I now come to the last act in this tragedy of errors—the alternative resolutions adopted by Congress in the last days of the session of 1844-'45, and in the last moments of Mr. Tyler's administration. A resolve, single and absolute, for the admission of Texas as a State of this Union, had been made by the House of Representatives; it came to this body; and an alternative resolution was added, subject to the choice of the President, authorizing negotiations for the admission, and appropriating one hundred thousand dollars to defray the expenses of these negotiations. A senator from North Carolina, not now a member of this body, but who I have the pleasure to see sitting near me (Mr. Haywood), knows all about that alternative resolution; and his country owes him good thanks for his labors about it. It was considered by every body, that the choice between these resolutions belonged to the new President, who had been elected with a special view to the admission of Texas, and who was already in the city, awaiting the morning of the 4th of March to enter upon the execution of his duties; and upon whose administration all the evils of a mistake in the choice of these resolutions were to fall. We all expected the question to be left open to the new President; and so strong was that expectation, and so strong the feeling against the decency or propriety of interference on the part of the expiring administration, to snatch this choice out of the hands of Mr. Polk, that, on a mere suggestion of the possibility of such a proceeding, in a debate on this floor, a senator standing in the relation personally, and politically, and locally to feel for the honor of the then Secretary of State, declared they would not have the audacity to do it. Audacity was his word: and that was the declaration of a gentleman of honor and patriotism, no longer a member of this body, but who has the respect and best wishes of all who ever knew him. I speak of Mr. McDuffie, and quote his words as heard at the time, and as since printed and published by others. Mr. McDuffie was mistaken! They did have the audacity! They did do it, or rather, HE did it (looking at Mr. Calhoun); for it is incontestable that Mr. Tyler was nothing, in any thing that related to the Texas question, from the time of the arrival of his last Secretary of State. His last act, in relation to Texas, was the answer which Mr. Nelson gave for him through the agent, Murphy, denying his right to lend our forces to the President of Texas to fight the Mexicans while we were at peace with them: the reversal of that answer by his new secretary was the extinction of his power over the Texas question. He, the then Secretary of State, the present senator from South Carolina, to whom I address myself, did it. On Sunday, the second day of March—that day which preceded the last day of his authority—and on that day, sacred to peace—the council sat that acted on the resolutions—and in the darkness of a night howling with the storm, and battling with the elements, as if Heaven warred upon the audacious act (for well do I remember it), the fatal messenger was sent off which carried the selected resolution to Texas. The exit of the secretary from office, and the start of the messenger from Washington, were coetaneous—twin acts—which come together, and will be remembered together. The act was then done: Texas was admitted: all the consequences of admission were incurred—and especially that consequence which Mr. de Bocanegra had denounced, and which our secretary had accepted—WAR. The state of war was established—the status belli was created—and that by the operation of our own constitution, as well as by the final declaration of Mexico: for Texas then being admitted into the Union, the war with her extended to the whole Union; and the duty of protecting her, devolved upon the President of the United States. The selection of the absolute resolution exhausted our action: the alternative resolution for negotiation was defunct: the only mode of admission was the absolute one, and it made war. The war was made to Mr. Polk's hands: his administration came into existence with the war upon its hands, and under the constitutional duty to protect Texas at the expense of war with Mexico: and to that point, all events rapidly tended. The Mexican minister, General Almonte, who had returned to Washington city after the rejection of the treaty of annexation, demanded his passports, and left the United States. The land forces which had been advanced to the Sabine, were further advanced to Corpus Christi; the Mexican troops moved towards the Rio Grande: the fleet which remained at Vera Cruz, continued there: commerce died out: the citizens of each country left the other, as far as they could: angry denunciations filled the press of each country: and when a minister was sent from the United States, his reception was refused. The state of war existed legally: all the circumstances of war, except the single circumstance of bloodshed, existed at the accession of Mr. Polk; and the two countries, Mexico and the United States, stood in a relation to each other impossible to be continued. The march upon the Rio Grande brought on the conflict—made the collision of arms—but not the war. The war was prepared, organized, established by the Secretary of State, before he left the department. It was his legacy to the democracy, and to the Polk administration—his last gift to them, in the moment of taking a long farewell. And now he sets up for a man of peace, and throws all the blame of war upon Mr. Polk, to whom he bequeathed it.
