TRIST APPOINTED PEACE COMMISSIONER
At length, however, Buchanan’s resourceful mind thought of sending Nicholas P. Trist, a protégé of his own and now chief clerk of the state department. Trist’s dignity, it was doubtless thought, would not be too delicate; his action, it seemed evident, could be controlled; and the glory of success, if a treaty should be made, would belong to the administration—particularly the secretary of state—and not exalt the agent in any dangerous political sense. Besides, the chief clerk was a man of agreeable and impressive appearance, admitted talents, unusual industry and the highest character; he had studied at West Point; he knew diplomatic business; as consul at Havana for a term of years, he had become acquainted with Spanish-American traits; and he spoke the language of Mexico fluently. He was therefore immediately appointed as Polk’s agent—though officially styled “Commissioner Plenipotentiary”—to be paid, not as a diplomatic representative, but from the appropriation for the contingent expenses of foreign intercourse.[8]
The appointment was not, however, entirely felicitous. Trist, associated with Jefferson as law-student and as grandson by marriage and associated with Jackson as private secretary, had sojourned on Olympus and tasted the ambrosia of the gods; but he did not possess their divine constitution, and ambrosia disagreed with him. It gave him queer feelings in the head that were not exactly growing pains, and produced a state of mind that was neither of heaven nor of earth. The Declaration of Independence was always resounding in his thoughts, and mentally he was always walking up the stairs of the White House arm in arm with a hero, sage and prophet; but he overlooked the foundation of downright common sense on which great men build, and lacked the humor that might at least have kept him near the ground.[8]
Aspiring, as he said, to influence the course of the world by drawing supernal truths from the region of abstract speculation, he resembled the gazing astronomer who walked into the ditch; and a deep, sticky ditch lay just before him. Cordial coöperation with Scott was almost indispensable for the proper execution of his work; but he thought he disliked the man, he knew that Polk and the Cabinet disliked him, and his chiefs—probably afraid that he might be overpowered by the Whig general—took superabundant pains to brace him. Polk urged him to consort with Pillow, whom he represented as a Cincinnatus compounded with a Scipio Africanus; and Buchanan, uprearing his big person impressively, expanding in his courtly, diplomatic style, and beaming upon the artless, ethereal chief clerk with his uncommunicative blue eyes, intimated that by faithfully carrying out the wishes of the government he might become the next Democratic nominee for the Presidency![8]
NEGOTIATIONS OPENED
Trist was equipped with a commission, credentials, letters from the secretaries of the war and the navy departments to Scott and Perry, a draft or projet of a treaty, instructions directing him to inform our military and naval commanders, if Mexico should make and ratify the treaty, and a sealed despatch to the minister of relations, in which Buchanan pointed out that an evacuation of Mexican territory would be a surrender of all our costly gains, but announced that a commissioner, ranking second in our state department, would attend the army, and be ready at all times to negotiate. Ostensibly a mere bearer of despatches, the chief clerk hastened incognito to New Orleans, reached Vera Cruz on May 6, fell very sick there, and forwarded to Scott both Marcy’s letter and Buchanan’s despatch, which was to be placed at once in the hands of the Mexican commander. He was authorized—not ordered, as he should have been—to let the General see his own instructions and his copy of the sealed despatch, which would have explained the plans of the government; but instead of doing this he merely wrote a letter of his own.[9]
What that letter said was never disclosed; but we know that it proceeded from a truly amiable but high-strung, “top-lofty” man, who felt expressly Called by Destiny to perform a Great National Act and incidentally to put Winfield Scott where he belonged.
The General’s reply, on the other hand, is extant, and can readily be understood. He was already in a state of mind regarding the administration. Friends had warned him against it since his departure from the United States, and the warnings had seemed to be coming true. After Polk had promised him confidence and coöperation, and after he as a grateful return had assisted Polk with the Whigs, the President had immediately branded him before the world as unfit, and outraged his natural pride as a military man, by trying to have a civilian placed over him. Polk had infringed upon his rightful power to discipline unruly subordinates; his requisitions for vessels, troops and supplies had not been met; and now, though general-in-chief, he was required to transmit a despatch, doubtless bearing seriously upon the war, without knowing its contents or using a proper discretion as to its opportuneness—a requirement that Marcy did not undertake to defend; and he read in the Secretary’s letter these words: “Mr. Trist is clothed with such diplomatic powers as will authorize him to enter into arrangements with the government of Mexico for the suspension of hostilities.” This looked mysterious and, in view of Polk’s course toward him, alarming. He believed that in a highly important respect the management of the campaign had been taken from him, and he felt that he was to be degraded before his army, the Mexicans and the public at large by a clerk from the state department, of whom he had known at Washington just enough to believe he disliked him.[9]
It seemed unjust and insulting; and being an irascible, overworked, over-worried soldier and master of language, seven of whose regiments had just gone home unexpectedly, he answered as might have been foreseen. Trist, angry, ill, conscious to his pen’s point of every convolution, involution, evolution, ramification and complication of his mental processes, and unaware of Marcy’s blundering phraseology, replied at a length and in a tone that were enough to drive Scott wild; and when he finally reached headquarters on May 14, though Scott provided amply for his dignity and comfort, the two were not on speaking terms, and further epistolary exchanges only widened the breach. I fear Scott and Trist have got to writing, groaned Marcy, who knew them both; if so, all is over. As for the sealed despatch, on the grounds that it was doubtful whether the present circumstances warranted its presentation, and that anyhow a proper escort for protection against guerillas could not then be afforded, it was returned to the commissioner.[9]
On the sixth of June, therefore, Trist wrote a letter to Bankhead, explaining the character of Buchanan’s despatch, asking him to make known the existence of the despatch and Trist’s presence with the army, and inquiring whether at a proper time that minister would transmit the paper to the Mexican government. Bankhead, as we know, strongly desired peace. The interests of the British merchants at Puebla and the capital and of consul-general Mackintosh, who not only was in business but had made large advances to Santa Anna, lay in the same direction; and hence Edward Thornton, a member of the British legation, called on Trist at Puebla five days later.[10] Trist’s verbal explanations of his government’s aims proved satisfactory, and soon the despatch arrived at its destination.[12]