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The Origin Of The War With Mexico: The Polk - Stockton Intrigue

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The Origin Of The War With Mexico: The Polk - Stockton Intrigue

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Content This dissertation has been microfilmed exactly as received 66-7080 PRICE, Glenn W arren, 1918— THE ORIGINS OF THE WAR WITH MEXICO: THE POLK-STOCKTON INTRIGUE. U n iversity of Southern C alifornia, P h.D ., 1966 H istory, general University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan Copyright by Glenn Warren Price TEE ORIGINS OF THE WAR WITH MEXICO: THE POLK-STOCKTON INTRIGUE by Glenn Warren Price A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (History) January 1966 UNIVERSITY O F S O U T H E R N CALIFORNIA T H E G RADUATE SC H O O L UNIVERSITY PARK LOS ANGELES. C A L IF O R N IA 9 0 0 0 7 This dissertation, written by .......... jaUENH-W ARREN-.PiLKlE...... under the direction of h..%M..Dissertation Com mittee, and approved by all its members, has been presented to and accepted by the Graduate School, in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of D O C T O R O F P H I L O S O P H Y Dean D ate .......... DISSERTATION COMMITTEE JL*. Chairman .. CONTENTS Page PREFACE ................................. iii Chapter I. AMERICAN NATIONALISM AND AGGRESSIVE WAR: 1845-1846 ................................. i II. THE ATTEMPT TO PURCHASE SOME OF MEXICO: 1825-1845 ...................... 21 III. A PRELIMINARY DESIGN: THE DUFF GREEN SCHEME 67 IV. ROBERT F. STOCKTON: AMERICAN NATIONALIST . 85 V. ANNEXATION AND INTRIGUE: THE ACCOUNT OF PRESIDENT ANSON JONES ..................... 143 VI. STOCKTON PROPOSES TO FINANCE A WAR . . . . 166 VII. EUROPEAN INTERVENTION IN THE TEXAS GAME . . 192 VIII. THE COLLAPSE OF THE POLK-STOCKTON CONSPIRACY 207 IX. THE SUCCESSFUL USE OF THE BOUNDARY QUESTION: THE WAR BEGINS........................... 232 CONCLUDING STATEMENT ........................... 262 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................... 269 ii PREFACE The United States declared war on Mexico In May of 1846 because, President James K. Polk declared in his war message, Mexico "has Invaded our territory and shed Ameri can blood upon the American soil." This was Polk's des cription of the hostilities which resulted from his sending American troops into the Mexican settlements on the left bank of the Rio Grande. That area had been claimed by the Republic of Texas but had never been under Texan control. A year earlier, just before Texas had accepted the American offer of annexation, Commodore Robert F. Stockton had been sent to Texas by the Polk administration and there he urged that troops be sent to the Rio Grande. President Anson Jones of the Republic of Texas charged later that it was President Polk's plan to annex a war with Mexico when Texas was annexed, thus enabling him to acquire other Mexi can provinces in a peace settlement. Former President Sam Houston of Texas referred to Stockton as a scoundrel whose conduct would have been exposed except for respect for the President of the United States. The House of Representa tives placed on record its disrespect for Polk when it iii voted during the war that the conflict had been "unneces sarily and unconstitutionally" begun by the President when lie sent the army into the Mexican settlements; and one mem ber, Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia, later to be Vice- President of the Confederate States of America, coined the famous phrase, "Polk the Mendacious," adding that the President was "a man whom none could believe." This is not, however, the interpretation which is given in histories of American diplomacy, or of the annexa tion of Texas and the beginnings of the war with Mexico. One historian, Richard R. Stenberg, published an article in 1935 entitled "The Failure of Polk's War Intrigue of 1845," in which he assembled some of the evidence to support the charge which President Jones had made; but it has not been very influential. Thus a well-known historian of American diplomacy, Samuel F. Bemis, cites Stenberg's article and says that "friends of Polk" urged Texas to renew hostili ties with Mexico, but asserts: "Polk himself and the government steered clear of such complicity."* i Stenberg's article appeared in the Pacific Historical Review, IV (March, 1935), 39-69. Bemis, A Diplomatic History of the United States (5th edition; New York: 1965), 234. iv The matter is significant for the interpretation of that period of American diplomacy and warrants a serious attempt to establish the relationship of President Polk to Commodore Stockton's scheme in Texas during April, May, and June of 1845. This study is an attempt to do that. Since it was, under any interpretation, a sub rosa effort, one expects difficulty in discovering sufficient documentation to establish unquestionable responsibility for the conspir- atorial activity which is a matter of record. In his American Diplomacy in Action. Richard W. Van Alstyne writes that the conspiracy in Texas is not in doubt but the "docu ments do not so clearly define the trail" back to Washing- 2 ton. That trail was deliberately hidden. But sufficient documentation does exist, particularly in the correspon dence of Commodore Stockton, to open and mark that trail. This investigation is an effort to clear that trail, and to mark it. The first chapter examines and develops the general historical context of the problem, and the second traces the history of American-Mexican relations for the score of years prior to 1845. Chapter three presents briefly an ^Revised edition (Stanford: 1947) , 582. v intrigue in Texas which was similar in some ways to the Stockton effort, and which preceded it. The key figure in the conspiracy was Robert F. Stockton, whose character and career have not been studied by historians; chapter four provides the information necessary to interpret the activi ties of this naval officer in Texas. Chapters five through eight examine and analyze the intrigue, beginning with the testimony of President Anson Jones and including the rele vant documentation from British and French diplomatic efforts in Texas. Stockton disappeared from the Texas affair following the failure of his scheme, but a final chapter is essential for the light which Polk's subsequent use of the boundary question throws on the conspiracy. A concluding statement presents some observations on the spirit of American diplomacy in the 1840's. vi CHAPTER I AMERICAN NATIONALISM AND AGGRESSIVE WAR: 1845-1846 One hundred and thirty years ago a French writer who had been examining the character of American society closed a volume on that subject with a prescient observation on the developing structure of international relations. Alexis de Tocqueville said the Russians and the Americans had each suddenly placed themselves in the front rank among nations and, he wrote, "each of them seems marked out by the will of heaven to sway the destinies of half the globe.'1* Tocqueville1s prediction is well known to historians; it is commonly cited for the purpose of discountenancing those who see Russian power and influence in the world today simply as the product of a conspiratorial ideology. What is not so well known or appreciated by American his torians is the uneasiness and apprehension in western Europe, only a few years after Tocqueville's forecast, on ^Democracy in America (New York: 1954), I, 452. 1 American aggression against Mexico. It appeared to many that the United States had indeed embarked on a headlong rush to achieve domination of half the globe; and not by the plowshare, as Tocqueville had specified, but by the sword. During the winter of 1845-1846 the foreign policy of the United States was frequently discussed in the French Chamber of Deputies. Franqois Guizot, prime minister of the government of Louis Philippe and an eminent historian as well, said that of the four great powers of the world-- France, Great Britain, Russia, and the United States--only the latter was aggressively expanding. The government of the United States had stated the strange doctrine that all European influence was to be excluded from the New World. Guizot thought the principle of the balance of power was not inappropriate to America, and he asserted that the pro spective growth of American power was properly a matter of 2 concern to France. & The Journal des Debate. Guizot's organ, was more ex plicit. Referring to President James K. Polk's address to 2 Guizot'8 statement in the French legislature was reprinted in translation in Niles' Register. 14 March 1846. Congress in December, 1845, the paper said it was apparent "that Mr. Polk belongs to a new school and that the Ameri can democracy, of whose passion he seems to be the faithful exponent, has given itself up, since its seizure of Texas, to an ambition which may yet be fatal to it," and referred to the American "lust for conquest." The Journal said that the United States had ambitious plans for conquering all the American continent and warned that Europe might sooner or later be "wedged in" by two giant powers, "Russia and North America, and suffer from their oppression." Between the autocracy of Russia on the East, and the democracy of America, aggrandized by the conquest of Mexico, on the West . . . Europe may find herself more compressed than she may one day think consistent with her independence and dignity.^ It is especially significant that Guizot's paper speaks of the "conquest of Mexico" in the past tense, al though the time of writing was a few months after the annexation of Texas had been peacefully accomplished and a 3 Quotations from the Journal des Debats appear in an article entitled "California," in The American Review. Ill (January 1846), 82-99, as reprinted in Norman Graebner, Ideas and Diplomacy (New York: 1964) , 200-206. Some of the expressions in the Journal lacked restraint: "The conquest of Mexico would be a wide step towards the enslavement of the world by the United States . . . ." half-year before the beginning of the war with Mexico. But the French government had been in intimate contact with the diplomatic and military developments in Texas during the summer of 1845 and it had no doubt about the shape of things^ to come; one may add that France did not expect that Mexico would attack the United States. When war began, however, in the spring of 1846, President Polk asserted that it was caused by the armed forces of Mexico having "invaded our territory and shed American blood upon the American soil."^ But in his war message and in other addresses through his term of office, the President labored at such length both to support that statement and to provide other separate and additional justifications for the war that it appeared he did not himself accept Mexican "invasion" as an adequate explanation. A great many foreign and domestic observers, including a majority of the members of the House of Repre sentatives, accepted none of Polk's explanations of the cause of the war. The determined effort of the executive leadership of a ^Polk's message of 11 May 1846, in James D. Richardson, editor, A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. 1789-1897 (n.p.: 1908), IV, 437-443. nation at war to disclaim responsibility for the initiation of the war is not unusual; on the contrary it is normal and quite predictable behavior. One may add that the histor ians of that nation, if they do not accept the government's explanations at quite face value, typically begin with the assumptions of their government and usually support the position which their government has taken. This fact is so commonplace and so universally recog nized that it may not appear to call for comment; but it is, on the contrary, a significant fact, and this compul sive pattern should be recognized at the outset of an in vestigation of the origins of a war. In the perspective of the war-making habit of western societies it points up a marked tension between a dominant cultural system of action on the one hand and the accepted ethical system on the other. It is a tension which has had Important conse quences for the writing of history.. It needs to be emphasized, and it has hardly been said, that our civilization is essentially war-like. William H. McNeill, in a recent important work concerned with the interrelationships of world cultures, notes that Western European civilization has a history of extraordi nary pugnacity, of the unrestrained use of force. The 6 effective use of organized violence enabled Western Christendon, developing from the medieval feudal structure and building a commercial-industrial-political base on the North Atlantic, to achieve dominance over most of the world.^ Now one expects the value system of a society to support the institutionalized pattern of behaviour in such an important area of the life of the community as that of war-making, but in western civilization it has not done so; on the contrary, it has been in opposition to it. The Christian elements in western culture have been most impor tant in this regard, but secular humanism, with classical ^McNeill's study is entitled The Rise of the West (Chicago: 1963). The reference here is to his chapter entitled "The Far West's Challenge to the World, 1500-1700," 570 ff. He lists three "talismans of power" which enabled the West to subjugate much of the non-European world: (1) a deep-rooted pugnacity and recklessness; (2) a complex mili tary technology; (3) A population inured to a variety of diseases. He notes the incredible brutality of such con querors as Francisco Pizarro and Hernando DeSoto, and the ruthless aggressions of the Portuguese in the East. A most significant indicator of the Western addiction to violence is the disdain which the Franciscan Father, Matteo Ricci, expressed for the Chinese whom he visited in the sixteenth century, because, as he complained, they lacked the martial virtues. They were excessively civil, and they almost never indulged in violent encounters; at most they scuffled without suffering wounds or causing bloodshed. In short, said this Christian cleric, they behaved "like women." as well as Christian roots, has been a force in the same direction. There has been no such contradiction, or on nothing like the same scale, in other societies on the aggressive use of violence by the community to further its ends. The Japanese and the Moslems, two cultures which have been somewhat militaristic, have had very little diffi culty with their ethical system as they engaged in aggres sive war. They have not found it necessary to deny their aggressions; there has been a deep compulsion to do so in the West.** In Western Christendom neither the ethical system nor the institutionalized behaviour has altered significantly under the pressure of the contradiction. The historian must certainly be interested in that fact; as, one supposes, must the sociologist, the philosopher, and the theologian. There has not been a great deal of concern about the contradiction. A few intellectuals, to be sure, have complained that the values inculcated by the dominant ^In neither the Japanese nor the Moslem culture has the pugnacity been characteristic of the society generally, as it has in the Christian West. The warriors were a pro fessional class with a life-style quite different from the rest of the community. In the West the aggressive use of force has been pervasive. religion, the virtues of humility, pity, and love for fellowman, including the enemy, created a "cult of weak ness" in the society which tended to unfit it for war. But such forebodings smell of the lamp; it is an instructive instance of the failure of intellectuals to understand or appreciate man's ability to rise above principle. The fascinating questions which this paradox raises in the areas of psychology and philosophy and religion are not our present concern. The Interest here is in the conse quences which this contradiction has had for the writing of history, and thus for our understanding of our past. The matter may be put hypothetically; Western culture might have been only moderately addicted to aggressive violence and it might have had a value system which would have justified aggression. Had this been the case, the his tories each nation writes of its own experience would not attempt to prove that it had always resisted aggression in war, that it never was aggressive, and that all of its wars were defensive. But, to summarize, the fact is that the national states of western civilization have made war on each other as a not unusual act of international relations and they have been compelled by their ethical system to write the history of their wars as a form of apologetics. Neither the history of the United States nor the his tories written by Americans of our wars is an exception to this rule, indeed, although the record of the United States in war-making is the typical story of a western nation, Americans have found it rather more difficult than other peoples to deal rationally with their wars. We have thought of ourselves as unique, and of this society as specially planned and created to avoid the errors of all other nations. We have conceived this to be the terminal society, in which the values of western civilization are in fact adhered to; and this assumption has contributed to the distortion in our explanation of our national behaviour. The record of American pugnacity is certainly unavoid able in our past. The settlers in the English colonies disposed of the aborigines with brutal violence. The attitude was similar to that of other European colonists, but there is some truth in the rather too simplified com parison of the three major European incursions in North America: the Spanish tried to make Spaniards of the In dians, the French became Indians themselves, but the Anglo- Americans thought simply of eliminating the Indians. According to the frontier saying, the only good Indian was a dead Indian, and the Americans worked systematically on 10 that bails towards the Improvement of the native Americans. There was also, from the beginning, warfare among the colonists of the several European powers, and the English colonists were not less aggressive than the Spanish or the French. Rather the contrary, and the Anglo-Americans moved increasingly to the attack as they were successful in these colonial wars. The history of the United States since the founding of the nation by a war against Great Britain has certainly been no more pacific than that of other nations. There was aggression against the Spanish in the Floridas; the unsuc cessful invasion of Canada.during the War of 1812; the war with Mexico in 1846-48 and the filibustering expeditions of Americans into Mexico and Central America and the Caribbean during the 1850's; the war against Spain and the brutal war against the Filipinos for several years there after; and the use of American military power in small Latin-Amerlcan countries in this century as well as Ameri can participation in two world wars. This is not a record which indicates a disinclination to resort to mass violence. Perhaps some nations of Western Christendom have been more aggressive, some less so; but it is quite impossible to make out the American experience to be one of unique 11 restraint in the use of force, nor of the use of force for defensive purposes only. The United States has, however, produced a rhetoric of peace which is really unmatched by any other nation, and this continues to the present time. A typical current example of this continuing American self-image is found in a recent statement of President Lyndon B. Johnson's Special Assistant for National Security Affairs, McGeorge Bundy. In an article defending American foreign policy he asserted that "a commitment to peace" is one of the "great strands" in "the operations of the United States in its relationship to the world." Bundy used the language in which generations of Americans have expressed such self appraisals: "It is right to understand this country as a country of peace. It Is a country built by people who came from struggle and strife in other countries. ..." We have, Bundy grants, an "American tradition of battle" to be sure, but this has quite obviously been in the pursuit of peace, for "the aspiration of the nation, the purpose of its people, and therefore, by extension, the purpose of those who are elected by its people must be peace." ^McGeorge Bundy, "The Uses of Responsibility: A Reply to Archibald MacLeish," Saturday Review (3 July 1965), 13. 12 These assertions by President Johnson's assistant can be assessed meaningfully only as comparative judgments, of the United States in comparison with other nations; and when that assessment is made one must state flatly that Bundy's generalizations on the American record are simply wrong, his statements are untrue. But it is appropriate that these expressions of self-esteem, these distortions of the American war record, should issue from the office of the President in 1965; they are in the authentic tradition of the American rhetoric of peace. It demonstrates, if demonstration were needed, the continuing necessity for a candid historical analysis of our wars--and of our explana tion of our wars. There is no more instructive experience in our past on this subject than the war against Mexico. It provides an extensive documentation of the unreconciled internal con tradiction between professed values and patterns of action. The character of the war, in contrast to the American ex planation of the war, is a classic form of the dilemma; this is at least partly because it occurred in a period when the faith in American virtue was wholly undiluted by sobering experience, when the belief in American unique ness was still quite untouched by any felt ambiguities. 13 The two men who played the chief roles in the war intrigue of 1843 were representative men. President James K. Polk and Commodore Robert F. Stockton expressed their faith in American righteousness in their actions; and they expressed the myth of American innocence in their writings and addresses. A display of the contents of their minds on the United States as a nation among nations is the appro priate beginning for an analysis of the historical record. In his inaugural address President Polk referred to the government of which he was assuming the executive leadership simply as "this most admirable and wisest system of well-organized self-government among men ever devised by human minds." This was not rodomontade for a ceremonial occasion; Polk was expressing the faith that was in him. Near the end of his term of office he wrote in his diary o that he had "filled the highest station on earth." The American mission, in Polk's mind, was literally a divine mission; he would have missed the sarcasm in the ^Richardson, Messages. IV, 375. The address was given on 4 March 1845. The diary entry for Thursday, 2 November 1848, in Milo M. Quaife, editor, The Diary of James K. Polk (Chicago: 1910), IV, 177. 14 jibe that Americans thought of their nation as God's last, supreme effort to make a new start in the history of man kind. Polk's addresses are punctuated with references to God and God's country. In his third Annual Message to Congress he said: No country has been so much favored, or should acknowledge with deeper reverence the manifestations of the divine protection. An all-wise Creator directed and guarded us in our infant struggle for freedom and has con stantly watched over our surprising progress until we have become one of the great nations of the earth. The United States,he said on another occasion, has achieved eminence painlessly. While "other nations have achieved glory at the price of suffering, distress, and impoverishment of their people," the people of the United States have won through "in the midst of an uninterrupted prosperity and of an increasing individual comfort and happiness. Polk's explanations of American foreign relations are classic formulations of the American illusion. In his inaugural address he complained that the United States was ^Richardson, op. cit., 533. Dated 7 December 1847. in Ibid., 629. Fourth Annual Message, 5 December 1848. 15 misunderstood by other nations: Foreign powers do not seem to appreciate the true character of our government. Our Union is a confederation of independent States, whose policy is peace with each other and all the world. To enlarge its limits is to extend the dominions of peace over additional terri tories and increasing millions. During the war with Mexico the President informed Con gress that it was "a source of high satisfaction to know that the relations of the United States with all other nations, with a single exception, are of the most amicable character." He followed this expression of gratification that the United States was engaged in only one war at the time with a statement of the American "spirit" on war and peace: Sincerely attached to the policy of peace early adopted and steadily pursued by this .government, 1 have anxiously desired to culti vate and cherish friendship and commerce with every foreign power. The Spirit and habits of the American people are favorable to the main tenance of such international harmony. ■^Richardson, op. cit., 375. 12Ibid., 472, in the Second Annual Message, 8 December 1846. On 7 December 1847, he said: "It has fever been our cherished policy to cultivate peace and good will with all nations, and this policy has been steadily pursued by me." Ibid., 533. The conviction of righteousness, the assurance of perfect virtue while waging the war against Mexico, is nowhere better displayed than in a message which Polk sent to Congress written by his Secretary of the Treasury, Robert J. Walker. In this document the administration recommended the imposition of "burdensome" and "onerous" duties upon imports in Mexico through ports held by the United States armed forces, thus inducing the Mexican people to seek relief from their suffering by forcing their rulers to accept the peace terms of the United States. The financial burden should be placed "upon our enemies, the people of Mexico, and not upon ourselves" the President explained, and then he communicated this remarkable formu lation of American self-righteousness: In the meantime it is not just that Mexico, by her obstinate persistence in this contest, should compel us to overthrow our own financial policy and arrest this great nation in her high and prosperous career. 3 At the close of his term, when the United States had acquired half the area of Mexico, Polk began his address to Congress with high praise for American virtue. The representatives of the people had again gathered "under the 13Ibid., 525-29, dated 30 March 1847. 17 benignant providence of Almighty God," he said, to "delib erate for the public good," and The gratitude of the nation to the Sovereign Arbiter of All Human Events should be commensurate with the boundless blessings which we enjoy. Peace, plenty, and contentment reign throughout our borders, and our beloved country presents a sublime moral spectacle to the world.^ Polk did not enjoy great esteem during his Presidency. The first "dark horse" in the history of the office, the experiment did not seem to be a success, either to his contemporaries or to historians for a half-century and more following. During the last few decades, however, the President who acquired California by means of the war against Mexico and thereafter announced that the United States presented a "sublime moral spectacle to the world," has been sharply upgraded by American historians. That curious revisionism has not been the consequence of new information; it is rather the product of a self-advertised, tough-minded sophistication among historians. The re visionist appraisal of Polk constitutes another reason for a more thorough analysis of the 1845 war intrigue in Texas. 14Ibid., 629. Commodore Robert F. Stockton, Polk's agent in Texas in 1845, is not a major figure in American history and his career and his ideas are not well-known. It will be neces sary to examine his life at some length in a later chapter; here It will be helpful to look at Stockton's views onethe role of the United States In the world in the middle of the nineteenth century, A few years following the war with Mexico, Stockton was a United States Senator from Mew Jersey. He spoke in the Senate in 1852 on the issue of "interventionism" by one nation in the affairs of other nations, an issue which had been raised by the unsuccessful effort of the Hungarians to establish their independence in 1848. That effort had been crushed by the intervention of the Russian army, and the "friends of freedom" in the United States welcomed Louis Kossuth, the Hungarian leader who had gone into exile. Most American public men who identified themselves with the Hungarian cause attacked the Russian government for its intervention and asserted that it must be estab lished as a principle of International law that no nation had the right to intervene in such a situation, under any conditions. Stockton did not agree. He said it would be a mistake for the United States to take any such position 19 "as long as there is a single despotic government existing whose people rise to demand the blessings of liberty." He described the situation in the world in the middle of the nineteenth century: Sir, when we cast our eyes over the world, everywhere, with the exception of America, we see the surface of the whole earth appropriated by absolute monarchs. The only country which enjoys Republican Government, and whose people adequately appreciate free institutions, is the United States. Those free institutions compre hend all that survives of free principles and political liberty. In them is concentrated all that is valuable of what man has ever achieved in qualifying himself for self-government. . . . We are, in truth, the residuary legatees of all that the blood and treasure of mankind, expended for four thousand years, have accom plished in the cause of human freedom. In our hands alone is the precious deposit. Before God and the world, we are responsible for this legacy. Not for our own benefit only, but for the benefit of the whole family of man. A man who has this kind of vision of the unique value of his own group is not one to boggle at conventional rules and technicalities in the relations of men or of nations as he endeavors to preserve and enlarge the precious heri tage. The "precious deposit" of liberty should, Stockton said, be promoted by war only under "peculiar circum stances," but it is apparent that he thought such circum stances would arise not infrequently. Since "the whole world, wherever you look" except for the United States was 20 under monarchical governments, he desired to know "how the oppressed and fettered nations o£ the earth are to break their chains, and maintain themselves against the armies of despotism," if there should be a law of nations against in tervention in their behalf. Stockton concluded that the United States had "an indisputable and perfect right to interfere[in another nation] whenever, by such interference, she can promote her 15 own interests and advance the cause of liberty." During the Presidency of James K. Polk the United States did intervene in a neighboring country; it promoted its own interests, in Stockton's words, and "extended the dominions of peace over additional territories," to use the language of President Polk. The origins of that interven tion are not to be found on the eve of the action. An examination of Mexican-American relations for the score of years before the war is necessary for an understanding of the beginnings of the war with Mexico. As reprinted by Samuel J. Bayard, A Sketch of the Life of Commodore Robert F. Stockton (New York: 1856), appendix E, 94-98. CHAPTER II THE ATTEMPT TO PURCHASE SOME OF MEXICO: 1825-1845 Wilson Shannon, the last American minister to Mexico prior to the break in relations which preceded the war, presented on 14 October 1844 a dispatch to the Mexican Minister o£ Relations, Manuel C. Rejon, in accordance with instructions from John C. Calhoun, Secretary of State under President John Tyler. In this communication Shannon dis cussed the current effort of the United States to annex Texas, a province of Mexico which had revolted ten years earlier and had maintained its independence since that time, although still claimed: by Mexico. The American minister said that while annexation was pending, the United States could not permit any attempt by Mexico to reconquer Texas. Shannon added, in a remarkable example of open diplomacy, that the acquisition of Texas had been a 1 cherished American policy for twenty years. ^William R. Manning, editor, Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States: Inter-Aaerican Affairs, 1831-1860. Vol. VII, Mexico. 1831*1848.(Washington: 1937), document 3557, 644-49. This correspondence is discussed in 21 22 This started an acrimonious correspondence. Rej<$n rejected the communication in a reply of 31 October which charged the American government with a history of devious intrigues in an effort to obtain Mexican territory. He observed that Shannon's note "disclosed the perfidiousness with which Mexico has so long been treated," and scored the American minister's attempt "to base on the security of the United States the right to seize a fertile and vast prov ince belonging to a neighboring nation . . . ." Shannon's reply of 4 November demanded the withdrawal of that note on the ground that it was an insult to the United States: "The note repeatedly charges, in terms the most grossly offen sive, the government and people of the United States with falsehood, artifice, intrigues and designs of a dishonor able character and with barefaced usurpation." Rejon refused and added the charge of "bad faith" by earlier United States administrations. He said he could have James Morton Callahan, American Foreign Policy in Mexican Relations (New York: 1932), 123-24, and^in George L. Rives, The United States and Mexico (New York: 1913), I, 667. Shannon wrote: "It has been a measure of policy long cher ished and deemed Indispensable to their [the United States] safety and welfare, and has accordingly been an object steadily pursued by all parties, and the acquisition of the territory made the subject of negoclation by almost every administration for the last twenty years." amplified "the facts which . . . show to the world that system of deceit which has been followed toward Mexico for the last twenty years, and which 'the American Legation's note of the 14th of October has just confirmed." The Mexican minister said the American government was trying to provoke a "breach" between the two nations, and asserted that the Mexican government would continue its efforts to prevent a conflict. Shannon replied with the threat that the United States "can and will correct the erroneous opinion" of Mexico "by means more efficient than any writ ten refutation by the undersigned of the calumnies made and reiterated in the notes of Mr. Rejon, would be." He answered Re join's charge that the American government had practiced deceit in regard to Texas with the statement that there had been no time during the whole period mentioned, that the government of Mexico did not know of the American o desire to acquire Texas. Shannon closed this letter of 8 November with the comment that there could be no further intercourse between himself and the government of Mexico until his government ^Manning, op. cit., doc. 3559, 654-63; doc. 3560, 663-64; doc. 3561, 664-65; doc. 3562, 666-75. Discussion in Callahan, op. cit., 124-26. 24 in Washington had reviewed the correspondence and given him further instructions. On 12 November he wrote to Secretary Calhoun that in view of Mexico's stated intention of re covering Texas, and its failure to pay past due install ments to the United States under the agreement which had been reached earlier on American claims, it was no longer wise to exercise forbearance. ", . . it is time for Con gress to begin to act, and vindicate the honor of the country as well as the just rights of our plundered citi zens." On that same date Shannon sent a private note to Calhoun: The insolence of this government is beyond indurence [slcl and if it is submited f siel to inrone case it will only give incouragement [sic] to its repitition [slcl. 1 think we should take high ground with Mexico and let her distinctly understand that She must retract her insults and do us justice in all matters of complaint which we have against her. 1 am fully convinced we can do nothing with Mexico as to the settlement of any of the difficulties we have with her un til we either whip her, or make her believe we will do so. . . .1 think we ought to present to Mexico an ultimatum. Manning, op. cit., doc. 3563, 676-80. The private note is printed in the Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1899 (Washington: 1900^ II, "Calhoun Correspondence," 995. Hereafter cited as "AR of AHA for 1899, Calhoun Corres." 25 The Tyler administration did not act directly on that advice. It continued to press for the annexation of Texas, and in the last few days of its power acted to implement the Congressional resolution providing for the accession; but it took no further diplomatic action in Mexico. Shannon remained in Mexico uselessly until Polk's Secretary of State, James Buchanan, called him home.** The Shannon-Rejon exchange of notes in the fall of 1844 represents in summary the character, the tone, and much of the substance of the diplomacy of the United States in Mexico from the time of the arrival of the first United States minister there in the summer of 1825. A review of that twenty-year encounter between the two republics is required to do justice to the Polk administration. There is the danger, if one is ignorant of this background, of Callahan, op. cit., 131-32. The revolution which drove Santa Anna from power in early January, 1845, led Shannon to think that it might be possible to secure the American objectives from the new government; but there was no basis for this hope, as he soon discovered. Shannon letter to Duff Green, 15 January 1845, in the Duff Green Papers, Library of Congress. Hereafter cited as "L.C." On May 8, 1845, Shannon asked the Mexican government to provide him with a passport to enable him to leave the country. Manning, op. cit. doc. 3580, 714. 26 crediting Polk with far more originality and creativity in his aggressive designs against Mexico than is warranted. It is enough that he moved on from intrigue and threats to the direct use of force. In the spring of 1825 President John Quincy Adams sent Joel R. Poinsett as the first United States minister to the Republic of Mexico. Poinsett carried instructions requir ing him to attempt to persuade the government of Mexico to sell the province of Texas to the United States. He was to use the argument with the Mexican officials that such a cession would have the beneficial effect of placing the capital city of Mexico more nearly in the center of the country.^ Historians who have noted this extraordinary diplo matic instruction have referred to it as "amazingly naive," as having been considered an insult by Mexican officials, and as having aroused suspicion of American intentions; but they have not used the document to throw light upon the preconceptions of American diplomacy of the period in ^William R. Manning, Early Diplomatic Relations Between the United States and Mexico (Baltimore: 1916), 287-88. The letter of instructions was dated 26 March 1825, from Secretary of State Henry Clay. See also Callahan, op. cit., 33. £ relation to Mexico. Absurd behaviour is not simply absurd it means something. The President who authorized that dip lomatic instruction was not a provincial or a naive Ameri can , as some chief executives of the United States have been. John Quincy Adams was an astute statesman, trained in diplomatic negotiation by experience as the United States representative to the major nations of Europe: The Netherlands, Russia, Prussia, France, and Great Britain. Secretary of State Henry Clay, who drafted the instruction, while by no means Adams' equal in diplomatic experience, had been an American representative at Ghent in the negoti ation of the treaty with Britain which concluded the War of 1812 and he was an able politician. The diplomacy of the United States with Mexico was affected by the prevailing judgment of the American people on Mexicans. The attitude was that there was very little difference between an Indian and a Mexican; serious and respectful diplomacy was out of piece in either case. By the time of the Mexican War it was standard political 6Cf. S. E. Morison and H. S. Commager, Growth of the American Republic. I, 580. Or Thomas A. Bailey, A Diplomatic History of the American People (New York: 1964), 237. 28 rhetoric that the Mexicans were incapable of self-govern ment; the argument turned on whether or not the United States should undertake to govern them. One argument ran that it would be a violation of American political prin ciple to rule them as colonials and it would be destructive of the American government to allow the Mexicans to par ticipate in governing. The other position, as put by the chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in 1848, was that the Mexicans could be removed to reserva tions just as the Indians in the United States had been, and, as for voting, "the Indians had not gone up to vote that he knew of."? It is quite impossible to make sense of United States- Mexican relations in the period through the war and later without an understanding of this psychological factor, and it was in no way complex or subtle. One has always to keep in mind that United States actions reflected American con ceptions of Mexico and of Mexicans. Thus President Adams could sit in the capital of his country on the Atlantic ?Quoted by Frederick Merk, Manifest Destiny and Mission in American History: A Reinterpretation (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1963), 165-66. (From the Congressional Globe, 30 Cong., 1 Sess., 302-3 (February 4, 1848).) 29 shelf and Instruct his minister to Mexico to persuade the Mexicans that they should take advantage of the opportunity of getting their capital city nearer to the center of their territories by transferring Texas to the United States. If that is not understood, much else will not be understood. Forces and influences other than diplomatic were at work in Texas, as was somewhat later to be the case in California. Stephen F. Austin had obtained a concession from the Mexican government at the very beginning of its independence providing for the colonization of two hundred American families in one of the most fertile areas of Texas. In 1824 he was granted further privileges of colo nization. By 1830 there were 20,000 people there, slave and free. The Americans were growing restless under the rather unpredictable government in Mexico City, although in fact that government pursued a policy of neglect which was salutary for the Americans but which stored up problems for the future. The discontent was, indeed, more an uneasiness at the prospect of things to come than any present imposition. In 1829 slavery was abolished in Mexico, but the remonstrance in Texas was so vigorous that the province was excepted 30 from the decree.® The threat of the loss of their "chattel property" thenceforth hung over the heads of the Americans in Texas. Historians, intent upon disentangling themselves from the thesis of a conspiracy of the slavocracy in the Texas affair, have muted this note as a factor in the Texas revolution; but there is no question whatsoever that it played an important part. There were other causes of friction. Americans con stantly tried, and not always unsuccessfully, to evade the customs payments at the ports, and the immigration laws. They resented the Mexican army garrisons in Texas, a re sentment in which the racial factor played no small role, for here were inferiors armed and clothed with authority. This antagonism increased with the increase in American settlers, partly because in the early 1830's the frontier province became the refuge of restless and violent men from the Mississippi River towns and the gulf coast, men who assumed the lead in resisting the laws of the "foreigners" in whose land they lived. Poinsett discovered at the very beginning of his ®Hubert Howe Bancroft, History of the North Mexican States and Texas (San Francisco: 1889), Vol. II, 90-93. (Volum&IXVI of: the Works.) 31 mission that the Mexican government was suspicious of American intentions toward Texas; within the first month of his arrival in Mexico City he wrote to Clay that it would be preferable to await the effects of American immi gration which, by producing problems of government for Mexico, would make it less opposed to the cession of the territory. He kept the idea alive through his five-year mission, but he soon lost any expectation of success. In 1827 he was authorized to offer a million dollars for the territory north of the Rio Grande, but he found it hopeless and did not formally make the offer. When he privately hinted that the United States was prepared to offer a sub stantial money consideration, he was told that neither the executive nor the Mexican Congress would consent to the sale or dismemberment of Mexican territory which, in fact, Q was prohibited by the Constitution. Poinsett was an able man, probably the most competent American minister to hold that post prior to the war, an evaluation which does not constitute immoderate praise. But he made the cardinal error of becoming deeply involved in the politics of the country, particularly in connection ^Callahan, op. cit.. 50-53. 