Santa Anna returned to his country in disgrace after his disastrous campaign, and lurked in retirement at his farm until the French attacked Vera Cruz, when he threw himself again at the head of the departmental forces. In the action he fortunately lost a limb, and by the skilful display of his mutilation in defence of Mexico, he renewed his claims to national gratitude. Instead, however, of using his influence to obtain the treaty, promised as the boon for his life, he became at once the bitterest foe of Texas, and pledged himself to fight "forever for its reconquest." Texas, meanwhile, acting in good faith, and presuming to adopt the spirit and letter of the convention with Santa Anna, whom she naturally regarded as the dictator of Mexico, passed the act of December 19, 1836, establishing the Rio Grande as her boundary from the gulf to its source. Besides this, her congress created senatorial and representative districts west of the Nueces; organized and defined limits of counties extending to the Rio Grande; created courts of justice; spread her judicial system over the country wherever her people roamed, and performed other acts of sovereignty which we are compelled not to disregard. It cannot be contended that these acts and agreements were alone sufficient, under the laws of nations, to confer upon Texas unquestionable rights over the soil between the Nueces and the Rio Grande, for a contract with the captive president and general was not legally binding; but it is equally clear that all these arguments of the old authorities as to the original boundary, and all the new claims set up by Texas, under her statutes, as well as stipulations with Santa Anna, made that territory a disputed ground whose real ownership could only be equitably settled by negotiation. The strong language of both the contracts, just recited, seems to concede the fact that the president of Mexico regarded, at least the lower Rio Grande, as already the real boundary between Mexico and Texas, notwithstanding the opinion of Almonté in 1834; and consequently that it was neither the subject of treaty or agreement at that moment, nor could it become so afterwards when commissioners were appointed.
When Texas was annexed to the United States she was received with these asserted limits, though she did not join the Union with any specific boundaries.[92] It was thought best by both parties to leave the question of confines open between Mexico and our country, so as not to complicate the national entanglements. After the congress of the United States and convention in Texas had acted upon the joint resolution it was impossible for us to recede. The course of our presidents, therefore, was at once pacific and soothing towards Mexico. For although they believed that republic had no right to be consulted as to the annexation of Texas, a free and independent State, they nevertheless admitted all her natural and just privileges in regard to boundary. Mr. Tyler and Mr. Polk therefore despatched envoys to Mexico with the offer of liberal negotiations as soon as a favorable opportunity presented itself. But the chargé and minister of Mr. Tyler were scornfully rejected, while Mr. Slidell, as has been already related, was refused an audience upon frivolous pretences at a moment when the Mexican secretary was secretly craving to receive him.[93]
In such a juncture what was the duty of the United States? It is an easy matter for speculative philosophers or political critics to find fault with the conduct of statesmen and to become prophets of woe after the occurrence of events they deprecate. But such men are timid actors on the world's stage, and especially in such a theatre of folly as the Mexican republic. Governments have but two ways of settling international disputes,—either by negotiation or war,—and, even the latter must be concluded by diplomacy, for nations rarely fight until one of them is completely annihilated. Negotiation, or the attempt to negotiate, had been completely exhausted by us. Meanwhile Mexico continued to excite our curiosity by spasmodic struggles in nerving her people for the war, as well as by gasconading despatches which breathed relentless animosity to our country for the annexation of Texas. Nevertheless, this sensitive and vaunting nation would neither make peace, establish boundaries, negotiate, nor declare war. Was it reasonable that such a frantic state of things should be permitted to continue? Could this perverse aversion to fighting or friendship be tolerated? Were our countries to conclude an eternal compact of mutual hatred and non intercourse? Was such childish obstinacy and weakness to be connived at in our country? Was it due to common sense, justice, or the preservation of a good neighborhood that we should remain supine under insane threats and dishonorable treatment? We asserted that, upon the Texas question, we had rightly no dispute with Mexico, except as to the boundary involved in the territory our forces were then occupying or about to cross. We did not design discussing our right to annex Texas. That was an act accomplished and unalterable. It was, doubtless, exceedingly convenient for Mexico to maintain this pacific state of quasi-war and to reject, alike, our amity and hostilities, as long as she owed us many millions of dollars and refused either to pay principal or interest, or to conclude a treaty for the settlement of unadjusted claims. Whilst her government was able to enforce non-intercourse, it was free from importunity and payment. But this adroit scheme of insolvency was unjust to our citizens, and only served to augment the liabilities of Mexico. What then remained to be done? The reply may be found in a significant anecdote related by Mr. Adams in a speech in congress on the Oregon question, on the 2d of January, 1846.
