"The glorious spirit of Annexation is spreading, like a prairie-fire up the Rio del Norte, and rattling the dried bones in New Mexico.

*

*

"Both Americans and Mexicans are making large purchases of land upon the streams running into the Rio del Norte and Arkansas, and anticipating Annexation. ExGovernor Armijo is stirring up and concentrating around him the means of ejecting Mexican domination, and will shortly succeed in so doing."

A plan of the war is sketched in a communication to the Union of Aug. 16th: "4,000 militia and 2,000 regulars in Texas, 2,000 militia and 1,500 regulars in other parts of U. S. 9,500 regulars, 25,000 volunteers, 34,500. With these begin the forward march. Go a-head! the word, and prudence and watchfulness to guide. Pass the Rio Grande. Leave a military force to maintain the captured places in Mexico, and keep up our line of communication with our base of operations, and with 30,000 men advance direct upon Mexico. Vera Cruz should be taken,” etc.

In this same month of August, 1845, Major-Gen. Gaines made a requisition on the Governor of Louisiana, without any orders, it was said, from the Secretary of War, for 2,000 men, and the troops were received and sent on to the frontiers. The military spirit wás rampant in the capital of the Mississippi Valley. The War Department of the United States was put in a state of unusual activity; arms were made ready and despatched even on the sacred day of rest; ships of war were refitted, manned, and commissioned, and all was made ready. Gen. Gaines reviewed the troops in New Orleans on Sunday. Gen. Patterson, of Philadelphia, came to Washington to offer his services to the President, to raise 6,000 volunteers. Hon. R. M. Johnson, ex Vice-President of the United States, in a letter to the President, dated Aug. 25th, offered himself and the brave Kentuckians for the cause. Are not all these things faithfully recorded in the

chronicles of that period? and are they not significant facts in the history of this war? The movements of Gen. Taylor to Corpus Christi were eagerly copied into all the journals. The Oregon discussion kept up an excitement during the session of Congress, 1845-6, favorable to warlike preparations, and training the people to be familiar with the idea of a resort to arms. The cry had been loud, "All of Oregon or none; now or never; fifty-four forty, or fight;" and all this inflammatory patriotism was easily turned, when the occasion served, into another channel, and the sword drawn against Mexico instead of England. The conflict burst upon the country suddenly, at last, and took many by surprise; but had they watched the course of public affairs more closely, they would have anticipated from such causes as had been diligently set in operation, the very results which followed. The effect on Mexico of these warlike rumors and preparations, is well described in the following article:

The Union of Jan. 12, 1846, says, "Extracts from the papers of Matamoras, published in the Vera Crusano, speak of incursions of the American troops, of detachments of parties of forty or fifty soldiers, reconnoitering and spying out the land The position and movements of the United States' troops at Corpus Christi, ever since Gen. Taylor has been there, have excited much alarm, fear, and jealousy, in the minds of the Mexicans. They seem to be hourly expecting that the United States' troops are about to march upon Matamoras, to seize upon that place, and thence, perhaps, to march to capture some others of their cities."

The state of feeling, too, in the United States, among great numbers of the people, was, probably, but too correctly represented in the two sentences below, emanating from two great commercial and political cities.

The New Orleans Picayune of January, 1846, says, "Be the result of the rebellion (pronunciamento of Paredes) what

it may, it seems to us that our relations with Mexico should not be longer kept in a state of doubtful peace.”

The New York Courier, of the same date, said, "We hope that our Government will promptly force our Mexican affairs to a crisis."

With this development of the spirit of conquest in the heart of the American people, with the extended means which had been put in readiness by land and sea to carry on war, and with the press from almost all quarters sounding the watchword of battle, we are astonished not that the crisis of blood came so unexpectedly, but that it was so long. delayed.

There were certain causes assigned for the war, as the old question of claims, and the new one of boundaries, the threatened invasion of an American State, and the rejection of our minister at Mexico; but they have already been partially considered. They were, however, better called pretexts, than causes of war. They cloaked the designs of ambition. They were ready stimulants to national pride in the hands of expert moulders of public opinion. But the real circumstances that predisposed our countrymen to war, and the deep main-spring that moved all the chief agents and advocates in the premises, we have already laid open, The steps taken to accelerate the tremendous crisis, to rouse millions of minds to sanguinary sentiments, and pour forth fire and sword upon Mexico, have been indicated in this chapter. In succeeding ones, we propose to "count the cost" of our national pastime in arms, as it respects property, life, and all the elements of human prosperity and happiness.

CHAPTER VI.

THE BEGINNING AND ENDING OF THE WAR ARGUMENTS FOR PEACE.

"We daily make great improvements in natural, there is one I wish to see in moral, philosophy, the discovery of a plan that would induce and oblige nations to settle their disputes without first cutting one another's throats. When will human nature be sufficiently improved to see the advantage of this ?"- FRANKLIN.

ALTHOUGH serious difficulties existed between the United States and Mexico previously to the advance of Gen. Taylor from the Nueces to the Rio Grande, yet no doubt war might have been averted, had all parties concerned been deeply convinced of the blessings of peace, the guilt and horrors of a conflict, and the necessity of finally resorting to negotiations, because the sword itself could settle nothing. We had been in as great straits before, and had come out of the danger without shedding one drop of human blood. Granted that this was a peculiarly exasperating case of spoliations upon our commerce ;* yet had not the United States a long list of grievances of this kind to adjust with several European powers at the close of the wars of Na

* Yet so late as Aug. 5, 1836, Gen. Jackson said in a letter to Gov. Cannon, of Tennessee, "Should Mexico insult our national flag, invade our territory, or interrupt our citizens in the lawful pursuits which are guarantied to them by treaty, then the Government will promptly repel the insult, and seek reparation for the injury. But it does not appear that offences of this kind have been committed by Mexico."

poleon, and never thought it necessary to make the appeal to brute force? Granted that this was a case of violated sovereignty and trespass upon the rights of American citizens; yet we had pacifically negotiated with England, but a few years before, the difficult affairs growing out of the "Caroline" and the "Patriot War," and the storm-cloud of danger was scattered. Granted that it was a case of deferred payment of acknowledged claims; yet France owed us more and longer than Mexico, and we bore and forbore; and when, after long but peaceful urgency, we obtained the money, our burning sense of justice suddenly congealed, and we have not to this day paid over what we have received to the individual claimants for damages! Granted that it was a most delicate and difficult question of boundary lines; still we had hardly seen the ink dry on "the treaty of Washington," and the negotiations of Oregon, by which our limits. were adjusted on the north from the Atlantic to the Pacific. What but the lust of territory, and the schemes of annexation, and the purposed extension of slavery and the slave power, prevented the same results in our Mexican difficulties on the south? As "a masterly inactivity" had averted an Oregon war with Great Britain, so might it have averted a Texas war with Mexico. Never was a finer argument supplied to the cause of peace, as demonstrating the superiority of her counsels to those of war, than is afforded by the beginning of the contest with Mexico. Never was there a more conclusive exhibition of the truth that what the advocates of war call "the necessity" of hostilities, is a necessity of their own creation, or, at least, of their own exaggeration, and has no reasonable foundation in national honor, rightly understood, or patriotism, truly felt.*

*"Mr. Webster's admirable letter to Lord Ashburton on the subject of Impressment, did more to settle that question than a hundred battles could have done." -DR. DEWEY'S PEACE ADDRESS, May 29, 1848,