"Whereas, I Love You"

William Lee Miller's Arguing About Slavery: John Quincy Adams and the Great Battle in the United States Congress includes a nice collection of quotes about John Caldwell Calhoun. The Harriet Martineau quote is well known - in fact I've cited it before - but the others may be less familiar:

Calhoun was a major figure not only in South Carolina but in national politics as well. The modern historian David Potter has called him "the most majestic champion of error since Milton's Satan." The English reformer Harriet Martineau, who became acquainted with him on her visit to the United States in 1835, wrote - a famous quotation - that Calhoun was "a cast-iron man, who looks as if he had never been born and could be extinguished." James Henry Hammond, who hoped to be the Calhoun of his generation, said in Charleston on the occasion of Calhoun's death in 1850 that "Mr. Calhoun had no youth, to our knowledge. He sprang into the arena like Minerva from the head of Jove, fully grown and clothed in armor: a man every inch himself, and able to contend with any other man."

Hammond's eulogy, claiming almost every virtue for his subject, did twice concede that Calhoun had no wit or humor. The historian Merrill Peterson, writing in the late twentieth century, said of Calhoun: "Intensely serious and severe, he could never write a love poem, though he often tried, it was later said, because every line began with 'whereas.'"

"The general principles of this bill receive my approbation"

In Henry Clay: The Essential American, David S. and Jeanne T. Heidler recall the drama of the moment when the public learned for the first time that the Nullification Crisis would be resolved.

In early 1833, Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky fashioned a compromise tariff bill that would gradually reduce the tariff over a period of years, until it would ultimately decrease to a level merely sufficient to raise the necessary income for the federal government, with protection of industry being abandoned. Clay privately discussed his ideas with John Caldwell Calhoun of South Carolina and “emerged from these discussions . . . confident that Calhoun would support it.”

Having laid the groundwork, on the morning of February 11, 1833 Clay took the Senate floor and “announced that he would present a formal compromise proposal the following day.” He provided no details.

The next morning, February 12, 1833, Clay delivered a speech that lasted “several hours”, in which he outlined his plan. At the conclusion, he “asked 'leave' to present his bill formally.” Supporters of president Andrew Jackson immediately objected, “if only to keep Clay from gaining plaudits for breaking the impasse.”

Amid the disorder, however, “the chair recognized Calhoun. The gallery watched the South Carolinian rise from his desk. Clay's eyes were on him, and the chamber fell suddenly silent, like a church in prayer.”

The Gales and Seaton Register of Debates, which reported the proceedings, provides only an indirect account of Calhoun's remarks (e.g., “Mr. Calhoun rose and said . . .”). I have taken the liberty of translating the account back into direct speech. I have also added paragraph breaks. After rising, the Senator from South Carolina made the following brief statement:

I will make but one or two observations.

Entirely approving of the object for which the bill is introduced, I shall give my vote in favor of the motion for leave to introduce it.

He who loves the Union must desire to see this agitating question brought to a termination. Until it is terminated, we can not expect the restoration of peace or harmony, or a sound condition of things, throughout the country. I believe that to the unhappy divisions which have kept the Northern and Southern States apart from each other, the present entirely degraded condition of the country (for entirely degraded I believe it to be) is solely attributable.

The general principles of this bill receive my approbation. I believe that if the present difficulties are to be adjusted, they must be adjusted based on the principles in the bill, of fixing ad valorem duties, except in the few cases in the bill to which specific duties are assigned.

It has been my fate to occupy a position as hostile as any one could, in reference to the protecting policy; but, if it depends on my will, I will not give my vote for the prostration of the manufacturing interest. A very large capital has been invested in manufactures, which have been of great service to the country; and I will never give my vote to suddenly withdraw all those duties by which that capital is sustained in the channel into which it has been directed. But I will only vote for the ad valorem system of duties, which I deem the most beneficial and the most equitable.

At this time, I do not rise to go into a consideration of any of the details of this bill, as such a course would be premature, and contrary to the practice of the Senate. There are some of the provisions which have my entire approbation, and there are some to which I object. But I look upon these minor points of difference as points in the settlement of which no difficulty will occur, when gentlemen meet together in that spirit of mutual compromise which, I doubt not, will be brought into their deliberations, without at all yielding the constitutional question as to the right of protection.

The Register of Debates dryly reports the reaction of the gallery to the stunning news that the Crisis was on its way to resolution:

[Here there was a tumultuous approbation in the galleries, which induced the CHAIR to order the galleries to be cleared. On the expression of a hope, by Mr. [George] POINDEXTER [of Mississippi] and Mr. [John] HOLMES [of Maine] [the same John Holmes, by the way, who was the addressee of Thomas Jefferson's “fire bell in the night” letter], that the order would not, at this time, be enforced, the CHAIR subsequently withdrew it; but gave notice that on any repetition of the disorder, the officers of the House would act without any further direction.]

Drawing on contemporaneous letters (according to the endnotes), the Heidlers provide some additional color:

Spectators in the gallery were not aware that the two [Clay and Calhoun] had made an arrangement. Now, as Calhoun spoke, they heard his words in amazement and immediately exploded into loud cheers, stamping, whistling, and raising such a noise that only the threat of eviction caused the celebration to end. Clay had seized the momentum from the administration. As Calhoun took his seat, Clay's eyes were upon him.

About the illustration, entitled Destruction of the Snake of South Carolina:

Eagle holds a dead snake in beak and another in claws as many smaller snakes slither in surrounding grass. American flag behind eagle with Andrew Jackson and John Calhoun watching from top corners. White envelope with colored ink. Image covers sheet. The destruction of the snake of South Carolina, nullification and secession, and all her progeny by the national bird. To portray the ultimate overthrow of the evil power, which strikes at the life of the national government, is the object of this cut.

William Crawford Suffers a Stroke

For those of you who don't know of him, William H. Crawford was a leading political figure during the period following the War of 1812 and in the early 1820s. A transplanted Virginian who became a power in his adopted state of Georgia, Crawford served as Secretary of War under President James Madison from 1815 to 1816 and as Secretary of the Treasury from 1816 through 1825 under President Madison and throughout the term of President James Monroe.

In the jockeying for the presidential election of 1824, Crawford was probably the early front-runner in a crowded field that included Secretary of State John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts, Secretary of War John Caldwell Calhoun of South Carolina, House Speaker Henry Clay of Kentucky and dark horse war hero and Senator Andrew Jackson of Tennessee. However, the dynamics of the covert race – and Crawford's own fortunes – changed dramatically when in the summer of 1823 Crawford suffered what modern histories inevitably refer to as a “massive stroke.” Remarkably, Crawford survived, although he suffered the crippling impairments typical of severe stroke victims. (His health later improved somewhat, and he lived for over decade, dying in 1834.)

Equally remarkable was the fact that, despite these impairments, Crawford's candidacy survived as well. Such was his political standing that, although he was essentially non-functional, he nonetheless finished third in the Electoral College vote for president in 1824, ahead of Henry Clay and ending Clay's presidential run. (Because no candidate amassed a majority of Electoral College votes, the House of Representatives would choose the winner from among the top three Electoral College vote-getters. As Speaker of the House, Clay would likely have won that contest had he finished third rather than fourth.)

In their new biography of the Great Pacificator, Henry Clay: The Essential American, David S. and Jeanne T. Heidler provide details about the onset of Crawford's stroke that I had not seen before. Medical incompetence, they assert, transformed a serious but non-critical illness into the stroke that ultimately ended Crawford's national career.