32 with his work in establishing the York Rite Masonic organi zation in that Roman Catholic nation. These activities were not helpful in the attempt to purchase a portion of the country and in December of 1829 he was replaced by President Andrew Jackson's good friend, Anthony Butler. Butler traveled to Mexico by way of Texas and wrote to Secretary of State Martin Van Buren from San Antonio that the bankrupt condition of Mexico should assist in attaining "the object so interesting to our government--a retro cession of Texas." He was carrying a letter from Jackson with instructions for that negotiation. The President said it was "very important to the harmony and peace of the two republics" that the United States acquire Texas, because the nature of the population in Texas was calculated to create "jealousy" in Mexico: "Its inhabitants will make an effort to set up a free government the moment they have the power, and we shall be charged with aiding this movement altho all our constitutional powers may be employed to prevent it." Jackson added a postscript advising a deceptive maneuver which he quite obviously regarded as shrewdly designed to manipulate the Mexican President. A letter of general instructions for Butler in his post would be sent 33 to him in care of Poinsett in Mexico City. These instruc tions, said President Jackson, you are at liberty to shew, very confidentially, and as a mere voluntary act of your own, to the President of Mexico, or other high functionaries of that Government. When you read them you will discover there is nothing said about the pur chase of Texas--you are referred to the instruc tion sent out by you, to Mr. Poinsett, for your government on that subject, and being left out of your general instructions, nothing but good can grow out of confidentially showing to the President these general instructions as a mark of your own confidence in him. It is all impor tant, that these instructions are shown to them of your own mere will. & begging at the same time that it may not be known to us--but in such a manner as to induce a belief that it must be kept a profund [sic! secrete [sic] from your own government, as on that event, it would destroy you. When you have read this P.S. and my private letter you will burn them both, first, if you please, taking notes from them--not being accustomed to diplomacy these might be stolen from you & made a handle against this government. This is a characteristic document of the period of American expansion for the thirty years prior to the Civil War. The sober, naive, and carefully ruthless officials of the American government betrayed the effects of the lOButler to Van Buren, 3 November 1829. Jackson to Butler, 19 October 1829, marked "Confidential." Anthony Butler Papers, University of Texas. 34 aggressive fever whenever they sought to use the power of the nation. They thought of themselves as adroit and shrewd and they habitually resorted to intrigue; and they never failed to be discovered. The Due de La Rochefoucauld had marked the type in the age of Louis XIV: a habit of intrigue, he said, is the mark of a little mind, and "the surest way to be taken in is to think oneself craftier than other people."11 Whether Butler tried Jackson's scheme does not appear; but if he did, no good came of it. He schemed and maneuvered for six years, and no good came of anything he tried. In a cast of men who were not burdened with scruples, Butler was the most unscrupulous, personally as well as in his official capacity. He had invested in Texas land and had a personal financial interest in the transfer of the territory to the United States. His financial operations in Mexico City were notorious; he was accused of having lent three thousand dollars to an English grocer there at the "usorious interest of 227* a month." He bullied officials of the Mexican government, threatened one 11Maxims of La Rochefoucauld, translated and with an introduction by L. W. Tancock (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1959), 50. 35 with chastisement and tried to fight a duel with him. Be had a reputation for scandalous conduct s o c i a l l y .^ Such a man made no contribution to the maintenance of good rela- tionSj or to the amicable settlement of problems which arose between the two nations. Yet Butler was retained in his post for six years. Butler conducted his pursuit of Texas in the same character as he did his personal affairs. On one occasion he suggested to Jackson that a loan be made to Mexico with Texas as security; he observed that this would be tanta mount to buying the territory since Mexico would be unable to repay the loan. His usual and persistent practice, however, was to seek the goal through bribery. He promised an official of the Mexican government that if he could contrive the cession of Texas he would personally receive $200,000. He wrote President Jackson that he would expect to use one million dollars of any sum available for the ■^Smith, War With Mexico. I, 62, and several letters in the Anthony Butler Papers, University of Texas. A copy of a letter from a citizen of Mexico to Secretary of State Edward Livingston dated 15 February 1833, charges Butler with dishonorable conduct towards honorable Mexican young women. There is a copy of Butler's letter of 15 August 1830 to the State Department defending himself against accusations made for his quarrel with General Tornel. 36 purchase of Texas in purchasing men, the remainder for the 13 purchase of the country. Jackson had in fact authorized the use of part of the money for bribery. He wrote to Butler: Provided you keep within your instructions and obtain the cession it is not for your con sideration whether the Government of Mexico applies the money to the purchase of men or to pay their public debt. It is not for you to inquire how they will apply the consideration for the cession which we shall pay— all we want is a good and unencumbered Cession of Territory. . . .^ Jackson was not prepared, however, for the open diplo macy which Butler practiced. The President wrote after receiving a report from Butler that he had read the 13 Draft letters, Butler to Jackson, 10 February and 14 September 1833, Butler Papers, Texas State Archives, Austin, Texas. In the latter Butler writes regarding Santa Ana: "Genl St. Anna is Ignorant, bigotted, and insincere. He is proverbially the most hypocritical and insincere of the whole Mexican Nation; and Heaven knows worse cannot be said." ^Jackson to Butler, 30 October 1833, marked "Private," Butler Papers, University of Texas. Earlier in the year, 14 February, Jackson had written: "The five millions of dollars being the consideration, it can be disposed of in the negotiation as the minister of Mexico appointed to confer with you, may deem proper. ..." Same file. "confidential letter" with "care, and astonishment . . . astonishment that you would entrust such a letter, without being in cypher, to the mall." The letter implied that authorization had been given to use some of the funds for the purpose of corrupting Mexican officials. Jackson said that "nothing could be farther from my intention than to convey such an idea." He warned Butler "to give these shrewd fellows no room to charge you with tampering with their officers to obtain the cession thro fsicl corrup tion." He concluded with the instruction: "The case is a plain & clear one--you are authorised to give five million of dollars for the cession of Texas as far west as the grand Desert. . . Butler felt ill-used by the President. He drew up a reply in which he said that more than two years earlier he had written to Jackson that "the best if not the only mode « • of procuring a transfer of T would be to apply a part of the sum designed as purchase money for the country to ^Jackson to Butler, 27 November 1833, Butler Papers, University of Texas. The "grand Desert" refers to the barren country between the Nueces and the Rio Grande. There are other references to this as the desirable boundary. This is significant in connection with the con troversy over the boundary which developed in 1845-46. See chapter IX, below. 38 conciliate certain individuals . . . and that to insure success to such a negotiation . . . it would be necessary to employ money as the agent . . . ." Butler quoted Jackson's reply that "it was a matter of no consequence to the U.S. Government how the money was expended/1 and said: Now 1 beg of you sir to weigh these ex pressions of yours and then say whether 1 could construe them in any other sense than as authority to make use of any part of the 5,000,000 in conciliating or corrupting If you please, in fluential individuals to aid me in the object con templated, and without which I saw that a suc cessful negotiation was out of the question. ® President Jackson made an effort to keep the govern ment, and himself, clear of any evidence of intent to bribe Mexican officials. On one occasion when he received a letter from Butler referring to the use of money to "smooth the negotiations," he scribbled on the back of the letter, "A. Butler. What a scamp!Jackson's true position is ■^Butler to Jackson, 6 February 1834, Butler Papers, Texas State Archives. He added that he planned to cover the bribes with a secret article providing payments to officials for personal indemnities. 17Rives, U.S. and Mexico, I, 255. A decade later opponents of the annexation of Texas discovered some of Butler'8 correspondence relating to bribery and published attacks on him. He felt he was being charged with respon sibility for methods authorized by the Government, and that Jackson, then in retirement at the Hermitage, should 39 made quite clear by the fact that he kept Butler in Mexico, engaged in these efforts, until the winter of 1835-36, when 18 Mexico asked for his recall. Powhattan Ellis was the next American minister; a federal judge in Mississippi, he was appointed just a few months before the Texans rebelled and established their independence. Anything like normal relations between Mexico and the United States became very difficult to achieve during the following decade. Mexicans saw the hand of the American government in the "Texas game" from defend him. He wrote to Jackson, 28 July 1843, reminding him that as early as May, 1830 the President had told him that "all Spaniards love money, and with the sum you have at command you may do much in securing the assistance of such as are necessary by appealing to their interest." Thereafter, he observed, Jackson had objected in writing to the idea of corruption, but when Butler returned to Washington to see him, in a private interview the President had assented "to my doing the very thing by which you had been so much startled," saying: "Settle it with Mr. Forsyth and manage the affair as you please' but do not let me know it." A year after Jackson's death Butler wrote to Poinsett to complain of the treatment he had received. He said he had told Jackson that one of the President's letters "would greatly lessen his reputation in the estima tion of the whole moral world if published." Butler Papers, University of Texas; 28 July 1843 letter is a photocopy of a letter in the Jackson papers, L.C.; 8 July 1846 letter to Poinsett, typed copy. *®Smith, War With Mexico. I, 63. 40 the beginning: the movement of American settlers into Texas, many legally and under contract, but many others illegally; the stimulation of resistance to the Mexican government; the furnishing of arms and men to fight the Mexican troops when the revolt began, and the incursion of American armed forces over the frontier line into Texas on one occasion during the rebellion of the Texans; and the long history of efforts by American representatives to secure the Mexican province, by devious and corrupt methods. When, within a short time after Texas had ex pelled Mexican power from the territory, efforts began to be made both in Texas and in the United States for its annexation and incorporation into the Union, the confir mation of all the charges of aggressive intrigue seemed complete. Although Mexico made no serious effort to reconquer Texas, she stubbornly refused to acknowledge the independ ence of the territory; just as Spain had refused for years to accept formally the loss of her one-time colonies in the Americas. Occasional clashes of small groups of armed forces erupted sporadically in the border regions of Mexico and Texas, more often due to Texan adventures than to Mexican initiatives. The continuing state of 41 hostilities contributed towards keeping the Texas question a running sore in Mexican politics. Further complicating the relations of the two coun tries were the claims which United States, citizens accumu lated through the years against the Mexican government for injuries suffered or financial losses sustained by actions of that government or of Mexican citizens. The government was unstable, to put the best face upon it, and often failed to maintain an orderly society; and the frequent revolutions made life and property unsafe even in the major urban centers. Foreigners and Mexican citizens suffered impartially. Britain and France put what pressure they could on Mexico to obtain financial satisfaction for their citizens, the latter resorting to a bombardment of Vera Cruz in 1838. But the United States urged its claims most aggressively over the years until in 1845 President Polk proposed to declare war against Mexico on that account if that government refused to settle the claims by trans ferring some of her territory. Mexico had from the beginning acknowledged her respon sibility for losses suffered by .Americans , a position which contrasted favorably with several state governments of the United States that had defaulted on their obligations to 42 British and French investors. Mississippi, Michigan, Arkansas and Florida, had simply repudiated the bonds which had been sold to European investors; by 1842 state debts, mostly held in Europe, amounted to nearly $200,000,000. In 1837 the American government formally presented fifty-seven cases to the government of Mexico and demanded redress. Mexico proposed arbitration by an international tribunal and a convention for the purpose was executed in April of 1839. In 1842 the sum of $2,026,149 was awarded to the United States. In January, 1843, an agreement was entered into providing for the payment of the sum, with interest, within five years in equal quarterly install ments. Three payments were made and then Mexico defaulted; the government did not repudiate, but admitted its inabil- 19 ity to pay. Prior to 1836 the effort of the American government to secure Texas had taken the form, as noted above, of diplo matic activity in Mexico, with some unusual variations. l^The "claims controversy" is treated at length by Clayton C. Kohl, Claims as a Cause of the Mexican War (New York: 1914), and more briefly in the histories of the War and in diplomatic histories. Jesse S. Reeves, American Diplomacy under Tyler and Polk (Baltimore: 1907), discusses the issues carefully. 43 During the decade following Texan- independence the effort necessarily took the form of a political campaign in the United States and in the Republic of Texas. That campaign had favorable prospects from the beginning. If there was a substantial sentiment for the incorporation of Texas in the American Union when it was a province of Mexico, it is not surprising that after 1836, when it was a country of former Americans with all their ties running into the American states, that the movement for acquisition should gain greatly increased strength. What needs explaining is not the incorporation of the territory after a decade, but rather the delay in that predictable development. The pro cess was delayed by the rising sectional controversy cen tering on the slavery issue and complicated by party poli tics in a period when political alignments were confused and party discipline was slack; by the development of some independent ’ ’ national" feeling in Texas, limited though it was pretty largely to political leaders there; and more directly by the circumstance that the President of the United States from 1837-41, Martin Van Buren, was not him self an advocate of annexation and drew his support largely from constituencies which were lukewarm on the matter if not actively hostile to the project. The situation changed in the summer of 1841 when John Tyler became President following the death of William Henry Harrison. He made the annexation of Texas his primary ob jective. This involved relations with Mexico, given the continuation of a state of belligerency between Texas and that country. There was also the problem of the boundary between Texas and Mexico if any peaceful relationship were to be established, whether with an independent Texas or with the United States.enlarged by the acquisition of the former Mexican province. Tyler also sought to acquire all or part of another Mexican province, Alta California. With the pursuit of this objective, all of the counters were in play which led on to the war with Mexico. It is important to turn to a close, if necessarily brief examination of the diplomacy of the United States with Mexico in the year just prior to the Polk-Stockton intrigue. Early in 1842 President Tyler named Waddy Thompson to replace Powhatan Ellis as American minister to Mexico. Thompson was a Whig who had been Congressman from his district in South Carolina from 1835 until 1841 and had been a vigorous advocate of the annexation of 45 20 Texas. While he was negotiating the claims agreement with Mexico in the summer of 1842, he received a letter from Secretary of State Daniel Webster suggesting that he "might take occasion to fall into conversation, if circum stances favor, with the Mexican Secretary, respecting California." At year's end Webster wrote again at some length on the desirability of California, remarking that he presumed Thompson had not regarded it expedient to discuss the matter with the Mexican government earlier, but that the subject might well be opened at this time.^ Webster thus connected the subjects of the claims, California, and the Texas controversy, and there was a very close continuity of diplomatic policy from this time 20 The original appointment document is in the Waddy Thompson Papers, L.C., as are other documents relating to the negotiation of the claims agreement with Mexico. In the Waddy Thompson Papers at the University of North Carolina there is a letter he wrote to his wife, dated 27 April 1842 from Mexico City, describing his journey to the capital, his appraisal of the people, his hopes for his mission, and his judgment of his predecessor, Powhatan Ellis: "1 find Ellis the late minister a well intentioned but very weak man." Brief information on Thompson's career is in Allen Johnson and Dumas Malone, editors, Dictionary of American Biography (New York: 1936), XVIII, 473-74. Hereafter cited as "DAB." 21 Webster to Thompson, 30 December 1842, Waddy Thompson Papers, University of Texas. on to the beginning of the war in the spring of 1846. Tyler's primary objective was Texas, but had he had time to do so once Texas was secured, it is safe to predict that he would have developed a drive for California much as Polk was to do. On the same date that his Secretary, Webster, wrote to Thompson on California, Tyler wrote the minister to say: "The acquisition of California is a thing uppermost in the public mind. Do you think that it is possible to bring it about?" California was not, in fact, uppermost in the public mind; it had not become a public issue at that time, nor during the campaign of 1844, nor ever prior to its acquisition during the war. From the time of Webster's tenure as Secretary of State, however, the ac quisition of California was an objective of the government in Washington, and it is not just coincidence that Webster*8 constituency was deeply interested in the com merce of California, the Northwest coast, and the Pacific 22 area generally. 22Tyler to Thompson, 30 December 1842, in the Waddy Thompson Papers at the University of Texas. The commercial motivation for the acquisition of Oregon and California is developed at length by Norman Graebner, Empire on the Pacific (New York: 1955). 47 Webster wrote directly to the point in his letter to Thompson dated 30 December 1842: The utility of a good port, on the Western end of the Continent, in those latitudes, to the Commerce & fisheries of the United States is sufficiently obvious. The Country, we suppose, is not at present, nor is soon likely to be, of any great value to Mexico. . . .There are not supposed to be more than three thousand inhabi tants, in the whole country; nor is it probable, that under any Goverment [sic!, a sudden & large increase of population would take place. . . .Its principal immediate value to the United States would be in its commercial advantages. Webster said he would be pleased if Thompson "should find an opportunity to feel the pulse of Mr. Bocanegra, the Mexican Minister of Relations, on the subject of California; Webster cautioned that "it must of course be done with great delicacy, & not with too much appearance of strong desire." The Secretary concluded his dispatch with a statement of what the United States had a right to expect of Mexico, which is another document of primary interest in an under standing of the American spirit in relation to its Latin American neighbor: The true policy of Mexico is quite obvious. It is, in the first place, to recognize Texas; in the second place, to let us take Upper California, for what it is fairly worth; &, finally, to give up projects of war, & aggran disement [sicJ], & turn her thoughts to peace, & 48 the improvement of her own resources. Any man will do her a great favor, who can enforce these truths upon her Goverment [sic]. Thompson made no progress in the effort to persuade Mexico to "let us take Upper California"; nor, of course, did any other diplomat, in Mexico or in Washington; it was an objective which required a war for its accomplishment, a conclusion to which Polk was to be reluctantly driven. Abel P. Upshur, appointed Secretary of State following Webster's resignation, devoted his efforts primarily to the annexation of Texas. One of the objections argued by the opponents of annexation was the complications which must inevitably ensue due to the continuing desultory oq Waddy Thompson Papers, University of Texas. Thompson was receiving additional encouragement from semi official sources. On 16 December 1842, W. B. Lewis, Jackson's close friend and an influential Washington figure, wrote: "If you can only obtain a cession of the port and Bay of St. Francisco to the U.States you will crown yourself with glory and lay your country under great additional obligations to you. Without that valuable and important Harbour, as a rendevouz [sic] for our Navy, it will be impossible for our Government to give an efficient protection to our commerce in the Pacific Ocean. But England will prevent any such cession if within her power. She wants that Harbour herself and is making, if I am not wrongly informed, great efforts to get it. You will, therefore, have to keep a bright look out.1,1' Waddy Thompson Papers, University of North Carolina. 49 hostilities on the Texas-Mexican border. On 13 December 1843, Upshur wrote Thompson that the United States should demand of Mexico that she either reach a settlement with Texas or "show her ability with respectable force to prose cute the war." That was an unusual requirement to be laid upon Mexico by a third country, a nation presumably not involved in the matter. But of course it did have impor tant significance in relation to the objectives of the American government.^ Upshur was killed by the gun explosion on Commodore Stockton's ship in February of 1844.^ Tyler appointed John C. Calhoun to replace him and that statesman pushed energetically, if not always diplomatically, for the acquisition of Texas. On his assumption of the office, a letter came from Jackson urging haste in annexing Texas and connecting that objective with California in a unique fashion, a conception which reflected his military experience on the frontier rather more than a grasp of the Cited by Bancroft, Mexico. V, 333. Bancroft com ments: "It is not clear why the government of the United States should take umbrage at Mexico's failure to wage an active warfare on its friends in Texas." ^See pages 135-137 below. realities of the foreign relations of the time. Jackson wrote that "the present golden moment to obtain Texas must not be lost, or Texas must, from necessity, be thrown into the arms of England and be forever lost to the United States." And if Great Britain controlled Texas, the former President asserted, that power could easily inter pose a force to stop emigration of Americans to California. The statement reveals that Jackson, even in retirement probably the most influential man in the Democratic Party, confidently assumed that after Texas was secured another Mexican province was to be acquired by the United States. During these years just prior to the war, whenever the Texas issue moved from the narrow one of simple annexation to the means, or to the difficulties which stood in the way, or to the opportunities which the Texas objective opened up, the scope of the discussion seemed automatically to expand to include California. Americans in California were quite conscious of the extent to which the Texas negotiations affected the future of the Mexican province in which they were living. In the minds of these .^Cited by John Bach McMaster, A History of the People of the United States (New York: 1910), VII, 323, referring to Is2* Poc. 271, 28th Cong., 1st Sees., vi, 109. 51 Americans who had gone beyond the American frontier, there was the settled calculation that all the western part of the continent would become part of the United States: Texas, Oregon, California, New Mexico--it was only a question of time and of the means to accomplish the change in sovereignty. The way in which these regions, under different sovereignties at the time but destined for United States ownership, were interrelated in the calculations of Ameri cans is illustrated in a letter which Thomas Oliver-Larkin, United States Consul in Monterey wrote to Robert J. Walker in August of 1844. Walker, soon to be Secretary of the Treasury in Polk's cabinet, was one of the most vigorous advocates of American expansion, to the south, the west, and the north. Larkin asked for a copy of a Walker letter which had appeared in the New Orleans Bulletin of 23 March 1844, on the annexation of Texas, as a "great favor to me and my countrymen living in the farest fsic] West, for we are far beyond what is known by the 'Far West' in the States." Larkin referred to Walker as being the "oldest advocate" of extending U. S. jurisdiction over Oregon, and then added: 52 By a New York paper I found a list of about twenty Senators of our Congress, who are deter mined not to part with an inch of the Origon fslcl unless the English Government can purchase degrees of California and exchange it for the same number of degrees North of the Columbia I?sic 1. The American who brings this arrangement into effect will deserve well of his country. As the Admin- istrador of this Custom House observed to me, that would be a Yankee bargain, outstripping all the Yankee's [sic] had ever done be fore in the way of trade (here we all pass for Yankees whether from Maine or Florida). Should this ever be accomplished, two more degrees South should be added to enclude [sic! all California, if agreeable to Mexico.27 By the summer of 1844 the annexation of Texas had become the major political issue in the presidential 27Larkin letter of 4 August 1844, in George P. Hammond, editor, The Larkin Papers (Berkeley: 1952), II, 181-83. Larkin noted realistically that "every Nation holds all its possessions valuable, and perhaps the more remote the land, the more strong the desire to retain it." He thought that California was in fact of "no service to Mexico," the thought that California was in fact of "no service to Mexico," the difference of feeling between the province and the government in Mexico was "very great," and "although war is now expected between Mexico and the United States, respecting Texas, the Americans in Califor nia receive the usual respect from the Citizens of this country." Some Americans in California, however, were apprehensive about their safety. A month after these remarks by Larkin, John Coffin Jones of Santa Barbara asked Larkin, as U.S. Consul, to request of the Department of State that a ship of war be stationed on the California coast. Jones said he did not "fear war with Mexico my self," but it "looks strange that the American Army is on the borders of Texas and a fleet near Vera Cruz. Some thing may blow up yet," Dated 4 September 1844, in ibid.. 215. 53 campaign; joined with the demand for all of Oregon, expan sion became the dominant theme. California, on the ether hand, although an objective of first importance to some influential men in Washington and in New England— a politi cal- commercial power elite--was not, as indicated above, in any real sense a public issue. The bulk of the evidence on the American desire for California is not to be found in political speeches in or out of Congress, but in the cor respondence of the officials of the government, and of those firms and individuals engaged in commerce on the Pacific coast. A typical evidence of the latter is a let ter from Alfred Robinson to Larkin in June of 1844. Robin son had been resident agent in Santa Barbara for Bryant, Sturgis and Company in the 1830's, a Boston company engag ing in the hide and tallow trade in California. Writing from Boston, Robinson told his friend Larkin that "a rumor is in agitation to acquire . . . Texas as well as that of California by purchase. . . 2®Letter of 30 June 1844, in Hammond, Larkin Papers, II, 159. Robinson was critical of Tyler for what he con sidered a too aggressive military stance in the negotia tions with Mexico. Tyler had ordered the Gulf Squadron to cruise off the coast of Mexico; but he was more re strained in his use of power than Polk was to be. 54 The continuity through the Tyler and Polk administra tions in the aggressive policy towards Mexico has been em phasized above; there should be an emphasis upon the dif ference in methods, in style. There was a lack of re straint apparent in Polk's drive for territory, far more than in the earlier administration. And the diplomacy of Webster and Calhoun was more open and direct than that of Polk. The difference, indeed, went beyond style; Calhoun was intent upon avoiding a war with Mexico and although he approved of Polk's objectives he refused to support Polk when the President forced the war; he denounced the request for a declaration of war against Mexico, and refused to vote for it. Near the end of the war Calhoun stated the grounds of his opposition to the war in a speech in the Senate: I, then, opposed the war, not only because it might have been easily avoided; not only because the President had no authority to order a part of the disputed territory in possession of the Mexicans to be occupied by our troops; not only because I believed the allegations upon which Congress sanctioned the war untrue; but from high considerations of policy— because 1 believed it would lead to many and serious evils to the country, and greatly endanger its free institu tions.^ ^Richard K. Cralle, editor, The Works of John C. 55 It is, of course, possible that had Calhoun been re sponsible for the conduct of United States foreign policy subsequent to the annexation of Texas he might have moved on to the use of force against Mexico to secure additional territory. But in fact when he directed American relations and actions towards Mexico, as he did under President Tyler, he sought to use neither war nor the threat of war to obtain United States objectives. Calhoun's policy was expressed very well in a letter he wrote to William R. King the United States Minister to France, in August of 1844. The French government had been cooperating with the British Calhoun (New York: 1888), IV, 396-97. On another occasion, referring to Polk's statement that "war exists by act of Mexico," he said: "It was just as impossible for him to vote for that preamble as it was for him to plunge a dagger into his own heart, and more so." Quoted by Allan Nevins, Diary of a President (New York: 1929), 89, note. President Polk talked to Calhoun on several occasions about Mexican policy prior to the war, and recorded In his diary that the Senator consistently urged peaceful settlement. For exam ple, on 18 April 1846, less than a month before the declar ation of war. Polk told Calhoun: "I saw no alternative but strong measures towards Mexico." His diary entry continues "Mr. Calhoun deprecated war and expressed a hope that the Oregon question would be first settled, and then we would have no difficulty in adjusting our difficulties with Mexico." Quaife, Diary of Polk, I, 337. in an attempt to prevent the United States annexation of Texas, and Calhoun thought it would lessen French opposi tion to annexation if they adequately understood the char acter of American expansion. Calhoun wrote that "it would be a great mistake to suppose that this government has any hostile feelings towards Mexico, or any disposition to aggrandize itself at her expense. The fact is the very reverse." Now that statement, had it stood alone, would have lacked something in accuracy and even more in candor; but Calhoun went on to say that although the United States was not a static power, its method of expanding its areas was unexceptionable, "it is our policy," he said, "to increase, by growing and spreading out into unoccupied regions, assimilating all we incorporate: in a word, to increase by accretion and not, through conquest, by the addition of masses held together by the cohesion of force." On the immediate issue he wished the Government of France to consider that if the annexation of Texas should be permitted to take place peaceably now, (as it would, with out the interference of other powers), the energies of our people would, for a long time to come, be directed to the peaceable pursuits of redeeming, and bringing within the pale of cultivation, improvements, and civilization, the large portion of the continent frsic] lying between Mexico on one side, and the British 57 possessions on the other, which is now, with little exception, a wilderness with a sparse population, consisting for the most part of wandering Indian tribes. ® Calhoun was content to see the expansion of the Ameri can people as a sort of natural force, pushing irregularly beyond the boundaries of the Union, and only in good time "ratified" by governmental action. Now the difference be tween this on the one hand, and the program of aggressive expansion under Polk on the other, may not have appeared to be very substantial either to the Mexican government or to the French and British. But if the general consequences were similar in the prospective destruction of any balance of power in the Americas (as the French government appre hended) , the general spirit was different, and the methods rather more so. This becomes clear as one follows the Mexican policy of the government in transition from the Tyler-Calhoun administration to the administration of Polk, In the spring of 1844 Calhoun negotiated an annexation treaty with Texas. One basis for objection to annexation was the possibility of an attack on Texas by Mexico during 3°Calhoun to King, 12 August 1844, as printed in Niles' National Register. 21 December 1844, 247-48. Tyler had sent the letter to Congress as a document accompanying his fourth annual message. 58 the process and before that territory had become de jure a part of the United States. Calhoun pledged the United States to defend Texas during the interim period, but neither then, nor later when he was again a Senator from South Carolina observing Polk's handling of the accession, did he think such an attack at all likely. He agreed with the last United States Minister to Mexico, Wilson Shannon. Shannon, as demonstrated above, was bellicose and advocated that the United States apply force or the threat of force; but he was sure that if there was to be war the United States would have to initiate it. Shannon wrote to Calhoun in October of 1844: Neither Santa Anna nor Congress will think of renewing the war against Texas so long as it is believed that the U.S. will have to be en countered as well as Texas. ... I see it is predicted in some of the papers in the U.S. that Mexico will declare war against the U. S.; there is as much possibility that the Emperor of China will do so. * The difficulty in the success of the annexation movement was not in Mexico, nor in Texas; it was in the 31 Calhoun letter to J. P. Henderson and J. Van Zandt, Ministers to the United States from the Republic of Texas, 11 April 1844, Anson Jones Papers, University of Texas. Shannon to Calhoun, 29 October 1844, in the AR of AHA for 1899, II, 981. 59 United States. A treaty of annexation was signed with representatives of the Republic of Texas on 12 April 1844, but it failed of ratification in the United States Senate on 8 June. The proponents of the measure then threw the question into the Presidential campaign. The Whig nominee, Henry Clay, had early expressed his opposition to annexation, partly on the ground of the danger of war with Mexico as a consequence. James K. Polk was on record in support of the accession. The rejection of the treaty by the Senate seemed to indicate that the sentiment of the country was against the measure and that the Whigs were on safe ground in nominating a man who opposed it; but the Senate vote was deceptive, for as the campaign developed it became evident that there was strong support for Texas in the upper Mississippi and Ohio valley area, as well as in the aouth and southwest. Clay was moved by the indications of proannexationist feeling to revise his position. In July and August he said that he would be glad to see Texas annexed if it could be done "without dishonor, without war, with the common con sent of the Union, on just and fair terms." This won him little support in the annexationist camp, for Polk was quite clearly more thoroughly committed to Texas than was 60 Clay; and it drove some Clay support to an antislavery party in the northeastern region. Polk won the election in a close contest. Clay would have been elected had he received a little more than 5,000 of the some 15,000 votes in New York state which went to James G. Bimey, the nomi- 32 nee of the Liberty Party. Proponents of annexation asserted that Polk's victory was a mandate from the people for taking Texas into the Union. The election of an individual to office is rarely a certain mandate on any issue, but persuasive, usable fictions are important facts in human affairs and Tyler and Calhoun were able to use the argument effectively in moving an annexation bill through Congress. Since it was still impossible to secure the two-thirds majority in the Senate which was necessary to ratify a treaty, proponents turned to the device of a joint resolution by the Senate and the House providing for the incorporation of Texas as a state. Even that proved impossible to accomplish until an amend ment was added providing for negotiation with the Republic 32]yicMaster, o£. cit. , VII, 388-89. For a detailed, pedestrian discussion of the campaign see Eugene I. McCormac, James K. Polk; A Political Biography (Berkeley: 1922), chapter xiii, 248-83. of Texas, at the discretion of the President of the United States, to arrange mutually satisfactory terms for the accession. This sufficed to enlist the necessary support of five senators, after they were persuaded that the execu tive would choose the method provided by the amendment. It was assumed that incoming President Polk would make the choice, since the bill was passed on 27 February 1845, and Tyler signed it on 1 March, leaving only three days in his term. But after an informal and unsuccessful effort to secure an opinion from Polk, Tyler proceeded with instruc tions to the United States chargts in Texas: he was to ignore the amendment and simply seek acceptance by Texas of the offer of annexation. Such problems as the bounda ries of Texas, and the responsibility for the Texas national debt would be taken up later, after Texas had 33 become a state in the Union. Tyler had appointed Andrew Jackson Donelson charge d1 affaires in Texas in September of 1844. Donelson was the nephew and namesake and formerly private secretary of the former President. The selection was calculated to ^Justin H. Smith, The Annexation of Texas (New York: 1941), 234-381 and passim. McCorMac, Polk, 308-18. 62 exploit Jackson's influence in Washington and in Texas; it was particularly designed to be effective in enlisting the support of Sam Houston.^ Calhoun sent Donelson instruc tions on the night of 3 March, enclosing a copy of the joint resolutions adopted by Congress and urging him to counteract the attempt "of one of the leading foreign powers against the measure." The reference was to Great Britain, with whom Calhoun had been carrying on a corres pondence which had become notorious. The Secretary placed the necessity for the annexing of Texas on the ground that only so could slavery be defended in the United States against the efforts of Great Britain to eliminate the 3 s institution everywhere. 34Calhoun to Donelson, 16 September 1844, in AR of AHA for 1899, Calhoun Corres. , II, 614-15. Donelson was active in Democratic politics in Tennessee; he worked effectively for Folk in the summer of 1844, as is indica ted in letters in the Andrew Jackson Donelson Papers in the Library of Congress; cf. Polk to Donelson, 22 July, on Texas and politics; Buchanan to Donelson, 17 July, on politics; and George Bancroft to Donelson, 6 July, on political developments. Llerena Friend, Sam Houston: The Great Designer (Austin: 1954), 144, discusses the rela tionship among Houston, Donelson, and Jackson. •^Calhoun to Donelson, 3 March 1845, in Ex. Doc.. 1st. Sess., 29th Cong., Serial Set #480, Doc. #2, 25-27. Calhoun's judgment has commonly been faulted by historians for making the slavery issue the primary consideration in 63 When Polk assumed office he wrote to Donelson asking him to await specific instructions which would be forth coming as soon as the cabinet should be formed and have time to consider the matter. On 10 March 1845, Secretary of State Buchanan instructed the charge to continue the efforts he had begun under Tyler.36 James K. Polk was now in control of American power. In turning to an examination of his use of that power in his relations with Mexico it is essential to understand the status of the Texas question in March of 1845. The issue of Texas annexation had been the most important single issue in the presidential campaign of 1844, the campaign in which Polk was elected. It might therefore seem to follow that the annexation of Texas was the most important business in hand when Polk assumed the executive leadership the Texas controversy. Charles M. Wiltse, John C. Calhoun: Sectlonalist. 1840-1850 (New York: 1951), 171, agrees that it was tactically unwise but writes: "Slavery . . . was the real stake in Texas, and he was fundamentally too honest to pretend it was anything else," since "American policy required the preservation of slavery, even as British policy required its destruction," ■^Polk to Donelson, 7 March 1845, Donelson Papers, L.C.; Buchanan to Archibald Yell and to Donelson, 10 March 1845, Instructions to Diplomatic Agents, Texas, State Department Archives, National Archives. 64 of the nation, and the matter which required his closest attention. That, however, was not the case. The struggle for the annexation of Texas had taken place before Polk's inaugura tion; the issue had been decided, the Congress had acted, there remained only the implementation of that action through the acceptance of the offer by the government of the Republic of Texas. That acceptance was, in fact, no more than a formality, and it was known to be so by virtually every qualified observer in Texas during this period, as will become quite clear in the examination of the matter which follows. There was some reluctance on the part of certain Texan leaders, there were efforts to prevent annexation by representatives of the British and French governments, the Mexican government felt badly used and was disposed to threaten and bluster; but none of this mattered. There was in Texas such a large majority for joining the Union that there was no possibility that Texas would refuse the offer extended by the Congress. Some had doubts about the adequacy of the terms of annexation, the lack of assurance on the boundary and on the public debt; but these reservations were brushed aside by the over whelming pressure of public opinion in Texas. 65 The acquisition of Texas, although it was completed in the first year of Polk's term, is properly attributed to the administration of John Tyler. Polk himself gave in direct agreement to this judgment when he formulated the objectives of his administration. George Bancroft, Secretary of the Navy in Polk's cabinet, recorded much later that soon after Polk took the oath of office he listed the items in his program: 'There are four great measures,' said he, with emphasis, striking his thigh forcibly as he spoke, 'which are to be the measures of my administration: one, a reduction of the tariff; another, the independent treasury; a third, the settlement of the Oregon boundary question; and, lastly, the acquisition of California. The annexation of Texas does not appear in the list because that was a settled matter. In Polk's correspond ence with his agents in Texas, however, and in the records of the State Department during the spring and early summer of 1845, frequent anxiety is expressed about the uncertain ty of success in the effort to secure Texas. It is the 37 James Schouler, History of the United States (New York: 1894), IV, 498. It is fair to say that It Is appro priate to have some scepticism about this neat formulation, first recorded some forty years after the successful accomplishment of precisely those measures listed. 