Slavery and Four Years of War Part 10

The maintenance of slavery in Texas was regarded as of paramount importance to the South, and as slavery could not exist in Texas under Mexican authority, efforts were put forth to secure her independence, then to annex her to the United States as a State wherein slavery should exist. Even Clay, as Secretary of State, under Adams, in 1827, proposed to purchase Texas. President Jackson, in 1830, offered $5,000,000 for Texas. The Mexican Government, foreseeing the coming danger, by law prohibited American immigration into Texas, but this was unavailing, as the ever-unscrupulous hand of slavery was reaching out for more room and more territory to perpetuate itself. Americans, like their natural kinsmen the Englishmen, then regarded not the rights of others, the weak especially, when the slave power was involved.

Sam Houston, of Tennessee, a capable man who had fought under Jackson in the Indian wars, inspired by his pro-slavery proclivities in 1835, went to Texas avowedly to wrest Texas from free Mexico, and, it is said, of his real intentions President Jackson was not ignorant.

The unfortunate internal political contentions in Mexico gave the intruding Americans pretexts for disputes which soon led to the desired conflicts with the Mexican authorities.

Santa Anna, who had, through a revolution, put himself at the head of the new Mexican Republic, attempted to coerce the invading settlers to observance of the laws, but in this was only partially successful. On March 2, 1836, a Texas _Declaration of Independence_ was issued, signed by about _sixty_ men, _two_ of whom only were Texas-Mexicans, and this was followed by a Const.i.tution for the Republic of Texas, chief among its objects being the establishment of human slavery. Santa Anna, with the natural fierceness of the Spanish-Indian, waged a ferocious war on the revolutionists. A garrison of 250 men at "The Alamo," a small mission church near San Antonio, was taken by him after heroic resistance, and ma.s.sacred to a man.

"Thermopylae had her messenger of defeat, but The Alamo had none."

David Crockett, an uneducated, eccentric Tennessean, who was a celebrated hunter, Indian fighter, story teller, wit, and member of Congress three terms (where he opposed President Jackson, and refused to obey any party commanding him "to-go-wo-haw-gee," just at his pleasure) here lost his life. On the 27th of the same month 500 more Americans at Goliad were also ma.s.sacred. These atrocities were used successfully to produce sympathy and create excitement in the United States. On April 21, 1836, a decisive battle was fought at San Jacinto between Santa Anna's army of 1500 men and a body of 800 men under General Sam Houston, in which the former was defeated, and Santa Anna, the President of Mexico, captured. While a prisoner, to save his life he immediately concluded an armistice with Houston, agreeing to evacuate Texas and procure the recognition by Mexico of its independence. This the Mexican Congress afterwards refused. But in October, 1836, with a Const.i.tution modelled on that of the United States, the Republic of Texas (recognizing slavery) was organized, with Houston as President, and forthwith the United States recognized its independence.

In a few months application was made to the United States to receive it into the Union, but on account of a purpose to divide Texas into a number of slave States to secure the preponderance of the slave political power in the Union, which for want of sufficient population was not immediately possible, her admission was delayed, and Sam Houston's Republic of Texas existed for above eight years. President Van Buren, who succeeded Jackson as President, was opposed to its annexation, and it was left to the apostate Tyler to take up the business.

He, too, would have failed but Mr. Upshur, his Secretary of State, being killed in 1844 by the accidental explosion of a cannon, John C. Calhoun became his successor. The latter at once arranged a treaty of annexation, but this the Senate rejected. Both Van Buren and Clay, leading candidates of their respective parties for the Presidency in 1844, were opposed to the annexation; the former was defeated for nomination, and the latter at the election, because, during the canva.s.s, to please the slaveholding Whigs he sought to shift his position, thus losing his anti-slavery friends, "whose votes would have elected him"; and Polk became President. Annexation, however, did not wait for his administration.

In the House of Representatives, in December, 1844, an attempt was made to admit Texas, half to be free and half slave, making two States.

