David Wilmot Confers With President Polk

James K. Polk's diary entry for Wednesday December 23, 1846 describes a curious conversation that the president held with David Wilmot.

Four months earlier, as the Congressional session was expiring, Wilmot had lobbed his incendiary Proviso into the debate over the Mexican War. Now, shortly after the beginning of the new term, Wilmot made an appointment to see the president, arriving "[a]fter night" on December 23rd. By coincidence, Charles J. Ingersoll, another Democratic member of the House from Pennsylvania, showed up unannounced shortly after Wilmot did, apparently cramping the conversation somewhat. Nonetheless, the president was able to "hold hold a conversation with him [Wilmot] on the subject of slavery restriction, which had been attached upon his motion at the last Session of Congress to the Bill which proposed to appropriate two millions of Dollars, with a view to enable the Executive to make a Treaty with Mexico."

The strange part is that Wilmot had apparently scheduled the meeting to tell the president that he would not re-introduce his Proviso in the current session:

He expressed an entire willingness to vote for the appropriation without the restriction, and said he would not again move the restriction, but that if it was moved by others he would feel constrained to vote for it.

Polk attempted to reassure Wilmot that he was making the right decision. The Mexican War was not some conspiracy to extend slavery to New Mexico and California. Echoing arguments made by others, the president contended that it would be virtually impossible for slavery to take root in those places. At all events, the Proviso represented an improper attempt to restrict the Executive's power to negotiate a treaty, and as a practical matter would make any peace treaty with Mexico unratifiable by the Senate:

I told him I did not desire to extend slavery, that I would be satisfied to acquire by Treaty from Mexico the Provinces of New Mexico & the Californias, and that in these Provinces slavery could probably never exist, and the great probability was that the question would never arise in the future organization of territorial or State Governments in these territories. I told him that slavery was purely a domestic question, and to restrict the appropriation which had been asked for, so as to require the President to insert it in a Treaty with a Foreign Power, was not only inappropriate and out of place, but that if such a Treaty were made it must be opposed by every Senator from a slave-holding State, and as one third of the Senators could reject a Treaty it could not be ratified, though it might be satisfactory in all other respects. I told him that tramelled with such a restriction I could not use the appropriation at all and would not do so.

Wilmot then reiterated that he would be willing to vote for the so-called $2 Million Bill without any restriction attached. If others renewed the Proviso, he was in favor of non-binding sense-of-Congress language:

He said he would be satisfied with a simple legislative declaration in the Bill of the sense of Congress, without requiring it to be inserted in the Treaty, or, if it was not moved by others, he would be willing to vote for the appropriation without such a restriction in any form.

Ingersoll's presence then aborted the conversation, and Wilmot departed.

I, at least, was surprised to read of Wilmot's expressed flexibility. He had introduced his Proviso less than four months earlier with an intensity of expression that suggested no ground for compromise. To the best of my knowledge, his public pronouncements thereafter demonstrated an unrelenting resolve to bar slavery from previously free territory.

Did Wilmot have a temporary pang of regret that he he had inadvertently caused an earthquake? Was he cynically seeking to demonstrate party loyalty or obtain Polk's favor for a pet cause? Or was the performance nothing but a charade, since he knew that in all probability one or more of his co-conspirators would re-introduce the Proviso, making his pledge irrelevant? (In fact, Preston King gave notice that he would re-introduce the Proviso less than a week later, on December 29, 1846.) And if so, why? Your informed speculation is welcome.

"Make the Treaty, Sir!"

On December 4, 1847, Nicholas Trist was in Mexico City, consumed with indecision. Two weeks earlier he had received dispatches from Secretary of State James Buchanan canceling his diplomatic mission to Mexico and directing his return to Washington as soon as practicable. And yet Trist believed that, for the first time, a treaty was within reach. Santa Anna and the hard-line "Puros" had been ousted from power and moderates more inclined to accept reality and conclude an acceptable agreement with the United States had taken control. If the opportunity was missed, Trist feared, “events very likely could” (in the words of Robert W. Merry) “spin out of control to the severe detriment of both countries.” What should he do?

