THE SOUTHWESTERN HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
VOLUME XVIII JULY, 1914, TO APRIL, 1915
EDITORS: Eugene C. Barker, Herbert E. Bolton. ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Chas. W. Ramsdell, E. W. Winkler, Edgar L. Hewett. MANAGING EDITOR: Eugene C. Barker. The Texas State Historical Association Austin, Texas 1915The Texas State Historical Association
Organized 1897
PRESIDENT:
Z. T. Fulmore.
VICE-PRESIDENTS:
Miss Katie Daffan, Beauregard Bry
Mrs. Adele B. Looscan, R. C. Crane.
RECORDING SECRETARY AND LIBRARIAN:
Eugene C. Barker.
CORRESPONDING SECRETARY AND TREASURER:
Charles W. Ramsdell.
EXECUTIVE COUNCIL:
Z. T. Fulmore, John C. Townes,
Katie Daffan, W. F. McCaleb,
Beauregard Bryan, Lilia M. Casis,
Edward W. Heusinger, S. A. Moore,
Adele B. Looscan, S. P. Brooks,
Eugene C. Barker, Bride Neill Taylor
Charles W. Ramsdell, Dora Fowler Arthu
E. W. Winkler, W. J. Battle.
PUBLICATION COMMITTEE:
Z. T. Fulmore,
Eugene C. Barker, E. W. Winkle
Herbert E. Bolton, W. J. Battle.
CONTENTS
Number 1; July, 1914.
Early Settlement for the Annexation of California, I Robert Glass Cleland 1
Beginnings of the Secession Movement in Texas Anna Irene Sandbo 41
Southern Opposition to the Annexation of Texas Elizabeth Howard West 74
British Correspondence Concerning Texas, XI 83
Edited by Ephraim Douglass Adams 83
Book Reviews and Notices: Rives, The United States and Mexico, 1821-1848; Bolton, Guide to the Materials for the History of the United States in the Principal Archives of Mexico 109
News Items 117
Number 2; October, 1914.
Early Settlement for the Annexation of California, II Robert Glass Cleland 121
First Session of the Secession Convention in Texas Anna Irene Sandbo 162
Harris County, 1822-1845 Adele B. Looscan 195
British Correspondence Concerning Texas, XII Edited by Ephraim Douglass Adams 208
A Letter from Vera Cruz in 1847 Contributed by Robt. A. Law 215
Book Reviews and Notices: Bolton, Athanase de Mezieres and the Louisiana-Texas Frontier, 1768-1780; Hughes, The Beginnings of Spanish Settlement in the El Paso District 219
News Items 226
Number 3; January, 1915.
Early Settlement for the Annexation of California, III Robert Glass Cleland 231
Harris County, 1822-1845, II Adele B. Looscan 261
Allen's Reminiscences of Texas, II Edited by William S. Red 287
British Correspondence Concerning Texas, XIII Edited by Ephraim Douglass Adams 305
Book Reviews and Notices: Cowan, A Bibliography of the History of California and the Pacific West, 1510-1906; Goodwin, The Establishment of State Government in California, 1846-1850; Phillips, The Diplomacy of the West in the American Revolution; Shepherd, Latin America; Tower, Essays, Political and Historical 327
News Items 337
Affairs of the Association 340
Number 4; April, 1915.
Texas vs. White William Whatley Pierson 341
New York and the Independence of Texas James E. Winston 368
The Constitution of Texas, 1845 Frederic L. Paxson 386
Harris County, 1822-1845, III Adele B. Looscan 399
British Correspondence Concerning Texas, XIV Edited by Ephraim Douglass Adams 410
Book Reviews and Notices: McElroy, The Winning of the Far West; King, The True Ulysses S. Grant 418
News Items 424
Affairs of the Association 425
Index 427
FELLOWS AND LIFE MEMBERS OF THE ASSOCIATION
The constitution of the Association provides that “Members who show, by published work, special aptitude for historical investigation may become Fellows. Thirteen Fellows shall be elected by the Association when first organized, and the body thus created may thereafter elect additional Fellows on the nomination of the Executive Council. The number of Fellows shall never exceed fifty.”
The present list of Fellows is as follows:
Barker, Prof. Eugene C. Looscan, Mrs. Adele B.
Batts, Judge R. L. McCaleb, Dr. W. F.
Bolton, Prof. Herbert Eugene Miller, Dr. E. T.
Casis, Prof. Lilia M. Neu, Mr. C. T.
Clark, Prof. Robert Carlton Ramsdell, Dr. Chas. W.
Cooper, President O. H. Rather, Dr. Ethel Zivley
Cox, Prof. I. J. Shepard, Judge Seth
Dunn, Mr. William Edward Smith, Prof. W. Roy
Estill, Prof. H. F. Townes, Prof. John C.
Fulmore, Judge Z. T. West, Miss Elizabeth H.
Hackett, Mr. Chas. W. Williams, Judge O. W.
Hatcher, Mrs. Mattie Austin Winkler, Mr. Ernest Wm.
Kleberg, Judge Rudolph, Jr. Worley, Mr. J. L.
The constitution provides also that “Such benefactors of the Association as shall pay into its treasury at any one time the sum of thirty dollars, or shall present to the Association an equivalent in books, MSS., or other acceptable matter, shall be classed as Life Members.”
The Life Members at present are:
Allen, Mr. Wilbur P. Littlefield, Major George W.
Autry, Mr. James L. McFadden, Mr. W. P. H.
Ayer, Mr. Edward Everett Milby, Mrs. C. H.
Baker, Mr. R. H. Minor, Mr. F. D.
Benedict, Prof. H. Y. Moody, Mr. W. L.
Brackenridge, Hon. Geo. W. Morehead, Mr. C. R.
Bundy, Mr. Z. T. Neale, Mr. Wm. J.
Cochrane, Mr. Sam P. Parker, Mrs. Edward W.
Courchesne, Mr. A. Pearce, Mr. J. E.
Crane, Mr. R. C. Rice, Mr. J. S.
Davidson, Mr. W. S. Rice, Hon. W. M.
Dealey, Mr. George B. Rotan, Mrs. Edward
Dilworth, Mr. Thos. G. Rugeley, Mr. Henry
Donaldson, Mrs. Nana Smithwick Schmidt, Mr. John
Schreiner, Mr. Charles
Evans, Mrs. Ira H. Sevier, Mrs. Clara D.
Gilbert, Mr. John N. Stark, Mr. H. J. L.
Gunnell, Mr. W. N. Terry, Mr. Wharton
Hanrick, Mr. R. A. Todd, Mr. Charles S.
Hefley, Mr. W. T. Van Zandt, Maj. K. M.
Hogg, Mr. Will C. Walker, Mr. J. A.
House, Mr. E. M. Washer, Mr. Nat M.
Hyde, Mr. James H. Webb, Mr. Mack
Jones, Mr. Roland Willacy, Hon. John G.
Kenedy, Mr. Jno. G. Williams, Judge O. W.
Kirby, Mr. Jno. H.
Vol. XVIII 1 JULY, 1914 No. 1
The publication committee and the editors disclaim responsibility for views expressed by contributors to The Quarterly.
For a decade prior to the Mexican War, a well-defined movement for the annexation of California was developing in the United States. Various writers have given some attention to isolated incidents properly belonging to this movement, but hitherto no one has traced its growth in any systematic or connected way. To do this is the aim of the following discussion. In it, after roughly outlining the various ways in which California was first brought to the attention of the American people, I have devoted considerable space to the efforts made by Jackson, Tyler, and Polk to purchase the province from Mexico; to popular interest throughout the United States in its acquisition; and to the growth of emigration from the western states. I have considered it worth while, also, to show the effect of current rumors that one or more European nations were seeking to secure a foothold in the province; and to add a chapter on the influence of slavery upon the American program. To local affairs in California, I have given only so much attention as seemed necessary for a clear understanding of their relation to the movement for annexation.
Inevitably, in the treatment of a subject involving so many details, mistakes have arisen and faults can readily be pointed out. Yet I believe the account to be accurate in the main, and trust that it will shed some new light on a most interesting and important phase of westward expansion. Wherever possible I have gotten my material from manuscript sources, finding the official documents on file in the State Department; the Polk, Jackson, and Van Buren correspondence in the Library of Congress; and the Larkin correspondence in the Bancroft Collection of the University of California especially rich in this regard. Frequent use has also been made of contemporary writings of the time, whether in book, magazine, or newspaper form. These have been indicated by references throughout the text, as have also the considerable number of secondary authorities and government publications upon which I have been privileged to draw.
It would be but a poor return on my part if I made no mention of the assistance I have received in the preparation of this work. To the Chief Clerk of the State Department; to Mr. Gaillard Hunt, Chief of the Manuscripts Division of the Library of Congress; and to the authorities of the State University of California for permission to use the material of the Bancroft Collection, I am especially grateful. Two men, however, more than any others deserve my warmest thanks. These are Professor Herbert E. Bolton of the University of California, upon whose kindly interest and help I have never counted in vain; and Professor Robert M. McElroy, under whose direction this study was undertaken and whose friendship has been a constant source of inspiration.
The fur trade.—The interest of the United States in California began toward the close of the eighteenth century. It was at first due almost entirely to economic causes; and, like many commercial activities of the day, centered chiefly in New England. In 1787, shortly after the opening of the Chinese-American trade by William Shaw, Robert Gray and John Kendrick, commanding the Lady Washington and the Columbia, sailed for the northwest coast of the Pacific, partly on a voyage of exploration and partly for the discovery of new fields for commercial enterprises. 2
This venture though of primary interest in the history of the region around the Columbia, was also of great importance from the standpoint of California. In the first place it so aroused the jealousy of the Spanish government that the authorities of Mexico instructed those of California to seize “a ship named Columbia which they say belongs to General Washington of the American States,” should it arrive at San Francisco. 3 In the second place, it was by this voyage that Gray, having found a ready market at Canton 4 for a few hundred sea otter skins procured from the Indians, opened up a profitable fur trade with China 5 in which New England merchants were eager to participate.
The arrival of one of these American fur-trading vessels at Monterey on October 29, 1795, marks the beginning of a commercial intercourse between New England and California, that, assuming various forms, continued for half a century and did much in an indirect way to bring about the acquisition of the latter province by the United States.
In accordance with Spain's general colonial policy, the inhabitants of California were forbidden to trade or have any dealings with foreigners. But Spain lay many leagues away, and while some officials conscientiously tried to enforce the royal commands, they found the prevention of the illicit trade, for which both Americans and Californians were eager, quite impossible. 6 On the contrary, within a few years it had grown to a very considerable size, especially as from 1796 to 1814 the direct trade with China from the North Pacific Coast lay almost wholly in American hands. 7
Much of this early fur trade, it is true, was carried on north of the California line, but the most valuable furs—those of the sea otter—were found in greatest abundance along the California coast from San Diego northward. These were sometimes obtained, as already indicated, by illicit purchase or barter from the Californians, of whom the mission authorities were the most dependable sources of supply. More often, however, they were poached along the great stretches of unfrequented shore, or from the neighboring channel islands, and at times, indeed, from the waters of the principal harbors, to the great, but helpless indignation of the Spanish authorities, who had neither skiff nor scow in which to pursue the intruders. 8 The skins thus obtained were carried to Canton and there exchanged for tea, lacquered ware, silks, and the various other commodities of the Chinese markets. These in turn were brought back either to the Russian settlements of Alaska or to California, where they found ready disposal; or quite as frequently they were transported direct to Europe or the United States. 9
The whale fisheries.—In speaking of these early commercial enterprises, it is also necessary to mention New England's interest in the whale industry, which, like the northwest trade, gave her also a first hand knowledge of California. Edmund Burke's tribute to the men of Nantucket and New Bedford was not misplaced; 10 and while the Revolutionary War put a temporary stop to their voyages, no sooner was peace declared than they were again “vexing strange seas” with their fisheries.
Shortly after 1800, these vessels, oily, ill-smelling, and often sadly in need of repairs, began to touch at the California ports for fresh supplies before beginning the long homeward voyage around the Horn. As the North Pacific came to furnish a more and more valuable hunting ground, 11 these visits increased in frequency and soon a regular trade was established with the inhabitants of Monterey and San Francisco. This was largely a system of barter, by which, in exchange for some four or five hundred dollars worth of New England manufactured goods, carried for the purpose, a returning whaler could secure sufficient fresh provisions for its journey home.
Hide and tallow trade.—A third form of commercial intercourse between California and the United States, more direct than the other two, was begun in 1822, after Mexico had achieved her independence. 12 In that year, owing chiefly to the representations of William A. Gale, a former fur trader on the northwest coast, the Boston firm of Bryant and Sturgis, with several business companions, were induced to fit out a vessel to open up a new line of trade with the Pacific, exchanging New England's abundant stock of manufactures for the hides and tallow of the California cattle. From this time on, the “Boston ships,” as they were called, plied regularly up and down the California coast, disposing of their cargoes in all harbors from San Diego to San Francisco, and receiving hides and tallow in return. 13
The Russian advance.—By the end of the first quarter of the century a loose connection had thus been established with California through these various mediums of trade. In addition to this, the progress of the Russians down the coast from their settlements in Alaska had begun to attract the attention of the United States, even in an official way. As early as 1808, a warning was issued against this advance by an article in the American Register. 14 The author, Captain Robert Shaler, having been engaged in the Chinese trade some years before, had acquired an intimate knowledge of the conditions in California and of the undeveloped possibilities of the country. After describing these, he went on to point out the feebleness of the government and the ease with which it would become a prey to the attack of any hostile force, dwelling especially upon the unfortified state of the harbors. San Francisco, whose advantages were strikingly portrayed, was guarded by a battery which made only a “show of defence.” At Monterey conditions were no better. Santa Barbara “would fall an easy conquest to the smallest ship of war.” San Diego, with all its natural facilities, had only a “sorry” defence; while the harbors of Lower California were in an equally forlorn condition. But not only had the Spaniards failed to provide against the encroachments of their northern neighbors; they had rather, according to Shaler, made such encroachment easier by their very attempts at defensive measures, having taken “every obstacle out of the way of an invading enemy,” by stocking the province with cattle and colonizing it with a discontented lot who would welcome the security and kindly treatment of a foreign government. 15
Exactly how far Shaler aimed to excite an apprehension of Russia's dealings in the Pacific, and how far he desired to emphasize the desirability of California as an object for American annexation, does not appear. Probably, however, when he wrote, “The conquest of this country would be absolutely nothing; it would fall without an effort to the most inconsiderable force,” he had both purposes in mind, and thus made himself the pioneer of a not inconsiderable body of later writers who advocated annexation to forestall foreign interference.
However this may be, Shaler's warning against the Russians was well founded. 16 The hunters of the Russian-American company had long been coming to California in search of furs; and in 1812 Baranof, the “Little Czar,” succeeded in establishing a colony, to which he gave the name of Ross, not far from Bodega Bay, and some thirty miles north of San Francisco. The object of this settlement, in its commercial aspect, was not merely to secure a larger interest in the California fur trade, but to supply the parent colony of Russians at New Archangel, or Sitka, with grain and other food-stuffs which could not be produced in the bleaker north. In addition, Baranof had the more important purpose of ultimately extending the Czar's control over a large part of Upper California by means of this colony, and especially of seizing the Bay of San Francisco. 17
Against this encroachment the Spanish officials protested from time to time at the bidding of their superiors, but probably with no great desire of seeing their protests effective, as the trade conducted by the Russians proved of material benefit to the province. And even had it been otherwise, there was no force in California sufficient to expel them. 18 Before many years, however, the presence of the Russians in California began to excite comment in the United States and to receive a certain amount of official attention. On November 11, 1818, J. B. Prevost, a special commissioner of the United States government to the Pacific Coast, wrote from “Monte Rey, New California,” that the Spanish authority was threatened by the Russian Czar whose colony had already been planted close to San Francisco, a harbor that, ranking among “the most convenient, extensive and safe” ports of the world, was nevertheless “wholly without defense and in the neighborhood of a feeble, diffused and disaffected population.” 19
In the following year a rumor spread that Spain had ceded to Russia a strip of territory on the Pacific Coast 800 miles long, in return for assistance furnished in the expeditions against the revolutionists of Lima and Buenos Ayres. 20 In the St. Louis Enquirer an unknown writer (perhaps Senator Benton) issued a warning against the “Progress of the Russian Empire.” well calculated to arouse the apprehension of those to whom Russia, as a member of the Holy Alliance and a rival in the northwest trade, was already an object of sufficient distrust.
“Looking to the east for everything,” said the article, “Americans have failed to notice the advance of the Russians on the Pacific Coast until they have succeeded in pushing their settlements as far south as Bodega. Their policy is merely the extension of the policy of Peter the Great and Catherine. Alexander is occupied with a scheme worthy of his vast ambition. . . . The acquisition of the gulf and peninsula of California and the Spanish claim to North America. . . . We learn this not from diplomatic correspondence, but from American fur traders who learn it from the Russian traders now protected by the Emperor in carrying off our furs!” 21 How strong an influence these public rumors and Prevost's official report exerted upon the enunciation of the Monroe Doctrine in 1823 has not yet been accurately determined, but it is certain that the Russian colony at Ross lent color to the fear of a much farther advance to the south; and served also as a strong argument for the establishment of American settlements in Oregon. 22
Beginning of overland immigration.—Thus by degrees the far off Spanish province on the Pacific was brought to the attention of the American people not merely through the agency of commerce, but, in an equally effective way, through the danger to which it was exposed of passing into the hands of a powerful European nation. A third agency, beginning somewhat later than either of those just named, but operating in a similar manner, was the overland communication with California established by hunters and trappers, and the subsequent immigration that naturally followed from the Western states.
Jedediah Smith.—Two of these early journeys deserve special attention. In August, 1826, Jedediah S. Smith, a native of Connecticut, 23 who had been for some years associated with Ashley in the fur trade and was at this time a partner in the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, left the company's post near the Great Salt Lake and after four months' travel reached San Diego with his band of fifteen men. Here Smith was arrested by the California authorities, who demanded passports, in accordance with the Mexican law, from all strangers. His imprisonment did not last long, however, as he soon found a sponsor for his good behavior in an American sea captain by the name of Cunningham, whose ship, the Courier, chanced to be in the harbor.
Upon his release, Smith, in spite of the commands of the San Diego authorities that he leave the province, seems to have wandered pretty much as he pleased through the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys, being prevented from crossing the Sierra Nevadas by heavy snows and the loss of his animals. Late in May, 1827, however, leaving all but two of his companions, he made the difficult passage of the mountains and reached the Great Salt Lake in a destitute condition. 24 In the fall of that year, Smith was again in California, bringing with him a second company of eighteen men, to the rather indignant surprise of the Californians, who, however, while insisting that he leave the country, did not seriously molest him. After remaining for some time, the American intruders continued their journey northward to Oregon where they were attacked by Indians. Many of the company were killed and all the furs lost, but Smith and those of his companions who escaped, made their way to Vancouver, where they obtained assistance from the agents of the Hudson's Bay Company. Two years later this pioneer of California explorers was killed in New Mexico. 25
The Pattie expedition.—Two years after Smith's arrest in San Diego, a second party of Americans, eight in number, with Sylvester and James Ohio Pattie as leaders, having been found in Lower California without passports, were brought before the Mexican governor, Echeandia, and thrown into prison on the charge of being spies of old Spain. The two Patties, father and son, were Kentuckians who had gradually pushed farther and farther west until they reached New Mexico and Arizona where for some years they were alternately miners and trappers. In was on one of their trapping expeditions down the Colorado that they attempted to cross the desert to the Spanish settlements on the cost, succeeding only after the most distressing and unprintable hardships.
Their reception by the Californians has been noted; nor were they so fortunate as Smith had been in securing a swift release. On the contrary, their prison experience was bitter in the extreme, if we may judge from the younger Pattie's account. Sylvester Pattie died in his cell unattended by his son, who was forbidden to visit his father, and all the prisoners were treated with great severity. Eventually, however, they were released on condition that Pattie should vaccinate the mission Indians, who were dying in great numbers from an epidemic of smallpox. In fulfillment of this agreement Pattie journeyed as far north as San Francisco, and later reached the Russian settlement of Ross. Finally, quitting California, he returned home by way of Mexico, where he vainly hoped to secure an indemnity, 26 and reached Kentucky, a broken and ruined man. The experiences which he underwent, as well as some which he probably did not undergo, were shortly afterwards published under the supervision of Timothy Flint of Cincinnati. 27
The bitter and oftentimes extravagant criticism of the Californians by the writer was well calculated to arouse a prejudice against them, but for the country itself he had only praise. “Those who traverse it,” he wrote, “if they have any capability of perceiving and admiring the beautiful and sublime in scenery, must be constantly excited to wonder and praise. It is no less remarkable for uniting the advantage of healthfulness, a good soil, temperate climate and yet one of exceeding mildness, a happy mixture of level and elevated ground and vicinity to the sea.” 28
Results of the Smith and Pattie expeditions.—The arrival of Smith and the two Patties in California marked a new chapter in the relations of that country and the United States. Following them in a surprisingly short time 29 came other bands of trappers under such leaders as Young, Jackson, Wolfskill, Walker, and many others whose names are not known and who left no record of their journeys. 30 Not infrequently members of these early parties gave up their wanderings and became influential and peaceful citizens, while others were a constant menace to the California authorities. As for the rest, coming and going with the seasons, rough, carless of life, contemptuous of law, they wandered up and down the great inland valleys and rivers of California; or by frequent crossing of the Sierras prepared the way for the subsequent flow of immigration.
“One sees in his pages,” says Thwaites in referring to Pattie's narrative,
the beginnings of the drama to be fought out in the Mexican war—the rich and beautiful country which excited the cupidity of the American pioneer; the indolence and effeminacy of the inhabitants which inspired the backwoodsman's contempt; and the vanguard of the American advance, already touching the Rockies and ready to push on to the Pacific. . . . As a part of the vanguard of the American host that was to crowd the Mexican from the fair province of his domain, Pattie's wanderings are typical and suggestive of more than mere adventure. 31
Butler's negotiations.—In these three ways, therefore, first, by commercial intercourse, then through fear of the Russian advance, and lastly by the opening up of the overland routes of communication, California gradually became more than a passing name to the people of the United States. 32 It was not, however, until 1835 that this government, influenced largely by the representations of commercial interests, made its first attempt to secure the harbor of San Francisco. 33
This early negotiation for the purchase of California was closely interwoven with the contemporaneous negotiation for the acquisition of Texas, forming indeed, simply a minor part of the larger project. Anthony Butler, a man eminently unqualified for any position of trust, was sent to Mexico in 1829 to carry out a scheme for the purchase of Texas which he himself had probably suggested, 34 succeeding Joel R. Poinsett, the American minister who was recalled at the request of the Mexican government. For six years Butler was left free to work his will, so far as he was able, with the Mexican officials, and to discredit both himself and his government.
From the first, Butler's communications to the State Department began to hint at bribery as the best means of accomplishing his purpose, and soon were openly advocating it. 35 Early in June, 1834, he asked to return to the United States on the ground that a personal interview with the President was highly important, and that after it he could return to Mexico to be much more useful to his government. 36 Having finally secured Jackson's consent to his request, Butler landed in New York in the early part of June, 1835, with a still more extensive scheme of bribery in his head than any he had so far suggested, and in his pocket a note signed by Hernández, a priest standing close to Santa Anna.
On June 17 the returned Minister addressed a letter to the Secretary of State, John Forsyth, and enclosed the note from the Mexican priest. In this Hernández had promised to bring about a cession of the desired territory provided $500,000 were placed at his disposal “to be judiciously applied.” 37 In the accompanying letter Butler assured Forsyth that the plan, if followed, would result not merely in the acquisition of Texas but eventually in the dominion of the United States “over the whole of that tract of territory known as New Mexico, and higher and lower California, an empire in itself, a paradise in climate . . . rich in minerals and affording a water route to the Pacific through the Arkansas and Colorado rivers.” 38
This letter met with cool response from the President. 39 Nevertheless, after an interview with Butler he allowed him, at his earnest solicitation, to return to his post in Mexico. 40 Before Butler left, however, the suggestion he had thrown out with regard to “higher California” received additional impulse from another source. On August 1, William A. Slacum, a purser in the United States Navy, wrote a letter to the President which, according to Adams, “kindled the passion of Andrew Jackson for the thirty-seventh line of latitude from the river Arkansas to the South Sea, to include the river and bay of San Francisco, and was the foundation of Forsyth's instruction to Butler of 6 August, 1835.” 41
These instructions mentioned by Adams give the first official attempt of the United States to secure from Mexico any part of her territory on the Pacific. The chief object, as expressed by Forsyth, was to obtain possession of San Francisco Bay which had been “represented to the President” 42 as “a most desirable place of resort for our numerous vessels engaged in the whaling business in the Pacific, far superior to any to which they now have access.” 43 No definite sum which Butler was authorized to offer was specified in the dispatch, but Adams places it as $500,000. 44 It should also be noted that Forsyth expressly disclaimed any desire to secure territory south of San Francisco. 45
The proposition thus entrusted to Butler was doubtless never submitted to the Mexican government. On December 27, Butler wrote the Department that it would be useless to push the negotiations at that time, though there was a chance of securing certain commercial privileges for American vessels at San Francisco. 46 A few months later he received notice of his recall, 47 and shortly afterwards left Mexico, carrying off “some of the most important papers of the negotiation.” 48
Indeed, Butler's whole course was one of consistent dishonor. The most surprising part of it, however, was the ease with which he continually hoodwinked and misled his own government; and after reading his correspondence one is freely willing to agree with Adams, that “for six long years he was mystifying Jackson with the positive assurance that he was within a hair's breadth of the object and sure of success, while Jackson was all the time wriggling along and snapping at the bait, like a mackeral after a red rag.” 49 It may be further added that Jackson's estimate of Butler was even lower than that of Adams. An endorsement on Butler's letter of March 7, 1834, declared him a “scamp,” and when, in 1843, Butler charged Jackson with consenting to his schemes of bribery, the venerable ex-President wrote another endorsement pronouncing him a “liar,” in whom there was “neither truth, justice, or gratitude,” and whose whole accusation was “a tissue of falsehood and false colourings.” 50
Jackson's later attempts.—After Butler's summary dismissal nothing apparently was done toward carrying out the instructions contained in Forsyth's despatch of August 6. But Jackson before his administration closed made two further tentative efforts to secure California. About the middle of January, 1837, 51 Santa Anna arrived in Washington, after his liberation by General Houston, to request the mediation of the United States between Texas and Mexico. 52 In expectation of his request, or after it was definitely made, Jackson had drawn up the general terms upon which this government would assume the undertaking. That which concerns us, reads as follows:
If Mexico will extend the line of the U. States to the Rio Grand—up that stream to latitude 38 north and then to the pacific including north calafornia we might instruct our minister to give them three millions and a half of dollars and deal then as it respected Texas as a magnanimous nation ought—to wit (?)—in the treaty with Mexico secure the Texians in all their just and legal rights and stipulate to admit them into the United States as one of the Union. 53
At the time that Jackson was making this proposal to Santa Anna he was also urging upon W. H. Wharton, the Texan Minister at Washington, the necessity of including California within the limits of Texas in order to reconcile the commercial interests of the north and east to annexation by giving them a harbor on the Pacific. “He is very earnest and anxious on this point of claiming the Californias,” wrote Wharton to Rusk in reporting Jackson's suggestion, “and says we must not consent to less. This is in strict confidence. Glory to God in the highest!” 54
During Van Buren's administration no official action toward the acquisition of California was attempted. The straitened condition of the treasury precluded any idea of purchase, even had Mexico manifested a willingness to sell; while the strained relations existing between the two nations throughout the greater part of this period served as an equally effective barrier. 55 Nevertheless the affairs of the distant Mexican province were more than once brought to the attention of the United States and interest in its resources and ultimate destiny grew with every passing year.
