[1846-1847 A.D.]

It was all a series of skirmishes, fought in the midst of lonely mountains and on far-stretching shores, rather than of ordinary battles, that had reduced California beneath the American power.

THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO

And now to return to the eastern side. From the first, a blockade of the ports in the gulf of Mexico was but poorly maintained. Then the American fleet embarked upon various operations. Twice was Alvarado, a port to the south of Vera Cruz, attacked by Commodore Conner, and twice it was gallantly defended (August 7th, October 15th, 1846). Then Commodore Perry went against Tabasco, a little distance up a river on the southern coast; but, though he took some prizes and some hamlets, he did not gain the town (October 23rd-26th). The only really successful operation was the occupation of Tampico, which the Mexicans abandoned on the approach of their enemies (November 15th).

Early in the following spring the fleet and the army combined in an attack upon Vera Cruz. Anticipations of success, however high amongst the troops and their officers, were not very generally entertained even by their own countrymen, Vera Cruz, or its castle of San Juan de Ulúa, having been represented over and over again, in Europe and in America, as impregnable. Nevertheless, a bombardment of a few days obliged the garrison, under General Morales, to give up the town and the castle together (March 23rd-26th, 1847). Once masters there, the Americans beheld the road to the city of Mexico lying open before them; but here again their way was supposed to be beset by insurmountable difficulties. They pressed on, nine or ten thousand strong, General Scott at their head, supported by Generals Worth, Pillow, Quitman, and Twiggs, with many officers of tried and of untried reputation. However skilful the leaders, or however valiant the men, it was a daring enterprise to advance upon the capital. In other directions, along the northern boundary, the war had been carried into remote and comparatively unpeopled portions of the country. Here the march lay through a region provided with defenders and with defences, where men would fight for their homes, and where their homes, being close at hand, would give them aid as well as inspiration. The march upon Mexico was by all means the great performance of the war,

Its difficulties soon appeared. At Cerro Gordo, sixty miles from Vera Cruz, Santa Anna posted thirteen thousand of his Mexicans in a mountain pass, to whose natural strength he had added by fortification. It took two days to force a passage, the Americans losing about five hundred, but inflicting a far greater loss on their brave opponents (April 18th-19th). Here, however, they paused; a part of the force was soon to be discharged, and Scott decided that he would make his dismissals and wait for the empty places to be filled. He accordingly advanced slowly to Puebla, while the Mexicans kept in the background, or appeared only as guerillas (May 28th). The guerilla warfare had been prognosticated as the one insuperable obstacle to the progress of the American army; it proved harassing, but by no means fatal. During the delay ensuing on land, the fleet in the gulf, under Commodore Perry, took Tuspan and Tabasco, both being but slightly defended (April 18th-June 15th). At length, reinforcements having reached the army, making it not quite eleven thousand strong, it resumed its march, and entered the valley of Mexico (August 10th).

There the Mexicans stood, Santa Anna still at their head, thirty-five

[1847-1848 A.D.]

thousand in their ranks, regular troops and volunteers, old and young, rich and poor, men of the professions and men of the trades-all joined in the defence of their country, now threatened at its very heart. They wanted much, however, that was essential to success. Hope was faint, and even courage sank beneath the errors and the intrigues of the commanding officers, to whom, speaking generally, it was vain to look for example or for guidance. Behind the army was the government, endeavouring to unite itself, yet still rent and enfeebled to the last degree. Even the clergy, chafed by the seizure of church property to meet the exigencies of the state, were divided, if not incensed. It was a broken nation, and yet all the more worthy of respect for the last earnest resistance which it was making to the foe. Never had armies a more magnificent country to assail or to defend than that into which the Americans had penetrated. They fought in defiles or upon plains, vistas of lakes and fields before them, mountain heights above them, the majesty of nature everywhere mingling with the contention of man.

