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[FEBRUARY, 1847.

been, and General Henderson, who is daily expected | purpose. Should the exigency arise to which you here, will be fully advertised. In the mean time, refer in your note to Mr. Upshur, I am further dithe President desires that you will at once counter-rected by the President to say, that during the mand your instructions to Lieutenant Davis, as far as they are in conflict with these views.

"In any emergency that may occur, care will be taken that the commanders of the naval and military forces of the United States shall be properly instructed. Your request that they may be placed under your control cannot be gratified."

This is very constitutional and proper language and if it had not been reversed, there would have been no war with Mexico. But it was reversed. Soon after it was written, the present Senator from South Carolina took the chair of the Department of State. Mr. Pinckney Henderson, whom Mr. Murphy mentions as coming on with full powers, on the faith of the pledge he had given, arrived also, and found that pledge entirely cancelled by Mr. Tyler's answer through Mr. Nelson; and he utterly refused to treat. The new Secretary was in a strait; for time was short, and Texas must be had; and Messrs. Henderson and Van Zandt would not even begin to treat without a renewal of the pledge given by Mr. Murphy. That had been cancelled in writing, and the cancellation had gone to Texas, and had been made on high constitutional ground. The new Secretary was profuse of verbal assurances, and even permitted the Ministers to take down his words in writing, and read them over to him, as was shown by the Senator from Texas, (General HOUSTON,) when he spoke on this subject on Thursday last. But verbal assurances, or memoranda of conversations, would not do. The instructions under which the ministers acted required the pledge to be in writing, and properly signed. The then President, present Senator from Texas, who had been a lawyer in Tennessee before he went to Texas, seemed to look upon it as a case under the statute of frauds and perjuries-a sixth case added to the five enumerated in that statute-in which the promise is not valid, unless reduced to writing, and signed by the person to be charged therewith, or by some other person duly authorized by him to sign for him. The firmness of the Texan Ministers, under the instructions of President Houston, prevailed; and at last, and after long delay, the Secretary wrote, and signed the pledge which Murphy had given, and in all the amplitude of his original promise. That letter was dated on the 11th day of April, 1844, and was in these words:

"GENTLEMEN: The letter addressed by Mr. Van Zandt to the late Secretary of State, Mr. Upshur, to which you have called my attention, dated Washington, 17th January, 1844, has been laid before the President of the United States.

"In reply to it, I am directed by the President to say that the Secretary of the Navy has been instructed to order a strong naval force to concentrate in the Gulf of Mexico, to meet any emergency; and that similar orders have been issued by the Secretary of War, to move the disposable military forces on our south-western frontier, for the same

pendency of the treaty of annexation, he would deem it his duty to use all the means placed within his power by the constitution to protect Texas from all foreign invasion. I have the honor to be, &c."

This is the answer given by Mr. Secretary Calhoun to the demand; and, although a little delphic in its specification of the emergencies and the exigencies in which our forces were to fight the Mexicans, yet, taken in connection with the terms of the letter to which it was an answer, and to which it refers, it is sufficiently explicit to show that it is a clear and absolute promise to do the thing which Murphy had promised, and which President Tyler, through the Attorney-General, (Mr. Nelson,) had refused to do, because it involved a violation of the Constitution of the United States. The promise was clear and explicit to lend the army and navy to the President of Texas, to fight the Mexicans while they were at peace with us. That was the point-at peace with us. Mr. Calhoun's assumpsit was clear and explicit to that point; for the cases in which they were to fight were to be before the ratification of the treaty by the Senate, and consequently before Texas should be in our Union, and could be constitutionally defended as a part of it. And, that no circumstance of contradiction or folly should be wanting to crown this plot of crime and imbecility, it so happened, that on the same day that our new Secretary here was giving his written assumpsit to lend the army and navy to fight Mexico while we were at peace with her, the agent Murphy was communicating to the Texan Government, in Texas, the refusal of Mr. Tyler, through Mr. Nelson, to do so, because of its unconstitutionality. Here is the letter of Mr. Murphy:

"SIR: The undersigned, chargé d'affaires of the United States near the Government of the republic of Texas, has the honor of informing Mr. Jones, that whilst his Government approves of the general tone and tenor of his intercourse with the Government of the republic of Texas, a regret is felt in perceiving that his zeal for the accomplishment of objects alike beneficial and interesting to both countries, had led him beyond the strict line of his instructions; that the President of the United States considers himself restrained by the constitution of the Union, from the employment of the army and navy against a foreign power with whom the United States are at peace; and that whilst the President of the United States is not indisposed, as a measure of prudent precaution, and as prelimi nary to the proposed negotiation, to concentrate in the Gulf of Mexico and on the southern borders of the United States a sufficient naval and military force, to be directed to the defence of the inhabitants and territory of Texas at a proper time, he is unwilling that the authorities of Texas should apprehend that he has power to employ this force at the period indicated in my note to you of the 14th of February last."