"After negotiating"—said he—"for twenty years about this matter we may take possession of the subject matter of negotiation. Indeed, we may negotiate after we take possession, and this is the military way of doing business. When Frederick the Great came to the throne of Prussia he found that his father had equipped for him an army of a hundred thousand men. Meeting soon after the Austrian minister, the latter said to him: "Your father has given you a great army, but ours has seen the wolf, whilst your majesty's has not." "Well—well!" exclaimed Frederick, "I will soon give it an opportunity to see the wolf!" Frederick then added, in his memoirs:—"I had some excellent old pretensions to an Austrian province, which some of my ancestors owned one or two centuries before; accordingly I sent an ambassador to the court of Austria stating my claim, and presenting a full exposition of my right to the province. The same day my ambassador was received in Vienna, I entered Silesia with my army!"[94]
Such would be a prompt and impulsive answer to the manifold prevarications of seditious Mexico. But the army we advanced and the country we occupied, were neither the army of Frederick nor the pleasant vales of rich and populous Silesia. A nearly desolate waste, stretched from the Nueces to the Rio Grande, barren alike in soil and inhabitants, and tempting none to its dreary wilderness but nomadic rancheros or outlaws who found even Mexico no place of refuge for their wickedness. It was, surely, not a land worthy of bloodshed, and yet, in consequence of its sterility, it became of vast importance on a frontier across whose wide extent enemies might pass unobserved and unmolested. With the entire command of the Rio Grande from its source to its mouth in the hands of our enemy, and the whole of this arid region flanking the stream and interposing itself between Mexico and our troops, it is evident that our adversaries would possess unusual advantages over us either for offensive or defensive war. The mere control of the embouchure of the river was no trivial superiority, for, on a stormy and inhospitable coast, it was almost impossible to support an effectual blockade and thus prevent the enemy from being succored along his whole frontier with arms and provisions from abroad. By seizing, however, the usual points of transit and entrance on the lower Rio Grande many of these evils might be avoided; and, if Mexico ultimately resolved on hostilities, we should be enabled to throw our forces promptly across the river, and by rapid marches obtain the command of all the military positions of vantage along her north-eastern boundary.
The foresight of Frederick the Great disclosed to him the military value of Silesia in the event of a war with Austria, and it was probably that circumstance, quite as much as his alleged political rights, that induced him to enter it with an army on the day when he commenced negotiations. He began the war with Austria by surprising Saxony, and, during all his difficulties, clung tenaciously to the possession of Silesia. Saxony was important as a military barrier covering Prussia on the side of Austria, while Silesia indented deeply the line of the Austrian frontier and flanked a large part of Bohemia.[95] Thus Saxony and Silesia formed a natural fortification for Prussia, just as the deserts of the disputed land, when in our rear, covered the undefended confines of Texas at the same time that they gave us the keys to the enemy's country at Point Isabel and Matamoros.
It may be asserted that, when vacant or nearly vacant territory is in controversy between two nations, and forms the only subject of real dispute between them, it would be better for both to refrain from an attempt to occupy it, provided they are willing to arbitrate the quarrel, or settle it by diplomacy. But, when both parties assert claims, both have equal rights to enter it, when negotiation fails. The decision is then to be made only by intimidation or war. There is no alternative by which collision can be escaped, and it is the duty of the wiser of the disputants to place his national forces in such an advantageous position as either to defend his acknowledged territory or force himself to be driven from the soil he claims. "I do not consider the march to the Rio Grande to have been the cause of the war"—said a distinguished statesman, "anymore than I consider the British march on Concord or Lexington to have been the cause of the American revolution, or the crossing of the Rubicon to have been the cause of the civil war in Rome. The march to the Rio Grande brought on the collision of arms, but, so far from being the cause of the war, it was itself the effect of those causes."
The power of declaring war is expressly reserved by the constitution to congress, and, though the president is commander in chief of the army when called into actual service, he should be extremely cautious in issuing orders or doing acts which may lead to hostilities resulting in war. Our congress was in session in January, 1846, when Mr. Slidell was rejected by Mexico, when our international relations were complicated as I have described, and when the secretary of war, by the president's direction, gave the order for Taylor's advance to the Rio Grande. This was an act that brought the armies of Mexico and the United States in front of each other; and although there can be no doubt that congress would have authorised the movement of our troops under the military advice of General Taylor,—provided the Rio Grande was to be made an ultimatum in the ratification of a treaty by our senate,—it is, nevertheless, to be profoundly regretted that the question was not previously submitted to our national representatives. At that moment the public mind was distracted between Mexico and England; but the Oregon question nearly absorbed the apparently minor difficulties with our restive neighbor. Congress contemplated the solemn probability of war with one of the mightiest nations of our age, and even some of our experienced statesmen,—as we have seen in the example of Mr. Adams,—recommended the most stringent measures of armed occupation. At such a crisis, and with a confidential knowledge of all our foreign relations, it was the duty of the president to represent these matters frankly to congress and to ask the opinion of his constitutional advisers, as he subsequently did in the settlement of the dispute with Great Britain. This prudent act would have saved the executive from needless responsibility, whilst it indicated a sensitive devotion to the behests of our constitution. Congress met whilst our troops were encamped at Corpus Christi, as an army of observation, whose hostile, though protective character, was unquestionable; yet our representatives neither ordered its return nor refused it supplies. This denoted a willingness to sanction measures which might either pacify Mexico, or impose upon that republic the immediate alternative of war. It is not improbable that congress would have adopted such a course, because, according to the pretensions of Mexico, our troops had already invaded her domains. This is an important view of the question which should not be passed by silently. Mexico, it must be remembered, never relinquished her right to reconquer Texas, but always claimed the whole province as her own, asserting a determination to regard its union with our confederacy as justifiable cause of war. The joint-resolution, alone, was therefore a belligerent act of the congress of the United States, sufficient, according to the doctrine of Mexico, to compel hostile retaliation. But, moreover, as the entire soil of Texas, from the Sabine to the Nueces or Rio Grande was still claimed by Mexico as her unsurrendered country, the landing of a single American soldier anywhere south of our ancient boundary with Spain, was quite as hostile an invasion of Mexican territory as the passage of our army from Corpus Christi to Point Isabel.