By resolutions of Congress, dated March 1, 1845, consent was given to erect Texas into a State with a view to annexation; and in order that she might be admitted into the Union such resolutions provided that thereafter four other States, with her consent, might be formed out of its territory. In August succeeding, a Const.i.tution was framed prohibiting emanc.i.p.ation of slaves (56) and authorizing their importation into Texas, which was thereafter adopted by the people of the Republic of Texas, under which Congress, by resolution (December 29, 1845) formally admitted Texas into the Union--the last slave State admitted.

As a sop to Northern "dough-faces," and to induce them to vote for the resolutions of March 1st, it recited that the new States lying south of lat.i.tude 36 30' should be admitted with or without slavery as their inhabitants might decide, those north of the line without slavery. In the subsequent adjustment of the north boundary line of Texas, it was found _no part of it_ was within two hundred miles of 36 30'; so all of Texas (in territory an empire, in area 240,000 square miles, six times greater than Ohio) was thus dedicated forever, by law, to human slavery, in the professed interest of the nineteenth century civilization. The intrigue, the bad faith, the perfidy by which this great political and moral wrong was consummated were laid up against the "day of wrath."

(56) How different is Texas' Const.i.tution of 1876, the first paragraph of which runs: "Texas is a free and independent State."

XV MEXICAN WAR--ACQUISITION OF CALIFORNIA AND NEW MEXICO 1846-8

With Texas came naturally a desire for more slave territory. Wrong is never satiated; it hungers as it feeds on its prey.

Pretence for quarrel arose over the boundary between Texas and Mexico. The United States unjustly claimed that the Rio Grande was the southwestern boundary of Texas instead of the Nueces, as Mexico maintained. Mexico was invaded, her cities, including her ancient capital, were taken, and her badly-organized armies overthrown. Congress, by an Act of May 13, 1846, declared that "by the act of the Republic of Mexico a state of war existed between that government and the United States," and it virtually ended in September, 1847, though the final treaty of peace at Guadalupe Hidalgo was not signed until February 2, 1848. While the annexation of Texas was regarded by Mexico as a cause of war, yet she did not declare war on that ground.

The principle of "manifest destiny" was proclaimed for the United States. In the prosecution of the war, with shameless effrontery it was justified on the necessity that "_we want room_" for the two hundred millions of inhabitants soon to be under our flag.

Answering this cry, put up by Senator Ca.s.s of Michigan, Senator Thomas Corwin, in a spirit of prophecy, said:

"But you still say you want _room_ for your people. This has been the plea of every robber-chief from Nimrod to the present hour.

I dare say, when Tamerlane descended from his throne, built of seventy thousand human skulls, and marched his ferocious battalions to further slaughter,--I dare say he said, 'I want room.' Alexander, too, the mighty 'Macedonian Madman,' when he wandered with his Greeks to the plains of India, and fought a b.l.o.o.d.y battle on the very ground where recently England and the Sikhs engaged in a strife for 'room' ... Sir, he made quite as much of that sort of history as you ever will. Mr. President, do you remember the last chapter in that history? It is soon read. Oh! I wish we could understand its moral. Ammon's son (so was Alexander named), after all his victories, died drunk in Babylon. The vast empire he conquered to 'get room' became the prey of the generals he trained; it was desparted, torn to pieces, and so ended. Sir, there is a very significant appendix; it is this: The descendants of the Greeks-- of Alexander's Greeks--are now governed by a descendant of Attilla."

Through the greed of the slave power Texas was acquired, and they still longed for more slave territory, and weak Mexico alone could be depleted to obtain it.

Southern California and New Mexico had a sufficiently warm climate for slavery to flourish in.

The war was far from popular, though the pride of national patriotism supported it. Clay and Webster each opposed it, and each gave a son to it.(57)

Abraham Lincoln, then for a single term in Congress, spoke against it, but, like most other members holding similar views, voted men, money, and supplies to carry it on.