In conformity with the Secretary's letter of April 11th, detachments of the army and navy were immediately sent to the frontiers of Texas, and to the coast of Mexico. The Senator from South Carolina, in his colloquy with the Senator from Texas (Gen. HOUSTON) on Thursday last, seemed anxious to have it understood that these land and naval forces were not to repel invasions, but only to report them to our Government, for its report to Congress. The paper read by the Senator from Texas, consisting of our Secretary's words, taken down in his presence, and read over to him for his correction by the Texan Ministers, establishes the contrary; and shows that the repulse of the invasion was in the mean time to be made. And in fact, any other course would have been a fraud upon the promise. For, if the invasion had to be made known at Washington, and the sense of Congress taken on the question of repelling it, certainly, in the mean time, the mischief would have been done-the invasion would have been made; and, therefore, to be consistent with himself, the President in the mean time was bound to repel the invasion, without waiting to hear what Congress would say about it. And this is what he himself tells us in his two Messages to the Senate, of the 15th and 31st of May, doubtless written by his Secretary of State, and both avowing and justifying his intention to fight Mexico, in case of invasion, while the treaty of annexation was depending, without awaiting the action of Congress. Here are extracts from these Messages:

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Here are the avowals of the fact, and the reasons for it-that honor required us to fight for Texas, if we intrigued her into a war. I admit that would be a good reason between individuals, and in a case where a big bully should involve a little fellow in the fight again after he had got himself parted; but not so between nations, and under our constitution. The engagement to fight Mexico for Texas, while we were at peace with Mexico, was to make war with Mexico!-a piece of business which belonged to the Congress, and which should have been referred to them! and which, on the contrary, was concealed from them, though in session, and present! and the fact only found out after the troops had marched, and then by dint of calls from the Senate.

The proof is complete that the loan of the land and naval forces was to fight Mexico while we were at peace with her! and this becomes a great turning point in the history of this war. Without this pledge given by our Secretary of State-without his reversal of Mr. Tyler's first decision-there could have been no war! Texas and Mexico would have made peace, and then annexation would have followed of itself. The victor of San Jacinto, who had gone forth and recovered by the sword, and erected into a new republic the beautiful domain given away by our Secretary in 1819, was at the head of the Texas Government, and was successfully and honorably conducting his country to peace and acknowledged independence. If let alone, he would have accomplished his object; for he had already surmounted the Message, 15th of May.-Extract.. great difficulty of the first step-the armistice "At the same time, it is due to myself that I and the commencement of peace negotiations; should declare it as my opinion, that the United and under the powerful mediation of Great States having, by the treaty of annexation, acquired Britain and France, the establishment of peace a title to Texas, which requires only the action of was certain. A heavenly benediction rests upon the Senate to perfect it, no other power could be the labors of the peace-maker; and what is permitted to invade, and, by force of arms, to pos- blessed of God must succeed. At all events, sess itself of any portion of the territory of Texas, it does not lie in the mouth of any man-and pending your deliberations upon the treaty, without placing itself in a hostile attitude to the United least of all, in the mouth of the mischief-maker States, and justifying the employment of any mili--to say that the peaceful mediation would tary means at our disposal to drive back the invasion."

Message, 31st of May.-Extract. "In my message to the Senate on the 15th of this month, I adverted to the duty which, in my judgment, the signature of the treaty for the annexation of Texas had imposed upon me, to repel any invasion of that country by a foreign power, while the treaty was under consideration in the Senate; and I transmitted reports from the Secretaries of War and of the Navy, with a copy of the orders which had been issued from those departments for the purpose of enabling me to execute that duty. In those orders, General Taylor was directed to communicate directly with the President of Texas upon the subject, and Captain Connor was instructed to communicate with the chargé d'affaires of the United States accredited to that Government. No copy of any communication which either of those officers may have made pursuant to those orders has yet been received at the departments from which they emanated."

not have succeeded. It was the part of all men to have aided, and wished, and hoped for success; and had it not been for our Secretary's letter of April 11th, authentic facts warrant the assertion that Texas and Mexico would have made peace in the spring of 1844. Then Texas would have come into this Union as naturally, and as easily, and with as little offence to anybody, as Eve went into Adam's bosom in the garden of Eden. There would have been no more need for intriguing politicians to get her in, by plots and tricks, than there was for some old hag of a match-making beldame, with her arts and allurements, her philters and her potions, to get Eve into Adam's bosom. And thus, the breaking up of the peace negotiations becomes the great turning point in the problem of the Mexican war.

