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THE PROPOSED ABSORPTION OF MEXICO IN 1847-1848^

During the last eighteen months, few students of our his- tory can have failed to be struck with the points of similar- ity between some of the aspects and incidents of our recent public policy and some of the phases of the Mexican War. Not only in broad outlines is there a resemblance between the two situations, but it exists even in details. What a curious coincidence that in the one case we should have assisted the exiled Santa Anna to return to Mexico, counting on his friendly aid in attaining our demands, and that in the other the exiled Aguinaldo should have been brought home and his followers equipped as our allies! Indeed let any one who thinks this comparison forced read over his Biglow Papers, The famous epistle of Birdofreedom Sawin from Mexico echoes with contemporaneous discussion, and one long pas- sage, with two or three changes in the names, might well serve the Anti -Imperialists as a tract for the times.

But it is not my purpose on this occasion to follow out in detail the comparison between the two wars and the issues arising from them, but rather, in view of the present persist- ent asseveration that the victory in Manila Bay imposed upon the United States at once the duty and the necessity of secur- ing and retaining the Philippines, to inquire how we escaped annexing all of Mexico in 1848. This relic of New Spain, less populous than our antipodal islands, contiguous to our territory, a political wreck from the incessant turmoil of a generation, in the complete possession of our armies for

Mass., December 29, 1899.
 * Read at the meeting of the American Historical Association at Cambridge,