As Merry describes it, Trist reached his dramatic decision to defy President Polk and continue negotiations as a result of a meeting with James Freaner, a correspondent for the New Orleans Delta. Trist explained his dilemma to Freaner. The conclusion of the talk would seem to come straight out of a 1940s Hollywood melodrama:

Freaner practically leaped from his chair.

“Mr. Trist, make the Treaty,” he intoned. “Make the Treaty, Sir! It is now in your power to do your country a greater service than any living man can render her. . . . You are bound to do it. Instructions or no instructions, you are bound to do it. Your country, Sir, is entitled to this service from you. Do it, Sir!”

This burst of enthusiasm demolished Trist's indecision on the spot. “I will make the Treaty,” he replied with equal fervor.

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?

"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.

John C. Calhoun: "To whose benefit should [Mexican territory] enure?"

It has been a while, but when we last visited John Calhoun, he was explaining to the Senate on February 9, 1847 his proposed resolution to the war with Mexico.

After describing the line that he would draw, Calhoun circled back to outline its advantages. First, it would "enable us to fulfil all the objects for which the war was declared." Second, it was cheap. The border could be maintained with a handful of forts. The fact that the border would run through areas far from the principal Mexican population made it all the more defensible.

This, in turn, meant that the federal government could save tens of millions of dollars. The taxes that would be necessary to fund continued war would be eliminated, increased tariffs could be avoided, and free trade maintained:

What . . . will be the fruits of this policy? Why, sir, a large portion of the war expenses will be immediately cut off . . . thus effecting a savings of from fifteen to twenty millions of dollars a year. Further taxes will not be required; the credit of this Government will be immediately strengthened, and the measure which some of us have so much at heard, and which we are risking the enjoyment of -- I mean free trade -- may in a short time be secured . . ..

Conversely, continuation of the war threatened increased tariffs and would require the government also to impose "internal taxes." The people would not stand for it:

[C]an you provide the ways and means [to continue the war]? I fear there will be more difficulty in this than you imagine. Remember, that you have only as a reliance your treasury notes and such money as you can borrow. You must either borrow or impose taxes. What taxes can you impose? Your taxes upon imports can give you but a small supply; you must resort to internal taxes, a measure which is abhorred by the people of this country more perhaps than by those of any country upon the face of the earth.

Some of the states were already choking on debt, Calhoun maintained, and would not tolerate more:

[M]any of the States are indebted more than they can pay. If you lay an internal tax, it must be laid uniformly throughout all the States; and if you lay it upon those States thus indebted, will not repudiation extend? Will Pennsylvania, with a debt of forty millions -- will those States which are unable to discharge their obligations -- will they bear such a tax? No, sir.

Calhoun then turned to the sectional conflict that the seizure of all of Mexico would create. In a phrase, would slavery be permitted in Mexico? (Here, as in earlier posts, I am converting the third-person reporting of the Congressional Globe to the first person.)

But there is a still deeper, a still more terrific difficulty to be met -- a difficulty more vital than those to which I have alluded -- a difficulty arising out a division of sentiment which goes to the very foundation of our Government. How should these lands be acquired, if any are acquired? To whose benefit should they enure? Should they inure to the exclusive benefit of one portion of the Union? We are told, and I am fearful that appearances too well justify the assertion, that all parties in the non-slaveholding portion of the Union insist that they should have the exclusive control of this acquired territory -- that such provision should be made as should exclude those who are interested in the institutions of the South from a participation in the advantages to be derived from the application of these institutions to the territory thus acquired.

