land, at the price fixed by Congress would be $15,000,000. But to avoid the semblanee of exaggeration, we will suppose these claims commuted at $100 each, making The award under the treaty of 1839, due by Mexico, and assumed by treaty of peace, with interest, The Government has also assumed. by treaty, the payment of such unliquidated claims against Mexico as may be found valid, not exceeding $3,250,000, out of $6,455,462 demanded. Should none but valid claims be allowed, the sum to be paid may amount to Making the total cost, in money, of new territory, 7,500,000 2,000,000 500,000 $130,000,000 The above estimate, it is believed, is very moderate, and much below the estimates usually made. But let it be recollected, that it is an estimate only of the direct expenditures of the Federal Government, for the acquisition of the coveted territories. For nearly two years, at least 140,000 men, as soldiers, teamsters, artificers, &c., have been diverted from productive industry, and engaged in occupations, adding nothing to the real wealth of the country, or the comfort, happiness, and morality of its citizens. The time and labor of these men have therefore been literally wasted, and consequently what they would have added to the common stock in time of peace, is to be included in the cost of the war. Many of these individuals have, moreover, been brought to an untimely grave, and probably a still greater number disqualified for future usefulness by 'vice and disease. The operations of commerce have, moreover, been deranged, and enterprize paralyzed by a monetary pressure, occasioned by a drain of specie from our great cities, to be expended in Mexico-and wide spread bankruptcy only prevented, by an unusual and accidental demand for our bread-stuffs in Europe. When all these facts are taken into consideration, and when we recollect that interest is to be paid during many future years, on the money borrowed, and that large drafts are yet to be made on the treasury for pensions and for indemnities for private losses and injuries, it will not be thought extravagant to assume, that the indirect cost of the war will be little, if any less than the sum actually expended for its prosecution. Dr. Franklin, long since remarked, that nothing was ever acquired by war that might not have been obtained at a less cost by purchase. For the territory of Louisiana, even more extensive and greatly more valuable than that we have wrested from Mexico, we paid $15,000,000. For Texas we offered $5,000,000, and at a previous day we had offered only $1,000,000 for Texas, with a portion of California. Mr. Polk would have shrunk from offering fifty millions for the very land which he has now bought at such a vast amount of blood and treasure. It is impossible to resist the conviction that, by honest negotiation, we might have become the masters of these territories without crime, without human butchery, and at a far less cost in money than the sum we have paid. The mighty sum we have exchanged for glory and territory, has added not one cent. to the productive capital of the country, nor brought one new comfort or convenience within reach of its population. For all useful practical purposes, this amount of the nation's capital has been annihilated. But it is easy to imagine how such a sum might have been expended in modes resulting in a prodigious augmentation of the resources of the nation, and the virtue and enjoyments of the people. Such a sum might have spread a net-work of railroads and telegraphic wires over the country, uniting in bonds of interest and intercourse the remotest inhabitants of our vast empire. It would have opened through Oregon a channel by which the commerce of India and China would in a few days have reached every portion of our Confederacy. Or it might have given security and facility to our magnificent inland navigation, and formed safe and capacious harbors on our mediterranean seas. Or it might have carried science and useful knowledge to the inmates of every dwelling in our Republic; and in various ways have been made conducive to the diffusion of virtue and religion. The mere interest of this sum is vastly greater than is annually contributed by Christendom to evangelize the world. The disposal of this treasure was a talent which, in the providence of God, was entrusted to our rulers: whether the use they have made of it proves them to have been good and faithful servants will be declared on that day in which they shall give an account of their stewardship. We should, however, take a most erroneous and limited view of the cost of this war to the United States, were we to confine our estimates to the millions which have been expended in its prosecution, or to the personal suffering it has occasioned. Before we can sum up the total cost, we must add to the blood, the groans, the treasure, we have bartered for victory and conquest, the political and moral evils the war has bequeathed to the nation-evils as extensive as the bounds of the Republic, and whose effects upon the happiness of individuals will continue to be felt when time shall be no more. CHAPTER XXXI. POLITICAL EVILS OF THE WAR. ALL war is necessarily unfavorable in its tendencies to the liberties and prosperity of a State, even when waged for the defence or recovery of freedom. The burthens it imposes, the arbitrary authority it confers, and the dispositions it fosters, are all adverse to popular rights. These tendencies are, of course, controlled and modified by circumstances. The late war, having been carried on wholly without the limits of our own country, did not inflict upon our citizens those violations of right and those oppressive exactions which are ever experienced on the theatre of hostilities. It has nevertheless shown itself a dangerous foe to constitutional liberty. We have seen in the preceding pages that most provident and ample preparations were made for the commencement of the war on the Rio Grande, and for the seizure of California, not only without the sanction, but even without the knowledge of Congress. It is utterly impossible that Congress would have issued, or the people have tolerated, a declaration of war against Mexico, either to compel her to pay our alleged claims, or to withdraw her troops and magistrates from her villages on the Rio Grande. Hence, it was deemed necessary first to provoke a collision, and then to appeal to Congress to defend the country from invasion! The war, therefore, although recognized and prosecuted by Congress after its commencement, was in fact and in truth begun in conse quence of orders issued by the President on his own responsibility, and not in pursuance of any constitutional or legal authority. He had, indeed, as Commander-in-Chief, a right to direct the movements of the troops, but not in such a manner as necessarily and designedly to involve the country in war. Most truly, therefore, did the House of Representatives declare that the war had been unconstitutionally begun by the President. Yet has this usurpation of power, leading to the sacrifice of thousands of lives and millions of treasure, been unvisited with punishment. The offence has found an apology in the triumphs to which it has led; and thus a sanction has been given to a precedent, that invests the President of the Republic with the royal prerogative of bringing upon the nation the calamities of war. Nor is this the only instance, in which the President in his own person has exercised powers belonging only to the legislative branch of the Government. Although not permitted by the Constitution to appoint of his own will and pleasure, a single officer, or to take from the treasury a single cent, he established a system of tariffs and internal taxation in Mexico, appointing a horde of collectors, and accumulating at his own disposal, all the revenue that could be extorted at the point of the bayonet, from the miserable and impoverished Mexicans; and all this without the slightest warrant from Congress.* * 66 I am under a deep conviction, that the President has no right whatever, to impose taxes internal and external on the people of Mexico. It is an act without the authority of the Constitution or laws, and eminently dangerous to the country. If the President can exercise, in Mexico, a power expressly given to Congress, which he cannot exercise in the United States, I would ask where is the limit to his power in Mexico? Has he also the power of making appropriations of money collected in Mexico, without the sanction of Congress ? This he has already done. Has he the power to apply the money to whatever purposes he may think proper, and, among others, to raise a military force in Mexico, without the sanction of Congress? This |