For the first and only time in our political history, an administration conducting a war victorious at every step, steadily lost ground in the country. The House of Representatives which declared war on the 11th of May, 1846, was Democratic by a large majority. The House, elected in the ensuing autumn, amid the resounding acclamations of Taylor's memorable victory at Monterey, had a decided Whig majority. This political reverse was due to three causes,—the enactment of the tariff of 1846, which offended the manufacturing interest of the country; the receding of the administration on the Oregon question, which embarrassed the position and wounded the pride of the Northern Democrats; and the wide-spread apprehension that the war was undertaken for the purpose of extending and perpetuating slavery. The almost unanimous Southern vote for the hasty surrender of the line of 54° 40´, on which so much had been staked in the Presidential campaign, gave the Whigs an advantage in the popular canvass. The contrast between the boldness with which the Polk administration had marched our army upon the territory claimed by Mexico, and the prudence with which it had retreated from a contest with Great Britain, after all our antecedent boasting, exposed the Democrats to merciless ridicule. Clever speakers who were numerous in the Whig party at that day did not fail to see and seize their advantage.
The Mexican war had scarcely begun when the President justified the popular suspicion by making known to Congress that one of its objects was to be the acquisition of territory beyond the Rio Grande. Perhaps it would be fairer to say that he expected such acquisition to be one of its results. He ably vindicated the policy of marching a military force into the territory between the Nueces and the Rio Grande, by the fact that he was memorialized to do so by the still existing Congress of Texas, on the urgent plea that Mexico was preparing to move upon the territory with a view to its recapture. In this Congress of Texas, the same body that completed the annexation, there were representatives from the territory in dispute beyond the Nueces; and the President felt that they were in an eminent degree entitled to the protection of our government. Events were so hurried that in three months from the formal declaration of war, and before any victory of decisive significance had been achieved, the President sent a special message to Congress, in which he suggested that "the chief obstacle to be surmounted in securing peace would be the adjustment of a boundary that would prove satisfactory and convenient to both republics." He admitted that we ought to pay a fair equivalent for any concessions which might be made by Mexico, and asked that a sum of money should be placed in his hands to be paid to Mexico immediately upon the ratification of a treaty of peace. As a precedent for this unusual request, the President cited the example of Mr. Jefferson in asking and receiving from Congress, in 1803, a special appropriation of money, to be expended at his discretion. As soon as the reading of the message was concluded, Mr. McKay of North Carolina, chairman of the committee of ways and means, introduced a bill, without preamble or explanation, directing that two millions of dollars be appropriated, to be "applied under the direction of the President to any extraordinary expenses which may be incurred in our foreign intercourse." The war was not referred to, Mexico was not named, and the simple phraseology of the Jefferson Act of 1803 was repeated word for word.
A very animated debate followed, in which Northern men took the lead. Mr. Robert C. Winthrop spoke of the administration with unwonted harshness, declaring that "it and its friends had thought fit, during the present session, to frame more than one of these important measures, so as to leave their opponents in a false position whichever way they voted." . . . He "could not and would not vote for this bill as it now stood. . . . It was a vote of unlimited confidence in an administration in which, he was sorry to say, there was very little confidence to be placed." Mr. John Quincy Adams differed from Mr. Winthrop, and could not refrain from a pardonable thrust at that gentleman for his previous vote that "war existed by act of Mexico." He differed from his colleague, Mr. Adams demurely affirmed, with a regret equal to that with which he had differed from him on the bill by which war was declared. He should not vote for this bill in any form, but suggested that it be so amended as to specify expressly that the money is granted for the purpose of negotiating peace with Mexico.
THE WILMOT PROVISO.
The bill was promptly modified in accordance with the desires of Mr. Adams, and at the moment when its passage seemed secure it was arrested by an amendment of momentous character, submitted by a young member from Pennsylvania. David Wilmot represented a district which had always given Democratic majorities, and was himself an intense partisan of that political school. He was a man of strong physique and strong common sense; of phlegmatic temperament, without any pretension to genius; a sensible speaker, with no claim to eloquence or oratory. But he had courage, determination, and honesty. He believed the time had come to arrest the progress and extension of slavery. He knew that the two-million bill was urged by the President because he wished to use the money to promote the acquisition of territory, and he determined then and there to make a stand in favor of free soil. He thereupon, on the 8th of August, 1846, moved a proviso to the two-million bill, declaring it to be "an express and fundamental condition to the acquisition of any territory from Mexico, that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist therein."