The pledge of the 11th April being signed, the treaty was signed, and being communicated to the Senate, it was rejected: and the great

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war. The war was prepared, organized, established by the Secretary of State, before he left the department. It was his legacy to the Democracy, and to the Polk Administrationhis last gift to them, in the moment of taking a long farewell. And now he sets up for a man of peace, and throws all the blame of war upon Mr. Polk, to whom he bequeathed it.

tion of a gentleman of honor and patriotism, | angry denunciations filled the press of each no longer a member of this body, but who has country: and when a minister was sent from the respect and best wishes of all who ever the United States, his reception was refused. knew him. I speak of Mr. McDuffie, and quote The state of war existed legally: all the cirhis words as heard at the time, and as since cumstances of war, except the single circumprinted and published by others. Mr. McDuffie stance of bloodshed, existed at the accession was mistaken! They did have the audacity! of Mr. Polk; and the two countries, Mexico and They did do it, or rather, HE did it, [looking at the United States, stood in a relation to each Mr. CALHOUN ;] for it is incontestable that Mr. other impossible to be continued. The march Tyler was nothing, in any thing that related to upon the Rio Grande brought on the conflict the Texas question, from the time of the arrival-made the collision of arms-but not the of his Secretary of State. His last act, in relation to Texas, was the answer which Mr. Nelson gave him through the agent, Murphy, denying his right to lend our forces to the President of Texas to fight the Mexicans while we were at peace with them: the reversal of that answer by his new Secretary was the extinction of his power over the Texas question. HE, the then Secretary of State, the present Senator from South Carolina, to whom I address myself, did it. On Sunday, the second day of March, that day which preceded the last day of his authority-and on that day, sacred to peacethe council sat that acted on the resolutions; and in the darkness of a night howling with the storm, and battling with the elements, as if Heaven warred upon the audacious act, (for well do I remember it,) the fatal messenger was sent off which carried the selected resolutions to Texas. The exit of the Secretary from office, and the start of the messenger from Washington, were coetaneous-twin actswhich come together, and will be remembered together. The act was then done: Texas was admitted: all the consequences of admission were incurred-and especially that consequence which Mr. de Bocanegra had denounced, and which our Secretary had accepted-WAR. The state of war was established-the status belli was created-and that by the operation of our own constitution, as well as by the final declaration of Mexico: for Texas then being admitted into the Union, the war with her extended to the whole Union; and the duty of protecting her, devolved upon the President of the United States. The selection of the absolute resolution exhausted our action: the alternative resolution for negotiation was defunct; the only mode of admission was the absolute one, and it made war. The war was made to Mr. Polk's hands his Administration came into existence with the war upon its hands and under the constitutional duty to protect Texas at the expense of war with Mexico: and to that point, all events rapidly tended. The Mexican Minister, General Almonte, who had returned to Washington City after the rejection of the treaty of annexation, demanded his passports and left the United States. The land forces which had been advanced to the Sabine, were further | advanced to Corpus Christi: the Mexican troops moved towards the Rio Grande: the fleet which remained at Vera Cruz, continued there: commerce died out: the citizens of each country left the other, as far as they could:

Cicero says that Antony, flying from Rome to the camp of Cæsar in Cisalpine Gaul, was the cause of the civil war which followed-as much so as Helen was of the Trojan war. Ut Helena Trojanis, sic iste huic reipublica causa belli-causa pestis atque exitii fuit. He says that that flight put an end to all chance of accommodation; closed the door to all conciliation; broke up the plans of all peaceable men; and by inducing Caesar to break up his camp in Gaul, and march across the Rubicon, lit up the flames of civil war in Italy. In like manner, I say that the flight of the winged messenger from this capital on the Sunday night before the 3d of March, despatched by the then Secretary of State, in the expiring moments of his power, and bearing his fatal choice to the capital of Texas, was the direct cause of the war with Mexico in which we are now engaged. Like the flight of Antony, it broke up the plans of all peaceable men, slammed the door upon negotiation, put an end to all chance for accommodation, broke up the camp on the Sabine, sent the troops towards Mexico, and lit up the war. Like Antony and Helen, he made the war; unlike Antony, he does not stand to it; but, copying rather the conduct of the paramour of Helen, he flies from the combat he has provoked! and, worse than Paris, he endeavors to draw along with him, in his own unhappy flight, the whole American host. Paris fled alone at the sight of Menelaus: the Senator from South Carolina urges us all to fly at the sight of Santa Anna. And, it may be, that worse than Paris again, he may refuse to return to the field. Paris went back under the keen reproach of Hector, and tried to fight.

"For thee the soldier bleeds, the matron mourns, And wasteful war in all its fury burns.”

