The President had already reopened negotiations with Great Britain upon the subject, and, on June 10th, he laid before the Senate a proposal, from the British Envoy, of the forty-ninth parallel for the boundary, and asked the Senate to advise him as to whether he should close with the offer. It was not customary to consult the Senate at this point of the negotiations, but there was precedent for it, and the letter of the Constitution appears to warrant it, and the President was determined to retort upon the Senate, for its action in the matter of the notice, by throwing the responsibility upon that body of sacrificing the claims of the United States to territory above the forty-ninth parallel. He plainly informed the Senate that he would reject the offer unless advised by it to accept.
| The Oregon Treaty. |
The Senate was fairly caught in its own net, and had the good sense to refrain from a resistance which would have been only an undignified floundering in meshes prepared by itself. On the 12th, the Senate advised the President to accept the British overture. On the 15th, the President signed the treaty, and, on the 18th, the Senate ratified it by a large majority.
Not many realized, at the moment, that the extension of the sovereignty of the United States to the Pacific above the forty-second parallel of north latitude would require the like extension to the south of it. Once across the Rockies it was inevitable that the natural boundary in the southwest, as well as in the northwest, should be ultimately attained. It came sooner than anybody expected.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE WAR WITH MEXICO
[Slidell's Mission to Mexico]—[The Failure of the Mission]—[The Concentration of the Mexican Forces at Matamoras]—[The United States Forces Ordered to the Rio Grande]—[Hostilities Opened]—[The Battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma]—[The Attitude of Congress toward the War]—[Congressional Approval of the War]—[The Occupation of New Mexico and Upper California, and the Advance into Mexico]—[California's Importance]—[The Battle of Buena Vista]—[Vera Cruz and Cerro Gordo]—[Contreras, San Antonio, and Cherubusco]—[The Plan for a Cession of Territory from Mexico]—[The Wilmot Proviso]—[The Fate of the Wilmot Proviso in the Senate]—[The Proviso Again Voted by the House of Representatives]—[The Upham Amendment in the Senate]—[The Amendment Defeated by the Efforts of Mr. Cass]—[The Wilmot Proviso Dropped in the House]—[The Mission of Mr. Trist]—[Rejection of Mr. Trist's Propositions by the Mexicans]—[Negotiations Broken off]—[Molino del Rey, Chapultepec, Mexico]—[The Recall of Mr. Trist, and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo]—[Ratification of the Treaty.]