Page:The War with Mexico, Vol 1.djvu/88

Rh His only feasible course was to affiliate with men of the popu—lar, democratic, Federalist party. Largely through his advice they abandoned their plan of rebelling, placed their conﬁdence in organization and the ballot, and so gained the ascendencyascendancy [sic]. They soon fell into excesses of their own, however, which they were glad to charge against a Protestant and foreigner; all the other elements antagonized by him joined in the accusations; envy of the recognized prosperity of the United States assisted; and in the end he came to be almost universally denounced by the Mexicans as the diabolical agent of a jealous, hypocritical, designing government.

Of course, the Poinsett affair planted a root of bitterness in the United States. Our national authorities could but protest against the attacks upon our minister that were made by state legislatures in contempt of all diplomatic usage. against the neglect of the Mexican Executive to shield him, and against the general attitude of distrust and ill—will exhibited by that country. Indeed, our government fully believed that baseless popular clamor had been permitted to exert "a sinister inﬂuence" against the Americans in its councils, and pointedly informed Guerrero that unless "a marked change" in the temper of his administration should "speedily" occur, a collision might result; and of course the people of the United States could not fail to notice the abusive and even ferocious treatment accorded to our representative, against whom no charges were made by the Mexican government, and to resent still more keenly the insults that were lavished upon the character and purposes of the American nation. The fact that Poinsett continued to be an important factor in our public life, even becoming a member of the Cabinet at a later day, tended to emphasize these feelings, both ofﬁcial and popular.

Besides all this, ofﬁcial work of his added to the irritation in 3 both countries. As one of his principal duties, he was instructed 5 to make a treaty reaffirming the boundary agreed upon with' Spain in 1819, or, if he could, buy a portion at least of Texas The proposal that our neighbor should sell us territory has been called by partisan writers in the United States, insulting, but as We have made purchases from Spain, France, Russia and Mexico herself, this accusation is evidently unwarranted, on the other hand the suggestion was reasonable. We for our