Rebellion of 1836.—The first of these local events to attract attention was the revolution begun in the fall of 1836 by several of the prominent native Californians against the Mexican governor, Nicolás Gutiérrez. Without great difficulty the leaders 56 in this movement accomplished their purpose, and after shipping Gutiérrez back to Mexico, placed one of their own number, Juan B. Alvarado, in the governor's chair. 57
The success of this rebellion against Mexican authority was significant for two reasons. In the first place it was made possible largely through the aid furnished by a company of foreigners, mostly American trappers, led by Isaac Graham, a Tenneseean of the typical border ruffian type. And in the second place it gave promise for a time of assuming the characteristics and proportions of the Texas movement for independence. 58 But as the California leaders probably had no very great desire for actual separation from Mexico, its net result was merely the substitution of a native governor for one of Mexican appointment.
Exaggerated rumors of this disturbance soon began to circulate throughout the United States, and it was even reported to the State Department that California, having declared her independence, was on the eve of asking the protection of the Russians at Bodega—an event which would mean, said the writer, the United States consul at the Sandwich Islands, the unification of the Russians and Californians and the extension of the Czar's power from the Bay of San Francisco to the Columbia River. 59
Kelley's Memoir.—During the administration of Van Buren the question of the occupation of Oregon came also to be of critical importance; 60 and, as a natural consequence, California received a certain amount of the nation's interest. In a supplemental report on the Oregon territory submitted to Congress, February 16, 1839, by the committee of foreign affairs, many of the documents contained references to California. While one of them, a memoir by Hall J. Kelley, the eccentric emigration enthusiast of Massachusetts, devoted more than half its space to a description of that country. “I extend my remarks to this part of California,” from San Francisco northward, wrote Kelley in explanation, “because it has been and may again be, made the subject of conference and negotiation between Mexico and the United States; and because its future addition to our western possessions is most unquestionably a matter to be desired.” 61
Affairs between 1836-1840.—It cannot be said, however, in spite of such efforts as those put forth by Kelley, that the years between 1836 and 1840 were distinguished by any marked increase of immigration from the United States into California. 62 The early traffic along the coast in furs had materially decreased; and even inland, the business was becoming less remunerative. Yet the great interior valleys still offered lucrative fields for the roving bands of American, English, and French trappers who, when not engaged in their ordinary trade, frequently made additional profit by driving off the horses of the Californians, or by joining thieving expeditions sent out by the Indians for the same purpose. 63 The hide and tallow trade likewise continued to flourish, 64 and remained so completely a monopoly of the New England merchants, so far at least as Americans were concerned, 65 that, on the coast, Boston and the United States became synonymous terms. 66 An occasional vessel from the government's South Pacific squadron touched at California ports; 67 a trade in cattle between Oregon and the region around San Francisco served to bring these two territories into closer relationships; 68 the publication of various books upon California's resources and political condition tended to attract the attention of the outside world; 69 and, finally, the coming of John A. Sutter in 1839 and the establishment of his for at New Helvetia, the present site of the capital of the State, saved the period under discussion from being by any means barren of results for the American interests.
Neither should the reflexive influence of the events in Texas be omitted in this connection. We have already mentioned the revolution in 1836 and the reports that California was preparing to follow the steps of her sister province. The American mind, especially in the west, had never a high conception of the Mexican people; the ease with which Texas won her independence and the senseless atrocities of the Mexican soldiers had served to increase this feeling to a considerable extent; and restless spirits were already advocating a re-enactment of the scenes of Texas in California. Immigration, however, had not furnished sufficient Americans for carrying out such a program, but it was freely prophesied that these would shortly come.
“To such men as the Back-settlers distance is of little moment,” wrote Alexander Forbes in 1838, and they are already acquainted with the route. The north American tide of population must roll on southward, and overwhelm not only California but other more important states. This latter event, however, is in the womb of time; but the invasion of California by American settlers is daily talked of; and if Santa Anna had prevailed against Texas a portion of its inhabitants sufficient to overrun California would now have been its masters. 70
The Graham affair.—So common had become these rumors by 1840 that in April of that year nearly a hundred 71 English and American residents in California, who were without passports, were suddenly arrested for engaging in a plot to overthrow the government and declare the country independent of Mexican control. 72 Chief of these so-called conspirators was Isaac Graham, whose name has already been mentioned in connection with the revolt of the Californians four years before.
Graham and some fifty of his companions, after undergoing a farcical trial at Santa Barbara and some pretty severe treatment at the hands of the California officials, were shipped down the coast and thence to Tepic. Here the English consul, Barron, and Alexander Forbes secured the release of most of the prisoners and a speedy trial for the remainder, which resulted in their acquittal. Some received immediate indemnity for their losses and ill-treatment; others returned to California to secure legal evidence against the government, being aided in this by a vessel of the United States navy. 73
The illegal arrest of such a large number of American citizens naturally excited some comment in the United States. Powhatan Ellis, who had returned as Minister to Mexico in 1839, was instructed to demand satisfaction for the treatment accorded his countrymen and their immediate release if still in captivity. 74 Reports of the affair soon found their way into print and for a long time served as proof positive for American readers of the cruelty of the Californians. 75 Later, also, the non-payment of indemnity by Mexico was made the subject of official protest; 76 while several years afterwards, Polk was assured by his confidential agent that no claim or demand so strong as that of the Graham prisoners could be brought against Mexico to secure a cession of California. 77
As a further result of these arbitrary proceedings against foreigners, a petition was drawn up by the merchants of the California coast, many of whom, however, had little use for Graham and those of his ilk, 78 praying that a United States ship might be stationed permanently in California waters because of the insecurity of property, arbitrariness of the authorities, and mockery of justice prevailing in the province. 79 This request met with prompt recognition from the Secretary of the Navy, Abel P. Upshur, who on December 4, 1841 announced in his annual report to Congress that the protection of American interests in California demanded an increase of the government's naval force in the Pacific, and shortly afterwards despatched Commodore Ap Catesby Jones to take command of the enlarged squadron. 80
Immigration 1840-1.—More important, however, for the American cause than any of the results that came from the arrest of Graham and his companions, was the beginning of organized emigration to California during the years 1840-1841. The reports spread by trappers, adventurers, travellers, and Americans residing in California, had by this time begun to bear definite fruit. The west, especially, had become interested in the Pacific Coast and looked to Oregon and California as fields for future settlement. So great was the enthusiasm in Platte County, Missouri, for example, that public meetings were held, committees appointed, and a pledge drawn up, to which five hundred names were appended, binding its signers to convert their property into emigrant outfits and start in the following May 81 from the rendezvous at Sapling Grove, Kansas, for California. Though a number of circumstances served to cool this ardor, 82 and only forty-eight persons left for California at the time agreed upon, 83 the departure of these is significant as foreshadowing a movement that, with occasional interruption, was to continue with increasing energy during the next five years.
John Bidwell, a member of this early party, has left us a typical story of how he and his neighbors and many another family of the west became interested in California between 1840 and the outbreak of the Mexican War. At the time of which we are speaking, Bidwell's neighborhood had become considerably excited over the stories of one whom he described as a “calm, considerate man” by the name of Rubidoux. This story-stelling traveller, whose brother Joseph was a well-known western trader, having recently returned from a trip to California, brought back such marvelous reports of the productiveness of its soil and the genial qualities of its climate, that a public meeting was held “to hear more about this wonderful country on the Pacific Coast.” When Rubidoux had finished his address before this gathering, repeating perhaps in a more formal way what he had already told many in private conversation, he became the target of questions from the audience. One easily imagines the form these took, regarding some particular phase of California conditions in which individuals were interested; or in respect to the length and hardships of the overland journey.
One ague-racked member of the assembly even wanted to know if chills and fever prevailed in that country which Rubidoux had described as a “perfect paradise, a perpetual spring.” (“There never was but one man in California who had the chills,” replied Rubidoux. “He was from Missouri and carried the disease in his system. It was such a curiosity to see a man shake with the chills that the people of Monterey went eighteen miles into the country to see him.” 84 Unfortunately Bidwell neglects to state how many of the forty-eight who eventually left Sapling Grove were influenced by this answer to seek an escape from the malaria of the Mississippi Valley and the mournful sufferings to which so many of the early settlers were exposed.
The growing interest of the United States was not wholly confined to the west during these years, however. Notice of the emigrant parties that were leaving Missouri was printed in the eastern papers. In Rochester, New York, John J. Warner, while advocating the building of a railroad across the continent to the Columbia, devoted much of his public lectures to a description of California and the advantages of San Francisco Bay. 85 Harvey Baldwin, from the same neighborhood, perhaps influenced by Warner, addressed a long letter to the president, contrasting the commercial importance and resources of California with the comparative worthlessness of the Oregon territory and urging him to take immediate steps toward its acquisition. 86 It was in the summer of 1841, also, that an exploring expedition of six vessels under command of Lieutenant Charles Wilkes reached San Francisco Bay, with special instructions from the government to make careful surveys of that harbor. 87 And thus in many ways 88 the people and government of the United States were kept in touch with California and its affairs during the early part of the decade beginning with 1840.
Attitude of the Californians.—The feeling among the California officials over the arrival of the immigrant parties of 1841 was one partly of alarm and partly of acquiesence. Early in May, 1841, General Almonte, Mexican Minister of War, wrote to Vallejo, the Comandante General of California, concerning the reported emigration of fifty-eight families from Missouri, and gave strict orders that every foreigner should be compelled to show a passport or leave the country. In the despatch Almonte had also enclosed a clipping from the National Intelligencer regarding “the convenience and necessity of the acquisition of the Californias by the United States” and one of similar tenor from the Washington “Glova.” 89 Nor, with such evidence at hand, is it surprising that he further warned Vallejo to put but little trust in the alleged claim of the Americans that they were coming with peaceful intentions. The Texas immigrants had made the same false assertion.
But in spite of this command from Mexico, the Californians showed little desire to molest the respectable class of settlers from the United States. The members of the Bartleson party were compelled to explain their presence in the country and submit to the formalities of a nominal arrest after which they were free to go and come as they pleased. 90 While the reception of those arriving by the southern route, though tinged somewhat with suspicion, was equally free from any manifestations of hostility. 91
Efforts of Waddy Thompson.—A period of renewed activity in the efforts of the United States to gain possession of California, began with the accession of Tyler to the presidency. Shortly before his recall from Mexico, Powhatan Ellis had written to Webster, then Secretary of State, urging the necessity of securing certain ports on the Pacific on account of the increase of American commerce and the growing importance of the whale fisheries. 92 While with the coming of Waddy Thompson as United States minister, a very definite movement was set on foot looking to the purchase of the territory. 93
In his first despatch to the home government, Thompson showed himself a surprising enthusiast for such an acquisition. Mexico, he thought, would be willing to cede both California and Texas in return for a cancellation of the American claims against her. 94 But of the two, Texas was by far the less desirable, having no comparison in value with California—“the richest, the most beautiful, and healthiest country in the world.” Control of Upper California, continued Thompson, would eventually mean the ascendency of the United States over the whole Pacific. The bay of San Francisco was “capacious enough to receive the navies of all the world,” while the neighboring forests could supply timber sufficient “to build all the ships of these navies.” With this bay in her possession, and the harbors of San Diego and Monterey, the nation would have not only necessary ports for her whaling vessels; but by opening up internal communication with the Arkansas and other western streams, could “secure the trade of India and the whole Pacific Ocean.”
In agricultural lines, also, Thompson was assured that California would prove of immense value to the United States, and one day become the “granary of the Pacific.” He also believed that, as slavery was not necessary there, the north and south could arrange another compromise. “I am profoundly satisfied,” he concluded, after warning Webster against the designs of France and England upon the territory, that in its bearing upon all the interests of our country, agricultural, political, manufacturing, commercial and fishing, the importance of the acquisition of California cannot be overestimated. If I could mingle any selfish feelings with interests to my country so vast, I would desire no higher honor than to be an instrument in securing it. 95
Ten days after he had written this despatch to the Secretary of State, Thompson sent one of like tenor to the president. “Since my despatch to Mr. Webster,” he began, I have had an interview with Gen. Santa Anna and although I did not broach to him directly the subject of our correspondence I have but little doubt that I shall be able to accomplish your wishes and to add also the acquisition of Upper California.
This latter, I believe, will be by far the most important event that has occurred to our country. Do me the favor to read my despatch to Mr. Webster in which my views of the matter are briefly sketched—I should be most happy to illustrate your administration and my own name by an acquisition of such lasting benefit to my own country.
Upon this subject I beg your special instructions, both as to moving on the matter and the extent to which I am to go in the negotiations and the amount to be paid. The acquisition of Upper California will reconcile the northern people as they have large fishing and commercial interests in the Pacific and we have literally no port there. Be pleased also to have me pretty strongly instructed on the subject of our claims or leave the responsibility to me. Procrastination, the policy of all weak governments, is peculiarly so with this, and they are very poor and will never pay us one farthing unless pretty strong measures are taken. 96
Late in June Webster answered Thompson's despatches, giving him full liberty to sound the Mexican government upon the subject of ceding a portion of her territory on the Pacific in satisfaction of all, or a part of the American claims. “Although it is desirable that you should present the Port and Harbor of St. Francisco as the prominent object to be obtained,” wrote Webster, “yet if a cession should be made, the Province would naturally accompany the Port. It may be useful however for divers reasons, that the convenience and benefit of the Port itself, should at least for the present, be spoken of as what is chiefly desired by the United States.” In conclusion, Thompson was advised to proceed in a circumspect manner with the negotiations, and especially warned against giving the impression that the United States was eager for the purchase, since it would be far better to convey the idea that she was willing to settle the debt in this way simply for the convenience of Mexico. 97
During the summer of 1842 one further communication regarding California came from Thompson; but this, being in the form of a warning against English encroachments, will be considered in another connection. Toward the close of the year all thought of negotiation was temporarily cut short, as it happened, when Webster was especially anxious to secure Mexico's consent to the tripartite agreement, 98 by the seizure of the port of Monterey by Commodore Jones, who, as we have seen, had been placed in command of the Pacific squadron by Secretary Upshur nearly a year before.
The details of this incident have been described so frequently that it would be useless to repeat them here. 99 It may simply be said that the American commander, convinced by various reports that the United States and Mexico were at war 100 and that the latter was on the point of ceding California to Great Britain, 101 sailed as rapidly as possible from Callao to Monterey, which he took possession of without opposition, beyond a formal protest from the California officials. The next day, realizing that he had made a mistake, Jones surrendered the town to its former owners with formal apology for his error.
The seizure of Monterey, so far as the Californians themselves were concerned, seems to have been taken pretty much as a matter of course. A full report was forwarded to the Mexican Government 102 and the authorities at Los Angeles availed themselves of the opportunity to charge the captain of one of Jones's vessels, the Alert, with spiking the artillery at San Diego and injuring the harbor. 103 American residents were naturally uneasy for a time lest they should suffer from the ill-will engendered among the Californians by the occurrence, 104 but their fears were entirely groundless. 105
In Mexico, however, a different spirit prevailed. Jones had reported his action both to the authorities at Washington and to Waddy Thompson at Mexico City. 106 Without waiting for instructions from the department, the American minister at once disavowed the seizure of the California town and promised satisfaction for any loss thereby sustained. 107 Jones was recalled and temporarily deprived of his command; while Webster made formal apologies in the name of the government for the proceedings. But beyond this, in the infliction of a far heavier penalty demanded by the Mexican Minister upon the American commodore, both Webster and Tyler refused to go. 108
In the United States, also, the capture of Monterey furnished John Quincy Adams and others of his kind with fresh ammunition for onslaughts against the administration and its policy of annexing Mexican territory. 109 Reports of these attacks and overdrawn charges made by the Americans against the American president reached Mexico, and served to increase there the spirit of hostility and suspicion already engendered by the incident. 110 So that Thompson was compelled to notify his government that it was “wholly out of the question to do anything as to California and after recent events there it would be imprudent to allude to it in any way,” the only possibility of securing territory at all lying in a cession of San Francisco some time in the future when Mexico should find herself unable to pay the awards of the American claims. 111
The proposed Tripartite Agreement.—While this correspondence was being carried on with the American minister at Mexico City, Webster was also making tentative efforts to bring about an arrangement between Great Britain, Mexico and the United States for the settlement of the three vexed questions of Texas, Oregon, and California. As early as the summer of 1842, when Lord Ashburton was in this country as special commissioner, Webster had approached him with the suggestion of settling the Oregon boundary line by ceding the American claims to territory north of the Columbia to Great Britain, in return for a portion of California that should be purchased from Mexico by the two nations in common. 112
By the beginning of 1843 this idea had come to assume an important place in the plans of the administration. 113 Thompson was instructed to sound the Mexican government on the subject, and it was likewise brought to the notice of General Almonte, Mexican minister at Washington. 114 As England was known to favor it, a rough outline for the basis of negotiations was sent by Webster to Edward Everett, American ambassador at London. 115 The terms of this were as follows:
1.Mexico to cede Upper California to the United States.
2.The United States to pay — millions of dollars for the cession.
3.Of this sum, — millions to be paid to American claimants against Mexico.
4.The remainder to English creditors or bondholders of Mexico.
5.The Oregon boundary to be settled on the line of the Columbia. 116
Both Webster and Tyler felt that this tripartite arrangement would prove the means of satisfying all sections of the country. 117 Tyler, especially, was anxious to include the admission of California in the terms of any treaty resulting from it, writing to Webster that “Texas might not stand alone, nor . . . the line proposed for Oregon. Texas would reconcile all to the line, while California would reconcile or pacify all to Oregon.” 118 He was even anxious to send Webster on a special mission to Great Britain, 119 and Webster expressed a willingness to go provided he could settle the Oregon question and obtain California, for Webster had as much desire to secure the latter, if not more, as did Tyler. 120
The idea of a special mission was, however, cut short by the adverse action of Congress. 121 Tyler then endeavored to persuade Everett to accept the new embassy to China in order that Webster might take his place in London and carry through the measure under discussion. But Everett, preferring the pleasures of the Court of St. James to the uncertainties of the Mandarin ministry, declined the exchange. 122 About this time, also, Thompson's despatch of January 30 reached Washington, with the information that it would be useless to approach Mexico regarding the cession of any territory; and Webster, whose days of usefulness in the cabinet were over, and who saw no prospects of effecting anything further, either regarding the adjustment of the Oregon difficulties or the acquisition of California, retired to private life. 123
Following Webster's resignation, and the death of Hugh S. Legaré, after only a month's service as Secretary ad interim. the cabinet was reorganized, and in July, Abel P. Upshur, former Secretary of the Navy, became head of the Department of State.
Effect of Mexican hostility to England.—At this time interest centered primarily in Texas where matters were fast coming to a crisis; but in the fall of 1843 Thompson's despatches began to call attention again to California. On September 28 he wrote that the strong bond of friendship, formerly existing between Mexico and England, was fast giving way to a feeling of hostility that had manifested itself openly in an insult to the British flag. 124 A few days later he reported an interview with Santa Anna in which he had been told that, in the event of a collision with Great Britian, which seemed probable, Mexico would look to the United States to protect California. 125
In less than two weeks Thompson again referred to the subject of his conversation with Santa Anna and assured Upshur that if war actually broke out between the two countries, Mexico would certainly cede California to the United States to keep it from falling into English hands. The comparison suggested in this communication seems worthy of note: “You will remember,” wrote Thompson, “that it was the fear of the seizure of Louisiana by England that induced Bonaparte to cede it to us. The acquisition of California will be of little less importance . . . There is no prospect whatever of such a cession but in the event of a war between Mexico and England. Then nothing would be easier.” 126
Order against Americans.—In connection with this subject of the ill will of Mexico toward England the American minister had earlier reported a less hostile feeling prevailing toward his countrymen in Mexico and that the government was coming to look upon them with a far more friendly eye. 127 If this were true at all, however, the change was of a purely temporary nature. As far back as July 14, an order had been issued to the governor of California, 128 Manuel Micheltorena, to expel all citizens of the United States from his province and prohibit future immigration. 129 This, however, did not come under Thompson's notice until late in December, when he at once vigorously protested and demanded its recission. His communications on the subject remaining unanswered, he threatened next to break off diplomatic relations, and even called for his passports.
Upon this the Mexican Secretary of Foreign Relations assured him that the order was meant to apply to other foreigners as well as to Americans and had been aimed only at “seditious” inhabitants of the province, to whose governor “very benevolent explanations” had been sent. This, though not satisfactory, was sufficient to prevent Thompson from leaving Mexico, especially as he had no great desire to carry his threat into execution; while upon his further remonstrance, the order was entirely countermanded. 130 In obtaining the withdrawal of a somewhat similar law, prohibiting foreigners from engaging in retail trade either in Mexico or any of her provinces, Thompson was not, however, by any means so successful. 131
On February 28, 1844, Upshur lost his life by the explosion on board the Princeton, and Calhoun took his place in the cabinet, his appointment, according to Duff Green, having been urged for the three-fold purpose of conducting “the negotiation for the annexation of Texas, the purchase of California, and the adjustment of our northwestern boundary.” 132
Hasting's scheme for an independent California.—Ben E. Green, the son of Duff Green, who had been secretary of legation under Thompson, was appointed chargé upon the return of the latter to the United States, and entrusted with securing the assent of Mexico to the annexation of Texas. 133 This was no easy task. Whatever ill-will there had been against England had died away, and though in its place some difficulty had arisen with France, the great weight of Mexican hostility was directed toward the government at Washington. But whether with France or with the United States, Santa Anna was openly advocating a foreign war to develop the nation's resources, and Green could see no benefit to be gained by this country from becoming a party to such a quarrel, “unless, indeed, we should end by gaining possession of California, and thereby secure a harborage for our shipping on the Pacific and one of the finest countries on the Globe.” 134
A few days later, having received word of Upshur's death and Calhoun's appointment, Green wrote privately to the latter concerning some information in his possession, which he thought might prove important in the Oregon and Texas negotiations. 135 The substance of this was derived from a confidential interview about three months before with Lansford W. Hastings, a sometime resident of California, of whom we shall also have occasion to speak hereafter.
Hastings, on his way from California to New York, had given Green very positive assurance that a movement for independence was on foot in California, and only waited his return, with a party of emigrants as reinforcements, before materializing. There was also talk in Oregon of uniting with California and forming a separate republic; and the movement once begun would speedily be joined by the Mexican provinces bordering upon Texas. 136 The certainty of this was rendered more imminent by Santa Anna's attempt to provoke a war with France, which, if it came and were properly managed, would result in the annexation of the disaffected provinces to Texas. With such an addition of territory, Green warned Calhoun, who was already prone to alarms, “that Texas would no longer desire admission to our Union, but on the contrary would prove a dangerous rival both to the cotton interests of the South and the manufactures of the North.” 137
Efforts of Duff Green.—Following this despatch Calhoun received a more detailed report on California and the whole Mexican situation from a personal interview with Waddy Thompson who returned about this time from Mexico. 138 The rejection of the Texas treaty in the senate on June 9, however, left little place in the plans of the administration for immediate action regarding California. 139 But early in the fall, Calhoun made a further attempt to open negotiations for the acquisition of that province in connection with the annexation of Texas. Duff Green, a close friend, was sent to Galveston nominally with the exequatur of consul, but in reality as Calhoun's special agent to join with Ben E. Green, his son, “in conducting the negotiation for the acquisition of Texas, New Mexico, and California.”
Green arrived at Galveston shortly before the second of October, 140 but apparently did not tarry long at his supposed destination as we find him writing Calhoun on the 28th from Mexico City. This communication deserves special mention, not merely because it showed the futility of any immediate attempt to secure a cession of Mexican territory but because the reason given in this particular instance explains very effectually the consistent rejection of similar proposals made by the United States, from that of Poinsett in 1825 to the final offer of Slidell in 1846.
“I am convinced,” wrote Green, “that it is impossible to obtain the consent of this Government to the cession to the United States of Texas, California or any part of the public domain of Mexico whatever.” Then followed a long dissertation on Santa Anna's hostile policy toward the United States, pursued since 1825 for his own selfish interests; a description of the chaotic state into which the government had fallen; and certain remarks upon the constant factional strife with which the land was cursed. “In such a state of things,” he continued,
in the midst of a civil conflict where each party is seeking pretences to murder and confiscate the property of their opponents, and where the principle [is maintained] that it is treason to sell any part of the public domain to the United States, it is worse than folly to suppose that either party can alienate any part of Texas or California. 141
Farther along in his despatch, Green again laid emphasis upon the fact—which Americans, eager for territory and cognizant of Mexico's need of funds and the easy virtue of some of her officials, were slow to grasp—that any party venturing to sell Texas or California would surely be overthrown, its leaders shot and their property taken over by a rival faction. Out of this difficulty only one way lay open to the United States government; and that, though it promised all the administration could ask, Green refused to specify in writing, reserving his explanation for a personal interview after visiting Texas. 142
Following Duff Green's departure from Mexico, little concerning California occurs in the correspondence that passed between Wilson Shannon, the American minister who succeeded Thompson, and Calhoun. One important despatch respecting English designs, which will be noticed later, was sent early in January, 1845; 143 while on the 16th of the same month Shannon wrote that there might be a bare possibility of reopening negotiations with the new government of Paredes and Herrera 144 because of their desperate need of funds. 145 But the breaking off of diplomatic relations, following the annexation of Texas soon after this, put an effectual stop to all attempts at negotiation for California until Slidell entered the field under Polk's direction.
It should be noted, however, in any discussion of the diplomacy of this period that it was during Tyler's administration that the first hint of Polk's subsequent policy regarding the internal affairs of California is to be found. Larkin, after his appointment as consul, kept the State Department well informed as to events in the province, especially regarding immigration, the attitude of California officials, and the proceedings of the Hudson's Bay Company. In this he was encouraged by the authorities at Washington; and, still farther, urged to report anything concerning the political condition of California that could “be made subservient to or may effect (sic) the interest and well being of our government.” 146 It was an enlargement upon this plan, that, as we shall see, Polk made use of about one year later.
1. Slavery in the United States
What is commonly known as the secession movement covers comparatively few years. But essentially it was one of a series of controversies between the states which arose early, and are still arising. It grew more immediately out of the controversy which arose over the institution of negro slavery. But the real cause of the movement was the difference in economic conditions prevailing in the several sections of the country, and the inability of the central government to adapt itself to these conditions. In the North slavery was never profitable, but in the warm and fertile South where the large open areas of land were favorable to agriculture, and where the climate made it difficult for people of North European birth or extraction to perform severe manual labor, slavery established itself firmly. As the Louisiana territory and Florida were added to the Union, it spread over those territories. The plantation system with its enormous acreage cultivated by slave labor became the established order.
In the early years of our history the North and the South had united in placing restrictions upon slavery. Together they had abolished the slave trade, and prohibited slavery forever in the Northwest Territory. But the economic development of the country progressed along different lines in the two sections. In the Northern states, where it was unprofitable, slavery was soon abolished, while in the South the institution and the problems to which it gave birth became more serious. In the opinion of the South slavery was essential to its economic progress and to the perpetuation of the social conditions which had arisen with the plantation system. But the problem of abolishing a financially profitable institution where it was considered necessary to the existence of the plantation system and to the social conditions dependent upon it, was not the only difficulty that confronted the South; the question as to what disposition could be made of the hundreds of thousands of liberated negroes presented an equally serious problem. The most southern point of free territory had been reached by 1800. From that time on, the country had distinct free and slavery sections. And as time passed, there grew up an aggressive element in the North hostile to slavery. It expressed its views freely on the subject, and held the nation responsible for the system which it considered inhuman and odious. In the South the feeling grew that one of its necessary institutions was condemned and threatened, and that the South in order to hold its own must act as a unit. From such a beginning grew distinct political alignments and solidification of the sections, which eventually became the cause of secession and civil war.