Calhoun put his northern colleagues on notice: if northerners were determined that territory acquired from Mexico would be slave-free, they could be assured that southerners would be equally adamant in demanding protection of their rights:

Sir, if the non-slaveholding States, having no other interests in the question except their aversion to slavery -- if they can come to this conclusion with no interest in the matter but this, I turn and ask gentlemen, what must be the feeling of the population of the slaveholding States, who are to be deprived of their constitutional rights, and despoiled of the property belonging to them -- assailed in the most vulnerable point, for to them this question is a question of safety, of self-preservation, and not a mere question of policy; and thus to be despoiled by those who are not concerned?

If there is sternness and determination [on] one side, you may be assured there will be on the other. If I may judge from what I have heard, from the appearances proceeding from the non-slaveholding States -- and I have no reason to doubt it, they being the first to cry out for a vigorous prosecution of the war -- can you suppose that less feeling will be exhibited on the part of those who are to be entirely excluded from their rights, and while this radical difference exists between them?

John C. Calhoun: "The line which I would suggest . . ."

In recent posts, we have seen that Senator John C. Calhoun opposed the Polk administration’s rush to war against Mexico in May 1846. By the end of the year, his concern had deepened. He saw the war as a disaster for the south. Continuation of the war threatened consolidation and increased tariffs. Most of all, Calhoun feared, acquisition of territory threatened to ignite a campaign by Free Soilers to demonize the South by moving to bar slavery from any land taken from Mexico.

On February 9, 1847, the Senate was debating the president’s so-called “Three Million Bill.” This was, ironically, the successor to the original appropriation request that had spawned the Wilmot Proviso in August 1846. The original bill had died at the end of the last session. Now, six months later, the administration was still seeking an appropriation “to bring the war with Mexico to a speedy and honorable conclusion.” In other words, the president wanted money with which to purchase territory from Mexico as part of a hoped-for treaty.

Calhoun decided to use the bill as an opportunity to address a more general issue: what, in fact, was the purpose of the war and, given that purpose, how should it be fought and concluded?

The principal purposes of the war, Calhoun asserted, were twofold: first, to repel invasion of Texas; and second, to establish the Rio Grande as the southern and western border of Texas. A third, subsidiary object was “to obtain payment of the indemnities due to our citizens for claims which they held against Mexico.”

Having defined the “objects” of the war, Calhoun then addressed the question, “How shall [the war] be conducted to enable us most advantageously to effect all of [those] objects?” The answer, he stated, lay in a limited, defensive war, and not the offensive war in which the administration was engaged:

I hold, then, Mr. President – such being the objects of the war – that all those objects for which it was declared can be accomplished by taking a defensive position. Two of them have been already thoroughly effected. The invasion has been repelled by two brilliant victories; the Rio del Norte [Rio Grande] is held from its source to its mouth as the American boundary; a single Mexican soldier does not remain within our territory; and such has been the success of our arms, that we have not only acquired enough territory from them, but vastly more than enough to indemnify us for the expenses of the war, if it should be the judgment of this body that it would be a sound, wise, or just policy on our part to seek such indemnity.

Using a phrase he had used privately, Calhoun condemned the dismemberment of Mexico as “forbidden fruit” that would destroy the United States (here I am converting the third person reporting in the Congressional Globe to the first person):

There is a mysterious connexion between the fate of this country and that of Mexico. Her independence and respectability, and capability of maintaining all those relations, are almost as essential to us as they are to Mexico. Mexico is to us forbidden fruit; if we should consume that fruit, it would be almost tantamount to the political death of our own institutions.

Calhoun did not immediately elaborate on why Mexico was “forbidden fruit.” He turned instead to the practical, bottom-line issue: where should the boundary between the United States and Mexico be drawn? The line, Calhoun argued, needed to be defensible and “eminently pacific” – that is, sensitive to Mexico’s needs, so that it would lead to a “speedy” and “permanent peace.” Based on these considerations, Calhoun proposed a boundary that was (if I understand him correctly) quite similar to the boundary ultimately negotiated by Nicholas Trist:

The line which I would suggest is one beginning at the mouth of the Rio del Norte [the Rio Grande] and extending up to the pass of the del Norte, a southern boundary of New Mexico, and thence due west to the Gulf of California. Such a line would strike the Gulf nearly at its head.