66 contention of this study that through the first year of Polk's term, until the beginning of hostilities with Mexico in May of 1846, the problem was not the annexation of Texas t not the protection of Texas from attack by Mexico, not the boundary of Texas. The problem, and the oppor tunity as Polk saw it, was how to use Texas as a means of achieving one of the "great measures" of his administra tion- -the acquisition of California. CHAPTER III A PRELIMINARY INTRIGUE: THE DUFF (SEEN SCHEME In the winter of 1844-45, while President-elect Polk was selecting his cabinet officers and developing plans for his administration, a prominent Democratic politician was in Texas engaged in a plot to detach the northern provinces from the Republic of Mexico. The effort failed because of the refusal of the government of Texas to cooperate in the creation of a "private" army to conquer and secure the region. In its methods and goals and in the character of the difficulties it faced, this scheme was similar to the secret operation which President Polk initiated in April and May of 1845, but with the major difference that it was not provided with covert support by the government of the United States. Duff Green had been one of the most influential men in the Democratic Party from the time of Jackson's first ad ministration. He was editor of the United States Telegraph. printer to Congress, and a member of Jackson's Kitchen Cabinet. When the break came between Jackson and Calhoun, however, Green followed the latter; there was a family 67 68 connection— Calhoun's son had married Green's daughter. In 1840 he was influential in Tyler's being selected to run with Harrison on the Whig ticket, and when Tyler became President Green had his choice of appointments. At his request he was sent to Britain and France as an unofficial representative of the United States. He was there in 1842 and 1843 and became alarmed at the openly expressed inten tion of high officials in the British government to work for the abolition of slavery in Texas and in the United States. His warning to Calhoun was responsible for the correspondence on the subject between Richard Pakenham and the Secretary of State. Green returned to the United States in January of 1844 and established a journal in New York which supported the Southern cause in the sectional controversy, and he was a strong advocate of the annexation of Texas. In September of 1844 Tyler appointed him United States consul at Galveston, Texas, but there had apparently been an understanding that he was to be free to engage in other interests. He went immediately from Texas to Mexico City, to assist in the effort to acquire California and New Mexico as well as Texas.1 IpAB. VIZ, 540-41; the article is by Fletcher M. Green. On 28 October 1844 Green wrote to Calhoun from Mexico City that he was "convinced that it is impossible to obtain the consent of this government to the Cession to the United States of Texas, California or any part of the public domain of Mexico whatever." Green's reference here and elsewhere in his correspondence to Mexico's "selling Texas," to the United States, a decade after Texas had established de facto independence from Mexico, reveals something of the way the acquisition of that territory appeared to the annexationists, as well as to those who opposed the ac quisition of Texas. Green told Calhoun that the "state of public opinion is such that any party, being in power, and selling Texas or California to the United States, would be driven from office and . . . the chances are as ten to one that ^heir doing so would be used as an argument for shooting them and confiscating their property . . . He closed the letter by referring to his plan, which he did not wish to put in The official appointment document for the consular post at Galveston is in the Duff Green Papers, L. C. Green's vision of American expansion included the Caribbean area; during the war with Mexico he advocated the emigration of Americans to Santo Domingo for the explicitly stated pur pose of acquiring it when an American community had been established there. 70 writing at the time, for the acquisition of the territories in question: I believe that there is one way and but one in which all that our Government desire and much more than you ask can be had, but I am not now prepared to submit my Views to paper. 1 reserve them for personal explanation, and until after I have visited Texas.^ His plan, as became apparent a couple of months later when he tried to put it in operation in Texas, envisaged the acquisition of not only the Mexican provinces of New Mexico and Alta California in addition to Texas, but also another tier of provinces in northern Mexico. But in his letters from Mexico City and later he emphasized the value of California, which, he said, would "necessarily command the settlements on the Columbia." He warned that the British were scheming to take possession of Alta California. Green wrote another long letter to the Secretary of ^Green to Calhoun, 28 October 1844, in AR of AHA for 1899, II, 975-80. On the same date Green wrote to R. K. Cralle, a close associate of Calhoun's, and later to be the editor of Calhoun's writings, a letter making many of the same points and stating that he did not expect to retain the consular office at Galveston. In the Duff Green Papers, L.C. 71 State before leaving for Texas in the middle of November. He flatly advocated a war against Mexico initiated by the United States. Green's analysis of the political factors in Mexico in relation to the objectives of the United States stands up rather well when measured by subsequent events. He thought Santa Anna might be overthrown, but that would be of no particular advantage to the United i**" States, for it could be assumed that "such is the state of public opinion that any party coming into power on his down fall will be compelled to take as strong or stronger ground against the United States than he has done." Green said that Santa Anna preferred "angry negotia tions" to settling the question of Texas. He did not think the annexation of Texas would lead to war "because Santa Anna knows that he cannot sustain himself in a war with us," but, he told Calhoun: You cannot have peace with Mexico without a war. They have so long bullied, insulted and plundered us with impunity that they have lost all respect for us as a nation, altho they fear us as a people. It appeared to him, he said, that "the Government of the United States have no alternative, that they cannot be content with the annexation of Texas." The United States must demand a withdrawal of the charges made by the 72 Mexican government against the United States in relation to the Texas matter, and "an immediate adjustment of all our Claims against Mexico." Green said that "this will not be done and a war must be the consequence." The ag gressive and combative spirit of American leadership in the 1840's, later to be given direction by President Polk, comes out clearly in Green's statement: "Indeed the time has come when we have no alternative but to punish Mexico and other nations [emphasis added] into a proper respect for national character." Green argued the case for war: We have no means of regaining the trade of Mexico but by chastising them into decent be havior and the advantage of a war with Mexico will be that we can indemnify ourselves while by chastising Mexico, we will show other nations what we can and will do and command their respect also. If you could go abroad as 1 have done you would feel that we have lost caste and that nothing but a war can regain the position we have lost. A war with Mexico will cost us nothing, and reinstate us in the esti mation of other nations.3 President Polk was to make precisely the same point after the war with Mexico, the increased respect from European nations as a consequence of the demonstration of United States will to fight and the ability to do so. 3Green to Calhoun. 12 November 1844. in AR of AHA for 1899, II, 991-95. 73 Green was in Galveston in late November and from there he wrote to Calhoun: "I do not believe that you can accom plish anything with Mexico unless you seeze [.sic] upon Vera Cruz, and . . . this may be done with a very small force if it is done promptly." He added somewhat enig matically: "If we take the town and fort they should not be given up, as they are the keys to the commerce of Mexico."4 Green's judgment of the sentiment in Texas on annexa tion agreed with other estimates; he told Calhoun that it was "safe so far as Texas is concerned." Indeed, he was so certain about the disposition of Texans on the matter that he thought it would be perfectly safe for the govern ment in Washington to use the issue with an eye to its political effect, delaying the consummation of annexation for that purpose: In the mean time I am by no means sure that it will be for the interest of the United States or of Texas that the question should be closed now. The effort of the opposition will be to organize the north against the south. Abolition— the tariff, and native Republicanism, against South Carolina. If the new administration keeps the Texas question as one of the measures for 429 November 1844, in ibid., 1003. 74 the new organisation of parties, it will give the administration strength, and the success of the measure will be an administration triumph which will go far to establish its power.^ In a letter to charge Donelson, Green expressed the same confidence in the desire of the Texans for annexation. He said there was some possibility that "the Whigs & Benton would unite to pass a bill for annexation on terms which would be rejected by Texas, and thus delay it. But, he said, there "is nothing to fear in Texas by deferring the question until next year." He noted that the British representative, Charles Elliot, was there at the capital of Texas, promising that Britain would obtain the consent of Mexico to Texan independence if Texas would pledge her self against annexation, but he said there was no ground 5Ibid., 1007, Green assumed at this time that Calhoun would be retained as Secretary of State by Polk. On 20 January he wrote to the President-elect from Texas that he had heard that Polk had said his "chief difficulty was how you would get rid of Mr. Calhoun." He remonstrated against this, as designed to set the South against the new adminis tration. "If you suppose that by doing so you can promote the public interest or advance your own fame you will, in my opinion, greatly err." Duff Green Papers, L.C. This copy is a rough draft; it is not certain that such a letter was sent to Polk. 75 for concern: "Elliot can do nothing here. Make yourself easy as to his movements."** Green, in the Republic of Texas presumably as the United States consul at Galveston, had a far more impor tant project underway, the "one way," as he had told Calhoun, by which "all that our Government desire and much more" could be obtained. The substance of the project was the chartering of a corporation by the government of Texas, the "Del Norte Company." This private corporation would then proceed to conquer all of northern Mexico by forming an army composed of the Indians of the western plains of the United States. Thus when Texas should be annexed by the United States, the transfer would include some two- thirds of the territory then a part of the Mexican Republic. As the British consul at Galveston put it: "Before the 'espousals' are perfected" Green "desired that the bride should bring a still more ample dowry."7 Green succeeded at once in making himself thoroughly objectionable to the government of Texas. His attitude ^Letter of 20 December 1844, in Donelson Papers, L.C. 7Berbert Gambrell, Anson Jones (New York: 1948), 381. 76 towards that government was the same as that of the agents whom Polk sent to Texas a few months later: the government of Texas should act as an arm of the United States govern ment in measures against Mexico; any disinclination to do so was, as Commodore Stockton was later to state it, an act of treason against the United States. Donelson attempted to defend Green against the most severe charges brought against him, but he had to grant that Green was "out of his sphere, and not defensible as a Counsul [sic! In a letter to Secretary of State Calhoun on 27 January 1845, quite obviously conscious as he wrote that Green was a member of Calhoun's family, Donelson said: He was full of zeal in the cause of annexa tion, and mistaking the sense in which the mem bers of Congress [of Texas] heard his project for the defence of the Western frontier and the invasion of Mexico, approached the President too familiarly, but without a doubt of his disposi tion, if not to concur in his views, at least to consider them in a spirit of kindness. Whereas in truth his movements were watched with suspicion from the beginning, and before he was aware of it, he was involved in the responsibility of measures, contemplating a serious change in the policy of the Republic, employing the Indians of the U. States and Texas in the invasion of Mexico, and revolu tionizing the country from the Rio Grande to the Pacific under the flag of Texas.8 8AR of AHA for 1899, II, 1019-20. 77 It was the best possible face which Donelson could put upon the activities of a colleague representing the United States government in the Republic of Texas. Green had certainly not become involved "before he was aware of it," in measures to change the foreign policy of Texas. When Donelson received an official complaint from the government of Texas on the behaviour of Green, he was forced to be more candid in his comments. The complaint came from the acting Secretary of State, Ebenezer Allen (Ashbel Smith having been sent to London), who on 4 January 1845 wrote to Donelson enclosing a proc lamation of President Jones revoking the Exequatur of "Duff Green, Esq., as Consul of the United States for Galveston." Green, Allen said, had fixed his residence at the capital of Texas when the legislature met, and "has ever since been industriously occupied in endeavouring to procure the sanc tion of Congress to certain projected measures, in the consumation f sicl of which, he has manifested strong personal interest," trying to influence the members of the legislature "in aid of his favorites fsicl schemes." One of these schemes was a bill to incorporate an institution to be styled "The Texas Land Company," under a perpetual charter, to acquire and dispose of real estate 78 to an unlimited amount, "together with the power and capacity to monopolize the exclusive and perpetual use of all our navigable streams." Another was a plan for the charter of the 'Del Norte Company,' so to be called, also ^ projected by Mr. Green, and designed to become a law by the action of the legislature, but which has not as yet been presented to Congress;— having in part for its object, the conquest and occupancy in behalf of Texas, of the Callfornias, and the Northern Provinces of Mexico, by means of an army aided by some sixty thousand Indian warriors, to be introduced from the United States upon our Western frontier. Allen said that this consular representative of the United States had solicited the aid and influence of President Jones in his scheme on several occasions. On 30 December he had tried to induce this aid by an offer of portions of the corporate stocks of the projected com panies; and by "a threat to revolutionize the country and overthrow the existing government, in the event of His Excellency's refusing to accede to the proposal." Green had said that he could easily execute this threat, in the then state of public opinion in Texas.^ 9Allen's letter and Donelson's reply of 6 January 1845 are in AR of AHA for 1908, Pt. II, Vol. II, No. 1, "Diplomatic Correspondence of the Republic of Texas," 332-34, and 335-37. 79 In his reply Donelson made an effort to separate Green from his office as United States consul. He was at pains to emphasize that in urging the scheme Green was not acting as a representative of the United States. Donelson said he had met Green "soon after his arrival here as the bearer of dispatches from Mexico," and when questioned about his consular duties Green had said that he was about to become a citizen of Texas, that he had appointed a vice- consul at Galveston, that he would not continue in his position and "would perform no further official act." Donelson said to the Secretary of State of Texas that although Green was "within the range of the responsibility imposed by an Exequatur from this Government," he was "practically only a new comer into Texas with the intention of acquiring the rights of citizenship." Thus, Donelson argued, as persuasively as the intractable facts would allow, "the objectionable conduct imputed to him, ceases to have any higher importance than what belongs to his individual, private, character. ..." Donelson thought it necessary to disapprove explicitly the purposes and actions of Green and to disassociate him self entirely from him. He anserted that he had had no knowledge of the measures being taken by Green, and had 80 not participated in them either directly or indirectly, either as a public officer or as a private individual: Indeed [he wrote] those measures conflict essentially with the course of policy which the undersigned, if consulted, would have suggested as the most expedient for Texas at the present period. As the friend of reannexation he cer tainly could not have thought of a step, the effect of which would be to countenance the idea that the country between the Rio del Norte and the Pacific ocean was to be invaded and severed by another revolution from Mexico. . . . Any policy which would raise new issues, which would entangle Texas in new enterprises calling for; further aid in money or munitions of war, would be contrary to what the under signed has supposed to be the wish and interest of Texas. . . . One learns to look at such assertions of denial of official responsibility in diplomatic correspondence with very great skepticism, and such skepticism is never more appropriate than when examining the statements of repre sentatives of the American government on the subjects of Texas, California, and Mexico in the 1840's. But Donelson's actions and his correspondence throughout these months support the interpretation that this was a candid, frank and honest statement of hi* own views and his own performance in attempting to facilitate annexation without introducing any complicating factors. There is no slightest evidence that he had any ulterior personal 81 motives of any kind, and he quite clearly did not seek to make annexation but one step in a process of much greater expansion of American territory. Selected by Tyler and Calhoun and retained by Polk largely because his relation ship with Jackson gave him effective influence in Texas, they thus selected, as it happened, an able, conscientious, and straightforward representative. Donelson provided a respectable cover for the intrigues of unofficial repre sentatives of the United States government, and, in instances of conflict of purpose, Washington gave Donelson public support. This does not mean that the agents were cast aside. Duff Green had been acting, so far as can be discovered from the records now, on his own initiative; he had attempted to bribe the President of the Republic of Texas and other officials of that government to win their support for an attack upon the northern provinces of Mexico; he had failed in his scheme and his intrigue had become public knowledge, in Texas and in Washington. A resolution of the Senate of the United States on 4 February 1845 requested the President to communicate to the Senate, if it was not inconsistent with the public interest, "whether Mr. Duff Green does now hold or has lately held any diplomatic or official station near the government of Texas, and, if so, what?" The query also concerned his date of appointment, his salary, and the instructions given him. Secretary of State Calhoun replied for the President that Green had been appointed consul at Galveston on 12 September 1844, had received the "ordinary printed instruc tions" from the department, that he had received no salary, and that "he neither holds nor has held any diplomatic or other official station near the government of Texas. Thus the government of the United States disassociated itself from Green's notorious scheme. But the judgment of the Polk administration on Duff Green is demonstrated in the appointment it gave him at the end of the war. He was selected as the commissioner to pay to Mexico the fifteen million dollars which the United States agreed to as com pensation to Mexico in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Before that war began, however, President Polk set in motion an intrigue in Texas designed to initiate a war between Texas and Mexico prior to the completion of the 10Calhoun's letter was dated 6 February. The exchange was printed in the National Intelligencer on 8 February 1845. 83 annexation of Texas. The United States would then immedi ately come to the defense of Texas, and the responsibility for the war would not appear to rest with the United States. That war would enable Polk to accomplish one of the "great measures" of his administration, the acquisition of Cali fornia. That intrigue failed, however, and Polk was finally driven to preparation for a declaration of war on Mexico on the grounds of the failure to pay American claims, a measure of desperation from which he was saved by the beginning of hostilities following upon the sending of United States military forces into Mexican settlements on the Rio Grande. The official document which marks the beginning of this intrigue is the order from George Bancroft to Commodore Robert Field Stockton, commanding a squadron of United States vessels in Hampton Roads, dated 22 April 1845. The letter was a cover for the secret mission of Stockton in Texas. It reads: You will proceed with the vessels that have been placed under your command to the vicinity of Galveston, Texas, and lay as close to the shore as security will permit. You will take one of the vessels into the port of Galveston, and there display the American flag; or more if the bar will permit. 84 You will yourself go on shore, and make your self acquainted with the dispositions of the people of Texas, and their relations with Mexico, of which you will make report to this Department. After remaining at or off Galveston as long as in your judgment may seem necessary, you will proceed to join the squadron of Commodore Conner, off Vera Cruz. ^ It was on the face of it, in view of the information which the government in Washington had been receiving from Donelson and others in Texas, a very odd assignment for a naval officer with a squadron of war vessels. But Commo dore Stockton was an influential businessman, one of the wealthiest men in New Jersey, a great land-owner, an impor tant public figure and politician. It was this man, not simply a naval officer, who undertook a mission for President Polk in Texas in the spring of 1845, and before describing that mission it is necessary to examine the man and his career. ^Letter copy, confidential letter file No. 1, Navy Department Archives, National Archives. Hereafter cited as "NDA, NA.M CHAPTER IV ROBERT F. STOCKTON, AMERICAN NATIONALIST The key figure in President Polk's war intrigue in Texas in 1845 has not been known to history for that abor tive effort, but rather as the naval officer who was in command of United States forces in California during the crucial period of the occupation of the province in the Mexican War. He was often referred to thereafter as the "Conqueror of California," and the title was not entirely inappropriate. As a consequence of his California fame his name appears in many places on the map of the western United States: an army camp in Texas, now the town of Fort Stockton, streets in several towns and cities, and the name of the city which is the county seat of San Joaquin County in the Central Valley of California. But Robert F. Stockton was a prominent public figure in New Jersey long before the war with Mexico. The inde pendent standing which this provided, and his great per sonal fortune, had a marked effect upon his career as a 85 86 naval officer; and it was not unrelated to his selection as the naval officer to attempt a diplomatic-military operation in Texas against Mexico. His career is important to an understanding of the Polk administration's foreign policy on the eve of the war with Mexico. Stockton's nationalism could be said to be legitimate: he derived from a founding father of the nation. His grandfather Richard was a member of the Continental Con gress and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Another more influential leader in the movement for inde pendence, Dr. Richard Rush of Philadelphia, married Richard Stockton's daughter Julia.* For three-quarters of a cen tury following, the Stockton family was one of the most influential, and one of the wealthiest families in New Jersey. This was certainly true during the period in the middle of the nineteenth century when Commodore Robert Stockton was head of the family. ^Alfred Hoyt Bill, A House Called Morven (Princeton: 1954), 36. The minister who performed the marriage cere mony of Dr. Rush and Julia Stockton in January, 1776, the Reverend John Witherspoon, was also a member of the Con gress and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Witherspoon was President of the College of New Jersey, which became Princeton University; the institution was located on a portion of the Stockton estate. 87 Richard died in 1781, but the Stockton home in Prince ton, which had been built in 1701 and is now the summer home of the Governor of New Jersey, continued to be a cen ter of national political activity: George Washington visited there on many occasions. The son Richard, known as the "Old Duke," was a Judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Somerset County and a United States Senator for a period but he was a Federalist in a time of the increasing ascend ancy of Jeffersonian Republicanism and was thus unsuccess ful in his aspirations for the governorship of New Jersey and for other offices in his later life. Daniel Webster was a close friend of this Richard, as he was to be of Robert Stockton, and often visited the family on his journey between Massachusetts and Washington.^ Robert Field, the second son of the "Old Duke," was born in 1795. He attended the College of New Jersey but left in 1811 without taking a degree to enlist in the Navy. He was appointed a midshipman at that time and continued as a naval officer for almost forty years. For most of the period from 1823 to 1838 Stockton was 2Ibid., 69-86 et passim. 88 on furlough from the Navy, managing the Stockton properties and developing new enterprises in New Jersey. He put a major part of his wealth and his effort into the develop ment and operation of a canal and railroad company. The company had an effective monopoly of the public transporta tion business across New Jersey from the Delaware River to Raritan Bay below New York City, and although it was not simply a family enterprise, but a stock company, Stockton was from the beginning until his death in 1866 the dominant figure in the company.^ The success of the Erie Canal, following its opening in 1825, stimulated canal building throughout the central and north-eastern states of the Union. Railroad building on a significant scale began a little later and shared in freight and passenger transport through the 1830's and 1840's, although by the latter decade, and more completely during the 1850's, the canal business was taken over by railroads in most sections of Statement by Stockton in a pamphlet, "Appeal of Commodore R. F. Stockton to the People of New Jersey," September, 1849 (Princeton: 1849). History and list of officers in the "Report of the United Delaware & Raritan Canal Co., and Camden & Amboy Railroad . . . April 28, 1869" (Princeton: 1869), pamphlet. Both pamphlets are in the Princeton University Library collection^. (Cited hereafter as P.L.) 89 the country. In 1829 the State of New Jersey issued a charter for the canal and at the same time for a railroad; both would serve for transport across New Jersey from the Delaware River and Philadelphia to the Atlantic Ocean just below New York City. The prospective competition made it impossible for those interested in the canal to secure funds. Stockton had invested $400,000 towards the construction of the canal and primarily through his efforts the two companies were combined, and this combination and monopoly was authorized and chartered by the legislature. Stockton went to London and sold sufficient stock to complete the financing of the combined companies.^ ^Many papers relating to the financing, operations and management of the combined Company are in the Stockton Papers in the Princeton University Library. The story of the enterprise is told very briefly, and in terms very friendly to the company, by Samuel Bayard in his Life of Commodore Robert F. Stockton (New York: 1856), and by Alfred Hoyt Bill, op. cit. Bill writes candidly, however, that "The enterprise had its less edifying side, to be sure. Politics of a rather low order had a large part in it, but those engaged in it must be judged by the standards of their time. In the business of obtaining the franchise Robert Stockton proved himself an expert lobbyist. Head quarters for the companies were established at Trenton, in Snowden's hotel, and Apartment 10 became notorious as a place where tired legislators could refresh themselves with champagne and terrapin free of charge. Under Robert's leadership a political machine was created." 93-94. 90 The canal was completed in 1834 and by 1840 the rail road construction was finished and the system in complete operation. The works had cost $6,000,000 but the company had invested a little less than $3,000,000. The state of New Jersey had borrowed the difference and provided it for the construction. The state had the right to dissolve the railroad company thirty years after completion of construc tion, and the canal company after fifty years, but if the state assumed control it was obligated to pay the stock holders the value of their stock in the enterprises. The arrangement appeared to be very satisfactory for everyone, with the possible exception of the users of these public transportation facilities. The rates on this public trans portation monopoly were set at a level sufficiently high so that by 1840 it was paying annual revenues to the state sufficient to take care of all the expenses of government, and yet its profits were such that by that date $1,595,000 had been paid to stockholders in dividends.^ ^"Report of the Joint Board of Directors, to the Stockholders of the Delaware and Raritan Canal, and Camden and Amboy Railroad and Transportation Companies, on the Completion of their Works; with the Proceedings of the Stockholders at their Meeting on the 29th of January, 1840." Pamphlet, P.L. 91 The company was accused, for the whole period of its existence, of dominating and controlling New Jersey politics and Stockton was often engaged in giving speeches in defense of the enterprise. In 1849 he spoke against the agitation for the revocation of the charter and the operation of the transportation companies by the state. In an "Appeal . . . to the People of New Jersey" Stockton said that he had originally thought that the state should build and operate the canals and railroads: I was always opposed to the present system. I said that the State had a valuable farm and ought to work it herself, and if was not until the people had deliberately, after years of agita tion on the subject, determined in the first place to lease the right of way, and, in the second place, to give all necessary protection to secure the construction of her various improvements, that I came forward to give my aid to these well-settled principles and the people's wishes. He said that he had spent "nearly twenty years of my life in doing all I could for the interest of the State as well as my own," and he pleaded: The State has had not only the use of my fortune, but of eighteen years1 hard work, with out paying me one dollar for either. And will you, fellow-citizens, after all this, permit socialists, speculators, or demagogues of what ever degree, to bring this matter into party politics, and to affix a foul blot on your fair fame, by plundering my family, my friends, and 92 myself, In the name of the State The threat was held off at that time, and again in 1854 when a committee of the legislature was created to investigate the feasibility of acquiring the works of the combined company. Stockton pointed out that the company had been financing the state government, noting that in 1853 the annual expenses of the government amounted to $90,000 and the payment from the canal and railroad company had been $91,000.^ Stockton saw another threat to business interests in the effort of the federal government to regulate the con struction and operation of steamboats on inland waterways. A bill for that purpose was introduced in the United States Senate in 1852 while Stockton was a member from New Jersey. Steamboat operators had been notorious for their reckless disregard of elementary safety measures from the beginning of the use of these vessels. The effort to obtain maximum speed resulted in the taking of great risks in navigating ^Pamphlet dated September 24, 1849, P.L. ^"Report of the Committee of the New Jersey State Legislature, on the Surrendering of their Woirks to the State by the . . . Company," including the answer of Stockton, pamphlet, February 6, 1854, P.L. 93 and in building up steam in the boilers far beyond the point of safety. On western and southern rivers alone during the thirty-two months before the passage of the regulatory bill, there had been thirty-four explosions with the loss of 690 lives.® The bill applied only to steamboats carrying passen gers and provided for tests of boilers, including inspec tion of the manufacture of the boiler plate, the limitation of steam pressure, the examination and licensing of pilots, requirements for life preservers and lifeboats (which were not carried by most of the steamboats at the time) , regula tions for passing other vessels, and other provisions of this nature. On August 28 Stockton spoke in opposition, as he said, to "most of the details of the bill now under consideration!1 He referred to the attention being given to the many steam boat explosions and complained: I think, sir, that under the influence of recent calamities, too much sensibility is dis played on this subject; and 1 am afraid, sir, that too many, and too strong efforts will be Q °Louis C. Hunter, Steamboats on the Western Rivers: An Economic and Technological History (Cambridge: 1949), 537, 541. 94 made forcibly to constrain individual liberty, and to control private business. When you are about adopting measures to save human life from destruction on board of steamboats, 1 would have you consider the value of a man's life compared with his happiness and his liberty, with the freedom and happiness of our race. Life is transient and evanescent, but liberty and equal rights, I hope, will endure long as truth shall endure. Stockton insisted that the travelers themselves were responsible for the loss of life, because they insisted upon traveling on the fastest boats. He asserted that vital principles of government were at stake as he argued against safety regulations; he told the Senators that they had done too much already to shake the principles of free dom: Look, for example, at your census laws. You have authorized Federal officers to go into the houses of your citizens and inquire into their number and condition, and when and where and how they were born. Again, sir, some of the States have laws authorizing their public officers to go into houses of citizens and demand how much property they own and where it is, how much they owe and how much is owing to them, and other things equally offensive to the feelings of an independ ent freeman as it is injurious to his business. And now, sir, you want to control him in the in vestment and management of his property! Let me ask what will be left of human liberty if we progress in this course much further? What will be, by and by, the difference between citizens of this far-famed Republic and the serfs of 95 Russia?^ Stockton's colleagues in the Senate, uninfluenced by his prediction that Americans would soon be as oppressed by government as were the people of Russia, passed the bill. By the following year, the loss of life had been reduced to one-fifth of the previous toll.*^ Three years after Stockton had argued against any governmental regulation of safety measures for steamboats, a train wreck on his Camden and Amboy line killed twenty- four passengers and injured over eighty, under conditions which clearly pointed to unsafe operating procedures by the company. The regular procedure was for trains proceeding in opposite directions on the single-track line to "be on the lookout" for an engine coming toward them and to stop when they met; the train nearest to a spur or siding then backed up to that point to clear the track for the other train. In this case the accident occurred when the train was backing and struck a wagon on a road crossing, derail ing several cars which rolled down a steep embankment. 9"Remarks of Hr. Stockton, of New Jersey on the Steamboat Bill, Delivered in the Senate of the United States, August 28, 1852," pamphlet, P. L. 10 Hunter, Op. cit., 541. 96 There had been much criticism of the method of opera tion and demands for a double-track line in view of the amount of traffic carried, or at least some improvement in methods of signaling and additional caution when traveling in reverse; there was thus some expectation that the accident would induce the company to change its procedures. This was not forthcoming; the company issued a report two weeks after the wreck which justified the management com pletely and accepted no responsibility for the loss of life. This increased the already strong criticism of the monopoly and of Stockton as the leading stockholder, officer, and spokesman. The controversy in New Jersey newspapers pro duced some lively copy, but Stockton gave no ground; he said that be the consequences what they might, he would not "quail1 1 before the threatenings of the press. There was no effective regulation in the interest of safety for several decades.^ HThe accident occurred on 29 August 1855. The Company report was dated 10 September. Stockton became involved in a letters-to-the editor exchange with the Reverend C. Van Rensselaer in the Burlington Ledger. The minister criticized the managers of the railroad for their dangerous method of operation and for the callous, unsym pathetic attitude they had assumed towards the innocent victims of the accident. Stockton replied by accusing the 97 The railroad and canal enterprise was the major busi ness interest which Stockton had, but much of his wealth was in land. The family holdings were in Princeton and in Somerset County in New Jersey, but Stockton invested in mining properties in Virginia and in agricultural land in 12 Arkansas and in California. Although Stockton's tendency in business, as in military and political affairs, was to be adventurous if not clearly reckless, he apparently suffered no serious reverses. As indicated above, the minister of being an "assassin of character" who was med dling in matters outside his proper sphere. This corre spondence was gathered and published in a pamphlet entitled "Documents and Papers Relating to the Late Camden and Amboy Railroad Accident at Burlington, New Jersey, Including Correspondence Between Commodore R. F. Stockton and C. Van Rensselaer, D.D." (Philadelphia: 1855), P.L. l^He purchased 1280 acres of land in the Red River district of Arkansas at $5.00 per acre. He secured some land in Georgia, and property in Virginia in the amount of something over 350 acres, part of it being "mining land upon which is a gold mine." He acquired a ranch in California near San Jose. His correspondence and account books give evidence of a man engaged in major enterprises; in 1838, for example, he wrote to an official of the United States Bank in Philadelphia that he had sent $10,000 to be placed in his account, and he enclosed with the letter an additional $20,000. Many documents, deeds, ledgers, and correspondence on business matters are in the Stockton Papers, P.L. The letter to the officer of the United States Bank in Philadelphia is in the Stockton Letters, New York Historical Society. 98 Stockton family had been one of the most substantial In New Jersey from the middle of the eighteenth century, and it certainly remained so during the lifetime of Robert Stockton. As will become apparent below, his private fortune was significantly related to his projected role in the Polk Administration's scheme in Texas in 1845. Stockton's career as a naval officer was in two sepa rate periods of about ten years each: the first, beginning with his service in the War of 1812 and for a decade there after; the second, in the late 1830's when he was engaged in the development of a new design, propulsion, and armament for a warship, through his activity in the war with Mexico. He served under Commodore John Rodgers on the U.S. Frigate President during the 1812 war, as well as on the Guerrifere. As lieutenant and later as a captain he was in service with the Mediterranean Squadron from 1815 to 1819. During this period he fought two or three duels with British naval officers, supposedly because of public display of their contempt for the United States and its flag. Apparently no deaths resulted from these encounters, nor was Stockton wounded in any instance, but they had some consequences in his naval career. He acquired the title of "Fighting Bob" Stockton and was thus known to the crews on 99 his ships. The episodes are not unimportant in the effort to understand the man: they were an early demonstration of the flamboyant style which was characteristic of his be haviour, and they were also an evidence of an Anglophobia which affected his judgment and actions on more important occasions later.^ As a naval officer, as well as in his political career Stockton was involved directly not only in the dominant foreign affairs pattern of the first half of the nineteenth century, expansion of the nation over the continent; he was also directly engaged in the major domestic issue, slavery. During the years 1819-1821, Stockton was one of the few American naval officers who made a determined effort to suppress the illicit trade in slaves off the African stations. Assigned the command of the U. S. Schooner Alligator with which to patrol the African shore, he *^Bill, A House Called Morven, 142-43. Bayard, Life of Stockton. 32 ff. Also, "Address of Hon. Joel Parker on the Life and Character of Commodore Stockton" (pamphlet reprinted from the Northern Monthly. March, 1868), P.L. The source of the account of the duels, in every publica tion which has come to my notice, is Stockton himself, and the stories leave something to be desired as sober history. But there seems to be no doubt that he did challenge and fight several British officers. 100 discovered that no ship he approached would fly the Ameri can flag, and that the slavers carried false registration papers in order to be always prepared to assert a registry other than the nationality of the warship which intercepted them. Stockton determined to board any ship which appeared to be engaged in the trade, and if the evidence on board convinced him of its guilt, to dispatch it to an American port and there let the matter of the valid registry of the vessel be settled in the courts. During the 1821 cruise Stockton captured four ships which he asserted were engaged in the slave trade. The Jeune Eugenie was the celebrated 'case. Stockton captured it on 7 May 1821, put a small boarding party on it and sent it to Boston. When the French minister to the United States, Baron de Neuville, was informed of the capture he filed a protest with the State Department and asked for the delivery of the ship. He assumed it had been taken under a misapprehension as to its nationality, but when he dis covered that the same officer had taken three other French vessels into custody he wrote of his "inexpressible aston ishment" that Stockton had apparently not acted out of ignorance of their registry, but had thought he "ought to seize these French Schooners." He expressed the hope to 101 the State Department that the responsibility did not rest higher in the government than this particular naval officer, and that "Captain Robert Stockton alone has outraged the Flag of the King, that he has transgressed or rather lost sight of his Instructions." The French minister claimed that the ships were engaged in lawful commerce and referred to the conduct of this officer as being "so strange that it compels prompt explanations .... [to throw] light upon the unheard of acts of Captain Stockton. It happened that Secretary of State John Quincy Adams was in Boston at the time, and he wrote to Secretary of the Navy Smith Thompson on the matter. Adams said that the district attorney in Boston thought the evidence that the Jeune Eugenie was engaged in the slave trade was conclusive. But Adams called Thompson's attention to the fact that the minister representing France had made a "direct and severe ^Letter from G. Hyde de Neuville, 24 August 1821, Washington, to the Secretary of State, here taken from a translation sent to the Secretary of the Navy in the African Squadron Letters, 1819-1823, Navy Dept. Archives, N.A. Emphasis is in the original. An earlier letter from the Baron, July (no day date) 1821, gave information on the ownership of the Jeune Eugenie. Another under date of 27 August 1821 referred to the "unheard of violence of the Commandant Isic1 of the Alligator" who had no right what ever to arrest, under any pretense, any French vessel. 