2. The Beginning of Slavery in Texas
It is apparent that Texas could not escape the tide of anti-Northern sentiment and of disunion that passed over the other Southern states. Though not a member of the Union until 1846, Texas, was, nevertheless, closely affiliated with the other Southern states; the majority of her inhabitants had emigrated from those states, and her economic conditions were substantially the same as theirs. From the beginning of American immigration into Texas, settlement and slavery went hand and hand. The Mexican government abolished slavery throughout the Mexican states in 1829, but Texas was soon after, at the request of Stephen F. Austin, exempted from the decree, and the Republic of Texas firmly established slavery within its boundaries. The constitution of 1836 provided that all who were slaves at the close of the revolution should remain such. Congress was forbidden to pass any law prohibiting immigrants from bringing their slaves with them; and no one was permitted to free his slaves, except by consent of Congress, unless he first sent them out of Texas; nor were free negroes permitted to reside in the state. But the African slave trade, except with the United States, was prohibited and declared piracy. 148
When, in 1837, Texas proposed to enter the Union, the slave question again loomed up in the United States. The facts, that the acquisition of Texas would add to the United States a vast slave territory, and that new life would thus be given to the institution, gave rise to spirited and acrimonious discussions in Congress. A great struggle between the representatives of the Southern states and the Northern abolitionists over the right of petition growing out of the slavery question had just been ended. Northern members looked with contempt upon the application for annexation. It was not until nine years later that enough of the people of the United States “realized,” as Dr. Garrison says, “the supreme importance of acquiring Texas to turn the scale in favor of accepting her, slavery and all.” 149
1. Interest Occupied by Local Affairs
That the Texans took but comparatively little interest in the slavery controversy before 1854 was due to various circumstances. Texas had little time to devote to the affairs of the nation. Her time and attention were given to adjusting her own affairs. The Indians were troublesome and her frontiers had to be protected. The Mexicans gave trouble to the new government by inciting the negroes to conspiracy and insurrection. 150 Other questions of vital importance to her at that time were those involving her boundary dispute, her debt, the problems connected with her unoccupied lands, internal improvements, and the development of her resources. Furthermore, Texas was a new state and was sincere in her loyalty to the Union; and the plantation system had not yet developed to such an extent that the great plantation owners could control the policy of the state and mould public opinion in support of slavery.
2. Early Attitude toward the Slavery Controversy
Yet Texas could not escape entirely the great controversy agitating the Union just before the compromise of 1850. Her representatives in Congress took part in the struggle there, and the people at home were not entirely silent.
The earliest evidence that I have found in regard to the attitude of Texas toward the situation at that time is a series of resolutions adopted by a county convention which met at Galveston, January 31, 1848, to select delegates to the state convention, which was to choose the four Texan delegates to the national convention at Baltimore. 151 These resolutions maintained that any legislative interference on the part of the federal government with the domestic policy of the citizens of the United States living in any of the territories would not be in the true spirit and meaning of “needful rules and regulations,” and hence would be unconstitutional; that all acquired territory belonged to the states of the Union for their common use and benefit; that until a territory should be admitted to statehood, the citizens of all the states had a right to emigrate thither with their property and there enjoy it; and that it would be inexpedient for the Texas delegates in the national convention to support any candidate from the non-slaveholding section of the Union who did not advocate the opinions expressed in these resolutions. 152 The convention specifically endorsed a resolution offered by Senator Dickinson of New York in December, 1847, favoring expansion, and denying the power of Congress to impose on any territory required restrictions “inconsistent with the right of the people thereof to form a free sovereign state, with the powers and privileges of the original members of the confederacy;” but it repudiated his second resolution, that questions of domestic policy should be left to the territorial legislatures. 153 The discussions to which these resolutions gave rise show that the sentiment which they expressed was by no means unanimous. A Mr. Megginson, in giving his reasons for refusing to serve as a member of the committee that drew up the resolutions, said that the great questions of the day were those involving the preservation of the constitution and the protection of slavery. So far as he could see neither the Whigs nor the Democrats could be depended upon to defend slavery, for both parties in the North were fighting it. He could see no use in sending delegates to the national convention; the four men from Texas could accomplish nothing there, and the people of Texas would not be benefited in any manner by sending delegates. A Mr. Sherwood declared that he had never found more than three or four individuals who pretended to defend the institution of slavery in the abstract; that the people in the North and the people in the South had the same feelings on the subject; that it was an institution prejudicial in its operation to the best interests of the country; that it was an evil which had been introduced without the fault of that generation; that the only apology offered for its continuance was the difficulty of abandoning it; that, more than this, the South had up to that time always agreed with the North that Congress had absolute control over the territories, and that it was then inexpedient to change that view. Louis T. Wigfall and Ashbel Smith on the other hand, defended the principles embodied in the resolutions. The latter maintained that no one could contend that the right to establish or abolish slavery was conferred upon Congress, and that neither Congress nor a territory could abolish slavery within the borders 154 of such territory.
The only other evidence I have found that the people of Texas were taking an interest in the disposition of the newly acquired territories is found in an editorial of that day, which indicates that the course of the federal government was not entirely satisfactory to Texas. The editor complained that, although the South had furnished the greater number of men in the war with Mexico, Congress was trying to defraud the South of its rights in the territory thus acquired. 155
3. Attitude of United States Senators from Texas
The Texas representatives in Congress were in the midst of the struggle over the organization of the Mexican cession, and hence could not avoid taking part in it. Texas was represented in the Senate by Sam Houston and Thomas J. Rusk, both elected in 1846. Rusk had served Texas well during the revolution, fighting side by side with Houston at San Jacinto; and later, during the Republic, he had served as chief justice. While a member of the Senate he voted on all occasions with the other Southern members; but as he died before the real “tug of war” came in Texas, in regard to secession, his influence on the movement was not great.
Houston on the other hand, was so closely identified with the whole movement, that the story of his life becomes a part of the secession movement in Texas from 1848 to 1861. Although a strict constructionist, and always jealous of the rights of Texas, he was at the same time a strong Union man. In a speech delivered in the Senate July 3, 1850, on the right of Texas to Santa Fê, he defined his idea of sovereignty in the following words: “The Sovereign power of this Union is shared by every free man, its embodiment passing through the States from the people; a portion of it is centered in the Federal Constitution, and thereby that becomes the supreme law of the land and is the only embodiment of sovereignty.” 156 He was a slaveholder and accepted the institution as a part of the social system in which he found himself. On one occasion he said that he was neither the enemy nor the propagandist of slavery. While he most strenuously objected to the extension of slavery, he denied just as strenuously the right of the federal government to interfere with the institution in the states where it was established. He saw clearly that the outcome of the dispute, if given time and scope, would lead to disunion and civil war. As a stanch friend and follower of Andrew Jackson, he had easily become imbued with a strong attachment for the constitution, which he believed should be strictly construed and enforced both by the North and the South. As a senator he allied himself with Benton and the old Union Democracy of Jackson in opposition to Calhoun and the other Southern leaders. When the Oregon territorial bill came up in Congress in 1848, it contained a provision prohibiting in accordance with the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 the establishment of slavery in Oregon. The bill was denounced by Calhoun, who held that Congress had no right to prohibit slavery in a territory. Threats of disunion were heard. Houston advocated the bill, and in the course of his speech said that he had heard threats of dissolution and disunion so often that he had become familiar with them, and that they no longer frightened him. He declared that, as for himself, he knew neither North nor South; he knew only the constitution and the Union. 157 This speech caused great excitement and anger in the Southern states, but no word of disapproval came from Texas. Instead, he was commended by one newspaper, at least, for his able speech and for the applause he had received from the galleries. 158
In the great debates that preceded the compromise of 1850 Houston was not silent. At this time he zealously defended the rights of Texas, whose western boundary was in dispute, but he voted on all occasions for the measures that restricted the extension of slavery. He had voted against the extension of the Missouri Compromise line over the newly acquired territory in 1849, and in 1850 he voted for the admission of California as a free state, and for the abolition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia. But no protest seems to have been made in Texas. In the meantime, the Southern leaders, realizing that California and probably New Mexico would be lost to slavery, issued an address for a convention to meet at Nashville, Tennessee, in the summer of 1850. Houston refused to sign the address, and ridiculed the idea of a convention.
That the people of Texas paid so little attention to the slavery controversy in 1850, although their senator was elsewhere severely criticised for his action in it, was probably due in part to the fact that all their interest was centered in the disposition of their western boundary.
It was not until 1854, when the Kansas-Nebraska bill came before Congress, that the Texans began to take any real interest in the controversy that had agitated the other portions of the country during the past half dozen years, or longer. The compromise of 1850 was merely a lull before the storm. The fugitive slave law no sooner went into effect than the people of the North began seeking ways and means of evading it; and the “personal liberty laws” did not tend to allay the slavery agitation. The Texas press began to show its interest in the controversy by reprinting editorials on the subject from the leading Southern papers. When comments were made, which was seldom, they were in accord with Southern sentiment, but the papers appeared to hesitate to take a firm stand on either side, as if conscious that the reading public was divided on the issue.
In the great struggle in Congress over the Kansas-Nebraska act, which repealed the Missouri Compromise, and placed the South on an equal legal footing with the North in a vast territory that had before been dedicated to freedom, Houston took an active part against the measure. He opposed it vehemently and unflinchingly. He spoke of the perils of such a measure and especially of those that it would bring upon his state, which was the southern terminus of the slave population. He called attention to the fact that her favorable conditions for the production of cotton, sugar, and tobacco would demand an enormous amount of slave labor; that the disproportion of the slaves to the white population would soon become enormous and the consequences frightful; that the South's demand for non-intervention by Congress would be as useless in theory as it would be dangerous in practice; that if the measure were adopted, it would not secure those territories to the South, nor preserve the Union of the states nor allay the agitation in the North; that it would sustain neither the Democratic nor the Whig party in its organization; and that the effect upon the government would be most disastrous, because it would destroy the future harmony of the nation. He declared that the people reverenced and respected the Missouri Compromise as a line defining certain rights and privileges to different sections of the Union, and that by its destruction the people would become exasperated and bitter agitation would follow. 159 Because of this attitude toward the controversy, Houston was accused of being an abolitionist, of betraying the state he served and the cause he was in Congress to defend. In reply to these charges he said that he had no intention of remaining silent or shirking his duty in the face of such a dangerous measure; it was his duty to tell the South what the results would be in spite of all “intimidation, threats, or consequences.” The Texans were awakened, however, to the seriousness of the North's opposition to slavery, and, on account of his attitude toward this bill, Houston lost for a time much of his popularity in Texas.
1. The Beginning of Political Parties in Texas
The sentiment of Texas after 1854, as reflected in the party platforms, in the acts of the legislature, and in the press of the state, was entirely in sympathy with the Southern movement to maintain Southern rights at any cost. In 1854, there were both Whigs and Democrats in Texas, but party organization did not become crystalized until Pease's administration, 1853-1857. The people concurred in the efforts of the state government to attend to the affairs of the state, both local and national. The party factions opposed to each other were of a personal rather than of a political character; it was the man and not the party he represented that was taken into consideration. When the Whigs were disrupted in 1854, the “American” or “Know-Nothing” party sprang into existence. This secret organization, opposed to alien immigration and to Catholicism, spread rapidly over the whole country and for a short time acquired considerable influence in Texas. Many lodges were organized, especially in the eastern part of the state. This party, in 1855, elected its candidate to Congress; and its candidate for Governor against Pease, although defeated, received nearly eighteen thousand votes. After that time, though they did not put forth any candidates for state offices, Know-Nothing votes were, for several years, nevertheless, of considerable consequence in state elections.
This party affected the secession movement only indirectly. It stood for the preservation and perpetuation of the constitution and the federal union; opposed the formation of sectional parties; and believed in a strict construction of the constitution and the preservation of the rights of the states. 160 It was therefore a Unionist party, and opposed the more radical sentiments of the Southern Democrats. Houston and many of the Unionists of Texas were affiliated with the party for a time. The Democratic party, recently reorganized on the basis of national issues, was able to defeat the Know-Nothing candidates for state offices; but by 1857, the American party, having given up its secret methods, emerged well organized, independent, and ready for combat. Then it was necessary for the Democrats to unite all available forces in order to defeat Houston for the governorship.
The Democratic party in its first state platform, in 1855, recognized the existence of the national controversy over slavery, and from that time on until Texas withdrew from the Union, the party's platforms were devoted almost entirely to the all-prevailing question. In 1855, the party stood for strict adherence to the principles of state rights; maintained that Congress had no right to interfere in the affairs of sovereign states; condemned the attacks of the North upon the integrity of the constitution and the rights of the South; endorsed the principles of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, and denounced the Know-Nothing party as the enemy of good government. 161
2. Houston Censured for Vote on Kansas-Nebraska Bill
Immediately after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill public opinion changed rapidly and radically in regard to the national controversy. That bill was heartily endorsed throughout the state as embodying the principles of true democracy. Houston's opposition to the measure was severely condemned by the press, by the people at large, in county conventions, by the state legislature, and by the state Democratic convention in 1856. His nearest friends could not uphold his action in regard to that measure. The correspondent of the “Prairie Blade,” published in Corsicana, speaking of the sentiment of northern Texas which, judging from the newspapers of the day, was the prevailing sentiment throughout the state, was very much surprised that Houston had not yet been overtaken by political justice, and that he still retained his seat in the United States Senate, where he had twice betrayed the interests of Texas on the most vitally important subject that ever came before that body; he had basely and treacherorously betrayed her cause on the Nebraska bill, and, no matter what his excuse might be, had voted with the abolitionists, the pledged and uncompromising enemies of Texas; and he had committed the sin of abolitionism in his votes, both on the Oregon and the Kansas-Nebraska bills. In conclusion the writer asked, “Will Texas endorse this course and tamely submit not only to be misrepresented, but have her interest assailed by Houston in conjunction with his abolition allies? Is there not enough of the spirit of '76 and '36 in Texas to defend their own interest from the attacks of their own Senator? If there is, I hope to see the next legislature request him, in the consideration of his many political sins, to resign.” 162
Houston's attitude toward the Kansas-Nebraska bill and his affiliation with the Know-Nothing party were condemned by the Democratic press with equal harshness. During 1855 and 1856, the State Gazette, the recognized organ of the rapidly growing Democratic party, devoted much space in every issue to denouncing the Know-Nothing party as a secret organization and as antislavery in sentiment; speeches on “Know-Nothingism,” freely reprinted from the papers of other states, and letters on the policy and legality of the organization, occupied much space. In November, 1855, a great assembly of Democrats opposed to the Know-Nothing party assembled at Austin to commemorate their victory over the “secretly marshalled forces of the ubiquitous Sam” in the recent elections.
Not less than twenty-two county conventions, in the fall of 1855 adopted resolutions upholding the doctrine of state rights, and of political equality, endorsing the Kansas-Nebraska bill, condemning the Know-Nothing party, and disapproved of Houston's attitude toward the Kansas-Nebraska bill; others recommended that the state legislature demand his resignation from the United States Senate. The Hays County convention declared that the many past services of Houston only added to his present shame and infamy, because of his base and traitorous desertion of Democracy and the just cause of the South; that by persisting in the grossest misrepresentations of both the will and the interests of the state, he had forfeited all claims to his title of honor, and to the confidence of his constituents. 163 The Cass County convention declared that he had violated the confidence reposed in him by his constituents, and that in view of the almost unanimous wish of the people, he ought to resign his seat, so that a man, who would become the exponent of their principles and the defender of their rights, might be elected. 164 Walker County, his own county, was probably most severe in its condemnation. Resolutions were adopted at Huntsville, to the effect that Houston had forfeited all claims to Democratic support by joining the Know-Nothing “conspirators”; that it was the bounden duty of the legislature to pass resolutions instructing him to vacate his seat in the Senate; that the integrity of the Democratic party, the interests of the South generally, and of Texas particularly, and a proper sense of self-respect, demanded this action at their hands. The convention also most heartily endorsed Senator Rusk's vote on the Kansas-Nebraska bill, and recommended to the incoming legislature, his re-election to the United States Senate. 165
Many of these conventions organized Democratic associations, and a few authorized the appointment of vigilance committees. The general object of the associations, as given in an address on the purposes of such organizations by a committee appointed by the Travis County association, was to secure the permanent success of the national Democratic party, whose effort had always been to protect the national rights of the South from outrage, to elevate the condition of the people, to extend and strengthen Southern institutions, and to protect Southern rights when threatened with violence. 166 The duties of vigilance committees were of a general nature. For instance, the chairman of the Cass County convention was authorized to appoint a vigilance committee whose duty it should be to perform all things necessary to further the cause against “Know-Nothingism” and “abolitionism;” and the chairman of the Freestone County convention was authorized to appoint a vigilance committee of twenty-five to act in concert with the Democratic association.
The legislature of 1855 reflected the general feeling of resentment against Houston for working against what the people considered their interests. According to the Austin correspondent of the Galveston News, nearly everything connected with the history of the Compromise of 1850, the fugitive slave law, and the record of Houston was under discussion. Not even Houston's personal friends sustained him in his course. 167 After much heated discussion the legislature, by a vote of seventy-three to three, adopted the following resolution, disapproving of Houston's vote: “Be it resolved by the legislature of the State of Texas, that the legislature approves the course of Thomas J. Rusk, in voting for the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and disapproves the course of Sam Houston, in voting against it.” 168 As a further indication of its approval of Rusk's position on the Kansas-Nebraska bill, the legislature, more than a year before his term expired, unanimously re-elected him to the United States Senate for another term of six years, from March, 1857. 169 Houston found it necessary to visit the legislature and justify his action. On November 23, 1855, he delivered an address before the legislature wherein he explained his vote by saying that Texas, in accepting the resolutions of annexation, recognized the Missouri Compromise, and that he therefore considered himself bound to vote with the North in maintaining it. 170
The Texas press watched closely the development of the trouble between the anti- and pro-slavery factions in Kansas. The situation was fully and freely discussed. The anti-slavery element was designated as “blood thirsty free-soilers,” and extracts from letters telling of atrocities committed by the free-soilers upon the peace-loving pro-slavery men who dared protect their property were reprinted from other Southern papers. During the summer of 1856, a circular addressed to the Southern states by the managers of the Lafeyette Emigration Society of Missouri was published in the newspapers. It advocated prompt and decisive action, if Kansas was to be saved to slavery. 171
When the men active in public affairs of the state met again in convention at Austin in 1856, they further expressed the sentiments of the party in regard to the Kansas situation as well as in regard to slavery. The members of the convention maintained that the abolitionists of Kansas, fostered, supported and encouraged by the abolitionists of the Union, attempted to control the government, and that this course was at war with the principles of the constitution, and subversive of free government. They further sympathized with the citizens of the slaveholding states in their efforts to induce real settlers to become citizens of the territory, and asserted that the citizens of Missouri who had immigrated into the territory deserved the gratitude and warm support of all the friends of the Union and the Constitution. 172
Lorenzo Sherwood, of Galveston, was rejected as a delegate by the convention because of a speech he delivered in the house of representatives a short time before. It was considered anti-Southern in sentiment, for he had asserted that slavery was an evil in the abstract, although the institution was the best that could be devised for white and black. He also thought Congress had a right to deal with slavery in the territories. 173 His own constituents, also, after fully considering the sentiment expressed in his speech, repudiated him, and demanded his resignation. They charged that he was false to his declarations and professions made at the time he was elected; that he had forfeited their confidence and respect; and that they had been mistaken in their belief that he was not only a high-minded, honorable, intelligent and truthful gentleman, but also sound on the subject of slavery. 174
The convention adopted the platform of the national convention of 1852, as embracing the only doctrine which could preserve the integrity of the Union and the equal rights of the states. 175 They further endorsed the Kansas-Nebraska act as “a triumph of the constitution over fanaticism and sectional madness,” and maintained the equality of the states and the rights of slavery to protection in the territories until such territory should be admitted as states into the Union. 176 That the radical leaders were becoming intolerant of opposition to their ideas on the subject was shown in other action taken by the convention rather than in its platform. A resolution to censure Houston because of his attitude toward the Kansas-Nebraska bill was adopted. The first resolution offered was very severe and caused much discussion. The following substitute, offered by Judge Oldham, was unanimously adopted:
“Resolved, that this convention do most fully and cordially endorse and approve the votes of Senator Rusk and Representatives Geo. W. Smyth and Peter H. Bell upon the Kansas-Nebraska act, and that we do further most decidedly disapprove the vote of Senator Houston upon said act, as not in accordance with the Democracy of Texas.” 177 And, according to the State Gazette, the organ of the Democrats, the convention was heartily endorsed by the leading newspapers of the State, as well attended, harmonious and enthusiastic, and as having well and nobly performed its duty in adopting the platform as it did. 178
3. The Gubernatorial Campaign, 1857
The state campaign for the governorship in 1857 began in 1856. Names of desirable candidates as nominees for governor began to be suggested by the newspapers in the fall of that year. Even Houston's name, as that of a possible candidate, loomed up, and the Southern Intelligencer took upon itself to warn the people against him. This newspaper declared that if the people agreed upon any one subject it was in their approval of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and in their condemnation of all who did not favor that eminently Southern measure; but that General Houston had opposed that measure, and, more than that, he had defended his action with all the arguments employed by the Black Republican party. 179
The next year witnessed the beginning of the real struggle between Houston and his opponents for the good will and support of the people. The first fully organized Democratic state convention held in Texas for nominating state officers was held at Waco in May, 1857. In order to unite and bind the Democrats together in the canvass against Houston and his adherents for the governorship and other positions in the state, a resolution was adopted pledging the delegates to support the nominees of the convention. 180 Hardin R. Runnels and Frank R. Lubbock were nominated for governor and lieutenant-governor, respectively. Lubbock canvassed the entire state before the election. Houston and Jesse Grimes, as independent Democrats, announced themselves as applicants for the governorship and lieutenant-governorship, respectively. The canvass of 1857 was styled “Houston versus Democracy.” Many bitter and acrimonious speeches were delivered during the summer. The attack on Houston by the opposition press was severe. His whole record as United States Senator was reviewed, and condémned. He was accused of vindicating before the Senate a petition of three thousand New England abolition clergymen, and of voting against all bills in the interest of slavery; of blaming the frontier settlers for the Indian outrages; of preaching submission to Fremont; of advocating secret political conventions; and of using the Baptist Church for the purpose of advancing his political prospects. 181 Houston was supported by the Union Democrats and the remnants of the Whig and Know-Nothing parties. The struggle culminated in the election of Runnels and Lubbock by nearly ten thousand majority. The people had not yet forgiven Houston for his support of the Kansas-Nebraska bill.
One of the duties of the seventh legislature, that met November 2, 1857, was to elect two United States Senators, one to fill the unexpired term of Senator Rusk who had recently died, and another to fill Senator Houston's place whose term would expire in 1858. Houston stood for re-election, but the pro-slavery Democratic strength was too great. John Hemphill received the caucus nomination and was elected.
4. The First Threats of Secession
After their victory in 1857, the Democratic leaders became bolder in their pro-slavery declarations and in their denunciations of the federal government. Governor Runnels was an extreme state rights man, and his inaugural speech represented the views held by his party in regard to the slavery controversy. He severely condemned Governor R. J. Walker's attitude in the Kansas troubles, accusing him of betraying his official trust and of trying to make Kansas a free state for everybody but Southerners with their property. He advocated a liberal policy in regard to the organization of state militia. And he openly advocated secession as the remedy if the trouble in Kansas should not be settled in a manner satisfactory to the South. Again, in his message to the legislature in January of 1858 he gave a history of the struggle in Kansas, and added that the Northern states had increased their obstructions to the operation of the fugitive slave law. In his opinion the North was determined to defeat the federal government in its attempts to protect Southern rights. He recommended that the legislature pass resolutions declaring the sentiment of the people in Texas in regard to Northern aggression, and that it provide a way by which Texas could co-operate with the other Southern states in protecting their rights. 182 The legislature responded with the resolutions suggested, and to meet his second recommendation authorized the governor to order an election of seven delegates to a Southern convention, whenever a majority of the other slave-holding states should think such a convention necessary. Ten thousand dollars was appropriated to defray the expenses of such delegates. But if it should become necessary for Texas to act alone, the governor was authorized to call a special session of the legislature in order that it might call a convention. 183
But a more radical measure had been proposed a little earlier in the year by Judge T. J. Chambers, an influential leader of the party in the state convention. He advocated withdrawal from the Union in case the federal government should try to embarrass, delay, or defeat the admission of Kansas as a member of the Union on any pretext referring to slavery, as such an act would be an usurpation of power and a violation of the compact of the Union. Sister states of like sentiment were invited to join Texas. 184 The resolution was tabled; nevertheless, it expressed the feeling of many of the Democratic leaders who were shaping public opinion in Texas. This process of moulding public opinion to the maintenance of state rights in regard to slavery at any cost had been going on for some years. Many of the influential newspapers were controlled by the radical element in the state, and they exerted themselves to the utmost in shaping public opinion.
5. The Question of Re-Opening the African Slave Trade
The policy of reopening the African slave trade was at this time gradually coming to be advocated as a necessary economic measure. The supply of slave labor did not equal the demand; hence slaves were very expensive and the agricultural pursuits of the South suffered in consequence. The pro-slavery leaders were uneasy lest the border states of Virginia, Maryland, and Kentucky should become free soil by the gradual exodus of slaves to the cotton regions further south. This movement would continue as long as the high price of negroes was protected against a foreign supply, and it would mean the certain transfer, eventually, of these states to the ranks of the freesoilers. Moreover, slavery, it was argued, was a benign institution, just as good for the negro as for the white man. On the platform and in the press the institution was defended on economic, religious, social and moral principles, until gradually the people came to look upon it in that light; and when they believed it threatened by the North they were ready to resort to arms in its defense.
As early as 1856, the State Gazette began to note closely all discussions relating to the reopening of the slave trade that took place in the other Southern states. It not only quoted liberally from the press of these states, but gave its own opinions freely. For instance, in an editorial of March 1, 1856, the editor of the Gazette commenting on a discussion in the Georgia legislature on the question of repealing all laws obstructing the importation and sale of salves in Georgia, said that discussion was a very good move, because all laws interfering with the freedom of trade were wrong, and that the law of supply and demand should control every department of commerce. “Indeed we would urge, if practicable, the importation of negroes from Africa, and it would not only improve their physical condition but add to their happiness, while at the same time subserving the purposes of civilization in our own country.” 185 From that time the question was never lost sight of. The State Gazette, perhaps one of the most influential papers in the state, did all in its power to mould public opinion in its favor. By 1858 slavery, according to this paper, had become both just and expedient, in accordance with divine law, and a moral, social, and political blessing. It argued that there were not enough slaves in the South, and that every planter in Texas felt the want of slave labor; that this want of labor cramped the energies and diminished the resources of the planters and retarded the general prosperity of the state. 186 The Highland Eagle, a Bell County newspaper, urged the Gazette to spread far and wide the truths as to slavery, its divine origin and beneficent effects. It further urged all papers to do the same, and then, according to this zealous advocate of slavery, “we shall in good time be the most united and the strongest people on earth.” 187
With advocacy of the reopening of the African slave trade went hostility to the opponents of such trade. Interspersed with articles on the slave trade and cheap slaves, in the Gazette, were such editorials as “The True Status of Northern Opposition,” “Democracy and Black Republicanism,” “What the South Should Do,” “The Wiles of the Enemy,” “Black Republican Exultation over Defeat of the Kansas Bill,” “Our Duty to Defend the Rights of the South to the Last Extremity,” “Wither are we Drifting?,” and “Beauties of Negro Equality.” 188 Such titles occur frequently, particularly in the Gazette. Under such guidance a considerable portion of the population had come by 1859 to be in favor of reopening the slave trade. Evidence of this is seen in resolutions adopted by county conventions during the year. There can be no doubt, either, but that the question was an issue in the gubernatorial contest of that year, and that many of the Democratic leaders advocated the measure. John Marshall, for instance, the editor of the Gazette, in which very many editorials and other articles on the slave trade appeared, was chairman of the state Democratic committee and called the convention to meet at Houston in 1859. And naturally, the people who were in favor of the reopening of slave trade were also in favor of the extension of slave territory.