Senator Benton of Missouri, a party friend to the administration of Polk and favoring the war, said:

"The truth was, an intrigue was laid for peace before the war was declared! And this intrigue was even part of the scheme for making war. It is impossible to conceive of an administration less warlike, or more intriguing, than that of Mr. Polk. They were men of peace, with objects to be accomplished by means of war... . They wanted a small war, just large enough to require a treaty of peace, and not large enough to make military reputations dangerous for the Presidency."(58)

It was predicted the war would not last to exceed "90 to 120 days."

The proposed conquest of Mexico was so inlaid with treachery that this prediction was justified. The Administration conspired with the then exiled Santa Anna "not to obstruct his return to Mexico."

"It was the arrangement with Santa Anna! We to put him back in Mexico, and he to make peace with us: of course an _agreeable peace_ ... not without receiving a consideration: and in this case some millions of dollars were required--not for himself, of course, but to enable him to promote the peace at home."(59)

Accordingly, in August, 1846, before Buena Vista and other signal successes in the war, the President asked an appropriation of $2,000,000 to be used in promoting a peace.

But already jealousy and envy toward the generals in the field had arisen, which culminated in President Polk offering to confer on Senator Thomas H. Benton (of his own party) the rank of Lieutenant- General, with full command, thus superseding the Whig Generals, Winfield Scott and Zachary Taylor, then possible Presidential candidates.(60)

The acquisition of more territory from Mexico being no secret, a bill for the desired appropriation precipitated, unexpectedly, a most violent discussion of the slavery question, never again allayed until slavery was eliminated from the Union.

A Democratic Representative from Pennsylvania, David Wilmot, who favored the acquisition of California and New Mexico, for the purpose of "_preserving the equilibrium of States_," and as an offset to the already acquired slave State of Texas, which was then expected to be soon erected into five slave States, moved, August, 1846, the following proviso to the "two million bill":

"That no part of the territory to be acquired should be open to the introduction of slavery."

This famous "Wilmot Proviso" never became a part of any law; its sole importance was in its frequent presentation and the violent discussions over it.

Thus far the national wrong against Mexico had for its manifest object the spread of slavery.

The proposition to seize Mexican territory and dedicate it to freedom threw the advocates of slavery and the war into a frenzy, and consternation in high circles prevailed.

The proviso was adopted in the House, but failed in the Senate.

It was, in February, 1847, again, by the House, tacked on the "three million bill," but being struck out in the Senate, the bill pa.s.sed the House without it. But the proviso had done its work; the whole North was alive to its importance, and Presidential and Congressional _timber_ blossomed or withered accordingly as it did or did not fly a banner inscribed "_Wilmot Proviso_."

Calhoun, professing great alarm and great concern for the Const.i.tution, on February 19, 1847, introduced into the Senate his celebrated resolution declaring, among other things, that the Territories belonged to the "several States ... as their joint and common property." "That the enactment of any law which should ...

deprive the citizens of any of the States ... from emigrating with their property [slaves] into any of the Territories ...

would be a violation of the Const.i.tution and the rights of the States, ... and would tend directly to subvert the Union itself."

Here was the doctrine of state-rights born into full life, with the old doctrine of nullification embodied. Benton, speaking of the dangerous character of Calhoun's resolution, said of them:

"As Sylla saw in the young Caesar many Mariuses, so did he see in them many nullifications."

Benton, quite familiar with the whole history of slavery before, during, and after the Mexican War, himself a Senator from a slave State, says the Wilmot proviso "was secretly cherished as a means of keeping up discord, and forcing the issue between the North and the South," by Calhoun and his friends, citing Mr. Calhoun's Alabama letter of 1847, already quoted, in proof of his statement.

