THE ABSORPTION OF MEXICO 229
It is well known that President Polk on assuming office announced to George Bancroft that he proposed during his term to settle the Oregon question and to acquire California. ^ He is, I think, with the possible exception of Grant, the only President who has entered office with a positive and definite policy of expansion. Polk was in fact an expansionist, not at the behest of slavery as has been charged, but for the cause itself; yet a prudent expansionist, for he hesitated at the incorporation of large masses of alien people, refusing to countenance, as we shall see, the all-of-Mexico movement and yielding only in the case of the proposed purchase of Cuba.
To accomplish his purpose in regard to California, when negotiations failed. President Polk was ready to try con- quest and he welcomed, if he did not provoke, the war with Mexico.2 The conquest of sparsely settled California and New Mexico was easily accomplished. The resistance of Mexico, although more desperate than was expected, was not effectual and in April, 1847, Mr. Trist was despatched with the project of a treaty. Our commissioner was authorized to offer peace on the cession of all territory east of the Rio Grande from its mouth to the southern boundary of New Mexico, New Mexico, Upper and Lower California and a right of way across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. "The boundary of the Rio Grande, and the cession to the United States of New Mexico and Upper California constituted an ultimatum," and less than that was under no circumstances to be accepted. The refusal of these terms was followed in September by the capture of the City of Mexico. The news of this triumph of the American arms which reached Wash- ington late in October soon gave rise to an active agitation to incorporate all of Mexico into the Union. ^ The oppo-
1 Schouler's Hlstcn-y of the United States, IV, 498.
2 Compare the narrative in Schouler's Historical Briefs, 149-151, which is a faithful presentation in brief of the material contained in Polk's diary.
8 Cf. Von Hoist, III, 341-344. It will be noticed that Von Hoist, not having access to Polk's diary, worked in the dark in regard to the President's Mexican policy and attributes designs to him which he did not entertain. The New York Sun asserted in October that it had advocated the occupation of Mexico in May. Niles's Register, LXXIII, 113.