That the proposition to reopen the slave trade was a real issue is further indicated by the records we have of the opposition to it. The De Witt County convention, for instance, took a strong stand against the slave trade; declared it piracy and forbade its delegates voting for any such measure. This sentiment was very general in the Guadalupe valley. 189 The Galveston delegates were likewise instructed to vote against the adoption of any and all platforms which in any way would tend to the reopening of the African slave trade. Victoria County advised against the introduction of any new planks into the platform, especially upon the subject of the African slave trade, because if introduced into the platform, they would tend to divide, distract, disorganize and defeat the party.
Many counties advocated the acquisition of Cuba on any terms. 190 Some were silent on both questions, Ellis County merely upheld the constitution and the Union. The convention of Madison County believed that the constitution as interpreted in the Dred Scott decision secured to every American citizen the right to make his home in any of the common territory, and to protect him in the peaceable possession of any species of property that was recognized as such at the time of the adoption of the constitution, and that no legislative body had the power to disturb that right. The Parker County convention condemned the act of Congress making the African slave trade piracy; denounced abolition, Black Republicanism, nullification, secession and disunion, as elements of discord and distraction having a common tendency to weaken the bonds of the Union, and declared that every lover of his country should be found in united opposition to them. The resolutions of the convention of Guadalupe County declared slavery a social and political blessing and morally right; it could therefore see no reason why the Southern people should not have the privilege of purchasing slaves in the best market, and concluded as follows: “Should the Houston convention fail to endorse the proposition now made in various portions of the state, to-wit: The reopening of the African slave trade, then the delegates appointed by this meeting to attend said convention be hereby requested to express in plain terms their disapprobation of such a course.” 191 The Gonzales County convention resolved that the right of Congress over the slave trade was doubtful, and should not be exercised by that department; that this right should be left to the sovereignty of the states to determine for themselves; that laws making the slave trade a piracy were unconstitutional; that slavery as practiced in the Southern states was a humane and beneficent institution, and that the African slave trade as the source and necessary concomitant of slavery was morally right. The delegates were instructed to introduce and advocate measures for the introduction into the Southern states of slaves from abroad. 192 The resolutions by the Fort Bend convention were probably the most radical of all those passed during the year. That convention declared that all congressional acts inhibiting the African slave trade, though not unconstitutional were, nevertheless, a standing reproach and an offensive stigma upon the institution of slavery, which in the South was regarded as a great and signal good, both to the white and negro race, and clearly defensible upon religious, social, and moral grounds. All laws prohibiting the trade were declared subversive of the leading interests of the slave states, oppressive in their bearing, and deserving of prompt repeal. And it concludes that as this could not be done, because the anti-slavery element in the North controlled the federal government and refused to grant to the South any measure that would be to her interest: “That we not only consider it expendient but excusable to disregard the obnoxious acts in question, and that we especially commend the public spirit, liberality and enterprise of those by whom the voyage of the `Wanderer' was projected and consummated. And that so far from that act of `piracy' receiving condemnation by us, we accord it our unqualified countenance and approval.” 193
6. The Gubernatorial Campaign of 1859
The issue in the gubernatorial election of 1859, so far at least as the leaders were concerned, was “union” or “disunion.” The platform adopted by the Regular Democrats at Houston endorsed all the old planks in both the national and state platforms, and then declared the Dred Scott decision to be a true exposition of the constitution, and that the Democrats were in favor of the acquisition of Cuba as imperatively necessary to their self protection. A resolution favoring the reopening of the slave trade was, after much heated discussion, tabled by a vote of two hundred twenty-eight to eighty-one, and a resolution condemning the same measure was tabled unanimously. 194 Runnels and Lubbock, exponents of the pro-slavery and anti-union doctrine, were nominated for their respective positions.
It seems that the Unionist forces had no definite organization. But at a public meeting at Brenham, Houston and Edward Clark were nominated by acclamation. Houston accepted the nomination in a letter in which he declared himself a National Democrat and announced that the constitution and the Union embraced the principles by which he would be governed if elected. He declared that they comprehended all the old Jackson National Democracy he had ever professed. 195 In it he promised protection to the frontier, protested against the reopening of the African slave trade, extolled the federal union, denounced his opponents and appealed with great effect to his old comrades of 1836. The campaign that followed was very bitter. Against Houston were arrayed the whole party machinery, most of the prominent public men and nearly all of the influential newspapers. Houston was again subjected to all the abuse that had been heaped upon him in the former canvass. Because of his votes in the Senate on the slavery measures, and because of his attitude toward the New England ministers, he was accused of betraying the state and the South to further his ambition to attain the presidency. Houston conceived the entire system of conventions to be inconsistent with Democratic principles and subversive of the rights of the people. This attitude toward the framework of the state rights party which was believed to be the only bulwark between the people and northern aggression as well as his affiliation with the Know-Nothing party was made the occasion for abusive articles by the opposition press. 196 Old charges of insincerity, immorality, and cowardice from the days of the Texas revolution were reopened, emphasized, and spread broadcast throughout the state. Houston and his adherents, in their turn, accused the Democratic leaders of disunion and treason and of advocating the reopening of the slave trade. Governor Runnels's forntier policy was attacked with great vigor, for both the Indians and Mexicans were very troublesome, and Runnels had not been able to keep them in check. That the reason for such a state of affairs, was probably more the fault of the United States government than of the governor, the people did not see. Houston had been fairly successful in his dealings with the Indians when he was at the helm of state affairs, and this fact no doubt, as well as his great personal popularity with the common people, played an important part in his overwhelming victory, at the polls in 1859.
Houston announced his candidacy in nearly all the anti-Democratic papers as follows:
“Announce Sam Houston as a National Democrat, a consistent supporter of James Buchanan in his struggle with Black Republicans, and the little less dangerous Fanatics and Higher Law men at the South, as candidate for Governor.” During the whole bitter controversy and everywhere he went, Houston made eloquent appeals for the preservation of the Union.
That the struggle was a fight principally between the lovers of the Union and those who wished to secede, was also shown in the position John H. Reagan assumed toward the movement, and by the abuse he received in consequence, as well as by the fact that the Democratic nominees were placed on the defensive in the campaign. Reagan was forced by Guy M. Bryan to give in Congress his views of the situation. Reagan declared himself against sectionalism, the demoralizing doctrines of filibusters, and the dangerous heresy of reopening the slave trade. As soon as the contents of this speech became known in Texas, the Democratic press charged him with being too national for a proper representative of a Southern constituency, and heaped upon him vile personal abuse. As a result of this he decided to stand for re-election, went to Texas, and was re-elected by a large majority over his opponent, William B. Ochiltree. 197
The Texas Enquirer upheld the Democratic party against the Southern Intelligencer's accusation that the party favored secession. It maintained that no word had been spoken by any man of any prominence in the state connected with the Democratic party about secession as a probable event, or as anything likely to occur, at least not unless the same should be forced upon the South as a choice between remaining in the Union with positive disgrace on the one hand, and of going out of it on the other hand. 198
Lubbock also was forced to defend his position on the subject of the slave trade. In an open letter to the editor of the Galveston Union, he stated that he had been renominated by a convention that had emphatically rejected a resolution in favor of reopening the slave trade. In an open letter to the chairman of the state executive committee, endorsing Lubbock's letter Governor Runnels says: “I am now, as I have ever been, for the Union under the constitution and the strict maintenance of the supremacy of the laws; and I do not consider that there is any cause for a dissolution of the Union at this time.” 199 It seems that the primary object of the Democratic leaders at this time was to preserve their rights in the Union if they could; but at the same time they were preparing the minds of the people for the idea of withdrawing from the Union should a situation arise in which these rights would be threatened. That such might be the case in the near future, it took no seer to discern. The final crisis seemed to depend upon the presidential election the following year. Houston had always been a state-rights man, and although he himself upheld the federal doctrine that secession meant revolution, both he and his adherents firmly believed that it was a matter of expediency to remain in the Union, that the rights of the state could be better preserved in the Union than out of it. The Democrats, on the other hand, held that the state had a right to secede, and that to secede would probably soon be a wise course to pursue. The outcome of the election was a decisive defeat for the party which had controlled the affairs of the state since 1845, as far as congressional representation and the governorship were concerned. But this did not necessarily imply that the sentiment of Unionism had triumphed in Texas. As has already been stated, there were other factors that played an important part in the election. And the Democratic party had by no means been defeated, for the Democrats still controlled both houses of the legislature.
What Union sentiment there was in Texas in 1859 received a rude shock in the John Brown raid at Harper's Ferry. This was fully believed to be a premeditated attack by Northern abolitionists upon the institutions of the South; and the result was soon seen in Texas. Louis T. Wigfall, one of the most radical men in the state, and Houston's most bitter opponent, was elected to the United States Senate just before Houston's inauguration. According to one leader the election was due to the resentment against the Harper's Ferry outrage, and there are indications that this opinion was shared by many. 200 To elect him, however, a party caucus was necessary. Since Wigfall at the time was a member of the state senate, it also became necessary to reinterpret a clause in the state constitution referring to the ineligibility of a member of the legislature to any other office. 201
Immediately after his election, Senator Wigfall addressed the legislature on the all-absorbing question of the day. In his opinion Congress under the power to regulate commerce had no right to declare any branch of trade piracy. He reprehended the attempt he had seen to read Democrats out of the Democratic party because they held opinions favorable to the reopening of the slave trade. He denied the right of Congress on principle to prohibit either the foreign slave trade or the slave trade between the states, and as for himself, he was a Southern rights man, a state rights man, and a Democrat. 202 This speech was highly commended as representing the views of the regular Democrats.
Governor Runnels in his last message to the legislature also proclaimed the views of the party and foreshadowed the final result of the movement now fully inaugurated by the leaders of the secession movement. He upheld the doctrine of state sovereignty, and doubted very much that the general government would be able to uphold and protect the rights of the South. He thought that as soon as it should become evident that the United States could not do so, the only thing for the Southern States to do would be to co-operate in protecting themselves. In conclusion he said:
If there can be no longer unity and harmony of sentiment, if the Southern people are no longer to look to it [the federal government] as the chief reliance for the maintenance of their equal rights, their internal peace and security, the sooner it is known the better. They should neither cheat, nor should they submit to be cheated. I therefore recommend a clear and unequivocal expression of opinion by the legislature on the subject. Equality and security in the Union, or independence outside of it should be the devout conviction, that if guided by wisdom, prudence, sagacity and patriotism, the Divine Being will smile on your councils, and that all may yet be well. 203
Governor Houston soon learned that his task would be an extremely difficult one. All the criticism, disparagement, and party animosity exhibited by the Democratic party during the campaign continued. He had learned before he entered upon his duties as Governor that the legislature was hostile, and he was soon to learn that the Democratic leaders were determined that the state should withdraw from the Union, no matter what action he took to prevent it.
Houston at his inauguration confined the greater part of his speech to local affairs. In regard to the slavery controversy he said he hoped that the federal government would soon attain a happy result in preserving the constitution and the Union, notwithstanding the present discord between the two sections. He then strongly advised against heated controversies that would only aggravate the evil. 204
In his first message he was very conciliatory. He was glad that the masses in the North were willing to abide by the constitution and put down the fanatical efforts of the abolitionists who were endangering the safety of the Union. He hoped their efforts would terminate the slavery agitation. And in conclusion he declared that the people, satisfied that the men whom they elected at the ballot box to represent them in Congress will bear their rights safely through the present crisis, they feel no alarm as to the result. Texas will maintain the constitution and stand by the Union. It is all that can save us as a nation. Destroy it and anarchy awaits us. 205
7. The Legislature on the South Carolina Resolutions
Soon after this Houston received the South Carolina resolutions on federal relations. These expressed the sentiment of South Carolina on the loss of Kansas to slavery and on the Virginia raid by John Brown. In the preamble the right of secession was affirmed. The resolutions recommended immediate and united action by the Southern states, and requested them to appoint deputies and adopt measures to promote a Southern convention. 206 On the receipt of these resolutions, Governor Houston sent them, together with a special message, to the legislature. The whole message was devoted to the exposure of the fallacy of the doctrines of nullification and secession. He maintained that the action of South Carolina was without just cause; that even if there were no constitutional objections to the course suggested by the resolutions, no advantages could be gained by the Southern states in seceding from the Union; that the same evils would remain, and there would be no federal government, able and willing, to maintain the rights of the state; that the ungenerous assaults by the North upon slavery would exist from like passions and like feelings under any form of government; that the only hope for the country was in the constitution and the Union; and he made a passionate plea for these against the fanatics in the North and the scheming, designing, and misguided politicians in the South. He recommended that resolutions be adopted dissenting from the assertion of the abstract right of secession and refusing to send delegates for any existing cause, and finally urged upon all the people, North and South, the necessity of cultivating brotherly feeling, observing justice and attending to their own affairs. 207 Although no final action was taken by the legislature upon the South Carolina resolutions and the governor's recommendations, majority and minority reports were submitted by the committees to which they had been referred. These reports show that the legislature in the spring of 1860, although strongly Democratic, was by no means unanimous as to what action should be taken by the state. That no definite action was taken indicates that the legislature did not at that time consider the situation very grave. The committee appointed by the senate unanimously agreed that the state was determined to preserve, adhere to, and defend the Union and the constitution, but the committee differed as to the way it should be done, differed in abstract political opinion, and differed as to the kind of resolutions the legislature should adopt. The majority report, while maintaining the doctrine of the right of state defence against aggression, expressed a firm resolve to defend the constitution and support the Union. The attempt of the Black Republicans to gain control of the federal government for the purpose of abolishing slavery was declared unconstitutional. And the committee called upon the other states to show their devotion to the constitution by defeating that party in the coming federal election. 208 The minority report did not admit the constitutional right of secession. Secession was declared to be a revolutionary act justifiable only when the federal government showed itself incapable of protecting the essential rights of the states; nothing so far had occurred to justify such a revolutionary act; hence Texas considered the South Carolina resolution premature and unnecessary, and declined to appoint deputies to a meeting of the slaveholding states. But the committee also maintained that if the federal government should become powerless to protect the rights of the states, the Union would no longer be worth maintaining, and that then Texas would again, as in 1836, raise the revolutionary standard,—but, it declared, “Texas has an abiding confidence in the conservative spirit of the American people, and in the continued preservation of the Constitution and the Union.” 209
In the house the majority report upheld the right of secession and declared that Texas would not submit to the degradation of being ruled by the Black Republican party, but would rather assert her independence. It pledged Texas to co-operate with the other Southern states, if it should become necessary to resist the federal wrongs. The minority report, on the other hand, denied the right of secession, and declared that none of the present alleged evils could be ascribed to the legitimate operations of the federal government, being chargeable to the disloyalty of those who, by obstructing the laws and authorities, were themselves the enemies of the Union; that a dissolution of the Union could cure no evils; that it was inexpedient to send deputies to a convention of slave-holding states, and that there was not sufficient cause to justify Texas in taking any step looking toward the dissolution of the Union. 210
The ultra-radical members of the house took exception to the governor's message, and eight members protested against printing it, alleging that the governor based his message on a false hypothesis, namely, “that there is a nullification and disunion element existing in the South, without any real cause and from choice”; that there are persons, “who fan the flame of discord and magnify imaginary evils into startling realities—confounding the language of individuals with the acts of government itself”; that there are persons who “desire disunion,” and so on. This they considered a grossly incorrect imputation upon the patriotism of the South which might cause the people of the North to believe that the South would tamely and unconditionally submit to them under any and all circumstances. 211
But this legislature, which in 1860, merely expressed its opinion in regard to the national controversy, co-operated fully with the secession convention the following spring.
When Houston took his seat as governor, the political situation was tense throughout the country. The Compromise of 1850 had stayed for only a short time the progress of the slavery agitation, and with the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska act the contest again became serious. The civil war in Kansas, and the winning of the territory by the freesoilers in 1859, engendered hatred between the two sections. The refusal of the North to abide by the Dred Scott decision, as well as John Brown's raid, fanned the flame of the secession movement in the South. The North was on the offensive, and determined that slavery should extend no further. The South was on the defensive and fully as determined that the solution of the slavery problem should be left to the South. In the event the North should succeed in barring slavery from the territories, the South believed it would soon attempt to do the same thing in the states. And, if the constitution could not protect the Southern states in their constitutional rights within the Union, they would protect themselves outside of the Union. The entire time of the thirty-sixth Congress was devoted to heated debates between anti-slavery and pro-slavery agitators. The Northern members accused the Southern members of favoring and planning disunion, and were in turn, charged with refusing to enforce the fugitive slave law and to respect the Dred Scott decision.
The leaders of the Texas democracy were just as alive to the situation as any of their Southern brethren. And, as it was a presidential year, the political excitement was great. The task of the South was to secure the nomination of a presidential candidate who favored Southern interests, and who at the same time might be strong enough throughout the country to defeat the Black Republican candidate. The Texas state Democratic convention convened at Galveston in April for the purpose of electing delegates to the national convention at Charleston. The platform adopted looked entirely to the national political situation. It again endorsed the principles of the Cincinnati platform of 1856, and the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions; denied that Texas had given up any portion of its sovereignty in becoming a member of the Union; that in case of encroachment of the central government upon its sovereignty, Texas alone should judge of such encroachment; that Texas possessed the right as a sovereign state, to annual the compact, to revoke the powers it had delegated to the federal government and to withdraw from the Union; that every citizen had the right to move his property into any of the common territory, and to have it protected there under the federal constitution; that while Texas was attached to the Union, the election of a sectional president would force the state to hold itself in readiness to co-operate with the other Southern states in adopting such measures as might be necessary for protection. The resolutions further maintained that the government was founded for the benefit of the white race, and concluded as follows:
“We regard any effort by the Black Republican party to disturb the happily existing subordinate condition of the negro race in the South as violative of the organic act guaranteeing the supremacy of the white race, and any political action which proposes to invest negroes with social and political equality with the white race, as an infraction of those wise and wholesome distinctions of nature which as testified by all experience were established to insure the prosperity and happiness of each race.” 212
That the leaders of the secession movement had become intolerant of any opposition that might tend to block their progress, was shown here also in the expulsion of W. W. Leland, of Karnes County, who was charged with entertaining abolition sentiments. 213
Evidence has recently come to light which has a tendency to dispel the once prevalent impression that the South unanimously called for the recognition and annexation of Texas “as soon as the subject was presented.” It is possible, even probable, that a majority of Southerners did favor the annexation of Texas during the whole period when the matter was under discussion; yet it is now clear that the demand was not universal.
It has already been pointed out 214 that “in his message to the South Carolina legislature near the end of the year 1836, the retiring governor, George McDuffie, protested strongly against any action in behalf of Texas. . . .”
Indication of widespread opposition is found in a letter of William H. Wharton, minister of Texas to the United States, written from Kentucky on December 11, 1836, to Stephen F. Austin, Texan secretary of state: 215
. . . In regard to our annexation both friends and foes bitterly oppose it. . . . Our friends by which term I mean those of Louisiana, Mississippi, Kentucky, etc. (for I have seen and conversed with no others as yet) oppose our annexation, on the grounds that a brighter destiny awaits Texas. That she would be more happy and prosperous and glorious as an independent nation than as a portion or tributary of this. That in such a situation she would soon complain of and be oppressed by high Tariffs and other Northern measures. That we would be driven to nullification, secession, etc., and be thus involved in a worse revolution than we are now engaged in. That we should go on as we have commenced conquering and to conquer and never pause until we had annexed all or the best portion of Mexico to Texas, thus establishing an independent government which would rival this in extent, resources, and population. . . .
Arguments based upon supposed national and sectional interests were added by other opponents of annexation. In the papers of President Lamar 216 are found letters of five Southerners who express strong disapprobation of the annexation measure, on the ground that independence would be more advantageous not only to Texas, but to the Southern States, and, one writer adds, to the Union as well. Their arguments turn for the most part upon the fact that Texas was a slave state, the very fact which is popularly supposed to have made the South a unit from the beginning in favor of annexation.
Two of these correspondents of President Lamar, A. B. Longstreet, the well known minister, jurist, author, college president of genial memory, and Mansfield Torrance, a planter, a personal and political friend of Lamar and of Governor George M. Troup, were Georgians; two, Joseph Riddle, a lawyer, who had fought as a volunteer in the Texan revolution, and Alexander Jones, a physician, author, and inventor of some note, were Mississippians; one, James Hamilton, was a South Carolinian. Hamilton was the most prominent of the five; he was a wealthy planter, who had been a member of Congress and had exercised considerable influence with President Jackson until his nullification views had separated him politically from the “Old Chief”; he had been the nullification governor of South Carolina. He had extensive financial connections in America and in England, and had thereby been enabled to negotiate a loan for South Carolina in England.
Longstreet's expression of opinion is contained in an undated draft which seems from internal and circumstantial evidence to fall within the year 1837. It contains, besides advice regarding the Texan constitution, a statement of the writer's views upon the relative advantages and disadvantages of annexation. The advantages, immediate protection, ultimate security against war with Mexico or the United States, from neither of which is any real danger to be apprehended, are far outweighed, he thinks, by the disadvantages.
“The North and Northwest,” he writes,
must in the very nature of things rule the South &Southwest. . . . The North &Northwest must be a commercial and manufacturing people. The South &S. West must be an agricultural people. The former are religiously opposed to slavery—the latter are necessarily slave holders— The former are a sober calculating people—the latter are a high spirit ardent people. The former hold the power—the latter the wealth, of the nation: and it is not to be disguised that there are pretty strong antipathies already engendered between them. Here then are all the elements of the most merciless tantalising despotism on the one hand, that was ever exercised by man to his fellow man; and of the most galling &unmitigated slavery on the other, that was ever endured by man. . . .
Against this state of things the constitution offers the only guarantee; and events have already proved that the constitution is readily broken by the party in power according to its wishes and needs.
“The United States,” he continues, must at no distant day I think break up in revolution—. . . Independent of her growing weight—there is a manifest tendency to insubordination; and she is corrupt from her heart to her extremities. These are some of the fruits of her ready adoption of the filth of the world, as her own offspring. . . . Now from all the anticedent [sic] throes &convulsions, as well as the final catastrophe Texas may escape by keeping herself to herself—to say nothing of the lesser national difficulties, which are forever occurring in so vast a territory as ours. When this catastrophe occurs, what will then be your condition? You close your political career as conquerors or as conquered—most likely the latter; for the south builds ships, and the north mans them—the south pays armies and the north fills &commands them—Keep to yourselves and very likely, you will in time have many distracted states petitioning to be let into your confederacy— At least your chance of long peace, will be greater, the more retired you are, from the jarring interests of our illimitable territory. . . .
Torrance writes Lamar on April 6, 1840, as follows:
I intended writing you a long letter on your inaugural address, so much was I pleased with it—your people (in my opinion) would be crazy to annex themselves to us. I have met with but one distinguished man in this country who believed with me (or, who believing—had the boldness to express it) that it was the worst thing the Southern States ever did: to enter the Confederacy— This was Langdon Cheves of So. Ca. We have been ever tributary to the Middle &Eastern States—I fear it will be long ere we can shake off the chains— Our government is becoming very corrupt, &our interests will always be sacrificed to promote the ambitious views of some aspiring chief—. . .
Riddle, on April 12, 1838, writes from Woodville, Mississippi, in somewhat the same strain:
. . . I may appear to utter a strange startling opinion, one which some would construe into enmity towards your young Republic, and as implying a destitution of respect for my native land, when I utter the honest conviction of my bosom—that possessing within yourselves all the Essential Ellements of National greatness, the single Star of Texas, may not be eclipsed by being thrown among the 26 of this confederacy, until we return to a rigid adherence to the letter &spirit of our constitution, or the ambition &reckless cupidity and fanaticism of our Northern allies not Brethren in their folly shall have caused a severance of the Union, then and not till will it be to the permanent advantage of Texas to become a part of this Confederacy. . . .
He expresses like sentiments in other letters, especially in one dated Holly Springs, Mississippi, January 10, 1839, in which he expressed his “pride and pleasure” in the course of the Texans in withdrawing the application for annexation, remarking that in former letters he had favored such a policy in anticipation of “the present evil state of affairs here” arising from “the rash madness of fanatics both Religious and monetary. . . .”
Jones presents the most elaborate anti-annexation argument of all. On October 6, 1838, he writes Lamar that in his opinion the maintenance of a separate sovereignty is far better for Texas than annexation to the United States, because its constitution is a distinct improvement upon that of the United States, and because a single commonwealth is far better than a confederation of states.
. . . Although no harm . . . may come of Abolitionism for centuries; yet the constant agitation of the question by the Fanatics of the North, must greatly estrange and embitter one portion of the Union against another, give rise to strong sectional jealousies, and tend to keep alive among the Southern people much irritation, mingled with feelings of apprehension, both for the safety of the Union and their own property. Under such a state of things, I do not conceive it would be to the interest of Texas to enter a union of quarreling sovereignties filled with sectional wrangling. Until, the question of Slavery, or anti-Slavery, is forever put to rest in this Union let Texas with her slave property stand aloof from it.
By staying out of the Union, he argued, Texas will also escape the clashes, inequalities, and injustice arising among the twenty-six sovereign states upon the questions of the regulation of currency and the collection of revenue. A single commonwealth has a far better opportunity to develop a harmonious body of citizens and a uniform, satisfactory, just system of laws than a confederation of twenty-six states, each claiming the right to interpret the law, or to countervail it by opposing legislation. Texas had therefore best stay out of the Union and prepare to fulfill its glorious mission as the nucleus of the “great Republic, based upon different and I trust better principles than ours,” which “must some day spread its branches far &wide over the South &Southwestern portions of this Continent.”
Hamilton's opposition to annexation, disclosed in a letter of 1838, had grown from neutrality in 1836, as expressed in the report of the South Carolina senate committee, of which he was chairman, upon Governor McDuffie's message to the Legislature, cited in the beginning of this article. This report is therefore worthy of notice just here for the light which it throws upon Hamilton's views upon the Texas question in its early stage.
McDuffie's opposition to recognition and annexation turns upon the doctrine of non-interference, a corollary of the state-rights views of most Southern statesmen. “The doctrine of non-interference,” he says in the course of the message, “is one of the most important in the code of international law, and there are no communities on earth who should hold it so sacred as the slave-holding states of this union . . .”; he therefore trusts “that the state of South Carolina will give no countenance . . . to any acts which may compromit the neutrality of the United States . . .”; he thinks “it may be proper” that the legislature “express opinion” regarding the application for admission into the Union likely soon to be made to Congress, which should not be entertained. “If we admit Texas into our union, while Mexico is still waging war against that province, with a view to reestablish her supremacy over it, we shall, by the very act itself, make outselves a party to the war. Nor can we take this step, without incurring this heavy responsibility, until Mexico shall recognize the independence of her revolted province.” 217
As Dr. Garrison further points out, the committee on federal relations of the house of representatives reported favorably upon the portion of the governor's message referring to Texas and Mexico; the senate committee, however, reported unfavorably, through its chairman, James Hamilton; and the committee report was adopted by the senate. The committee agrees with the governor regarding the policy of neutrality, but differs upon the “declaration that both Mexico and Texas are equally entitled to our sympathy, which is precisely tantamount to saying that neither can invoke any such feeling, for it will scarcely be pretended that Mexico . . . can put in any such claim. . . . The cause of Texas is identical with the cause which severed the colonies of North America . . .” The colonization of Texas and the causes of the Revolution are reviewed; the action of Americans in volunteering for the Revolution is excused. Although the governor's policy of neutrality is a wise one, yet the interest which our people feel in her future destiny is in no small degree augmented by her having not only domestic institutions analogous to our own, but from the fact that she has already been threatened with the hostility of Great Britain and the opposition of some of the free states of our union, by reason of these very institutions. . . . These events . . . teach us . . . the important duty of looking well to our own interests: of husbanding the good will and nourishing the sympathy of those who may be in alliance with us on the vast and momentous relations of property, and social organization, which may be destined to be touched by the hand of ruthless ambition, . . . guided by the madness of a blind and pernicious fanaticism. 218 . . .