My knowledge of southwestern geography is weak, but “the pass of the del Norte” presumably refers to the area around what is now El Paso, Texas, and the 1847 map at the top shows "Paso del Norte" at about that location. Drawing a line due west from El Paso does in fact “strike the Gulf nearly at its head.”

As we shall see, Calhoun seems to have been most concerned about heading off a more aggressive outcome: a resolution of the war in which the United States would swallow all, or substantially all, of Mexico. But it is equally interesting that he failed to urge an even more conservative conclusion to the war, one in which the United States acquired no territory other than Texas expanded to the limits claimed by its most extravagant advocates, with a western border snaking north up along the Rio Grande and then farther north through what is now Colorado and into southern Wyoming.

It is certainly reasonable to suspect that this is the outcome that Calhoun would really have preferred. Logically, confirming the United States’ claim to an expansive Texas, but acquiring nothing else, was the only result that would avoid clashes with free soilers over slavery in the territories.

A navigable version of the map at the top of the post may be found here.

"Mexico is to us the forbidden fruit"

On May 15, 1846, three days after the Senate effectively authorized war against Mexico over his objection, John C. Calhoun wrote to fellow South Carolinian Henry W. Conner a letter in which he apparently alluded to the underlying source of his concern. "Mexico," Calhoun warned, "is to us the forbidden fruit; the penalty of eating it [is] to subject our institutions to political death."

Three months later, David Wilmot introduced his famous proviso.

John Calhoun on the War Against Mexico: "It is monstrous"

Having devoted several posts to John C. Calhoun’s Pakenham Letter, I’d like to turn to an event in Calhoun’s career several years later. It’s one that I’ve always found somewhat odd and jarring in light of Calhoun’s earlier advocacy of Texas annexation.

On Monday May 11, 1846, President James K. Polk delivered to Congress a Message concerning relations with Mexico. To make a long story short, Polk reported that the Mexican government had in March refused to receive John Slidell, whom Polk had sent there (so Polk asserted) to seek peace. Then, on April 24, 1846, Mexican troops had attacked American troops on the north side of the Rio Grande, resulting in “some sixteen” American casualties, and others “appear to have been surrounded and captured.”

“[W]ar exists,” the president asserted. And with “[w]ar actually existing,” he called on Congress “to recognize the existence of the war, and to place at the disposition of the Executive the means of prosecuting the war with vigor, and thus hastening the restoration of peace.”

What I find both jarring and fascinating is that John Calhoun opposed Polk’s rush to war. At the very outset of the debate in the Senate, he resisted a call to print 20,000 copies of the president’s message and accompanying documents because they would be distributed as pro-war propaganda and implied endorsement of a decision that had not yet been reached. Calhoun emphasized the moral and constitutional gravity of the issue that the Senate was being asked to consider:

Mr. CALHOUN . . . The question now submitted to us is one of the gravest character, and the importance of the consequences which may result from it we cannot now determine. I do hope that this body will give to it that high, full, and dispassionate consideration which is worthy the character of the body and the high constitutional functions which it is called on to exercise. I trust that we will weigh everything calmly and deliberately, and do all that the Constitution, interests, and honor of the country may require. . . .

A little later that day, Calhoun fleshed out his position somewhat more fully. He objected to the president’s suggestions that “war” already existed. Armed conflict, or invasion, may or may not exist. But under the Constitution “war” can exist only when the Congress so declares.

Mr. CALHOUN. . . . [T]he President has announced that there is war; but according to my interpretation, there is no war according to the sense of our Constitution. I distinguish between hostilities and war, and God forbid that, acting under the Constitution, we should ever confound one with the other. There may be invasion without war, and the President is authorized to repel invasion without war. But it is our sacred duty to make war, and it is for us to determine whether war shall be declared or not. If we have declared war, a state of war exists, and not till then.

