was too far off to bother with. Even Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, champion of the West though he was, prophesied that the Rockies would be the permanent western boundary of the United States. During the period of joint control there were probably ten times as many British and Canadians as Americans in Oregon.

In 1836 some American missionaries, H. H. Spaulding and Marcus Whitman, began work among the Oregon Indian tribes. Two years later the movement began that finally forced a decision regarding the boundary between American and British Oregon. Senator Lewis F. Linn of Missouri tried to impress upon his colleagues the importance of Oregon. Late in 1841 he introduced a bill, providing for a line of forts from Missouri to Oregon, and for the grant of a whole section of land to every male emigrant eighteen years of age or over. In 1843 this Linn Bill passed the Senate, by a vote of twenty-four to twenty-two, but the House failed to pass it. Confidently expecting that it would go through, and stimulated by the prospect of free land, a thousand pioneers moved into the territory in 1843. In 1842 Marcus Whitman returned to Boston, the headquarters of his Missionary Society, to urge his superiors not to abandon the work in Oregon. Successful in his appeal, he went back to Oregon the following year, with one of the bands of emigrants. Years after Whitman's death some highly imaginative person invented the story that Whitman's journey east had been for the purpose of laying the Oregon situation before President Tyler, in an effort to save the territory for the United States. According to this story, Whitman made a masterly appeal, which deeply affected Tyler, and the federal government began to encourage emigration. Such is the famous "Whitman myth," which makes Whitman the savior of Oregon for the United States. Long since abandoned by historical scholars, it was never entirely given up by the Congregational Board of Home Missions.

The Democratic platform of 1844 asserted that the American title to the whole of Oregon was "clear and unquestionable," and urged the reoccupation of Oregon, as well as the reannexation of Texas. By that time American interest in Oregon was developing, and the slogan of "fifty-four forty or fight" became popular. Although President Polk had been inclined to favor the "whole of Oregon" he authorized his Secretary of State, Buchanan, to renew the offer of the forty-ninth parallel. The British minister refused this. Polk then

advised Congress to permit him to give the necessary one year's notice for terminating the joint agreement.

That was done, and due notice was transmitted to the British government. In June, 1846, the British minister in Washington submitted the draft of a proposed treaty, providing for the forty-ninth parallel to the strait, but giving Vancouver to Great Britain. Polk felt that the treaty was fair, but he asked the Senate for advice before formally submitting it to that body. Its recommendation was favorable. The treaty was then signed, and the Senate ratified, by a vote of forty-one to fourteen.

When Congress proceeded to organize the Oregon territory, an attempt was made to prohibit slavery there. The first bill failed, and a new one was introduced, providing for a nonslave territory, on the ground that it was north of the Missouri Compromise line, 36° 30'. That failed, as did a third Oregon bill, which would have let the settlers there decide the question for themselves. A fourth bill, which finally passed, left Oregon a free territory, and Polk signed the measure, giving as his reason the fact that it was north of the Compromise line.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

THE WAR WITH MEXICO

While the abolitionists were denouncing the annexation of Texas because it meant the addition of another slave state, the Whigs were doing the same thing, some of them because they saw in expansion an additional source of trouble between the sections, some because the step was taken under Tyler's direction. Elected as a Whig, he was looked upon as a deserter from his party, and whatever he did was greeted with a storm of protest. But the abolitionist and Whig denunciations over Texas were nothing as compared with their uproar over the war with Mexico. From that day almost to this, Polk has been variously described as a scoundrel and a robber.

MEXICAN HOSTILITY

The fundamental cause of the war was the annexation of Texas. Mexico had steadily refused to recognize the independence of her lost province, and with at least the virtue of consistency she denied the right of the United States to her new acquisition. In 1843, nearly two years before the joint resolution passed Congress, Santa Anna served the following warning upon the United States: "the Mexican government will consider equivalent to a declaration of war against the Mexican Republic the passage of an act for the incorporation of Texas into the territory of the United States; the certainty of the fact being sufficient for the immediate proclamation of war." Later in the same year the Mexican minister in Washington declared that "if the United States should, in defiance of good faith and of the principles of justice . . . commit the unheard-of act of violence of appropriating to themselves an integrant part of the Mexican territory, . . . he will consider his mission ended, seeing that, as the Secretary of State will have learned, the Mexican Government is resolved to declare war so soon as it receives information of such an act."