A commentary upon the meaning of this report is found in an after-dinner speech by Hamilton at a public dinner given in his honor at Houston, March 21, 1839, upon the occasion of his first visit to Texas. 219 “Gentlemen,” he says in response to a toast in his honor, you do me no more than justice in affirming that I was your early and zealous friend. The circumstances of patriarchal colonization which attended the first settlement of those mighty and magnificent solitudes . . . the ferocious invasion of Mexico, the almost unexampled gallantry with which against fearful odds, that invasion was met, enlisted my sympathy, and I know not whether I stopped in the warm pulsations of my heart to enquire as a mere sum in political arithmetic, what might be the future relations your Republic would bear to our own. I felt that the men who had won the battle of San Jacinto were entitled to the renown they had so gloriously acquired. If a sympathy for the sufferings and an admiration for the fearless valor of your people, made my first impressions in favor of your country more a matter of impulse and feeling than anything else, a little reflection brought me to the conclusion, that a successful issue of your struggle was about to subserve not only the cause of civilization and liberty, but would strengthen my own country, by placing on the western side of the Mississippi a population intelligent, civilized, enterprising, possessing institutions entirely in sympathy with our own. . . .
This growing interest of Hamilton in the affairs of Texas early took an active form. Henry Thompson, in his Texas, published under the pseudonym “Milam” in 1839, says that his aid and influence were secured through Barnard E. Bee. 220 Bee came to Texas with a letter of introduction from Hamilton to Lamar, dated June 21, 1836, 221 Hamilton and Lamar not being personally acquainted, but having common acquaintances, and being united by their nullification views. At the close of 1836, Hamilton was offered the post of commander-in-chief of the Texan army, which he declined. He soon afterward began to interest himself in securing loans for Texas, and in otherwise helping to strengthen the Republic.
These activities soon forced him out of his first attitude of friendly neutrality into definite opposition to annexation. On October 11, 1838, he writes Lamar that the application for annexation should be formally withdrawn, since its pendency seriously hampers his negotiations for a loan to the Republic. On November 3, he again urges the withdrawal of the application:
I deem it of the utmost importance for the success of your foreign negociations national and financial—That your application for annexation to the U. S. should be formally withdrawn— This however should be done with the utmost dignity and with the best temper and in the best tone of feeling towards the people of the U. S. It should be done on the ground that your own interests are to be promoted by your own separate integrity—On such an annunciation on the part of your Minister Mr. Van Buren will I am sure send a highly complimentary message to your Republic to our Congress in which all parties will unite in public manifestations of anticipations of your future growth &power and respect for the independent stand which your Republic has taken which will greatly benefit your foreign relations with the European Powers and lead at once to recognition.—
Indeed what have you to expect or hope from us by Union but a marriage to the Fanaticism of abolition and the huge monopoly of an oppressive tariff strangling your infant industry in the Cradle?— Whereas if you stand by yourselves, with duties of 15 per Cent ad valorem you will supply the best part of the valley of the Mississippi with goods and will soon be the most prosperous country on this Continent.— Instead of weakening yourselves and the Southern States by agitating the same question which our adversaries will involve in the discussion of the question of annexation,—you will be silently building up a rock of salvation a pillar of strength for the South on which we may stand &take refuge when driven to separation by the abolitionism of the North.— An event which seems to be inevitable. . . .
In the after-dinner speech noted above, Hamilton comments favorably upon the withdrawal of the application, which had been effected by the Texan minister on October 12, 1838:
“You were right to come to the manly decision to stand by yourselves. . . . By disdaining to be a suppliant at Washington any longer from a consideration of weakness, you have waxed into one of bone and strength—and spared our union the agitation of a question which never comes but like the earthquake, to convulse and to shake . . .”
The principal arguments of these anti-annexationists may be stated briefly as follows: The best interests of Texas would be subserved by remaining independent, because Texas would thus escape the evils incident to membership in a confederation of sovereign states with dissimilar interests and institutions, and might in time become the nucleus of a great southwestern republic; the best interests of the American Union would be conserved, because the admission of Texas would hasten the inevitable disintegration; the best interest of the Southern states would be conserved, because a strong western power with similar interests and institutions would thus be ready to combine with them when they should be forced into secession.
It is interesting to note, in connection with the third argument an extract from a letter written by Ramón Musquiz, the political chief of Texas, on March 11, 1833. 222 Musquiz, after speaking of the desire of the United States to acquire Texas, adds:
It is also well known that the southern States of our neighboring republic have a tendency to secede from their northern sisters and organize themselves into a separate nation; in which direction one effort has already been made this year by South Carolina. To such new national organization the acquisition of Texas would be a boon of transcendent value, adding, as it would, so extensively to its territorial area and multiplying so largely its sources of wealth.
A letter of Memucan Hunt, minister of Texas to the United States, written on April 15, 1837, to the Texan department of state, 223 is also of interest in this connection, because of its suggestion that the possibility of the confederation of seceded Southern states and an independent Texas as the alternative of annexation be held as a whip over the heads of anti-annexationists, in view of the great danger to the North and the great advantage to the South of a disruption of the Union.
The lack of influence of these arguments and speculations upon the ultimate outcome of the matter, the fact that their promulgators in several instances became later the warmest advocates of annexation, do not lessen their interest in view of the insight which they give into the working of men's minds at a momentous period of our history; moreover, in the fact that they were advanced by extreme nullification and pro-slavery men lies a contemporary refutation of the contemporary and later view of the entire course of Texan colonization and revolution as a proslavery conspiracy.
ELLIOT TO ABERDEEN 224
Private. Galveston Dec. 2d. 1843. My Lord,
The late accounts from Mexico induce me to address Your Lordship upon some points which may be of interest if these difficulties should grow into serious heats. Since I have been in this Country I have been endeavouring to procure some trust worthy information respecting the suitableness of the Rio Grande for purposes of Commerce, and therefore if need me, for flotilla operation.
An intelligent English Mariner of the name of Simpton was in the Service of the Texian Government, in command of a small revenue vessel is well acquainted with the Mouth of that river, and I hope in the course of a few weeks to forward Your Lordship a chart of it, rudely drawn indeed, but upon the general correctness of which I should be disposed to place reliance. He is now absent at Corpus Christi, but will bring his papers back with him, and I shall then be able to select what may be useful.
The river itself, so far as I can learn from persons who have crossed it at various points as high up as the Presidio Grande (which Your Lordship will find marked on all the Maps) is ill fitted for general commercial use, or military transport, being very shallow in the dry season, and it is said, having rapids, before that point. All the rivers however, discharging themselves into the Gulf, vary greatly in their navigable facilities, according to the season, and I dare say, that in the winter and spring Months, the Rio Grande would be navigable for a great distance in light iron boats, such as are used in the upper Ganges and Indus. There is a safe anchorage at it's Mouth called the “Brassos del Norte” for vessels not exceeding 10 feet of draught, but on the bar itself, there are not more than 7 feet of water.
My experience in China, My Lord, taught me that one very serious want of our Military Marine is a sufficiency of vessels of force and resource, either of the Steam arm, or sailing, of a light draught of water. For expeditionary purposes into an enemy's Country, and conjoint operation, when troops must be covered and supplied, this is a very great want, and I would take the liberty to submit that three classes of iron Steam boats would be very necessary for effective Service in Mexico. The largest like the “Nemesis,” “Pluto,” and “Pligothen” and not to draw more than 6 feet of water at the utmost, with a full supply of coal and other Materiel. A second, with a lighter Armament say a long 18 lb. brass gun, forward and aft not to draw more than 3 feet or 3 feet and a half, and lastly four or six of the class of boats employed on the Upper Indus and Ganges, or even more with a force of ten or fifteen sail of boats of these classes it may be depended upon that there would be no difficulty in penetrating into the heart of Mexico, by the Rio Grande and the rivers to the Southward and Westward of Vera Cruz. It may be added too that after San Juan had fallen there would be no manner of use for any large Ships or Steam boats on this Coast of Mexico, except to serve as Depots for the light force in advance.
Matamoros, Tampico, Alvarado, Tabasco are all accessible to Vessels of the draught I have indicated, Indeed I should mention that at Tabasco there are 11 feet of water on the bar, and that is one point to which I would most particularly draw Your Lordship's attention.
The temper of Yucatan and Tabasco towards the present Government of Mexico is a consideration of much interest. The Tabasco river, or indeed the rivers into which the Main stream branches are navigable for a great distance. The Texian Corvette “Austin” for example drawing upwards of 10 feet of Water went up as high as San Juan de Baptiste (about 80 Miles from the Mouth) and I believe there is said to be a boat communication very nearly the whole way to the City of Mexico by that Stream.
If that point were at once secured, and the people of that Province assured of protection and security at the period of the General Settlement, it is in the highest degree probable, that they would at once declare against the Central Government, and either join themselves to Guatemala or to Yucatan, forming a Republic with easy means of communication between the two Seas, and good ports on either Shore. Neither do I believe there would be much difficulty in pushing a flotilla so far either by the Tabasco Stream, (or by another to the Westward of it, also accessible by vessels of draught), that a land force might be transported to within a very few Marches of Mexico.
Tampico is another point of importance on account of it's contiguity to the Mining Districts, and with that and Matamoros in the possession of Her Majesty's forces, and declared to be free ports during the continuance of hostilities, I am disposed to think that a much more extensive trade would be carried on with Mexico, than we have ever had in a state of peace;—And further that the North Eastern Province would very readily second this scheme, and be equally unwilling to return to General Santa Aña's prohibitive system, for the better maintenance of his authority in the Central part of the Country. The eagerness with which the people of those parts of Mexico have returned to the illicit traffic between this country and their own, satisfies me that it might very easily be thrown open upon the most extensive scale.
Blockade, Your Lordship will perhaps permit me to remark, is a mode of Warfare less likely to be stringent upon these people than inconvenient to ourselves, for they have no Merchant Marine to distress, and they are generally independent of foreign Commerce. Indeed it would seem that a blockade would be seconding General Santa Aña's purposes of foreign exclusion, and I am afraid of dishonesty. The supply of any force operating on the Coast between the Rio Grande and Vera Cruz (if there should be difficulties in that particular in the Country itself) could always be depended upon from Texas. Cattle are abundant here at extremely moderate rates, and depôts of every kind of provision de bouche could always be kept up here from New Orleans to any extent, and also at moderate prices. Depôts of Coal might also be formed here if it were not considered preferable to establish them at the Brassos del Nórte, Tampico, and on the Keys off Vera Cruz, as well as at Loguna and Tabasco.
In the sending of stores of any kind to the Brassos del Nórte, or Tampico it would be necessary that they should be transported in vessels of very light draught; not more than 7 feet for Tampico or 9 for the Brassos del Nórte. If iron Steamers of the smaller class should be considered necessary for any purposes of Her Majesty's Government in this quarter, I would submit that they might be sent out in frame to this place with their Machinery and everything ready for setting up, and with people competent to perform the work. It might be given out that they were sent here to be disposed of for the Navigation of the rivers of Texas, but with a Secret understanding with this Government, as to their ultimate destination; or they might be set up at Jamaica. I would take the liberty to say that Vessels for such a Service should not be long, on account of the sinuosities of the rivers of these Countries; from 70 to 80 feet. I would also suggest that Captain Hall late of the “Nemesis” should be consulted on all points calculated to render them more handy and efficient for Service in small Water, and in rapid streams with abrupt turns. I have seen such feats performed with vessels of light draught (the passage of the “Nemesis” to within a few miles from Canton by the inner Channel, for example; and where she was only prevented from arriving by having a few feet too much of length) that I have a confidence a force of the kind, I have suggested could be pushed into the very heart of Mexico.
Hoping Your Lordship will ascribe this intrusion to it's true motive, that is, a desire to further the public Service
Charles Elliot. The Earl of Aberdeen, K. T.
ELLIOT TO ABERDEEN 225
Galveston December 8th. 1843. My Lord,
I have now the honor to forward Your Lordship the original draught of a Coast Chart of Texas (No 1) procured from Mr. Simpton the person to whom I adverted in my private letter of the 2d. Instant. In the event of hostilities with Mexico an accurate knowledge of the Coast and it's ports might be important, for shoal as they are, they are the most practicable in this Gulf between New Orleans and Vera Cruz, and indeed between that place and Cape Catoche, and at all events they might be necessary of resort, for purposes of Supply. I would once more take the liberty to remark that though the Chart is roughly drawn, I believe it's general accuracy may be relied upon.
I also transmit herewith a Sketch of the “Tobasco River” which I have procured from Lieut Downing H. Crisp of the Texian Navy who visited it in command of the Schooner “San Bernard” in 1841, in company with the Corvette “Austin”
This Gentleman is an Englishman by birth and the Son of an old Commander in the Royal Navy—He has been well known to me ever since I have been in Texas, and being able to speak to his good character and sufficiency as a steady Officer and Seaman, I am sure that reliance may be placed in his information as far as it goes. Mr. Crisp did not visit Huasacalcos (about a degree and a half to the Eastward of Alvarado) but one of his Brother Officers did so, and reported 8 or 9 feet water on the Bar, and good navigation inside. I believe it is at this point that the Mexican Govt. has projected a Canal to communicate with the “Chimalapa” upon the Pacific side. I may perhaps mention to Your Lordship that in my passage from England to this Country I became acquainted with a very intelligent Spanish Gentleman who had been many years in Mexico, and He assured me that the “Rio Grande” or “Tololotlan” disemboguing at San Blas upon the Pacific, is navigable at Seasons for a long way, and speaking of it's practicability for Commercial purposes, he said that he was satisfied there would be no difficulty of getting up within easy distance of Guadalaxara, by that river, in such Vessels as I described to him to be navigating the Upper Ganges and Indus.—He also spoke favorably of the Tampico River and the land route from that point to San Luis de Potosi (with very little expence) for commercial transport.
I have once more to offer Your Lordship my excuses for this intrusion, but not being sure that Her Majesty's Government may have the same information, I have thought it right to transmit it. I would also beg to add that I have no good Map of Mexico with me, and am therefore unable to judge to what extent this information is either superfluous or erroneous. I would take the liberty to remark however, that if there is correctness in what I have heard of the practicability of the “Tololotlan River” or indeed of any of the Rivers disemboguing on the Pacific Shores of Mexico, there would be no difficulty in despatching an effective Steam flotilla to that part of the Coast of Mexico from Bengal and Bombay through Torres Straits, forming Coal depots from India and New South Wales at Port Essington, the Sandwich Islands, and any other convenient points in the Pacific Islands.
Iron Steamers of the smaller class would have to be sent out in frame, and set up at the point on the Pacific Side of Mexico, or at least near the point that they are intended to move from; But such Steam Vessels as we had in China could readily perform the Voyage by Torres Strait, and keeping in a low parallell, they would avoid the strength of the Trade
Charles Elliot. The Earl of Aberdeen, K. T.
ELLIOT TO ABERDEEN 226
No. 34. 227 New Orleans. Decr. 29th 1843. My Lord,
Having reference to my despatch No 7 of this year, mentioning that the Government of Texas has levied discriminating duties on the trade from the United States, in consequence of the failure of the treaty of Commerce, I have now the honor to report that the Government of the United States by Treasury order dated on the 12th Instant has adopted a similar course in relation to the trade from Texas.
Charles Elliot. The Earl of Aberdeen, K. T.
ELLIOT TO ABERDEEN 228
Separate. New Orleans. Decr. 29th. 1843. My Lord,
Having reference to Your Lordship's obliging readiness to grant me leave of absence for the restoration of my health I beg to observe that in the present Situation of circumstances I have not felt myself warranted in requesting that favor. But I have taken the liberty of repairing to this place, chiefly for better advice and convenience than I can find in Texas for an instant, [having] fallen into a very weak state of health.
Your Lordship is aware that I am in the channel of my public correspondence here, and I shall of course proceed to my post in any case of necessity. But in the actual attitude of affairs connected with Texas I believe I am as suitably posted at New Orleans as I should be in that Country, and I will therefore request Your Lordship's sanction to remain here or there, for the present, as I may judge most convenient for the public interests.
Charles Elliot. The Earl of Aberdeen, K. T.
ELLIOT TO ABERDEEN 229
Private. New Orleans. December 31st 1843. My Lord,
I had the pleasure of meeting Mr Clay last Evening, who is here upon a visit, and he made some observations upon the subject of Texian Affairs, which I think it convenient to communicate to Your Lordship.
In reply to some remarks from a friend of his own upon that part of the Message 230 of the President of the United States referring to Texas, he said that all question of the advantage or otherwise of annexation either to the United States or Texas, was entirely superfluous, for he could state in the most positive manner that no scheme of that kind either by treaty, or in any other form, could be carried through the Senate of the United States. The preponderance of Mr. Clay's party in the Senate, and the decided manner in which he repeated this declaration two or three times, will I hope be my excuse for this intrusion.
Being upon this subject I take the liberty to observe to Your Lordship that both my Colleagues Monsieur De Cramayel (who is also staying here) and myself, have been much surprised that the President of the United States should have dwelt at so much length on the affairs of Texas without a word of notice of the feelings or wishes of the Government and people of that Country. It has also appeared to us that this lively interest in the affairs of Texas would have been more kindly timed, and more suited to the necessities of the case in December 1842, when there was reason to apprehend that the Mexicans did meditate an incursion into Texas: But at that time the Government of the United States was negotiating it's claim convention with Mexico, and in the prepare of that business Texian interests and dangers appear to have been overlooked.
At all events there can hardly be thought to be any practical need to declare that Mexico must not be suffered to make war upon Texas, at the particular moment that She is engaged in the attempt to make a peace with Texas, and I must confess that the interference of the United States is not intelligible to me, upon any ground that has been explained. The President's allusion to the particular views, of other Powers, or I believe the phrase is, the peculiar views, is not compatible with due respect for the independence of Texas.
It has been forgotten or disregarded that it is for the Government and people of Texas to consider, and accept or reject any counsels founded upon the peculiar view that Slavery is a wicked and a dangerous Institution, and I am inclined to think that nothing would be better calculated to help the suggestions of other Powers, that [than] these arbitrary declarations of the United States. The President of the United States would never have spoken so imperiously of the perfect right of any State in this Confederacy to deal with it's own affairs, as he has upon this occasion concerning Texas.
I do not believe that this tone will be agreeable to General Houston, and I look for some early and calm notice from that quarter, that Texas has a Government and people. The Message of the President of Texas will reach Your Lordship with these despatches, and I believe it will afford Her Majesty's Government much satisfaction. I hardly know whether I can give better proof of the favorable effect it has produced in this Country amongst well judging persons than to mention that Mr Clay spoke of it in terms of approbation, and indeed generally of General Houston's policy; a circumstance the more honorable to General Houston, as he was always a strong political opponent of Mr Clay's in this Country. Mr Clay indeed did not seem to me to be friendly to the Annexation of Texas to the United States either now, or prospectively. He said more than once that the United States were wide enough already, and that there was much more of risk, than convenience or strength in extended Confederacies.
In a separate despatch which I had the honor to write to Your Lordship on the 29th Instant, I have requested sanction to reside here or in Texas during the present Agitation of Texian affairs in this Country, and I would wish to add in a private form, that the want of quiet trustworthy channels of Communication between Texas and New Orleans is one of my chief reasons, for requesting that permission.
Charles Elliot. The Earl of Aberdeen, K. T.
ABERDEEN TO ELLIOT 231
Draft. Captn. Elliot. No. 2. 232 F. O. January 3d. 1844. Sir,
I transmit to You herewith, for Your information, a Copy of a Despatch which I have addressed to H. M's Minister at Washington, 233 with a view to put a stop to the Misrepresentations which have been circulated of late in the United States, and the errors into which the Govt. of that Republic seem to have fallen, on the subject of the policy of Great Britain with respect to Texas.
You will communicate the inclosed Despatch to the Texian Govt.
KENNEDY TO ABERDEEN 234
No. 1. British Consulate Galveston, January 5th. 1844. My Lord,
I have the honor to forward Copy of a Despatch addressed by me to Captain Elliot at New Orleans. To avoid the risk of delay where delay might, perhaps, be disadvantageous, I have also transmitted Copy of the same despatch to Her Majesty's Minister at Washington, United States.
I beg to enclose extracts from a Newspaper called the “Citizen,” 235 which was established last Summer for the express purpose of supporting the Measures of General Houston.
William Kennedy. The Earl of Aberdeen, K. T.
KENNEDY TO ELLIOT 236
[Enclosure] Copy. British Consulate Galveston January 2d 1844 Sir.
I beg to inform you that, by accounts received from the Seat of Government, it appears that on the 19th Ultimo, a “Joint Resolution for the Annexation of Texas to the United States,” was read a second time and referred to Committee.
The impression of parties recently arrived from the Seat of Government is that this resolution will pass.
William Kennedy. Captain Elliot, R. N. New Orleans, U. S. [Endorsed] Enclosure No 1. In Mr Consul Kennedy's. despatch, dated January. 5th 1844.
KENNEDY TO BIDWELL 236
No 2. British Consulate Galveston January 8th. 1844. Sir,
The growing Commercial intercourse between England and this Country, and the prospect of its progressive enlargement, render it desirable that the attention of the Shipping Interest, should be directed to the character of the Charts generally consulted on voyages to Texas. Of all that I have had an opportunity of inspecting, not one is correct, while some are considerably, and some extravagantly in error.
There are, at present, five British Vessels in this Port.—The Chart used on board one of these (represented by the publishers as corrected to the year 1841) exhibits an error of nearly two degrees in the Longitude of Galveston Island. The Charts of two others, which the publishers describe as having been corrected to the year 1843, severally indicate the depth of water on Galveston Bar at Sixteen or Sixteen and a half feet,—the real depth being, at low water, about ten feet, and, at high water, twelve, except on the occasion of a Spring tide. In all the Charts hitherto in use, the Coast line of Texas is wrongly laid down.—Of the five Merchant Vessels I have mentioned, the last that has arrived—A Schooner from Nassau, New Providence—ran aground in attempting to make the Port, and was only got off by sacrificing part of her Cargo,—A Misfortune attributed by the Master to his Chart, which it appears, misled him to the extent of some sixty Miles.
Voyages to Galveston are burthened with an unusually high rate of insurance, yet, with such a Measure of Caution as no honest and judicious Ship Master will fail to exercise, and the assistance of a trust-worthy Chart, no extraordinary danger, or difficulty need be apprehended for vessels whose draughts of water will permit them to pass the Bar.
In the hope that it may prove useful, I have the honor to transmit a Chart 237 of Galveston Bar, and Harbour, as surveyed in 1841 by the Commodore of the Texan Navy, and recently corrected by an experienced local draughtsman. On the accuracy of this Chart, with reference to all the points essential to be known by Navigators, reliance may be placed.
It will be seen that the North East end of Galveston Island is in Latitude N. 29°, 18’, 50’’ and Longitude W. 94°, 48‐, 30’’.
The average height of the Island, above the bed of the Sea, is eight feet—and of the Sand-hills that border the Coast, fifteen feet.—Some conspicuous land mark is much required, as a guide to Vessels when making the Port. There were formerly beacons on the North East end of the Island, but these disappeared in 1842, and have not yet been replaced. The authorities, however, in answer to an application from this Consulate, have expressed an intention “to have the necessary beacons, or land-marks erected, so as to enable vessels bound inwards to make the Anchorage, or pass into the Harbour, without danger.”
The Coast being so low, particularly in the neighbourhood of the Bars, breakers may generally be observed, and vessels becalmed, on approaching the Bars, must guard against the indraught Current, from neglect of which precaution, some have been lost.
Navigators will do well to keep a sharp look-out for Currents, which run in the direction of the prevailing winds. The Currents inshore will vary a little according to the veering of the wind, and the shallownesss of the water renders this variation comparatively rapid. A vessel becalmed near the land is liable to drift ashore, unless she be brought to an anchor, which can be safely and easily effected at any point along the Coast.
The “Norther,” which is the prevailing wind during the Winter Months, produces gales, but they are not of long duration. If a Vessel is caught by a “Norther,” it will blow her off the shore. During the greater part of the year, especially in Summer, South Easterly winds prevail, with variations caused by local influences. After a continuence of strong Northerly winds, the water in Galveston Bay is “blown out,” and, for some succeeding days, the tides seem very strong.—A vessel at Anchor in the Stream should be carefully and well secured.
According to returns from the Galveston Custom-House, Sixteen British Vessels, sailed to that Port in the years 1841 and 1842. Of these, four were lost on the Coast, while it does not appear that any American Vessels, of which a much greater number visited the Port, experienced a similar fate during those years. Other causes than the intricacy of the Navigation, or the infidelity of the Charts, have certainly been assigned for the loss of the four Ships, but the latter is not the less an evil that calls for remedy as well as notice.
William Kennedy. John Bidwell, Esq.
ABERDEEN TO ELLIOT 238
Draft. Capt. Elliott. R. N. No. 4. 239 F. O. January 11th. 1844. Sir.
With reference to my Despatch No. 2, of the 3d Inst. I transmit to you herewith, for Your Information a Copy of a Despatch 240 which I have addressed to Her Majesty's Minister at Washington, on the subject of that part of the late Message of the President of the United States to Congress which relates to Texas.
P. S. I have to direct You to read the inclosed despatch to the Texian Secretary of State.
ELLIOT TO ABERDEEN 241
No. 4. 242 New Orleans, Jany. 15th. 1844. My Lord,
Nothing is yet officially known of the proceedings of the Texian Commissioners charged with the attempt to conclude a truce with Mexico. But I hear from authentic sources of a letter from one of them (dated on the 6th Ultimo) which mentions that although their progress was slow, he did not despair of some satisfactory conclusion
The Message of the President of the United States, however, could not be known in Mexico before the end of last Month, at the earliest, and Your Lordship will be best able to judge of it's effect on the pending negotiations.
I collect from the public prints in this Country that a Second Convention for the settlement of certain Claims of Citizens of the United States has recently been concluded at Mexico, and I am disposed to think that the agitation of the question of of Annexation, at least by the Government of the United States, will be a good deal quieted by that event. That agitation, with other accidental circumstances, served no doubt to forward the conclusion of the Convention. But perhaps that Measure, and the breaking up of the Negotiations, if that too should happen, will restore the Government of the United States to the same state of feeling in this respect, as had always obtained up to the period of the late armistice; except indeed when their own immediate affairs become matter of urgent pressure at Mexico. In that state of things, the Situation of Texas, and the character of the warfare, were forcibly insisted upon, as was the case for example, shortly before the claim convention of last year; But the satisfactory settlement of the claim negotiations appears to have been attended with tranquillising effects on the other grounds of interest and remonstrance.
Observing that these affairs are once more in question between the Governments of the United States and Mexico, it is to be hoped that the first will be able and willing to satisfy the other, that there is no purpose of annexing Texas to the North American Union. That would probably be the most hopeful mode of pacificating this Contest, the kindest course both to Texas and to Mexico, and in the opinion of the most eminent Statesmen in the United States, the sound and honorable policy for their own Country.
I should mention to Your Lordship that movements have been made in the Texian Congress in the direction of annexation to the United States, but I do not enter into that subject at present, because they have not yet passed into any definite form.
Charles Elliot. To the Right Honorable The Earl of Aberdeen, K. T.
ABERDEEN TO ELLIOT 243
Draft. Captain Elliot. No 5. Confidl. F. O. Jany. 31. 1844. Sir,
With reference to my despatch No. 4. of the 11th inst. respecting that part of the late Message of the President of the United States to Congress which relates to Texas, I transmit to you Confidentially herewith for your information a Copy of a despatch upon this subject which I addressed on the 12th inst. to Lord Cowley H. M Ambassador at Paris, together with an Extract of H. E. reply thereto. I also enclose an Extract of the despatch from Mr. Fox referred to in my despatch to Lord Cowley. 244
ELLIOT TO ABERDEEN 245
No. 5. New Orleans February 10th. 1844. My Lord,
I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of Your Lordship's despatches to No 3 of this year, and to transmit herewith the Copy of a Note which I have this day addressed to the Secretary of State of Texas, covering the Copy of Your Lordship's Despatch No. 9 of last year to Mr. Pakenham. 246
The state of my health has prevented me from proceeding to Texas by this occasion. But it appeared to me to be of consequence at this Conjuncture, that no time should be lost in placing General Houston in possession of this exposition,—And I therefore determined to forward a Copy of the despatch, signifying at the same time, in a private note to the Secretary of State, that it would not be convenient it should be published in Texas, unless the Government of the United States, to which it was particularly addressed, should see fit to publish it in this Country.
