The American Empire Part 5

[19] "The American Slave Trade," J. R. Spears. New York, Scribners, 1901, p. 69.

[20] "The Suppression of the American Slave Trade," W. E. B. DuBois. New York, Longmans, 1896, p. 178-9.

[21] "The American Slave Trade," J. R. Spears. New York, Scribners, 1901, p. 84-5.

[22] "American Negro Slavery," U. B. Phillips. New York, Appleton, 1918, p. VII.

[23] Ibid., p. 190.

[24] Ibid., p. 40.

[25] Benton, "Abridgment of Debates." XII, p. 718.

[26] "American Negro Slavery," U. B. Phillips. New York, Appleton, 1918, p. 370.

V. THE WINNING OF THE WEST

1. _Westward, Ho!_

The English colonists in America occupied only the narrow strip of country between the Alleghanies and the Atlantic Ocean. The interior was inhabited by the Indians, and claimed by the French, the Spanish and the British, but neither possession nor legal t.i.tle carried weight with the stream of pioneers that was making a path into the "wilderness," crying its slogan,--"Westward, Ho!" as it moved toward the setting sun. The first objective of the pioneers was the Ohio Valley; the second was the valley of the Mississippi; the third was the Great Plains; the fourth was the Pacific slope, with its golden sands. Each one of these objectives developed itself out of the previous conquest.

The settlers who made their way across the mountains into the valley of the Ohio, found themselves in a land of plenty. The game was abundant; the soil was excellent, and soon they were in a position to offer their surplus products for sale. These products could not be successfully transported across the mountains, but they could be floated down the Ohio and the Mississippi--a natural roadway to the sea. But beside the Indians, who claimed all of the land for their own, there were the Spaniards at New Orleans, doing everything in their power to prevent the American Colonists from building up a successful river commerce.

The frontiersmen were able to push back the Indians. The Spanish garrisons presented a more serious obstacle. New Orleans was a well fortified post that could be provisioned from the sea. Behind it, therefore, lay the whole power of the Spanish fleet. The right of navigation was finally obtained in the Treaty of 1795. Still friction continued with the Spanish authorities and serious trouble was averted only by the transfer of Louisiana, first to the French (1800) and then by them to the United States (1803). Napoleon had agreed, when he secured this territory from the Spaniards, not to turn it over to the United States. A pressing need of funds, however, led him to strike an easy bargain with the American government which was negotiating for the control of the mouth of the Mississippi. Napoleon insisted that the United States take, not only the mouth of the river, but also the territory to the West which he saw would be useless without this outlet.

After some hesitation, Jefferson and his advisers accepted the offer and the Louisiana Purchase was consummated.

The Louisiana Purchase gave the young American nation what it needed--a place in the sun. The colonists had taken land for their early requirements from the Indians who inhabited the coastal plain. They had enslaved the Negroes and thus had secured an ample supply of cheap labor. Now, the pressure of population, and the restless, pioneer spirit of those early days, led out into the West.

Until 1830 immigration was not a large factor in the increase of the colonial population, but the birth-rate was prodigious. In the closing years of the eighteenth century, Franklin estimated that the average family had eight children. There were sections of the country where the population doubled, by natural increase, once in 23 years. Indeed, the entire population of the United States was increasing at a phenomenal rate. The census of 1800 showed 5,308,483 persons in the country. Twenty years later the population was 9,638,453--an increase of 81 per cent. By 1840 the population was reported as 17,069,453--an increase of 77 per cent over 1820, and of 221 per cent over 1800.

The small farmers and tradesmen of the North were settling up the Northwest Territory. The plantation owners of the South, operating on a large scale, and with the wasteful methods that inevitably accompany slavery, were clamoring for new land to replace the tracts that had been exhausted by constant recropping with no attempt at fertilization.

Cotton had been enthroned in the South since the invention of the cotton gin in 1792. With the resumption of European trade relations in 1815 the demand for cotton and for cotton lands increased enormously. There was one, and only one logical way to meet this demand--through the possession of the Southwest.

2. _The Southwest_

The pioneers had already broken into the Southwest in large numbers.

While Spain still held the Mississippi, there were eager groups of settlers pressing against the frontier which the Spanish guarded so jealously against all comers. The Louisiana Purchase met the momentary demand, but beyond the Louisiana Purchase, and between the settlers and the rich lands of Texas lay the Mexican boundary. The tide of migration into this new field hurled itself against the Mexican border in the same way that an earlier generation had rolled against the frontier of Louisiana.

The att.i.tude of these early settlers is described with sympathetic accuracy by Theodore Roosevelt. "Louisiana was added to the United States because the hardy backwoods settlers had swarmed into the valleys of the Tennessee, the c.u.mberland and the Ohio by hundreds of thousands.... Restless, adventurous, hardy, they looked eagerly across the Mississippi to the fertile solitudes where the Spaniard was the nominal, and the Indian the real master; and with a more immediate longing they fiercely coveted the Creole provinces at the mouth of the river."[27] This fierce coveting could have only one possible outcome--the colonists got what they wanted.

The speed with which the Southwest rushed into prominence as a factor in national affairs is indicated by its contribution to the cotton-crop.

In 1811 the states and territories from Alabama and Tennessee westward produced one-sixteenth of the cotton grown in the United States. In 1820 they produced a third; in 1830, a half; and by 1860, three-quarters of the cotton raised. At the same time, the population of the Alabama-Mississippi territory was:--

200,000 in 1810.