102 charge against Lt. Stockton," and he suggested to the Secretary of the Navy that It might Mbe expedient to call a court of enquiry, upon the conduct of that officer; and to transfer the Conmand of that Vessel, the Alligator, to another, with instructions of caution against capturing vessels under any other Flag than that of the United States. It does not appear that Stockton's conduct was the subject of a formal investigation, nor was the command of the Alligator taken from him: but Thompson warned Stockton in future "against capturing vessels under the Flag of any other nation, unless you have very strong and almost con clusive evidence that the vessel is American, & the Flag of another nation used as a cover." Before Stockton left on another cruise a few weeks later Secretary Thompson, probably under pressure from the State Department, narrowed his scope even further. Until further orders Stockton was ^Letters of 28 August and 11 September, 1821, to Stockton from Secretary Thompson, in Letters to Officers, No. 14, NDA, NA. Another letter of 11 September 1821 from Daniel Brant, Chief Clerk of the State Department, to Smith Thompson,,enclosing an extract of a letter from Adams dated Boston, 6 September, is in African Squadron Letters, 1819-23, NDA, NA. 103 to consider his instructions "limited to the seizure & search o£ Vessels under the American flag only, & not those under any foreign flag, altho [aic] concerned in the Slave trade and altho there may be strong grounds to suspect them 16 to be American Vessels.1 In his subsequent cruise to the African coast Stockton avoided complications with foreign governments**-and he made little contribution to the effort to put down the trade. But he was engaged in another effort with officers of the American Colonization Society on that cruise: the establish ment of a colony for "free persons of color" in the United States. And in fact Stockton selected the site where the nation of Liberia was established. In 1819 Congress enacted a law cumbrously entitled "An Act in Addition to the Acts Prohibiting the Slave Trade." This gave the government authorization for the expenditure of funds, and the use of naval vessels, to resettle Africans rescued from slaving ships in a colony to be located on the African coast. The President was empowered to "make such regulations and arrangements, as he may •^Smith Thompson to Stockton, 21 August 1821, and 15 September 1821, in Letters to Officers, No. 14, NDA, NA. 104 deem expedient, for the safeguarding, support, and removal" of these victims, and $100,000 were appropriated for the 17 purpose. The men who had designed the bill and had been most influential in its passage, however, were not as concerned about providing a place of deposit for Africans rescued from slaving ships as for the creation of a colony in Africa to which free Negroes in the United States could be sent. Three years before the passage of the bill the Reverend Robert Finley of Princeton (the master of an academy in which Stockton had been a student) had organized the "American Society for Colonizing the Free People of Color in the United States." Bushrod Washington, nephew of the first president and associate justice of the Supreme Court, was elected president of the society and the vice-presidents were such influential national leaders as Henry Clay, John Taylor of Caroline, Andrew Jackson, and Richard Rush. Stockton was a vigorous supporter of the society, and of the colonization movement in the United States from this time through the Civil War. He agreed with the purposes of J. Staudenraus, The African Colonization Movement: 1816-1865 (New York: 1961), 50-1. 105 the effort as explained by Henry Clay in an address to the society in Washington just after its organization; The free Negroes were in an anomalous condition in American society; they were not subject to the incapacities of slaves but they did not have the "immunities" of freemen. There could thus be "no nobler cause than that which, whilst it pro posed to rid the country of a useless and pernicious, if not dangerous portion of its population, contemplated the spreading of the arts of civilized life, and the possible redemption from ignorance and barbarism of a benighted quarter of the globe. A first effort of the society to establish a colony, in 1820 on Sherbro Island, on the southeastern boundary of British Sierra Leone, was a failure. The site was marshy and quite unsuitable; within a few months the leaders were dead and the colony reduced to a remnant. The managers of the society determined to try again and in 1821 they persuaded the government to send Captain Stockton in the Alligator to select and purchase with society funds an appropriate site for the colony. He was accompanied by 18Ibid., 23 ff. Clay emphasized that colonization was for Negroes already free, not for Negroes held in bondage in the United States. 106 Dr. Eli Ayres, the principal agent for the society. On the coast southeast of Sierra Leone they found Cape Mesurado, site of the present city of Monrovia. They nego tiated with the leader of the Bassa group, "King" Peter, who at first agreed to cede the region, but then changed his mind and withdrew into the interior. Stockton deter mined to force the matter. He said subsequently in a report to the society that "procrastination and perfidy had already done too much mischief," and he and Ayres followed King Peter.^ They found him, and when Stockton demanded that the land be sold to the society, one of Peter's followers objected and threatened the white men. Stockton's version of what followed, as it appears in the biography by his friend and business associate Samuel F. Bayard, is melo dramatic; With that clear, ringing and overpowering tone of voice . . . [Stockton] commanded silence. . . Deliberately drawing a pistol from his breast and cocking it, he gave it to Dr. Ayres, saying, while he pointed to [Peter's adviser], 'Shoot that ^Letter from Stockton to the Board of the Society, from the U.S. Schooner Alligator. Cape Mesurada, West Coast of Africa, 16 December 1821, in American Colonization Society Records, 1819-1821 file, Manuscripts Division, L.C. 107 villain if he opens his lips again!' Then, with the same deliberation, drawing another pistol and levelling it at the head of King Peter, and direct ing him to sit silent until he heard what was to be said, he proceeded to say, In the most solemn manner, appealing with uplifted hand to God in heaven to witness the truth of what he said, that in all the previous conferences with King Peter and the other chiefs he had told them nothing but the truth; that they came there as their benefactors, and not as their enemies, to do them good and not evil .... that, wfell knowing, from the disposi tions manifested, that if they did not agree to execute the treaty that they intended to kill him and his party, he had determined that King Peter himself should be the first victim, and that unless he agreed to execute the treaty on the following day his fate was fixed; and, moreover, if he again agreed to ratify the treaty and failed to perform his duty, he might expect the worst punishment which an angry God could inflict on him and his people.20 Following this confrontation, a contract was drawn and signed with an "X" by Peter and five other "kings." The land cost the society goods in the amount of about $300. The document did not mention the society; the African leaders agreed to "forever cede and relinquish the above described lands . . . to Captain Robert F. Stockton and Eli ^Bayard, Life of Stockton. 43-46. 108 Ayres, To Have and To Hold the said premises for the use of the said Citizens of America."21 Stockton concluded his report to the managers of the society with the plea: Let Christians, and all the friends of Humanity, join heart and hand, and purse; let experience, and wise counsellors, direct; youth, energy, and integrity execute; all difficulties must vanish; and my sagacity on it, that the Colony, founded by North American humanity and liberality, will not be second to any, in its contributions, to the happiness of man, and the glory of our God.22 Stockton's direct relationship to, and activity in the colony was limited to the year of its founding, but as an influential citizen in New Jersey and later as a political figure in the state and in the United States Senate, he continued to support the society and colonization as the From the Fifth Annual Report of the American Colonization Society, as reprinted in R. Earle Anderson, Liberia: America's African Friend (Chapel Hill: 1952), 67-68. 22Letter of 16 December 1821, cited above, note 19. Stockton apparently made a lasting impression on the African leaders. Ayres later was threatened by King Peter, to try to induce him to cancel the contract; he refused and reported: "they had shown such great dread at the name of captain Stockton and of our shipping, that I was well con vinced they would not be the first to attack." Ayres' letter in a printed pamphlet entitled "To the Public: Address of the Board of Managers of the American Coloniza tion Society," dated 29 August 1822, of which Ayres' report constitutes 14 pages, in the African Squadron Letters file, 181 9-23, NDA, NA. 109 solution to the slavery problem. Some Americans supported the colonization effort because they felt that free Negroes were dangerous in the United States; they infected the slaves with discontent and were potential, if not actual, leaders of slave revolts; they were also damaging to the logic of some slavery apologists who were asserting that slavery was the natural condition of the Negro. Others, including Stockton, saw colonization as a means of grad ually eliminating slavery in the United States. At a meeting in Princeton in 1824 Stockton stated flatly that the "first and great object" of the work was "a gradual 23 abolition of Slavery." Another motivation for the colonization effort had Stockton's strong support. In the years after 1825 when the colony became securely established and began to expand along the African coast for some one hundred and fifty miles, operating trading factories and dominating the African peoples in the region, there began to be talk of the settlement as the beginning of an American empire in Africa. The Virginia Colonization Society was particularly 23staudenraus» Colonization, 85-86. 110 enthusiastic about the possibilities. It asserted that "the great problem of a new empire is about to be solved," and one of the members in Virginia stated that "the germ of an America-African empire has been planted" and would "flourish and expand until it overshadows a continent." Others spoke of reversing the tide of empire; it would now move eastward and Americans would build an "empire more enlightened" than any in the past.2^ Stockton took up the vision without reservation. At a meeting of the society in New York City he gave an address in which he advised Americans that their destiny called them to this noble work. American shipping would link the continents as roads and canals linked the cities and rivers and bays within a continent. "You are invited to reclaim Western Africa," he said, and "open the resources of that immense continent to the enterprise of the civilized w o r l d ."^5 Stockton was to make his contribution to the American empire in western North America rather than in Africa, but 24Ibid., 157. 25Ibid., 157. Ill he was Intrigued with this idea of American empire-building in Africa by means of Africans who had become sufficiently Americanized to act as the aggressive agents of the American nation abroad, inadequate though they were for the rights and opportunities of American citizenship at home. They would make American dreams of foreign empire legitimate, for they were Americans, although Americans with a dif ference, and they would be inhabiting the land they con quered— conquered with the supporting power of the American nation which was deporting them from its soil at home. The vision was not to become a reality. The potential empire-builders did not prove willing agents of American empire; indeed, they persistently resisted the attempt to "Africanize" them; they certainly never thought of them selves as Americanizing the African continent. But Stockton held to the idea longer than most leaders of the colonization movement. After his missions for President Polk in 1845 and 1846, when the war with Mexico was con cluded and the enormous accession of territory had become the basis for a sectional crisis, Stockton explained his position on slavery explicitly and publicly in response to a request from Daniel Webster. At that time, in 1850, he still saw colonization as the solution to the slavery 112 controversy in the United States, and for the American mission in Africa. In his famous Seventh of March speech Webster had argued for a compromise settlement of the argument over slavery in the new territories acquired from Mexico. He sent a copy of his speech to Stockton, referring to him as "an old friend," and noting that the problem was "connected with the question of proper governments for those new territories which you had an important agency in bringing under the power of the United States." Webster's purpose in writing to Stockton was to build support for a compromise settlement, and his letter and Stockton's reply were published in the New York Herald of April 12th. Stockton supported Webster's position, and the proposed compromise, although without close or specific reference. He proposed three measures to, in his phrase, "dissolve" the Gordian knot: (l)a declarative act that the Constitution gave no power to the general government to act on the subject of domestic slavery, in the states, the territories, or the District of Columbia; (2)an efficient act to enforce the provisions of the Constitution in rela tion to fugitive slaves; (3)the admission of California without approval or disapproval of that part of her 113 Constitution which related to slavery. Stockton asserted that slavery could not be considered a sin or an unmitigated evil, and he brought scriptural evidence to bear in support of his position; thus the men of the North should not feel under moral obligation to eradicate it. The burden of his argument, however, gave no support to the system; he made a point of emphasizing that "African slavery was introduced into this country by no act of ours. For its introduction the American people are in no just sense responsible." Great Britain had done it, "while we were her colonies. She engrafted this system into our communities at a time when these communities (then in their infancy) were unable to make any effectual resis tance." He asserted that "our ancestors" protested and remonstrated, all to no avail; it was considered an evil, an oppression to the colonists as well as to the slaves, but they were powerless to resist. Stockton then proceeded to shift the responsibility from Great Britain to God. The establishment of the American Republic was the work of "an unseen Power" in which the hand of Providence was to be seen. That Provi dence brought us into contact with the Indians, the race then in possession of the continent, a race which had been 114 "faithless to its trust"; the red man had suffered wrongs but "the decree by which his race wastes away before the advancing footsteps of civilization is the fiat of Infinite Wisdom." Then the "same all-pervading Providence has brought us in contact with still another race--the African." The ultimate purpose of this contact was surely, he rea soned, to regenerate Africa. The "probation of the African people now in bondage on our shores is to come to an end," and that end should come when the freed Africans could be returned to their African home. "Africa is a land to which civilization must be brought." Stockton asserted; the inhabitants had demonstra ted that they could not, unaided, create a civilized society. White men could not live in Africa, but the work of civilization had to be done and that work was clearly the duty of the "descendants of the sons of that continent now in America." This was their duty; but, Stockton com plained, the free African "clings to this country still, under all his disabilities, regardless of the claims of the land of his fathers upon him." How, then, was the Negro to be persuaded? He thought he had the answer: "May not slavery and the necessity of migration as the condition of his release be the appointed instrument to produce 115 compliance?1 1 He observed that other slaves in other times had required some coercion in their own interest; the Israelites of old, but for Divine intervention, would have "sacrificed their liberators in the wilderness and returned into Egypt." The colonization movement had failed to make any prog ress as even the beginning of a solution to the issue of slavery in the United States, but Stockton nevertheless looked to it as the solution. He concluded his letter: 1 firmly believe that the hour for the com plete enfranchisement of the Southern Slave will be the hour of the complete preparation for the work of African redemption and civilization; and that hour will make itself known in the removal of all obstacles here and there, in the preparation of the workmen and the work; and I earnestly hope that guided by happier influences than seem now to pervade the country, the pulpit, the press, the people of the North and the South may give their thoughts and efforts to this subject in the spirit of Him whose mission on our earth was heralded by the proclamation of peace and good-will.^6 Stockton's stand on this crucial issue of slavery placed him in a moderate position as the sectional conflict developed. In any situation in which there was an attempt to use federal power to affect the holding of slaves as ^Stockton's letter was dated 25 March 1850, at Princeton. It is reprinted in Bayard, Life of Stockton% Appendix E, 69-79. 116 property, Stockton stood with the South. He was a member of the Peace Convention In Washington In January of 1861 and was essentially in support of the South on the specific issues as they were raised. But he was a nationalist and could not countenance secession; when the break came, he took a public stand for the Union.^ Stockton's political activity and his political prin ciples are important, finally, in this appraisal of Polk's agent in Texas on the eve of the Mexican war. He had moved naturally, almost automatically into politics in New Jersey and then on the national scene, as the representative of a family which had been influential in political life from the beginning of the independent nation. He first became active in politics in the 1820's, at the close of the Era of Good Feelings, that period when the United States was operating as a one-party state. His father was of the In the Peace Convention discussion Stockton said the only substantive issue was that of slavery in the terri tories and said that the southerners had the right to go into any U.S. territory with their slaves. But in any event, he exclaimed, to both parties, "you can't destroy your country for that," you "won't dissolve the Union for such a cause." Lucius C. Chittenden, "Notes of Debate in the Peace Convention of 1861," manuscript, Chittenden Papers, L. C. 117 Federalist persuasion and as the division began which was to result in the development o£ two parties, Democratic and Whig, Stockton tended towards the latter, supporting John Quincy Adams in 1824. But, apparently because his father was not properly rewarded by Adams, Stockton backed Jackson in 1828 and 1832, and he supported Martin Van Buren in 1836k. In the election of 1840, however, he worked for the Whig candidates, Harrison and Tyler, and had influence in the Tyler administration which came to power when Harrison died within a month of taking office. Tyler's administration was more Democratic than Whig, and with most of Tyler's supporters Stockton returned to the Democratic Party and worked for Polk's election in 1844. Stockton did not again support the Whigs, but through the next decade and a half he often identified himself with the American Party, the so-called Know-nothings, a nativist group whose primary 28 principles were anti-Catholicism and antiforeignism. 28 Bayard, Life of Stockton, gives his political history, always expressing approval, or, rather, admiration, for his political expressions. The value of the book lies primarily in the fact that it includes in the text and in several appendices many of Stockton's letters and speeches. 118 This record of changing party affiliation indicates that he did not have a well-defined and strongly held po litical philosophy, and this was the case; but on one issue in American politics he was consistent and persistent. In that period of aggressive expansionist feeling and action, Stockton was a prototype of the American nationalist. His speeches through the two decades before the Civil War, first as a private citizen active in politics in New Jersey, then as an officer-politician during the war with Mexico, and later as a United States Senator from 1852 to 1854 and an important political leader in New Jersey thereafter, are expressions of narrow, chauvinist, aggressive nationalism. An address which he gave on 24 September 1844 at New Brunswick, New Jersey, in support of Polk’s candidacy pro vides an opportunity to examine his views. The two great issues of that campaign were the "re-annexation" of Texas, and the occupation of "all of Oregon," and Stockton spoke for that full expansionist program, devoting more attention to Texas than to Oregon. He listed a number of advantages to be gained from the annexation of that former Mexican province, but he placed major emphasis upon the urgent necessity of building up American power in order to defend free institutions in the world. In a passage which sounds 119 not unlike much political oratory In the United States in the middle of the twentieth century (changing only the name of the nation which is said to be endangering free govern ments) , Stockton made the case for American expansion: God and nature, and inevitable circumstances, destine the United States to be the only curb or check upon the ambition of Great Britain to rule the world. In every quarter of the globe, that haughty and grasping power, for the last century, has been augmenting her territory, and planting her standard upon all the commanding positions of the globe; and still her progress is onward upon the march to universal Empire. Not satisfied with her empire in Europe, Asia, and Africa, she has steadily looked to the arrest of the natural prog ress of these States on this Continent. She has already stretched her cordon of posts across this Continent, along our northern frontier, from Quebec to the mouth of the Columbia, And to the possession of the West India Islands, she seeks still further to add to her empire in the Mexican Gulf, the Island of Cuba, the Isthmus of Panama, and the beautiful plains of Texas. Are we willing, looking forward to the certain struggle ere long to take place between us, that Great Britain should thus proceed, adding empire to empire, while we supinely disregard opportunities of strengthening ourselves for the contest which must sooner or later be upon us? Is this the course which American statesmen should counsel or abet? This question is of mightier magnitude than all local considerations, or party politics. It affects the progress, the glory, the grandeur, and the ultimate importance of our country in the great scale of nations. It involves our ultimate ability and comparative strength for contending with our gigantic opponent for the freedom of the seas--for the stability of the law of nations— for empire on this Continent— perhaps for the privilege of free representative government, as opposed to monarchy. 120 Stockton concluded with the assertion that the Fresi dent who should accomplish the annexation of Texas would "stand next to Jefferson in the grateful remembrance of his countrymen."^ Near the close of the war with Mexico, when Stockton had returned overland from California to the east coast, he was given a public reception and a dinner in his honor in Philadelphia. Following the toast: "Our country--may she ever be right--but right or wrong— our country," Stockton gave an address in which he asserted that the successes of the United States in the war were due to the fact that "the spirit of our Pilgrim fathers is with us; it is because the God of armies and the Lord of hosts is with us." He said, in the providence of God we are placed, or are likely soon to be placed, in a position where, by a fair and legitimate construction of the law of nations, the fate of Mexico and the peace of this continent, to a greater or less extent, will devolve upon the virtue, the wisdom, and the humanity of our rulers. ^"Speech of Capt. R. F. Stockton Delivered at the Great Democratic Meeting. . . .," as reported by James Rees, in a copy in the Special Collections of the Library of Princeton University. 121 And it was appropriate that this should be so, for the United States was the greatest of all the nations of his tory; any "thoughtful observer," said Stockton, could not "fail to be impressed with the conviction that we enjoy a degree of happiness and prosperity never heretofore vouchsafed to the nations of mankind."^® A few years later, at an 1851 Independence Day cele bration at Elizabethtown, New Jersey, Stockton expressed the conviction that the expansion of the American people was not concluded with the conquest and absorption of but half of Mexico: Already has the Anglo-Saxon avalanche de scended the western slope of the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific shores. Hitherto the impulse has been westward, and westward chiefly has been the march of empire, until at last it has met resist ance in one of those vast oceans which cover so large an area of the globe. Rebounding from the contact, it will and must naturally soon take another and more southern direction. I am only stating what I consider the law which governs the progress of the Anglo-Saxon race. I will not attempt to impeach or defend what 1 believe to be the inevitable destiny of my country and my race. . . .1 am unwilling to say to my countrymen that you shall go no farther East or West, or North or South. 1 am unwilling Printed by Bayard, Life of Stockton. 170-78. Niles' Register, 22 January 1848, 335, reported the speech. 122 that the Anglo-American race shall perpetually recoil from any given boundary, and that any portion of this continent not now in their possession shall forever be impenetrable to their civilization, enterprise, and industry. Any such exercise of authority would be as ineffectual as that of the Danish monarch over the Atlantic tides. . . .let us not attempt to prevent the peaceable progress of our countrymen over a conti nent which Providence seems to have designed for their occupation and civilization. The man who considered that his "race" was required by some natural law, or by some unnatural Providence, to occupy the continent, was not likely to hesitate to assist such notoriously unpunctual forces, by whatever means might come to hand. This emphasis upon race, and on the peculiar destiny of the Anglo-Saxon or Anglo-American "race," was a note struck very frequently in nineteenth-century America, and was very often a component of the aggressive American nationalism of the period of the war with Mexico. Stockton's speeches were studded with such sentiments, but beyond just playing upon the prejudices of the American crowd, he aligned himself with a political party based upon pride of ancestry, upon exclusiveness and upon a mythology of race characteristics. ^ Ibid., Appendix E, 79-84. 123 He had been associated with the "Native Americans" in Philadelphia as early as 1843, and he supported the program of the party consistently thereafter. A letter which he wrote in 1855 to a committee of the American Party of Trenton is a fair expression of his political views during and following the Mexican war. He began by associating himself with the principles of the party, which he listed as: First, The Constitution with its Compromises. Second. The preservation of the Union at all hazards. Third. The naturalization laws should be abolished or essentially modified. Fourth. Americans alone should rule America. They only should be appointed to the high and responsible offices under our Government. Stockton said that Washington had been worried about "foreign influences," even though he "did not anticipate that, in half a century from his age, Europe would be brought within ten days' sail of America, or that within that period half a million of foreigners annually would come to exercise the prerogatives of American sovereigns." Had the Father of His Country and his colleagues antici pated that development, he said, "it is more than probable that no power would have been granted by the people to the Federal Government to enact any laws of naturalization." 124 The proper doctrine, Stockton asserted, was that "Americans alone should rule America." Politically, the country was rapidly dividing into two parties: the American Party and the Foreign party. The Foreign party sought to "pander" to the foreign element and "its insolent ambi tion." The overriding issue, he cried, was "the safety and prosperity of our institutions." Stockton thought it was necessary to take an extreme position: "The evil is radical, and the correction must be equally radical. The 1856 election marked the appearance on the national scene of the Republican Party, with its demand that slavery be restricted to the states in which it was protected at that time. Its emergence as a major political party rapidly polarized the politics of the country, and that marked the demise of the American Party. Stockton, however, continued to talk as if the latter still existed as a significant political force. In 1859 he was influen tial in the assemblage of American Party remnants at Camden, and in his address to the group he cast additional light upon his political principles. -^Printed by Bayard, Life of Stockton, 207-10. 125 He said that he was "an American--a straight-out American"; the Republican Party was a sectional party and the Democratic Party had been "rent in twain," leaving the American Party alone as truly national. He placed great emphasis upon religion In American life, as he had been doing for two decades. (The Stockton family had been Presbyterian but he left that denomination and joined the Episcopal Church of the Anglican communion when he married into a family of that affiliation.) The American people constituted "one CHRISTIAN NATION," he said, and this was "a distinctive element of their nationality." Stockton asserted that the United States had been founded by men "deeply imbued with the fear of God and devotion to the cross of Christ." (The dominant religious cast of the founders of the nation had been deistic rather than Christian, but Stockton was only characteristic of evangelical America in his ignorance of that awkward fact.) He deliberately played upon religious feeling for his political purpose. The American Party had been created, he said, because of the "sentiment of infidel murmurings, which would have blanched the cheeks of our forefathers." There was a foul "spirit of infidelity and contempt of Heaven" in the air: 126 And when 1 tell you that there are now one hundred and fifty infidel newspapers published in the United States; and when 1 tell you that thousands of these foreigners are banded together in our Christian cities, for the purpose of des troying our Christian Sabbath, will you not say it is time for the American nation to rise up?^3 Stockton received the empty honor of the nomination for United States Senator from New Jersey by the convention of the American Party. It no longer had significant in fluence as a political group, but its racism, its chauvin ism, its religiosity, and its claim of unique virtue for the "American way," were doctrines which had had great Influence during and following the war with Mexico; and, indeed, these doctrines have never since that time been without force in American politics. It is clear that the naval officer whom the Polk ad ministration sent to Texas in April of 1845, was not a typical officer in the Navy; most such men are not inde pendently wealthy, prominent in politics, and at the head of great business enterprises. But it was as a naval officer, ostensibly, that Stockton was sent to Texas, and ^"Speech of Commodore Robert F. Stockton, on the Past, Present and Future of the American Party," Delivered in the City of Camden, N.J., (Camden: 1859), pamphlet, P.L. 127 he had been active in the Navy for a few years just prior to that time; not, however, in any ordinary duty, but as the initiator and superintendent of construction of the first propeller-driven warship ever constructed, the U.S.S. Princeton. He had been on furlough for a decade when, in October, 1838, he was given command of the U.S. battleship Ohio with orders to sail to the Mediterranean to join Commodore Isaac Hull's squadron. But it was quite obviously a special and temporary assignment for on 5 January 1839 he was granted two months leave of absence to deliver des patches to the American minister in London, and when he returned to the United States in August he was at once placed on furlough again.^ At Liverpool, Stockton met the Swedish inventor John Ericsson, known chiefly in American history for his con struction of the iron-clad Monitor to combat the Confeder ate Merrimac during the Civil War. Ericsson had been work ing on an internal combustion engine in Sweden and con tinued this work in England, but at the time he met Stockton he was engaged in steam engine design and on •^Service Record, Robert Field Stockton, NDA, NA. 128 plans to drive a ship with steam engines using a screw propeller rather than side or rear paddle wheels. One important advantage would be to permit the placing of the engine below the water line, thus protecting it from enemy fire. The idea of the screw propulsion of ships, Ericsson was frank to say then and later, was not an idea of his own; it was in common currency at the time, but the Swedish inventor did the essential engineering work to apply the 3*5 conception. J Stockton arranged with Ericsson for the construction of an "iron boat" of some seventy-feet-by-ten feet, driven ^Johnson D.A.B.. article on "John Ericsson," by William Frederick Durand, VI, 171-76. Stockton later sought to take credit for a least a part of the invention, as well as for the promotion. In a letter from Princeton, 20 May 1844, to John Y. Mason, Secretary of the Navy, he said: "Prior to my acquaintance with Captain Ericsson I had proposed to the President of the United States and the Navy Department to construct a steam ship of war whose machinery should be entirely out of reach of shot; pursuing my inquiries on that subject a few years afterwards in England, I was informed by Mr. Francis B. Ogden our consul at Liverpool that a very ingenious mechanic by the name of Ericsson had been devoting much time and attention to the matter of submerged wheels." J* 0. Sargent papers, Mass. Hist. Society. After the work was done, Stockton con stantly sought to minimize the role which Ericsson had played; he commonly referred to him as a "mechanic," rather than as an engineer or inventor. 129 by 8team power applied to a screw propeller, as an experi mental craft. Ericsson designed it and supervised the construction and Stockton named it the Robert F. Stockton. He displayed it by running it up and down the Thames River through London, and then had it fitted with sails and sent across the Atlantic; he recovered his investment by sell ing it to his canal company. ^ The small boat was designed to demonstrate the feasi bility of this form of propulsion for a powerful warship, and it seemed to be a successful experiment. There is some question about the extent to which Stockton made definite arrangements with the inventor, but in any event Ericsson produced detailed plans for such a ship and brought his plans with him when he came to the United States in November of 1839.37 Stockton made no progress toward securing authoriza tion from the government for the construction of such a ^Bill. Morven. 104. 37Durand, "Ericsson,” loc. cit., 173. He had expec ted to return to Europe when the ship was completed, but remained to spend the remaining fifty years of his life as a citizen of the United States. During the delay, before the work on the warship was authorized, Ericsson worked on the construction of propeller-driven boats for inland waters, and within five years there were twenty- five such vessels on lakes and rivers in the United States, as a direct result of his work. 130 warship until after the election of 1840; but he had par ticularly close relations with John Tyler, and the project received the approval of the Navy Department soon after Tyler acceded to the presidency following Harrison's death. By acts of the congress in 1841 and 1842 the government was authorized to build steam vessels "on such models as shall be most approved, according to the best advices they can obtain." Several appropriations were made for the 38 purpose. On 27 May 1841 Stockton submitted a model for the "steam-ship of war," to the Secretary of the Navy, and on 1 June the Secretary replied with authorization for Stockton to report to the Navy Yard in Philadelphia for the purpose of preparing draughts of such a vessel. Through the fall and winter of 1841-42 Stockton was in constant correspondence with Ericsson in New York regard ing the details of construction and selection of contrac tors. Construction began in 1842. The matter of Ericsson's compensation, which was later to cause so much ^®This is summarized in the brief of John 0. Sargent, attorney for Ericsson, undated but apparently in the early 1850's, prepared when the inventor was trying to secure payment for his services. In the Ericsson Papers, the Swedish-American Institute, Philadelphia. 131 ill-feeling between the inventor and the promoter, came up several times in the correspondence. It is apparent that no definite arrangement was made; on one occasion Stockton made a payment of $1,150 to Ericsson, noting: "I will in clude it in the Princeton's expenses and repay myself for the advance in that way— jlf I c a n ." 3 9 The ship was launched in the fall of 1843 and com pleted a satisfactory experimental trial run in early October. Permission had been secured from the Navy Depart ment to place on board "such armament as you may think best adapted for the vessel," and Stockton ordered two twelve- inch guns, larger than any then in use. The two large guns were formed of wrought iron, under Ericsson's supervision; one of them cracked near the base in early tests and Stockton wrote that he "hoped" the band which he had ordered put around the barrel would be made to stand "the 45 lbs of Powder." In August of 1843 Stockton wrote that he was "rejoiced to learn" that the gun would soon be finished and he referred to the necessity, or the "great ^Letters in the Ericsson Papers, Swedish-American Institute, Philadelphia. Many are copies rather than originals. 132 object" as he said, of getting the "greatest velocity with the heaviest shot." although the distance carried would also be important in impressing officials of the govern- - 40 ment. On 5 February 1844, a week before bringing the Princeton to Washington for demonstrations, Stockton wrote to the Secretary of the Navy describing his accomplishment. The Princeton was both a sailing vessel and a steamship; the funnel was retractable, thus making it possible to mislead an enemy into thinking that she had only sail to move by, for there was nothing in her external appearance to Indicate that she was propelled by steam, and since she burned anthracite rather than soft coal, she put out very little smoke (Stockton said "no smoke") and thus did not betray her motive power. Stockton claimed that the ship was the "cheapest, fastest and most certain ship-of-war in the world." As for the armament: The Princeton is armed with two long 225- pound wrought-iron guns and twelve 42-pound 40Letters to Officers, No. 35, NDA, NA; letters of 22 and 28 August, of 4 and 9 September, and 16 October 1843. Letters to Officers, No. 36, 21 November 1843. Stockton to Ericsson, 20 February and 6 August 1843, copies, Swedish-American Institute, Phila. 133 carronades. . . .The big guns of the Princeton can be fired with an effect terrific and almost incredible, and with a certainty heretofore unknown. . . .It is confidently believed that this small ship will be able to battle with any vessel, however large, if she is not invincible against any foe. The improvements in the art of war adopted on board the Princeton may be pro ductive of more important results than any thing that has occurred since the invention of gun powder. The numerical force of other navies, so long boasted, may be set at naught, The ocean may again become neutral ground, and the rights of the smallest as well as the greatest nations may once more be respected. This is an amusing and instructive example of the tendency to over rate the consequences of an advance in technology; it is less amusing to note that the promoter, in celebrating the novel features and qualities of the ship, makes no mention of the inventor. Stockton steamed up the Potomac in the Princeton on 13 February and remained in Washington through the month. He gave several demonstrations of the vessel, including one of its use as an ice-breaker in a channel near, the Navy Yards. On 20 February he took on board a large delegation of Congressmen and other Washington notables for a cruise down the Potomac and a demonstration of the firing of the big guns. He had named one of the guns the ^Printed by Bayard, Life of Stockton. 81-83. 134 "Oregon," with reference to the dispute with Great Britain over that territory, and the other the "Peacemaker."42 A newspaper reporter was aboard on the excursion, and his description provides a lively portrait of Stockton. Pe he prepared to fire the "Peacemaker," Stockton said: "Now, gentlemen of the House of Representatives, fellow-citizens, and shipmates, we are going to give a salute to the wisdom of this mighty republic (God bless her!) in Congress assembled. Stand firm, and you will see how it feels!" The gun was fired and the reporter wrote that in the smoke "we came near falling over the venerable Ex-President Adams." Captain Stockton's voice rose high amid the din of the battle. 'It's nothing but honest gun powder, gentlemen; it has a strong smell of the Declaration of Independence, but it's none the worse for that. That's the kind of music when negotiations fail. It has a little the ring of the earthquake, but it tells handsomely on salt water.' The company adjourned to a feast worthy of the ^Philip Hone of New York, a man of conservative views and contemptuous of the Manifest Destiny spirit abroad in the land, read of these weapons and observed in his diary that the Peacemaker was designed to "hurl defiance" at Great Britain, and surmised that Stockton was "the fire-brand which was to ignite the whole." Quoted by Bill, Morven, 107-08. 135 "coronation-day of a South American Emperor," In the cabin on the middle deck, extending the whole length of the ship. The reporter stated that the "scruples of the friends of retrenchment will be appeased" when they learn that, Stockton being a man of wealth, the "magnificent feast prepared for the occasion was drawn, to the extent of the 'extras,1 from the Captain's private resources." News paper readers were told that when the "Peacemaker" was fired the "solid balls of two hundred and thirty pounds [sic] skimmed the surface of the water for several miles with the lightness of an arrow." The reporter wrote that Captain Stockton "goes for Oregon," and quoted him as saying that "if the question is brought to the tug of war, he will undertake to defend the mouth of the Columbia with his single ship."^ This triumph was followed by the catastrophic explo sion of one of the big guns on 28 February, an accident which killed two members of the President's cabinet and thus an accident without parallel in American political ^The newspaper account is printed in Bayard, Life of Stockton. 84-86, from the Ohio Statesman, with the story dated Washington, 20 February 1844. 