In those days, anyone who could do so fled swampy and steamy Washington, D.C. in the summer to avoid the diseases such as malaria and yellow fever that swept the town. Crawford was no exception. In the summer of 1823 he left Washington and traveled to the home of leading Virginia politician James Barbour in Barboursville, Orange County.

Unfortunately, Crawford seems to have left a few days too late. By the time he arrived at Barbour's home in the more healthful Piedmont, he was seriously ill. Whatever the precise disease Crawford was suffering from, the doctor summoned by Barbour proceeded to misdiagnose it as a heart ailment – and to prescribe an extremely dangerous remedy:

Thinking Crawford suffered from a heart malady, the doctor administered digitalis, an extract of the poisonous foxglove plant and toxic if incorrectly dosed. In fact, it was an extremely dangerous drug. The measure separating a fruitless from a fatal dose could be less than a drop. The doctor gave Crawford too much. With his heart beating wildly out of control, Crawford suffered a massive stroke . . ..

WHEREAS, the Party of the First Part Loves the Party of the Second Part

In their newly-published biography, Henry Clay: The Essential American, David S. Heidler and Jeanne T. Heidler report that John Calhoun's courtship of his future wife, Floride Bonneau Colhoun, was "ardent, although the one love poem that John had written to her oddly began every stanza with a lawyerly 'Whereas.'"

The Election of 1828: Two New Books

The latest beneficiary of the odd phenomenon by which multiple books on the same topic appear almost simultaneously is the presidential campaign and election of 1828 – that's the one in which Andrew Jackson beat the incumbent, John Quincy Adams.

In this case the reader is also the beneficiary, because the two books that recently appeared on the subject – Donald B. Cole's Vindicating Andrew Jackson: The 1828 Election and the Rise of the Two-Party System (University Press of Kansas 2009) and Lynn Hudson Parsons's The Birth of Modern Politics: Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, and the Election of 1828 (Oxford University Press 2009) – have somewhat different emphases. The volumes are virtually identical in length (roughly 200 pages of text) and there is overlap, of course, but what is most surprising is the extent to which they focus on different aspects of the topic. I happily read both back-to-back with little been-there-done-that regret.

The title of Prof. Cole's first chapter – “The Spring of 1825” - reveals his general approach. Prof. Cole focuses rather tightly on the four-year period leading up to the election. As I suggested in an earlier post, this gives him the opportunity to explore the campaign in some depth. While he provides the obligatory background and history of the major players, Prof. Cole clearly most enjoys digging into the guts of how the Jacksonians and anti-Jacksonians went about the unfamiliar task of building campaign organizations.

The result is a detailed treatment of the formation of the two proto-parties that goes well beyond the typical top-down survey that largely restricts itself to following the centers of the organizations – Jackson and his cronies plotting in Nashville to dethrone the incumbent, while Quinzy stoically sits and stews in the Capital, refusing to take the actions necessary to energize his natural constituents. We certainly get all that, but in addition Prof. Cole focuses on six diverse states (New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio, New Hampshire and Kentucky) to give us a worm's eye view of party formation on the ground, Along the way, we get a sense of how important pre-existing local political controversies and alignments were to the process. In my earlier post on the book, I took a look at Prof. Cole's treatment of this process in Kentucky, and I invite interested readers to consult that post by way of example. But in each state, advocates had to work within the context of local factions and try to turn them to their advantage.

Prof. Parsons, in contrast, might have subtitled his book “The Elections of 1824 and 1828.” The first sixty-odd pages of text (out of a book only two hundred pages of text in length) contain, in effect, parallel biographies of the lives and exploits of Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams into James Monroe's second term. The 40-page Chapter Three takes us through the campaign and election of 1824. It is thus more than half-way through the book that the campaign of 1828 actually comes into view.

Structuring the book in this way allows Prof. Parsons to highlight the transition from the Monrovian Era of Good Feelings to the partisanship of the 1828 campaign. As different as they seem, it is possible to trace good deal of continuity between the two.

The second term of the Monroe administration was marked by factional development that was primarily personal and to a lesser extent regional as the principal players covertly jockeyed for position. The most obvious divide was between Henry Clay and Andrew Jackson, who had been political enemies (and for Jackson personal enemies) since at least January 1819, when Clay had denounced Jackson on the floor of Congress as a modern day Julius Caesar.

Other relationships are more surprising, and point up the largely non-ideological nature of the political world. Among others, Clay and John Quincy Adams (later Whig soul-mates) were adversaries; Martin Van Buren (later joined at the hip to Old Hickory) was a vigorous advocate of Secretary of the Treasury William H. Crawford and shunned Andrew Jackson, who returned the favor (Van Buren's alignment, based on ideology, was the exception that proved the rule); fellow south-easterners John Calhoun (South Carolina) and Crawford (Georgia) were rivals; and, most surprising of all, Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams were closely aligned.

Prof. Parsons clearly relishes the irony that abounds in the early Adams-Jackson relationship given their later history. In 1818, Adams was the sole supporter in Monroe's Cabinet of Jackson's unauthorized (or perhaps tacitly authorized, or perhaps mistaken assumed by Jackson to be tacitly authorized, or whatever) incursion into Spanish Florida earlier in the year, during which he had two British citizens executed. Jackson did not learn until much later that no other Cabinet member had sided with Adams, but he was well aware of Adams's vigorous public defense of Jackson's actions. In 1821, Adams likewise justified and defended Jackson's questionable actions while serving as Governor of the newly-acquired Florida Territory.

Circumstances also showed the two men thought alike on foreign policy issues and could work together. Before signing the Adams-Onis treaty in 1819, by which the United States acquired Florida from Spain, a nervous President Monroe asked Adams (then Monroe's Secretary of State) to review its terms with Jackson, because the treaty would relinquish any claim by the United States that the Texas was part of the Louisiana Territory previously obtained from France. Adams met with Jackson twice in early February 1819, and Old Hickory readily agreed that the deal was well worth making. (In later years, Jackson would adamantly deny this. “But,” as Prof. Parsons archly notes, “Adams kept a diary, and Jackson did not.”)

Nor was Adams's support of Jackson merely for public (or international) consumption. At about this time (early 1819), the two men exchanged dinners at their Washington residences, and three years later (early 1822) Adams confided to his diary that “General Jackson has rendered such services to this Nation, that it is impossible for me to contemplate his character or conduct without veneration.”

Jackson returned the compliment. In a letter at the end of 1821 he expressed his admiration for Adams and indicated that he would be willing to support Adams for the presidency in 1824:

You know my private opinion of Mr Adams Talents, virtue, and integrity, and I am free to declare that I have never changed this opinion of Mr Adams since it was first formed, I think him a man of the first rate mind of any in America as a civilian and scholar, and I have never doubted of his attachment to our republican Government. . . . [I am] at liberty to say in my name both to my friends and enemies – that I will as far as my influence extends support Mr Adams unless Mr Calhoun should be brought forward.

“Historians are in agreement as to the importance of the election of 1828,” Prof. Parsons observes, “but not necessarily as to why.” Prof. Cole agrees: “Americans have interpreted the election in various ways.” Both debunk the idea that the campaign and election themselves created democracy (rather than taking advantage of democratizing developments that had already occurred but had not previously been exploited) and provide useful surveys of the ways in which the campaign, election and the coming of the Age of Jackson have been viewed.

