ived a plebiscite of popular support on its
annexation policy. Thus emboldened, its friends,--knowing that they
could not yet count on the two-thirds vote necessary for a senatorial
confirmation,--dropped the treaty altogether, and brought into Congress
a joint resolution affirming the annexation of Texas to the Union. This
won the necessary majority in both houses, and as the last act of
Tyler's administration Texas was declared a State.

Calhoun now returned to the Senate,--his temporary substitute promptly
vacating at his word. Thus far he had triumphed. But his associates in
their elation were eager for another conquest. Texas is ours, now let us
have California and the Pacific! But to that end, Mexico, reluctant to
yield Texas, and wholly unwilling to cede more territory, must be
attacked and despoiled. At that proposal Calhoun drew back. It does not
appear that he had any scruples about Mexico. But, keener-sighted than
his followers, he knew that any further acquisitions to the West would
be stoutly and hopefully claimed by the North. His warning was in vain;
he had lighted a fire and now could not check it. The next step was to
force Mexico into a war. She claimed the river Nueces as her boundary
with Texas, while Texas claimed the Rio Grande. Instructions were
quietly given to General Taylor, in January, 1846, to throw his small
force into the disputed territory, so near the Rio Grande as to invite a
Mexican attack. The Mexican force did attack him, and President Polk
instantly declared that "war existed by the act of Mexico"--thus
allowing Congress no chance to pass on it. As is the way of nations,
fighting once begun, every consideration of justice was ignored and the
only word was "our country, right or wrong." Congressmen of both parties
voted whatever supplies were needed for the war; and the Whigs, trying
to throw the blame on the President, put no obstacles in the way of his
conquest of Mexico. Only one man in Congress spoke out for justice as
higher than party or country. Thomas Corwin of Ohio, in a powerful
speech, denounced the whole iniquitous business, and declared that were
he a Mexican facing the American invaders of his home, "I would welcome
them with hospitable hands to bloody graves!"

The war called out another voice that went home to the heart of the
people,--the voice of James Russell Lowell in the "Biglow Papers." In
the homely Yankee vernacular he spoke for the highest conscience of New
E