136 history. President Tyler and his cabinet, several sena tors, and other leading citizens of Washington including James Hadison's widow Dolly were on board. The account given by Stockton's business associate and biographer, Samuel Bayard, is quite clearly Stockton's own story of the matter: During her progress down the Potomac, the great guns on the Princeton had been again and again discharged, until public curiosity appeared to be satiated. The company had returned below, and at the festive board the voice of hilarity resounded through the decks of the proud ship. . . . Captain Stockton had risen to offer a toast com plimentary to the chief magistrate of the republic. As he rose, with his wine-glass filled in his hand, an officer entered and informed him that some of the company desired one of the great guns to be again discharged. Captain S. shook his head, and saying, 'No more guns to-night,' dismissed the officer. He soon again returned, while Captain S. was speaking on the subject of his toast, with a message from the Secretary of the Navy expressive of his desire to see one of the big guns fired once more. This message Captain Stockton considered equivalent to an order, and inanediately went on deck to obey it. He placed himself upon the breech of the gun, aimed, and fired. Feeling a sensible shock, stunned and enveloped in a cloud of smoke, for an instant he could not account for his sensa tions. But, in a few seconds, as the smoke cleared, and the groans of the wounded and the shrieks of the bystanders who were unhurt resounded over the decks, the terrible catastrophe which had happened was revealed. Those killed were the Secretary of State, Abel P. Upshur; the Secretary of the Navy, Thomas W. Gilmer; 137 Captain Beverley Kennon of the Navy; Virgil Maxey of Mary land, formerly solicitor of the treasury and charge d' affaires at Brussels; and David Gardiner of New York, who was a personal guest of the President. Seventeen sailors were wounded. A Naval Board of Inquiry was appointed and found that Stockton had not been negligent in the con struction or testing of the gun. It concluded that not only was "every precaution taken which skill, regulated by prudence and animated by the loftiest motives, could devise to guard against accident," but Captain Stockton had exhibited "due confidence" in placing himself in the most dangerous place at the time of firing.^ Although Stockton's name had been officially cleared, the accident left its mark upon him; the ship was in fact a successful experiment which demonstrated the feasibility of the design and motive power, and it set the pattern for the future, but the ship was always remembered in connec tion with the disastrous explosion. Had Tyler remained in office, Stockton would not have ^Bayard, Stockton. 88-93. See alo J. B. McMaster, A History of the People of the United States. VII (New York: 1910), 303. President Tyler, a widower, married the daughter of David Gardiner a few months later. 138 been engaged in an unsuccessful intrigue in Texas during the summer of 1845; he would have been cruising in the Mediterranean, displaying his revolutionary new warship. In the middle of February, 1845, John Y. Mason, who had been appointed Secretary of the Navy following the death of Thomas Gilmer in the explosion, asked Stockton to come to Washington. Apparently following conversations between the Secretary and Stockton, instructions were given on 28 February for a cruise with a squadron under Stockton's command. He was to take the Princeton, the Saratoga, the St. Mary's, and the brig Porpoise to the island of Madeira, where the Saratoga would be detached and sail to Brazil. The others would go to Liverpool where the Princeton would take on board a wrought-iron gun which was being manufac tured for her there. The squadron would then go to the Mediterranean where the St. Mary's would be detached to a separate command. Stockton in the Princeton, with the brig Porpoise. would visit the principal ports of the Mediterranean, as far as Constantinople, "for the purpose of exhibiting the peculiar construction of the Princeton to all such as may have the curiosity tc visit her." Stockton was advised to "leave a favorable impression 139 behind, at every place you may visit. President Polk’s program, however, did not permit the scattering of United States naval forces over the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. In the summer of 1844 Stockton had been active in support of Polk, and of the expansion ist program of the Democratic Party, as indicated above. He was probably Polk's most important and influential supporter in New Jersey, and when Polk won the election Stockton might well have anticipated some special atten tion. In any event, he received it. On 2 April Stockton was given orders countermanding those of February. He was to report to Commodore David Conner, in command of the Home Squadron, comprising all the naval vessels in the Gulf of Mexico and at the time concentrated off the coast of Mexico near Vera Cruz.^ ^Mason to Stockton, 14 February 1845, Letters to Officers, No. 37; Mason to Stockton, 28 February 1845, Confidential Letter Book No. 1; both in NDA, NA. ^Confidential Letters, No. 1, NDA, NA. Stockton was told that further orders would be given by Commodore Conner. A copy of orders which had been sent to Conner was enclosed, stating that Stockton would arrive with his four vessels, to be under Conner's command, and at his orders. Stockton's instructions provided that if Conner should not be at Vera Cruz, or if he could not meet him elsewhere "and hostilities shall have been declared 140 In the second week of April, Stockton took the Princeton to Philadelphia to receive on board a gun which had been delivered there for him.^7 Back at Norfolk on 22 April, he received new orders from Polk's Secretary of the Navy, George Bancroft. Two letters were addressed to Stockton: one contained his instructions, the other was a copy of the letter sent in his care and to be delivered to Commodore Conner. In the letter to Stockton covering Conner's, Bancroft wrote: "You will receive herewith a letter, addressed to Commodore Conner, to be delivered when you shall fall in with him." The letter to Conner began: "This letter will reach you through Commodore Stockton, who is Instructed to 48 place himself and squadron at your disposition." against the United States by Mexico," Stockton should carry on under his own authority. ^ A letter from the Department to Stockton on 1 April ordered him to Philadelphia for the gun, Confidential Letters No. 1. Three letters from Stockton to the Depart ment, from Philadelphia on 8, 11, and 13 April, concern personnel matters. In Captain's Letters, NDA, NA. ^®David Conner Papers, New York Public Library. There is a letter copy in Confidential Letter Book No. 1, NDA, NA. 141 Stockton did not, in fact, ever place himself and his squadron at the disposition of Commodore Conner; there is no indication that he ever intended to do so, and every implication that he expected to be otherwise engaged. The Department's letter to Conner did not reveal that Stockton had been given a broad and loose directive, in writing. He was to "go on shore" at Galveston and "make yourself acquainted with the dispositions of the people of Texas, and their relations with Mexico," and remain there "as long as in your judgment may seem n e c e s s a r y . "^9 Those instructions undoubtedly followed discussions between President Polk and Stockton, together with Secre tary Bancroft, although no record of such conversations has been found. When Stockton arrived in Texas he pro ceeded to do more than gather information on the disposi tions of the people. He acted in conjunction with another agent whom President Polk had sent to attempt to manipu late the foreign policy of the Republic of Texas in a scheme to place a cloak of legitimacy over Polk's aggres sive designs on Mexico's territory. And he reported his ^The letter is given in full above at the close of chapter III, page 84. actions to the Department. As this survey o£ his career has demonstrated, Stockton was in full agreement with Folk's objectives; and he was willing to take the responsi bility for the means to be used, as the President was not. He was even prepared to use his personal fortune to finance the beginning of a war. CHAPTER V ANNEXATION AND INTRIGUE: THE ACCOUNT OF PRESIDENT ANSON JONES In the spring of 1845 Andrew Jackson Donelson, the one official representative of the United States in Texas, was confidently looking forward to the acceptance by Texas of the terms of annexation offered in the joint resolution of the United States Congress. President Jones was widely regarded by those who were most frenetic in the drive for annexation as being in favor of Texas retaining her status as an independent nation. Donelson took a philosophical view of the matter. At the beginning of April he wrote to Secretary of State Buchanan expressing confidence in the outcome, and remarking that it was only natural that high officials in a government should want to continue in their positions. He observed that if such officials interposed no obstacles to the free exercise of the people's will, no more could be expected of them.*- ^Donelson to Buchanan, 1 April 1845, printed in Ex. 143 144 There was an attempt to exert pressure on President Jones. Memucan Hunt, formerly minister from the Republic of Texas to the United States, was working for annexation with a group which regarded Jones as virtually a traitor. Hunt conferred with former Governor Archlball Yell of Arkansas, who had just come from conversations with Polk and Buchanan, and wrote to his friend Robert J. Walker, Polk's Secretary of the Treasury, to say that he and Yell were combatting "what is termed the British party in Texas." He said he was about to go to the capital to tell the President that if the people were not allowed to vote on Doc., 29th Cong., 1st, Sess., Serial Set #480, Doc. #2. On 12 April Donelson wrote again to Buchanan to say that President Jones had no antipathy to the United States. Ibid. Long after the event, Jones complained about the abuse he had received, without cause as he said. In 1857 he wrote to his former Secretary of State regarding the complaint made against him for his "supposed 'opposition to Annexation.'" He asserted that he had cooperated with the British and French representatives in their efforts to secure Mexico's recognition of Texan Independence in return for a Texan promise to remain independent, because of a commitment which had been made earlier. Jones stated flatly: "1 was the architect of Annexation & labored diligently, faithfully, zealously, efficiently & success fully for its accomplishment, & accomplished it. This the national record will prove." Jones to Ashbel Smith, 29 September 1857, Anson Jones Papers, University of Texas. This is protesting too much; in 1845 he was clearly not enthusiastic about annexation, but he acquiesced in response to the popular will, as Donelson said. 145 annexation very soon, "a convention will be called by the people" themselves. Hunt said: I have just assured Dr. Smith [Ashbel Smith, Jone's Secretary of State] that I shall not use any exertions whatever to prevent the people from taring [sic] and feathering President Jones if he does not act immediately, and in good faith; & that the members of his cabinet would be very apt to meet with a similar fate.2 At the same time, Donelson was expressing his full confidence. On 10 April he wrote to his wife: "I begin to see the end of the Texas question. It is safe. This Con gress is to be convened on the 16th of June. They will accept our law, and the people will approve it."'* He wrote to Calhoun on 24 April to say that he thought it a ^Hunt to Walker, 8 April 1845, Robert J. Walker Papers, L.C. Hunt felt it appropriate to add in a post script: "Do not infer from what 1 have said that I encour age or recommend violence on the person of Pres't Jones, on the contrary, I am very desirous to see everything accomplished amicably." The correspondence reveals that Walker had arranged to finance a;public relations campaign for annexation in Texas. On 24 March Hunt had asked for $10,000 to employ "some half dozen able speakers," and $5,000 for printing and transmitting publications through out the country. Hunt to Walker from Galveston, Walker Papers, L.C. ^Donelson Papers, L.C. Mrs. Donelson was at the Hermitage, Jackson's home in Tennessee. Donelson had written to her on 7 April with the same confident expectation. 146 virtual certainty that annexation would be consummated before the United States Congress met again. He had pre sented the offer as "containing the ultimatum of President Polk in which he had the concurrence also of President Tyler," The people of Texas were holding public meetings throughout the territory and "expressing their approbation of the terms offered to them by the United States with a unanimity which no other debated question has ever received. The overwhelming sentiment in Texas for annexation, and the knowledge by the Polk administration of that fact through March, April, May, and June, must be constantly kept in mind if Polk's policy is to be understood. When the matter came to a vote by the Congress of Texas on 18 June, that vote was unanimous for annexation; but it is not necessary to assume that Polk should have been able to foresee this. He was constantly being told, both by Texans and by Americans who were reporting to him from Texas, that there was no question on the issue. Polk asked Charles H. Raymond of the Texas Legation in Washington if he had "any 4Printed in AR of AHA for 1899, II, "Calhoun Corres pondence," 1029-32. 147 doubts about the acceptance by the Government and people of Texas of the proposition for annexation now before them," and Raymond reported to his government: "I told him frankly and unhesitatingly that I entertained none what- ever. ..." Polk's ostensible reason for sending Stockton to Texas, as well as the several other agents the administration had there, was concern over Texas acceptance of the United States offer; it would be quite impossible to accept that as the explanation, even in the absence of explicit documentation for another interpretation. But such evidence does exist, as will appear below. The squadron under Commodore Stockton's command arrived off Galveston on 12 May. It was the first exten sive cruise for the Princeton, and Stockton was intent upon demonstrating her worth: he instructed the captains of the other three vessels to make their own way to Galveston, and he put on all steam in an attempt for ^Printed in AR of AHA for 1908, II, No. 1; "Diploma tic Correspondence of the Republic of Texas," Raymond to Ebenezer Allen, Sec. of State of Texas ad interim, 19 May 1845, 377. J. Prentiss wrote to Buchanan, 19 April, from Galveston, to assure him that "nine tenths of all the people of Texas are in favor of annexation immediately." In Polk Papers, L.C. 148 record speed, but the Sloop of War St. Mary's arrived twelve hours before the steamer.6 On the 13th Stockton sent a letter to the Mayor of Galveston, and the style reveals the man: This morning 1 hoisted my Pendant on board the U. S. Brig Porpoise, & have come with that vessel into the harbour to pay the compliments of the squadron as well as my own personal respects to the authorities & people of Texas. A national Salute of Twenty one Guns will be fired from the Porpoise if it will be returned "Gun for Gun."7 The Commodore was received with ceremony and a week later the community honored Stockton and his officers at a "Great Ball."8 At Galveston Stockton met Charles A. Wickliffe, who had been there since 2 May. Wickliffe was a Kentucky poll tician who had been a member of the House of Representa tives for ten years, then lieutenant-governor of Kentucky 8The National Intelligencer in Washington published an unsigned letter on 14 June from the "U.S. Ship St. Mary's, off Galveston, May 13, 1845," which referred to the "trial of speed among the ships." The letter expressed surprise that the St. Mary's had bested the Princeton. 7copy of the letter to Mayor James M. Allen in Officers Letters, Supplementary file, 1844-45, NDA, NA. ^Letter from E. A. Rhodes from Galveston, 22 May 1845, to A. J. Donelson, in Donelson Papers, L.C. for three years and governor for the year 1839-40, follow ing the death of the governor. He was a Whig, but an anti- Clay Whig and strong for the annexation of Texas; President Tyler had therefore appointed him postmaster-general in October, 1841, and he had remained in Tyler's cabinet through that administration. Wickliffe had been sent to Texas by President Polk. At the end of March, Polk wrote to Donelson, in a letter marked "Private and unofficial," with double underlining for emphasis, to tell him that Wickliffe would deliver a despatch to him. He said that Wickliffe had taken "a very active part in negotiating the Treaty— last year, and will be able to give you valuable information," referring to the Treaty of Annexation which had been rejected by the United States Senate in the summer of 1844. Polk sought to make it appear on the record that Wickliffe's trip to Texas was at his own initiative, and for personal reasons, saying the "Hon. Charles A. Wickliffe . . . .designs visiting Texas--with a view to emigrate to it. . . ." This was, of course, not the case; Wickliffe left Texas as soon as the scheme failed that summer, and there is no indication that he had ever intended to settle - there. Polk did write correctly and to the point, however, when he said to Donelson: "He [Wickliffe] has my confidence 150 and will be entitled to yours. Archiball Yell wrote Polk on 5 May to say that Wickliffe had arrived, and then went on to imply that further agents were unnecessary. He told Polk: "You may now rest assured, that nothing but a Providential inter ference can prevent annexation— so far at least as Texas is concerned." Yell praised Donelson for his effective work, his manner and "address," and emphasized the value of his relationship to Jackson for the effect this had upon Houston, "the Power behind the Throne greater than the Throne itself." Houston was now "safe," he said.*® Donelson confirmed Yell's conclusion, writing Polk that he had been "greatly vexed at the course of Houston DAB, article on Wickliffe by Robert S. Cotterill, XX, 182-83. Letter, Polk to Donelson, 28 March 1845, Donelson Papers, L.C. The DAB explains Wickliffe's mission to Texas by saying Polk commissioned him as a special agent to "ferret out and oppose the designs of France and England in Texas," citing Samuel F. Bemis, editor, American Secretaries of State and Their Diplomacy (New York: 1928), Vol. V, article on John C. Calhoun by St. George Leakin Sioussat, This explanation is not incorrect, but it is so incomplete as to distort the meaning of the Wickliffe effort. As will become apparent below, however, Polk was not candid with Wickliffe; the man did not fully understand the role he was playing. •^Yell to Polk, 5 May 1845 from Galveston, Polk Papers, L.C. 151 who has controlled the President and his cabinetbut, he said, "in my judgment no serious obstacle can hereafter arise. . . Donelson felt so certain that Texas would accept annexation that he took a trip to New Orleans. There on 14 May he wrote again to Polk, noting that Yell had left for Washington a few days before and that he would satisfy Polk that annexation is safe beyond the possibility of defeat. Neither Houston, nor the executive of Texas, nor all the Diplomacy of Europe can throw a moments [sicl doubt about the decision of the people in its favor, congress and the people in convention will ratify our proposals without the change of a letter. 2 Stockton made the same judgment in his first letter to the administration from Galveston. On 21 May he wrote Bancroft: The question of annexation under the reso lutions of Congress is in my opinion settled. In truth seven eights of the people are in favor of it; and every man in the Republic seems to despise the threats of Mexico & to spurn all European interference in the matter. Having come to that conclusion, it would appear from the written instructions Bancroft had given him that he should have taken his squadron to join Commodore Conner at * ^-Donelson to Polk, 11 May 1845, Polk Papers, L.C. 152 once. That his real purpose In Texas was not just to go on shore and become acquainted with the dispositions of the people became apparent Immediately not only in his actions but in his statements in this first report to Washington. He said that the Mexicans were "crossing the Rio Grande del Norte and taking possession of an immense and valuable portion of the Territory on the East side of that river," for the purpose, he presumed, of being "in sole possession of the river and territory at the time of annexation." The Mexicans, of course, had been in sole possession of the river, including the east side of it, from the time of the first settlements in the region; the Republic of Texas had never had jurisdiction there. Stockton may or may not have known the true status of the area which Texas claimed on no valid basis whatever. In any event, he proceded to say that the Mexicans "certainly, in my judgment, ought to be driven back to the other side at least [my emphasis] of the Rio Grande del Norte before annexation takes place." And then Stockton said: "Mr Donaldson [sic] is not here and I am told President Jones cannot be trusted. I will do the 153 13 best I can." If there were no other evidence, that statement alone would be sufficient to demonstrate that Folk had sent Commodore Stockton to Texas on a mission which went far beyond that specified in his written orders. What Stockton proceeded to do was first described with some circumstantial detail by Anson Jones in a book published posthumously in 1859. In his Memoranda and Official Correspondence Relating to the Republic of Texas. Its History and Annexation, the former President of Texas wrote: In May, 1845, Commodore Stockton, with a fleet of four or five vessels, arrived at Galveston, and with him Hon. C. A. Wickliffe, ex-Postmaster General of the United States. These gentlemen had various interviews with Major Gen. Sherman, the chief officer of the militia of Texas, the character of which is not precisely known to me; but the result of which was active preparations at Galveston for organi zing volunteer forces, the ostensible (and no doubt real) object of which was an invasion of Mexico. A party, [Jones apparently refers to President Polk] it appears, was anxious that the expedition should be set on foot, under the auspices of the Major-General and Com. Stockton; •^Officers Letters, Supplementary volume, 1844-45, NDA, NA. Stockton closed with the comment: "I will send the Brig or one of the ships to Vera Cruz with the letters for Commodore Conner, as it will be impossible for me to go there and at the same time give the necessary atten tions to the important interests in Texas." 154 but these gentlemen, it appears, were unwilling to take so great a responsibility: it was therefore resolved that the plan should be submitted to me and my sanction obtained--(quere, Esicl forced?) indeed such, as afterwards became apparent, were the Commodore's instructions; and the organizing, &c, had been gone into for the purpose of forcing my assent to the proposed scheme. On the 28th May, Gen. Sherman for himself and associates in the militia, and Dr. Wright, surgeon of the steamer Princeton, and secretary of the Commodore, (as he informed me) took three days in unfolding to me the object of their visit. Dr. Wright stated that he was sent by Com. Stockton to pro pose that 1 should authorize Major Gen. Sherman to raise a force of two thousand men, or as many as might be necessary, and make a descent upon the Mexican town of Matamoras, and capture and hold it; that Com. Stockton would give assistance with the fleet under his command, under the pre text of giving the protection promised by the United States to Texas by Gen. Murphy; that he would undertake to supply the necessary provisions, arms and munitions of war for the expedition, would land them at convenient points on our coast, and would agree to pay the men and officers to be engaged; that he had consulted Gen. Sherman, who approved the plan, and was present to say so; and, besides that, the people generally from Galveston to Washington in Texas had been spoken to about it, that it met their unanimous approval; and all that was now wanting was the sanction of the Government to the scheme. Gen. Sherman confirmed what Dr. Wright stated, said he had had various interviews with Com. Stockton, and hoped 1 would approve the expedition.^ ■^Jones, Memoranda (New York: 1859), 48 ff. The account by Jones which follows is from this source. A few months later, on 5 October 1845, Stockton, in a letter to Secretary Bancroft, made indirect reference to Dr. Wright's role in serving as his spokesman. Mass. Hist. Soc., Boston. 155 Thus Jones asserts that Stockton had instructions to initiate an attack upon Mexico, instructions which could only be given in such a matter by the President of the United States. Jones pointed out to Dr. Wright that such an action was a very grave matter, and said he needed some written evidence of Commodore Stockton's part in it; he asked if Stockton had sent any communication to him: As 1 expected, he replied in the negative, but that if I wished, Com. Stockton would visit me in person, and give me the same assurances lisic] in person. 1 asked him if the Minister of the United States was cognizant of the matter. He then stated to me that the scheme was rather a confidential and secret one, that it was under taken under the sanction of the United States Government, but that the President did not wish to be known in the matter, but approved Com. Stockton's plan;--that as an evidence of that to me, Mr. Wickliffe was associated with the Commodore; that the President of the United States, satisfied that annexation was in effect consummated, wished Texas to place herself in an attitude of active hostility towards Mexico, so that, when Texas was finally brought into the Union, she might bring a war with her; and this was the object of the expedition to Matamoras, as now proposed. He further stated that Com. Stockton was known to be, individually, very wealthy; that he had means of his own suffi cient to support and carry on the expedition; and that it was desirable it should appear to the world as his individual enterprise, while at the same time I was given to understand that the Government of the United States was, in reality, at the bottom of it, and anxious for its accom plishment and for the reasons stated. 156 It needs emphasis that, according to Jones, the Polk- Stockton proposed expedition against the Mexican forces on the Rio Grande was not designed to occupy the area between the Nueces and the Rio Grande, the land claimed but not heretofore occupied by the Republic of Texas; it was de signed as an attack upon the Mexican city of Matamoras, on the right bank of the river. The purpose was not to pro tect Texas, but to begin a war. Jones put the question to Dr. Wright and General Sherman in the most direct and unambiguous form: "I then said, smiling, 'So, gentlemen, the Commodore, on the part of the United States, wishes me to manufacture a war for them1; to which they replied affirmatively." General Sherman, in a subsequent private interview with Jones, urged him to assent to Stockton's proposal, asserting that it was "extremely popular among the people, and that he would have no difficulty in obtaining the requisite number of men, upon the assurances of Stockton that they should be provisioned and paid." Jones said he was "indignant at the proposition," but concealed his feelings and temporized for fear that Sherman, who was a popular leader, would concert with Stockton to take advantage of the hatred of Mexico and the desire for 157 revenge among the people to start a movement against the government, resulting in anarchy and bloodshed. Jones adds that he was expecting the return within a few days of British Minister Elliot from Mexico, "with propositions of peace, and an acknowledgement of Texan independence." He calculated that such an offer from the Mexican government, even if conditional and therefore not acceptable to the Texans, would put a halt to any movement for an attack upon Mexico. Since he could "say nothing openly in regard to these expectations," he "answered Commodore Stockton [through Dr. Wright] that 1 would take a few days longer to reflect upon the matter." Jones gave as specific grounds the fact that the Congress would soon convene (on June 16th) and he would seek the advice of that body on the matter. This gained him "breathing time." When Elliot returned from Mexico a few days later with the preliminary treaty and acknowledgment of Texan independence, Jones was able to "declare my independence of Com. Stockton, and Mr. Wright, Gov. Yell, Major Donelson, Mr. Polk, and Mr. Buchanan." President Jones then issued a proclamation announcing the Mexican offer and declaring a state of peace with Mexico until such time as the government of Texas should 158 act on the matter. General Sherman and Dr. Wright were on their way back from consultations with Stockton at Galves ton when they saw his proclamation; Sherman turned about, concluding that there was now no possibility of developing the attack, but Dr. Wright came on. Jones records his meet ing with Wright with evident satisfaction: "One word settled Com. Stockton's business, and I assurred I T sic] him I never had the least idea of manufacturing a war for the United States. Soon after which he left our waters and sailed for the Pacific in search of the same unpacific object which had brought him to Texas, as I suppose." Jones says he could have been very popular if he had sanctioned the "war scheme," and probably could have re ceived great rewards from the United States government if he had agreed to "involve the country afresh in a war with Mexico." Lest the reader have any doubt that Stockton's plan was in fact President Polk's design, Jones writes that he had "the direct and positive assurance of the Texan Charg£ at Washington City in September, 1845," that "this scheme had the sanction of the United States." The war which began the following year was, in the interpretation of President Jones, a consistent and logical development of United States policy. The United States 159 "made the war ostensibly for the DEFENCE of Texas; but, in reality, to consummate views of conquest which had been en tertained probably for many years, and to wage which, the annexation of Texas afforded a pretext long sought and wished for." Polk kept insisting upon forcing "protection" upon Texas, and finally "brought down an army and a navy upon us, when there was not a hostile foot, either Indian or Mexican, in Texas; not (as afterwards became apparent) to protect Texas. . . .but to insure a collision with Mexico." The government of Texas, he grants, had indeed asked for protection while in the process of accepting the offer of annexation, but "the protection asked for was only prospective and contingent," while the protection which the government of the United States had in view "was immediate and aggressive." Jones makes the flat charge that President Polk forced the war on Mexico. The Mexican government, though she might bluster a little, had not the slightest idea of invading Texas either by land or water; and. . . .nothing would provoke her to (active) hostilities, but the presence of troops in the immediate neighborhood of the Rio Grande, threatening her towns and settlements on the southwest side of that river. That was, indeed, precisely the situation which exist ed when the war began in April of 1846, and Jones makes an 160 explicit statement on the motivation o£ President Polk: . . . 1 am bound to say, the war between the United States and Mexico grew directly out of annexation; that it was the foregone conclusion1 of Mr. Polk when he came into office, to have that war with Mexico; that, failing in his most cherished scheme of inducing me to the responsi bility of provoking and bringing it about, he blundered into it by other means. . . . The war was begun without law, and in like manner ended without law; and a feeble, distracted, and im becile nation, by it were Csic 1 divested of an immense territory, which, as a component part of Mexico, never could have been of use to her or anybody else, but which, in the possession of the United States, may and probably will become of incalculable importance to that country and the world -- if it does not unfortunately dissolve the Union. This account of President Polk's attempt to "annex a war," as told by the President of Texas, has been available to historians for over a century. If it had been accepted as a valid account, the interpretation of the origins of the war with Mexico in American histories would have been significantly different; it would have been impossible to portray Polk as being basically intent upon a peaceable solution with Mexico. But the report of these events by President Jones has either been ignored, or denied and re jected in its essential points by most all American histo rians . Of three histories of American diplomacy and foreign 161 policy which are currently most widely used as texts for the subject, those by Thomas A. Bailey and by Julius W. Pratt treat the annexation of Texas and the beginning of the war with Mexico without mentioning the Polk-Stockton intrigue. Samuel F. Bemis refers to Stockton's activities without naming him, but denies that the plot had the support of the United States government: Friends of Polk visited Texas and urged that Texan troops move into the disputed territory between the Nueces and the Rio Grande, thus renewing hostilities with Mexico before annexa tion; then the American President, under author ity of the resolution of annexation, could dic tate a final peace and boundary. Polk himself and the Government steered clear of such compli city . The most recent history of the Mexican War, by Otis A. Singletary, a volume in the Chicago History of American ^Thomas a . Bailey, A Diplomatic History of the American People (7th edition; New York: 1964). Julius W. Pratt, A History of United States Foreain Policy (2nd ed.; Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: 1965). Samuel Flagg Bemis, A Diplomatic History of the United States (5th ed.; New York: 1965) , 234. Richard W. Leopold, The Growth of American Foreign Policy: A History (New York: 1962), does not mention this Stockton affair but this is not significant since the work is primarily a history of American foreign policy in the twentieth century and there is no attempt to give the history of the origins of the war with Mexico. 162 Civilization, makes no mention of the affair. ^ The two most thorough and comprehensive investigations and treatments of diplomatic and military history in Texas in 1845 and 1846, both by Justin H. Smith, give information on the Stockton effort but deny that it was any part of American policy. Smith's work has been influential on these matters, and it will be well to note his treatment before turning to the record of Stockton's intrigue. In his Annexation of Texas, Smith refers to Duff Green's activities in Texas, "eager to extend her territory at the expense of Mexico," and writes that Stockton, in command of an American fleet, was at Galveston; and he, a man of great energy and somewhat less discretion, seems to have been playing a zealous part of a similar kind. Yell remained in Texas, exerting himself in the cause, for about six weeks; Wickliffe, recently Tyler's Postmaster General, had been commissioned as a confidential agent to oppose the apprehended efforts of England and France, and had begun operations about the first of May; and ex-Presi- dent Lamar, who had come over to the side of annexation, was now on the ground at work. Jones was urged, says Smith, to send a military expe dition to the Rio Grande "and perhaps beyond it," and "Wickliffe, Stockton, Green and presumably Yell. . . .in ^The Mexican War (Chicago: 1960). 163 concert with General Sherman, the Texan commander-in-chief, exerted their utmost endeavors, it would appear, to force the wished-for campaign upon the President." Smith tells of the visit of General Sherman and Dr. Wright to Jones at the end of May, and of Jones's temporizing, and then inter prets the events: Jones admitted that Donelson held aloof from this affair; and in fact the American charge cautioned Stockton, telling him that it was highly important the squadron should 'so act as not to alter the general character of the defence' which the United States intended to interpose for Texas-- that is to say, she was to be defended after, but not before, the annexation proposal should have been accepted; and instead of advocating an attack upon Mexico, he took the ground that it would be preferable to let the hostilities be commenced by her. No less correct was the conduct of our Execu tive. Buchanan wrote to Donelson that the govern ment would 'studiously refrain from all acts of hostility' towards Mexico unless these should be come 'absolutely necessary in self-defence,' and that orders to this effect were given Stockton. . . Consequently, though Jones's resentment against Wickliffe and Stockton was extreme, he could not hold the United States responsible for their pro ceedings; and Donelson was able to report that however little the measures of these gentlemen were 'calculated to conciliate the support of the Government,' no harm had actually been done.17 Jones did, of course, hold the United States responsi ble for the activities of Wickliffe and Stockton, and Smith Smith, Annexation of Texas. 447-48. 164 made no attempt In his work on the annexation of Texas to analyze Jones's charges adequately ox; apparently, to search for Stockton records on the matter. In his major work on the war with Mexico, Smith took up the matter again. He wrote that "the confidential orders of the government [of the U.S.] were emphatically unwarlike in tone," quoting in support of that judgment the following: 'Take special care,' the department said to Stockton, who had a few vessels on the Texas coast, 'to avoid every act that can admit of being construed as inconsistent with our friendly relations' with Mexico. In a lengthy note Smith discusses Jones's charge against Polk. Jones also asserted that agents of Folk urged him to send the Texas militia against Mexico in the spring of 1845 in order to bring about a war; but this is misleading. . . .The confidential orders given to Conner and Stockton of the navy and the correspondence between the state department and Donelson prove that Polk's administration had not the least intention of adopting at this time an aggressive course toward Mexico. Smith finally attempts to dispose of President Jones's account by an ad hominem argument: When Jones wrote his book he was a ruined man in consequence of the general and well-founded belief that he had tried to prevent the incor poration of Texas in the United States, and was very bitter against Polk. Not long afterward he committed suicide. His book, apparently 165 prepared as a defence of himself, is often un trustworthy. . . . Smith's history is one of the most flagrantly biased works in American history, but some of the points raised in his comments above are relevant to the problem. The fault lies in the failure to undertake a serious investigation to determine what Stockton's relationship to the Polk ad ministration actually was. The statements by the President of Texas, based largely on his direct involvement in the matter and his conversations with some of the participants, do not settle the issue. But Jones's account, together with other public evidence, should have resulted in efforts by historians to get to the bottom of the matter. 18Smith, The War With Mexico. I, 131, 445-46. CHAPTER VI STOCKTON PROPOSES TO FINANCE A WAR In his letter to Secretary Bancroft dated 21 May 1845 at Galveston, Stockton wrote: "War now exists and as any & every man here fights on his 'own hook,' the Texians ought therefore in my opinion to take possession and drive the Mexicans over the other side of the river before the meet ing of Congress." Otherwise, he said, it might be a pre text for Jones to delay the action on annexation, or a large territory might be lost. He said he planned to leave the next day with the squadron for the Rio Grande and Matamoros, in the hope that such a show of force would in duce the Mexican General Arista to "order a counter march." He added that if he could not stop the Mexicans in that way, he would try something else: "In my opinion they should not be permitted to proceed and if I can prevent it I will."1 ^Officers Letters, supplementary volume, 1844-45, NDA, NA. 166 Stockton did not leave Galveston for his cruise south along the coast for another week. On the evening of the 21st the Great Ball was given in his honor, and on that evening and the next day he was in consultation with Wick- liffe and General Sherman. Following that discussion, Wickliffe wrote to Secretary Buchanan to charge President Jones with trying to defeat annexation. He said that the !lgenl in chief," Sherman, would not "accompany us" on the trip to the Rio Grande. Nowhere in the letter did he refer to Stockton; this use of the pronoun without feeling any necessity to identify the person supports the assumption that they had been assigned to work with each other. Jones, it will be recalled, reported that Dr. Wright had said that Wickliffe1s association with Stockton was evidence of the fact that, although the President did not wish to be known in the matter, he "approved" Stockton's plan. Instead of going with Stockton and Wickliffe to the Mexican border, General Sherman would go to see President Jones. His pur pose, as Wickliffe explained it to Buchanan, was to "apprise" President Jones "of the probable danger and ob tain if possible his cooperation in any measure which it may be precedent to adopt if Mexico contemplates an 168 O invasion." This was deliberately vague language. Stockton, who wrote to Secretary Bancroft on the same date of 22 May, revealed a little more. He said he had seen the Major General of Texas, "for whom I sent some days since. He has consented to call out the troops, to clear and protect the boundary— he is to leave this place to morrow to advise with the President of Texas on the subject. ..." This supports the account by Jones on Sherman's position on the matter, and on his intentions. Stockton then made a request of Bancroft: 1 will want more provisions and powder, that [sic] 1 expected when 1 left the United States— 1 will send to Pensacola for them, and if not there to New Orleans. Please to send the necessary orders to let me have *?hat I shall deem necessary for the Squadron under my command. This letter is another document which makes it impos sible to believe that Stockton's orders of record, to ^Letter in the Buchanan Papers, Pennsylvania Histori cal Society, Philadelphia. Buchanan received the letter on 1 June. ^Officers Letters, supplementary volume, 1844-45, NDA, NA. There is a copy in the Stockton Letter Books, 1843- 1847, in the Princeton Library. 169 observe and report, were in fact the reason for his pre sence in Texas. One notes Stockton's actions and, even more significant, the character of his reports to the government in Washington. In this report Stockton said that he had "seat for" the Major General in charge of the military forces of the Republic of Texas and that the officer "has consented to call out the troops." Had Stock ton been acting on his own initiative it is very difficult to believe that he would have reported what he had done in that fashion to Secretary Bancroft. And he followed this with a request for more provisions and powder, although he had used no powder at the time of the request and he gave no reason for it. On receipt of Stockton's letter Bancroft replied: "Orders will be given to furnish powder and sup plies at Pensacola on your requisitions."^ On that same date of 22 May Stockton wrote to Commo dore David Conner that he had come to Galveston "under pri vate instructions," which changed his original orders to report to Conner off Vera Cruz. He said he would be kept ^Bancroft to Stockton, 2 June 1845, Confidential Letters No. 1, NDA, NA. Bancroft included a paragraph in the letter on the necessity of acting in a manner consis tent with U.S. friendly relations with Mexico. 170 in Texas, he feared, longer than he wished and he gave as the reason that charge Donelson had returned to the United States and thus he would "be compelled" to remain there "until after the action of the Texian Congress upon the resolutions of the Congress of the United States." How ever, he told Conner, he would be at his side as soon as possible if war should be declared.