While I would prefer to advise that you simply read both, that's probably an unrealistic hope. How, then, to choose? Reluctantly, if I have to pick one book over the other, I have to go with Prof. Parsons's work. You certainly lose the detail of Prof. Cole's valuable descriptions of the 1828 campaign itself. But Prof. Parsons' technique allows him to provide a better explanation of the continuity as well as the discontinuity of the period – how the Age of Jackson grew out of the Age of Jefferson.

About the illustration:

A figurative portrayal of the presidential race of 1824. A crowd of cheering citizens watch as candidates (left to right) John Quincy Adams, William Crawford, and Andrew Jackson stride toward the finish. Henry Clay has dropped from the race and stands, hand on head, on the far right saying, "D--n it I cant save my distance--so I may as well "draw up."" He is consoled by a man in riding clothes, "Well dont distress yourself--there'll be some scrubbing by & by & then you'll have a chance." Assorted comments come from the crowd, reflecting various sectional and partisan views. A Westerner with stovepipe hat and powder horn: "Hurra for our Jacks-"son."" Former President John Adams: "Hurra for our son "Jack."" Two men in coachmen's livery: "That inne-track fellow [Crawford] goes so well; that I think he must have got the better of the bots [boss?]." and "Like enough; but betwixt you & I--I dont think he'll ever get the better of the "Quinsy."" A ragged Irishman: "Blast my eyes if I dont "venter" a "small" horn of rotgut on that "bald filly" in the middle [Adams]." A Frenchman: "Ah hah! Mon's Neddy I tink dat kick on de "back of you side" is worse den have no dinner de fourt of july." In the left background is a platform and an inaugural scene, the "Presidential Chair" with a purse.

"I regret beyond expression that you believed me to be an emissary of Mr. Clay"

Sorry, but I have an irresistible urge to dump on James Buchanan a little. I did say something nice about Old Buck once or twice, but the truth is that it's a whole lot easier and more fun to abuse him. Can you say, "Low hanging fruit"?

This installment dates to fairly early in Buchanan's career, 1827, when Buck was a member of the House of Representatives. But before I get to Buck, I need to give you some background.

The background is the famous “corrupt bargain” of 1825. In the run-up to the presidential election of 1824 there were four or five contenders. John C. Calhoun dropped out early in 1824, swamped by enthusiasm for Andrew Jackson in Pennsylvania. In the fall elections, none of the remaining four candidates obtained a majority of electoral votes. This meant that, under the Twelfth Amendment, the trailing candidate, Speaker of the House Henry Clay, dropped from contention. The remaining three – John Quincy Adams, William H. Crawford of Georgia and Andrew Jackson – advanced to the final round. The winner would be selected by the House of Representatives, with each state's delegation voting as a unit and getting one vote. A majority of state delegations (13 of 24) was required to declare a winner.

This isn't the place to go into gory detail about the alleged “corrupt bargain”. Suffice it to say that Clay used his influence as Speaker of the House to help convince the delegations of three states that he had won and in which Jackson had finished second (Kentucky, Missouri and Ohio) to vote for “Quinzy”. Adams prevailed with a bare majority of 13 state delegations (Jackson had 7, Crawford 4). Thereafter Adams nominated Clay as his Secretary of State, a position then regarded as the principal stepping-stone to the presidency. Jackson and his supporters cried foul, maintaining that Adams had gained office only by entering into a “corrupt bargain” with Clay.

Over two years later, on March 27, 1827, the Jacksonian storyline took an odd twist that appeared both to enhance the credibility of an explicit “bargain” and to emphasize the incorruptibility of Old Hickory. On that date, the Fayetteville Carolina Observer published a letter by Virginia planter Carter Beverley asserting that Clay's friends had approached Jackson with a deal before Clay sealed his corrupt bargain with Adams. In a nutshell, Clay had offered to make the Old Hero president if he agreed not to make Adams his Secretary of State. Old Hickory had virtuously and indignantly rejected the offer.

The wonderful James Parton quotes extensively from Beverly's letter in the third volume of his Life of Jackson (paragraph breaks added):

I have just returned from General Jackson's. I found a crowd of company with him. Seven Virginians were of the number. He gave me a most friendly reception, and urged me to stay some days longer with him.

He told me this morning, before all his company, in reply to a question that I put to him concerning the election of J. Q. Adams to the presidency, that Mr. Clay's friends made a proposition to his friends, that, if they would promise, for him [General Jackson] not to put Mr. Adams into the seat of Secretary of State, Mr. Clay and his friends would, in one hour, make him [Jackson] the President.

He [General Jackson] most indignantly rejected the proposition, and declared he would not compromise himself; and unless most openly and fairly made the President by Congress, he would never receive it. He declared, that he said to them, he would see the whole earth sink under them, before he would 'bargain or intrigue for it.'"

Jacksonian newspaper editors knew a good thing when they saw it. Duff Green, a cohort of John Calhoun and Jackson (who were at this point allied), promptly republished the story and charge in his United States Telegraph.

Clay denied the story but otherwise bided his time. Soon enough, Jackson fell into the trap by writing a letter, made public on June 5, 1827, endorsing and elaborating on Beverley's story. Among other things, Jackson revealed that he had been informed of Clay's offer by “a member of Congress of high respectability.” James Parton again quotes from letter (paragraph breaks added):

Early in January, 1825, a member of Congress, of high respectability, visited me one morning, and observed that he had a communication he was desirous to make to me; that he was informed there was a great intrigue going on, and that it was right I should be informed of it; that he came as a friend, and let me receive the communication as I might, the friendly motives through which it was made he hoped would prevent any change of friendship or feeling in regard to him. To which I replied, from his high standing as a gentleman and member of Congress, and from his uniform friendly and gentlemanly conduct toward myself, I could not suppose he would make any communication to me which he supposed was improper. Therefore, his motives being pure, let me think as I might of the communication, my feelings toward him would remain unaltered.

The gentleman proceeded: He said he had been informed by the friends of Mr. Clay, that the friends of Mr. Adams had made overtures to them, saying, if Mr. Clay and his friends would unite in aid of Mr. Adams' election, Mr. Clay should be Secretary of State; that the friends of Mr. Adams were urging, as a reason to induce the friends of Mr. Clay to accede to their proposition, that if I were elected President, Mr. Adams would be continued Secretary of State (innuendo, there would be no room for Kentucky); that the friends of Mr. Clay stated, the West did not wish to separate from the West, and if I would say, or permit any of my confidential friends to say, that in case I were elected President, Mr. Adams should not be continued Secretary of State, by a complete union of Mr. Clay and his friends, they would put an end to the presidential contest in one hour. And he was of opinion it was right to fight such intriguers with their own, weapons.

To which, in substance, I replied – that in politics, as in every thing else, my guide was principle; and contrary to the expressed and unbiased will of the people, I never would step into the presidential chair; and requested him to say to Mr. Clay and his friends (for I did suppose he had come from Mr. Clay, although he used the term of' Mr. Clay's friends) that before I would reach the presidential chair by such means of bargain and corruption, I would see the earth open and swallow both Mr. Clay and his friends, and myself with them. If they had not confidence in me to believe, if I were elected, that I would call to my aid in the cabinet men of the first virtue, talent, and integrity, not to vote for me.