By the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (February, 1848) for $15,000,000 (above $3,000,000 more than was paid Napoleon for the Louisiana Purchase), New Mexico and Upper California were ceded by Mexico to the United States, and the Rio Grande from El Paso to its mouth became the boundary between the two countries. Upper California is now the State of California, and the New Mexico thus acquired included much of the present New Mexico, nearly all of Arizona, substantially all of Utah and Nevada, and the western portion of Colorado, in area 545,000 square miles, which, together with the Gadsden Purchase, by further treaty with Mexico (December 30, 1853) for $10,000,000 more, completed the despoiling of the sister Republic. The territory acquired by the last treaty now const.i.tutes the southern part of Arizona and the southwest corner of New Mexico.

Almost contemporaneous with the invasion of Mexico, and as part of the plan for the acquisition of her territory, Buchanan, then Secretary of State, dispatched Lieutenant Gillespie, of the United States Army, _via_ Vera Cruz, the City of Mexico, and Mazatlan, to Monterey, Upper California, ostensibly with dispatches to a consul, but really for the purpose of presenting a mere _letter of introduction_ and a verbal request to Captain John C. Fremont, U.S.A., then on an exploring expedition to the Pacific Coast. The Lieutenant found Fremont at the north end of the Great Klamath Lake, Oregon, in the midst of hostile Indians. The _letter_ being presented, Gillespie verbally communicated from the Secretary a request for him to counteract any foreign scheme on California, and to cultivate the good-will of the inhabitants towards the United States.

On this information Fremont returned, in May, 1846 (the month the war opened on the Rio Grande), to the valley of the Sacramento.

His arrival there was timely, as already the ever-grasping hand of the British was at work. There had been inaugurated (1) the ma.s.sacre of American settlers, (2) the subjection of California to British protection, and (3) the transfer of its public domain to British subjects. Fremont did not even know war had broken out between the United States and Mexico, yet he organized at first a defensive war in the Sacramento Valley for the protection of American settlers, and blood was shed; then he resolved to overturn the Mexican authority, and establish "California Independence." The celerity with which all this was accomplished was romantic. In thirty days all Northern California was freed from Mexican rule--the flag of independence raised; American settlers were saved, and the British party overthrown.

Since its discovery by Sir Francis Drake--two hundred years--England had sought to possess the splendid Bay of California, with its great seaport and the tributary country. The war between the United States and Mexico seemed her opportune time for the acquisition, but her efforts, both by sea and land, were thwarted by her only less voracious daughter.(61)

Often in human affairs events concur to control or turn aside the most carefully guarded plans. California and the other Mexican acquisitions were by the war party--the slave propagandists--fore- ordained to be slave territory. The free State men had done little to favor its theft and purchase, and it was therefore claimed that they of right should have little interest in its disposition.

Just nine days (January 24, 1848) before the treaty of peace (Guadalupe Hidalgo), John A. Sutter, a Swiss by parentage, German by birth (Baden), American by residence and naturalization (Missouri), Mexican in turn, by residence and naturalization, together with James A. Marshall, a Jerseyman wheelwright in Sutter's employ, while the latter was walking in a newly-constructed and recently flooded saw-mill tail-race, in the small valley of Coloma, about forty-five miles from Sacramento (then Sutter's Fort), in the foot- hills of the Sierras, picked up some small, shining yellow particles, which proved to be free _gold_.(62)

"_The accursed thirst for gold_" was now soon to outrun the _accursed greed_ for more slave territory. The race was unequal. The whole world joined in the race for gold. The hunger for wealth seized all alike, the common laborer, the small farmer, the merchant, the mechanic, the politician, the lawyer and the clergyman, the soldier and the sailor from the army and navy; from all countries and climes came the gold seeker; only the slaveholder with his slaves alone were left behind. There was no place for the latter with freemen who themselves swung the pick and rocked the cradle in search of the precious metal.

California, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona still give up their gold and their silver to the free miner; and the financial condition and prosperity of the civilized countries of the world have been favorably affected by these productions, but of this we are not here to speak. Slavery is our text, and we must not stray too far from it.