^ Donelson was in New Orleans at this time, but he soon became aware of the plans for an attack upon Mexico. A general feeling of aggression against Mexico was growing in the United States during this simmer of 1845, and that feel ing was very strong in the southwest. Donelson may have seen the article in the New Orleans Jeffersonian which was reprinted by the National Intelligencer on 21 May, advocat ing U.S. military action on the Texas-Mexican border: The United States should obtain the permis sion of Texas, and march an army immediately to the Rio Grande! And the moment that Mexico issues the first letter of marque or reprisal, that army should be marched on Durango, Chihuahua, and California. The mines of Northern Mexico, the rich grain growing valleys, and the countless herds of cattle, sheep, and oxen, would soon ^Letter copy in Stockton Letterbook, 1843-47, Princeton Library. The letter was sent to Conner in the St. Mary1s. 171 repay us for the depredations on our commerce, and a trade, of which New Orleans would be the centre, would spring up from those fair pro vinces greater and richer than the world has ever known. . . .6 On 24 May Donelson wrote to Buchanan urging that there be no United States military force introduced into Texas. The greatest caution should be observed, he said, "so as to give not the slightest pretext for the assertion that either the Government or the people of Texas were influ enced by the presence of our armed force." He wrote that after the Texas government had accepted annexation it would be proper to send American troops to the Rio Grande— and then he struck out "Rio Grande" and wrote "frontier," for he was not then or later in favor of the use of force to assert the Texan claim to the Rio Grande boundary. He was later to argue at length against sending troops into the Mexican settlements north of the Rio Grande.7 Donelson found direct references in the newspapers to Stockton's project in Texas, and the charg^ wrote another ^This probably appeared in the New Orleans paper about the 10th or 11th of May. ^Donelson to Buchanan, from New Orleans, 24 May 1845, Dept, of State Archives, Texas Legation No. 2, N.A. 172 letter to Buchanan on 24 May expressing his concern. He said he was returning to Galveston and Indicated his anxiety about Stockton: You will observe from the papers that Captain Stockton is there, and was to sail, it is said, to the Brazos de Santiago, intending to cooper ate with General Sherman of the Texan militia, should there be a belligerent movement on that frontier on the part of the Mexican troops. There is no probability that such a movement is yet to be expected from Mexico. Such an idea is contradicted by all the reports received here from that government. . . . Donelson concluded with the statement that "it is not to be supposed" that President Jones would sanction "any but strictly defensive measures," and he hoped that "the use of the force under command of Captain Stockton will be Q so directed as not to disturb this posture of affairs." . Donelson clearly hoped the State Department would ask Secretary Bancroft to restrain Stockton's activities. It is apparent at this point, as on other occasions in this affair, that Donelson was not a party to the Polk adminis tration's effort to use Stockton in Texas for "larger" purposes. It is probable that he later suspected the connivance of the government in Stockton's scheme, but 8Printed in Doc.. 29 Congress, 1st Sess., Serial Set #480, Doc. #2, 47. 173 even then he continued to argue against it. Had Donelson been privy to Stockton's conversations and correspondence, he would have been rather more nervous about the prospects than he was on the basis o£ rumors and newspaper stories. Stockton continued to delay his trip to the Rio Grande; and he continued to concert plans for the sending of an armed force to the Mexican border. On 25 May he wrote to Secretary Bancroft to say, "annexation is more certain now, than ever," and, on his plans: "1 expect to leave for 'Corpus Christi* tomorrow— to ascertain if 1 can what is actually doing on the frontier along the Del Norte.That explanation of his current activities in Texas was deliberately misleading in its implications. It could have been made public without revealing the in trigue; but at the same time, the government in Washington would be able to interpret it in terms of his actual mission in Texas. Two days later Stockton allowed himself the indiscre tion of writing a letter to his government which laid bare ^Officers Letters, supplementary volume, 1844-45, NDA, NA. A pencilled notation says: "Reed. June 9," "Stockton, May 24, Con file". 174 the essence of the plot. This letter was not Included in the correspondence sent to Congress when the negotiations with Texas were a subject of inquiry the following year; no copy was made of the letter by Stockton for his files— or if a copy was made it has not survived; and the original was not filed by the department either in the Officer's Letters file or the Confidential Letters file. Bancroft kept the incriminating document and it came to rest in his personal papers. Stockton inscribed the admonition "Pri vate," with double and triple underlinings, on the cover ofithe letter and above the salutation, and with reason. The letter reads in full: My Dear Sir Since my last letter 1 have seen Mr Mayfield late Secretary of State — who says that if the people here did not feel assured that the Boundary line would be the Rio Grande three fourths and himself amongst the number would oppose the annexation — But I need hard ly say another word on that subject; its impor tance is apparent — But it may perhaps be as well for me in this wav to let you know how I propose to settle the matter without committ ing the U. States — The Major Genl will call out three thousand men & 'R. F. Stockton Esq' will supply them in a private way with provi sions & ammunition — Yours [ Signed] R. F. Stockton*® 175 This confirms precisely and completely the statement by President Jones on Stockton's proposal as revealed and explained by Dr. Wright. The facts are incontestable: an officer of the United States Navy in command of a squadron sent to Texas by the United States government, an officer who was at the same time a wealthy and influential business man and politician, was attempting to initiate an attack upon Mexico by an army which he would finance secretly from his personal funds. The only question which remains at this point is the extent to which the plot was developed in detail in Washington. Stockton certainly would not have written in the way he did in this letter and others if the objectives at which he aimed had not been authorized by President Polk; the particular methods he used, however, might have been at his own initiative. But it must be em phasized that although Secretary Bancroft wrote to Stockton with conventional advice regarding the peaceful -relations between the United States and Mexico, the significant fact is that Stockton was not recalled. Indeed, Bancroft's lOfiandroft Papers, Mass. Hist. Society, Boston. This letter has recently been published in full by R. W. Van Alstyne, The Rising American Empire (Oxford: 1960) , 138. 176 letter of 2 June to Stockton began with the comment: "The President is much pleased at the promptitude with which you have thus far executed the orders of the Department, in reaching Galveston and exhibiting the American flag in the harbor." On the face of it that is simply a silly state ment; it can only be understood as designed to let Stockton know that the President approved of the actions reported in Stockton’s letters of 21 and 22 May, for Bancroft connected his report on the President's pleasure with the notation that he had received those letters from Galveston.It will be recalled that one of Stockton's letters of 22 May had reported General Sherman's having consented to call out the troops and clear the boundary. Polk continued to assume the official posture that there was great danger Texas would reject the annexation proposal, in the face of all the reports to the contrary. On 26 May Jackson wrote to Polk: "Texas comes into the Union with a united voice," with the help of General Houston. "1 knew British gold could not buy Sam Houston," Jackson exulted: "all safe & Donelson will have the honor ^-Bancroft to Stockton, Confidential Letter File No. 1, NDA, NA. Ill of this important Deed." But on that same day Folk was writing to Donelson that he feared the charge was "too sanguine" about the assent of Texas, even though, as he admitted, Governor Yell had arrived in Washington and con curred with Donelson's judgment. He warned of the danger of being lulled into a false sense of security: "There can be no doubt that the combined efforts of the British. French & Mexican authorities will continue to be exerted to prevent it, as long as there is the slightest hope of success. The President was very careful to make no reference in his letters to any unorthodox use of governmental power, even after the military adventure planned by Stockton, Wickliffe and General Sherman became public knowledge, al though in garbled form, through the newspapers. The New Orleans Republican published a story which was picked up and reprinted by Niles' Register on 7 June, on the arrival of Commodore Stockton with his squadron at Galveston. Two days after his arrival, it reported, word was received that a Mexican force on the Rio Grande would attempt to occupy ^Jackson to Polk, 26 May 1845, Polk Papers, L.C.; Polk to Donelson, 26 May 1845, Donelson Papers, L.C. 178 and maintain "the line of the Nueces, at the moment of the completion of annexation." When this was communicated to the Commodore, Stockton "advised an immediate occupation of the line by the Texan troops, offering his co-operation by sea." The account said that Stockton would sail down the coast to obtain intelligence on the matter, accompanied by C. A. Wickliffe, "late postmaster general of the United States," Colonel Love, Colonel McKinney, and Samuel Williams. In the meantime: Major General Sherman is to visit the executive and ask his approval and co-operation. Should he refuse, Sherman contends that he is empowered by the general terms of an existing law to act independently of the president, and he will do so. He will call three thousand men into immediate service to rendezvous at Corpus Christi, and the call will be promptly obeyed. Things here are in a great ferment7^3 This story was published before General Sherman and Dr. Wright had consulted with President Jones. It Niles' Register. 7 June 1845. The National Intelligencer of 9 June referred to a "report of Mexican troops approaching the Rio Grande," noted that Commodore Stockton was on a cruise to Corpus Christi, Brazos Santiago, "and perhaps other points on the coast," with Mr. Wickliffe, "late Postmaster General," and said: "It is supposed that Com. Stockton's visit to Corpus Christi and that vicinity has something to do with this business," that is, with the report of Mexican troops. indicates that Jones's refusal to countenance the attack upon Mexico was anticipated; there is a further probable indication that Wickliffe, Stockton, and Sherman were attempting to put maximum pressure on Jones by a public announcement that General Sherman was prepared to defy the President. The prospects for an early march on the Mexican settle ments appeared very favorable at the end of May, but within a few days the project collapsed. President Jones, aided by the most opportune Mexican offer of recognition, managed to keep control of events, and Donelson supported Jones in frustrating the plans of Stockton, Wickliffe, and Sherman. The proposed trip down the coast to the Rio Grande to "gather information" was cut short. Stockton sailed from Galveston with Wickliffe and several Texan friends on 27 May, but by 2 June they were back in Galveston. Wickliffe wrote to Polk that they had encountered very heavy head winds and he and "the gentleman upon whom 1 relied:to ob tain information from the Rio Grande" became "so extremely sick" that Stockton thought it necessary for their safety to return. It appears that Wickliffe had selected a spy to go among the Mexican settlements, but both he and Wickliffe turned out to be poor sailors. A captain in the 180 Texas revenue service agreed to proceed to the Rio Grande and return to Galveston with any information he might secure.14 Writing from Galveston 3 June, Wickliffe told Presi dent Polk that "fortunately" charge Donelson had arrived there on 31 May, and "we will be governed in this matter by his advice.Donelson had met with Wickliffe and Stockton and certainly made an attempt to govern their actions in future. The charge wrote to the State Depart ment on 2 June from Galveston: I adverted in my last despatch from New Orleans to the presence of Captain Stockton's squadron here, and to a rumor that he had sailed to Santiago, to cooperate with General Sherman of the Texan militia in defending the occupation of the Rio Grande. This was not correct. Cap tain Stockton weighed anchor at this port, a few days ago, for the purpose of examining the coast; but he has since returned, and has taken no step susceptible of construction as one of The National Intelligencer of 18 June reported: "It is stated that the cause of the sudden return to Galveston of the Gulf Squadron, without having accomplished the pur pose for which it sailed from that place on the 27th ultimo -- vis. a cruise of observation along the Mexican coast — was the illness of Mr. Wickliffe, the late Post master General, who was on board the Princeton . . . .His health, however, has since become completely restored." l^Wickliffe to Polk, Polk Papers, L.C. 181 aggression upon Mexico, nor will he take any unless ordered to do so. His presence here has had a fine effect, and operates, without explana tion, as an assurrance [sic] to Texas that she will receive the protection due to her when she comes into the Union. It is clear the Donelson had talked to Stockton with vigor and authority and had warned him against involvement in military action against Mexico. One can only speculate about the defense which Stockton made of his project, under this kind of pressure from Donelson. If he revealed or in timated the covert support of President Polk in his scheme, it was ineffectual. Donelson held the stronger hand: he . had specific authority and instructions, while Stockton had none for the diplomatic and political and military plans he had been developing in Texas. It is significant that Stockton made no mention of this conversation in any of his subsequent dispatches to Washington. Regarding the situa tion on the border, Donelson referred to the belief that Mexico was concentrating troops on the Rio Grande, where, he took pains to emphasize, "Texas has, as yet, established no posts." Obviously very skeptical about the excitement which had been raised on the subject, Donelson told Buchanan that if It should prove to be true that Mexico was concentrating military forces, "It is possible that 182 Texas may send a force there to remove intruders." But such a movement, if made, will be indepen dent of the United States. Captain Stockton will not cooperate with it, but he will remain here until the meeting of Congress [of Texas], ready after that event to act as circumstances may require. . . .*6 At the time of this meeting of Donelson with Stockton and Wickliffe, the latter were awaiting the return of General Sherman and Dr. Wright from their interview with President Jones. Had they secured the approval or acquies cence of the government of Texas in their project, Stockton, in all probability, would have supported the campaign as he had engaged to do. Wickliffe began to doubt the success of the affair before Stockton did. In his letter of 3 June Wickliffe wrote that they had not heard from General Sherman, but he anticipated that Jones would not cooperate with them. "It is my opinion," he wrote, that Prest Jones will discountenance the move ment, under the impression that the United States will have the right and will be bound to remove the Mexican military from east of the Rio Grande after annexation takes place. 16Ex. Doc. 29th Cong., 1st. Sess., Serial Set #480, No. 26. 183 Then Wickliffe asked, naively but most pertinently: "Would not this be an act of War upon Mexico by the United States?1 Exactly, and visibly; the purpose of the scheme was to make it possible for the United States to appear to be acting in defense of the newly acquired State of Texas. A few hours after Wickliffe wrote that letter to Polk, General Sherman arrived in Galveston to report on his in- terview with President Jones. In a long, hastily scribbled, almost illegible letter dated 4 June, Wickliffe told Polk of the mounting difficulties1 with which they were faced. Wickliffe said that at the first interview the President had "concurred in the propriety of moving the Mexicans west of the Rio Grande," but later he had hedged. On the second day of the discussions word had arrived from Captain Hays of the Texas Rangers that some 7,800 Mexican troops had arrived in northern Mexico, counting those in Monterey and along the Rio Grande, and that a body of Mexican sol diers numbering about 100 had marched to a point on the Nueces. Captain Hays intended to start the next day with 50 men to give battle. This purported "information" was designed to force Jones1s hand. Captain Hays was one of those who had joined with Stockton in Galveston in the preparation of the 184 scheme. But there was no attack by the Mexican Amy on the settlements on the Nueces River, and no counterattack by Hays and his Texas Rangers. When General Sherman urged the President to direct him and the Texas militia to march at once upon the Mexicans, according to Wickliffe's account, Jones said he could not do this without violating an understanding he had with Captain Charles Elliot, the British minister to Texas. He said that he must await the return of Elliot from Mexico, whence he had gone in an effort to secure an agreement from that government to recognize the independence of Texas. Sherman then told Jones that he, as major general in charge of the militia, had authority by the act of Congress to call out the forces to defend the country without waiting the orders of the President. Jones replied that he was aware of that power held by General Sherman, "but that he would esteem it as a personal favor if he would not act" at the present time. He said he would communicate with him in a few days. While returning to Galveston Sherman had met Elliot in Houston. ^ The British minister was traveling in great 17xhe National Intelligencer of 16 June reported: 185 haste, planning to stay on the road all night so that he might meet with President Jones as soon as possible. Sherman reported that Captain Elliot did not hesitate to speak of the object of his visit to Mexico, to the citizens of the Repub lic. Said that he had obtained their Indepen dence but only [?] to learn upon his return that a majority of the people were for annexa tion and that he felt for them who opposed it. That Mexico would declare war instantly. The United States would Blockade the ports of Mexico but that the British Government would not submit to it consequently there would be a war for 20 years and he would advise his friends in Texas to leave the country. This is modest [writes Wickliffe] I admit in the Representative of Great Britain, cer tainly kind if not respectful to the Government and people of Texas! One can only conjecture about the possible mixture of fact and calculated distortion in General Sherman's report of the British minister's comments in Houston. Elliot might have been half-seriously attempting to arouse some apprehensions among Texans regarding the course they were taking; however, his correspondence at this time indicates that he had decided that there was no point in further re sistance to the annexation "fever." "Elliot reached Galveston on the evening of the 30th ultimo in a French brig, bringing 'overtures from Mexico' for acknowledgement of Texan independence." 186 Wickliffe told Polk that these facts proved that the suspicions which had been entertained in regard to Presi dent Jones were correct: that he had entered upon a scheme to defeat annexation; that he was pledged to Elliot to prevent all military operations by Texas on the frontier until the results of his mission should be known; and that no call of Congress would be made until, its regular session in November, Wickliffe concluded that Elliot would now inform General Arista in Monterey that Mexico's offer would be rejected by Texas, and "inmediately" the "whole force of Mexico on the Frontier will cross the Rio Grande and invade this Republic before they have decided to accept the terms" of annexation by the United States. Wickliffe questioned whether it would be right and just for the United States to stand by and witness this. He told Polk that he could rely upon it "the people of Texas are ready to do what is required of them to defend their homes but they have very few resources save their indomitable courage. They have the guns without powder, 1 ft and pockets without money." Wickliffe made no mention in his letter to Polk of the *®Wickliffe to Polk, Polk Papers, L.C. 187 fact that Stockton's representative, Dr. Wright, had accompanied General Sherman to see President Jones, al though Stockton's secretary had, according to Jones, played the more important role in the conversations. Stockton wrote to Bancroft on that same date of 4 June and he also avoided any reference to Dr. Wright's visit to the Presi dent of the Republic of Texas. This attempted suppression of a most significant fact is both consistent with and an evidence of the covert character of this intrigue of President Polk in Texas. It is further apparent from Stockton's letter that he had not at this point given up on his scheme, even in the face of Donelson's admonitions and of President Jones's quite obvious opposition. Of the official representative of the United States in Texas Stockton said only: "Major Donelson arrived on Saturday [31 May] and is now here." He made no mention of Donelson's advice or instructions. Of the lengthy conversations of General Sherman and Dr. Wright with Jones, Stockton wrote only: "I have just heard from the President of Texas on the subject of the army of occupation. He approves the plan suggested by me and I hope he will prosecute it." This was an extraordinary conclusion to draw from the 188 encounter between his emissaries and Jones; it is an indi cation of the difficulty Stockton had in accepting defeat; it enables one to understand the verbal violence which accompanied Stockton's recognition of failure a week later. He gave no explanation for his sudden return to Gal veston. He had informed the Department that he would go to the Rio Grande, but on 4 June, three days after his re turn, he said only? "I have the honor to inform you of my return here from a short cruise down the coast." Unless Stockton sent President Polk or Secretary Bancroft private letters which were destroyed (which is possible but unlike ly, in view of the character of the letters which he wrote as official dispatches), the government had to rely upon information from Donelson and Wickliffe and other agents in Texas for any substantial information on developments there, including information on Stockton's own activities. This letter of the -4th of June is important, however, as the last statement by Stockton before he gave up on his project; it is useful in the attempt to unravel the whole scheme. He referred to the arrival of Captain Elliot on 30 May and said the British minister had proceeded immedi ately to the capital of Texas. Then Stockton gave his analysis of the situation in Texas in relation to Mexico 189 at the moment: 1 am informed that there are seven thou sand Mexican troops on the Rio Grande del Norte ready for invasion. No provision has been made to meet such an exigency, but that which 1 am & have been since my arrival here endeavoring to get the authorities of Texas to adopt. The Government and people of Texas do most unfortunately entertain the expectation that the Government of the United States can and will protect them from any and all Mexican aggression, from the moment that the Congress of Texas shall accept the resolutions of the congress of the United States. This has caused among the people an apathy on the subject of the necessary de fences which ought to be in my judgment alarming. The Mexicans are ready to inflict a blow on the Territory of Texas as soon as they shall hear the result of Capt. Elliots [sic] mission. The United States troops cannot (if it were right to do so), cannot be here to resist them. The Texians must be aroused to a proper sense of their own danger and my advice to this Govern ment has.been to call the Texian volunteer army into the field, to defend themselves from aggres sion, to regulate the Boundary and to be pre pared to hand over to the United States and fsicl undisturbed and undisputed territory when the U. S. may be (of right) ready to occupy it. It hardly needs pointing out that the whole burden of this letter is incompatible with the written instructions which Stockton had received from the Department, to "make yourself acquainted with the dispositions of the people of Texas, and their relations with Mexico." He candidly re ported that he was engaged in the effort to arouse the people to "a proper sense of their own danger," and since 190 his arrival he had been trying to persuade the authorities of Texas to adopt his plan, involving military action against Mexico. Stockton concluded with a statement about the future disposition of the ships under his command which makes it quite clear that he had had no intention from the beginning of the assignment of reporting to Commodore Conner: The prolonged uncertainty of our relations with Mexico begins to create in my mind some doubt as to the proper destination of the other vessels of the squadron when I shall return to the United States. They will by that time re quire a supply of provisions &c, and it is my present purpose, when I leave this place to send them to Pensacola to fill up, where orders from you can if you see fit meet them in time to prevent any unnecessary delay.^ On that same date of 4 June 1845, President Jones issued his proclamation of peace between Texas and Mexico, based upon a preliminary and conditional treaty of peace which the British minister, Charles Elliot, had brought from the capital of Mexico. That treaty had been negotiated with the Mexican government by representatives of the British Government, with the cooperation of the Government ■^Officers Letters, supplementary volume, 1844-45, NDA, NA. 191 of France. It is necessary at this point to examine the British and French initiatives in the Texas affair because of the relationship of that European diplomacy with the Stockton scheme. CHAPTER VII EUROPEAN INTERVENTION IN THE TEXAS GAME The account which President Anson Jones gave in his Memoranda of the Polk-Stockton effort to initiate war on the Rio Grande, is vulnerable to the criticism that it was written long after the event. This weakens its authority as evidence, even though it is a statement by a participant in the affair. But if a record of Jones's relationship with the Stockton project and with Stockton's emissaries should exist which dates from the event itself, it would be a very important document on this matter. If that docu ment should be a report by a third party who recorded at the time an account by Jones which is consistent with the account given in the Memoranda. the latter statement would be corroborated and very greatly strengthened as historical evidence. A contemporary report of that character does exist: a letter written by the British minister in Texas, Charles Elliot, to his counterpart in Mexico, Charles Bankhead, dated 11 June 1845. Elliot had returned from Mexico City 192 193 to Galveston at the end of May and had gone immediately to see the President; his conversation with Jones followed by one or two days the discussions which had been held between Jones and Stockton's representatives, Dr. Wright and General Sherman. Elliot wrote a few days later to Bankhead: I should tell you that I learnt as soon as 1 landed from a source of information entirely to be depended upon that Commodore Stockton was using every effort to induce'the President to issue a Proclamation calling out Volunteers for the purpose of occupying the Country to the Rio Grande at once. The President frankly admitted to me that such was the case, and told me (1 use his own words as nearly as 1 can remember them) that he said to those parties '1 see not one single motive for Annexation if it is not for security and protection, or if we are .to do our own fighting, and I tell you plainly that I will not be made the scape goat in such an affair as you have proposed to me. The United States Govern ment must take all the responsibility, and all the expence and all the labour of hostile move ments upon Mexico. X will issue no Proclamation of the kind you wish, and authorize no movement unless Mexico makes a movement upon us. Some body else must break up the state of peace. It shall not be me.'^ This statement by President Jones, made when the scheme was being pressed by Stockton, that President Polk ^Ephriam D. Adams, editor, British Diplomatic Corres pondence Concerning the Republic of Texas: 1838-1846 (Austin: 1918), 501 ff. 194 was trying to make the government of Texas the "scape goat" in "hostile movements upon Mexico," is the strongest kind of confirmation of his later detailed account of the affain The fact that he made the statement to the representa tive of Great Britain in Texas suggests that an examination of the European appraisal of the efforts of the United States government in Texas in 1845 might throw additional light upon the Polk war intrigue of that summer. The ministry of Sir Robert Peel, which came to power in September, 1841, and remained in office until June of 1846, was a government primarily interested in domestic reform. Peel entrusted foreign policy to the Earl of Aberdeen, who made a series of sacrifices in the interest of peace. He compromised in 1842 with the United States over the boundary of the state of Maine, and he did so in 1846 on the Oregon question. In the matter of Texas, where British interests were not so directly involved, it was not to be expected that there would be a disposition to resort to war if diplomacy proved ineffectual; nor was 2 there such a disposition. 2Justin Smith, The Annexation of Texas, in chapters 18 and 19 (382-431), tries to demonstrate the contrary. 195 Great Britain and France did, however, make a serious effort short of force to restrain the United States from its aggression against Mexico in the 1340's. It should be kept in mind that there was pervasive distrust of the United States in western Europe. The Polk-Stockton war in trigue of 1845 was precisely the kind of international be haviour which those governments found typical of the United States. The comment of a London newspaper on the Mexican policy of the United States, made in the winter of 1844-45, is a fair assessment of European opinion: As far as we are able to form a judgment the feeling is universal, that if ever a case occurred which would justify the interference of the European powers to prevent the oppres sion of a weak state by a stronger one, it is that of Mexico and the United States. There is no mistake about the intention of a large party in the states, and, from what we know, there is no doubt about their being altogether unscrupulous about the means of attaining their object.^ Representatives of the Republic of Texas assigned to European capitals were constantly forced to recognize this feeling. Ashbel Smith found in 1842 that "the cause of Texas is not regarded with favor at this time in England. 3The London Standard, as reprinted in Niles1 Register. 8 February 1845. 196 1 have been several times assured that the public sympathy is with Mexico."^ The support which Texas received abroad was based largely upon the desire to check the growth and power of the United States; the opposition which the Repub lic found in Europe was based upon the assumption that it was an arm of United States aggrandizement. This was an attitude not limited to the great powers. When William Henry Daingerfield was sent to The Hague in 1843 to nego tiate a treaty with the Dutch he reported that while Texas was little known there, "in the minds of those to whom its history and position were not entirely unknown, there exis ted a prejudice against it." He said that this prejudice was based upon "our supposed connexion" with the United States, "a country disliked for its republicanism, envied for its immense prosperity and hated for the defalcations on the part of the States, in the Stocks of which the Dutch had largely dealt. . . ."^ The apprehensions of Europeans deepened with Folk's ^Ashbel Smith to Anson Jones, 3 June 1842, London, in "Diplomatic Correspondence of Texas, AR of AHA for 1908, II (2), 961. ^Daingerfield to Ashbel Smith, then charge of Texas in Paris, 8 November 1843, in ibid., 1474. election in 1844. Of that event the London Times said that with the single exception of the tariff question, "his election to this important office is the triumph of every thing that is worst over every thing that is best in the U. States of America." The influential paper said Folk's victory was "a victory gained by the south over the north-* by the slave states over the free--by the repudiating states over the honest ones--by the partizans of the annex ation of Texas over its opponents— by the adventurous and unscrupulous democracy. . .over the more austere and dig nified republicanism of New England.The French Journal des Debats said that at best Polk was a "remarkable medi ocrity," and the result of his election would be "to give the ascendant to the radical party: that is to say to a party which its very essence renders unfit for the reestab lishment of order. . . ." in a society which was very much in need of it.^ An exchange of letters between G. W. Terrell, minister of the Texas Republic to Great Britain, and the Earl of 6In London Times 25 November 1844, reprinted in Niles' Register, 4 January 1845. ^Reprinted in Niles' Register. 4 January 1845. Clarendon, at the exact time that Stockton was engaged in his efforts to initiate an attack on the Mexican border, is representative and provides the basis for understanding the diplomatic intervention of Britain and France in the Texas annexation crisis. Writing in May, 1845, Terrell said his attention had been directed to a paragraph "in a speech of your Lordship," made in the House of Lords on 4 April. The paragraph referred to the threat to the peace ful relations of Britain with the United States if there should be afforded to "the restless and encroaching people of Texas an opportunity of gratifying their tastes for establishing a boundary quarrel. and thus creating a cause of war with Mexico which must be viewed with interest in this country." Terrell said this did the people of Texas such an injustice that he felt called upon to vindicate them. The Earl replied that Terrell's information on the speech was incorrect: What I did say (in speaking of the annexation of Texas announced in the address of the President of the U States) [the Earl was referring to a statement of intention by Polk; Texas had not yet accepted annexation at this time] was that 'it need not be expected that the restless and en croaching people by whom^it appeared Texas was henceforth to be inhabited would be long without indulging their national taste for a boundary 199 quarrel or establishing a cause of war with Mexico1. . . . The Earl said he was speaking of a Texas no longer in dependent, but "incorporated with the United States and peopled by American Citizens." This was a transparent gesture of diplomacy; he knew very well that Texas had been largely peopled by United States citizens, but he protested his respect for the people of the Republic of Texas. With regard to Texas however in its future posi tion as a frontier State of the Union, 1 cannot admit that the expressions used by me were either unjust or misapplied when 1 consider what has been the course pursued by the United States in respect to the Indian Tribes, to the Canadian Frontier, to the Oregon Territory, and that ac cording to a recent declaration made by the highest authority, it has, for the last 20 years been the settled policy of the American Govern ment to gain possession of Texas. The government of Great Britain had settled on a course of action on the Texas matter by the early summer of 1844 and Francis Guizot, Premier in the government of Louis Philippe, had pledged French cooperation. The action of the United States Congress on annexation was considered unpredictable; but it was assumed as certain that the 8Letter of Terrell to the Earl of Clarendon, 5 May 1845, and the reply, 10 May 1845, from "Diplomatic Correspondence of the Republic of Texas," AR of AHA for 1908, II, (2), 1187 and 1192-93. proannexation forces in the United States would continue to press their cause if they suffered a defeat in the Senate, and the British government saw no way of using its influence directly in the contest in the United States. Richard Pakenham, British Minister in Washington, discour aged his government from any remonstrance to the govern ment of the United States as "quite insufficient to arrest the evil intentions of this Government," unless accompanied by at least the intimation of decisive measures of resis tance- -which the British were not prepared to do.^ The alternative was an attempt to dissuade Texas from accepting an offer of annexation, when and if made. This might be accomplished, in the view of Lord Aberdeen, if Mexico could be induced to recognize the independence of Texas and agree on a mutually satisfactory boundary, and if the British and French governments should enter into commercial treaties with Texas granting the products of that country great advantages. From May of 1844 to March of 1845 efforts continued<to secure an offer from Mexico of Texan independence conditioned on the pledge of that Republic to retain its independent status. On 29 March ^Smith, Annexation of Texas, 388. 201 President Jpnes accepted a plan presented by Elliot for the British.government and the Comte de Sallgny for the French; Texas agreed not to accept annexation for a period of ninety days, while considering the terms of a settle ment with Mexico based on independence. Elliot then left for Mexico and on 20 May secured the formal offer from Mexico; he was back in Texas, as noted above, on 30 May.*® The offer which Elliot brought to the government of Texas was announced in a proclamation to the people of Texas by President Jones on 4 June, with the statement that *®Ibid.« 408-31. Much correspondence on this matter is printed in the "Diplomatic Corres. of the Repub. of Texas," in the AR of AHA for 1908, II, (2): 31 July 1844, Ashbel Smith in Paris to Anson Jones, then Secretary of State of Texas, "The French Gov desire that annexation may not take place, but they care much less about it than do the British Gov. I believe both these Govs, would make great commercial concessions in favor of the products of Texas, conditioned that we remain independent." 1139. Smith to Jones, from London, 24 June 1844: "Lord Aberdeen observed that France will be guided in this matter by the counsels of England. ..." 1155. G. W. Terrell from London to Ashbel Smith, Sec. of State, 3 May 1845, says Lord Aberdeen expressed the opinion that "Mexico is now willing to recognize the Independence of Texas." 1185-86. At Elliot's request, President Jones wrote to Lord Aberdeen on 31 March, stating that the British minister had gone to Mexico to "take advantage" of the "favorable disposition" which appeared to prevail in Mexico, on "a willingness . . . to treat with Texas on the basis of independence. ..." Copy in Anson Jones Papers, University of Texas. 202 The Congress and the people of Texas would have the choice between accepting the Mexican offer of peace based upon Texan independence, and the United States offer of annexa tion. In the meantime no hostile action would be under taken against Mexico.^ The decision which would be made by the people of Texas was by this time not in doubt. The government of Britain had concluded by this date that the effort had failed. Ashbel Smith wrote from London on 3 June: I think I may safely assert that this Government regard annexation as certain, that they will not use any efforts to prevent its consummation, nor take any exception to it afterwards. A principal objection to annexa tion on their part is alleged to be the in creased danger to Mexico which will arise from this approximation of the Union to the inhabi ted districts of that country; and they think ■^President Jones submitted the offer to the Texan Congress on 18 June. The "conditions preliminary to a treaty of peace between Mexico and Texas" were the follow ing: (1) Mexico consents to acknowledge the independence of Texas; (2) Texas engages that she will stipulate in the treaty not to annex herself or become subject to any country whatever; (3) Limits and other conditions to be a matter of arrangement in the final treaty; (4) Texas will be willing to remit disputed points respecting territory and other matters to the arbitration of umpires. The statement of conditions, President Jones's letter of trans mittal, and other correspondence on the matter were in cluded in an eight-page pamphlet (Washington: no date), a copy of which is in the Duff Green Papers, L.C. 203 Mexico showed a great want of wisdom in not listening to their friendly counsels and in not recognizing our independence long since. ^ The British Government understood very well the pro pensities of the American people in relation to Mexico, and more particularly the plans of the Polk administration. British diplomacy had, at the least, contributed to the failure of Polk's plans. President Jones would probably not have given his assent to the raising of an army for a march to the Rio Grande even had he not been engaged in the effort to secure recognition from Mexico. Without the President's authorization, General Sherman might, or might not have gone ahead on his own authority to form an army financed by Stockton. But it is certain that the procla mation of peace with Mexico pending the action of the Congress destroyed the basis for the attack on the border; l^in AR_of AHA for 1908, II (2), 1199. William R. King, U.S. Minister to France, wrote to Secretary Buchanan on 30 June (before he could have received information on the action of the Texan Congress on 18 June): "This govern ment has acted most deceptively on the subject of Texas, still denying that there exists any concerted action with England with respect to it; which all the world must know to be false. 'Tis wisely said 'put not your faith in kings.' Fortunately the firmness of the Texas people will defeat the intrigue, and leave to this Government nothing but the consciousness that she has degraded herself; and alienated a friendly people." Buchanan Papers, Penn. Hist. Soc., Phila. 204 a military movement against Mexico would have been a revo lutionary movement against the government of Texas, and there was no general support for this since the President opened the way for the decision on annexation in the same proclamation. And this was the fruit of British diplomacy. The credit for the frustration of Stockton's scheme must therefore be shared by Anson Jones and Sir Robert Peel's ministry. Charles Elliot departed from Texas a few days before the Congress met to decide on annexation, because he did not think it proper to remain in the country during those deliberations. Just before leaving Galveston he wrote to Bankhead on the current situation in Texas and the pros pects for the future. His perceptive comments and recom mendations demonstrate the high quality of the British foreign service. He said President Jones's proclamation "is a heavy blow to the violent partizans of Stockton's scheme here," and that Donelson would "probably enough disavow Stockton. ..." At Galveston Elliot noted the presence of Stockton's squadron, and remarked: "Their main business here is to spend money or as they have it in the U. S. to 1 log roll.'" He correctly guessed that "Stock ton's force here has a large supply of arms and ammunition 205 ready for distribution amongst this people.” The best hope of avoiding an American attack upon Mexico, thought Elliot, rested upon very careful and cau tious behaviour by the government of Mexico. He suggested that it would be very unwise of Mexico to take the initiative in hostile or onward movements. That step should be left to the Government of the U. S. which will find it no easy or irresponsible affair during the recess of Congress and in the entirely al tered attitude of Mexico as respects Texas, with a closely divided state of parties in their own Country upon the subject, and indeed serious divisions in their own ranks in regards to it. He recommended that the Mexican government "forthwith issue a Proclamation declaring that no onward movements would be made whilst none were made by the Texians, or U. S. troops. . . ."^3 Within a year President Polk was to make it clear that no amount of restraint by Mexico would prevent his forcing a war to obtain California. As Commander-in-Chief of all United States forces in California during the conquest, Stockton was to play the most important role in the mili tary action in that Mexican province. But in June of 1845 13Letter cited above, page 193, Elliot to Bankhead, 11 June 1845, from Galveston, in Adams, ed., Brit. Diplom. Corres., 501 ff. 206 he had to accept the failure of the military scheme for which Polk had sent him to Texas. CHAPTER VIII THE COLLAPSE OF THE POLK-STOCKTON INTRIGUE The possibility that Stockton might yet engage in some overt military action against Mexico gave Donelson continuous concern until the Commodore left Galveston for Washington on 23 June. He tried to keep in close touch with Stockton, as the best insurance against adventurous action. On 4 June Donelson wrote to Buchanan that "Cap tain Stockton, as stated in my last despatch, is here, and will be kept advised of all that occurs, in order that he may be in the best position to sustain the views and interests of his gov't." And, in response to Donelson1s earlier communication to the Department on the subject, Buchanan wrote to the Charg^ on 3 June to say that the government of the United States would "studiously refrain from all acts of hostility toward [Mexico} unless this should become absolutely necessary in self defence. Or ders have been transmitted to Captain Stockton in accordance with this declaration."