It was in this aspect of the question that I regarded it as one of great magnitude, and deprecated any precipitate action on the part of the Senate. There is a certain forbearance, dignity, and calmness, which will make war not the less effective if it should be our fate to be involved in war.

The last few sentences of Calhoun’s short statement are remarkable for their expression of patriotism. Notice the reference to the country as a whole as “my country”:

I hope that I shall never indicate, on my part, the earnestness with which I go into any measure by a precipitate course of action. I am prepared to do all that the Constitution, and patriotism, and the honor of my country, may require. But I wish time to consider on all points, and desire that our whole action may be marked by dignity.

Notwithstanding Calhoun’s position, within twenty four hours the Senate was finalizing a bill authorizing the raising of troops and supplies. Most troubling in Calhoun’s view, as he expressed it on May 12, 1846, was the fact that the bill recognized war as already existing. The proposed legislation was entitled “An act providing for the prosecution of the existing war . . .” and the introduction to the act repeated that characterization:

Whereas, by the act of the Republic of Mexico, a state of war exists between that Government and the United States:

Be it enacted . . ., That, for the purpose of enabling the Government of the United States to prosecute said war to a speedy and successful termination . . ..

Calhoun rose to repeat his objections. Whether it acknowledged it or not, the Congress was declaring war (the Globe reporter reports this and Calhoun’s later statements in the third person, past tense [e.g., “Mr. Calhoun said that . . .”]; I have transposed these to the first person present in the hope that you will read them aloud):

Mr. CALHOUN . . . I hope, at least, one day will be allowed to those who are to vote upon this bill, as an opportunity to consult the documents which have been submitted to the Senate by the Executive, as containing the ground on which the bill is to pass. It is a bill amounting to a declaration of war. I have no objection whatever to voting the amount of supplies contained in the bill, or even a greater amount; but I am at present unprepared to vote anything which amounts to a declaration of war. The question is one of great magnitude, and gentlemen who entertain doubts respecting the facts on which the bill is founded, or in regard to the necessity or propriety of a declaration of war, should certainly have some short time allowed them for reflection. . .

Other senators complained that the troops needed immediate help. Calhoun’s request would result in fatal delay. What game was he really playing? In response, Calhoun denied the charge. The troops could be supplied and reinforced immediately; it was only the preamble to which he objected. And he had no covert agenda; he was simply not prepared to vote on the gravest constitutional responsibility he held as a senator:

Mr. CALHOUN . . . I seek no delay, and resort to no indirect course to conceal my true intent. . . . [W]hy can you not accommodate gentlemen who have honest doubts as to the state of facts, by consenting to strike out the preamble of the bill, and to suffer the question of supplies to be separated from the question of a declaration of war? Is not such a course reasonable? Is it not fair and just? Gentlemen stated to the Senate that the information received from the frontier was such as to require instant action; if so, they can have instant action. If any delay occurs, the delay is their own. I will create none.

I am prepared to vote the supplies on the spot, and without an hour’s delay; but it is just as impossible for me to vote for that preamble as it is for me to plunge a dagger into my own heart, and more so. I cannot; I am not prepared to affirm that war exists between the United States and Mexico, and that it exists by the act of that Government. How can I affirm this, when I have no evidence on which to affirm it? How do I know that the Government of Mexico will not disavow what had been done? Am I to be called upon to give a vote like this? It is impossible for me to utter it, consistently with that sacred regard for truth in which I have had been educated.

The Senate, Calhoun charged, was proposing to “make war on the Constitution.” It was “monstrous”:

I have no difficulty as to my course. My mind is made up; it is made up unalterably; I can neither vote affirmatively nor negatively. I have no certain evidence to go on. Whether any one will go with me in this course I do not know; I have made no inquiries, and I do not know that a single friend will be found at my side. As to what might be said of such a course, and all that is called popularity, I do not care the snap of my finger. If I cannot stand and brave so small a danger, I should be but little worthy of what small amount of reputation I may have earned.