The second day after this communication and reply, it was announced in the newspapers that Mr. Clay had come out openly and avowedly in favor of Mr. Adams. It may be proper to observe, that, on the supposition that Mr. Clay was not privy to the proposition stated, I may have done injustice to him. If so, the gentleman informing me can explain.

Clay then pounced. He again publicly denied the report and this time also demanded that Jackson reveal the identity of the “member of Congress of high respectability” who had served as the source. “'I demand the witness,' he thundered [according to Robert Remini], 'and await the event with fearless confidence.'”

You can probably see where this is going. It soon came out that the source was none other than Jacksonian Congressman James Buchanan of Pennsylvania. The only problem was that Buchanan's story was untrue.

Caught between a rock and a hard place, Buchanan issued a public letter, printed in the Lancaster Journal on August 6, 1827, in which he asserted that the whole thing had been a misunderstanding. Jackson, he suggested, had misinterpreted statements that Buchanan had made to him in a conversation held at the very end of 1824. Parton quotes from Buchanan's letter (paragraph breaks added):

The duty which I owe to the public, and to myself, now compels me to publish to the world the only conversation which I ever held with General Jackson, upon the subject of the last presidential election, prior to its termination. . . .

On the 30th of December, 1824, (I am able to fix the time, not only from my own recollection, but from letters which I wrote on that day, on the day following, and on the 2d of January, 1825,) I called upon General Jackson. After the company had left him, by which I found him surrounded, he asked me to take a walk with him; and, while we were walking together upon the street, I introduced the subject. I told him I wished to ask him a question in relation to the presidential election; that I knew he was unwilling to converse upon the subject; that, therefore, if he deemed the question improper, he might refuse to give it an answer: that my only motive in asking it, was friendship for him, and I trusted he would excuse me for thus introducing a subject about which I knew he wished to be silent. His reply was complimentary to myself, and accompanied with a request that I would proceed.

I then stated to him there was a report in circulation, that he had determined he would appoint Mr. Adams Secretary of State, in case he were elected President, and that I wished to ascertain from him whether he had ever intimated such an intention; that he must at once perceive how injurious to his election such a report might be; that no doubt there were several able and ambitious men in the country, among whom I thought Mr. Clay might be included, who were aspiring to that office; and, if it were believed he had already determined to appoint his chief competitor, it might have a most unhappy effect upon their exertions, and those of their friends; that, unless he had so determined, I thought this report should be promptly contradicted under his own authority. I mentioned it had already probably done him some injury. . . .

After I had finished, the General declared he had not the least objection to answer my question; that he thought well of Mr. Adams, but he never said or intimated that he would, or would not, appoint him Secretary of State; that these were secrets he would keep to himself – he would conceal them from the very hairs of his head; that if he believed his right hand then knew what his left would do on the subject of appointments to office, he would cut it off and cast it into the fire; that if he ever should be elected President, it would be without solicitation, and without intrigue, on his part; that he would then go into office perfectly free and untrammeled, and would be left at perfect liberty to fill the offices of the government with the men whom, at the time, he believed to be the ablest and the best in the country.

I told him that this answer to my question was such a one as I had expected to receive, if he answered it at all; and that I had not sought to obtain it for my own satisfaction. I then asked him if I were at liberty to repeat bis answer? He said that I was at perfect liberty to do so, to any person I thought proper. I need scarcely remark that I afterward availed myself of the privilege.

The conversation on this topic here ended, and in all our intercourse since, whether personally, or in the course of our correspondence, General Jackson never once adverted to the subject, prior to the date of his letter to Mr. Beverly. I called upon General Jackson, upon the occasion which I have mentioned, solely as his friend, upon my individual responsibility, and not as the agent of Mr. Clay or any other person.

“Mortified by the testimony of his Pennsylvania friend [says Merrill Peterson], Jackson retired from the controversy without another word.” Privately, however, he was, in the words of Robert Remini, “livid over the Buchanan letter. 'The outrageous statements of Mr. Buchanan will require my attention,' he rumbled to his friend and neighbor William B. Lewis.”

James Parton quotes extensively from Jackson's letter to Lewis (or perhaps a second letter to him). Jackson seems to have believed both that Buchanan's 1825 (or 1824) inquiry to him was “corrupt[]” and that his 1827 letter describing the conversation was a lie (once again, paragraph breaks added):

Your observations with regard to Mr. Buchanan are correct. He showed a want of moral courage in the affair of the intrigue of Adams and Clay – did not do me justice in the expose he then made, and I am sure about that time did believe there was a perfect understanding between Adams and Clay about the presidency and the Secretary of State. This I am sure of. But whether he viewed that there was any corruption in the case or not, I know not; but one thing I do know, that he wished me to combat them, with their own weapons – that was, let my friends say if I was elected I would make Mr. Clay Secretary of State. This, to me, appeared deep corruption, and I repelled it with that honest indignation as I thought it deserved.

Buchanan, for his part, could only grovel. Remini again: “Meanwhile, the hapless meddler apologized for misleading the general. 'I regret beyond expression,' he wrote, 'that you believed me to be an emissary of Mr. Clay.'”

The illustration is taken from The Wasp's Stuff. Excellent!

Jefferson Davis and Mexican Border

To my great frustration and disappointment, the debates in the United States Senate concerning the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo do not seem to be available. They were not published in the Congressional Globe (which is available). Votes are apparently available, but only in documents that I have not been able to find online. The ever-reliable David M. Potter explains why:

The secrecy provisions of the executive sessions in which the treaty was approved were promptly lifted, and though the debates were not published, the journal of proceedings, showing roll-call divisions, was printed as Senate Executive Documents, 30 Cong., 1 sess., No. 52 (Serial 509).

I mention this to explain why the following is not more precise.

In The United States and Mexico, 1821 – 1848 (1913), George Lockhart Rives describes an interesting historical footnote of which I was not aware of: during the debates concerning the treaty, Mississippi Senator Jefferson Davis – yes, that Jefferson Davis – proposed an amendment that would have resulted in the United States taking an additional large chunk of northern Mexico. Rives describes Davis’s proposal as follows:

Jefferson Davis [proposed] to amend the definition of the boundary, so as to include in the cession to the United States the greater part of Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon, the whole of Coahuila and a large part of Chihuahua. This was decisively beaten by a vote of 44 to 11, most of the leaders of the Democratic party, [Thomas Hart] Benton [Missouri], [John C.] Calhoun, Herschel V. Johnson [Georgia], [Lewis] Cass [Michigan], [James M.] Mason of Virginia, and [Ambrose H.] Sevier [Arkansas], voting with the majority. In the minority were both of the senators from Texas, [Daniel S.] Dickinson, of New York, [Stephen A.] Douglas, of Illinois, [Edward A.] Hannegan, of Indiana, one each from Alabama, Florida, and Mississippi, and one each from Ohio, Missouri, and Tennessee.

The red line drawn on the 1847 map at the top of this post (click to enlarge) is a guess as to where Davis’s proposed border may have been using the imprecise description provided by Rives. Rives does not mention the Davis plan as taking an additional portion of the Mexican state of Sonora, so I have assumed that the proposed border would have turned north along the western border of Chihuahua, rather than proceeding due west to the Gulf of California. I have also assumed (based on no evidence) that the border would have turned west at a point somewhat south of the line negotiated by Nicholas Trist, encompassing the later Gadsden Purchase (and somewhat more) and approximating the line proposed by John Calhoun in his 1847 and 1848 speeches.