^ ^-Donelson to Buchanan, 4 June 1845, Ex. Doc., 1st. 207 President Polk nevertheless held to his plan of in stigating a military movement, ostensibly Texan, to the Mexican border. On receipt of Wickliffe's letters of 3 and 4 June to himself, and Stockton's of 4 June to Bancroft, Polk had the Department of State and the Department of the Navy send dispatches by personal messenger to Texas with Instructions to urge the Texans to attack the Mexicans in the contested border area. Ten days were required for mail posted at Galveston to reach Washington; the letters from the agents in Texas pre sumably reached the administration on 14 June, a Saturday. Wickliffe's emphasized the refusal of President Jones to fall in with Stockton's project; Stockton asserted that Jones approved of his "army of occupation" and reported on his efforts to induce the authorities "to call the Texian volunteer army into the field." The following day was Sunday, but Polk and his secretaries were busy. Polk's letter to Donelson was marked "Confidential," with double underlining, and was sent for the asserted purpose of making it clear that the President was determined to "stand Sess., 29th Cong., Serial Set #480; Buchanan to Donelson 3 June 1845, Ibid., 122. 209 by Texas— and defend her in this crisis to the utmost of my constitutional power.1 1 Of the boundary he said: "Of course I would maintain the Texan title to the extent which she claims It to be, and not permit an invading army to occupy a foot of soil East of the Rio Grande." This defi nition of the boundary included not only the communities of Mexicans north of the lower Rio Grande, but also the larger part of New Mexico; Texas claimed that region and Polk was thus pledging to drive the Mexican military forces from that portion of Mexico.^ Polk said nothing in.his letter of advising or insti gating the Texans to military action before annexation, but he had both Buchanan and Bancroft advocate precisely that course of action; it is a fair sample of Polk's methods. Secretary Buchanan told Donelson that he wished to present O Donelson Papers, L.C. There is a copy of the letter in the Polk Papers, L.C. Polk refers in the letter to dis patches being sent by General Besancon. A letter from Ban croft to Gen. L. A. Besancon, 15 June at Washington, appoints him to bear dispatches to Commodore Stockton, and to "Mr Donaldson" [sic] such letters as the Secretary of State may entrust to him. The necessity for utmost speed was emphasized: "You will proceed to Galveston with the utmost despatch. At New Orleans, if you find no steamer about to run to Galveston, you will charter one on as rea sonable terms as possible; and draw on this Department for the cost." Confidential Letters No. 1, NDA, NA. 210 Polk's views on the action that should be taken if Mexico should "take possession of the country between the Nueces and the Rio Grande, or come still further East within the Texan territory. ..." Although this seemed to place the recommendation for action on a contingency footing, that was not in fact the case; Mexico was in possession of some of the country specified; she had never been driven from that possession by the Republic of Texas; and that fact was perfectly understood by the Polk administration. In those supposedly conditional circumstances, Polk advised an attack upon the Mexicans. Buchanan formulated Polk's views in this fashion: There are many reasons why it is preferable that Texas should drive the intruders from her territory until after the convention shall have accepted the terms of our Joint Resolutions. Of her ability and her will to perform this service, no man acquainted with her history can doubt. . . . Buchanan said the President viewed the Texans as brave citi* zens who were acclimated to the region and thus could en dure the marching through heat and sand. Buchanan added in this presentation of Polk's views that "the expenses of such an expedition must eventually be borne by the United 211 States."3 Secretary Bancroft's letter to Stockton is the most significant of these 15 June dispatches in providing evi dence of Polk's method of conducting this intrigue. Ban croft began with a simple acknowledgment of the receipt of Stockton's letter of 4 June, and then said: "The Department is glad to learn that you have pursued your enquiries re specting any impending invasion of Texas, and that you have scrupulously preserved the relations of neutrality and peace with the Government of Mexico." In this fashion Polk assured Stockton that his efforts to instigate and finance a war were approved by his government. Following the acceptance of annexation by the Texas Congress, confirmed by the Texas Convention, Stockton was instructed to defend Texas "against aggressions as promptly as you would defend any of the States." And, furthermore, 3Buchanan to Donelson, 15 June 1845, Instructions to Diplomatic Agents, Texas, State Dept. Archives, NA; also In Ex. Doc., 1st Sess., 29th Cong., Serial Set #480, 135. Buchanan added that the moment the Congress of Texas accepted annexation, "Captain Stockton will be ordered, with the fleet now under his command (and other vessels of war will be attached to it), to repair to the mouth of the Sabine for the purpose of transporting the American troops to the positions where they shall, in your opinion and that of these authorities, be most required." 212 if "any foreign power" should invade Texas "with a view to interrupt and prevent or disturb the deliberations of its Conventions," Stockton was to regard such an attempt as an aggression on the United States and "act accordingly, after consulting with Mr. Donaldson f sic]." But "in the interim," Buchanan wrote, "should any foreign power invade Texas, the Texans themselvesfshould be encouraged to repel the invasion." In his draft copy, which Bancroft preserved in his private papers, he wrote first: "the Texans themselves should repel the invasion." He then inserted "be encour aged to," and in the letter sent to Stockton underlined "encouraged." In his letter of 22 May, Stockton had said that he would need more provisions and powder, and although Ban croft had agreed to the request in his reply of 2 June, he felt it appropriate to repeat: "The Superintendent at Pensacola has orders to furnish on your requisition, powder and ammunition generally and provisions." In his draft copy Bancroft had written: "The Department has confidence that you will use them purposely [?, illeg.] & will be careful not to compromise the present neutrality of the United States." This entire sentence was crossed out; no such cautionary comment was included in the letter sent 213 to Stockton. The letter went on to instruct Stockton to cooperate in the defense of Texas if, after annexation, there should be an invasion by "a foreign power." He should in that event use his vessels to transport troops from the mouth of the Sabine" to such other point as may be deemed most expedient by the General in command." Bancroft closed with the order: "You and Commodore Conner will retain those vessels of your squadron previously destined for the Medi terranean and Brazil. They cannot at this time be spared from the Gulf of Mexico."^ Conner was still hanging off the coast of Vera Cruz with his squadron, as he had ;been for several months; the government's purpose, here, as in ordering Commodore John D. Sloat to station himself off the Mexican port of MazatJan in the Pacific, was to threaten and intimidate the Mexican government. Conner, however, was wholly outside the plot in which President Polk was using Stockton, and when on 1 June he finally received word from Stockton, he was ^Confidential Letters No. 1, NDA, NA; the same letter in rough draft, with strikeouts and deletions, in Bancroft Letters, Mass. Hist. Society, Boston. 214 indignant and felt badly used by the Department. To Stockton, Conner wrote on 3 June that he regretted he had not received a copy of "the instructions under which you say you are acting at present," as he then would have been in a better position to dispose of the United States naval forces in the area in the event of an emergency. Conner implied that Stockton was violating the Department's orders; not being privy to the conspiracy, and seeing no signs of a Mexican attack, he did not suspect the administration's real intentions. To Stockton he wrote scornfully: "Unless there is some foundation for the rumour you mention, of the Mexicans invading Texas, which I very much doubt, I see little cause to apprehend immediate hostilities. On the same date of 3 June Conner wrote to Bancroft to say that the St. Mary*s had brought a communication from Stockton at Galveston, together with three letters from the Department. Conner said Stockton had informed him that "he had gone to that place under private instructions," but "no such instructions as those mentioned have reached me." ^Officers Letters, supplemental volume, 1844-45, NDA, NA. Conner's salutation, "My dear Commodore," was not his usual opening, and appears to have been deliberately con descending. Conner wrote from his flagship, the U.S.S. Potomac, "Off Vera Cruz." 215 He concluded his letter to Bancroft, as he had the one to Stockton, with a judgment on the attitude of the Mexican government which made no contribution to Polk's scheme; he said he doubted that there was any foundation for the rumor which Stockton reported from Galveston, that the Mexicans were "about invading Texas." The actions of the Mexican government during the following months proved Conner's judgment to be correct; but it was not what Polk wanted to hear, either then or later.^ Conner did not let the matter of Stockton's irregular assignment drop at this point. As he reflected on the fact that Stockton had been operating with a squadron for sev eral weeks in the area of command assigned to himself, and that he had not been informed, he felt increasingly ill- used by the Department. On 19 June, before it was possible for him to have received a reply from his letter of 3 June, he wrote again to Secretary Bancroft to complain. This letter and Bancroft's reply are more evidence of the in trigue in which the government in Washington was engaged. The full letter reads as follows: ^Conner to Bancroft, Home Squadron Letters, 1844-45, NDA, NA. 216 Herewith is enclosed the copy o£ a letter I had the honour to address to you, while at La Vera Cruz. [Conner had moved his squadron north along the Mexican coast at this time.] The original has probably not yet reached the Depart ment. 1 would remark that the St. Mary's re turned to Galveston on the 5th instant. My official communications from the Depart ment gave me reason to believe that any addi tional force sent into the Gulf, would have joined me at La Vera Cruz. At that point it would have been in readiness to act in case of emergency. Besides, the appearance of so con siderable an armament would no doubt have had a favourable effect in maintaining peaceable rela tions with Mexico. The Department has so recently expressed such entire confidence in me to command the naval forces required on this station, that I could not be otherwise than surprised, to find a junior officer, though apparently under my orders, act ing independently of me; and within the limits of my command. I believe that no arrangement of this kind has hitherto occurred in our service— it must appear unfavourable and injurious to me, and would seem to imply a distrust in my capacity and judg ment to direct the operations, already so confi- _ dently intrusted to me by the Department.7 To that communication containing strong implicit crit icism of the Department, Secretary Bancroft replied 14 July in a letter which was very deficient in candor. Bancroft sought to make it appear that the squadron under Stockton had been dispatched for the purpose of supplementing Conner's force and that he was merely to touch at Galveston 7Ibid., inscribed "At Sea," 19 June 1845. 217 en route. No copy of Stockton's Instructions was furnished to Conner at the time, Bancroft said, because "when Commo: Stockton was ordered to join you" it was presumed that he would deliver those instructions in person. Nor was it an ticipated that his stopping at Galveston would have detain ed him "more than a few days." In the light of the correspondence through May and June between Bancroft and Stockton, this letter to Conner can only be regarded as deliberately deceptive. Bancroft enclosed a copy of the instructions to Stockton dated 22 April, the official document which, as noted earlier, had been devised to cover Stockton's real purpose in Texas. Conner presumably had received a copy of this letter in the packet delivered to him when the ^t. Mary*s had arrived on 1 June, and it was hardly calculated to answer his com plaint; it had given Stockton permission to remain "at or * off Galveston as long as in your judgment may seem neces- Q sary," before joining Conner's squadron off Vera Cruz. At the time Bancroft was trying to give an explanation for the Department's irregular operations, Stockton was at Philadelphia arranging for the command of the Princeton to ®David Conner Papers, New York Public Library. 218 be given to another officer, who was finally, to report with that vessel to Conner.^ Bancroft told Conner that Stockton's return to the United States had not been expec ted by the Department, and this seems to have been a true statement. The re-enforcement of Conner's squadron was the "cover" purpose for Stockton's appearance at Galveston, and the plan called for Stockton to proceed there following his work in Texas unless the success of his scheme provided a justification for another disposition of the ships under his command. But inherent in covert operations by govern ments is the impossibility of exercising perfect control over the agents to whom the work must be entrusted; and this is especially the case when the agent is a man of sub stance and position and not a mere creature of the govern ing power. It is quite clear that Stockton had accepted the assignment in April only because of the opportunity for engaging in an important intrigue which involved military, political, and diplomatic operations in the interest of American expansion. He had never had any intention of ^Stockton to Bancroft, from U. S. Ship Princeton at Philadelphia, 14 July 1845, in Bancroft Papers, Mass. Hist. Society, Boston. 219 accepting an assignment as a subordinate officer in the squadron commanded by Commodore Conner. Stockton left Galveston, "disgusted with Texian diplo macy," as he said, after President Jones's Proclamation of 4 June destroyed all hope of success from his plot with General Sherman. In a letter of 12 June to Bancroft, Stockton commented at some length on the situation there at that time and on his efforts since his arrival in Texas. He was in such despondency from the collapse of his scheme that, he said, "1 really wish I could avoid writing to you on the subject altogether." But he noted that in view of his earlier letters, "it seems to be necessary that I should make this last communication on the subject, to explain as well as 1 can my own conduct and that of President Jones." He may well have had in mind his letter of 27 May in which he had imprudently reported his intention of financing an army of Texans for a march on the Mexican border. In the letter of 12 June he made no mention of that plan, nor of his plotting with General Sherman. He now reported his entire effort in Texas as an endeavor to persuade President Jones to take the action necessary to establish a clear title to the border region, and thus be able to transfer it unencumbered to the United States in the act of annexation. 220 Stockton began by saying that the Proclamation of President Jones "will no doubt be a surprize to you as it was an utter astonishment to me. I hardly know how to characterise it or what to say about it other than it is a good practical definition of treason." It is not clear whether Stockton thought Jones was guilty of treason against the Republic of Texas, or against the United States; per haps both. It was an absurd statement, of course, and reveals his emotional response to this effective blocking of his carefully devised scheme. Stockton discussed President Jones at considerable length: Although himself opposed to annexation, the universal sentiment amongst the people in its favor constrained the President to call a meeting of Congress and a convention: although it was believed that he would not hesitate to throw every obstacle in the way of its final consummation that he could, consistently with his own personal safety, still it was supposed by the best informed that he would not have the temerity to do any public acts which would thwart the wishes of the people. Stockton said that the first difficulty Jones intended to create was "in relation to the boundary between Mexico and Texas." He left the whole frontier unprotected and seemed "to invite an invasion of the Territory, between the Nueces and the Rio Grande by the Mexican forces." 221 This dereliction of duty it was supposed that he meant to defend on the ground of a promise made to him, that the U. S. troops should be sent to repel any threatened hostility from Mexico & again upon the ground of a want of means on the part of the Texian Government to supply the troops. Stockton asserted that after he had ascertained that Mexican forces were gathering on the frontier, and feeling that it was impossible for United States troops to be sent into Texas before annexation had taken place, "I believed it to be necessary that something should be done to coun teract these projected schemes of the President." To avoid therefore all difficulty which might arise from any pretended disappointment that might be urged in consequence of the ab sence of a military force from the U.S., 1 sent a message to the President to apprize him that inasmuch as the troops of the U.S. could not be expected to cross the line till after annexation had been agreed upon by the Texian Congress and convention, it was indispensable that the volun teers of Texas should be permitted (the two countries being at war) to march to the frontier and to defend themselves against the threatened hostilities. That this was not only necessary to a proper reasonable defence of the Republic, but equally important to the honor and integrity of the Texian Government, to enable them to give to the U.S. quiet and undisturbed possession & not oblige the Government of the United States to do any act for the purpose of recovering a portion of the Territory occupied by the Mexicans, which might be construed into an aggression upon Mexico & thereby place the U. S. in the position of violating the laws of nations. In thus explaining the reason for a march to the Rio 222 Grande by a Texan military force, Stockton was very proba bly repeating the rationale and the grounds for the action which had been given him by President Polk when the mission was tendered to him in April. Polk could be in no doubt of the consequences of such an attack; active war would devel op on the frontier and there would be overwhelming public support in the United States for the launching of an army to the rescue of Texas; the prosecution of the war until his territorial aims should be satisfied would then be a matter which could be very easily managed by the executive. Stockton said that President Jones agreed with his suggestions but requested a few days delay because of pledges which he had given against any immediate move. This was assumed to have reference to the arrival of Cap tain Elliot, which it did, for after Elliot had arrived and had an interview with the President, the proclamation was issued: "by which you will see that 1 am not only disap pointed but that the Republic is bound hand and foot to be delivered over to the Mexican forces (if disposed to take possession) should Congress dare accede to the proposition of annexation." He reported that the people were indignant, but, what ever the result, "I hope and think it cannot seriously 223 interfere with the subject of annexation, however baneful its influence may be on the matter of Territory & boun dary." Stockton concluded that he had "done the best and all I could do without offence against our own neutrality to protect the interests of Texas and the U.S." Then he again revealed that his actual orders were not the written ones of 22 April, which had instructed him to observe and report and proceed to join Commodore Conner. He said: "Believing that 1 can be of no service here after the meeting of Con gress 1 intend to return to the U.S. with the resolutions of the Texian Congress. ..." Stockton did in fact act on this stated intention; he left Galveston for Washington in the Princeton on 23 June, carrying the news of the action of the Congress of Texas, its unanimous acceptance of annexation., Finally, the dispersion of the ships in his squadron which Stockton proposed in this letter to the Department, indicates that his frequent expressions of an expectation of attack by Mexican armed forces did not represent his true appraisal of the situation. He said he would send them to Pensacola to fill up with provisions and then to proceed to "their respective stations— the St. Mary's to 224 the Mediterranean & the Porpoise to Norfolk and the Sara toga to Brazil, unless other instructions from the Depart ment shall be received by them at Pensacola." Had Stockton really expected an attack by Mexico he would certainly not have been thinking of sending two of these war vessels away from the prospective scene of action.*® Bancroft's letter of 15 June, which instructed Stock ton to continue to encourage the Texans to engage the forces of Mexico, and to retain his vessels which had previously been destined for the Mediterranean and Brazil, did not reach Stockton prior to his departure. Nor did a letter which Donelson wrote from the capital of Texas on 22 June, warning him against taking any action which could not be construed as purely defensive. Donelson said that it was "highly important" that Stockton's squadron should "so act as not to alter the general character of defense. . . ." He continued: I have no idea that you would otherwise employ the squadron under your command; but for greater caution, and to have certain evi dence in our possession that the action of our *®Stockton to Bancroft, from the U.S.S. Princeton, off Galveston, 12 June 1845, Officers Letters, supplemen tary volume 1844-45, NDA, NA. 225 force within the limits of Texas will be strictly defensive, I have thought it right to make these observations. * It is quite apparent that Donelson was apprehensive, and had no confidence that Stockton would refrain from aggressive action. He sent a copy of this letter to Buchanan on the day following: M1 send you a letter, which I have this day forwarded to Captain Stockton, for the purpose of cautioning him against any aggressive movement with his squadron, until Mexico makes it necessary." And Donelson added: "It is the policy of those who are on the side of Mexico in the present crisis to throw upon the United States the responsibility of a war for the country between the Nueces and the Rio Grande," commenting that neither country had held it all: Texas had settlements on the banks of the Nueces and Mexico in the region just north ^Donelson to Stockton, from the Legation of the U.S. at Washington, Texas, 22 June 1845, to Capt. Stockton commanding a U.S. Squadron near Galveston, in Incoming Letters, Texas Legation, Dept, of State Archives, NA. Donelson clearly had no expectation that Stockton would be leaving Texas at this time. He seemed to fear war at this juncture and said in this letter to Stockton: "The prospect of a Mexican war is so immediate as to justify your remain ing on the lookout for such an event." 226 . of the Rio Grande.^ Donelson had begun to fear that war with Mexico was a possibility, although he trusted that the threats of Mexico would "end in threat." He reported that both Texas and the United States were preparing for battle, "but there will be no war, in my judgment, if there is 1 1 nothing rash attempted." The first information of the action of the Texas Con gress on annexation was brought to the east coast by Stock ton. He left Galveston on 23 June and arrived at Annapolis on 3 July. He immediately sent Dr. Wright to Washington with a certified copy of the Joint Resolutions of the Con gress of Texas accepting annexation by unanimous vote. He also sent a copy of President Jones's message with the mem oranda of the conditions preliminary to a treaty of peace between Texas and Mexico, with the information that the treaty had been rejected unanimously by the Texas Senate. ■^In Ex. Doc. . 1st Sess., 29th Cong., Serial Set #480, 74. This letter is dated 23 June, and is followed in this printing by the letter of 22 June to Stockton cited above. ■^Donelson to his wife from Washington, Texas, 21 June 1845, in the Donelson Papers, L.C. He said that "war will be prevented if my diplomacy can prevail." in Stockton's letter covering the documents was addressed to Secretary Bancroft arid In it Stockton for the first time in a communication to the government identified his repre sentative in the negotiations with President Jones: "Doctor Wright was sent by me to Washington [Texas] during the recent session of the Congress of Texas, as well as on a previous occasion. You will find him an intelligent gen tleman, well acquainted with recent occurrences in Texas."14 Dr. Wright arrived in Washington that same day of 3 July. The news was taken to President Polk, probably by Bancroft accompanied by Dr. Wright, and then Bancroft wrote a letter to Stockton in which he said that the President wished to express his "extreme satisfaction" at the ^Stockton to Bancroft, 3 July 1845, U.S.S. Princeton Off Annapolis, in Officers Letters, supplemental volume, 1844-45, NDA, NA. There is a copy also in the Stockton Letterbook, 1843-47, in the Princeton Library. In his letter Stockton placed as much emphasis upon the speed of his steamship as on the acceptance of annexation by Texas: "This passage of the Princeton from Galveston is perhaps unequalled in the History of Atlantic navigation; if it can be equalled any where. It was made in nine days by the use of 93 tons of Coal. ..." Stockton's departure from Texas with the news of the action of the Texas Congress was noted by Memucan Hunt in a letter to Polk, 25 June, Polk Papers, L.C., and by General S. A. Besancon to Buchanan, 29 June, Buchanan Papers, Penn. Hist. Society, Philadelphia. 228 "agreeable tidings," and his "gratification at the aston ishing despatch with which you have brought" the news. This is the first record in this affair of a direct commun ication from Folk to Stockton, so careful was the President to work through others and thus avoid creating any evidence of his responsibility for the actions he directed. It was apparent at this time, however, that new plans would have to be made; the annexation crisis had failed to provide the means of forcing a general settlement with Mexico which would result in the acquisition of California. The contro versy over the Texas-Mexico boundary still appeared to be the key which would open the lock. For future operations the President needed full information on the plan which had failed. Bancroft told Stockton that he had "leave to come to this city," for "the President would be pleased to con- 15 verse with you on the events of your cruize." It does not appear that a record exists of a meeting of President Polk with Stockton, or with Dr. Wright. In all probability none was made. Polk did not begin to keep a diary until late in the following month, but even if he •^Bancroft to Stockton at Annapolis, 3 July 1845, Confidential Letters No. 1, NDA, NA. had been keeping a daily record at this time it is net likely that he would have included an account o£ these discussions; the famous diary is by no means a complete and candid record of Polk's operations. There is little doubt that Stockton and Dr. Wright did meet with the Presi dent. It is certain that Stockton was in Washington a few days later, for on 7 July Bancroft wrote to him with the notation, "now at Washington."^ The following month he was given the command of the U. S. S. Congress and in October sailed for the Pacific. After delivering two mem bers of the diplomatic corps, a commissioner and a consul to the Sandwich Islands, Stockton sailed to California and there took over the command of United States forces in the war with Mexico in that province. He had clearly not suffered any displeasure from the President for his attempt, while a Commodore of the U. S. Navy, to finance an army for the purpose of an attack on the Mexican border. A catspaw pays a price in reputation, however, and Stockton did not escape criticism in Texas, where his Bancroft Papers, Mass. Hist. Society, Boston; also in Record of Confidential Letters No. 1, NDA, NA. In the Bancroft Papers there is the original reply from Stockton, 9 July, from Norfolk. 230 efforts were soon well-known. A representative judgnent was made by the greatest leader which Texas produced in its early period} Sam Houston, military hero, twice Presi dent of the Republic and later Senator and Governor of the state. He wrote to Donelson in late 1845 to compliment him on the manner in which he had conducted his responsi bilities during the summer. In doing so, Houston paid his disrespects to Wickliffe and Stockton: Had you been a two penny fellow, such as Gov. Wickliff, [_8ic ], or Commodore Stockton, you would have forfeited the respect of all but such as the clique of this place. . . .Wickliff and Stockton stood forth, in the first ranks of [the] political menagerie! They were the 'big beasts,' and as for the small ones, and monkeys, there was ready material at all times. Such men, such scoundrels, ought to be repudiated, or abated as nuisances. Nothing but respect for the President Polk has prevented the expo sure of their conduct. Sam Houston was very perceptive and an excellent judge of character; Charles Elliot, perhaps the ablest of all the actors in the annexation crisis in Texas in 1845, referred 18 to Houston as "a fellow of infinite resource." Houston ■^Houston to Donelson, 9 December 1845, Donelson Papers, L.C. 18In his letter to Bankhead cited on page 193, above. 231 probably had no direct evidence of President Polk's scheme to manipulate the situation in Texas to serve his larger purposes; but he watched Wlckliffe and Stockton and drew the logical and correct conclusion as to the prime mover. As he said, respect for the President, for the office rather more than for the man, inhibited those who had in formation on the intrigue from "exposing" the affair. Also, many of these men if not all of them, approved of the objectives of the scheme and thus were not moved to public criticism of the methods the government used. In the same way United States historians have approved of Polk's eventual success in his objective of acquiring California and have had no great motivation to uncover a plot which Polk had covered as best he could. Stockton's return to Washington in July marked the end of his participation in the President's effort to use the Texas boundary quarrel to detach California from Mexico But Polk persisted in his course and did in fact trigger the war by sending an army into the Mexican settlements north of the Rio Grande. A brief examination of that boundary controversy, and Polk's use of it in 1846, is required for an evaluation of the intrigue of the summer of 1845. CHAPTER IX THE SUCCESSFUL USE OF THE BOUNDARY QUESTION: THE WAR BEGINS The Texas and American boundary claims provided the means by which the war with Mexico was initiated, but it should be noted at once that the responsibility for start ing the war does not hinge on the question of the validity of those claims. The first act of war was an act of the United States when its naval forces blockaded the Rio Grande on 12 April 1846. Even had the land on the left bank of that river been within the limits of the United States, to blockade the river which would then have been the international boundary was an act of war. That con clusion needs no supporting argument, but it may be of interest to point out that the United States government was on record as stating that any attempt by Mexico to close the river to American traffic would justify hostili ties. Instructions given General Zachary Taylor by the Department of War stated "the Rio Grande, in a state of peace, may be regarded as equally open to navigation of 232 233 the U.S. & Mexico," and should this "reciprocal right be resisted by Mexico," Taylor was at liberty to force it open by military power.1 The first military encounter took place on 25 April; it pleased Polk to describe that action as the shedding of American blood upon the American soil. Two weeks before that event, it bears repeating, the United States had committed an act of war against Mexico. Nevertheless, the pretension of the Republic of Texas to the Rio Grande boundary, a claim taken up by the govern ment of the United States after annexation, provided the ground upon which Polk was able to initiate the war in the spring of 1846, as it had provided the rationale for the scheme which Stockton had tried to develop in the summer of 1845. If the claim was valid, or even if it was based upon substantial considerations which would give it a reasonable basis for a judicial inquiry, the design to occupy the region would stand on a different footing than if it were a wholly unwarranted claim. President Polk and Commodore Stockton would still be subject to criticism for the use •^Instructions sent to Gen. Taylor by Secretary of War William L. Marcy, for the occupation of the territory up to the left bank of the Rio Grande. Copy in the William L. Marcy Papers, L.C. 234 they had tried to make of the situation; but they could be seen as, in any case, working for a legitimate interest of Texas and of the United States. The substance of the claim to the Rio Grande boundary is therefore pertinent to an evaluation of President Polk's intrigues. American historians have usually avoided formulating a clear statement on the disputed matter. An exception is the notable text by Samuel £. Morison and Henry S. Commager, which forthrightly states that when Polk sent the United States army to the Rio Grande he "attempted to force the solution of a boundary controversy. That is the important point. It also happens that his view of the controversy was wrong. Samuel F. Bemis, on the other hand, avoids criticizing the United States claim by making a statement that is sim ply nonsensical: "The district of Texas when a part of the Mexican state of Texas and Coahuila had not extended be yond the Nueces River," he writes; "but the Texans after their Revolution had asserted their boundary to be the Rio Grande--without being able to establish real authority 9 Growth of the American Republic, Fourth edition (New York: 1950), I, 590. 235 there, particularly on the upper reaches of the river in the region of Santa Fe and Taos."** Texas had, of course, been unable to establish her authority anywhere along the Rio Grande; she had no more authority, "real" or otherwise, in Santa Fe, than she had in Mexico City. Julius W. Pratt, in his History of United States Foreign Policy, says simply that the "soil in question was claimed with at least, equal right by Mexico."^ Thomas A. Bailey writes that it was "soil to which Mexico perhaps had a better technical claim than the United States."^ Such formulations by historians reveal a recognition of the impossibility of defending the American claim joined with a disinclination to state clearly that the claim was indefensible. No one has seriously tried to support it since George P. Garrison, sixty years ago argued that al though "it has been the commonly accepted view of American •*In his Diplomatic History of the United States, Fifth edition (New York: 1965), 236. ^Second edition (New York: 1965), 130. 5a Diplomatic History of the American People, Seventh edition, (New York: 1964), 257. 236 historians that Texas did not extend west of the Nueces," the treaty with Santa Anna, made when he was a prisoner following his capture at the battle of San Jacinto, pro vided for that boundary and "there is much to be said in favor of its validity, and hence of the Texan claim to the Rio Grande subsequent to 1836."^ The most interesting, and most indefensible, of the presentations by American historians is that of Justin Smith in his War With Mexico, the most comprehensive work on the whole matter. His peculiar treatment reveals a great deal about the posture of American historians on the origins of the war: It was a thorny subject. In 1834 Mexico herself did not feel sure about the line; and according to the chief technical officer in our state department, sole commissioner to negotiate the treaty of peace with Mexico, if an official de marcation had existed, the war between Texas and the mother-country had rubbed it out. The former now claimed the territory as far as the Rio Grande, but she did not establish her title by occupying completely and effectively the region south of the Nueces. This, says Smith, was the situation so far as it con cerned the republic of Texas, but for the United States, there was more to be said: ^Westward Extension (New York: 1906), 205, 106 237 Down to 1819 our government had insisted that Louisiana extended to the Rio Grande. In other language, since the southern part of Louisiana was called Texas, the official view was that Texas bordered on that stream. Such, then, was in effect the contention of Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Pinckney, Livingston and Clay, who represented three administrations in upholding the claim. By the treaty of 1819 [the treaty with Spain which fixed the border on the Sabine, giving up all claim to Texas] we did not withdraw from our position, but merely arranged to 'cede' whatever possessions we had west of the Sabine for certain valuable considerations. From 1819 to 1843, Texas, considered under its geographical and histori cal aspects as a district of old Louisiana, appeared to border on the Rio Grande not less truly than before, for no other line became established. Hence it seemed evident from this point of view, that by annexing Texas we revived our old claim, our old official view, and the testimony of all those eminent statesmen. Our government so held. . . .Polk, as the head of our government, could not well repudiate, simply on his own authority, the solemn declarations of Presidents and other high officials, in which through a term of years the nation had acquiesced. The fact that for a considerable time the Texans, asserting the Rio Grande line, had maintained themselves against Mexico perhaps had some con firmatory value; and Polk was further bound, not only by his apparently sincere belief in our old claim, but by the pledge he had given to Texas and the pledge our official representative had given her, expressly to promote the cause of annexation, that he would maintain the claim as President. These were grips of steel. Thus Smith defends the claim in his text; it is quite unnecessary to dismantle that flimsy argument, it falls of its own weight. The remarkable fact is that Smith himself 238 does not accept his argument. He accepts the claim fully in his narrative, but in the footnote to that argument, and the footnotes are at the back of the volume, he writes: The aim in this paragraph is to bring out the essential (for the present purpose) points of a matter that it would require a long article to discuss fully, and many things have to be left un-. said. Personally the author regards the American claim and all conclusions based upon it as unsound. His aim is to show how the matter appeared to Polk.^ Bernard DeVoto once characterized this standard, au thoritative work on the Mexican War as the most "consis tently wrongheaded book in our history," and one which "freely cites facts in support of judgments which those facts controvert," and that is a temperate appraisal.** But in this instance, Smith was unable to convince himself by his own argumentation so he compromised by taking the "American position" in the narrative and running away from it in his note. The difficulty which historians have had in treating the Rio Grande claim is very easily explained: it is im possible to make Polk's military and diplomatic moves in ^Volume one, 138-39; 449. 8In his The Year of Decision. 1846 (Boston: 1943), 510. 239 relation to Mexico appear to have a just and reasonable and "peaceable" character unless some case can be made for the American and Texan claim to the Rio Grande border; and it is impossible to make even the shadow of a case. The Republic of Texas was the product of a revolution; lacking an agreement with Mexico on the boundary with the former mother-country, the only basis was that established by presence, occupancy, control, and extension of govern ment. The boundary, then, was not difficult to determine: The Republic of Texas was bounded on the south and south west essentially by the Nueces River, but with settlements in that river valley on the right bank, including the town of Corpus Christ!, and for a short distance beyond; on the west very indefinitely, approximately on the line of the one hundredth parallel north to the Red River, and thence east and south on the line established in the 1819 Adams- Onis Treaty. There was a no-man’s-land between Texas and Mexico from the Gulf of Mexico west and north, of approxi mately two hundred miles in width; there were Mexican settlements in the Rio Grande Valley from its source above Taos to the Gulf; on the lower river the settlements were spread over the delta north of the mouth of the river; on the upper river, above El Paso, the Rio Grande was the 240 heart of the province of New Mexico, with extensive settle ments on the east side.^ The First Congress of Texas, on 19 December, 1836, resolved that the boundary ran from the mouth of the Rio Grande to the source of that river and thence due north to the forty-second degree of north latitude and thence along the United States boundary line to the mouth of the Sabine. That resolution cast some light upon the state of mind of the Texans, and revealed something of their ambitions, but it had no more effect upon the matter of establishing an international boundary than if they had declared that Texas was composed of a half dozen other states of Mexico. In fact the Congress of Texas did just that in 1842, by joint resolution including portions of the states of Tamaulipas, Coahuila, Durango, Sinaloa, and all of Chihuahua, New Mexico, Sonora, and Upper and Lower California— some five hundred million acres of land; it represented the decision of 100,000 Texans to govern some two million Mexicans. The ^See Joseph M. Nance, After San Jacinto: The Texas- Mexican Frontier, 1836-1841 (Austin: 1963) , and his Attack and Counter-Attack: The Texas-Mexlcan Frontier. 1842 (Austin: 1964), for a detailed discussion of the borderland in these years. A third projected volume in the series will carry the story to 1845. 241 President of Texas at the time the measure was Introduced, Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar, had supported the bill; he had referred in his inaugural address of 10 December 1838, to the boundaries of Texas as "stretching from the Sabine to the Pacific and away to the South West as far as the obsti nacy of the enemy may render it necessary for the sword to make the boundary," but Sam Houston was President when the bill came to the executive desk and he vetoed it as "visionary. Texans went on indulging themselves in such fantasies even after they were a state of the United States. On 11 February 1850 a joint resolution of the State of Texas asserted that "all that territory which lies east of the Rio Grande, and a line running north from the source of the Rio Grande to the forty-second degree of north latitude and west and south of the line designated in the treaty between the U.S. and the late republic of Texas, of right belongs to the state of Texas. . . ."^ There was no shadow of a claim by Texas to the Santa Fe region of Hew Mexico. So Nance, After San Jacinto, 541-43. UTexas General Laws, III, Pt. 1, 207-08, as cited by Hubert H. Bancroft, North Mexican States and Texas. II (San Francisco: 1899), 399, footnote. 242 much for the territorial claims of the Texans; it is hardly relevant to an examination of status of the territory be tween the Nueces and Rio Grande in 1845 and 1846. There is no doubt now, as there was none then, that the established boundary ran through the uninhabited region between the Nueces and the Rio Grande. During the Mexican War, in a discussion of the origins of the war in the House of Representatives, Abraham Lincoln showed that Polk's argument on the matter was the "sheerest deception." He ridiculed the President's implication that since the terri tory of Texas and the United States extended beyond the Nueces it therefore extended to the Rio Grande. He observed that after all "if is possible to cross one river and go beyond it without going all the way to the next, that jurisdiction may be exercised between two rivers without 12 covering all the country between theraJ' Lincoln's analy sis of the several aspects of the boundary question, and his appraisal of President Polk's responsibility for the initiation of the war in that address in the House, is l2Speech in the U.S. House of Representatives on the War with Mexico, 12 January 1848, in Roy P. Basler, editor, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (New Brunswick, N.J.: 1953), I, 437. 