-WILMOT PROVISO.

Protest of the Mexican minister. - American government refused intercourse with the Mexican government. General Taylor ordered to advance to the Rio Grande.—Ampudia requests General Taylor to return to the Nueces. General Taylor attacked by General Arista. — Mexicans defeated. President's message. Views of Mr. Calhoun. Remarks of Clayton, Crittenden, and Cass. -The House declares that war exists by act of Mexico. - Passage of the war bill in the House; in the Senate. - Debates in Congress. - The President asks for two millions for the settlement of boundaries. -Two-million bill reported. - Mr. Wilmot's motion to exclude slavery from territory to be acquired of Mexico. — Amendment agreed to. — Fails in the Senate.

HAVING consummated the work of annexation, the government was forced to accept the logical sequences of its action. Among them, in spite of all hopes and assurances to the contrary, was a war with Mexico. Thrice had she notified. the United States that annexation would be deemed by her just cause for war. Nor was there reasonable ground of expectation that she would not be true to her word. On the 6th of March, therefore, four days after the joint resolution was signed, the Mexican minister made a formal protest and demanded his passports, while the minister of the United States at Mexico was refused all official intercourse.

By annexation, therefore, the government had placed itself in a position requiring extreme delicacy, tact, and skill to prevent actual hostilities. That delicacy, tact, and skill seemed to be wholly wanting in President Polk and Secretary Buchanan. This, with the same reckless disregard of the rights of Mexico and amenities of good neighborhood, which had been displayed in the act of annexation, appeared more glaringly in the matter of boundaries; so that, if Mexican forbearance had swallowed the affront put upon her by the former, she could not, with any show of self-respect, have submitted without an appeal to arms to the latter. By the joint resolu

tion of annexation, the adjustment of all questions of boundary was assumed by this government. Ordinary prudence would have suggested that, in settling them, something was due to the wounded feelings and sense of outraged justice of the Mexican people. And yet nothing seemed further from the policy pursued.

Texas had claimed the Rio Grande as her western limit, though she had never exercised actual control over either New Mexico or the country lying between the Nueces and the Rio Grande. The groundless character of the claims of Texas to the Rio Grande as its western boundary was even admitted by some friends of the measure. While the Tyler treaty was pending in the Senate, Mr. Woodbury of New Hampshire said, in his speech in favor of its ratification, that Texas could," by a mere law, acquire no title to more than she had conquered from Mexico and actually governed. Hence, though her law included more than ancient Texas, she could hold and convey only that, or, at the uttermost, what she holds jurisdiction over." Silas Wright, also of the same party, referring to the boundaries of Texas, declared that "they embraced a country to which Texas had no claims, over which she had never asserted jurisdiction, and which she had no right to cede." Mr. Benton denounced the treaty as an attempt to seize two thousand square miles of Mexican territory by the incorporation of the left bank of the Rio del Norte, which would be an act of direct aggression for the consequences of which the United States must stand responsible. In his speech in support of the joint resolution, Mr. Ingersoll, chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, asserted that the stupendous deserts between the river Nucces and the Rio Grande were "the natural boundary between the Anglo-Saxon and the Mauritanlan races. There ends the Valley of the West, there Mexico begins"; and he affirmed that that gigantic boundary would be sacred while peace remained, " or until the spirit of conquest rages." Indeed, Mr. Ashley of Arkansas, a zealous supporter of annexation, boldly avowed in the Senate that Judge Ellis of Texas, a member of the convention which framed the constitution, said to him that Texas extended

its boundaries to the Rio Grande "solely and professedly with a view of having a large margin in her negotiations with Mexico, and not with the expectation of retaining them as they now exist on their statute-book." This device, though unworthy of a great nation, eminently befitted the men and their purpose who employed it.

In ordering, therefore, General Taylor to pass a portion of his forces westward of the river Nueces, which was done before annexation was accomplished, President Polk put in peril the peace and the good name of the country. In his Annual Message of December of that year he stated that American troops were in position on the Nueces, "to defend our own and the rights of Texas." But, not content with occupying ground on and westward of the Nueces, he issued, on the 13th of January, 1846, the fatal order to General Taylor to advance and "occupy positions on or near the left bank of the Rio del Norte." That movement of the army from Corpus Christi to the Rio Grande, a distance of more than one hundred miles, was an invasion of Mexican territory, an act of war for which the President was and must ever be held responsible by the general judgment of mankind.

Nor can there be reasonable doubt that that order plunged the two countries into actual hostilities. True, Mr. Van Buren had said that annexation "would draw after it a war with Mexico," and Mr. Clay had expressed the opinion that "annexation and war with Mexico are identical"; but whatever might have been the legal status of the two countries, actual hostilities did not exist. The facts render it apparent that peace could have been preserved by a wise, prudent, and moderate policy. But that march into territory inhabited by Mexicans, who hastily fled before the advancing forces, the erection of batteries on the left bank of the Rio Grande, commanding the public square of Matamoras, meant more than "to defend our own and the rights of Texas." It could only mean, it did mean, the acquisition of more territory in which to establish slavery, and by which the further expansion and development of slaveholding institutions could be promoted.

General Taylor was requested by Ampudia, the commander of the Mexican forces, to return to the Nueces, 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.