"To keep it as the alternative would but render more certain . . . the conquest of the whole country"

Careful readers of my earlier posts concerning John C. Calhoun’s February 9, 1847 speech against continuation of the war against Mexico may have noticed an oddity in the position that Calhoun took. Calhoun made clear that one of his great concerns was that the acquisition of additional territory would trigger a bitter battle over the status of slavery in the region. In 1846, the Wilmot Proviso represented, in a sense, a hypothetical dispute. If it became a fight over land actually ceded to the United States, things could get ugly fast.

And yet, the position that Calhoun took in February 1847, and continued to advance in January 1848 – adopting a defensive “line” up the Rio Grande to El Paso, and thence due west to the Pacific coast – would not solve this problem. As we all know, this was the line (more or less) eventually established by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and the ensuing bitter debate over New Mexico and California dominated the halls of Congress for years, until resolved by the Compromise of 1850.

Why, then, did not Calhoun not take the Whig position: “No Territory”? He had been silent on the point in February 1847. In January 1848, however, he explained himself. “No Territory” was not, he believed, a politically realistic option. Worse, if “No Territory” were the only alternative presented, it made more likely the worst possible outcome, annexation of the entire country:

Now let me say, that in asserting that a defensive line was the only alternative to the plan recommended by the president, I have put out of the question the course which most of you [Whig opponents of the war] advocate – taking no indemnity of territory; because I believe that the voice of the country has decided irrevocably against it; and that to keep it as the alternative would but render more certain the adoption of the policy recommended by the Executive, and, in consequence, the conquest of the whole country.

***

The people will find it hard to believe that it was necessary to vote so much money for the purpose of getting territory for indemnity, which you intend to throw away when you get it. But, whatever may be the causes which have led to this state of public opinion, it has, beyond all doubt, decided against any conclusion of this war that does not involve territorial indemnity to some extent. Hence, I repeat, the alternative whether this war shall go on and consummate itself, is between taking a defensive line and adopting the course pointed out by the Executive, and that the decision must be made now; for if it be passed over until another session, the end will be, I doubt not, the subjugation of the whole country, thereby involving us in all the difficulties and dangers which must result from it.

"You are reversing the policy of which you have heretofore professed to be the advocates"

Having set forth, on January 4, 1848, his understanding of liberty and the dangers presented by the war against Mexico, John C. Calhoun turned to more practical, political considerations in order to try to make his case. Focusing on the Democratic Party – which was, after all, driving the bus – Calhoun urged its members to return to their doctrinal roots. Less politely, it might be said that he accused them of being no better than their Whig adversaries.

As you probably know, the party of Jackson usually presented itself as the defender of certain core principles: minimal government and governmental spending, low (or at least moderate) tariffs, balanced budgets, free trade and hard money. Democrats routinely lambasted their rivals, the Whigs, as Federalists in disguise – proponents of massive spending, inflated protective tariffs, and corporations and “monster” banks that preyed on the common man by ensnaring him with debts and encouraging the use of worthless paper money.

By advocating continuation of the war against Mexico, Calhoun argued, the Democrats were abandoning their principles and betraying their constituents:

Mr. President, in my opinion, all parties are interested in giving this matter the only direction that can be given to it with any prospect of a favorable result. Let me say to the friends of the administration [the Democrats], if you go on, and some accident does not meet you – if you go on in the prosecution of this war from year to year, - you will find that it will overthrow you. Do you not see that, as far as the internal affairs of the government are concerned, you are reversing the policy of which you have heretofore professed to be the advocates?

What party has been opposed to the re-creation of a great national debt? The Democratic or Republican party. Well, sir, this war is involving you in a greater debt than the opposite party [the Whigs] could have done, perhaps, in any circumstances short of war. This very campaign, which you look upon so lightly, will be almost as great a charge on the country as the debt of the revolution.

What party has always been against the extension of the patronage of Executive? Well, sir, you are doing more towards the extension of that patronage, and, above all, towards the continuance of that extension, than has ever been done under our governments.

Well, sir, what party professes to be most in favor of a metallic currency? And do you not see that, as your treasury notes and stocks accumulate, you are in danger of being plunged again in the paper system to the utmost extent?

What party has always been in favor of free trade? But do you not see that, by accumulating charges and burdens upon the people by the debts which have now been contracted, you never will, during your time, have an opportunity of making any considerable reduction in the tariff?

Timeless Advice

It has been the work of fortunate circumstances, or a combination of circumstances – a succession of fortunate incidents of some kind – which give to any people a free government. It is a very difficult task to make a constitution to last, though it may be supposed by some that they can be made to order, and furnished at the shortest notice. Sir, this admirable Constitution of our own was the result of a fortunate combination of circumstances. It was superior to the wisdom of the men who made it. It was the force of circumstances which induced them to adopt most of its wise provisions.

Well, sir, of the few nations who have the good fortune to adopt self-government, few have had the good fortune long to preserve that government; for it is harder to preserve than to form it. Few people, after years of prosperity, remember the tenure by which their liberty is held; and I fear, Senators, that is our own condition. I fear that we shall continue to involve ourselves until our own system becomes a ruin. Sir, there is no solicitude now for liberty. Who talks of liberty when any great question comes up? Here is a question of the first magnitude as to the conduct of this war; do you hear anybody talk about its effect upon our liberties and our free institutions? No, sir.

That was not the case formerly. In the early stages of our Government, the great anxiety was how to preserve liberty; the great anxiety now is for the attainment of mere military glory. In the one, we are forgetting the other. The maxim of former times was, that power is always stealing from the many to the few; the price of liberty was perpetual vigilance. They were constantly looking out and watching for danger. Then, when any great question came up, the first inquiry was, how it could affect our free institutions – how it could affect our liberty. Not so now. Is it because there has been any decay of the spirit of liberty among the people? Not at all. I believe the love of liberty was never more ardent, but they have forgotten the tenure of liberty by which alone it is preserved.

We think we may now indulge in everything with impunity, as if we held our charter of liberty by “right divine” – from Heaven itself. Under these impressions, we plunge into war, we contract heavy debts, we increase the patronage of the Executive, and we even talk of a crusade to force our institutions, our liberty, upon all people. There is no species of extravagance which our people imagine will endanger their liberty in any degree. But it is a great and fatal mistake. The day of retribution will come. It will come as certainly as I am now addressing the Senate; and when it does come, awful will be the reckoning –heavy the responsibility somewhere!

January 4, 1848.

"We make a great mistake, sir, when we suppose that all people are capable of self-government"

As we have seen, John C. Calhoun’s views on whether other peoples were “fit for self-government” included a pronounced racial component. But if we try to put that aside, we can see that he raised, in his January 4, 1848 speech, issues that continue to resonate today:

We make a great mistake, sir, when we suppose that all people are capable of self-government. We are anxious to force free governments on all; and I see that it has been urged in a very respectable quarter, that it is the mission of this country to spread civil and religious liberty over all the world, and especially over this continent. It is a very great mistake. None but people advanced to a very high state of moral and intellectual improvement are capable, in a civilized state, of maintaining free Government; and amongst those who were so purified, very few, indeed, have had the good fortune of forming a constitution capable of endurance. It is a remarkable fact in the history of man, that scarcely ever have free popular institutions been formed by wisdom alone that have endured.