Fourteen miles from the city, battles began at Contreras, where a Mexican division under General Valencia was totally routed (August 19th-20th). The next engagement followed immediately at Churubusco, or Cherebusco, six miles from the capital, Santa Anna himself being there completely defeated (August 20th). An armistice suspended further movements for a fortnight, when an American division under Worth made a successful assault on a range of buildings called Molino del Rey, close to the city. This action, though the most sanguinary of the entire war-both Mexicans and Americans surpassing all their previous deeds-was without results (September 8th). A few days later the fourth and final engagement in the valley took place at Chapultepec, a fortress just above Molino del Rey. Within the lines was the Mexican Military College, and bravely did the students defend it, mere boys outvying veterans in feats of valour. In vain, nevertheless; the college and the fortress yielded together (September 12th-13th). The next day Scott, with sixtyfive hundred men, the whole of his army remaining in the field, entered the city of Mexico (September 14th).

Santa Anna retired in the direction of Puebla, which he vainly attempted to take from Colonel Childs. The object of the Mexican general was to cut off the communication between Scott and the seaboard; but he did not succeed. A few last actions of an inferior character, a few skirmishes with bands of partisans, and the war was over in that part of the country. The American generals betook themselves to quarrels and arrests; Scott being some months afterwards superseded by General Butler (February, 1848).

Now that their exploits have been described, the United States armies are to be understood for what they were. It was no regular force, prepared by years of discipline to meet the foe, that followed Taylor, Scott, and the other leaders to the field. The few regiments of United States troops were lost, in respect to numbers, though not to deeds, amid the thousands of volunteers that came swarming from every part of the Union. To bring these irregular troops into any effective condition was more difficult than to meet the Mexicans. On the other hand, there was an animation about them, a personal feeling of emulation and of patriotism, which made the volunteers a far more valuable force than might have been supposed. After all, however, it was to the officers, to the pupils of West Point, to the intelligent and, in many cases, devoted men, who left their occupations at home to

[The skill and daring of the officers and the discipline, endurance, and courage of the men during the war with Mexico were as noticeable as the absence of these qualities during the War of 1812.-J. R. SOLEY.]

[1846-1848 A.D.] sustain what they deemed the honour of their country abroad, that the successes of the various campaigns are chiefly to be ascribed. The effect of the war was to give the nation a much more military character than it had hitherto sustained, even in its own eyes.

The war had not continued three months when the United States made an overture of peace (July, 1846). It was referred by the Mexican administration to the national congress, and there it rested. In announcing to the American congress the proposal which he had made, President Polk suggested the appropriation of a certain sum as an indemnity for any Mexican territory that might be retained at the conclusion of the war. In the debate which followed, an administration representative from Pennsylvania, David Wilmot, moved a proviso to the proposed appropriation: "That there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in any territory on the continent of America which shall hereafter be acquired by or annexed to the United States by virtue of this appropriation, or in any other manner whatsoever.” The proviso was hastily adopted in the house, but it was too late to receive any action in the senate before the close of the session (August). In the following session the proviso again passed the house, but was abandoned by that body on being rejected by the senate.

The Mexicans were reluctant to yield any territory, even that beyond the Rio Grande which had been claimed as a part of Texas. It went especially against their inclinations to open it to slavery, the instructions of the commissioners being quite positive on the point that any treaty to be signed by them must prohibit slavery in the ceded country. "No president of the United States," replied Commissioner Trist, "would dare to present any such treaty to the senate."

The result of battles rather than of negotiations was a treaty signed at Guadalupe-Hidalgo, a suburb of the capital. By this instrument Mexico ceded the whole of Texas, New Mexico, and Upper California, while the United States agreed to surrender their other conquests, and to pay for those retained the sum of $15,000,000, besides assuming the old claims of their own citizens against Mexico to the amount of more than $3,000,000 (February 2nd, 1848). The treaty contained other provisions, some of which were modified at Washington, and altered accordingly at Queretaro, where the Mexican congress was called to ratify the peace. Ratifications were finally exchanged at Queretaro (May 30th), and peace proclaimed at Washington (July 4th). The Mexican territory-that is, the portion which remainedwas rapidly evacuated. Thus ended a conflict of which the motives, the events, and the results have been very variously estimated. But this much may be historically said-that on the side of the United States the war had not merely a party but rather a sectional character. What sectional causes there were to bring about hostilities we have seen in relation to the annexation of Texas. What sectional issues there were to proceed from the treaty we have yet to see.d