I cannot agree to make war on Mexico by making war on the Constitution; and the Senate will make war on the Constitution by declaring war to exist between the two Governments when no war has been declared, and nothing has occurred but a slight military conflict between a portion of two armies. Yet I am asked to affirm, in the very face of the Constitution, that a local rencontre, not authorized by the act of either Government, constituted a state of war between the Government of Mexico and the Government of the United States – to say that, by a certain military movement of General [Zachary] Taylor and General [Mariano] Arista, every citizen of the United States is made the enemy of every man in Mexico.

It is monstrous. It strips Congress of the power of making war; and what is more and worse, it gives that power to every officer, nay, to every subaltern commanding a corporal’s guard. Do you gentlemen call on me to do this? Do you expect that I would vote for a position so monstrous? If you force the question upon me, I will take my own course. If you want unanimity, you can have it; but if you choose to proceed on your own petty party views, be it so.

Later that day, Calhoun made his final protest. Substantively, it added little, but I invite you to picture the Cast Iron Man standing in the Senate and making this plea:

Why, in the name of all that is reasonable, would you rush at once to the ultimate resort? Suppose this turns out to be a case in which war ought to be declared, after examination of all the documents: let the declaration be made in due form and with becoming dignity – not in this side-way, as if you were afraid to do it. Show a front to the world, such as becomes the character of the nation.

In the present condition of the world, war is a tremendous thing. The whole sentiment of the civilized world is turning stronger and stronger against war. Let us not, for the honor of our country – for the dignity of the Republic – be the first to create a state of war. Mortal man cannot see the end of it. When I look on and see that we are rushing upon the most tremendous event, I am amazed. I am more than amazed; I am in a state of wonder and deep alarm. This is not the tone of character to go into war. They who go into war in this manner – as if seeking a divisive course – cannot expect to succeed. It is a hasty, thoughtless course.

I do not wish to use any words in an offensive sense -- but with all possible emphasis, I exhort you to avoid even the appearance of precipitancy, or want of that deep reflection and profound meditation which alone can guide you to a successful issue.

Shortly before 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday May 12, 1846, the bill passed the Senate by a vote of 40-2, the only two dissenters being Senators Thomas Clayton (Whig, Delaware) and John Davis (Whig, Massachusetts). Two the votes recorded in favor of the bill were partial or conditional. “When Mr. [John J.] CRITTENDEN’S [Whig, Kentucky] name was called, he voted ‘ay, except the preamble.’ So also did Mr. [William] UPHAM [Whig, Vermont].”

“Senators [John M.] BERRIEN [Whig, Georgia], CALHOUN, and [George] EVANS [Whig, Maine], being in their seats, did not vote.”

John Calhoun's Pakenham Letter: The Background

Scholars have long puzzled over why John Caldwell Calhoun chose to write the Pakenham Letter. But first, some background.

In September 1841, members of the Whig caucus read “His Accidency” John Tyler out of the Whig party. Although now a man without a party, Tyler continued to harbor dreams of a second term. Perhaps he could persuade the Democrats to nominate him in 1844, or maybe he could form a third party or run as an independent backed by a coalition of southern Democrats disenchanted with the probable Democratic candidate, Martin Van Buren and conservative, state-right Whigs.

As part of this pipe dream, Tyler conceived the idea of boldly pushing for the annexation of the Republic of Texas. Both Democrats and Whigs had studiously avoided the issue for years because they recognized how hot a potato it would likely become. In particular, the annexation of Texas, in which slavery was legal, threatened to ignite disputes over the peculiar institution and sectional tensions. In addition, Mexico had never conceded the independence of what it viewed as a rebellious province. Annexation thus presented the likelihood of war. Andrew Jackson had therefore contented himself with recognition of Texas rather than annexation before he left office in March 1847, and his Democratic successor Martin Van Buren (in office March 1837- March 1841) had avoided the issue like the plague.