Is it realistic, for example, to expect that we can drag a clannish, pre-modern society like Afghanistan five hundred or one thousand years into the future in a matter of years and inculcate in its people with democratic values that would persist after foreign troops were withdrawn? I was reminded of this 2002 article on the Hoover Institution site evaluating that possibility:

The Western ideal for representative democracy involves free, multiparty elections and maintenance of civil liberties. As Aristotle realized, and as the evidence from a large number of countries demonstrates, democracy is almost never sustained in a country that has income and education levels as low as those in Afghanistan. Nevertheless, Washington always recommends democracy, even to the poorest nations, and the results have included such failures as the new Congo and Haiti.

Freedom House’s latest ratings place Afghanistan in the lowest categories for electoral rights and civil liberties. This lack of democracy corresponds to the predictions that I would make from the country’s economic and social conditions. Given where Afghanistan is today, my statistical analysis implies that the chance a midrange democracy – characteristic at present of countries such as Turkey and Indonesia – will exist five years from now is less than 1 percent.

A major factor undermining the building of democracy in Afghanistan is low primary school attainment. In 1995, adults had an average of 0.8 years of formal schooling. Only Mali and Niger were lower among the 113 countries for which I have data. Even worse from the standpoint of democracy is the unequal treatment of males and females. In Afghanistan, adult males averaged 1.3 years of primary schooling, whereas females had only 0.3. The male-female ratio of 4.3 is the highest for the 104 countries for which I have these data.

"You may call it annexation, but it is a forced annexation"

In the last post concerning John C. Calhoun’s speech on January 4, 1848 arguing against continuation of the war against Mexico, the South Carolina Senator explained why, in his view holding Mexico as a subjugated province would result in anarchy and despotism in the United States.

Calhoun turned next to the alternate possibility: that the United States could “incorporat[e] her into our Union.” On the face of it, this would be easy enough: divide Mexico into territories, perhaps using her existing provinces, and establish territorial governments:

I come now to the proposition of incorporating her [Mexico] into our Union. Well, as far as law is concerned, that is easy. You can establish a Territorial Government for every State in Mexico, and there are some twenty of them. You can appoint governors, judges, and magistrates. You can give the people a subordinate government, allowing them to legislate for themselves, whilst you defray the cost. So far as law goes, the thing is done.

But this, Calhoun argued, placed form over substance and assumed a false “analogy between this and our Territorial Governments.” Territories had been formed in the United States because the residents had been eager for them, and eager eventually to form states out of them. Their residents were either citizens of the United States who had moved there, or at least “foreigners from the same regions from which we came.”

Territorial governments in Mexico, in contrast, would have to be imposed on a hostile populace that had (as we might say today) no tradition of democratic values. The creation of territories would, as a result, amount merely to “forced annexation,” accompanied by all the evils Calhoun had previously described:

It is entirely different with Mexico. You have no need of armies to keep your Territories in subjection. But when you incorporate Mexico, you must have powerful armies to keep them in subjection. You may call it annexation, but it is a forced annexation, which is a contradiction in terms, according to my conception. You will be involved, in one word, in all the evils which I attribute to holding Mexico as a province. In fact, it will be but a Provincial Government, under the name of a Territorial Government.

How long will that last? How long will it be before Mexico will be capable of incorporation into our union? Why, if we judge from the examples before us, it will be a very long time. Ireland has been held in subjection by the England for seven or eight hundred years, and yet still remains hostile, although her people are of kindred race with the conquerors.

As the last quoted paragraph suggests, Calhoun’s evaluation of the ability of other peoples to accept democratic values contained a racial component. If it took the Irish hundreds of years to incorporate with England, stubborn Mexicans would never accept the concept:

[N]ever will the time come, in my opinion, Mr. President, that these Mexicans will be heartily reconciled to your authority. They have Castilian blood in their veins – the old Gothic, quite equal to the Anglo-Saxon in many respects – in some respects superior. Of all nations of the earth they are the most pertinacious –have the highest sense of nationality – hold out longest, and often even with the least prospect of the effecting their object.

Finally, of course, none of this, Calhoun noted, solved the problem that incorporation, even if feasible, would result in the admission into the body politic of millions of people of “mixed blood” and “impure races”:

But, Mr. President, suppose all these difficulties removed; suppose these people attached to our Union, and desirous of incorporating with us, ought we to bring them in? Are they fit to be connected with us? Are they fit for self-government and for governing you? Are you, any of you, willing that your States should be governed by these twenty-odd Mexican States, with a population of about only one million of your blood, and two or three millions of mixed blood, better informed, all the rest pure Indians, a mixed blood equally ignorant and unfit for liberty, impure races, but not as good as the Cherokee or Choctaws?

"[T]he result is inevitable - anarchy and despotism"

In his speech of January 4, 1848 explaining his resolutions opposing the continuation of the war against Mexico, South Carolina Senator John C. Calhoun next turned to his contentions that continued war “would be in conflict with the genius and character of our institutions, and subversive of our free government.” Calhoun addressed these “two together, as they are so intimately connected.”

There were two possibilities, Calhoun maintained. The first was “to hold Mexico in subjection;” the second, “incorporating her into our Union.” He turned first to the consequences of “hold[ing] Mexico as a subjected province.” The result would be that Mexico would conquer the United States by destroying her liberty:

Mr. President, there are some propositions too clear for argument; and before such a body as the Senate, I should consider it a loss of time to undertake to prove that to hold Mexico as a subjected province would be hostile, and in conflict with our free popular institutions, and in the end subversive of them. Sir, he who knows the American Constitution well – he who has duly studied its character – he who has looked at history, and knows what has been the effect of conquests of free States invariably, will require no proof at my hands to show that it would be entirely hostile to the institutions of the country to hold Mexico as a province. There is not an example on record of any free State even having attempted the conquest of any territory approaching the extent of Mexico without disastrous consequences. The nation conquered have [sic] in time conquered the conquerors by destroying their liberty. That will be our case, sir.

In describing with more particularity how the conquest and subjugation of Mexico would destroy American liberty, Calhoun described two related consequences. First, it would result in the transfer of power from the States to the federal government, leaving the former “mere subordinate corporations”:

The conquest of Mexico would add so vast amount to the patronage of this Government, that it would absorb the whole power of the States in the Union. This Union would become the imperial, and the States mere subordinate corporations.

At the same time, on the federal level, conquest would drain power from the Legislative branch and concentrate it in the Executive:

But the evil will not end there. The process will go on. The same process by which the power would be transferred from the States to the Union, will transfer the whole from this department of the Government (I speak of the Legislature) to the Executive. All the added power and added patronage which conquest will create, will pass to the Executive. In the end, you put in the hands of the Executive the power of conquering you.

Concentrating power in the Executive would be disastrous not only in itself, but also because it would further deform the electoral process. Calhoun seemed to be suggesting that, by making the election of the president all-important, political struggles for the presidency would tear the country apart. As in ancient Rome, a single despot would ultimately emerge:

You give to it [the Executive], sir, such splendor, such ample means, that, with the principle of proscription which unfortunately prevails in our country, the struggle will be greater at every presidential election than our institutions can possibly endure. But the end of it will be, that that branch of Government will become all powerful, and the result is inevitable – anarchy and despotism. It is as certain as that I am this day addressing the Senate.

"I protest against such a Union as that!"

In his speech of January 4, 1848, South Carolina Senator John C. Calhoun raised a number of arguments against continuation of the war against Mexico. The cost of subduing remaining resistance and occupying the country would be tremendous: Calhoun estimated that it would be $60 million, causing potentially catastrophic damage to the economy.

