Page:The War with Mexico, Vol 1.djvu/179

150 lost several men killed and wounded, and then with all the rest surrendered This was war. "Hostilities have begun," announced Arista on the day of his arrival. "Hostilities may now he considered as commenced," reported Taylor on the 26th; and — besides advising Polk to organize twelve-months volunteers — he at once called upon Texas and Louisiana for about 5000 men.

It was a tragic and most regrettable dénouement; yet, on a close review of all the data now accessible, one does not ﬁnd it easy to censure Polk. If he had wished and meditated war from the first, why did he work for an amicable settlement through Parrott, Black and Slidell? For the sake of appearances, many said. But in the first place we have found that Polk was honest in those negotiations; and, in the second, had war been his aim and appearances his care, he would not have permitted the order of January 13 to be issued that day. On January 12 it looked at Washington as if the question of receiving Slidell would soon be decided. The President could afford to wait a little, and he would have done this, for it was clear that an unnecessary military step, taken while he was extending the olive branch, would needlessly make him appear either treacherous or ridiculous. Moreover if he sought a war, he knew on January 12 that matters were shaping themselves to his taste; that Mexico was almost sure to close the door of negotiation soon; and consequently that he would soon be able to demand of Congress the forcible redress of our grievances.

Here lay a casus belli amply endorsed by international law, the practice of civilized powers, and the general opinion of the world. It was a ground, too, that Polk himself, as we have seen, felt entirely satisfied to stand upon, and one that our people, feeling as they did, would almost certainly have accepted. Having, then, apparently within his reach a pretext for war that almost everybody thought good, he would not have exerted himself to obtain one that almost everybody thought had; and in fact *evidently expecting no event at decisive importance to occur near the Rio Grande — he went on day after day with his plan to lay our grievances before Congress, until news of the attack on Thornton burst upon Washington like a rocket. On the hypothesis that he had wished