The Civil War, described by Mommsen as "the mightiest struggle and most glorious victory as yet recorded in human annals," is one of those gigantic events whose causes, action, and sequences will be of perennial concern to him who seeks the wisdom underlying the march of history. - RHODES."

THE presidential campaign of 1848 was significant because of the very evident desire on the part of both parties to evade committing themselves upon the vital questions of the day. The democratic national convention met first at Baltimore, May 22nd, 1848. Lewis Cass of Michigan_led from the start in the balloting, his two principal competitors being James Buchanan of Pennsylvania and Levi Woodbury of New Hampshire. President Polk received no support whatever. Cass, who was preferred by Southern delegates on account of his opposition to the Wilmot Proviso, was named on the fourth ballot, and General William O. Butler of Kentucky received the nomination for vice-president. A resolution declaring that non-intervention with slavery in either states or territories was "true republican doctrine" was overwhelmingly rejected, and was taken as an expression of the general desire of the party to evade the slavery question. The platform adopted was simply a reiteration of the principles declared for in 1840 and 1844.

The whig convention met at Philadelphia on June 7th. Their choice of a presidential candidate was significant of their desire to follow the example of their democratic competitors. Both Clay and Webster were passed over and General Zachary Taylor of Louisiana, a slave-holder, whose political beliefs were practically unknown, was selected. The second place on the ticket was given to Millard Fillmore, a former New York congressman with a fair record.

In June the faction of New York democrats known as Barnburners met with dissatisfied representatives from several other states and named ex-President Martin Van Buren for the presidency. The Barnburners,

[1848 A.D.]

mostly followers of Silas Wright, and including such able young leaders as John A. Dix, Preston King, and Samuel J. Tilden, were opposed to the extension of slavery to the territories. Their opponents within their own party in New York, known as Hunkers, were led by William L. Marcy. The Barnburners nomination of Van Buren was ratified in August by a convention held at Buffalo. There was born the Free-soil party, whose platform declared for "free soil for a free people," and against the extension of slavery to the territories. With them now united the remnants of the Liberty party of 1844.

The democratic defection in New York state determined the result of the election. Outside of New York the Free-soil movement drew from Taylor: in New York from Cass. As a result Taylor carried New York and was

elected; that state's thirtysix votes in the electoral college, where the vote stood 163 to 127, being exactly his plurality over Cass. Van Buren received in the nation 291,263 votes, sufficient to prevent either Cass or Taylor from obtaining a majority of the popular vote.

ZACHARY TAYLOR

(1784-1850)

Twelfth President of United States

SLAVERY AND THE TERRI-
TORIES

Every day it was becoming more and more certain that some solution of the problem of slavery must be reached if the Union was not to be endangered. The campaign just closed had shown the serious disintegration of parties over the question. As the Free-soil spirit of the North rose, so did the proslavery aggressiveness of the South. The sectional lines of the contest were becoming daily more marked.

Calhoun had introduced in the senate in 1847 a set of resolutions declaring that congress had no constitutional power to exclude slavery from the territories. This ground the Southern members were now disposed to insist upon. "As yet," says Woodrow Wilson, "the real purposes of parties had not reached their radical stage. As yet the abolitionists with their bitter contempt for the compromises of the constitution, their ruthless programme of abolition whether with or without constitutional warrant, and their readiness for separation from the Southern States should abolition prove impossible, had won but scant sympathy from the masses of the people, or from any wise leaders of opinion. The Free-soilers were as widely separated from them as possible both in spirit and in opinion. They had no relish for revo