Mr. Wilmot was in the first session of his first Congress, was but thirty-three years of age, and up to that moment had not been known beyond his district. His amendment made his name familiar at once throughout the length and breadth of the Republic. No question had arisen since the slavery agitation of 1820 that was so elaborately debated. The Wilmot Proviso absorbed the attention of Congress for a longer time than the Missouri Compromise: it produced a wider and deeper excitement in the country, and it threatened a more serious danger to the peace and integrity of the Union. The consecration of the territory of the United States to freedom became from that day a rallying cry for every shade of anti-slavery sentiment. If it did not go as far as the Abolitionists in their extreme and uncompromising faith might demand, it yet took a long step forward, and afforded the ground on which the battle of the giants was to be waged, and possibly decided. The feeling in all sections became intense on the issue thus presented, and it proved a sword which cleft asunder political associations that had been close and intimate for a lifetime. Both the old parties were largely represented on each side of the question. The Northern Whigs, at the outset, generally sustained the proviso, and the Northern Democrats divided, with the majority against it. In the slave States both parties were against it, only two men south of Mason and Dixon's line voting for free soil,—John M. Clayton of Delaware in the Senate, and Henry Grider of Kentucky in the House. Mr. Grider re-entered Congress as a Republican after the war. Among the conspicuous Whigs who voted for the proviso were Joseph R. Ingersoll and James Pollock of Pennsylvania, Washington Hunt of New York, Robert C. Winthrop of Massachusetts, Robert C. Schenck of Ohio, and Truman Smith of Connecticut. Among the Democrats were Hannibal Hamlin, and all his colleagues from Maine, Simon Cameron of Pennsylvania, Preston King of New York, John Wentworth of Illinois, Allen G. Thurman of Ohio, and Robert McClelland of Michigan, afterwards Secretary of the Interior under President Pierce.
Mr. Webster voted for the proviso, but with gloomy apprehensions. He could "see little of the future, and that little gave him no satisfaction." He spoke with portentous gravity, and arrested the attention of the country by the solemnity of his closing words: "All I can scan is contention, strife, and agitation. The future is full of difficulties and full of dangers. We appear to be rushing on perils headlong, and with our eyes all open." There was a singular disagreement between the speech and the vote of Mr. Webster. The speech indicated his real position. His vote was in deference to the opinion of Massachusetts. The most conspicuous Northern Whigs who voted against the proviso were Alexander Ramsey of Pennsylvania, since the distinguished Republican senator from Minnesota, and Secretary of War under President Hayes; and Samuel F. Vinton of Ohio, one of the oldest and ablest representatives in Congress.
The House attached the proviso to the two-million bill, and thus defeated it for the session. The Democratic Senate took it up on the day fixed for final adjournment. The majority were not willing to accept the appropriation with the anti-slavery condition upon it, and John Davis of Massachusetts, fearing if the bill went back to the House the proviso might on reconsideration be defeated, deliberately held the floor until the session expired. In the next session the two-million bill, increased to three millions, was passed without the proviso, the administration being strong enough, with the persuasions of its patronage, to defeat the anti-slavery amendment in both branches.
During the proceedings on the three-million bill, an interesting and instructive incident occurred. The venerable John Quincy Adams appeared in the House for the first time during the session, on the 13th of February (1847), having been detained by a very severe illness. As he passed inside the door the entire House voluntarily rose, business was suspended, and Mr. Andrew Johnson of Tennessee (afterwards President of the United States), addressing the Chair, said, that in compliance with the understanding with which he selected a seat at the beginning of the session, he now tendered it to the venerable member from Massachusetts, and congratulated him on being spared to return to the House. Mr. Adams, enfeebled by disease, tremulous with age, returned his thanks, regretting that he had not "voice to respond to the congratulations of his friends for the honor which had been done him." Among those who paid this unusual, indeed unprecedented, mark of respect to a fellow- member, were many from the South, who within a few years had voted to censure Mr. Adams, and had endeavored in every way to heap obloquy upon him for his persistent course in presenting anti- slavery petitions. Spontaneous in impulse, momentary in duration, simple in form, it was yet one of the most striking tributes ever paid to moral dignity and lofty character.