Page:The War with Mexico, Vol 1.djvu/126

Rh value, for, as Peña recognized, Slidell was explicitly commissioned to "restore" friendly relations, which indicated that such relations could not exist until after he should be received and after he should act; and, besides, Mexico could have received him with a declaration of reserve, safeguarding all her claims. Moreover this was evidently a point, if of any importance, which the secretary should have considered before making the agreement.

To avoid this last difficulty, he alleged in his desperation that Black had proposed, and he accepted, the plan of sending merely an envoy ad hoc, a special envoy commissioned to settle with Mexico for the annexation of Texas His assertion, however, is disproved by the circumstances and correspondence leading to Slidell's appointment; and a simple argument reinforces the facts. For the United States to offer amends for annexation would have been to deny its repeated protestations that annexation was perfectly proper; would have been to brand upon its own forehead the heinous charges drawn in vitriol by Rején. Peña could see that no country possessing the eyesight of a mole and the courage of a mouse would so degrade itself. He knew, October 11, that on such a demand the negotiations would end before beginning; would end at once in his study with Black's bidding him a respectful goodnight; and since Herrera desired the negotiations, he could not make such a proposition.

Moreover the council of state, which was a permanent body of notables, brushed aside this contention of Peña's, and fell back" on the very nature of the affair and on the state of our relations (en la natureleza misma del negacio y en el estado de nuestras relationes)." Assuming plainly that the United States desired to avoid war and restore friendly diplomatic and commercial intercourse, it declared that we had set a trap [lazo] for Mexico, and undertaken to introduce a regular minister under false pretences, as it were, in order to compel her to be amicable against her will. In furtherance of this design the promise of the Mexican administration cannot be urged, it protested, for the intention must have been merely to let the Texas affair be settled, as a preliminary to the restoration of cordial relations, and it would be an "unexampled humiliation" were Mexico to receive a regular American