Stung with this just and keen rebuke-this vivid picture of the ruin he had made-Paris returned to the field, and tried to fight: and now, it remains to be seen whether the Senator from South Carolina can do the same, on the view of the ruin which he has made: and, if not, whether he cannot, at least, cease to ob

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struct the arms of others-cease to labor to | and this may explain the reason of the proinvolve the whole army in his own unmanly retreat.

Upon the evidence now given, drawn from his public official acts alone, he stands the undisputed author and architect of that calamity. History will so write him down. Inexorable HISTORY with her pen of iron and tablets of brass, will so write him down: and two thousand years hence, and three thousand years hence, the boy at his lesson shall learn it in the book, that as Helen was the cause of the Trojan, and Antony the cause of the Roman civil war, and Lord North made the war of the Revolution, just so certainly is JOHN C. CALHOUN the author of the present war between the United States and Mexico.

duction of that string of resolutions which the Senator laid upon the table last week; and upon which he has required us to vote instantly, as he did in the sudden Texas movement of 1836, and with the same magisterial look and attitude. The Texas slave question has gone by-the Florida slave question has gone by-there is no chance for it now in any of its old haunts: hence the necessity for a new theatre of agitation, even if we have to go as far as California for it, and before we have got California. And thus, all the Senator's conduct in relation to Texas, though involving his country in war, may have had no other object than to govern a Presidential election.

The

Our northern friends have exceeded my hopes I have now finished what I proposed to say, and expectations in getting themselves and the at this time, in relation to the authorship of Union safe through the Texas and Florida slave this war. I confine myself to the official words questions, and are entitled to a little repose. and acts of the Senator, and rely upon them to So far from that, they are now to be plunged show that he, and not Mr. Polk, is the author into a California slave question, long before it of this calamity. But, while thus presenting could arise of itself, if ever. The string of resohim as the author of the war, I do not believe lutions laid on the table by the Senator from that war was his object, but only an incident South Carolina is to raise a new slave question to his object; and that all his conduct in rela- on the borders of the Pacific Ocean, which, tion to the admission of Texas refers itself to upon his own principles, cannot soon occur, if the periods of our Presidential elections, and to ever. He will not take the country by consome connection with those elections, and ex-quest-only by treaty-and that treaty to be plains his activity and inactivity on those occa- got by sitting out the Mexicans on a line of sions. Thus, in May, 1836, when he was in occupation. At the same time, he shows that such hot and violent haste for immediate ad- he knows that Spanish blood is good at that mission, the election of that year was impend-game, and shows that they sat it out, and ing, and Mr. Van Buren the Democratic candidate; and if the Texas question could then have been brought up, he might have been shoved aside just as easily as he was afterwards in 1844. This may explain his activity in 1836. In 1840, the Senator from South Carolina was a sort of a supporter of Mr. Van Buren, and might have thought that one good turn deserves another; and so nothing was said about Texas at that election-dangerous as was the least delay four years before: and this may explain the inactivity of 1840. The election of 1844 was coming on, and the Senator from South Carolina was on the turf himself; and then the Texas question, with all its dangers and alarms, which had so accommodatingly postponed themselves for seven good years, suddenly woke up; and with an activity and vigor proportioned to The Senator from South Carolina has been its long repose. Instant admission, at all haz- wrong in all this business, from beginning to ards, and at the expense of renewing hostilities ending-wrong in 1819, in giving away Texasbeween Mexico and Texas, and involving the wrong in 1836, in his sudden and hot haste to United States in them, became indispensable-get her back-wrong in all his machinations necessary to our own salvation-a clear case of self-defence; and then commenced all those machinations which ended in the overthrow of Mr. Van Buren and Mr. Clay for the Presidency, and in producing the present war with Mexico; but without making the Senator President. And this may explain his activity in 1844. Now, another Presidential election is approaching; and if there is any truth in the rule which interprets certain gentlemen's declarations by their contraries, he will be a candidate again;

fought it out, for 800 years, against the Moors occupying half their country. By-the-by, it was only 700; but that is enough; one hundred years is no object in such a matter. Spaniards held out 700 years against the Moors, holding half their country, and 300 against the Visigoths, occupying the half of the other half; and, what is more material, whipped them both out at the end of the time. This is a poor chance for California on the Senator's principles. His five regiments would be whipped out in a fraction of the time; but no matter; men contend more violently for nothing than for something, and if he can get up a California slave question now, it will answer all the purposes of a reality, even if the question should never arise in point of fact.

for bringing on the Texas question of 1844wrong in breaking up the armistice and peace negotiations between Mexico and Texas-wrong in secretly sending the army and navy to fight Mexico while we were at peace with herwrong in secretly appointing the President of Texas president-general of the army and navy of the United States, with leave to fight against a power with whom we were at peace-wrong in writing to Mexico that he took Texas in view of all possible consequences, meaning war