Calhoun also argued, as he had before (although I did not highlight the point), “that the more successfully this war is prosecuted the more certain will be the defeat of the object designed to be accomplished, whilst the objects disavowed will be accomplished.” This was because the destruction of all government in Mexico would make peace impossible: there would be no one left with whom to negotiate. Mexico, a fellow republic, would have been destroyed, leaving a military despotism by the United States in its place.

[Adopting the Polk administration’s proposed course] will lead to the blotting out of the nationality of Mexico, and the throwing of eight or nine millions of people without a government, on your hands. It will compel you, in all probability, to assume that government, for I think there will be very little prospect of your retiring. You must either hold the country as a province, or incorporate it into your Union. Shall we do either? That’s the question. Far from us be such an act, and for the reasons contained in the resolutions.

Calhoun’s proposed resolutions provided, first, that “to conquer Mexico and to hold it, either as a province or to incorporate it into the Union, would be inconsistent with the avowed object for which the war has been prosecuted.” Calhoun had already discussed this point at length. He turned therefore to the second proposition, that that conquest would be “a departure from the settled policy of the Government.” Calhoun contrasted the administration’s proposed course with the “settled policy” adopted concerning the Indians:

The next reason which my resolutions assign, is, that it is without example or precedent, either to hold Mexico as a province, or to incorporate her into our Union. No example of such a line of policy can be found. We have conquered many of the neighboring tribes of Indians, but we never thought of holding them in subjection – never of incorporating them into our Union. They have either been left as an independent people amongst us, or been driven into the forests.

This, in turn, served as an opening for Calhoun to address the issue that, I suspect, was at the heart of his objection to a wider Mexican war from the beginning: race. Calhoun feared that the incorporation of settled portions of Mexico would result in non-white Indians and “mixed tribes” becoming residents and citizens of the United States. “Ours,” Calhoun maintained, “is the government of a white race.” “[P]lacing these colored races on an equality with the white race” would be “fatal to our institutions”:

I know further, sir, that we have never dreamt of incorporating into our Union any but the Caucasian race – the free white race. To incorporate Mexico, would be the very first instance of the kind of incorporating an Indian race; for more than half of the Mexicans are Indians, and the other is composed chiefly of mixed tribes.

I protest against such a Union as that! Ours, sir, is the Government of a white race. The greatest misfortunes of Spanish America are to be traced to the fatal error of placing these colored races on an equality with the white race. That error destroyed the social arrangement which formed the basis of society. The Portuguese and ourselves have escaped – the Portuguese at least to some extent – and we are the only people on this continent which have made revolutions without being followed by anarchy. And yet it is professed and talked about to erect these Mexicans into a Territorial Government, and place them on an equality with the people of the United States. I protest utterly against such a project.

Sir, it is a remarkable fact, that in the whole history of man, as far as my knowledge extends, there is no instance whatever of any civilized colored races being found equal to the establishment of free popular government, although by far the largest portion of the human family is composed of these races. . . . Are we to overlook this fact? Are we to associate with ourselves as equals, companions, and fellow-citizens, the Indians and mixed race of Mexico? Sir, I should consider such a thing as fatal to our institutions.

"Well, sir, what has been accomplished?"

Having discussed at great (some might say turgid) length John C. Calhoun’s position on and arguments concerning the war against Mexico in early 1847, I’d like to jump forward eleven months, to January 1848. By that point, of course, General Winfield Scott had completed his conquest of Mexico City, and the war was, for all practical purposes, over. The nature of the peace, however, remained to be determined.

On December 15, 1847, Calhoun had introduced resolutions concerning the war that reiterated the themes that he had struck (and which I have discussed) earlier:

Resolved, that to conquer Mexico and to hold it, either as a province or to incorporate it into the Union, would be inconsistent with the avowed object for which the war has been prosecuted; a departure from the settled policy of the Government; in conflict with its character and genius; and in the end subversive of our free and popular institutions.

Resolved, that no line of policy in the further prosecution of the war should be adopted which may lead to consequences so disastrous.

On January 4, 1848, the Senate took up Calhoun’s resolutions for discussion, and Calhoun took the floor to explain and defend them. He began as follows:

In offering, Senators, these resolutions for your consideration, I have been governed by the reasons which induced me to oppose the war, and by the same considerations I have been ever since guided. In alluding to my opposition to the war, I do not intend to notice the reasons which governed me on that occasion, further than is necessary to explain my motives upon the present. I opposed the war then, not only because I considered it unnecessary, and that it might have been easily avoided; not only because I thought the President had no authority to order a portion of the territory in dispute and in possession of the Mexicans, to be occupied by our troops; not only because I believed the allegations upon which it was sanctioned by Congress, were unfounded in truth; but from high considerations of reason and policy, because I believed it would lead to great and serious evils to the country, and greatly endanger its free institutions.

Calhoun reminded his listeners that “at the last session, I suggested to the senate a defensive line” to “prevent the evil and danger with which, in my opinion, [the war] threatened the country and its institutions.” He was, he said, now offering his resolutions for the same purpose.

After reviewing the United States’ and General Scott’s unbroken string of military victories, Calhoun asserted that they had accomplished nothing:

Victory after victory has followed in succession, without a single reverse. . . . Well, sir, what has been accomplished? What has been done? Has the avowed object of the war been attained? Have we conquered peace? Have we obtained a treaty? Have we obtained any indemnity? No, sir; not a single object contemplated has been effected; and, what is worse, our difficulties are greater now than they were then, and the objects, forsooth, more difficult to reach than they were before the campaign commenced.

About the illustration:

An exultant view of Winfield Scott's second major victory in the Mexican War, at the Battle of Cerro Gordo, where Mexican commander Santa Anna beat an unceremonious retreat. In the mid-April victory Santa Anna's military chest with $11,000 in gold and his wooden leg fell into the hands of American troops. For an explanation of the "hasty plate of soup," see "Distinguished Military Operations" (no. 1846-15). The print also mocks Winfield Scott's well-known fastidiousness and taste for comfortable appointments and James K. Polk's handling of the Mexican War. In Clay's cartoon, Santa Anna rides off to the left, while the rest of his cavalry is seen in the distance routed by American troops. Scott sits in the Mexican's abandoned carriage, equipped with a lavish dinner service and two cocks, doffs his hat and invites the departing enemy to "stop and take a hasty plate of soup? It's some of your own cooking & very good I assure you!" Santa Anna replies, "No I thank you, General, I'm afraid of an attack from the rear! (Jesus Maria! this beats cock-fighting!)" An American trooper holds the reins of the carriage's team -- one horse and a braying ass with blinders-- and a fighting cock on a leash, saying, "I didn't think when I left New York that I should have taken Santa Anna's best fighting cock prisoner!" Another trooper kneels before the open military chest, while a third marvels at "Santa Anna's Cork leg!" In the lower right corner is a paper "Pass port for Santa Anna" signed by Polk, a reference to the President's allowing the exiled general to return to Mexico in hopes that he would terminate the war.

"But did any of the presidents ever think of marching troops upon the line?"

As I discussed in my last post concerning John Calhoun, Texas and Mexico, Senator Calhoun maintained that the treaty annexing Texas intentionally failed to define the border between that state and Mexico. He used this as the starting point for raising a “great question”: if the boundary was undetermined, what gave the president, rather than Congress, the right to determine where it lay?

