the people of the United States.” 1 In this Congress there appeared for the first time two members, who were to play an important part in a national drama, of which this war may be properly termed the preludeAbraham Lincoln 2 and Jefferson Davis.

But this sentiment of condemnation did not prevent President Polk from obtaining from Congress all necessary measures to prosecute the war with vigor and the ratification of his action when the terms of peace came to be acted upon. After the occupation of Vera Cruz by General Scott, the President determined to send a special commissioner to accompany the army on its march towards the City of Mexico, as he proposed to embrace any opportunity to negotiate terms of peace. The person selected for this mission was Nicholas P. Trist, the chief clerk of the Department of State, who had formerly acted as private secretary to President Jackson and as consul at Havana. He carried with him a draft of treaty prepared by the Secretary of State, Mr. Buchanan. He was treated by General Scott as an unwelcome guest, calculated to interfere with his military operations, and after reaching the City of Mexico, owing to the indifference of Scott, he had to resort to the good offices of the secretary of the British legation to secure communication and contact with the Mexican peace commissioners. This young secretary, Edward Thornton, years afterwards represented the British government as minister at Washington in a long and honorable service.

15 Webster's Works, 274.

2 For Lincoln's speech on the war, 1 Nicolay and Hay's Lincoln, 261.

When Trist submitted to the Mexican commissioners Secretary Buchanan's terms of peace, they rejected them as onerous and unreasonable. Upon receipt of Trist's report at Washington, he was ordered to cease further negotiations and return to the United States. The President reported to Congress that "his recall would satisfy Mexico that the United States had no terms of peace more favorable to offer;" and that any offers which Mexico might make were to be transmitted by the commanding general to Washington. For some time after Trist received the instructions respecting his recall, no safe opportunity for his return through the enemy's country was afforded, and meanwhile the Mexican commissioners manifested a desire to reopen the negotiations. In violation of his instructions Trist resumed his conferences which resulted in the treaty of peace of February 2, 1848, named, from the village in the vicinity of the City of Mexico where it was signed, Guadalupe Hidalgo. Its terms were substantially those drafted by Secretary Buchanan.

A strange sequel is connected with the negotiations. Trist's failure to proceed to Washington brought from the executive an order for his arrest and forcible return to the United States, but when it arrived he had achieved success in the signing of the treaty and the order was not executed. On reaching Washington, he found that his pay had been stopped from the date of his recall, and that he was dismissed in disgrace from the service. Twenty-two years afterwards this matter was made a subject of investigation, and a report from the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. The re

port, prepared by Mr. Sumner, with his usual care, is an interesting historical document, containing a review of the negotiations. It says: "Mr. Trist was proud and sensitive. . . . His mission had been crowned with success, but he was disgraced. ... He determined to make no application at that time for the compensation he had earned, and to await the spontaneous offer of it unless compelled by actual want." The Congress of another generation had learned to appreciate the value of his services to his country, and on April 20, 1871, an appropriation was made in his favor for $14,560.2

Senator Sumner says in his report that it was understood the President, on the arrival of the treaty, proposed to suppress it; but unwilling to encounter public opinion, which desired peace, he submitted it to the Senate.3 Enough blood had been shed, and to despoil Mexico of half her territory was sufficient for even the slavery propagandists. The treaty reached the Senate just as its doors were closing, because of a tragic event at the other end of the capitol. The venerable John Quincy Adams, ex-minister, ex-secretary of state, ex-president, and so long a representative in Congress from Massachusetts, had been stricken down in his seat and lay dying in the rotunda, and both Houses adjourned to mourn with the country over its great loss. His was a singular history, in that after having held the highest posts of honor which the nation

1 S. Rep. No. 261, 41st Cong. 2d Sess.

2 17 Stat. at Large, 643.

* 4 Richardson's Messages, 573; S. Doc. No. 52, 30th Cong. 1st Sess. vol. 7.

could bestow, at the age of sixty-five he entered upon the most brilliant part of his career. Neither as diplomatist, secretary, or president did he achieve such lasting renown as that which attaches to him as the representative of a rural district in Congress, fighting almost single-handed the battle of the right of petition. When the Senate reassembled after the Adams obsequies it entered upon the consideration of the Mexican treaty of peace, and, after a two weeks' discussion and stout opposition, it was ratified with certain amendments. Two commissioners were sent to Mexico to secure the favorable action of the Mexican government. On their arrival at Queretaro, the temporary capital, the Mexican Congress had ratified the treaty with the Senate amendments. Before the exchange of ratifications, the American commissioners found it necessary to make certain explanations as to the effect of the Senate amendments upon the treaty, which explanations were reduced to the form of a protocol signed and sealed by the American commissioners and the Mexican Minister of Foreign Affairs. This protocol was not published with the treaty, but its contents becoming known, the President in response to a resolution, sent the protocol to the House of Representatives, with a message in which he declared that this instrument had no effect whatever upon the treaty, because it had not been submitted to the Senate for ratification.1

An acrimonious debate followed, in which the President and his commissioners were charged with duplicity and bad faith, in securing the final approval of the 1 H. Ex. Doc. No. 50, 30th Cong. 2d Sess.

Mexican government through a belief in the binding validity of the protocol. The Mexican minister in Washington, who was at the time the Minister of Foreign Affairs who had signed the protocol, likewise engaged Secretary Buchanan in a correspondence on the subject.' The latter correctly maintained that the protocol not having been passed upon by the Senate, it could not be held in any way to modify the treaty; but the action of the Executive Department of the government was of very questionable propriety.2

The judgment of history is that the annexation of Texas and the consequent Mexican War were brought about for the purpose of strengthening the institution of slavery in the United States. These acts met with strong condemnation in the Northern States. Little palliation for the immense territory taken was found in the fact that the sum of fifteen millions of dollars was paid as a consideration. General Grant echoed the prevailing sentiment in the North when he pronounced the war one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation. . . . . The occupation, separation, and annexation [of Texas] were, from the inception of the movement to its final consummation, a conspiracy to acquire territory out of which slave States might be formed for the American Union.3

66

1 H. Ex. Doc. No. 5, 31st Cong. 1st Sess.

2 For other documents see H. Ex. Docs. Nos. 40, 56, 60, 69, 70, 30th Cong. 1st Sess.

3 Mr. Trist reported to Secretary Buchanan that during the peace negotiations the Mexican commissioners asked that, as the territory to be ceded was now free from slavery, so decreed by the Mexican constitution, a stipulation be inserted in the treaty that it should continue to be