I am recovering from my indisposition, and hope to be able to pay a visit to General Houston by the next boat, which will leave in two or three days.
Rumours are in circulation here (brought from Texas) that a truce of 10 years has been agreed upon, between the Mexican and Texian Commissioners,—but I have a few private words from an authentic source dated at Washington in Texas on the 6th Instant, and at that date they were not in possession of any such information, and did not write in confidence of such a result. I am not without hope, however, that a state of truce may be maintained.
Charles Elliot. To the Right Honorable, The Earl of Aberdeen, K. T.
ELLIOT TO JONES 247
[Enclosure.] Copy New Orleans, February 10th 1844. Charles Elliot.
The Undersigned Her Britannic Majesty's Chargé d' Affaires to the Republic of Texas, has the honor to transmit to Mr Jones the Copy of a despatch from The Earl of Aberdeen to Her Majesty's Minister at Washington, and he regrets that the state of his health prevents him from having the pleasure of communicating it in person.
The President will perceive from this exposition to the Government of the United States how accurately he has always estimated the friendly purposes of Her Majesty's Government towards the Republic of Texas, and their state of feeling and principle of guidance upon all the other points adverted to in the despatch to Mr. Packenham.
In forwarding this Communication The Undersigned is sensible that it would be superfluous on his part to dwell upon the continued interest which Her Majesty's Government takes in the Independence and prosperity of Texas, or to do more than repeat the assurance of their continued efforts to promote those results.
Charles Elliot. To The Honorable Anson Jones, Washington on the Brazos. [Endorsed.] Inclosure in the Despatch No. 5. from Captain Elliot to the Earl of Aberdeen, Feb. 10, 1844.
ELLIOT TO ABERDEEN 248
No. 6. New Orleans, Feby 17th 1844. My Lord.
It has been so generally reported in Texas that a scheme of Annexation to the United States by treaty, is in an advanced state, that I consider it right to notice these reports to Your Lordship; remarking that nothing of the kind has transpired here, and that the statement is not believed by persons of great knowledge and weight in this Country.
Your Lordship has however been for some time aware of the feelings and purposes of the present administration in the United States upon this subject, and will of course be fully informed of the actual position of circumstances at Washington, in relation to it.
But speaking of the policy of the Government of Texas, I will not hesitate to repeat my belief that the President is steadily determined to sustain the durable independence of the Country. Your Lordship however, is aware of the pressed condition of Texas, and if the recent movements at Washington should induce a rupture of the truce, and the option of annexation to the United States should really present itself (of the likelihood of which, I am an incompetent judge) it is not to be expected that the Government of Texas could or would resist the popular impulses in that direction.
Upon the whole there is reason to believe that the Government of Mexico should put an end to all further risk of inconvenient Complication, by adjusting a truce with Texas, accompanied by declarations, necessary for it's own safety
I leave for Texas the day after tomorrow to pay a visit to General Houston, but my health is so shattered that I must request Your Lordship will have the goodness to grant me leave to proceed to the Northern parts of the United States whenever I may find it necessary to depart. Indeed I should have already availed myself of Your Lordship's leave of absence, but I thought it might be convenient to the public interests that I should remain, either till the truce had been steadily established, or till it's rupture, consequent upon the tone at Washington, had produced such a different phase of affairs, as might change the position of Her Majesty's Government in respect to them.
Charles Elliot. To The Right Honorable The Earl of Aberdeen, K. T.
ELLIOT TO ABERDEEN 249
Separate. New Orleans. March. 7th 1844. My Lord,
Since I had the Honor to address you last, I have been afflicted by a dangerous Sickness, which has left me almost without strength.
Your Lordship will observe by the accompanying Medical Certificate that I have no choice but to request permission to leave these Climates as soon as possible
I should prefer to return to Europe as the Certificate advises, but if Your Lordship shall be of opinion that it would be more convenient for the public interest that I should not go so far from my Post at present I would endeavour to find suitable change on the Northern parts of this Continent, and return to my duties as soon as my health enabled me.
Charles Elliot. The Right Honorable, The Earl of Aberdeen, K. T.
RUSHTON TO ELLIOT 250
[Enclosure.] New Orleans. 7th March. 1844. My Dear Sir,
I think it my duty to advise you as a Measure absolutely necessary to re-establish your health, that you change our Climate for a Northern one and that you leave New Orleans and its vicinity at as early a period as may be practicable
I conceive that your attack of severe Dysentery has proceeded from a debilitated state of the Digestive Organs, brought on by long residence in tropical Climates, and am satisfied that your continued residence either here, or in a latitude as low as Texas, would be attended with great risk of a return of your present Complaint, and from the consequences of such a return you have everything to dread.
Under these circumstances, I conceive it your duty at whatever sacrifice, to leave our hot and humid Climate, for one more dry and bracing.
W. Rushton: M. D. Edin To Capt. Elliot.
ELLIOT TO ABERDEEN 250
No. 8. 251 New Orleans, March 15th. 1844. My Lord,
I have the honor to transmit the Copy of a note which I have recently received from Mr Jones 252 acknowledging my own note of the 10th Ultimo already forwarded to Your Lordship.
The Government of Texas has lately dispatched two Gentlemen in the President's particular confidence (General Henderson 253 and Mr. J. D. Miller) to Washington, and joining that circumstance to the movements in the Texian Congress and to the steady current of report, both in the United States and in Texas, that Negotiations are either on foot, or in contemplation upon the subject of annexation. I shall consider it my duty to request the Government of Texas to furnish me with explanations of the real state of affairs in this particular, for transmission to Your Lordship.
My health is still very weak, but I trust I shall be able to go to Galveston for a few days by the boat of the 18th instant. I should add that I am going under strong Medical advice as soon as possible, and proceed to to the Northward.
I learn by a few private lines from Mr Jones of the 16th February, that up to the 6th January their Negotiations for a truce had gone on perfectly satisfactorily, indeed that every point but one was adjusted.
But at that period the negotiations were suddenly suspended by command from Mexico, and forming my opinion from the date of this order, it seems probable that the interruption may have arisen from the nature of the Communications which the Mexican Government was then receiving from Washington on the Potomac.
It was thought by the Texian Commissioners, and Government that the Negotiations would be renewed.
Charles Elliot. To The Right Honorable, The Earl of Aberdeen, K. T.
ELLIOT TO ABERDEEN 254
No. 9. Galveston March 27th. 1844. My Lord,
I have just received from Mr Jones in a private way, a Copy of an Armistice 255 recently concluded between the Mexican and Texian Commissioners, and the Steam boat being upon the point of starting for New Orleans, I have only the time to offer a very few remarks upon the subject.
It is not to be doubted, that these stringent conditions upon the part of Mexico are attributable to the alarm, and irritation excited in that quarter by the movements of the Government of the United States in relation to annexation, joined to the impression that the Agents of this Government at Washington upon the Potomac, were in the actual course of negotiation upon that subject.
I offer this opinion without hesitation, because it consists with my knowledge that the terms agreed upon between the Mexican and Texian Commissioners before the intelligence of the movements at Washington could have reached Mexico were of a much easier and more practicable nature than these. I think it can be no source of surprise to Her Majesty's Government that later intelligence should have determined the Government of Mexico to provide for it's own security, by taking care not to grant a truce of convenient duration for the deliberate conduct of negotiations at Washington, having in view the Annexation of this Country to the North American Union.
The single prospect that presents itself to my mind of a renewal of these negotiations between Mexico and Texas upon a hopeful “footing” is that this Government should at once desire it's Agents at Washington to signify to the Government there, that an Armistice had been concluded between this Republic and Mexico; and that the President felt it due to the honor of this Country, and just to all other parties concerned to put an end to Negotiations for Annexation to the United States of America, whilst Negotiations were going forward at Mexico, proposing a totally different settlement. And if this Government take that course, and proposes at the same time to the Government of Mexico to extend the Armistice to such a period as will be really necessary for the conduct of the Negotiations in that quarter, it seems possible that the Ministers of the Powers friendly to a safe and honorable adjustment of this dispute may be enabled to induce the Government of Mexico to grant more satisfactory terms of Armistice, than these now placed under Your Lordship's notice.
Having no time to write a Separate despatch to Her Majesty's Minister at Washington by this opportunity, I have taken the liberty to enclose this dispatch to him, with a request that he will peruse, and forward it to Your Lordship.
I remarked to the President and the Secretary of State last Autumn that it seemed to me the Schemes of the Government of the United States were shaped with the alternative project of settling this question in the way that pleased them, or of unsettling any other arrangement, and I can detect no subsequent reason for thinking that the impression I formed then, was erroneous.
My health is still in a very precarious state, but I am remaining here for a few days in the hope that I shall have the pleasure of sceing the President or the Secretary of State at this place.
Charles Elliot. To The Right Honorable, The Earl of Aberdeen, K. T.
ELLIOT TO ABERDEEN 256
Secret. Galveston. April 7th. 1844. My Lord,
I have the honor to inclose Copies of a correspondence which I have recently had with this Government, and I take the same opportunity to report to Your Lordship the substance of a Conversation that I have this day had with General Houston, taking the liberty to remark that he particularly requested me to consider it unofficial, and private.
The period and nature of the first approach of the Government of the United States to that of Texas upon the subject of annexation are known to Your Lordship, as well as the manner in which it was met from this quarter. The Texian Agent at Washington continued nevertheless to move the President to abandon the determination not to entertain the matter whilst any uncertainty existed as to the willingness of the Senate of the United States to ratify a treaty of annexation:
But General Houston adhered steadfastly to his own policy, notwithstanding, all the eagerness excited in Texas, both in Congress and amongst the people, by the movements of the Government of the United States, and I should add in spite of pressing private instances from persons of great weight in that Country, to whom he is warmly attached.
At length, however, having reason to know that the two Houses of Congress had prepared and would carry resolutions, either unanimously, or certainly by a Constitutional Majority, which would have deprived him of all further control of this business, he considered that the safest course was to prevent that turn of affairs by a Secret Message, 257 expressing his readiness to attempt to meet the wishes of the people, and for that purpose requesting an appropriation to dispatch a Special envoy to Washington to be charged with the proposed Negotiations. It may be observed here, that General Houston led me to understand that he had not committed himself to any personal opinion in favor of the contemplated arrangement, in this Message.
The result of this step was the passing of an Act or resolution involving the required appropriation, the other details of which General Houston did not feel himself at liberty to disclose, the Measure having been committeed to his further management under the Seal of Secrecy.
In this stage of affairs Congress separated, and General Houston does not appear to have been in any haste to dispatch the Envoy, till he should ascertain the result of the Negotiations for the truce with Mexico. The consequence of the proceedings at Washington upon these Negotiations is already before Your Lordship; but it appears that about the time that the Government of Texas learnt that there was little to hope from that quarter, another very pressing official representation from Mr Upshur was brought to the President by General Murphy, accompanied by General Henderson, the Gentleman selected for the Mission to Washington
This representation, of great length and urgency, (I use General Houston's language as nearly as my memory serves me) Containing argument, encouragement, solicitation, and indeed little short of Menace, was met upon his side by an exhibition of the uneasy condition into which the proposal of these Negotiations had already cast the Country, and of the still more dangerous consequences which would ensue from the probable breaking up of their present hopes of arrangement, and present support, and the equally probable result of the failure of the Scheme of annexation in the Senate of the United States.
In view of all these considerations he required from the American Chargé d'Affaires an official letter to the Secretary of State of Texas (beyond the letter of Mr Upshur) expressive of his consent upon the part of the Government of the United States, that they should Communicate in a formal written way to the Envoy of Texas, before any Negotiations were opened, their readiness to place at the disposal of the Government of Texas, a Column of 1000 infantry, and 600 or 700 heavy Cavalry, to be moved, whenever it might be considered necessary for the safety of this Country, to the Western border of Texas, further that a Naval force equal to that of Mexico should forthwith be stationed in the Gulph of Mexico, also to be at the disposal of this Government, and finally, that the Government of the United States should distinctly guarantee to Texas the acknowledgment of it's Independence by Mexico, if the project of annexation failed of success.
General Houston states that General Murphy did write the letter in question, and assures me that the Instructions to General Henderson are precise and imperative upon the refusal to open Negotiations till the required written guarantees of the Government of the United States are duly furnished.
I have now submitted to Your Lordship what I collected from General Houston's private conversation to be the present situation of these affairs, so far as this Government is concerned; and in reply to his observations on the difficulty of his position, I said that I could not doubt they would be appreciated by Her Majesty's Government.
But I could not refrain from remarking that I thought it would have been a wiser and more just policy upon the part of the Congress and people of Texas, to have adhered to their declarations of determination to maintain their Independence. Such a course would have reassured the Government of Mexico, and given increased force to the representations of the Powers engaged in inducing the settlement of this dispute upon that footing—Indeed, except for these proposals of annexation to the United States, and the readiness of Texas to meet them, it did not seem to me that there was much risk of any renewal of hostilities between the Contending parties. Mexico had invited negotiation and settlement; and as Texas seemed to be willing to make the sacrifice of it's Independence in one question, I could not [doubt] the Government of Texas would have found any serious difficulty in maintaining a state of truce (particularly with the assistance of friendly powers) but that state of truce should gradually ripen into a state of permanent peace.
Speaking without express authority from Her Majesty's Government, I would nevertheless take the liberty to say that it seemed to me the honorable and the wise course upon the part of the Government of Texas to all parties concerned would be to instruct General Henderson forthwith to announce to the Government of the United States that an armistice had been concluded between Texas and Mexico, and that whilst Negotiations continued open in that quarter, there must be an end of all Negotiations not actually concluded at Washington, upon the express terms of General Henderson's Instructions
Situated as he feels himself to be, General Houston would not take this step, but I think it highly possible that he has pressed upon General Henderson the necessity of precise adherence to his Instructions, neither do I imagine that he has ever entertained much confidence in the success of the Scheme of annexation, or certainly any personal wish to postpone the Independence of the Country to such a solution. He said that if the project failed he trusted that the Governments of Her Majesty, and The King of the French would find means of preventing all further risk of complication in that direction, by forthwith accomplishing the Settlement of the question on the basis of the acknowledgment of Texas by Mexico. I remarked that what had lately passed was hardly calculated to strengthen the friendly purposes of those Governments, or to inspire them with Confidence.
General Houston appeared to attach much importance to General Murphy's letter, and to the stringent conditions General Henderson would insist upon, before Negotiations were opened. But I told him that I would not regard those considerations in the same point of view. It seemed plain to me, on the contrary, that if the Government of the United States could carry through their project, it would be upon their own terms, not upon conditions dictated by Texas. General Henderson would be told in an early stage of affairs that if he adhered to conditions which General Houston must have known that the Government of the United States could not act upon, the arrangement must fall to the ground, and the people of Texas would judge where the blame should be laid. As for General Murphy's letter of consent, it would be easy for the Government of the United States to disavow that proceeding, and upon the whole I could not think that these precautions would serve any other purpose than to enable the Government of the United States to get rid of the difficulty easily, and injuriously to General Houston, if they found they could not carry out their Scheme. If they could carry it, General Henderson would probably be easily prevailed upon to sign the treaty upon their terms, and trust to the people of Texas for support.
The detention of the Texian prisoners by Mexico, and the indisposition to grant a truce of any considerable duration to Texas deprived this Government of sufficient strength to resist the recent influences from another quarter, and it may be that General Houston adopted the only course left to him for the maintenance of any control over events.
I shall take the liberty to forward this despatch under cover to Her Majesty's Minister at Washington for his perusal, as also a Copy to Mr Bankhead. 258
Charles Elliot. To the Right Honorable, The Earl of Aberdeen, K. T.
BOOK REVIEWS AND NOTICES
The United States and Mexico, 1821-1848. A History of the Relations between the Two Countries from the Independence of Mexico to the Close of the War with the United States. By George Lockhart Rives. In two volumes. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1913. Pp. x, 720; viii, 726.) 259
For the purpose of this review these dignified volumes may be considered under four topics: (1) the political history of Mexico, 1821-1848; (2) the revolution and subsequent annexation of Texas; (3) the diplomatic history of the period; and (4) the political and military history of the Mexican War. Source material for all except the first of these topics has been published in unusual fullness in numerous congressional documents, and thanks to the Mexican habit of including liberal documentary appendices in their histories this has been considerably supplemented from the other side; Reeves 260 and Adams 261 have traced the intricate diplomacy of the period through the archives of the United States, England (with a glimpse into France), and the republic of Texas; Dr. Smith 262 has studied with extraordinary minuteness the wide ramifications of Texan annexation; and during the past fifteen years a host of unpretentious monographs have appeared on various phases of the subject. Obviously the opportunity for an original contribution to the field lay in the exploitation of the Mexican archives. Mr. Rives has used those of the foreign office to good effect, but other departmental archives have been neglected, although those of guerra y marina might be expected to shed a good deal of light on the military history of the war. No important printed material has escaped his survey, and he has tracked Reeves and Adams through the American and British collections, gleaning here and there a new item or a new point of view. In the assimilation and presentation of his material he has been assisted by excellent judgment and a singularly lucid historical style.
To the first and fourth topics mentioned above Mr. Rives has added little that is new, but his work was well worth doing. Heretofore the only adequate account of the troubled politics of the first quarter-century of Mexican independence has been Bancroft's somewhat sprawling volumes, and this clean-cut digest, comprising about one-seventh of the book, will be welcome to the general reader, whose interest in Mexico has been stimulated by recent events, and to college classes touching this portion of American history. Similarly, the only comprehensive military history of the Mexican War has been Ripley's two volumes, published in 1849, and now rare and expensive. For these Rives's second volume forms a satisfactory substitute. The second and third topics occupy roughly one-half—and much the better half—of the book. Despatches from Murphy at London, Garro at Paris, and Almonte at Washington to the Mexican foreign office do much to illuminate the inter-related diplomacy of the three principal states, and carefully co-ordinated with the results of monographic studies give to those studies a new force. The pressure of the British government for the recognition of Texas by Mexico; its desire to prevent annexation, and its determination to do so, at the cost of war if necessary, provided France would assist; its determination to avoid war, without that assistance—notwithstanding the tentative bribe of California offered by Mexico—are all clearer than before. And Chapter XXIII is the best statement yet available of the relations between the United States and Mexico following the annexation treaty—made so largely by the use of Almonte's despatches, showing the earnest efforts of the United States to conciliate Mexico.
The author's conclusions on certain disputed points are worthy of statement: (1) he thinks that while President Jackson was far from being an impartial spectator of the Texas revolution, he had a high sense of the dignity and honor of the United States and did what he could to fulfill the neutral obligations of his government. “The bullying methods” which he employed in pushing pecuniary claims against Mexico “were the subject of just criticism,” but he had followed substantially the same methods with France, and it seems more reasonable to consider them the result of genuine indignation “than as part of a complicated plot.” (2) Texas was the real issue in the election of 1844, and Polk's election was due “to the Western spirit of expansion, which was unwilling to put bounds to the growth of the nation, and therefore welcomed annexation.” (3) Neither Polk nor the South in 1846 desired to force a war on Mexico, and the order which carried General Taylor to the Rio Grande was merely a measure of reasonable precaution. Certain inaccurate minutiae will reward the critical eye: it is now pretty well established that both Coronado and De Soto entered Texas (I, 3). The powers of Albert Gallatin were unequal to the task of convincing the British government that the Florida treaty gave us a clear title “even to the Pacific,” though Mr. Rives makes the assertion without argument (I, 25). General Mier y Terán seems to have been responsible for the idea and the substance of the law of April 6, 1830, closing Texas to Anglo-American immigration (I, 195), though Alaman forced it through Congress. The population of Texas in 1830 was nearer ten than twenty thousand (I, 182), and a number of other unimportant inaccuracies in local Texas history could be catalogued. Butler probably deceived himself as well as Jackson in the hope of ultimately purchasing Texas (I, 247). He had all the promoter's optimism—and all the promoter's interest in the stake. The “abundance” of money which the Texan commissioners obtained in the United States in 1836 (I, 365) was less than one hundred thousand dollars. And one should like some citations for the assertion that in 1844 the Whigs were not severely opposed to annexation (I, 691). More serious is the feeling that Mr. Rives has confined his study too closely to the relations of governments and has considered too little the people. One finds it hard to realize, of course, that there is a Mexican people, but it is perfectly true, nevertheless, that popular opinion, skillfully manipulated, has generally exercised a considerable influence over the government. Except for a few references to the Diario del Gobierno and one to El Sol, Mexican newspapers have been entirely neglected, and the draft on such sources in the United States has not been heavy. One suspects, too, that the War Department archives at Washington and Mexico would have repaid inspection. In particular, one feels that those of Mexico might help to settle the question of Santa Anna's motives in marching to Buena Vista (II, 341). Perhaps Mr. Rives was under no obligation to explore these collections in which the chaff so greatly out-bulks the grain, but he has done so well what he has done that one cannot repress the wish that he had done more. The index deserves a sentence of praise; it is excellent.
Eugene C. Barker.
Guide to the Materials for the History of the United States in the Principal Archives of Mexico. By Herbert E. Bolton, Ph. D., Professor of American History, University of California. (Washington: The Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1913. Pp. xv, 553. 263)
Mingled with the satisfaction felt in welcoming each new Guide published by the Carnegie Institution through its Department of Historical Research is a feeling of regret that Professor Bolton's substantial volume has fallen upon such troublous times. His task has been that of a veritable pioneer, achieved midst difficulties such as beset no similar undertaking. Our natural impulse is to praise the results accomplished and to express the hope that recent political disturbances have not vitiated them to any appreciable degree.
At the outset the author devotes a few pages to describing the conditions under which he worked and to necessary acknowledgments and explanations. He defines many of the technical terms used, and notes such practical points as working hours and climatic conditions. He then divides the archives of the country into two classes, those located in Mexico City and those outside, devoting to the former a little over four times the space given the latter. No one reasonably acquainted with the field will quarrel with him over this division. Many who may never see Mexico will appreciate the succinct historical sketches of the principal archives, as well as the appendix containing convenient lists of viceroys, archbishops, bishops and governors. Such hindrances as the lack of suitable manuscript lists or catalogues for even the best repositories, the frequent transfer of material from one archive to another, and the inaccessibility of portions of certain collections have in a measure been overcome by the author's long and patient personal investigations. The index of seventy-two pages and frequent cross-references will do much to correlate the material treated.
Vast as this material is in bulk, Dr. Bolton points out that the greater part of it relates to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and that he has given little space to what does not specifically belong to territory within the present limits of the United States. He has described some important collections in sufficient detail, including dates and proper names, to enable investigators on the spot to determine what he wishes to examine. In most cases these descriptions are not sufficiently definite for the ordering of copies except through a trained intermediary. In other cases he devotes only a brief comment to an archive, especially one of the minor ecclesiastical ones.
The author devotes a third of his entire space to that most valuable and complete of Mexican repositories—“El Archivo General y Público de la Nacion.” Most of those who work in Mexico will wish that he had devoted more space to it, even at the expense of minor collections elsewhere. An historical sketch with a brief description of the present archive serves to introduce its various divisions. Two of these, the “Correspondence of the Viceroys” (344 vols.), and “Royal Cédulas and Orders” (419 vols.) are treated in a general way, at once clear and accurate. The late Professor George P. Garrison briefly described the section known as “Historia” (530 vols.), in the Nation for May 30, 1901. The present author supplements this with a forty-page commentary in which every important volume receives due mention. In addition he devotes fourteen pages to the subdivisions of this section, known as “Military Operations” and “Missions,” comprising together more than a thousand volumes. He describes in detail only nine of the former, but the careful manuscript calendar of this and other collections made by Sr. Elias Amador and associates is accessible in the National Museum. To many who knew of the previous collections the hundred pages devoted to classifying and cataloguing the contents of the division “Interior Provinces” (254 vols.) and that of “Californias” (81 vols.) will prove a most valuable and unexpected source of information. The volumes classed under “Justice” (ca. 1100 vols.) and “Marine” (ca. 200 vols.) also have considerable value. The remaining sixty-six sections of this archive comprising the bulk of its 7000 odd volumes and bundles contain only incidental references to the United States.
Aside from the description of the Archivo General, the ordinary student will note with interest the twenty pages devoted to the National Museum and the National Library, whose manuscript collections are largely ecclesiastical and archaeological in character. A few minor church and municipal collections call for no extended comment. The archives in the various secretariats—Foreign Relations, War and Marine, Government, etc.—occupy a space nearly equalling that given to the Archivo General. Few documents subsequent to 1821 appear in these collections and much material after that date is being transferred to the General Archive. The first document mentioned on page 223 is a case in point. These collections are particularly valuable for the relations between Mexico and the United States.
Outside the city of Mexico the archives of Guadaljara, Querétaro, and Zacatecas are valuable chiefly for ecclesiastical data; those of Durango, Monterey, Saltillo, and Chihuahua for political and economic material of a more local character, although containing church records of value. In addition the author mentions the archives of a few minor towns and some private collections, chiefly ecclesiastical. Investigations outside of the capital, however, are likely to prove disappointing. As one result of Professor Bolton's work we may hope to distinguish copies and originals more readily and to avoid some of the irritation caused by the excessive duplication of documents in the Mexican and Spanish archives.
Isaac Joslin Cox.
“The Presidents of Texas,” by C. Montgomery, is the title of an article that appeared in the Democratic Review of March, 1845 (xvi, 282-291). The writer briefly sketches the administrations of Burnet, Houston and Lamar. President Jones had been in office but a short time when this publication appeared.
“Texas and her Presidents; with a glance at her Climate and Agricultural capacities. By Corinne Montgomery. New York: E. Winchester. 1845.
“The book is insufferably dull, and can only be tolerated in the anxiety which exists for information connected with the southern El Dorado of Texas.”
The above title and the criticism appeared in the first number of De Bow's Review, January, 1846 (I, 95). The writer has seen no copy of this book. Is the biographical portion of “Texas and her Presidents” identical with “The Presidents of Texas?”
The dedication to Verse Memorials by Mirabeau B. Lamar (1857) is, “To Mrs. William L. Cazneau—so favorably known to the public by her pen, as `Cora Montgomery,' and now the wife of one of my best and long-cherished friends—I beg leave to dedicate this little volume. Her name, like that of her husband, is identified with the history of Texas. Both have given their highest efforts and the best years of their lives to the support of her interests.”
W.
In Memory of Marcellus E. Kleberg is the brief title of an octavo volume of ninety-five pages, containing “A record of telegrams, letters, resolutions and memorial addresses received by the family, and newspaper comments upon the death of Hon. M. E. Kleberg of Galveston, Texas, . . . together with extracts from some of his notable speeches and public addresses.”
“Rodriguez Memoirs of Early Texas” (San Antonio. 1913) is the title of an interesting brochure of seventy-six pages written by the late Judge J. M. Rodriguez, of Laredo, Texas, who died February 22, 1913. Judge Rodriguez was descended from one of the Canary Island settlers of San Antonio, and he himself was born there in 1829. After the Civil War he moved to Laredo, and for thirty-five years was county judge of Webb County. Though printed primarily for the family and friends of Judge Rodriguez, the booklet will be interesting to others. It begins with the writer's recollection of the siege of San Antonio by the Texans in November, 1835.
The Quarterly has received “ A Family of Millers and Stewarts” (St. Louis. 1909) by Dr. Robert Finney Miller, of San Antonio. Dr. Miller's father, Rev. James Weston Miller, came to Texas as a Presbyterian missionary from Pennsylvania in 1845, and became pastor of the church at Houston. He died at Gay Hill, April 29, 1888. He was survived by his wife, Elizabeth Scott Stewart Miller, who died at the same place, August 30, 1908.