Cicero says that Antony, flying from Rome to the camp of Cæsar in Cisalpine Gaul, was the cause of the civil war which followed—as much so as Helen was of the Trojan war. Ut Helena Trojanis, sic iste huic reipublica causa belli—causa pestis atque exitii fuit. He says that that flight put an end to all chance of accommodation; closed the door to all conciliation; broke up the plans of all peaceable men; and by inducing Cæsar to break up his camp in Gaul, and march across the Rubicon, lit up the flames of civil war in Italy. In like manner, I say that the flight of the winged messenger from this capital on the Sunday night before the 3d of March, despatched by the then Secretary of State, in the expiring moment of his power, and bearing his fatal choice to the capital of Texas, was the direct cause of the war with Mexico in which we are now engaged. Like the flight of Antony, it broke up the plans of all peaceable men, slammed the door upon negotiations, put an end to all chance for accommodation, broke up the camp on the Sabine, sent the troops towards Mexico, and lit up the war. Like Antony and Helen, he made the war; unlike Antony, he does not stand to it; but, copying rather the conduct of the paramour of Helen, he flies from the conflict he has provoked! and, worse than Paris, he endeavors to draw along with him, in his own unhappy flight, the whole American host. Paris fled alone at the sight of Menelaus: the senator from South Carolina urges us all to fly at the sight of Santa Anna. And, it may be, that worse than Paris again, he may refuse to return to the field. Paris went back under the keen reproach of Hector, and tried to fight:
"For thee the soldier bleeds, the matron mourns, And wasteful war in all its fury burns."
Stung with this just and keen rebuke—this vivid picture of the ruin he had made—Paris returned to the field, and tried to fight: and now, it remains to be seen whether the senator from South Carolina can do the same, on the view of the ruin which he has made: and, if not, whether he cannot, at least, cease to obstruct the arms of others—cease to labor to involve the whole army in his own unmanly retreat.
Upon the evidence now given, drawn from his public official acts alone, he stands the undisputed author and architect of that calamity. History will so write him down. Inexorable History, with her pen of iron and tablets of brass, will so write him down: and two thousand years hence, and three thousand years hence, the boy at his lesson shall learn it in the book, that as Helen was the cause of the Trojan, and Antony the cause of the Roman civil war, and Lord North made the war of the Revolution, just so certainly is John C. Calhoun the author of the present war between the United States and Mexico.
He now sets up for the character of pacificator—with what justice, let the further fact proclaim which I now expose. Three hundred newspapers, in the summer of 1844, in the pay of the administration and Department of State, spoke the sentiments of the Department of State, and pursued as traitors to the United States all who were for the peaceable annexation of Texas by settling the boundary line of Texas with Mexico simultaneously with the annexation. Here is the instruction under which the three hundred acted:
"As the conductor of the official journal here, he has requested me to answer it (your letter), which request I comply with readily. With regard to the course of your paper, you can take the tone of the administration from the * * * *. I think, however, and would recommend that you would confine yourself to attacks upon Benton, showing that he has allied himself with the whigs on the Texas question. Quote Jackson's letter on Texas, where he denounces all those as traitors to the country who oppose the treaty. Apply it to Benton. Proclaim that Benton, by attacking Mr. Tyler and his friends, and driving them from the party, is aiding the election of Mr. Clay; and charge him with doing this to defeat Mr. Polk, and insure himself the succession in 1848; and claim that full justice be done to the acts and motives of John Tyler by the leaders. Harp upon these strings. Do not propose the union; 'it is the business of the democrats to do this, and arrange it to our perfect satisfaction.' I quote here from our leading friend at the South. Such is the course which I recommend, and which you can pursue or not, according to your real attachment to the administration. Look out for my leader of to-morrow as an indicator, and regard this letter as of the most strict and inviolate confidence of character."
I make no comment on this letter, nor read the other parts of it: a time will come for that. It is an original, and will keep, and will prove itself. I merely read a paragraph now, to show with what justice the person who was in the Department of State when these three hundred newspapers in its pay were thus attacking the men of peace, now sets up for the character of pacificator!
Mr. Calhoun. Does he intend to say that I ever wrote such a letter?
Mr. Benton. I read it. I say nothing.