Polk found his Cabinet divided on the subject of “all Mexico,” with the preponderance of influence in favor of annexation. Buchanan gave out a public letter in which he said, “Destiny beckons us to hold and civilize Mexico.” Walker threatened to urge the absorption of Mexico in his report to Congress. The flag should never be hauled down from the ramparts of the captured capital of Mexico. Polk resisted this pressure, but he recalled Trist just before the beginning of the final negotiations with Mexico. On the advice of General Scott, Trist refused to obey the President, and both he and the general hastened the negotiations.
Although the Whigs were also infected with the expansionist fever, Henry Clay came out of his retirement at Ashland, near Lexington, and on November 13, made an impassioned appeal to the country against the wickedness of despoiling a helpless neighbor; John Quincy Adams, nearing the end of his career, continued to denounce the whole Mexican movement. But Webster, an ardent candidate now for the Whig nomination in 1848, said little and took this occasion to visit the South and West. Calhoun made it his especial business in the Senate to defeat what he thought was the President's purpose, the annexation of all Mexico. But the prospect of success of these “little Americans” was far from bright.
When the Trist treaty, giving satisfaction on all the points raised in Slidell's mission and selling to the United States both California and New Mexico, reached Washington in February, 1848, there was every temptation to reject it. The ablest members of the Cabinet insisted upon its rejection; a scheme for the establishment of a protectorate over Yucatan, which was expected to eventuate in annexation, was being urged, and the rumors of approaching convulsions in Europe were heartening leading members of Congress. Why should not the United States fulfill her destiny? There was none to interfere or make afraid. Senator Foote, of Mississippi, urged in glowing terms the advantages of “extending American liberty” over Central America; Senator Hannegan, of Indiana, fairly represented his section when he said that the time had come for the United States to take Canada, too, and make the boundaries of North America the boundaries of the great Republic; and Senator Cass was making his campaign for the Democratic nomination on the plea that the time was ripe for the extinguishment of the remnants of European authority on the continent.
The President, worn out with the toils of office and determined not to seek renomination, decided to accept the treaty, and the Senate, in spite of the warmest harangues of the extremists, promptly approved the work of Trist and Scott, for the general had had much to do with the negotiations. The war had come to an end, though there were still further efforts to undo the treaty by seizing Yucatan, and there was much complaint from leading Senators and Representatives at the alleged weakness of Polk.
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At a cost of a few thousand lives and some eighty million dollars, eight hundred thousand square miles of territory had been added to the country and the long-standing quarrel with Mexico about Texas had been brought to an end. The Treasury had stood well the heavy strain of war, every bond that had been issued had been readily taken at par and on a low rate of interest—an unprecedented fact in American history. The hard times of the preceding decade seemed to be brought to a conclusion. No one complained at the tariff, and even the veto of the internal improvements bill was passing out of the public mind. The South and the West had carried their program. Polk retired to his home to die a few months later. There had been no appreciable public demand for his renomination; and, rather strange to say, both the people and the historians consigned him to comparative oblivion.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE