General Taylor was requested by Ampudia, the commander of the Mexican forces, to return to the Nucces, the western boundary of Texas proper, "while," he said, "our governments are regulating pending questions relative to Texas." He was not required to withdraw his armies into the territories of the United States, but simply to return to the position in Texas held by him during many months. To that request he replied, that he was acting under the orders of his government. But he was, nevertheless, on Mexican soil, in the state of Tamaulipas, among the Mexican people. Early in May General Arista, who had assumed command of the Mexican forces, crossed the Rio Grande, attacked General Taylor, was defeated at Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma, and then recrossed the river, leaving the American army in complete possession of its lower bank. Can there be a question that the administration, by both the laws of man and of God, must be held responsible for the guilt and blood of that most nefarious war?

On the 11th of May President Polk sent a special message to Congress communicating the information that Mexico had refused the offer of peaceful adjustment; that the military forces had been ordered to retire; and that the Mexican general had declared our refusal casus belli; that hostilities had commenced, and that he should prosecute them. The President referred, also, to the action between the American and Mexican forces, and invoked "Congress to recognize the existence of war, and to place at the disposal of the executive the means of prosecuting the war with vigor." Mr. Houston, claiming as "Texan territory" up to the Rio Grande, proclaimed that "American blood had been shed on American soil. That soil had been consecrated before to them, and their rights must be maintained." The position of these two men gave weight to their statements which was manifestly wanting in the words themselves. Those, however, with whom either slavery or party was paramount to all other claims were prepared to accept conclusions, though they did not bear the test of close scrutiny or answer the demands of either justice, humanity, or a true patriotism.

In the Senate, Mr. Speight, a Democratic member from Mississippi, moved to print twenty thousand copies of the message. The debate upon that motion was earnest and eminently suggestive, as it revealed in the various opinions expressed both the task the propagandists had undertaken in order to secure a favorable vote, and also the process by which it was accomplished. Nor is it doubtful that many approached it with grave solicitude, doubts, and misgivings. On the one hand, the slavery propagandists and members of the Democratic party could not but be anxious about the consequences of a policy which had been adopted in spite of the protests and damaging admissions of many, even of their most eminent leaders. Subservient as the North had shown itself, they must have felt that there was danger of going too far. On the other hand, the Southern Whigs, though on the record averse to annexation, felt the danger of putting in peril either slavery or party by persisting too strenuously in opposition to what was rapidly becoming a Southern measure, and manifestly only a question of time. They remembered the war of 1812 as the rock on which the Federal party, by its opposition, was wrecked; and they were naturally chary of making a like mistake.

Mr. Calhoun was sincerely opposed to the proposed war. Though his policy had provoked it, he shrank from its legitimate consequences. But he had trusted to diplomacy, and had supposed that the liberal use of money in Mexico's necessities would lead to the relinquishment of Texas without resort to arms. But, though he had been potent in causing the complications of the hour, he found himself powerless in restraining or shaping the consequences. He had raised the whirlwind, but he could not direct the storm. Other men, more reckless, audacious, and self-seeking, with ulterior purposes and schemes, desired war for its own sake and its prospective results. He, dreading those results, counselled moderation and dignity. Availing himself of the distinction between hostilities and war, he claimed that the latter had not yet intervened. As it was its prerogative alone to determine, it should be left to Congress to decide whether or not war had actually began.

But there were others less cautious and, if not more oblivious of principle, more reckless of consequences. Among them was Mr. Clayton of Delaware. Though a Whig, opposed to annexation, and disavowing all responsibility for the war,that resting alone, he claimed, on the President, — he hastened to give in his adhesion, and to say that he was quite ready and willing to fight it out; as if, in such a case, any action of the President could absolve him from his obligation to oppose what both his reason and conscience condemned as wrong in principle and impolitic in practice. "I do not mean to express," he said, "any opinion as to sending troops to the Rio Grande by voting supplies." In a similar, strain, John J. Crittenden of Kentucky, another Whig senator, — patriotic, but impulsive and intensely Southern,-expressed the sentiment that more distressing intelligence had never been communicated by any President. The importance of the event, he said, did not consist in the amount of precious blood that had been shed, but in the bad examples and the evil consequences to republicanism and liberty everywhere. "I hope," he said, "to find my country in the right; however, I will stand by her, right or wrong." The declarations of Mr. Clayton were warmly applauded by General Cass, who declared that he had spoken "like an American senator and like an American patriot." Mr. Morchead of North Carolina, another Whig senator, expressed surprise that General Cass should regard Mr. Clayton's remark as worthy of special gratulation. "I trust," he said, "that that is a common sentiment entertained by every member of the Senate." He thought, however, that "war" did not exist, as Congress alone had power to declare it.

These sentiments of leading Southern Whigs, not to speak of those of Northern Democrats like General Cass, revealed the process by which the Slave Power, in the hands of an inconsiderable fraction of the nation, contrived to control the action of the government, in support of a policy in clear antagonism to every professed principle on which that government was founded, and by which it was also enabled to push the most extreme and obnoxious measures through the national legislature. Tenacious, unyielding, and inexorable, it had so

succeeded in getting into its hands the reins and rod of party discipline, and in so debauching the public sentiment, that no loyalty to the higher law, no breadth of statesmanship, not even fealty to party itself, was permitted to stand in the way of its behests. 66 Right or wrong," its battles must be fought and its policy must be sustained.

In the House a bill was introduced by Mr. Haralson, chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs, authorizing the President to accept the services of fifty thousand volunteers, and appropriating ten million dollars. The same differences of opinion existed there as in the Senate respecting the actual state of affairs between the two nations. Was it war, or only a state of hostilities? The President, strangely oblivious of the claims of truth, had said that "Mexico had invaded our territory and shed the blood of our citizens on our own soil." As the slave propagandists had approved and applauded his order authorizing General Taylor to advance to the left bank of the Rio Grande, they were determined also that Congress should indorse that action and share that responsibility. To effect that purpose, Linn Boyd, a Kentucky Democrat, afterward Speaker of the House, offered a substitute for the first section of the bill, affirming that "by the act of the Republic of Mexico a state of war exists between that government and the United States." This amendment being agreed to by nearly a party vote, the bill was put upon its final passage, and passed almost unanimously, only fourteen voting against it.

Considering the offensive form in which the measure was presented, not only being in direct conflict with sentiments repeatedly avowed by those who supported it, but plainly falsifying the truth of history, this vote was sadly suggestive of the national demoralization, and of degrading party vassalage. For the Democratic majority, dominated by the Slave Power, had seized the occasion not only to proclaim its devotion to Southern interests, and, if possible, to place the minority in a false position, but that minority made it too apparent that fealty to party was stronger than regard for principle, and that there was a greater solicitude to maintain the integrity of the former than to obey the dictates of the latter. The

character of the bill and the embarrassment of Southern Whigs were well expressed by Garrett Davis of Kentucky, then an earnest and trusted friend of Henry Clay. On his request to be excused from voting, after expressing the opinion that the relief of the troops must have been already secured or their fate sealed long before help could be sent by Congress, and indicating his willingness to vote supplies for the war, he said that there could be no valid objection to giving a day to the consideration of the act, though denied by "the haughty and domineering majority." "I protest solemnly," he said, "against defiling the measure with the unfounded statement that Mexico began the war.” "Had the amendment been rejected," he said, "I doubt not the bill would receive the unanimous vote of the House. But that was not the object of its authors. Their purpose was to make the Whigs vote against the measure, or force them to aid in throwing a shelter over the administration."

On the 12th the bill was reported to the Senate by Mr. Benton, chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs. Several amendments and modifications were offered, but rejected; and it was passed, the same day, by a vote of forty to two, John Davis of Massachusetts and Thomas Clayton of Delaware alone voting against it. Thus hurriedly was the Mexican War assumed, its origin falsified, and the nation committed to its prosecution with all its guilt and peril, and its uncertain cost of blood and treasure.

The fourteen members of the House and the two members of the Senate who voted against the measure were bitterly assailed. Stephen A. Douglas, a rising member from the West, who from that time onward mingled largely in the strife, till its culmination in the Rebellion, characterized them as "hypocrites, traitors, and cowards." They had, however, an advocate in Charles Hudson of Massachusetts, who denounced in fitting terms the craven sentiment that it was treason to criticise the government in time of war. He avowed his purpose to utter his sentiments, "regardless of frowns or sneers," or "the dogmatical declarations and awful nods of Mr. Douglas." The preamble, he said, was utterly false