In May 1843, Daniel Webster, the last member of the original cabinet that Tyler inherited from William Henry Harrison, resigned his position as Secretary of State after completing negotiation of the Webster-Ashburton Treaty. Tyler responded by nominating as Webster’s successor his Secretary of the Navy and old friend and confidante, Abel P. Upshur. Upshur, who hailed from the eastern shore of Virginia, was, like Tyler, a conservative, state-rights Whig. He also was an enthusiastic advocate of annexation. Upshur assumed office in July 1843 and promptly entered into secret negotiations designed to result in the annexation of Texas via a treaty to be presented to the Senate.

Fast-forwarding eight months or so, Upshur’s negotiations and the proposed treaty were virtually complete by late February 1844. At that point, as I mentioned in the last post, chance intervened. On February 28, 1844, Upshur was killed by an explosion on board the USS Princeton. Tyler, who could turn to neither mainstream Democrats nor Whigs for a replacement, reached out (reluctantly or otherwise – it is not clear) to the quintessential anti-party man, none other than John Caldwell Calhoun of South Carolina, who assumed his duties at State a month later on April 1, 1844.

Meanwhile, however, news of the secret negotiations had leaked. Based on an inadvertent hint from Upshur before his death, Daniel Webster had figured out in February that a treaty was imminent, and he relayed the information to Whig allies. In March, Robert C. Winthrop introduced a resolution in the House demanding information. It quickly became apparent that the issue threatened to become a sectional one, with northern Whigs in particular denouncing the rumored treaty as a conspiracy of the slave interests.

Without admitting the existence of the negotiations, the administration backed efforts by friends who endorsed annexation as a commercial and strategic boon to nation as a whole. on a non-sectional basis. Tyler reportedly believed that any mention of the slavery issue or attempt to push annexation as a protection for the south would be fatal to ratification. Indeed, it appears that, for this reason, Tyler pushed to have the treaty signed and submitted for ratification before Calhoun became Secretary.

Such was not to be, because the Texas envoy did not arrive in Washington to sign the treaty until the last day of March, just as Calhoun assumed his new post. After final details were worked out, the treaty was signed Friday April 12, 1844.

The treaty was not, however, submitted to the Senate until Monday April 22. There were certainly understandable and legitimate reasons for the delay. Calhoun used the intervening ten days to approach the Mexican minister in an unsuccessful attempt to reduce the likelihood of war after the treaty was formally announced. On a more practical level, in a world without word processors, faxes and email, documents had to be transcribed and cover letters had to be composed and approved.

But the delay was also occasioned in part by Calhoun’s apparently inexplicable decision to write a letter concerning Texas to the British minister to the United States, Richard Pakenham. Here we must take a step back.

Five months earlier, George Hamilton-Gordon, Lord Aberdeen, the British Foreign Secretary, had sent a dispatch dated December 26, 1843 to the British ministry in the United States, the contents of which were intended to be conveyed to the American Secretary of State. When the newly-appointed Pakenham arrived in Washington in February 1844, he discovered that Aberdeen’s message had not been communicated to Upshur. Pakenham remedied the omission by reading the message to Upshur and then sending him a copy. Upshur did not respond before he was killed on February 28, and acting secretary of state John Nelson apparently did not regard a response as necessary during his brief tenure (from the end of February to the end of March).

In fact, the Aberdeen message (the full text of which may be found in the Congressional Globe) was quite benign and conciliatory. In brief, Aberdeen confirmed (as the British Government had previously expressed) that the government preferred that slavery be abolished in Texas. However, he made clear that Britain had no designs on Texas and would take no actions to achieve that result. Norma Lois Peterson describes the dispatch in somewhat greater detail:

Aberdeen’s tone was courteous, not hostile. He admitted that his government had pressed Mexico to acknowledge the independence of Texas, but it had done so with “no occult design, either with reference to the slavery which now exists, and which we desire to see abolished in Texas.” It was well known to the United States and to every other nation, Aberdeen explained, that Great Britain desired and was “constantly exerting herself to procure the general abolition of slavery throughout the world.” But in attempting this, Britain would do nothing in a secret or underhanded manner. “We should rejoice if the recognition of that country [Texas] by the Mexican Government should be accompanied by an engagement on the part of Texas to abolish slavery eventually and under proper conditions”; but Britain did not intend to exercise improper authority on either Mexico or Texas. “We shall counsel, but we shall not seek to compel, or unduly control, either party. So far as Great Britain is concerned, provided all other States act with equal forbearance,” Mexico and Texas were at liberty “to make their own unfettered arrangements,” in regard to slavery or any other matter.

