Note 28 — VII THE PRELIMINARIES OF THE CONFLICT April, 1845—April, 1846

Cong. Globe, 29, 2, p. 498; 30, 1, app., 64. Polk, Message, Dec. 8, 1846 (Richardson, Messages, iv, 484). (Marcy) Sen. 1; 29, 1, p. 194. 52Buchanan to Trist, Oct. 25, 1847. Jan. 27, 1847, a bill establishing post-routes south of the Nueces passed the Senate unanimously (Cong. Globe, 29, 1, p. 251). (Six months) Nat. Intelligencer, Sept. 4, 1846. (People) Mo. Reporter, Jan. 6, 1846. It is true that no right to go to the Rio Grande was explicitly asserted; but as everybody held that either that stream or the Nueces was the boundary, a claim extending beyond the latter extended practically to the former. See Lumpkin’s speech (Cong. Globe, 29, 1, 836). More than a month before Taylor left Corpus Christi the House voted down a motion to ask the President whether he had ordered our forces to move against Mexico, and thus became accomplices of Polk (Von Holst, iii, 214–5). The order of Jan. 13 soon became known to Congress and the public (Cong. Globe, 30, 1, p. 279). Feb. 3 Ashmun of Massachusetts offered a resolution calling upon the President for information regarding the matter (ibid., 280). Mar. 23 Brinkerhoff stated in the House that Taylor’s army must be supposed to be approaching or already upon the Rio Grande; yet no one in Congress protested (29, 1, 534). Mar. 26, 1846, while discussing an appropriation bill, McIlvaine of Penn. said that in sending troops to the Rio Grande Polk had been “invading Mexico” (ibid., 558); yet, though he made a most urgent appeal to the opponents of slavery—in behoof of which he intimated the step had been taken—and there were other objections to the bill, it passed the House by 111 to 38 (ibid., 573–4). Note also the vote on Delano’s motion (chap, ix, note 4). See chap. xxxiv, note 16, and the corresponding text.