride, and we should laud the republic for manifesting a proper sensibility. But true national pride is always capable of manly and dignified opposition. It does not expend itself in bravado, petulance or querulousness. It does not assail by threats, but by deeds; and never provokes an attack until it is prepared to return the blow with earnest force. It is silent as the storm until it bursts forth in overwhelming wrath. All other kinds of resistance are nothing but miserable exhibitions of mortified vanity, and invoke the world's contempt instead of respectful compassion.