Page:The War with Mexico, Vol 1.djvu/156

Rh inoculated with the idea of fighting Mexico, and the country had not advanced far into the new year 1846 before all were again talking about it, said a Mississippi journal. "Sunday editors" in particular, it added, "shriek out War! War! War!'" Will Polk be able to Withstand the clamor? asked the Memphis Enquirer, — "We fear not," The final rejection of Slidell naturally intensified the martial feeling. The almost unanimous voice of the American people," wrote even Governor Hammond of South Carolina, insisted upon wart So much for the attitude of the public.

Turning now to the attitude of the government, we are told at once that Polk deliberately intended to attack Mexico, and are offered various reasons for so believing. One accuser says that he was ambitious for personal glory; another, that he desired to perpetuate the power of his party; a third, that he felt anxious to cover up the humiliating result of the Oregon negotiation; still another, that he Wished to be reëlected; and more than one allege that he was determined to obtain California. For this last view there is just evidence enough to create a suspicion. For example, Bancroft remarked more than forty years after the event that Polk said the acquisition) of that province would be one of his aims, and this remark has, been cited as if it proved the charge. But there was not the slightest impropriety in his desiring an immensely valuable territory that Webster had endeavored a few years before to acquire, and in 1845 Bancroft himself represented the President's feeling toward Mexico as "most conciliatory." Indeed, after the conflict had begun, Bancroft wrote privately to Samuel Hooper, "We were driven reluctantly to war."

Again, certain facts are cited and aligned' Polk wanted California, a war occurred, and he promptly took advantage of the war to occupy the desired territory. But the existence of several points in line does not prove the existence of a path connecting them, and there is weighty evidence against the suspicion which these facts naturally excite. While directing, Slidell to obtain the cession of northern California, if he could, Buchanan intimated, as we have seen, that he should not press this matter, if so doing would prevent the restoration of amicable relations with Mexico. In other words, instead of desiring to precipitate a war for the sake of obtaining California,