The initial number of the Mississippi Valley Historical Review is dated June, 1914. It contains “The United States and Mexico, 1835-1837,” by Eugene C. Barker; “Review of McMaster's History of the People of the United States,” by Carl R. Fish; “Louisiana as a Factor in American Diplomacy, 1795-1800,” by James A. James; “Historical Activities in the Old Northwest and Eastern Canada, 1913-1914,” by Solon J. Buck, and departments devoted to Notes and Documents, Book Reviews, and News and Comments. It is 164 pages in extent, paper, type and format are very good, and the board of editors gives ample assurance that it will be judiciously piloted through the rich field that it is to exploit.
NEWS ITEMS
Major George W. Littlefield has established at the University of Texas a fund of $25,000 for the collection of material on Southern history. He was induced to make this gift by the fact that American history as it has usually been written fails to give due recognition to the South's part in the development of the nation, and by the conviction that this condition can only be remedied by the collection and exploitation of the mass of neglected historical material now scattered and unavailable throughout the South. What he wishes is to prepare the way “for a full and impartial study of the South and of its part in American history.” The fund yields $1500 a year, and the principal is to remain intact for twenty-five years. This is the first practical step that has ever been taken to establish in any Southern college or university adequate means for the study of Southern history. 264
Mr. J. F. Dufner, of Port Lavaca, Texas, has sent in the accompanying drawing of what he assumes to be a cross once in the possession of La Salle. Mr. Dufner enclosed the following sketch concerning the cross:
It is remarkable that the cross planted by La Salle in 1685 should ever have been discovered. While sailing up the Lavaca River nine miles from Port Lavaca in 1897, W. H. Huffaker noticed part of the cross sticking out of the ground where a recent rise in the river had caused several feet of the river bank to cave in. After some work he succeeded in excavating the cross. It is 5⅓ feet long, 3⅔ feet wide, and weighs 65 pounds. It is hand forged, and appears to be very old. From its antique look one would
think it several centuries old. The only marks on the cross were the letters “M” and “S,” which apepar to have been rudely cut with a cold chisel. A few old cannon balls have been found near where the cross was found. However, the only evidence of a fort was that the dirt seems to have been thrown up in a ridge on the bank of the river.
While Mr. Dufner concludes that the cross was of French origin, it would be very difficult to prove that such is the case. The spot where it was discovered would seem indeed to be in the neighborhood of the accepted site of La Salle's fort, some three or four miles up the Lavaca River, 265 which would be roughly nine miles from the town of Port Lavaca. The Spanish presidio of La Bahía, however, was constructed in 1722 upon exactly the same site as the French fort, and there is no evidence to show that the cross may not have been of Spanish origin. Further investigation as to the place of discovery and closer examination of the cross itself may give some clue as to its identity, but until some conclusive evidence is advanced, it will be impossible to say whether the cross belonged to the French or is a relic of the later Spanish occupation.
W. E. Dunn.
With an appropriation made by the Thirty-third Legislature, the State of Texas recently purchased a marble bust of General Memucan Hunt, by the famous American sculptor Hiram Powers. The bust was acquired from the widow of General Hunt, and has been placed in the State Library.
The “Diary of E. S. Dodd, Company D, Terry's Regiment, Texas Rangers,” is the title of an interesting Civil War relic that recently came into the possession of the Texas State Library. The diary covers the year 1863. Dodd was shot as a spy early in January, 1864.
“A miracle of faithfulness, being a biography of Mrs. Percy V. Pennybacker, President of the General Federation of Women's Clubs,” by Peter Molyneaux, was published in The Texas Club-woman (San Antonio), June 8, 1914.
On May 27, 1914, the San Jacinto Chapter, Daughters of the Republic of Texas, unveiled a bronze tablet at the east entrance of the Rice Hotel, Houston, marking the site of the capitol of the Republic. Great-grandchildren of Sam Houston and Anson Jones participated in the exercises.
E. H. Loughery, author of “Texas State Government: A volume of biographical sketches and passing comment,” died at Austin, March 31, 1914. While he did most of his writing as a newspaper man, he assisted in the compilation of a number of volumes, such as Raines' Year Books and Raines' Index to the Laws of Texas.
Mrs. Dilue Harris, whose reminiscences were published in The Quarterly, IV, 85-127 and 155-189, died at Eagle Lake, April 2, 1914. The Houston Chronicle of April 3, and the Post of April 4, contain brief notices.
Milton Park, editor of Southern Mercury (Dallas) when the Farmers' Alliance flourished, and chairman of the Populist National Executive Committee, 1896-1900, died at his home in Dallas, May 8, 1914. Biographical sketches are printed in the Dallas News of May 10 and in Who's Who in America, 1912-1913.
Dr. F. E. Daniel died at his home in Austin, May 14, 1914. He is the author of “Recollections of a Rebel Surgeon” and edited the Texas Medical Journal (Austin) from its beginning in July, 1885. Biographies are printed in Types of Successful Men of Texas and in Who's Who in America, 1912-1913.
Recently there were placed in the University of Texas Library portraits of the following men painted by the artists named: James B. Clark, by R. Le Grand Johnson; John C. Townes, by George M. Stone, and Thomas U. Taylor, by William M. Chase.
FELLOWS AND LIFE MEMBERS OF THE ASSOCIATION
The constitution of the Association provides that “Members who show, by published work, special aptitude for historical investigation may become Fellows. Thirteen Fellows shall be elected by the Association when first organized, and the body thus created may threafter elect additional Fellows on the nomination of the Executive Council. The number of Fellows shall never exceed fifty.”
The present list of Fellows is as follows:
Barker, Prof. Eugene C. Looscan, Mrs. Adele B.
Batts, Judge R. L. McCaleb, Dr. W. F.
Bolton, Prof. Herbert Eugene Miller, Dr. E. T.
Casis, Prof. Lilia M. Neu, Mr. C. T.
Clark, Prof. Robert Carlton Ramsdell, Dr. Chas. W.
Cooper, President O. H. Rather, Dr. Ethel Zivley
Cox, Prof. I. J. Shepard, Judge Seth
Dunn, Mr. William Edward Smith, Prof. W. Roy
Estill, Prof. H. F. Townes, Prof. John C.
Fulmore, Judge Z. T. West, Miss Elizabeth H.
Hackett, Mr. Chas. W. Williams, Judge O. W.
Hatcher, Mrs. Mattie Austin Winkler, Mr. Ernest Wm.
Kleberg, Judge Rudolph, Jr. Worley, Mr. J. L.
The constitution provides also that “Such benefactors of the Association as shall pay into its treasury at any one time the sum of thirty dollars, or shall present to the Association an equivalent in books, MSS., or other acceptable matter, shall be classed as Life Members.”
The Life Members at present are:
Allen, Mr. Wilbur P. Littlefield, Major George W.
Autry, Mr. James L. McFadden, Mr. W. P. H.
Ayer, Mr. Edward Everett Milby, Mrs. C. H.
Baker, Mr. R. H. Minor, Mr. F. D.
Benedict, Prof. H. Y. Moody, Mr. W. L.
Brackenridge, Hon. Geo. W. Morehead, Mr. C. R.
Bundy, Mr. Z. T. Neale, Mr. Wm. J.
Cochrane, Mr. Sam P. Parker, Mrs. Edward W.
Courchesne, Mr. A. Pearce, Mr. J. E.
Crane, Mr. R. C. Rice, Mr. J. S.
Davidson, Mr. W. S. Rice, Hon. W. M.
Dealey, Mr. George B. Rotan, Mrs. Edward
Dilworth, Mr. Thos. G. Rugeley, Mr. Henry
Donaldson, Mrs. Nana Smithwick Schmidt, Mr. John
Schreiner, Mr. Charles
Evans, Mrs. Ira H. Sevier, Mrs. Clara D.
Gilbert, Mr. John N. Stark, Mr. H. J. L.
Gunnell, Mr. W. N. Terry, Mr. Wharton
Hanrick, Mr. R. A. Todd, Mr. Charles S.
Hefley, Mr. W. T. Van Zandt, Maj. K. M.
Hogg, Mr. Will C. Walker, Mr. J. A.
House, Mr. E. M. Washer, Mr. Nat M.
Hyde, Mr. James H. Webb, Mr. Mack
Jones, Mr. Roland Willacy, Hon. John G.
Kenedy, Mr. Jno. G. Williams, Judge O. W.
Kirby, Mr. Jno. H.
2. Robert Greenhow, History of Oregon and California (Boston. Little and Brown. 1844), 179-181.
3. Pedro Fages to Josef Argüello, May 13, 1789, in Hubert Howe Bancroft, Works (San Francisco. A. L. Bancroft &Co. 1882-90), XVIII, 445. See also Greenhow, 184-185.
4. China was then the world's greatest fur market. For the relation of the Cantonese fur trade to the settlement of Astoria, see the letter of Astor to Adams, Jan. 4, 1823, in Greenhow, 439.
5. Gray valued 100 skins at $4,875, exclusive of freight. Gray and Ingraham to Don Juan Francisco, Aug. 3, 1792, in Greenhow, 417.
6. An American navigator, writing in 1808, said that for several years trading vessels of the United States had left as much as $25,000 in specie annually among the Californians and that the government was powerless to prevent this intercourse (Robert Shaler, in American Register, III, 147 et seq.). Money, it should be remarked, was never plentiful among the Californians, and such a sum as Shaler mentioned was of material benefit to the financial interests of the country.
7. Greenhow, 266, quoting from London Quarterly Review, October, 1816.
8. Bancroft, XIX, 63-64.
9. For a general discussion of the Boston-California-China trade, see William Heath Davis, Sixty Years in California (San Francisco. A. J. Leary. 1889), 295-6. Davis came to California in 1816.
In 1803 Thomas O'Cain made a contract with the Russian Baranof to hunt otter in California on shares. The Russians were to supply the Indian hunters, and the Americans agreed to transport the skins and furnish the Alaskan settlements with supplies. The venture was so profitable that other contracts of a similar nature were entered into, the agreements lasting until 1815. The Winships were prominent in these dealings. Bancroft, XIX, 63 et seq. For an effort of the Russian Government to secure the official sanction of the United States to this arrangement, see Greenhow, 275.
10. The Works of Edmund Burke (Boston. Little and Brown. 1839), II, 30.
11. From 1816 to 1822 the industry brought in more than $6,000,000 to Nantucket and New Bedford alone, and employed 129 vessels. Many urged the occupancy of Oregon to supply these American vessels with a port for refitting and provisioning. Annals of Congress, XL, 414 et seq.
12. Bancroft, XIX, 475.
13. It should be noted that this commercial intercourse brought a number of Americans to the province as permanent residents. Many of these took out naturalization papers, became large land holders, and married wives from prominent California families. Some were of a less desirable character—deserters and broken-down sailors from the whaling and trading ships. Bancroft, XIX-XX, Appendix, Pioneer Register and Index.
14. American Register, III, 136-175. The article is entitled “Journal of a voyage between China and the northwestern coast of America made in 1804.” The part dealing with California is on pages 147-161. See also Bancroft, XIX, 23-24, note.
15. American Register, III, 160-161.
16. California was colonized largely to protect the coast against the Russian advance. This was as early as 1769. Bancroft, XIX, 58.
17. Letter of Rezánof, Feb. 15, 1806, in Bancroft, XIX, 80, note.
18. For the Russian settlements in California, see Bancroft, XIX, 58-82, 294-320; Thomas C. Lancey, Cruise of the Dale (Published in San José Pioneer, 1879 (?), and preserved in bound form in the Bancroft Collection), 31 et seq.; Agnes C. Laut, Vikings of the Pacific (New York. Macmillan. 1905), 292, 338; Franklin H. Tuthill, History of California (San Francisco, H. H. Bancroft &Co. 1866), 118-20; Irving B. Richman California under Spain and Mexico (Boston and New York. Houghton, Mifflin Company. 1911), 191-201, passim.
19. Prevost to Adams, in Documents transmitted to the House of Representatives, Jan. 24, 1823. American State Papers, Miscellaneous, II, 1008-9; Annals of Congress, XL, 1209-10.
20. News brought to Canton by a Russian frigate. Cruise of the Dale, 31; reported also in Niles' Register, XVI, 237, May 29, 1819; XVII, 232, Dec. 11, 1819.
21. Reprinted in Niles' Register, XVI, 361, July 24, 1819.
22. Report of the Committee on the Occupation of the Columbia River, Jan. 25, 1821. Annals of Congress, XXXVII, 955-6. The report mentioned the military defences of Ross, the dominating position of Russia in Europe and Asia; and called attention to the fact that Spain's territory in North America lay wholly open to the access of Russia and was exposed to her “fearful weight of power.”
23. Hiram Martin Chittenden, The American Fur Trade of the Far West (New York. Harper. 1902), I, 252.
24. Letter of Smith to General Clark published in the Missouri Republic, October 11, 1827. Communication from Cunningham announcing Smith's arrival at San Diego, Ibid., Oct. 25, 1827.
25. No two authorities agree in the account of Smith's adventures. The following, however, are probably the most reliable: Chittenden, Fur Trade, I, 282-7; J. M. Guinn, Captain Jedediah Smith (Historical Society of Southern California Publications, III, 1896, 45-53). Bancroft (XX, 152-160) bases his account on fragmentary records in the California archives and on a French translation there of the letter from Smith to General Clark cited above.
26. The American chargé d'affaires at Mexico was directed to investigate the arrest of the Pattie Company. He reported that all the prisoners had been freed except Sylvester Pattie, who died in prison; that several of the Americans had remained in California to go into business; and that the younger Pattie was then on his way to the United States. Van Buren to Butler, Jan. 22, 1830; Butler to Van Buren, June 29, 1830. MSS., State Department.
27. The title of the book is in itself a comprehensive history of Pattie's entire wanderings. We may be forgiven for writing it simply, James Ohio Pattie, Personal Narrative (Edited by Timothy Flint. Cincinnati. 1833). A reprint appears in Reuben G. Thwaites, Early Western Travels (Cleveland. Arthur H. Clark Company. 1905), XVIII. A plagiarized edition under the title “The long hunters of Kentucky,” by P. Bilson, was published in New York in 1847.
28. Thwaites, Early Western Travels, XVIII, 306.
29. Many of the parties were organized in 1830 and 1831. Bancroft, XX, 384-9.
30. The reason for this is obvious—the trade was against the Mexican law; and in addition those engaged in it were not often given to recording their own adventures.
31. Preface to Pattie's Narrative, 19.
32. The first of these centered, as has been shown, in New England; the second concerned the whole country; the third was of primary interest to the west. This division held good until the outbreak of the Mexican War. A fourth cause of increased interest in California during this early period was the agitation of the Oregon question by Benton, Linn, and a small, but persistent, coterie of western senators and representatives. Anything attracting attention to any part of the Pacific coast served indirectly to attract attention to California.
33. The statement is not infrequently made that the purchase of California was attempted by Clay when Secretary of State under Adams. See, for example, Niles' Register, LXVIII, 211; speech of Charles J. Ingersoll, Jan. 19, 1847. Appendix to Congressional Globe, 29 Cong., 2 sess., 128; Bancroft, XIII, 322-323. Whoever may have written this volume of Bancroft could scarcely have known the contents of volume XX, 399-400, of the same series, or of H. Ex. Docs., 25 Cong., 1 sess., No. 42, which he cites as authority. The boundaries for which Poinsett was instructed to negotiate included no territory west of the Colorado south of the 42d parallel. Clay to Poinsett, March 25, 1825. H. Ex. Docs., 25 Cong., 1 sess., No. 42, p. 6; same to same, March 15, 1827, Ibid., 9. See also Memoirs of John Quincy Adams with portions of his diary from 1795 to 1848, edited by C. F. Adams (Philadelphia. Lippincott. 1877), XI, 349.
34. The plan, dated August 12, 1829, is in the Van Buren MSS., Library of Congress; see also Jackson to Van Buren, Aug. 12 (Ibid.), and Jackson's draft of Aug. 13. According to Reeves, the official instructions, dated Aug. 25, were carried by Butler to Poinsett. Jesse S. Reeves, American Diplomacy under Tyler and Polk (Baltimore. The Johns Hopkins Press. 1907), 65-67. For a complete estimate of Butler and his career in Mexico, the reader is referred to George Lockhart Rives, the United States and Mexico, 1821-1848 (New York. Charles Seribner's Sons. 1913), I, 235-261. It is perhaps well to add that the present article was in manuscript before Rives's exhaustive work was issued from the press. I have not been able, therefore, to avail myself of its contents as freely as I could have wished.
35. Butler has suggested to a Mexican official that the United States is capable of “devising ways and means” of relieving the embarrassment of the treasury (Butler to Jackson, Feb. 23, 1832, Jackson MSS., Library of Congress); Jackson thinks Butler's suggestion “judicious” and one that may “lead to happy results” (Jackson to Butler, April 19, Ibid.). Butler believes the use of half a million dollars to put certain personages in the “right humor” will bring speedy conclusion of the treaty (Butler to Jackson, Oct. 28, 1833, Ibid.); Jackson warns Butler against employing corrupt means (Jackson to Butler, Nov. 27, Ibid.); Butler insists that “resort must be had to bribery,” or “presents if the term is more appropriate” (Butler to Jackson, Feb. 6, 1834, Ibid.). Later Butler writes McLane that “bribery and corruption” are the sole means of bringing the negotiation to a successful issue. (Butler to McLane, MS., State Department.) Some of these letters are mentioned by Rives.
36. Butler to Jackson, June 6, 1834. Jackson MSS.; same to same, Oct. 20 (Ibid.). It is interesting to note that Butler thought his negotiations for Texas had been thwarted by Stephen F. Austin whom he charged in a letter to McLane with being “one of the bitterest foes to our government and people that is to be found in Mexico.” Butler to McLane, July 13, 1834. MS., State Department.
37. Butler to Forsyth, June 17, 1835 (MS., State Department). See also Rives, as cited, I, 257-258.
38. Butler to Forsyth, June 17 (quoted also in Reeves, 73-74).
39. It is endorsed, “ . . . Nothing will be countenanced to bring the government under the remotest imputation of being engaged in corruption or bribery . . . A. J.” See also Adams, Memoirs, XI, 348; and Rives, I, 258.
40. It may be added that Butler's presence there was desired neither by Mexicans nor American residents. John Baldwin to Forsyth, Vera Cruz, Nov. 14, 1835. MS., State Department. Miscellaneous Letters.
41. Adams, Memoirs, XI, 348. The name of the writer here is given as Slocum, but this is plainly an error. This particular letter unfortunately has disappeared from the files of the State Department where Adams saw it in 1843, but from the correspondence still on record there can be no doubt that the name Slacum is correct. See Forsyth to Ellis (mentioning Slacum's name), April 14, 1836; Ellis to Monasterio, March 8, 1836; &c., &c.; also Slacum's Report in Reports of Committees, 25 Cong., 3 cess., No. 101, pp. 29-45. Slacum, we learn from the documents cited, was made a special agent of the government to the Pacific coast to investigate conditions there, and especially the progress of the Russians and of the Hudson's Bay Company.
42. Perhaps by Slacum, yet Adams's testimony regarding the powerful influence of Slacum's letter of Aug. 1st is somewhat weakened by the fact that Jackson had instructed Forsyth to enlarge the scope of Butler's negotiations as early as July 25. Memoirs, XI, 361-362.
43. H. Ex. Docs., 25 Cong., 1 sess., No. 42, pages 18-19.
44. Adams, Memoirs, XI, 348.
45. “We have no desire to interfere with the actual settlements of Mexico on that coast and you may agree to any provision affecting the great object of securing the bay of San Francisco and excluding Monterey and the territory in its immediate neighborhood . . .” Forsyth to Butler, as cited.
46. Butler to Forsyth (MS., State Department).
47. Same to same, Jan. 15, 1836, Ibid. Butler claimed that his prospects for bringing the negotiation to a close were exceedingly favorable when cut short by his recall.
48. Adams, Memoirs, XI, 349. The statement of Adams is corroborated by a letter of Asbury Dickens, Acting Secretary of State, to Butler's successor, and by one of Butler's own letters to Jackson. Dickens to Powhatan Ellis, Aug. 19, 1836. MS., State Department; Butler to Jackson, July 28, 1843. Jackson MSS.
49. Adams, Memoirs, XI, 368.
50. Endorsement by Jackson on the back of Butler's letter of July 28, 1843. Butler in this letter also stated that Jackson had promised him the governorship of Texas if he procured its annexation. This Jackson hotly denied in his endorsement.
51. Wharton to Austin, Jan. 17, 1837. Garrison, Diplomatic Correspondence of the Republic of Texas, I, 176-177, in American Historical Association Report, 1907, II.
52. Thomas Maitland Marshall, “The southern boundary of Texas 1821-1840,” in The Quarterly, XIV, 285.
53. Rough draft in Jackson's hand on single sheet, unsigned and undated. Jackson MSS. of the year 1836.
54. Wharton to Rusk, Jan. 24, 1837. Garrison, Dip. Cor. Texas, I, 193-194; also Marshall, as cited. The extension of the Texas boundaries to the Pacific along the 30th parallel had been considered by the Texan government and rejected, chiefly because the territory was too large and thinly populated for government by a “young Republic.” This decision had been reported to Jackson before he urged upon Wharton the necessity of including California as a means of reconciling the north. Report of Jackson's special agent, Henry Morfit, to the President. H. Ex. Docs., 24 Cong., 2 sess., No. 35, pages 11-12.
55. Powhatan Ellis, the American chargé d'affaires to Mexico, had demanded his passports in December, 1836, following Mexico's failure to adjust the claims of American citizens, and for three years the United States was without a representative at Mexico (Reeves, Diplomacy under Tyler and Polk, etc., 76). The chief source of difficulty between the two nations were the recognition of Texan independence by the United States on the one hand; and the long continued refusal of Mexico to settle the American claims on the other.
56. The leaders in this revolution were Juan B. Alvarado, inspector of the Monterey custom house, holder of certain civil offices and a man of great popularity; José Castro, governor of California preceding Gutierrez; and Mariano G. Vallejo, who, though taking no active part, lent the weight of his powerful influence to the other leaders. Bancroft, XX, 445-447, passim.
57. The authorities for the revolution of 1836 are numerous. The foregoing account has been taken chiefly from Bancroft, XX, 445-578; Franklin Tuthill, The History of California, 141-145; and various works of less importance. Full citation of all authorities on the subject are given in Bancroft.
58. According to Tuthill a lone star flag was prepared, but the Californians were either afraid to substitute it for the Mexican emblem or did not care to do so. Tuthill, 142-143.
59. United States consul, Sandwich Islands, to the Secretary of State, Semi-annual report, March 12, 1837 (Thomas Savage, Documentos para la historia de California, II, 174-176. MS., Bancroft Collection, University of California Library). The greater part of this report was devoted to a description of California.
60. Greenhow, 375-376, and United States government documents there cited.
61. Committee Reports, 25 Cong., 3 sess., No. 101, p. 48. Kelley's complete memoir, addressed to Caleb Cushing, is on pp. 3-61; his description of California occupies pp. 48-53.
62. Bancroft, XXI, 117. The number of foreign adults residing in California at this time is placed at 380.
63. John Bidwell, California in 1841-8. MS., Bancroft Collection, 99.
64. The vessels engaged in this trade, usually of four or five hundred tons burden, with cargoes of shoes, hats, furniture, farming implements, chinaware, iron, hardware, crockery, etc., valued at forty or fifty thousand dollars in California, spent usually three years each on the coast before returning to New England. They sold largely on credit, evaded the Mexican tariff laws by paying five or six hundred dollars for the privilege of selling goods from place to place, and received from the Californians instead of money, hides, tallow, dried beef, lumber, and soap. See Thomas O. Larkin, Description of California, 99, in his Official Correspondence, Bancroft Collection; same to Secretary of State, Jan. 1, 1845, Ibid., Pt. II, No. 16.
65. Yet see Niles' Register, LVIII, 356, for a St. Louis owned vessel engaged in this trade.
66. Richard Henry Dana, Jr., Two Years before the Mast (Boston. 1869), 169.
67. The U. S. S. Peacock arrived at Monterey in October, 1836, having been requested to visit the California coast because of the disturbances arising from the revolt of that year. The American merchants of the Sandwich Islands who had large interests at stake in California were the principal petitioners. Bancroft, XXI, 140-2.
68. Ibid., 85-87; Slacum's Report, 39.
69. The most representative books of this period were Dana's Two Years before the Mast, and Alexander Forbes's California: A history of Upper and Lower California (London. Smith, Elder and Company. 1839). For a review of this latter work and the interest it aroused see Niles' Register, LVIII, 70. Numerous other books were written by travelers who visited California during this period, but as they were not published until later no mention is made of them in this place.
70. Forbes, History of California, 152.
71. Larkin to Secretary of State, April 20, 1844—one hundred arrested; fifty sent in irons to San Blas, thence overland to Tepic. Larkin, Official Correspondence, Pt. II, No. 6.
72. Commandancia General de California al E. S. Ministro de Guerra y Marina (Mexico), April 25, 1840. In this communication the chief object of the conspirators was said to be control of the whole stretch of territory around San Francisco Bay. M. G. Vallejo, Documentos para la historia de California, IX, No. 124. MSS., Bancroft Collection. See also Nos. 108, 110-111, Ibid.; Bancroft, XXI, 11-14, and authorities cited; Alfred Robinson, Life in California (New York. Wiley &Putnam. 1846), 180-184.
73. Albert J. Morris, Diary of a Crazy Man, or An Account of the Graham Affair of 1840 (MS., Bancroft Collection). Morris was one of the English prisoners, employed in a distillery at the time of his arrest, by Graham. His picture of the sufferings endured at the hands of the California officials is very vivid and probably but little exaggerated. Most of those arrested, however, were insolent, overbearing, and an altogether undesirable class of citizens. See, also, Bancroft, XXI, 1-41; Thomas Jefferson Farnham, Life and Adventures in California and Scenes in the Pacific Ocean (New York. W. H. Graham. 1846), 70 et seq. Farnham followed the prisoners from Monterey to Santa Barbara and later to Tepic. His account, however, is too biased to be relied upon. Tuthill, History of California, 145-147.
74. Forsyth to Ellis, Aug. 21, 1840; same to same, July 1, 1841. MSS., State Department.
It should also be noted that this event first called the official attention of the British government to California. See Ephraim Douglass Adams, British Interests and Activities in Texas, 1838-1846 (Baltimore. The Johns Hopkins Press. 1910), 236-237.
75. Niles' Register, LVIII, 371. Farnham's account was especially bitter against the Californians. Earlier editions of this book, under various titles, were published in 1841-3-4.
76. Thompson to Bocanegra, Dec. 31, 1843. MS., State Department. Mexico afterwards paid part of this. Thompson to Secretary of State, February 2, 1844. Ibid.
77. Larkin to Secretary of State, June 15, 1846. Larkin, Official Correspondence, Pt. II, No. 47.
78. Bancroft, XXI, 7-8, and notes.
79. MS., State Department, Mexico, 1840, No. 10.
80. Report of the Secretary of the Navy. Senate Docs., 27 Cong., 1 sess., I, No. 1, pp. 368-369. Upshur dwelt at considerable length upon the Graham affair, spoke of the increased immigration to California, and said that the insecurity of American interests there demanded the protection of a naval force. The whale fisheries in the Pacific likewise required the presence of several United States vessels in the ocean; and the Gulf of California should be more thoroughly explored and charted.
For an explanation of this increase by Upshur of the Pacific squadron as a deep laid plot on the part of the slave holders to seize California, see William Jay, A Review of the Causes and Consequences of the Mexican War (Boston, Philadelphia, New York. 1849), 81-82.
81. Bidwell, California; Josiah Belden, Historical statement (MS., Bancroft Collection); Bancroft, XXI, 264-75.
The immediate causes of this enthusiasm for a migration to California were letters received from Dr. John Marsh, an American resident of California, and the stories of Rubidoux.
82. One cause given both by Bidwell and Bancroft was the efforts of Missouri merchants to discourage the movement, through misrepresentations of California.
