Confederate "Heritage" Month, April 13: A contemporary polemic against the Mexican War

I recently came across a reprint of a pamphlet published in 1849, reprinted from the Southern Presbyterian Review of that day, called A Review of the Mexican War on Christian Principles by the Rev. Philip Berry.

It's always interesting to see contemporary works on historical events, because they can give you more of a feel for the particular ways in which an event was discussed at the time. Rev. Berry expends considerable energy hashing through the territorial claims to the portion of land between the Nueces and Rio Grande Rivers, which nominally provoked the start of the war. While historians today pay attention to the claim, it seems relatively trivial in retrospect, because it is obvious now that people then were very much aware that the war involved the annexation of the province of Texas by the United States and its permanent separation from Mexico and President James Polk's ambitions to seize California, as well.

Although Berry is very critical of the Polk administration's war and argues that it was wrong for the US to push into Mexico City once the Rio Grande boundary of Texas was secured, he accepts the claims of Texas and the Polk administration to the disputed land between the Nueces and the Rio Grande. He also expresses sympathy for the dubious claims of the Texans in their 1836 declaration of independence to have been opposing a "military dictatorship" in Mexico.

Still, Berry blames the US side for unnecessarily provoking the military clashes that provided the excuse for starting the Mexican-American War. Here is how he makes the argument:

When the government of Mexico refused communication with that of the United States, on the application of the latter, through an express envoy, the government of the United States could but act on the best information it could obtain, with reference to the boundary of this country, at the frontier of Mexico. It was therefore politically warranted in stationing troops anywhere within the boundary line represented by Texas as her's, previously to the act of annexation; though it would not be morally warranted in making no discrimination between the historical line (wherever ascertainable) and the revolutionary one. Nor, in fact, was this government indiscriminate, as regarded New Mexico, the possession of which was not attempted. All the arrangements, however, should have been so made as to avoid, rather than evince a readiness for, the issue. The Americans were in quiet possession of the region west of the Nueces, with very little exception, whilst Gen. Taylor's force remained at Corpus Christi, near that river. "To repel any invasion of the Texan territory which might be attempted by the Mexican forces, it was deemed sufficient, in the spring of 1845, that our squadron had been ordered to the gulf, and our army to take a position between the Nueces and the Del Norte (or Rio Grande)" [quote from Polk]. It was in pursuance of this order that General Taylor took the position above mentioned. No Mexican forces had then crossed the Rio Grande; all was quiet as long as General Taylor remained near the Nueces. (my emphasis)

What then were the augmented necessities of the case which, in the following spring, impelled the advance of our army to the banks of the Rio Grande? There had been indeed a change of government — Herrera deposed — Paredes in power. "The partisans of Paredes (as our minister in the despatch referred to states,) breathed the fiercest hostility against the United States." The re-conquest of Texas and war with the United States were openly threatened. These were the circumstances existing, when it was deemed proper to order the army under the command of General Taylor to advance to the western frontier of Texas, and occupy a position on or near the Rio Grande [according to a Presidential message by Polk]. If these were all the circumstances that created the propriety of marching the troops from Corpus Christi to the Rio Grande, in what remarkable particular did this propriety outweigh that which required the army to remain at the former station? — "the threatened invasion from Mexico?" There had been such menaces from Mexico for several years before our army entered Texas. If Mexico was until then unequal to the fulfilment of her menaces, or abstained from attempt to carry them into effect, what probability was there of her so doing, when our army was there? What effect had yet been consequent on the circular of Condé, the Mexican Minister of War, as far back as in July, 1845, announcing to various authorities that war was declared against the United Stales, arid enunciating the vocabulary of military preparation? It has resulted as was apparently taken for granted that it would, there being at the time little curiosity as to what "might in that noise reside!" The attitude of Mexico was subsequently scarcely more threatening than aforetime. And without assuming it to have been the effect exclusively of our advanced position, experiance has proved that collision — sanguinary collision — look place very soon afterwards; while there is far from being ground, as suggested by previous experience, for the expectation of such collision, had our army retained its position at Corpus Christi. It has been indeed stated, and we have no contradiction of it, that General Arista, Commanding on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande, proposed to General Taylor that they should retain their relative positions, to avoid collision. In fact, the object of the Mexican army crossing the Rio Grande does not appear to have been so much for the purpose of contesting a question of boundary ... as for protecting her citizens on the east bank, who were regarded, though without sufficient reason, as molested by the approach of an American army - a motive anything but discreditable to Mexico.

Polk wasn't just concerned about militarily securing Texas. He wanted to use the military pressure on Mexico to force them to sell California to the US, as well.

Berry is here framing an argument around one of the key elements in the Christian doctrine of the Just War, that war should be undertaken only as a last resort. After noting - bitterly it appears - that future generations would likely regard the US cause in that war as a just one, he summarizes his position. Note that Berry uses "United States" as a plural phrase. This was the customary usage in English prior to the Civil War. Since the Civil War, "United States" in English is used as a singular phrase. Evern English grammar reflects the decisive decision that the Civil War represented in favorite of the democratic Jacksonian notion of American nationhood and against the Calhoun/Confederate secessionist concept. Berry:

Such was the origin and commencement of the Mexican war ... a war that might ... have been avoided by the United States, had they been so disposed, probably without diminution of an inch of territory, certainly without detriment to their soil or their people, or even what is called their honour - a war, consequently, which no degree of political justice (in the ordinary sense of the expression,) could morally justify.

Berry addresses various justifications raised by defenders of the Polk policy, some of which sound awfully familiar: the Polk administration showed great forebearance in its prewar dealings with Mexico; it was necessary to show the Mexicans that Constitutional procedures (getting approval from Congress prior to starting a war) would not hamper the US in its international dealings; Mexico was planning to establish and monarchy; the US needed "to present evidences of our warlike capacities to the rest of the world" (we call it "toughness" and Will in contemporary language).

One section of Berry's pamphlet I don't quite know how to read. He seems to think that American troops behaved much more responsibly and humanely toward the captured and wounded of the opposing army than did the Mexicans. But he goes into some length to tell stories in a fairly maudlin mode of the noble Mexican women who tended to wounded American soldiers.

What Berry's pamphlet does not include is any discussion of the larger political context of the war, of which the most obvious are the impulse for American expansionism and the slavery issue. I have to wonder if that might not have something to do with the fact he first published the piece in the Southern Presbyterian Review. Because the antislavery Wilmot Proviso, an amendment that was attached to a war-related Congressional appropriation in 1846, became the main vehicle around which opponents of the Polk war policies focused. The fact that the slavery issue goes unmentioned in Berry's pamphlet thus really sticks out.

Tags: confederate heritage month 2008, guerra de estados unidos a méxico, guerra mexicano-estadounidense, mexican-american war