243 superior to the treatment in any histories of the Mexican War now in print. The United States government had taken a more reason able and logical view of the appropriate boundary when it had been attempting to purchase Texas from Mexico prior to the Texas Revolution. On 25 August 1829, Secretary of State Martin Van Buren wrote to Joel Poinsett in Mexico: The territory of which the cession is desired by the United States, is all that part of the Province of Texas which lies East of a line beginning at the Gulf of Mexico, in the centre of the desert of Grande Prairie which lies West of the Rio Nueces, and is represen ted to be nearly two hundred miles in width, and to extend north to the mountains, the pro posed line following the course of the centre of that desert or prairie, north, to the moun tains; thence, with a central line on the mountains dividing the waters of the Rio Grande del Norte, from those that run eastward to the Gulf, and until it strikes our present boun dary at the 42nd degree of North latitude. Van Buren said that this line might be considered too extensive by the Mexican government, since it included the "Spanish’1 settlements of La Bahia and San Antonio de Bexar. But he said this line would be the most desirable "to us," since it would constitute a natural separation of the resources of the two nations. "It is the centre of a country uninhabitable, on the Gulf; and, on the mountains, so difficult of access, and so poor, as to furnish no 244 13 Inducements for a land intercourse. . . ." The arguments for that line In 1829 were fully applicable in 1845 and 1846. In the few years before the annexation of Texas, the governments of both Mexico and Texas had, in principle, accepted the boundary as established by occupancy and con trol. In the summer of 1841 General Arista issued a proc lamation to take alive or dead known enemies of Mexico which might be found operating below the Nueces, which was the historic Spanish-Mexican boundary of the former province of Texas. Some Texans owning ranches fifteen miles south of the Nueces were, however, assured by Arista that they would not be molested.^ In 1842 Ashbel Smith, the Texan minister to France, in requesting French assistance in mediating a peace be tween Texas and Mexico, said that Texas had nothing to gain from further prosecution of war against Mexico, since Texas possessed "her territory entire, and has done so without interuption" since 1836. He said that Mexico had not 13In the Anthony Butler Papers, University of Texas. Nance, After San Jacinto, 445-46. 245 succeeded in "regaining any portion of the Texian soil or in preventing the full exercise of Sovereignty in all its attributes by the Texian Authorities."*-* The government of Texas certainly could not have been referring to any terri tory further south and west than these settlements on the right bank of the Nueces, and it was thus implicitly accept ing that as the boundary. The political dynamics were in the direction of expan sion of demands, however, not for moderation and accommoda tion to reality; this was true both in Texas and in the United States. Senator Thomas Hart Benton's amendment to the Joint Resolution for Annexation, provided for negotia tions with Texas on the boundary, as well as on other matters, and Benton proposed the between-the-rivers boun dary: it was, he proposed, "to be in the desert prairie west of the Nueces, and along the highlands and mountain heights which divide the waters of the Mississippi from the waters of the Rio del Norte, and to latitude forty two *^Smith to Guizot, Legation of Texas in Paris, 15 August 1842, in AR of AHA, for 1908, II (2), 1187-88. In 1845, G. W. Terrell, Texas Minister to Britain, indicated to Lord Aberdeen that Texas was prepared to negotiate the boundary with Mexico after Mexico had acknowledged her independence; Letter of Terrell to Ashbel Smith, 9 May 1845, in ibid., 1191. 246 degrees north.The Tyler administration ignored the Benton amendment and Polk never had any intention of mod erating the untenable demands of the Texans; on the con trary, it was in the interest of his schemes to encourage excessive territorial claims. Not that the Texans needed encouraging; there was almost unanimous sentiment in Texas for the Rio Grande border; what Texas had not been able to establish in a decade of independence, if was assumed the United States would now establish by force. President Polk could not publicly promise the govern ment of Texas that he would accept and act on the boundary claim as Texas defined it, but he did so unofficially. On 6 April 1845 Samuel Houston wrote to Donelson insisting that the Rio Grande must be the boundary if Texas accepted annexation, and he wrote to Polk on the subject in May. In response to this pressure from the most influential individ ual in Texas, Polk replied in a letter of 6 June: "you may have no apprehensions in regard to your boundary. Texas once a part of the Union & we will maintain all your rights of territory & will not suffer them to be sacrificed." l^As reported in Niles* Register. 14 December 1844. 247 Polk said it would be his duty and his pleasure "to guard your interests in that respect with vigilance & care."^ And Anson Jones said in December of 1845 that Polk had pledged to him, through Governor Yell who had been instruc ted to give him the message verbally, but not put it in writing, that the Government of the United States would 18 establish the Rio Grande boundary. The official representative of the United States in Texas, A. J. Donelson, stood for mediation, moderation, reason and accommodation on this matter, as he had on all controversial questions during his mission in Texas. He encouraged the Texans in the belief that the United States government would "in good faith maintain the claim," and he said he had reason to believe that it would be possible to support it successfully. Such a statement was the minimum required to hold support for annexation. But he constantly emphasized in his communications with his government that ■^Houston to Donelson, 6 April 1845, Donelson Papers, L.C. Polk to Houston, 6 June 1845, copy in the Polk Papers, L.C. ^•®Jones to Jesse Grimes, 20 December 1845, copy in the Anson Jones Papers, University of Texas. 248 the boundary was a disputed question, and he argued strong ly against military occupation of the contested territory.^ When President Polk sent American troops into the Mexican settlements early in 1846 he expected that the con sequence would be war. It was. On 28 June Donelson wrote to General Taylor, at Fort Jesup in Louisiana, to say that the Texan Congress had unanimously accepted annexation and the Texan Convention which would meet on 4 July would certainly give consent. Taylor should therefore prepare to move his Dragoons to San Antonio and the other troops to Corpus Christi, which, Donelson said, "is the most western point now occupied by Texas." The move should be "distinctly understood" to "be strictly defensive" and aimed at the protection of Texas. Donelson was at pains to labor the point: "The occupation of the country between the Nueces and the Rio Grande you are aware is a disputed question. Texas holds Corpus Christi, Mexico holds Santiago near the mouth of the Rio Grande." And, more pointedly still: "I would, by no means ■^As long as he remained in Texas Donelson urged this position. He returned to Washington in September, 1845, and in the spring of 1846 was given the post of U. S. minister to Prussia. 249 be understood as advising you to take an offensive attitude in regard to Mexico without further orders from the Govern ment of the U.S."2® General Taylor replied that he agreed on the line to be occupied: l ! The line from the mouth of the Nueces river to San Antonio covers the settlements. . . and he said he had instructions from the Secretary of War "not to interfere with any Mexican establishments on this side of the Rio Grande as long as our friendly relations 21 with Mexico continue." Following the final acceptance of annexation by the Texas Convention on 4 July, Donelson wrote a long (fifteen- page) letter to the State Department on the boundary ques tion. He observed that the government of Texas had desig nated a point on the Rio Grande for occupation by United States troops, but Donelson thought this should not influ ence the government of the United States; he argued strong ly against any movement of troops into the Mexican settle ments near the mouth of the Rio Grande. Donelson pointed 20 Donelson to Taylor, 28 June 1845, Dept, of State Archives, Texas Legation #2, N.A. There is a draft of this letter in the Donelson Papers, L.C. 21Taylor to Donelson, 20 July 1845, from "Hd. Qrs. 1st Mily. Dept., New Orleans, La.," in Donelson Papers, L.C. 250 out that the President of Texas had but a few weeks before issued a Proclamation sus pending hostilities between Texas and Mexico, the practical effect of which was to leave the ques tion precisely as it stood when our Joint Resolu tion passed, Mexico in possession of one portion of the Territory and Texas of another. One of Donelson's arguments against military occupa tion of the Mexican area was that it would excite the popu lation to war. Another was that Texas also claimed more than half of the province of New Mexico, a claim which was without any substance or basis; the United States quite clearly could not accept the boundary claims of Texas and act on the assumption that there was an obligation to en force them; the responsibility rested upon the United States, not upon Texas, and the government should not feel o o under pressure to accept Texan demands. Such advice was reasonable and wholly in the interest of the United States, but it was not a policy which Polk could accept; it made no contribution to his objective of acquiring California. Advice which was compatible with that objective was given to Polk's Secretary of the ^Donelson to Buchanan, 11 July 1845, Dispatch #35, Texas Legation No. 2, Dept, of State Archives, N.A. 251 Treasury, Robert Walker, in August. Thomas Jefferson Green, a relative of Duff Green and a Texan who had been a member of the Texan Congress in 1838, wrote to Walker on 12 August complaining that even the friends of the administration in Washington were advocating that the President should merely protect the Texan population from attack by Mexico. What would be the consequence of that? Why, said Green, "Mexico will maintain armed possession of the eastjiank of the Rio Grande and your troops cannot go a stone's throw from the Nuesses fsicl; for Corpus Christi is the only settlement of the Anglo Texans in the disputed ground." Thus Mexico would remain in possession of the Rio Grande valley. His advice was that your troops advance west to the Rio Grande. Let one division strike that river at Laredo 140 miles south west from San Antonio, making the latter place head quarters. Let another division strike lower down the river . . . These movements may be strictly defensive as the President please, but they will certainly provoke offence from the Mexicans. The bandit soldiery of Mexico will commence the game by plundering your commisariat, stealing your cavalry horses, and murdering small parties. In such case, even the 'National Intelligencer.1 will say to you 'play the game out. ^Green to Walker, from New York, 12 August 1845, draft of letter in the Thomas Jefferson Green Papers, University of North Carolina. That was precisely the plan which Polk followed in the ensuing months. It did succeed in providing sufficient support for Polk's war, but Green was mistaken in thinking that even the National Intelligencer, the highly respected, conservative, Whiggish paper in Washington^ would thus be coerced into supporting the war. It opposed every move Polk made against Mexico; in August of 1845 it asserted that Polk would be "quite indefensible" if he sent U.S. troops beyond the Nueces; to move to the Rio Grande would be "offensive war, and not the necessary defence of Texas." The President would be making war on his own authority. In May of 1846, after war had been declared, the Intelligencer published a letter from an American soldier in camp on the left bank of the Rio Grande to make the point that "West of the Nueces the people are all Spaniards." and they were "actuated by a universal feeling of hostility towards the United States. . . There was, indeed, a very considerable opposition to the President, and a very clear understanding of his design, but his control of the armed forces and the boundary claim which provided a surface justification for his throwing the ^National Intelligencer. 7 August 1845; 18 May 1846. army into the Mexican settlements, kept the control of events in his Hands. It does not follow that he wanted war; rather, he was determined to have the fruits of war. Folk would have preferred paying the Mexican government to dismember Itself, and he recognized that this would require giving money to certain Mexican officials so that they would perform that operation on their country. In March of 1846 he thought it would be necessary to give General Paredes, who had overthrown the civilian government, a half million or a million dollars to "pay, feed, and clothe the army, and maintain himself in power," between the time when the General should sign a treaty with the United States and the subsequent ratification of that treaty by the United States Senate. The President talked to Calhoun at this time about the boundary which the United States should secure in such a treaty, and the ex change, as Polk recorded it in his diary, makes it clear that the President's objectives required a war: Calhoun concurred with me in the great impor tance of procuring by a Treaty with Mexico such a boundary as would include California. He said he had contemplated, when Secretary of State, as a very desirable boundary a line running from a point on the Gulf of Mexico through the desert to the Northward between the Nueces & the Del Norte to a point about 36° or 37° and thence West to the Pacific so as to include the Bay of 254 San Francisco, and he said he would like to in clude Monterey also; and that for such a boundary we could afford to pay a large sum, and mentioned ten millions of dollars. This boundary would have excluded the Mexican settle ments on the lower Rio Grande and the settled portion of New Mexico; Polk was not prepared to be so considerate of foreign populations. 1 told him that I must insist on the Del Norte as the line up to the Passo in about latitude 32°, where the Southern line of New Mexico crosses "that River, and then if practicable by a line due West to the Pacific; but if that could not be obtained then to extend up the Del Norte to its source, including all New Mexico on both sides of it, and from its source to the source of the Colorado of the West and down that River to its mouth in the Bay of California. 5 Polk's purpose in discussing the territorial objec tives with Calhoun, as also with senators Benton, Allen, and Cass, was to enlist support for an appropriation to be made giving the President a million dollars or more to be used in the negotiation of a treaty. Calhoun opposed it on the ground that in spite of the utmost care to prevent it, the object of the appropriation would become known. Polk gave up the attempt. 2%. M. Quaife, editor, The Diary of James K. Polk (Chicago; 1910), I, 306, 311-12, entries for 28 March and 30 March 1846. 255 By this time, in any event, Polk had concluded that neither money nor the threat of force, nor the careful mix ture of the two, would suffice; force would be required. He failed, however, to avoid direct and personal responsi bility for the forcing of the war, as he had long tried to do. General Taylor was encouraged to take the responsi bility for the march to the Rio Grande. A dispatch from Secretary of War Marcy to Taylor, dated 30 July 1845, supposedly directing him in the disposition of his troops, appears to have been deliberately designed to encourage the General to march to the Rio Grande while at the same time placing the responsibility on him for the move: The Rio Grande is claimed!to be the boundary . . . and up to this you are to extend your position, only excepting any posts on the eastern side thereof, which are in the actual occupancy of Mexican forces. . . .It is expected that you will approach as near the boundary line— the Rio Grande--as prudence will dictate. . . . The President desires that your position . . . should be near the river Nueces. General Taylor was not very perspicacious but Polk was so well known for devious and underhanded maneuvers that his scape-goats were forewarned. Taylor declined to march ^Quoted by Richard R. Stenberg, "The Failure of Polk's War Intrigue of 1845," Pacific Historical Review. IV (January, 1935), 66. 256 south from his Corpus Christi camp without specific orders; these came to him on 3 February 1846, having been issued by Polk on 13 January on the receipt of a dispatch from John Slidell who was in Mexico trying to purchase a boun dary. The refusal of the Mexican government to receive him convinced Polk that he must take the responsibility for moving the United States Army into the Mexican settle- 27 ments. Taylor began the advance on 8 March and arrived on the Rio Grande opposite Matamoras on the 28th. The Mexican inhabitants had fled across the river on the approach of the United States Army, many of them setting their build ings on fire before leaving. Two weeks after arriving at the river Taylor committed the first act of war by block ading the mouth of the Rio Grande. Another two weeks, 25 April, and the clash of arms took place on the left bank of the river. The blood was shed which Polk referred to ^See McCormac, Polk, chapter XVII; Smith, War With Mexico. I, chapter VII. Polk's diary is a very useful source of Information, but it is by no means a complete and candid record; Polk's decision of 13 January was one of the most important he made in his term, but his diary entry says nothing of it, reading only? "Despatches from Mexico, which had been received last evening, were read & considered." Quaife, Diary, I, 164. 257 in his war message as "American blood on American soil." News of the encounter did not reach Washington until 9 May and Polk's patience snapped just before that informa tion arrived. He had been expecting for several weeks to hear that war had begun; he had told his cabinet on several occasions that the United States should "take redress for the injuries done us into our hands." On 21 April he said he was thinking of preparing a message for Congress; on 25 April Buchanan "concurred" with the President, and said he should recommend a declaration of war; on 28 April the cabinet agreed that a message should be sent to Congress, but Polk kept delaying. On 6 May he noted the receipt of despatches from General Taylor with news up to the 15th of April and commented in his diary: "No actual collision had taken place, though the probabilities are that hostilities might take place soon." At the cabinet meeting on Saturday, 9 May, Polk brought up "the Mexican question": All agreed that if the Mexican forces at Mata- moras committed any act of hostility on Gen'l. Taylor's forces I should immediately send a message to Congress recommending an immediate declaration of War. 1 stated to the Cabinet that up to this time, as they knew, we had heard of no open act of aggression by the Mexi can army, but that the danger was imminent that such acts would be committed. I said that in my opinion we had ample cause of war, and that it was impossible that we could stand in statu 258 quo. or that I could remain silent much longer; that 1 thought it was my duty to send a message to very soon & recommend definitive mea»uj.eis. Polk then polled the cabinet on a declaration of war; Buchanan said he would be better satisfied if the Mexican forces should commit any act of hostility, but he supported a demand for war; Bancroft alone dissented. The decision was made for war. They adjourned at 2 P.M. and at 6 P.M. despatches arrived from General Taylor with information of the fight of 25 April. The American government's decision for war was not changed by news of that event; but the ar- gumentation, the justification for war was changed. Polk had been prepared to call for a declaration of war against Mexico on the ground that she had defaulted in payments due citizens of the United States; now he asserted that the United States had been attacked. He spent 10 May, a Sunday, writing the war message— and remarked that he "regretted the necessity which had existed to make it necessary for me to 29 spend the Sabbath in the manner I have." The message went to Congress on 11 May. Polk asserted that 28Quaife, Diary. I, 343, 354, 363, 380, 384. 29Ibid., 389-90. 259 after reiterated menaces, Mexico has passed the boundary of the United States, has invaded our territory and shed American blood upon the Ameri can soil. . . . As war exists, and, notwithstanding all our efforts to avoid it, exists by the act of Mexico herself, we are called upon by every considera tion of duty and patriotism to vindicate with decision the honor, the rights, and the interests of our country. Congress passed a war bill after two days of discus sion and Polk signed the measure on 13 May. On that same date the President concluded that his Secretary of State was so obtuse as not to understand the point of the war. In a cabinet meeting Buchanan read the draft of a despatch which he had prepared to be sent to the United States min isters at London, Paris, and other foreign capitals, announ cing the war against Mexico and providing the reasons for it, for their communication to the several governments, Polk recorded in his diary: Among other things Mr. Buchanan had stated that our object was not to dismember Mexico or to make conquests, and that the Del Norte was the boundary to which we claimed; or rather that in going to war we did not do so with a view to acquire either California or New Mexico or any other portion of the Mexican territory. It is no wonder that Polk was, as he said, "much "^Richardson, Messages of the Presidents. IV, 442. 260 astonished at the views" Buchanan expressed. He enlighten- ed his Secretary: I told Mr. Buchanan that I thought such a declara tion to Foreign Governments unnecessary and im proper; that the causes of the war as set forth in my message to Congress and the accompanying documents were altogether satisfactory. I told him that though we had not gone to war for con quest, yet it was clear that in making peace we would if practicable obtain California and such other portion of the Mexican territory as would be sufficient to indemnify our claimants on Mexico, and to defray the expenses of the war which that power by her long continued wrongs and injuries had forced us to wage. When Buchanan said that if the United States did not make it clear to Britain and France that there was no in tention of our taking California, they almost certainly would join Mexico in the war, Polk replied that before he would pledge not to acquire California in this war he "would meet the war which either England or France or all the Powers of Christendom might wage, and that I would stand and fight until the last man among us fell in the conflict."31 31Quiafe, Diary. I, 396-99. It is unlikely that Buchanan was honestly expressing his true judgment to Polk; the position he took here was not consistent with his atti tude at other times on expansion; before the war was over the Secretary of State was advocating the acquisition of all of the northern states of Mexico, if not, Indeed, all of Mexico. But he was timid and he consistently sought to avoid taking the responsibility for any action which he might later have to defend. 261 Polk thus clarified, finally and definitively, his position on a subject that needed no clarification: the acquisition of California. Two years later, with the rati fication of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the United States acquired the Mexican territories along the lower Rio Grande, and New Mexico, and California. CONCLUDING STATEMENT Edward Gibbon had a keen appreciation for those epi sodes In history which were, as he said, at once amusing and Instructive, and It Is a mark of his unusual qualities as a historian that he so frequently discerned ironic in congruities In human affairs. For historians tend to be humorless, and American historians writing about their own nation, singularly so. The historian has the enormous ad vantage of being able to examine mankind from that distance and elevation and detachment which so often reveals, as it is designed to reveal, the gulf between pretension and per formance. Far too commonly he makes an unsolicited and unnecessary sacrifice of his position; he remains sober (and shallow) and takes the men of the past at their own evaluation. He is not serious and therefore does not find the past amusing; and missing the irony, he is not instruc ted and his history is accordingly not instructive. Surely among the most instructively amusing activities in American history are those of the sober little men who were in charge of the government of the United States in the 1840's. Not that their work, or their accomplishments were 262 263 trivial. It was an important event in international, as well as in national history when a leading nation, by the calculated, purposeful use of its military power, after a series of failures to achieve its objectives by methods other than war, secured an immense territory in North America, including ten degrees of latitude of enormous commercial and strategic value on the west coast of the continent. It has been said, and well said, that the author of a great work of literature is a great writer.* It is not true, however, that the accomplishment of objectives of great importance in the history of a nation by the execu tive leader means that he is a great man. It is quite im possible to think of James K. Polk as a great man after reading his letters and his diary and his addresses, and studying his actions. But it is valuable instruction to study Polk and his associates. These officials were con scious of their engagement in great affairs; and they main tained an extraordinarily pretentious tone in their *By a literary critic against T. B. Macaulay's state ment that James Boswell's biography of Samuel Johnson was the greatest biography which had ever been written, and it had been written by one of the smallest men that ever lived. 264 official communications. We have noted above a striking example. Before the war had lasted a year, Polk's Secre tary of the Treasury complained that it was unjust of Mexico obstinately to persist in the contest, and thus place such a financial burden on the United States as to "compel us to overthrow our own financial policy and arrest o this great nation in her high and prosperous career." A government which could make that kind of solemn public pronouncement, wholly unaware of the savage self satire, is certain to provide instruction for those inter ested in exploring the character and condition of man by an examination of his conduct of his affairs. It may therefore seem surprising that American historians have not demonstrated any remarkable interest in the political and diplomatic and military schemes of President Polk as he worked toward his objective of adding the Mexican province of Alta California to the United States. One notes, by way of contrast, the historical investigations of the schemes of the German Chancellor, Prince von Bismarck, in the expansion of German power, the exposing of such pseudo events as the doctored "Ems dispatch." o Cf. page 21 above. 265 One of the reasons, no doubt, is the tendency, im plicit if not explicit in most of the writing on the sub ject, to view the acquisition of California as at bottom the simple consequence of the westward movement of the American people, and therefore to see a natural force in operation producing a natural result, and requiring no further explanation. Of this it need only be said that it is "as if" history; it might have been the cause, but it was not. The "natural force" was not given time to operate in California. Historians writing about their own nation have also, unquestionably, been restrained in treating this period of feverish and aggressive expansionism by emotional and quasi-intellectual influences welling up from mass and mid culture— nationalism, the Monroe Doctrine syndrome, the Turnerian frontier concept in its most diffuse and gen eralized form. Closely related to this, finally, is the fact that the national, the internal frame of reference, the pro vincial historical approach, has tended to emphasize the national consequences of the acquisition and to depreciate both the international significance which it had and the importance of the diplomatic and military methods used. 266 It is as if American historians have as a base assumption that the acquisition of foreign territory by the United States is simply a domestic concern. In our histories of the event, as in the official pronouncements of the time, there is an unmistakable tone of irritation at the imper tinence of European powers for taking an interest In the matter. When President Polk discussed the annexation of Texas in his first annual message, he remarked indignantly that the addition had been secured "in despite of the diplomatic interference of European monarchies," and went on to observe smugly that Europeans should learn from this "how vain diplomatic arts and Intrigues must ever prove upon this continent against that system of self-government which seems natural to our soil, and which will ever resist O foreign interference." Polk had, indeed, discovered how vain diplomatic arts and intrigues could be. To secure California he had tried to bribe Mexican officials; he had sought to encourage revolutionary forces in that Mexican province; he had used the threat of force to frighten Mexico into selling the territory; and, as this study has demonstrated, he had O Richardson, Messages. IV, 388. 267 sought to initiate a war by proxy in order to achieve his ends without assuming the responsibility for aggressive war. Here was no fine Italian hand nor astute Prussian practitioner of Realpolitik; here was a determined, clumsy amateur whose every maneuver failed. The last resort was to begin the war by throwing American troops into Mexican settlements, having American naval forces poised to occupy California as soon as there should be a response from the Mexican government. Having resorted to the use of force, having openly cast the die for aggressive war to conquer the territory of Mexico and absorb it into the Union, Polk found that there was one appropriate international consequence. When the war was over, he told the Congress that as a result of that war the United States had a "national character abroad which our country never before enjoyed." We had convinced "all nations that our rights must be respected." Before the war, he told his countrymen, "European and other foreign powers entertained imperfect and erroneous views of our physical strength as a nation and of our ability to prosecute war, and especially a war waged out of our own 268 hA country. This is the American hubris. The gods of the Greeks would have struck down such unbridled arrogancej the his torians of the Americans have waited long to undeceive them. We could have used a Gibbon. He would have made a note when Commodore Stockton said that in American hands alone was the precious deposit of all that is valuable of what man has achieved in government and freedom. He would have made another when President Polk concluded his presidency with that modest statement: "Peace, plenty, and contentment reign throughout our borders, and our beloved country pre sents a sublime moral spectacle to the world." Gibbon would have found those men amusing, and he would have in structed us. One hundred years after the event, most American students of our war with Mexico remain uninstruc ted. That is a judgment upon American historians. ^Richardson, Messages. IV, 587, 631 BIBLIOGRAPHY I. PRIMARY MATERIALS A. MANUSCRIPTS 1. The National Archives. Washington, D.C. Navy Department Archives: African Squadron Letters: 5 January 1819 to 8 Decem ber 1823. Five volumes. Record of Letters to the Agents Appointed under the Act of Congress Passed 3 March 1819, "In Addition to the Acts Prohibiting the Slave Trade." Confidential Letters, No. 1, 12 September 1843 to 28 February 1849. Letters to Officers of Ships of War: No. 14: 7 May 1820 to 28 May 1823. No. 34: 9 December 1842 to 16 May 1843. No. 35: 17 May 1843 to 31 October 1843. No. 36: 1 November 1843 to 16 June 1844. No. 37: 17 June 1844 to 10 March 1845. No. 38: 11 March 1845 to 6 December 1845. No. 39: 8 December 1845 to 30 September 1846. Letters from Commanders of Squadrons, Commodore David Conner, Home Squadron, 1 January 1844 to 29 December 1845. Captains' Letters to Department: 17 March 1845 to 30 April 1845. Officers' Letters Of Every Grade and Description (Supplemental), 1844-45. State Department Archives: Instructions to Diplomatic Agents, Texas, 21 May 1837 to 7 August 1845. 269 270 Incoming Letters, Texas Legation, No. 2, 25 July 1842 to 11 October 1845. 2. Manuscripts Division, The Library of Congress. Washington. D.C. American Colonization Society Papers, 1816-1908: 1820-22: Materials on the colony in Liberia. 1819-21 and undated file: Letter of Robert F. Stockton from Cape Messurada and a statement of the Episcopal Church of Maryland. Chittenden, Lucius Eugene, "Notes of Debates," 16-21 February 1861. On the Washington Peace Convention. Donelson, Andrew Jackson, Papers. Green, Duff, Papers. Marcy, William L., Papers. Polk, James K., Papers. Thompson, Waddy, Papers. Walker, Robert J., Papers. 3. Massachusetts Historical Society. Boston, Massachusetts. Bancroft, George, Papers. Sargent, John 0., Papers. 4. The Historical Society of New York, Ntew York City. Stockton, Robert F., Papers. Ericsson, John, Papers. 271 5. The Public Library of New York City. Conner, David, Papers. 6. The University of North Carolina. Chapel Hill. North Carolina. Green, Thomas Jefferson, Papers. Thompson, Waddy, Papers. 7. The Pennsylvania Historical Society, Philadelphia. Pennsylvania. Buchanan, Jame s, Papers. 8. Princeton University Library, Princeton. New Jersey. Stockton, Robert Field, Papers. 9. The Swedish-American Institute. Philadelphia. Pennsylvania. Ericsson, John, Papers. Stockton, Robert F., Papers. 10. The University of Texas. Austin, Texas Butler, Anthony, Papers. Jones, Anson, Papers. Thompson, Waddy, Papers, 11. The Texas State Archives. Austin, Texas Butler, Anthony, Papers. Jones, Anson, Papers. 272 B. PUBLISHED DOCUMENTS. ADDRESSES. DIARIES. AND CORRESPONDENCE 1. United States Congressional Document Publications. U. S. Congress. Senate. Executive Documents, 1st Session, 29th Congress, Senate Document No. 2, Serial No. 480. ______ . House. 2nd Session, 29th Congress, House Document No. 19, Serial No. 499. 2. Books of Primary Materials. Adams, Ephraim Douglass, editor. British Diplomatic Corres- pondence Concerning the Republic of Texas, 1838-1846. Austin, Texas: The Texas State Historical Association, 1918. American Historical Association. Annual Report for the Year 1899: Volume II. Calhoun Correspondence. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1900. . Annual Report for the Year 1908: Volume TL ( . 1 ) . , Part II, and Volume II (2), Part III, Diplomatic Correspondence of the Republic of Texas. Washington. Government Printing Office, 1911. Basler, Roy P., editor. The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Vol. I of eight volumes. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1953. Cralle, Richard K., editor. The Works of John C. Calhoun. Vol. IV of six volumes. New York: 1888. Graebner, Norman A., editor. Ideas and Diplomacy: Readings in the Intellectual Tradition of American Foreign Policy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1964. Hammond, George P., editor. The Larkin Papers. Vol. II of eight volumes, 1951-1962. Berkeley: The University of California Press, 1952. Manning, William R., editor, Diplomatic Correspondency gf t-he United States: Inter-American Affairs, IgJl-loou, Vol. VIII, Mexico (1831-1848, mid-year). Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1937. 273 Nevins, Allan, editor. The Diary of a President. (Polk). New York: 1929. Quaife, Milo Milton, editor. The Diary of James K. Polk. Four volumes. Chicago: A. C. McClurg Co., 1910. Richardson, James D., editor. The Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Vol. IV of eleven volumes. N.P.: 19081 3. Printed Speeches and Letters and Reports of Robert Field Stockton, in Pamphlet Form, in the Princeton University Library. Speeches, Reports, and Letters in Relation to the Delaware and Raritan Canal and the Camden and Amboy Railroad Company. Two volumes of pamphlets, bound together: Vol. I, 1817-1840, 26 items; Vol. II, 1831-1871, 11 i terns. Speech of Capt. R. F. Stockton Delivered at the Great Democratic Meeting at New Brunswick, New Jersey. Wednesday, September 24, 1844. James Rees, Reporter. New York: 1844. Appeal of Commodore R. F. Stockton to the People of New Jersey In Relation to the Existing Contracts Between the State and the United Delaware and Raritan Canal and Camden and Amboy Railroad Companies. September 24th, 1849. Princton: 1849. Interesting Correspondence. Letter of Commodore Stockton on the Slavery Question. New York: 1850. Remarks of Mr. Stockton, of New Jersey, on the Steamboat Bill. Delivered in the Senate of the United States, August 28, 1852. Report of the Committee for the New Jersey State Legisla ture , On the Surrendering of their Works to the State by the Delaware and Raritan Canal and Camden and Amboy Railroad Company. Answer of Robert F. Stockton in Behalf of the Joint Board to the Committee. Trenton: 1854. 274 Documents and Papers Relating to the Late Camden and Amboy Railroad Accident at Burlington. N.J., Including Correspondence Between Commodore R. F. Stockton and C. Van Rensselaer. D.D. Philadelphia: 1855. Speech of Commodore Robert F. Stockton, on the Past, Present and Future of the American Party. Delivered In the City of Camden. N.J., August 4th. 1859. Camden, N.J.: 1859. Address of Hon. Joel Parker on the Life and Character of Commodore Stockton. Reprinted from the Northern Monthly. March, 1868. II. SECONDARY MATERIALS A. NEWSPAPERS The National Intelligencer. Washington, D.C. 8 February 1845; 21 May 1845; 9 June 1845; 14 June 1845; 16 June 1845; 18 June 1345; 7 August 1845; 18 May 1846. Niles' National Register. Baltimore, Maryland. 14 December 1844; 21 December 1844; 4 January 1845; 8 February 1845; 7 June 1845; 14 March 1846; 22 January 184o. B. ARTICLES Bundy, MeGeorge. "The Uses of Responsibility: A Reply to Archibald MacLeish," The Saturday Review. 3 July 1965. Cotterill, Robert S. "Charles A. Wickliffe," The Dictionary of American Biography. Vol. XX, 182-183. Edited by Dumas Malone. New York: 1931. Durand, William F. "John Ericsson," The Dictionary of American Biography. Vol. VI, 171-76. Edited by Allen Johnson and Dumas Malone. New York: 1931. Green, Fletcher M. "Duff Green," The Dictionary of American Biography. Vol. VII, 540-42. Edited by Allen Johnson and Dumas Malone. New York: 1931. 275 Rippy, J. Fred. "Waddy Thompson," The Dictionary of Ameri can Biography. Vol. XVIII, 473-74. Edited by Dumas Malone. New York: 1936. Stenberg, Richard R. "The Failure of Polk's War Intrigue of 1845," Pacific Historical Review. IV (March, 1935), 39-69. ______. "Jackson, Anthony Butler and Texas," Southwestern Social Science Quarterly, XIII (December, 1932), 264-86. ______. "President Polk and the Annexation of Texas," Southwestern Social Science Quarterly. XIV (March, 1934), 336-56. C. BOOKS Anderson, R. Earle. Liberia: America's African Friend. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1952. Bailey, Thomas A. A Diplomatic History of the American People. Seventh edition. New York: Apple ton-Century- Crofts, 1964. Bancroft, Hubert Howe. History of Mexico. Vol. V, 1824-1861. Vol. XIII of The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft, 39 Vols. San Francisco: The History Company, 1887. ______. History of the North Mexican States and Texas, Vol. II, 1801-1889. Vol. XVI of The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft, 39 Vols. San Francisco: The History Company, 1889. [Bayard, Samuel John} A Sketch of the Life of Commodore Robert F. Stockton. With an Appendix, comprising His Correspondence with the Navy Department Respecting his Conquest of California; and Extracts from the Defence of Col. J. C. Fremont, in relation to the same subject; together with his Speeches in the Senate of the United States and his Political Letters. New York: Derby and Jackson, 1856. 276 Bemis, Samuel Flagg, editor. The American Secretaries of State and Their Diplomacy. Vol. V. "John Caldwell Calhoun," and "James Buchanan," by St. George Leakin Sioussat. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1928. _______. A Diplomatic History of the United States. Fifth edition. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1965. Bill, Alfred Hoyt. A House Called Morven: Its Role in American History. 1701-1954. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1954. ______. Rehearsal for Conflict: The War with Mexico, 1846- 1848. New York: History Book Club, 1947. Callahan, James Morton. American Foreign Policy in Mexican Relations. New York: Macmillan Company, 1932, DeVoto, Bernard. The Year of Decision: 1846. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1943. Friend, Llerena. Sam Houston: The Great Designer. Austin, Texas: University of Texas, 1954. Gambrell, Herbert Pickens. Anson Jones: The Last President of Texas. New York: Doubleday & Co., 1948. Garrison, George Pierce. Westward Extension: 1841-1850. Vol. 17 of The American Nation: A History. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1906. Graebner, Norman A. Empire on the Pacific: A Study in American Continental Expansion. New York: Ronald Press Co., 1955. Henry, Robert Selph. The Story of the Mexican War. New York: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1950. Hunter, Louis C. Steamboats on the Western Rivers: An Economic and Technological History. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1949. Jones, Anson. Memoranda and Official Correspondence Relat ing to the Republic of Texas, Its History and Annexa tion. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1859. 277 Kohl, Clayton Charles. Claims as a Cause of the Mexican War. New York: 1914 McCormac, Eugene Irving. James K. Polk: A Political Biography. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1922. McMaster, John Bach. A History of the People of the United States. Vol. VII, 1841-1850, of eight volumes. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1910. McNeill, William H. The Rise of the West: A History of the Human Community. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963. Manning, William R. Early Diplomatic Relations Between the United States and Mexico. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1916, Merk, Frederick. Manifest Destiny and Mission in American History: A Reinterpretation. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1963. Morison, Samuel Eliot and Henry Steele Commager. The Growth of the American Republic. Fourth Edition. Vol. I of two volumes. New York: Oxford University Press, 1950. Nance, Joseph Milton. Attack and Counter-Attack: The Texas- Mexican Frontier, 1842. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1964. ______. After San Jacinto: The Texas-Mexican Frontier, 1836-1841. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1963. Pratt, Julius W. A History of United States Foreign Policy. Second edition. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1965 Rochefoucauld, Francois, Due de la. Maxims. Tr. and intro, by L. W. Tancock. Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1959. Rives, George Lockard. The United States and Mexico: 1821-1848. Two volumes. New York: 1913. 278 Schouler, James. History of the United States. Vol. IV. New York: 1894. Singletary, Otis A. The Mexican War. A volume in the Chicago History of American Civilization. Daniel J. Boorstin, editor. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960. Smith, Justin H. The Annexation of Texas. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1941 (first edition, 1911). ______ . The War With Mexico. Vol. I of two volumes. New York: Macmillan Co., 1919. Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement: 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961. Tocqueville, Alexis de. Democracy in America. Tr. by Henry Reeve, rev. by Francis Bowen, edited by Phillips Bradley. Vol. I of two volumes. New York: Vintage Books, 1959. Van Alstyne, Richard W. American Diplomacy in Action. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1944. ______ . The Rising American Empire. Oxford: Basil Black- well, 1960. Weinberg, Albert K. Manifest Destiny: A Study in Nationalist Expansionism. Baltimore: 1935. Wiltse, Charles M. John C. Calhoun: Sectionalist. 1840- 1850. New York: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1951.

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Creator Price, Glenn Warren (author)

Core Title The Origin Of The War With Mexico: The Polk - Stockton Intrigue

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program History

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag history, general,OAI-PMH Harvest

Language English

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Advisor Van Alstyne, Richard W. (committee chair), McElderry, Bruce R. (committee member), Servin, Manuel P. (committee member)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c18-199682

Unique identifier UC11360846

Identifier 6607080.pdf (filename),usctheses-c18-199682 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier 6607080.pdf

Dmrecord 199682

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Price, Glenn Warren

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Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...

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