acter in its own keeping, and needed no adınonition to save it from stain or dishonor. Bocanegra disclaimed any intention to threaten, and still less to provoke and excite; but resolved to use the right that no one could deny his country, that of regarding the annexation of Texas to the United States as a hostile act, involving a violation of international law, and particularly of the treaty of April 5, 1831, between the two governments. In protesting against the violation of her rights she fulfilled an obligation peculiar to her sovereignty and independence.
On the 13th of September, 1843, Mr Upshur, who had become President Tyler's secretary of state, informed the American minister in Mexico of his government's intention to demand from Mexico that she should either make peace with Texas or show her ability with respectable forces to prosecute the war.[1]
It is not clear why the government of the United States should take umbrage at Mexico's failure to wage an active warfare on its friends in Texas. Its animus in the effort to bully Mexico[2] into making peace with Texas appears revealed in Secretary Upshur's note of September 8th to Murphy, American diplomatic agent in Texas, wherein he speaks of a rumor about a scheme in England to furnish the Texan government with pecuniary means to abolish slavery, indemnifying the masters, and the lenders to receive for their money large tracts of land in Texas. Such an
- ↑ Upshur's predecessor had endeavored to bring about a settlement of the war. In Jan. 1843 he directed the American envoy to use his good offices with the Mexican secretary to mitigate the animosity of his government. He did not doubt Mexico's right to subjugate Texas if she could do so by the common and lawful means of war; but other states — specially the United States — were interested, 'not only in the restoration of peace between them, but in the manner in which the war shall be conducted, if it shall continue.' The envoy was directed to use these suggestions at the time, and was likewise informed that 'it is in the contemplation of this government to remonstrate in a more formal manner with Mexico, at a period not far distant, unless she shall consent to make peace with Texas, or shall show the disposition and ability to prosecute the war with respectable forces.' U. S. Govt Doc., Cong. 28, Ses. 1, H. Ex. Doc. 271, p. 69, 2, pp. 26-48; Mayer's Hist. War Mex., i. 55-6.
- ↑ The purity of the motives of our government became open to suspicion.' Gallatin's Peace with Mex., 9.
