ARE AT WAR." "I invoke," said Mr. Polk, "the prompt action of 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 (!)" Thus emulous was this gentleman of the blessing promised to the peace-maker. Let us now see how this invocation to make peace by commencing with vigor the work of human slaughter, was received by the American Congress. This body was the grand inquest of the nation. The President appeared before them as a prosecuting officer, accusing the Government of Mexico of high crimes and misdemeanors, and demanding from his auditors a judgment which would be equivalent to a sentence of death against thousands and tens of thousands of human beings, including multitudes of their own countrymen. We might suppose that Congress, impressed with the awful responsibility thus imposed upon them, would apply themselves with calm, patient, and prayerful consideration to the duty before them; that they would rigidly scrutinize the evidence submitted to them, and most earnestly seek for expedients to rescue their own and a neighboring country from the tremendous calamities impending over them. They were informed by the President, that a party of Americans and Mexicans had "become engaged," and sixteen of the former had been killed and wounded. Thus a collision had occurred. But such a collision does not amount to war. A British frigate had some years since assaulted an American national ship, killed a portion of her crew, and forcibly impressed another portion. No war ensued; but explanations were given, and redress made. Still later an American steamboat was seized in our own waters by a British force, and destroyed, and one of the crew killed. Still no war ensued. An examination of the testimony submitted by Mr. Polk might possibly show, that the recent collision was accidental, or provoked on our part, or unauthorized by Mexico. Explanations, if demanded, might lead to a pacific result, and the effusion of blood be prevented. Of all crimes, the commencement of an unnecessary war is the most atrocious, the most deserving the wrath of God, and the execration of mankind. Melancholy and humiliating is the fact, that the American Congress passed a decree which they knew would occasion wide-spread wailing and lamentation, and woe and death, with a recklessness, a precipitation, and a disregard of evidence, which no court of judicature in our land would dare to manifest in consigning to the penitentiary a man charged with petit larceny. Shocking as is such an assertion, its truth is still more so. The Message of the President was accompanied with manuscript copies of the correspondence between the Government and Mr. Slidell and General Taylor; and this correspondence contained the evidence on which he rested his momentous charges against Mexico; the testimony on which alone Congress could pronounce on the truth or falsehood of the charges. We will let one of the members relate the proceedings of the House of Representatives on Monday the 11th May, 1846, on the receipt of the message. "It was proposed by a whig member (Mr. Winthrop), that the documents accompanying the Message be read. By a strict party vote this MOTION WAS REJECTED. The House went immediately into a committee of the whole. The Committee rose in a very short time, and reported a bill according to the President's wishes. The previous question (preventing all debate), was called and carried, and the House brought to a vote, without one word of explanation, proof, or argument on the amendment which asserts the existence of war by the act of Mexico.' On this question the vote stood-ayes 123, to 67 noes. The amendments having been gone through, and the bill engrossed, the question came, on its final passage. Again the previous question was moved and seconded; and, after some ineffectual efforts on the part of various members to enter their protest against this very preamble, the vote was forced under the gag, and the bill carried by ayes 174, nays 14. The whole proceeding from beginning to end occupied but a small portion of a single day. The previous question was applied at every step and all debate, explanation, and every attempt to get information, was put down by party votes of the dominant party." In the Senate, the Message was referred to a Committee, which the next day, instead of reporting facts, contented themselves with reporting the bill from the House, and this was passed by a vote of 50 to 2. “We had not," said Mr. Calhoun, alluding to this precipitate action, a particle of evidence that the Republic of Mexico had made war against the United States." This bill declaring that war exists by the act of Mexico, placed the army and navy at the disposal of the President, provided for the employment of fifty thousand volunteers, and appropriated ten millions of dollars for the prosecution of the war. Thus was a system of human butchery commenced without argument, without examination, with * 66 Speech of Mr. Pendleton of Virginia, 22d Feb. 1847. See App. to Cong. Globe, 29th Cong., 2 Sess., p 112. See speech, 24th Feb., 1847. Cong. Globe, 27th Feb. 1847. The preamble of an act of the Mexican Congress raising supplies, thus repudiates the idea that the war was commenced by the Republic: "The Mexican nation finds itself in a state of war with the United States of America." out listening to one word of the evidence offered, and without even the pretence of a desire to avoid or delay the awful calamity. Whatever opinion may be entertained of the lawfulness of defensive war, the moral sense of mankind, irrespective of religious creeds, condemns as most iniquitous an offensive and aggressive one. Such a war differs from murder and robbery only in the stupendous enormity and extent of the crime. The vast military power and resources confided to the President, were to be employed not in enforcing rights, not in obtaining redress for injuries. Congress disclaimed, by their acts and the preamble of their bill, all idea of commencing hostilities. A motion to declare war was rejected by an overwhelming majority. It was deemed expedient to declare, that it already existed by the act of Mexico, thus representing to the nation and the world, that the war was on our side purely a defensive one, undertaken to repel an invading enemy. And what was the power that had dared to invade the United States, and by its assault had thrown this great confederacy into such imminent danger, that Congress found it necessary to provide fifty thousand troops in addition to the regular army, in such haste as not to allow them time even to read the despatch announcing the invasion? The Republic of Mexico had long been the prey of military chieftains, who, in their struggles for power and the perpetual revolutions they had excited, had exhausted the resources of the country. Without money, without credit, without a single frigate, without commerce, without union, and with a feeble population of seven or eight millions, composed chiefly of Indians and mixed breeds, scattered over immense regions, and for the most part sunk in ignorance and sloth, Mexico was certainly not a very formidable enemy to the United States.* It was impossible for any Mexican force to reach us by sea; and to reach us by land, her armies would have been obliged to cross an uninhabited desert nearly two hundred miles in breadth, before they arrived at the Nueces, the boundary of Texas. The people of that revolted province had for years maintained their independence in spite of Mexico, and no doubt can be entertained that their militia were amply able to drive back any army Mexico might send into her territory. There was not a female in our country whose slumbers were broken, through apprehension of the pretended invasion of the United States. Not a Mexican soldier had trod on soil owned by an American citizen-not a shot had been fired within a hundred miles of an American dwelling. The apparent panic, therefore, under which Congress voted fifty thousand additional troops for defence, was not real but feigned. The war, as we have seen, was not commenced to recover the amount of our claims, and procure redress of grievances, but avowedly for defence; a motive so palpably false and absurd, that, although officially professed by the President, and in the preamble of the Act of Congress, but one single member of Congress, it is believed, had the hardihood to urge it in justification of his vote. The true object of the war *The following particulars are gathered from the work on Mexico, by Brantz Mayer: Indians, Population. 4,000,000 1,000,000 |