445,000 in 1820.

965,000 in 1830.

1,377,000 in 1840.

Thus thirty years saw an increase of nearly seven-fold in the population of this region.[28]

Meanwhile, slavery had become the issue of the day. The slave power was in control of the Federal Government, and in order to maintain its authority, it needed new slave states to offset the free states that were being carved out of the Northwest.

Here were three forces--first the desire of the frontiersmen for "elbow room"; second the demand of King Cotton for unused land from which the extravagant plantation system might draw virgin fertility and third, the necessity that was pressing the South to add territory in order to hold its power. All three forces impelled towards the Southwest, and it was thither that population pressed in the years following 1820.

3. _Texas_

Mexico lay to the Southwest, and therefore Mexico became the object of American territorial ambitions. The district now known as Texas had const.i.tuted a part of the Louisiana Purchase (1803); had been ceded to Spain (1819); had been made the object of negotiations looking towards its purchase in 1826; had revolted against Mexico and been recognized as an independent state in 1835.

Texas had been settled by Americans who had secured the permission of the Mexican Government to colonize. These settlers made no effort to conceal their opposition to the Mexican Government, with which they were entirely out of sympathy. Many of them were seeking territory in which slavery might be perpetuated, and they introduced slaves into Texas in direct violation of the Mexican Const.i.tution. The Americans did not go to Texas with any idea of becoming Mexican subjects; on the contrary, as soon as they felt themselves strong enough, they declared their independence of Mexico, and began negotiations for the annexation of Texas to the United States.

The Texan struggle for independence from Mexico was cordially welcomed in all parts of the United States, but particularly in the South.

Despite the protests of Mexico, public meetings were held; funds were raised; volunteers were enlisted and equipped, and supplies and munitions were sent for the a.s.sistance of the Texans in ships openly fitted out in New Orleans.

No sooner had the Texans established a government than the campaign for annexation was begun. The advocates of annexation--princ.i.p.ally Southerners--argued in favor of adding so rich and so logical a prize to the territory of the United States, citing the purchase of Louisiana and of Florida as precedents. Their opponents, first on const.i.tutional grounds and then on grounds of public policy, argued against annexation.

Opinion in the South was greatly aroused. Despite the fact that many of her foremost statesmen were against annexation, some of the Southern newspapers even went so far as to threaten the dissolution of the Union if the treaty of ratification failed to pa.s.s the Senate.

The campaign of 1844 was fought on the issue of annexation and the election of James K. Polk was a pledge that Texas should be annexed to the United States. During the campaign, the line of division on annexation had been a party line--Democrats favoring; Whigs opposing.

Between the election and the pa.s.sage of the joint resolution by which annexation was consummated, it became a sectional issue,--Southern Whigs favoring annexation and Northern Democrats opposing it.

So strong was the protest against annexation, that the treaty could not command the necessary two-thirds vote in the Senate. The matter was disposed of by the pa.s.sage of a joint resolution (March 1, 1845) which required only a majority vote in both houses of Congress. President Polk therefore took office with the mandate of the country and the decision of both houses of the retiring Congress, in favor of annexation.

Mexico, in the meantime, had offered to recognize the independence of Texas and to make peace with her if the Texas Congress would reject the joint resolution, and refuse the proffered annexation. This the Texas Congress refused, and with the pa.s.sage, by that body, of an act providing for annexation, the Mexican minister was withdrawn from Washington, and Mexico began her preparations for war.

President Polk had taken office with the avowed intention of buying California from Mexico. The rupture threatened to prevent him from carrying this plan into effect. He therefore sent an unofficial representative to Mexico in an effort to restore friendly relations.

Failing in that, he and his advisers determined upon war as the only feasible method of obtaining California and of settling the diplomatic tangle involved in the annexation of Texas.

4. _The Conquest of Mexico_

The Polk Administration made the Mexican War as a part of its expansionist policy.

"Although that unfortunate country (Mexico) had officially notified the United States that the annexation of Texas would be treated as a cause of war, so constant were the internal quarrels in Mexico that open hostilities would have been avoided had the conduct of the Administration been more honorable. That was the opinion of Webster, Clay, Calhoun, Benton, and Tyler.... Mexico was actually goaded on to war. The principle of the manifest destiny of this country was invoked as a reason for the attempt to add to our territory at the expense of Mexico."[29]

After the annexation of Texas it became the duty of the United States to defend that state against the threatened Mexican invasion.

Mexican troops had occupied the southern bank of the Rio Grande. General Zachary Taylor with a small force, moved to a position on the Nueces River. Between the two rivers lay a strip of territory the possession of which was one of the sources of dispute between Mexico and Texas. What followed may be stated in the words of one of the officers who partic.i.p.ated in the expedition: "The presence of the United States troops on the edge of the territory farthest from the Mexican settlements was not sufficient to provoke hostilities. We were sent to provoke a fight, but it was essential that Mexico begin it" (p. 41).

"Mexico showing no willingness to come to the Nueces to drive the invaders from her soil, it became necessary for the 'invaders' to approach to within a convenient distance to be struck. Accordingly, preparations were begun for moving the army to the Rio Grande, to a point near Matamoras. It was desirable to occupy a position near the largest center of population possible to reach without actually invading territory to which we set up no claim whatever" (p. 45).[30]

The occupation, by the United States troops, of the disputed territory soon led to a clash in which several United States soldiers were killed.