83. Only one of these, Bidwell, had signed the original pledge. The party left May 19, under the command of John Bartleson, in company with a second band of seventeen persons bound for Oregon under the direction of a noted trapper, Fitzpatrick. They followed the usual route of hunters and traders to the Rocky Mountains—“up the north fork of the Platte, by the Sweetwater through the South Pass, and down and up branches of Green River, to Bear River Valley near Great Salt Lake” Bancroft, XXI, 268-269. Here they separated, some of the California party joining the Oregonians, and the remainder, pressing on, eventually reached Marsh's rancho in November, after considerable hardship.
84. Bidwell, California, 5-6.
85. Warner's lecture was printed in the New York Journal of Commerce and in the Colonial Magazine, V, 229-236. Bancroft, XXI, 223.
86. Baldwin to Tyler, Jan. 19, 1843, enclosing a copy of a letter to Van Buren, of Sept. 27, 1840. MS., State Department, Miscellaneous Letters. 1843. Baldwin perhaps was interested in a personal way in the acquisition of California. He suggested in his communication that the American claims might be made the basis for negotiation; while Jay (Mexican War, 37, 40, 43) mentions a Baldwin as one of the claimants.
87. Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition during the Years 1838-42 (Philadelphia. 1845), I, page XXVII; Davis, Sixty Years in California, 127 et seq., says Wilkes stated this was with the view of future acquisition.
88. The rumor of English activities in California was one of the most potent factors at this time. Niles' Register, LVIII, 2, 70. Further mention of this is, however, reserved for future discussion.
89. Vallejo, Documentos, No. 146.
90. A second party numbering twenty-five, organized partly in Missouri and partly from Americans in New Mexico, had reached Los Angeles via the Santa Fé Trail about the time the Bartleson company arrived in the north. The Californians at first were afraid that these had been concerned in the Texan expedition against Santa Fé (Bancroft, XXI, 276-287).
91. Ibid., 274-275.
92. Ellis to Webster, Jan. 22, 1842 (MS., State Department). On March 10th, Thomas Carlile was appointed consul at San Francisco by Tyler. Webster to Thompson, April 8, 1842. MS., State Department.
93. Thompson reached Vera Cruz April 10, 1842. See Waddy Thompson, Recollections of Mexico (New York and London. Wiley and Putnam. 1847), 1.
94. This was the only way in which Thompson saw any hope of Mexican creditors receiving satisfaction.
95. Thompson to Webster, April 29, 1842. MS., State Department. Much of the substance of this despatch was afterwards embodied by Thompson in his Recollections (pp. 233-238). A summary is also printed in Reeves, 100-101, but the quotations are not verbatim as the text would seem to indicate. See also Rives's The United States and Mexico, II, 46.
96. Thompson to Tyler, May 9, 1842. MS., State Department; mentioned also by Reeves, 101.
97. Webster to Thompson, June 27, 1842, in The Writings and Speeches of Daniel Webster (National Edition. Boston. Little, Brown &Company. 1903), XIV, 611-612. See also Reeves, 102, for different portions of the same letter.
98. See below, pp. 35-7.
99. Bancroft, XXI, 298-329; Lyon G. Tyler, Letters and Times of the Tylers (Richmond. Whittet &Shepperson. 1885), II, 265-267; H. Von Holst, The Constitutional and Political History of the United States (Chicago. Callaghan and Company. 1881), II, 615-620; H. Ex. Docs., 27 Cong., 3 Sess., No. 166, for official account. Many of the secondary accounts were written with a decided bias against the American commander. For example, Jay (pp. 82-86) described it as wholly a move on the part of the slave-holding South.
100. Jones obtained his information from a letter written by John Parrott, the United States consul at Mazatlan, on June 22. Enclosed was a copy of El Cosmoplita of June 4, containing the threatening letters of Bocanegra to Webster concerning the Texas difficulties. Rumors of war were common all along the Pacific coast at the time (Johnson to Larkin, Honolulu, May 26, 1842—“word received from the United States that war may be declared any day.” Larkin MSS., I, No. 276; Davis to Larkin, May 30, 1842—“war declared against Mexico.” Ibid.). Larkin's Official Correspondence is designated as such; his private correspondence will hereafter be referred to simply as above—Larkin MSS.
101. A copy of a Boston paper, with an extract from the New Orleans Courier of April 19, stating that Mexico had ceded California to England for $7,000,000, had fallen into his hands. The departure of Admiral Thomas with a British fleet under sealed orders from Callao, lent additional weight to the rumor.
102. Bocanegra to Thompson, Dec. 28, 1841. MS., State Department.
103. Ibid.
104. I. C. Jones, a resident of Santa Barbara, wrote that he considered the seizure of Monterey the act of a madman, which would be followed by deplorable results for all Americans in California. He was, however, a confirmed pessimist. Jones to Larkin, Larkin MSS., I, No. 357.
105. Larkin to Secretary of State, April 16, 1844—Contrary to expectations Jones's action did not engender any ill-will among the Californians but had rather the reverse effect. Larkin, Official Correspondence, Pt. II, No. 4.
106. Jones to Thompson, Oct. 22, 1842. MS., State Department.
107. Reeves, 106. Thompson was not officially notified to take this course for some months. Webster to Thompson, Jan. 27, 1843. MS., State Department.
108. Tyler to Webster, Jan. —, 1843. Webster MSS., Library of Congress; same to same, Feb. 9, 1843. Tyler's Letters and Times of the Tylers, II, 267.
109. For Adams's attitude, see his Memoirs, XI, 304 et seq.
110. Thompson to Webster, Jan. 5, 1843—“They are printing in all their newspapers the speech of Mr. Adams made in Massachusetts, and with most injurious effect as it confirms all their unfounded suspicions against us.” MS., State Department.
111. Thompson to Webster, Jan. 30, 1843. Webster MSS. A new scheme connecting California with these unpaid claims had also been suggested to Webster by Brantz Mayer, formerly secretary of legation under Thompson, upon his return to Washington. Mayer's plan, instead of requiring immediate cession on the part of Mexico, substituted a mortgage to be held by the United States chiefly on “such parts of California or such ports in that department as might be serviceable to our trade in the Pacific and useful to us politically.” Such a pledge would result in ultimate ownership by the United States or punctual payments on the part of Mexico. Mayer to Webster, Dec. 9, 1842, MS., State Department. It may be added that this plan of a mortgage probably originated in the reports that English creditors held such a pledge. Thompson, who had quarreled with Mayer, considered his letter an extreme liberty even for one of Mayer's characteristic “vanity and impertinence.” Thompson to Webster, Jan. 30, 1843. MS., State Department.
112. Tyler's Letters and Times of the Tylers, II, 260-261; Adams, Memoirs, XI, 347.
113. Reeves (p. 102) rather infers that the California project received scant attention from Webster and Tyler. The documents quoted in the text, it is believed, will contradict this idea.
114. Webster to Everett, Jan. 29, 1843. Webster, Works, XVI, 393-396, passim.
115. Reeves, in a note, p. 103, says that Webster's instructions to Everett, regarding this tripartite agreement, do not appear on file in the State Department. His account has therefore been based wholly on Everett's note to Calhoun of March 28, 1845, in which mention is made of the instructions sent by Webster. See also Schaefer's “British Attitude toward the Oregon Question.” Amer. Hist. Rev., XVI, 293-294, note. It is significant that Webster's biographer prints only a part of this letter of Jan. 29, leaving out all portions relating to California or the triparite agreement. George Ticknor Curtis, Life of Daniel Webster (New York. D. Appleton and Company. 1870), 175-177. George Bancroft, as late as March, 1844, wrote to Van Buren as though this discovery that Webster had been trying to secure California were a great piece of news. It interested Van Buren so much that he tried to find out the details from Silas Wright, who could give him no information. Bancroft to Van Buren, April 11, 1844. Van Buren MSS., Library of Congress. Van Buren's interest doubtless arose from the political value of such information in connection with the question of Texas annexation.
116. Webster to Everett, as cited, p. 394.
117. Webster saw in it the means of winning over the two-thirds vote necessary for the ratification of the boundary treaty with Great Britain (Ibid., 394-395).
118. Tyler to Webster, undated. Webster MSS.
119. Same to same, undated. Webster MSS. “. . . what is contemplated is much more important than what has been done. The mission will be large and imposing”—same to same, Feb. 26, 1843. Ibid. See, also, Tyler's Letters and Times of the Tylers, II, 261, for the same letters.
120. For Webster's interest in California, see his letter of Jan. 29, to Everett, already cited so frequently. He afterwards wrote that he considered the bay of San Francisco twenty times more valuable to the United States than all Texas. Curtis, Life of Webster, II, 250.
121. Tyler's Letters and Times of the Tylers, II, 263.
122. Ibid.
123. His resignation came May 8, 1843.
124. Thompson to Upshur, Sept. 28, 1843. MS., State Department.
125. Same to same, Oct. 3. Ibid.
126. Thompson to Upshur, Oct. 14, 1843. The omission indicated in quotation represents requests for instructions concerning California. Same to same, Oct. 29. Fear of war with England alone will enable him to conclude a new convention for the settlement of the American claims; see also same to same, Nov. 20, and Jan. 16. MSS., State Department.
127. Thompson to Upshur, Oct. 20, 1843. MS., State Department.
128. Also to the Governors of Sonora, Sinaloa, and Chihuahua.
129. Bancroft (XXI, 380-1) says there is no evidence that the order ever reached California. Thompson, on the contrary, wrote, in the despatch cited, that Micheltorena assured the Mexican government he had already taken measures to carry out the command. At least, however, it may be said that the law caused no excitement in California or uneasiness among the American residents.
130. For details regarding this command, see Thompson to Upshur, Jan. 4, 1844 (MS., State Department); Thompson, Recollections, 227; Niles' Register, LXV, 353.
131. Thompson (?) to Larkin, United States Legation, Mexico, March 1, 1844. Has continued to hope that order would be rescinded but sees no hope for it now. Clear violation of treaty rights, etc. Larkin MSS., II, No. 66. See, also, Thompson's Recollections, 229-230.
132. Duff Green, Facts and Suggestions (New York. Richardson &Co. 1866), 85.
133. Tyler's Letters and Times of the Tylers, II, 298; statement of Benjamin E. Green, Aug. 8, 1889, Ibid., III, 174-175. Johnston wrote Polk of a rumor that Green was authorized to offer $10,000,000 to Mexico, and the guaranty to her of the Californias against all other nations. Benton says the treaty when understood is more damnable than the correspondence.” Johnston to Polk, May 5, 1844. Polk MSS., Library of Congress.
134. Ben E. Green to Secretary of State, April 8, 1844. MSS., State Department.
135. Green spoke of Calhoun's appointment as “with a view to the Oregon and Texas questions.” It is to be noted that, as in this despatch which spoke of Oregon and Texas only in a subordinate relation to California, California was often included under the general heading of “the Oregon question,” or the “Texas question.”
136. As Hastings had given this information to Green three months before, the time for the denouement in California was probably not far away.
137. Green to Calhoun, April 11, 1844. Correspondence of John C. Calhoun, edited by J. Franklin Jameson in American Historical Association Report, 1899, II, 945-947. This will hereafter be referred to simply as Calhoun's Correspondence.
138. Same to same, May 30, 1844. Ibid., 961. Calhoun was also informed of the encroachments of the Hudson's Bay Company in California. Larkin to Calhoun, June 20, 1844. MS., State Department.
Larkin had been appointed consul at Monterey, May 1, 1843. Webster to Thompson, May 5. MS., State Department.
139. During the year 1844 a California representative, by name of Castañares, was in Mexico pleading for aid for the department, warning the government against American designs, and prophesying the loss of California unless active measures were taken to prevent its falling into the hands of the United States. Bancroft, XXI, 413 et seq.
140. Facts and Suggestions, 85. Green says elsewhere that Calhoun told him success in the negotiation would mean a more valuable commerce on the Pacific within a few years than on the Atlantic. Tyler's Letters and Times of the Tylers, III, 174-175.
141. Memucan Hunt to Calhoun, Oct. 2, 1844. Calhoun Correspondence, 975. Mention is here made of Green's consular position.
142. Duff Green to Calhoun, Oct. 28, 1844. Ibid., 975-980. It is more than probable that Green had reference to the movement he afterwards endeavored to stir up in Texas looking to the revolt of several of the Mexican provinces, including California. Anson Jones, Republic of Texas, 412-414; Donelson to Calhoun, Jan. 27, 1845, Calhoun Correspondence, 1019-1020.
143. Green also had something to say in his despatches about England's hold on California.
144. Shannon to Calhoun, Jan. 16, 1845. MS., State Department. Ben Green asserted that the Herrera government was favorably inclined to cede New Mexico and California to the United States, and that he and the United States consul, J. D. Marks, at Matamoras came to Washington to acquaint Tyler with the fact and arrange the negotiation. The appointment of Slidell as minister, according to Green, brought their plans to a standstill (Tylers Letters and Times of the Tylers, III, 174-177).
145. Santa Anna's overthrow took place about the middle of January.
146. Larkin to Secretary of State, April 16, 1844. Official Correspondence, II, No. 4; same to same, Aug. 18, Ibid., No. 9. Crallé, Acting Secretary of State, to Larkin, Oct. 25, 1844. Larkin MSS., VI, No. 223.
147. This a portion of a thesis presented to the Faculty of the College of Arts of the University of Texas in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Arts degree (June, 1913). The remainder of the paper will appear in the October Quarterly, entitled “The First Session of the Secession Convention.”
148. Garrison, Texas, 215.
149. Ibid., 261.
150. Bancroft, North Mexican States and Texas, II, 417.
151. Galveston News, February 2, 1848.
152. The committee that framed and signed these resolutions was composed of F. H. Merriman, Louis T. Wigfall, John Warren, W. Richardson, and I. S. Savage.
153. “Resolved, That the true policy requires the government of the United States to strengthen its political and commercial relations upon this continent, and the annexation of such contiguous territory as may conduce to that end, and can be justly obtained; and that neither in such acquisition nor in the territorial organization thereof can any conditions be constitutionally imposed, or institutions be provided for, or established, inconsistent with the right of the people thereof to form a free sovereign state, with the powers and privileges of the original members of the Confederacy.
“Resolved, That, in organizing a territorial government for territory belonging to the United States, the principles of self-government upon which our federated system rests, will be best promoted, the true spirit and meaning of the Constitution observed, and the confederacy strengthened, by leaving all questions concerning the domestic policy therein to the legislatures chosen by the people thereof.” Senate Journal, 30th Congress, 1st Session, 1847-1848, page 48.
154. These resolutions and discussions were considered of such importance in showing the attitude of Texas toward the question agitating the public mind in 1848, that they were reprinted in 1855, when the controversy over the matter began to move the Texans to action.—Galveston News, October 30, 1855.
155. Nacogdoches Times, September 24, 1848.
156. Crane, Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston, 387.
157. Crane, Sam Houston, 201.
158. Nacogdoches Times, September 9, 1848.
159. Congressional Globe, 33d Congress, 1 Sess., 1854-55, Appendix, 339-342.
160. Party Platform of State Convention held at Austin, January 21, 1856. —Galveston News, February 5, 1856.
161. Galveston News, June 23, 1855.
162. State Gazette, October 6, 1855.
163. State Gazette, November 17, 1855.
164. Ibid., October 27, 1855.
165. Ibid., October 20, 1855.
The counties that thus expressed their sentiment in regard to Houston as found in the State Gazette were Cass, Fayette, Hays, Cherokee, Walker, Freestone, Colorado, Bell, Burleson, Smith, De Witt, Lavaca, Fannin, Liberty, Lamar, Leon, Comal, Travis, Shelby, Williamson, Burnet, and Bastrop.
166. Ibid., December 1, 1855.
167. Galveston News, November 27, 1855.
168. State Gazette, December 1, 1855.
169. Ibid., November 27, 1855.
170. Ibid., December 4, 1855.
171. State Gazette, May 10, 1856.
172. State Gazette, January 26, 1856.
173. Galveston News, January 26, 1856.
174. Ibid., December 8, 1855.
It appears in this instance, however, that it was not Mr. Sherwood, but rather his constituents who had changed their views on the subject. Mr. Sherwood had expressed the same views in 1848, and they were printed in the Galveston News at the time.
The Gazette styled Sherwood a mere visionary, and in reviewing his speech concludes that “Mr. Sherwood's views are not only false in conception, and gratuitously inflicted upon us, but they are uncalled for, by a Southern community amply able to know and appreciate their rights. With some pretension to historic greatness in the calendar of statesmen, the South is yet fully able to sustain himself without the aid of Northern theorists of society, who may volunteer to teach us our duties on the subject of slavery.”—State Gazette, December 1, 1856.
175. The national Democratic platform, adopted at Baltimore in 1852, reaffirmed Resolutions 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 of the platform of 1848, which placed the trust of the American Democracy in the intelligence, the patriotism and the discriminating justice of the American people; asserted its belief in a strict construction of the constitution; declared that the federal government had no power to carry on a general system of internal improvements; to assume the debts of the several states; to cherish the interests of one section of the country to the injury of another portion, etc. In regard to slavery the platform denied that Congress had any power to interfere with or control the domestic institutions of the several states; declared that the party would abide by the compromise measures of 1850, and would resist all attempts at renewing the slavery agitation; would uphold the principles of the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions, and uphold the war with Mexico as just and necessary.—T. H. McKee, The National Conventions and Platforms of all Political Parties, 74.
176. State Gazette, January 7, 1856.
177. Lubbock, Six Decades in Texas, 202.
178. State Gazette, February 23, 1856.
179. Southern Intelligencer, December 10, 1856.
180. “Resolved, That this convention will support no person as a nominee for any office or place of trust unless fully satisfied by his acts and declarations, or the assurance of his friends to the convention, that he is fully united with the Democratic party upon all the issues now existing between them and their opponents, and that such nominee shall abide the decision of this convention and support all the nominees with zeal and fervency.”—Lubbock, Six Decades in Texas, 209.
181. State Gazette, July 1, 1857.
182. Ibid., January 23, 1858.
183. Bancroft, North Mexican States and Texas, II, 425.
184. Lubbock, Six Decades in Texas, 233.
185. State Gazette, March 1, 1856.
186. State Gazette, December 18, 1858.
187. State Gazette, July 17, 1858.
188. There are four long articles on the slave trade in the State Gazette, February 12, 1859.
189. Ibid., April 9, 1859.
190. Among these counties were Leon, Guadalupe, Madison and Bastrop.
191. State Gazette, April 30, 1859.
192. Ibid., April 9, 1859.
193. State Gazette, April 9, 1859.
The Wanderer was a yacht that landed over three hundred negroes at Brunswick, Georgia, in the summer of 1858. They were sent up the river and distributed throughout the state. The captain and owner of the yacht was indicted, but no jury could be found that would convict him.—Rhodes, History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850, II, 368.
194. Lubbock, Six Decades in Texas, 244. Speeches on the reopening of the slave trade were made by Messrs. Chilton, Wiley, Thomason, McLeod, Cone, Kittrell, Walker, Shepherd, Herbert and Scott. State Gazette, May 14, 1859. Neither Lubbock nor the Gazette quotes the resolutions offered by Messrs. Chilton for and Palmer against the reopening of the slave trade.
195. Ibid., 248.
196. State Gazette, July 1, 1857.
197. Reagan says in his Memoirs, page 71, that the Texas newspapers were so full of abuse that he was forced to burn the papers that reached him to keep his wife from seeing them. Being in doubt whether he should stand for re-election and wishing to know his wife's views on the subject, he finally let her see the papers and explained to her the reason for such an unwarranted attack. She immediately advised him to return to Texas and stand for re-election.
198. State Gazette, June 11, 1859.
199. Lubbock, Six Decades in Texas, 247.
200. Roberts, Political, Legislative, and Judicial History of Texas, etc., in Wooten (editor), A Comprehensive History of Texas, II, 56.
201. Lubbock, Six Decades in Texas, 258.
Judge Roberts in speaking of Louis T. Wigfall says “that he has been conspicuous in the advocacy of the principles of `state rights' ever since he left South Carolina and moved to Texas, about a year previous to that time.” A Comprehensive History of Texas, 57. In his dates, however, Judge Roberts seems to be in error; Louis T. Wigfall was in the Texas legislature, 1849-50; a member of the state senate, 1857-60, and had been the leader of the ultra-radical element in the state since 1848.—Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American Biography VI, 499.
F. R. Lubbock, after defending the action of the legislature in regard to Wigfall's election, adds: “Besides all this, I should have stated that Wigfall resigned his seat in the State Senate before the balloting began for United States Senator.” The balloting took place December 5, 1859.
However, I find in the “Journal of the Senate” of the eighth Texas legislature, page 311, the following letter:
“Executive Office,
Austin, December 28, 1859.
“Gentlemen of the Senate:
I have the honor to inform your honorable body, that the Hon. Louis T. Wigfall, of Harrison county, has this day tendered to me his resignation as Senator from this district, and that said resignation has been accepted. . . .
H. R. Runnels.”
202. State Gazette, December 10, 1859.
203. Roberts, in A Comprehensive History of Texas, II, 63.
204. Ibid., II, 64.
205. Ibid., 65.
206. Journal of the Senate, 1859-60, 342.
207. Ibid., 1859-60, 354.
208. Ibid., 525.
209. Ibid., 526.
210. House Journal, 1859-60, 637.
211. Ibid., 535.
212. True Issue, April 13, 1860.
213. According to the Galveston correspondent to the Gazette, Mr. Leland professed to have recanted, but the testimony of several men who had observed his movements showed the contrary. According to the same correspondent, “It was a remarkable instance of audacity and, considering all things, his treatment was exceedingly humane.”—State Gazette, April 14, 1860.
214. Garrison, “The First Stage of the Movement for the Annexation of Texas,” in American Historical Review, X, 72-96 (October, 1904). Dr. Garrison cites as his authority Niles' Register, LI.
215. Garrison, Diplomatic Correspondence of the Republic of Texas . . ., I, 152, in American Historical Association Report, 1907, II.
216. State Library, Austin, Texas.
217. Niles' Register, LI, 229-30.
218. Ibid., LI, 277.
219. Telegraph and Texas Register, —?
220. Page 59. For a note on this book see The Quarterly, XVI, 107.
221. Lamar papers, State Library.
222. Translation in Brown, History of Texas, I, 225-226, and by Dr. Ethel Zivley Rather in The Quarterly, VIII, 138-139.
223. Garrison, Dip. Cor. Texas, I, 208.
224. F. O., Texas, Vol. 6.
225. F. O., Texas, Vol. 6. The letter is unnumbered.
226. F. O., Texas, Vol. 6.
227. Ibid. Elliot to Aberdeen, No. 33, is omitted. It transmitted The Civilian and Galveston Gazette for November 8, 1843.
228. F. O., Texas, Vol. 6.
229. F. O., Texas, Vol. 6. Ibid. Elliot to Aberdeen, Nos. 35 and 36, December 31, 1843, have been omitted. No. 35 referred to the “Eliza Russell” claims, and the method of their payment through the collector of customs at Galveston. No. 36 enclosed a return of correspondence for the year 1843.
230. President Tyler's annual message, December 5, 1843.
231. F. O., Texas, Vol. 9. The letter is unsigned.
232. F. O., Texas, 20. Aberdeen to Elliot, No. 1, January 3, 1844, has been omitted. It acknowledged receipt of despatches from Elliot.
233. Aberdeed to Pakenham, No. 9, December 26, 1843. This is the first of the noted Calhoun-Pakenham letters, and in it Aberdeen, while maintaining Great Britain's right to take ground against slavery wherever found, disclaimed any intention of interfering improperly to secure the abolition of slavery in Texas, or of “seeking to act directly or indirectly in a political sense on the United States through Texas.” The correspondence as published in the United States is in Sen. Doc. 341 (Serial No. 435), 28 Cong., 1 Sess. As published in Great Britain it is in Sessional Papers, 1847-8, Commons, Vol. 64, Return of Pakenham-Calhoun Correspondence (136), and contains an additional letter, Pakenham to Aberdeen, April 28, 1844. There are also two additional unpublished letters, Aberdeen to Pakenham, January 9 (F. O., Texas, 20), and June 3, 1844 (F. O., America, 403). For quotations and analysis, see Adams, British Interests and Activities in Texas, ch. VII. Smith, The Annexation of Texas, p. 200 seq.
234. F. O., Texas, Vol. 10.
235. December 30, 1843.
236. F. O., Texas, Vol. 10.
237. Not found.
238. F. O., Texas, Vol. 9. The letter is unsigned.
239. F. O., Texas, 20, Aberdeen to Elliot, No. 3, January 3, 1844, has been omitted. It related to the whereabouts of Mr. John Orr and contained copies of letters from Doyle and from Orr's father.
240. F. O., Texas, 20, Aberdeen to Pakenham, No. 1, January 9, 1844. See note 10, p. 91. Aberdeen expressed indignation at the tone of President Tyler's message in which it had been hinted that England was seeking to block the annexation of Texas. Pakenham was instructed to communicate the contents to the American Secretary of State, but did not do so, and the letter was never published. For quotation, see Adams, British Interests and Activities in Texas, 156-157.
241. F. O., Texas, Vol. 9.
242. F. O., Texas, 9, Nos. 1 and 2, 1844, Elliot to Aberdeen are missing from the archives. No. 3, January 12, 1844, has been omitted. It transmitted bills in settlement of the “Eliza Russell” claims.
243. F. O., Texas, Vol. 9. The letter is unsigned.
244. F. O., Texas, 20. Aberdeen to Cowley, No. 16, January 12, 1844; Cowley to Aberdeen, No. 33, January 15, 1844; Fox to Aberdeen, No. 133, December 13, 1843. Aberdeen, stirred by Tyler's message foreshadowing annexation, virtually proposed to France to join with Great Britain in preventing this. France gave a favorable reply. For quotations from these documents, and analysis, see Adams, British Interests and Activities in Texas, pp. 157-160; Smith, The Annexation of Texas, p. 383, seq.
245. F. O., Texas, Vol. 9.
246. This was Aberdeen's instruction to Pakenham, December 26, 1843. See Note 10, p. 91.
247. F. O., Texas, Vol. 9.
248. F. O., Texas, Vol. 9.
249. F. O., Texas, Vol. 9.
250. F. O., Texas, Vol. 9.
251. F. O., Texas, 9. Elliot to Aberdeen, No. 7, March 7, 1844, acknowledging receipt of despatches, has been omitted.
252. Jones to Elliot. February 19, 1844. In Garrison, Diplomatic Correspondence of the Republic of Texas, III, 1149, in Am. Hist. Assoc. Report, 1908, II.
253. James Pinckney Henderson, b. North Carolina, 1808; d. Washington, D. C., 1858. He served as brigadier-general in the Texan army, 1836, was secretary of state, 1837-1839, diplomatic agent in England and France, 1839-1840, was sent on a special annexation mission to the United States, 1844. He became Governor of Texas, 1846, and was appointed to the United States Senate, 1857. (Appleton, Cyclop. of Amer. Biog.)
254. F. O., Texas, Vol. 9.
255. This was the armistice signed February 15, 1844, by Hockley and Williams, the Texan negotiators, in which Texas was characterized as a Mexican Department. The government of Texas refused to ratify such an agreement.
256. F. O., Texas, Vol. 9.
257. Houston's secret message on annexation, January 20, 1844. (Wooten, Texas, I, 425-426.)
258. British Minister at Mexico. Pakenham had been transferred from Mexico to Washington in 1843, and after an interval during which Doyle represented Great Britain, Bankhead was appointed, arriving in Mexico early in 1844.
259. This review is reprinted from the Mississippi Valley Historical Review, June, 1914.
260. Reeves, J. S., American Diplomacy under Tyler and Polk. Baltimore. 1907.
261. Adams, E. D., British Interests and Activities in Texas, 1838-1846. Baltimore. 1910.
262. Smith, J. H., The Annexation of Texas. New York. 1911.
263. This review is reprinted by permission from the American Historical Review, XIX, 638-640.
264. The John B. Hood Camp of United Confederate Veterans, of which Major Littlefield is a member, adopted resolutions of appreciation, which were published in The Austin Statesman, March 25.
265. See Miss Buckey's article, “The Aguayo Expedition,” The Quarterly, XV, 58-59.
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