CHAPTER 8. The Alabama Platform. 1848. In less than two weeks from the passage of the act annexing Texas, Mr. George Bancroft, Secretary of the Navy, Acting Secretary of War, issued the commission of Brigadier-General to Colonel Zachary Taylor, of the First Infantry, United States Army, with orders to concentrate all the troops, distrib uted in the Southwest, in Texas and to dispose them at his discretion to protect the interests of his government. Before the end of March, 1846, General Taylor had placed about five thousand troops at Fort Brown, on the east bank of the Rio Grande, near Matamoras on the Mexican side. Meantime, Mr. Buchanan, Secretary of State, had despatched secret orders to the government agents in the Mexican State, California. A late revolution in Mexico had banished President Santa Anna to the West Indies. General Ampudia, commander of the Mexican Army, lay with 6,000 men at Matamoras. Ampudia notified Taylor that the occupation of Fort Brown would be accepted by Mexico as a declaration of war. Captain Thornton and sixty-three mounted men, of Taylor's forces, were captured or slain by Ampudia's forces. The Mexican commander had crossed the river and was marching upon Point Isbel, Taylor's fortified depot of supplies twenty miles to the rear of Fort Brown, with his army. Taylor struck this force, drawn up on a prairie, at Palo Alto, and drove it. The next day he caught up with it at Resaca de la Palma, three miles from Fort Brown, and drove it, pell mell, across the While river. Many volunteers from Texas and adjacent States rushed to join Taylor. The President sent an excited message to Congress declaring Mexico had invaded the United States and spilt American blood. Congress declared war "because of the act of Mexico," and Mexico recalled the bravest and most accomplished of her soldiers and the wisest of her statesmen, Santa Anna, giving him the powers of dictator. these events were transpiring on the eastern borders of our unhappy neighbor, Secretary of State James Buchanan's orders resulted in the seizure of California by the navy, under Commodores Stockton and Sloat, and Colonel Fremont in command of a handful of men on land. General Taylor crossed the river, occupied Matamoras, and marched into the interior. Calhoun, Webster and Clay were now united in opposing the prosecution of war. They were controlled by a common motive. The attenuated sympathies of the sections would not be able to bear the strain of the legislation necessary to "make needful rules and regulations" for fresh territory. The Whigs bitterly opposed war, and even voted against the supplies necessary for the army of invasion. The Democrats favored war. Fresh conquest would recompense the South for the gain, by the North, in the immense country north of 36°30'. It was a Union measure to restore the balance of the sections. Rhett and Yancey, in the House, separated from Mr. Calhoun, and while he alone of Southern leaders, in the Senate, voted against war, they ardently voted for it. The Abolitionists separated from the Whigs to demand war and more territory. The President called on the House for an appropriation of $2,000,000 to be placed at his disposal for the purchase of California, and to negotiate for peace. It was the eighth day of August when the message of the Executive appeared, and a joint resolution of Congress had already fixed upon the tenth day of the same month for adjournment of the session. Mr. David Wilmot, Democrat, from Pennsylvania, moved the following amendment to the resolution to grant the President's request: "As an express and fundamental condition of the acquisition of any territory by the United States from the Republic of Mexico, by virtue of any treaty which shall be negotiated between them, and to the uses by the Executive of the monies herein appropriated, neither slavery or involuntary servitude, except for crime, shall ever exist in any part of said territory." This historic measure passed the House by a majority of nineteen. It was the nucleus of revolution, immovable. Did it invade the Constitutional right of the President and the Senate, to make and confirm treaties, with a condition prescribed in advance? Mr. Adams protested against the Proviso. He would buy California, but the Mexican law in force there, would continue to prohibit slavery until specially repealed by Congress. The day was past, he said, when Congress would legislate to enlarge the area of slavery. His doctrine of foreign law, prevailing on American soil, was new and alarming to the South. On the morning of the tenth the resolution, amended by the Proviso, reached the Senate. Mr. Davis, from Massachusetts, who opposed the appropriation, though favoring, on general principles, the Proviso, rose to speak to the measure and intentionally prolonged his remarks until the moment of the expiration of the session. While Mr. Davis spoke, Mr. Cass went over from the Democratic to the Whig side of the chamber, bitterly denouncing the Massachusetts Senator for preventing a vote and declaring his purpose to support the Proviso at the next session. The following day on the cars, from Washington to Baltimore, Mr. Cass expressed to Mr. Rathbun, Representative from New York, his diappointment at the conduct of Mr. Davis, avowing his hearty sympathy with the Proviso. February 19, 1847, Mr. Calhoun introduced in the Senate a series of resolutions which were debated, but never put to a vote, inasmuch as the Wilmot Proviso did not come to a vote in that body. These resolutions declared the common domain to be the common property of the States, of which Congress was the trustee, and refuted the theory of Mr. Adams, that foreign laws or institutions attached to national acquisitions of territory until expressly repealed. The resolutions of Calhoun were subsequent to and inspired by the Wilmot Proviso -its passage through the House and its pendency in the Senate. They were termed, nevertheless, by the Whig party, |