manly vigor the race that is set before us? Or shall we yield to the suggestions of a sickly fanaticism, or sink into an enervating slumber? . . . We feel no emotion but pity for those whose philanthropy, or patriotism, or religion, has led them to believe that they can prescribe a better course of duty than that of the God who made us all."[1]
January 12, Senator Rusk of Texas called on the Presi- dent to request him not to commit himself further against the annexation of all of Mexico. Polk told him that his views had been distinctly stated in his message, and that his mind had not changed.
As in our own day foreign pressure in this direction was not lacking. More than a year earlier Bancroft wrote Buchanan from London : " People are beginning to say that it would be a blessing to the world if the United States would assume the tutelage of Mexico."[2] Rumors, too, were current of a rising annexationist party in Mexico.[3]
The foregoing all show that the agitation for " all of Mex- ico " was well started and needed only time to become really formidable. It was deprived of that requisite element of time by the astonishing course of Trist, who despite his re- call still lingered with Scott's army and finally negotiated a treaty on the lines of Polk's ultimatum. How this conduct struck the President can best be told in his own words. When he heard, January 4, that Trist had renewed negotia- tions, he entered in his diary: "This information is most
- ↑ Niles's Register, LXXIII, 391.
- ↑ G. T. Curtis's Buchanan, I, 576. In this connection it is interesting to compare the forecast, at a somewhat later date, of Alexander von Humboldt : "Die Vereinigten Staaten werden ganz Mexico an sich reissen und dann selbst zerfallen." Roscher, Kolonien, Kolonialpolitik und Auswanderung, 177.
- ↑ In a letter to Calhoun from one John G. Tod, dated City of Mexico, April 5, 1848, it asserted that " Many good Mexicans, however, do not desire Peace, they want the Country to be occupied by our Troops, this policy gives them an assurance of security for life and property, and affords them a prospect of diminishing the power and influence of the Church." Correspondence, 1163. Cf. the citation by Von Holst, III, 342, from Hodgson's Cradle of the Confederacy, 251-252, in regard to the annexation party in Mexico. Hodgson's estimate, however, must be greatly exaggerated.
