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which city the four thousand men composing the army of occupancy held in the face of sixty thousand hostile citizens.

The Americans were now within seventy-five miles of the Mexican capital, and Scott, willing to spare the sensibilities of his enemy and to make attack upon the City of Mexico unnecessary, appealed to Santa Anna to surrender. This the Mexican general scorned to do. His countrymen supported him in his last stand by liberal contributions and almost every able-bodied man enlisted under his standard, bringing his force up to thirty-six thousand men. Scott's army, although depleted by the discharge of some regiments, was augmented to ten thousand seven hundred and thirtyeight men by the arrival of reinforcements under General Pierce. On August 10th General Scott moved to the assault of the city. It was a daring undertaking, because of the natural strength of the Mexican capital, its splendid fortifications, and its garrison of select troops. On August 20th the hill of Contreras was taken by an unexpected and desperate assault, the attacking force numbering four thousand five hundred, the defence seven thousand men. On the same day the strong positions of San Antonio and Churubusco were carried. Having taken the outer lines of defence, the American advance was halted, and on August 23d an armistice was entered into pending the possibility that the city would capitulate upon the terms of the United States without further bloodshed. This expectation was not realized, and on September 7th the contest entered upon its last stage. After desperate hand-to-hand fighting, the defences of Molino del Rey were taken on September 8th, the Castle of Chapultepec on the 13th, and the following day the Mexican army evacuated the capital, General Scott making his entry into the City of the Montezumas.

With the surrender of the City of Mexico on September 14, 1847, the war with Mexico was brought to a close, and upon the 2d of the following February the treaty of peace was signed at Guadalupe Hidalgo. New Mexico and Upper California were ceded to the United States in

consideration of the payment of fifteen million dollars. On February 22d, President Polk sent the treaty to the Senate for ratification. After three weeks of discussion, the final vote was reached on March 10th, the opposition lacking but three votes of defeating ratification. On May 30th the ratifications of the treaty were exchanged at Queretaro, Mexico, and President Polk issued a proclamation of peace upon the Fourth of July, 1848.

Upon the meeting of the Thirtieth Congress, in its first session in December, 1847, Robert C. Winthrop, of Massachusetts, a Whig member, was elected Speaker of the House. He was a man of capacity, of culture, and of character; he had political experience and was well fitted to direct the discussion of the House. Early in the session Harvey Putnam, a Whig member from New York, introduced a resolution prohibiting slavery in the territory that should be acquired from Mexico. This resolution came up for consideration in February, when, upon the motion of Richard Broadhead, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, it was laid upon the table. But the question of the status of the territory won from Mexico continually entered into the discussion of the House. Quite an ingenious proposition was that of John M. Clayton, of Delaware, who [July, 1848] proposed a compromise, so called, by which Oregon, California, and New Mexico should be comprehended in one measure, leaving the question of slavery to be determined by the Supreme Court. He, however, received little support for his plan. At the opening of the second session of this same Congress the territorial question again forced itself upon the attention of the House. Joseph M. Root, of Ohio, introduced a resolution instructing the Committee on Territories to formulate and introduce bills providing forms of government for New Mexico and California, with the exclusion of slavery. This resolution was adopted with the concurrence of the Democratic members from the free States, with but eight exceptions. This action was followed by a bill for the organization of a government for California and also a bill for the organization

of New Mexico. These proposals received full discussion, but no positive action was taken. So that when Polk retired from the presidency he left unsolved the problem of whether the new territory should or should not be open to slavery.

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CHAPTER V

ADMINISTRATIONS OF TAYLOR, FILLMORE, AND PIERCE

ASIDE from the operation of the Fugitive Slave Law, whose effects continued to be felt during Fillmore's administration, and which remained to irritate the North until the breaking out of the Civil War, there are matters relating to the administration of Taylor which need to be mentioned. Furthermore, it will be convenient to include in this chapter the administrations of Taylor's immediate successors, omitting only matters relating to the paramount question of slavery. One thing in particular was significant of a trend in national development, whose full result was to be experienced long after the cementing of the sections had occurred. The year 1850 is noteworthy because of a peaceful achievement of potent importance. It was in that year that the Clayton-Bulwer treaty was negotiated. The construction of a ship canal to bring together the waters of the Atlantic and the Pacific had been an early dream of the century. It had been thought upon by the more serious and far-sighted statesmen, of whom Henry Clay was one. Clay, in one of his diplomatic instructions, wrote, that should such a canal be constructed, "the benefits of it ought not to be exclusively appropriated to any one nation, but should be extended to all parts of the globe." The administration of President Jackson advocated the construction of a transcontinental waterway, and President Polk took a determinative step when he negotiated a treaty with New Granada, by the terms of which the United States guaranteed the

neutrality of the Isthmus of Panama, and advocated the construction of a canal or railroad across the isthmus, to be open to all nations on the same terms. Of routes there were three to choose from, the Panama, the Nicaragua, and the Tehuantepec. At the time that John M. Clayton entered upon the duties of the state department, the Nicaragua route was commonly before the attention of the public, because of the fact that two companies of capitalists, one a British, and the other an American company with Commodore Vanderbilt at its head, were competing to secure from the government of Nicaragua a grant for the construction of a ship canal. The American company sought the aid of the United States government. Such a project, once broached, called up a mass of difficulties related to the project, but having their origin in the far past. Long before the American Revolution, a difference had occurred between Nicaragua and the British government which now arose to complicate the canal project. Great Britain had a settlement at Belize, in the Bay of Honduras, and had assumed a protectorate over the Mosquito Indians, whose habitat was a thin strip of the coast edging the Caribbean Sea. In this claim was involved the British and Nicaraguan contention, for Great Britain claimed that San Juan came within the limits of its protectorate, and Nicaragua denied the claim. In 1848 Great Britain adopted summary methods, sending ships of war up San Juan River to storm the fort and take possession of the town, a feat easy of accomplishment. This action on the part of Great Britain was not viewed with complacency by the United States government, as the two great maritime powers each sought exclusive advantage to itself in reference to the opening of this route of interoceanic communication. The time was ripe for an adjudication of their respective claims, or a pooling of the question in the form of a compromise. This was the situation which led to the negotiation on April 19th of the famous treaty between Secretary Clayton and Henry Lytton Bulwer, the British minister. The purpose of the treaty was to facilitate

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