ON THE MEXICAN WAR[1]
(1847)
Born in 1794, died in 1865; elected to Congress in 1831; Governor of Ohio in 1840; United States Senator in 1845; Secretary of the Treasury in 1850; Member of Congress again in 1859; Minister to Mexico in 1861.
The president has said he does not expect to hold Mexican territory by conquest. Why then conquer it? Why waste thousands of lives and millions of money fortifying towns and creating governments, if, at the end of the war, you retire from the graves of your soldiers and the desolated country of your foes, only to get money from Mexico for the expense of all your toil and sacrifice? Who ever heard, since Christianity was propagated among men, of a nation taxing its people, enlisting its young men, and marching off two thousand miles to fight a people merely to be paid for it in money? What is this but hunting a market for blood, selling the lives of your young men, marching them in regiments to be slaughtered and paid for like oxen and brute beasts?
Sir, this is, when stripped naked, that atro-
- ↑ From his speech to the United States Senate on February 11, 1847.
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