The War with Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2)

by Justin Harvey Smith

The measures of the administration corresponded with its professions. In the first place this was true negatively. It would not be easy to deny that Mexico’s refusal to pay the instalments of our awards could have been handled by our government in a way to enrage this nation, already so eager for the fray, and probably her severance of diplomatic relations might have been used to precipitate an issue; but no advantage was taken of either opportunity. Another instance is even more signal. One can hardly doubt that Polk might have brought on a war in the summer of 1845, had he so desired. Not only had Mexico grossly insulted us, refused to pay those awards, and severed relations with us both at her capital and at our own, but she had solemnly announced that our annexing Texas would be regarded as equivalent to a declaration of war, notified her agents privately and the world at large publicly that she was going to fight, and begun preparations for immediate hostilities. Had Polk summoned Congress and laid all the facts before it, a declaration of war, or at least an ultimatum that Mexico would in all probability have rejected, must certainly, or almost certainly, have been the response; and if one may judge from the state of mind existing in the United States at the time, our people would in the main have supported such a course. “The current of public opinion,” said the St. Louis Republican, “seems now strongly inclined in favor of a war with Mexico.” “All the better portions of the press of the country,” was the summary of the New Orleans Picayune, “are urgent for the adoption of the most energetic measures” against that country. Almost every Democratic journal and a vast majority of the Whig journals, declared the Washington Globe, were for crushing Mexico at once. “The people will approve” of vigorous action, admitted even the Charleston Courier.[27]

POLK DID NOT DESIRE THE WAR

But Polk did not adopt a course of that sort. He took no such steps to settle matters with England as a President of ordinary common sense would have taken, if anxious to fight Mexico; and no serious measures were adopted to increase our nominal army or our insufficient fleet. In September, he requested the members of the Cabinet to make their estimates for the coming year on “the most economical scale,” and in fact only twenty-six hundred additional men were asked for the army—none for the navy. A note from the secretary of the navy to Captain Perry—“We are jogging on quietly this winter, not anticipating war”—well represents our military and naval programme; and a letter to Conner explains it: “We all hope Mexico will agree to a peace.” Knowing, as Polk must have known, the deep and widespread fear of Mexican privateers, he would have been prevented by a merely selfish regard for the good opinion of the public from planning war without making some dispositions to protect, or at least warn, our millions of floating property. And apparently even the ardor of our young men for combat did not seriously move him.[28]

In the second place, Polk’s action pointed the same way as his non-action. No one could think of any rational method to conciliate Mexico that he did not put into operation. The chief object of Parrott’s mission, which was private and therefore could not have been intended for effect upon the world, was understood by Parrott himself to be, “preventing a declaration of war, by Mexico, against the United States.” In appointing Slidell, as even the American Review admitted, the President was evidently sincere. At the end of March, 1846, Polk received advices from Slidell which made it seem quite possible that he would finally be given a hearing, and immediately he set on foot a plan to furnish Paredes with funds, enable him to keep the army faithful, and thus encourage him to settle matters amicably. Indeed, all that is known of this mission from beginning to end, including Slidell’s private letters to Buchanan and numerous details that it would be wearisome to hear specified, show that Polk strongly desired—as the Mexicans accused him of desiring—a restoration of friendly intercourse; and when the purpose had evidently failed, Slidell gave final evidence of that disposition by writing: “I am greatly mortified at the total failure of a mission commenced under auspices apparently the most flattering, but that mortification is much mitigated by the consciousness, that no fault of omission or commission, can justly be attributed either to the Government or to the Legation.”[29]

In short, then, we find that Polk had the gravest reasons for desiring friendly intercourse with Mexico, and probably felt none for plotting war; that a variety of personal and political circumstances naturally inclined him toward peace; that his declarations, both public and private, pointed consistently in that direction as long as any hope of an amicable settlement remained; and that what he did in repeated and most significant ways, as well as what he refrained from doing, had the same meaning. We must therefore give up the idea that he desired, and from the first intended, to have a war with Mexico.

A CRISIS

All prospects of negotiation came to an end, however, and the administration found itself confronted by a crisis. The dignity of the United States had certainly been outraged in a defiant and contemptuous manner. By the acts of Mexico, diplomatic relations had been completely severed, and she would not renew them on any terms which the United States could think of accepting. Commercial intercourse was practically at an end, and the interests of our citizens were so gravely prejudiced, that from this point of view even a London paper, the Examiner, admitted reluctantly that the situation was becoming “intolerable to the United States.” Our claims and our awards were still facts. “The honor of this government is pledged to our own people for the diligent and proper prosecution of these claims,” our secretary of state had said in 1843, and it was perfectly true. To let them go unpaid, in addition to being internationally immoral, would have wronged our aggrieved citizens; and to pay them from our own revenues, besides being immoral, pusillanimous and ridiculous, would have been unfair to all of our tax-payers. We had observed no more willingness, although the Mexican government had nearly always been sufficiently strong, to do us justice before annexation became an issue than afterwards; and in fact Ashburnham, a British representative at Mexico, did not exaggerate when he wrote, “They will not pay but on compulsion.” There was therefore no way to collect our due except by force.[30]

If our long forbearance appeared to American editors a mistake, much more reason had the administration to entertain that opinion, for our ministers and consuls in Mexico had repeatedly urged it, and Slidell had summed up his experience there in the following words, amply justified by the sequel: “We shall never be able to treat with her on fair terms until she has been taught to respect us ... here all amicable advances are considered as indicative either of weakness or treachery.” “Be assured,” he added privately to Buchanan, “that nothing is to be done with these people, until they shall have been chastised.” The solemn declarations of a succession of trusted agents that our forbearance was a tactical error were facts that our government was bound to consider; and by way of confirmation it had not only our complete failure to get on with Mexico, but the success of a power which seemed to have pursued a very different course, for in October, 1845, our consul at Vera Cruz had given the state department a specimen of England’s tone. Mexico, said she to the minister of relations, must fulfil to the letter every contract with a British subject.[31]

Furthermore our government felt seriously concerned about the European monarchical schemes. Early in January, 1846, the London Times printed a letter from its correspondent at Mexico in which the opinion was expressed that a foreign prince, if “seconded by any leading European power,” could gain a Mexican throne. A week later the same journal, recommending a Spanish king as the only possible cure for the ills of Mexico, had remarked that the United States could not oppose the “united policy of the European Powers”; and at about the same time the Picayune had announced, that it was proposed to give Cuba to England for her coöperation in the monarchical plan. Our government had, and could have, no intention of submitting to such European manoeuvres. Any attempt of England and France to place a king on the throne of Mexico, wrote Buchanan, “would be resisted by all the power of the United States;” and the best way to oppose it was to effect a definitive settlement of our difficulties with Mexico at once—first, because this of itself would very likely make the development of the rather complicated scheme appear, in view of the “Monroe Doctrine,” impracticable, and, secondly, because no European power could, with any show of decency, interfere in the domestic affairs of that country, while she was actually at war.[32]