President Tyler reportedly took the message for what it was – an attempt to be conciliatory notwithstanding a difference in principle. As Calhoun told Pakenham, the president expressed his appreciation for the British government’s disavowal of any intention to disturb the internal tranquility of slaveholding states, although he regretted that Great Britain had officially transmitted its policy of abolition.

Calhoun, however, would not take yes for an answer and decided to escalate matters. In response, he composed and sent to Pakenham an incendiary reply dated April 18, 1844. Remarkably, I have not been able to locate a copy the “Pakenham Letter” online. For those with access to specialized databases or research or law libraries, it may be found at Senate Documents, 28th Cong., 1st Sess. 50-53 and Richard K. Cralle (ed.), The Works of John C. Calhoun, Vol. 5, pp. 333-347. Here is William W. Freehling’s description:

The administration, wrote the Secretary of State, “regards with deep concern the avowal” that England was “constantly exerting herself” to procure world-wide antislavery. The administration was also appalled that England was urging emancipation as “one of the conditions on which Mexico should acknowledge” Texas. “It would be difficult for Texas in her actual condition,” emphasized Calhoun, “to resist” this pressure, even “supposing the influence and exertion of Great Britain” remained within Lord Aberdeen’s “limits.”

An emancipated Texas, continued the Carolinian, would give “Great Britain the most efficient means of effecting in the neighboring States of this Union what she avows to be her desire to do in all countries where slavery exists.” A free labor Texas “would expose the weakest and most vulnerable portions” of slaveholders’ “frontiers” to inroads. But while England’s hope is to end what she calls our evil, warned Calhoun, our mission is to perpetuate what we consider our blessing. Under southern Christian slavery, bragged the American Secretary of State, “the negro race” has attained an unprecedented “elevation in morals, intelligence,” and “civilization.” The United States, concluded Calhoun, “acting in obedience” to racial “obligation,” and “as the most effectual if not the only means of guarding against the threatened danger . . . has concluded an annexation treaty.”

In a subsequent letter, dated April 27, 1844, Calhoun drove home the point that annexation “was made necessary in order to preserve domestic institutions . . . deemed essential to their safety and prosperity.”

“It was,” Merrill D. Peterson has coyly noted, “an unusual diplomatic dispatch.”

Meanwhile, on Monday April 22, 1844, four days after the dispatch of the first letter, the Secretary of State formally transmitted the proposed treaty with Texas to the Senate under seal. Based on precedent, and apparently presuming that the Senate would immediately call for production of supporting materials in any event, Calhoun also sent with the treaty itself copies of related documents and correspondence – including the Pakenham Letter.

Ironically, President Tyler’s letter of transmittal to the Senate emphasized the importance of the treaty to the nation as a whole, not its sectional benefit to the south. The inclusion of the Pakenham Letter, however, insured that there would be a sectional explosion and virtually guaranteed defeat of the treaty, which required ratification by two-thirds of the Senate under Article II, Section 2.

The question, then, is why Calhoun wrote the letter. Merrill D. Peterson summarizes the conundrum:

Politicians then and historians since have debated Calhoun’s motives for writing the Pakenham Letter. The administration line on annexation was that it was strictly a question of national interest unconnected with slavery. Calhoun’s letter, which went to the Senate along with the treaty and became public knowledge on April 27 [,1844], placed annexation on pro-slavery grounds. Could he have been oblivious to the effect of this?

In the next post, I will survey some possible answers.