But the great question comes up, has the Executive the right to determine what our boundary is? When we have a disputed boundary question – and we have had many – does it belong to the Executive or to Congress to determine it? There are two ways to do it. One is by negotiation and treaty, to be performed by the Executive and this body, in case the two nations agreed to negotiate. The other is, if the party disputes the boundary and will not come to terms, for Congress to declare where the boundary is, and maintain it, if need be, at the hazard of war.

By way of example, Calhoun cited the border between Maine and Canadian Great Britain. That border had been long undetermined, and yet no president had attempted to define the boundary himself by “marching troops upon the line”:

How long did the boundary of the Maine remain unsettled? From the acknowledgement of independence, in 1783, down to the time that the Senator from Massachusetts [Daniel Webster] closed it by a treaty [the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842]. But did any of the presidents ever think of marching troops upon the line?

The late David P. Currie suggested that Calhoun did, in fact, raise an “intriguing” constitutional issue. While there was certainly something to be said for the proposition “that the president ought not to be required to surrender disputed territory to an occupying rival,” the fact was that Mexican forces had not advanced into “the controverted zone” – the area between the Nueces and the Rio Grande – before Zachary Taylor did so:

The intermediate possibility that the true boundary was unknown presented an intriguing opportunity for speculation. On the one hand there was a certain appeal to the defenders insistence that the president ought not to be required to surrender disputed territory to an occupying rival; he walked at least to be able to preserve the status quo. On the other hand, opponents pointed out with much just as that in the arguably analogous case of the Maine it was Congress that had empowered the president to prevent hostile military occupation of the disputed area. In any event, although Mexico had recently amassed troops along the Rio Grande, before Taylor’s advance it had made no military incursion into the controverted zone; Mexico had been in peaceable occupation of the Rio Grande valley, Texas in that of the Nueces for some years.

"Polk confused Mexico's warlike acts with a legal state of war"

Pardon a brief interruption of the generally chronological narrative concerning John C. Calhoun, Texas and Mexico, but I would like to go back and supplement an earlier post on the subject.

You may recall that in May 1846 the Polk administration did not exactly seek a declaration of war from Congress. Instead it in effect asked Congress to confirm that war already existed. One of Calhoun’s stated objections to the resolution was that it failed to distinguish between the fact of “hostilities” and the legal conclusion that a state of war existed.

In his The Constitution in Congress: Descent into the Maelstrom 1829-1861, the late David P. Currie discusses Calhoun’s objection and finds it well taken:

Opponents correctly complained that Polk was not asking Congress to decide whether the United States should go to war, as was its right; he was asking for a mere confirmation of the fact that war already existed. . . . As Calhoun and others protested, Polk confused Mexico’s warlike acts with a legal state of war, which could not exist without congressional sanction. . . . At the end of the day, however, the distinction evaporated. Congress voted to declare the existence of war, and that was all the Constitution required.

About the illustration:

A satirical view of the scramble among newly elected President James K. Polk's 1844 campaign supporters, or "patriots," for "their beans," i.e., patronage and other official favors. Polk (upper right) sits in the Presidential Chair, his hands folded and apparently oblivious to the activity around him. From behind the chair Andrew Jackson prompts him, "That's right Jemmy, Non Committal. By the Eternal you're a chip of the old block." To Polk's right a group of homely women present a petition and ask, "Can't you do something for us? we are poor weak women in great danger of being seduced! We want a proclamation in behalf of our Moral Reform Society." Below him John Beauchamp Jones and Francis Preston Blair, editors of influential rival newspapers, the "Madisonian" and the "Globe," fight for the privilege of being the administration organ. In the center an Irishman, hat in hand, approaches Polk and asks, "Plaze yer honor's worship, can't ye do somethin' for me? I was bor-r-n in Boston and rared in New-Yor-r-k, be the howly St. Patrick, and nivver a bit of an office have I had yet." Nearby, a German or Dutchman walks away in disgust shouting, "Dod rot this administration! I've lost my sittivation that Tyler give me, that was worth $15 a year! Dod rot 'em, I say!" In the foreground Secretary of State James Buchanan asks a small, ragged figure, "What Office do you expect, my man?" The man, a Rhode Islander, responds, " . . . I was an Officer with Govr. Dorr, and I should like to be an Officer agin; but I ain't perticklar, if you haint got no office may be you've got some old Clothes to give me!" Dorr was the leader of an abortive revolution in Rhode Island in 1842. (See Trouble in the Spartan Ranks, no. 1843-6). At left South Carolinian John C. Calhoun, a frustrated aspirant for the 1844 Democratic nomination, rides off on a velocipede saying, "Let this Poke manage two stools if he can, I'll cut my stick, and be off for the sunny south." Above, in the background, members of the "Empire Club" wave their hats and fire a cannon. They may represent the expansionist platform on which Polk campaigned, which many Whigs feared would provoke war with Mexico. In the left foreground is a motley militia troop carrying a banner "For Oregon!! Liberty! or Death!!!" Their leader proclaims, "Follow me brave soldiers, strike but one blow, and Oregon is ours!" Polk's campaign platform favored reannexation of the Oregon Territory.

John Calhoun: "The line was intentionally left open"

Attentive readers may recall that, in his February 12, 1847 speech denouncing John C. Calhoun’s claimed inconsistency concerning Mexico, Senator Hopkins L. Turney asserted that the annexation treaty submitted to the Senate in 1844 had described the territory of Texas as extending to the Rio Grande:

As Secretary of State, [Calhoun] had concluded the treaty with the republic of Texas by which she was to be annexed to the United States. He (Mr. T.) had never read that paper, but he understood that it extended the territory of Texas to the Rio Grande.

In his reply, Calhoun now pounced on Turney’s mistake:

But the senator [Mr. Turney] says I had stipulated in that treaty that the Rio Grande was the boundary.

Mr. TURNEY. I remarked that I had never read the treaty, but I understood that its terms went to the Rio Grande.

Mr. CALHOUN. The senator is just as wrong in that as in all his understandings. No such thing; the line was intentionally left open. . . . It was expressly left open, in order that the boundary might be subsequently established by negotiation with Mexico. . . . As soon as the treaty was signed, I communicated directly with the Mexican Government, through our charge d’affaires, and stated that I was ready to settle all questions of difference, and amongst others the boundary, upon the most liberal principles. I did not apprehend that war would follow. But I am held responsible on the ground that if Texas had not been annexed, we should not have had a Mexican war. Is he sure of that?

Calhoun may not have “apprehend[ed] that war would follow”, but he clearly understood that war was possible. Norma Lois Peterson points out that Calhoun tried to communicate with Mexico precisely “to dispel fears of war with Mexico should annexation become a reality.”

After the treaty had been signed but before it was sent to the Senate, Calhoun tried to dispel fears of war with Mexico should annexation become a reality. The threat of hostilities, he felt, could stand in the way of ratification; therefore, he talked several times with Juan Nepomuceno Almonte, Mexico’s minister to the United States, to explore the possibility of Mexico’s accepting a financial settlement to compensate for the loss of Texas and explain how crucial it was for the United States to annex Texas in order to prevent British intrigue in the that area. Calhoun sent conciliatory dispatches to Mexico by special messenger, hoping for a signal of approval before the Senate voted on the treaty.

Calhoun’s decision to emphasize the fact that the treaty failed to specify the boundary of Texas was merely the introduction to a larger point he wished to make. But for that, dear readers, you will have to await the next post.