After Congress had passed the joint resolution, the Mexican minis

ter referred to it as "an act of aggression the most unjust which can be found recorded in the annals of modern history." With this parting shot, on March 6, 1845, the Mexican angrily broke off diplomatic relations and went home. The Mexicans were thoroughly aroused over the question, and that element which passed for public opinion was determined upon war. In view of the formal statements, of which those quoted are samples, Mexican newspapers assumed that a state of war actually existed. The Mexican Congress passed measures for increasing the army, specifically to resist annexation, and the administration advised a declaration of war just as soon as the process of annexation should be completed.

That was the situation which Polk had inherited from his predecessor. Even if he had wished to agree with the Mexican, contention, the new President was obliged to look upon annexation as an accomplished fact. Congress had done the work before he had come into office, and he could do nothing but enforce the law.

There were other difficulties, in addition to Texas, which had made for ill-feeling between the two governments. Various American citizens were clamoring for the payment of claims against Mexico. These, the product of the chronic state of disorder in Mexico, were based upon property destroyed or seized, and upon lives lost. A joint commission had been at work in an attempt to decide just how much Mexico owed on this account. Claims amounting to two million dollars had already been declared valid, and there were at least as many more which had not been adjusted. Mexico had hardly made a beginning in settling these, and it seemed that after each revolution the ability, if not the inclination, to pay steadily decreased. On her side Mexico had a grievance against the United States on account of help given to Texans by private citizens from across the border.

In the spring of 1845 there was no dispute over the Texas boundary. Mexico still insisted that she rightfully owned the whole of Texas, and that the United States had no rights beyond the Sabine, the southwestern boundary of Louisiana. The Texans claimed the Rio Grande as their southwestern boundary, and Santa Anna had admitted this claim in his treaty of 1836, the one he repudiated because he had signed it under compulsion. Subsequently the Mexicans professed to believe that the Nueces separated their territory from Texas, but that was a purely ex post facto inspiration on their

part, brought forward in an effort to save what they could out of the wreck. See map, 410.

Again Polk was placed in a situation which left him little freedom of choice or action. In annexing Texas the United States had incurred certain moral obligations to the citizens of the Lone Star State, one of which was to protect them against Mexican aggression. Polk interpreted this to mean guaranteeing them the boundaries they had claimed as an independent nation.

In order to guard the Texans, Polk prepared to send General Taylor to the border. He received his preliminary orders on May 28, and on June 15, he was directed to advance to a point on or near the Rio Grande, but he was to refrain from any action, except defensive, unless Mexico formally declared war. In January 1846, ordered to occupy a point on the Rio Grande, he moved to Point Isabel, nearly opposite Matamoras. Shortly after that, the Mexican government for the first time made its declaration concerning the Nueces boundary.

THE SLIDELL MISSION

Under the circumstances it is hard to see how war could have been avoided. Mexico had insisted that she would not permit Texas to go without a fight, and had broken off diplomatic relations. The United States was bound to safeguard the Texans. In spite of the unfavorable outlook, Polk made a determined effort to settle the trouble without war. He had a number of reasons for his desire to reopen formal negotiations. For one thing, in breaking off relations two days after he was inaugurated, Mexico had given him no opportunity to show what he could do. Furthermore he wanted to collect the claims which were due, and to secure an agreement concerning the Texas boundary. More important still, he wanted a representative at Mexico City to be on the watch for possible European activities in New Mexico, California, or both.

In March 1845, in less than a month after the Mexican minister had partly satisfied his injured dignity by quitting Washington, Polk sent an unofficial agent, one Parrott, to sound the Mexican administration regarding its probable attitude toward an American minister. Parrott was ordered to impress upon the mind of President Herrera the desirability of restoring friendly relations, and to announce that Polk would gladly send a minister, provided one would be received. In case one were sent, so Parrott informed Herrera, there would be no