BOOKS.
WILLIAM JAY AND EMMA. WILLARD ON THE MEXICAN WAR.* THOSE who have any knowledge of American literature are acquainted with William Jay, as one of the most cogent and forcible writers of the Anti-Slavery and Peace party. Sternly uncompromising in principle— making the Bible his test of every action, whether private, political, or official—and adopting views as extreme as any of the Abolitionists or peace people in this country—he gives weight, importance, and that calm elevation we call philosophy, to subjects in which passion, exagge- ration, or sentimental absurdity, generally predominate. This superiority to the mass of speakers and writers on similar questions is partly owing to a natural disposition ; but the causes ostensible to criticism are the reality of the matter, the solidity of the views, the breadth but evi- dent utility of purpose which distinguish William Jay's productions. He appeals to the reason and self-interest of mankind, not in vague gene- ralities or prophecies falsified by events almost at the moment of utter- ance, but by calm and convincing evidence, which places the cost, the misery, and the inutility of war for its avowed objects, directly before the reader. Mr. Jay's arguments, too, are applied. He does not deal in a fluent outpouring of truisms or well-used statistics, but takes particu- lar historical events and illustrates them by facts collected by his own researches. Joined with these qualities there is some allowance for op- ponents, though perhaps not enough ; but his productions as wholes cannot always be called philosophical, since we have only his own and not "the other side." Advantage, self-interest, even a large-minded self-interest, are not the only motives of man, nor is "an enlightened self-interest" the only pursuit of his nature. The mixed motives, of ignorance, which he cannot always help—of passions, without which he would stagnate—and of spirit or mental elevation, often taking mischievous or erroneous directions, but still adding dignity to his nature and raising him above the brute, the barbarian, or the sordid groveller—are often, with the mass at least, the exciting causes of war, and require to be considered. In fact, however terrible in its effects, war seems to have been one of the greatest means by which the world has been peopled and advanced. The Jews occupied the Promised Land by war ; the Greeks in a degree, the Romans entirely, extended their dominions by war. The system of modern Europe was founded by means of the barbarian invasions; America was settled by war; and the progress of Asia and Africa—such progress as it has been—seems owing to war. And one cause appears to be this, that the conquering must be a superior or an advancing people. With Mr. Jay's objects, which are limited to furthering the particular objects of the Peace party, these topics may fairly be overlooked : but their exclusion shuts out elements necessary to arrive at the truth.
The Review of the Mexican War will add to Mr. Jay's reputation ; for (subject to the limitations just mentioned) it is not only a good ar- gument in favour of his side, but it is a searching historical disquisition. With the Affghan invasion and other British doings that might be men- tioned staring us in the face, where power was made a sufficient reason for violating rules of right towards weak and inferior peoples, we have no wish to throw stones at others. But the pertinacious and un- scrupulous policy of the American Government, or, as Mr. Jay main- tains, the Slave-holding party, and the bold unblushing avowal of their purposes as exhibited in the Review before us, is almost unex- ampled in historical literature. It may be that the publicity of the Ame- rican habits lets the world more distinctly into their secrets than is the Case with the European monarchies; and that the circumstances of the Country raise vulgar and half-educated men to eminent position, who rashly give the worst of thoughts the worst of words. Still, the want of public principle and of private veracity, unfolded by Mr. Jay in his Re- view of the sub;ect, from the first irruption of the American "settlers" into Texas, until the military occupation of the city of Mexico itself and the seizure of California, are startling. Louis the Fourteenth has always been considered the type of an ambitious and unscrupulous monarch, and his conduct throughout the negotiations respecting the Spanish dominions has often been cited as proof of his profound perfidy. The reader of Mr. Jay, and of the Despatches collected by Mr. Grimblot relating to the War of the Succession, will come to a conclusion un- favourable to the Model Republic. In point of dignity, of openness, of apparent fair-dealing and desire for peace, the advantage is all on the side of Louis. It is the same in popular assemblies. In the worst of times, the worst of Frenchmen have boldly maintained their opinion in despite of Majorities in or out of doors, without regard to interest, not unfrequently in the presence of violence or even under threat of death. Mr. Jay's account of the conduct of the persons in Congress who voted for a war of which they disapproved, is in strong contrast to the Gallic representatives,
rash, wild, and fanatical as they have often shown themselves to be.
"The object we have assigned for the war does not explain why, of two hun- dred and forty members of Congress, only sixteen were found who voted against bill containing in its preamble an assertion unsupported by proof, and appro- priating great supplies for defence when no danger threatened. "Few if any of the Northern members had a direct interest in the conquest of California ; but all were interested in the ascendancy of one or the other of the two great political parties. Mr. Polk and his Cabinet were the leaders and repre- sentatives of the Democratic party, and the dispensers of the vast patronage wielded by the Federal Government. To vote against the war, would have been in the Democratic members an act of rebellion against their own party, and an exclusion of themselves fur the future from all participation in the favours of the Administration. It would, moreover, alienate the Southern Democrats from their Northern brethren, and by the division thus occasioned would most probably, at the next. elections, transfer the political power of the nation, with all its emoln- ,.• A Review of the Ceases and Consequences of the Mexican War. By William Jay. brcond edition. Published by B. Mussey and Co., Boston, U.S. Last Leaves of American History : comprising Histories of the Mexican War and California. By Emma Willard. Published by Putnam, New York. rents, into the hands of the rival party. Not a solitary Democratic vote in either Rouse was given against the war.
" The Whig party was placed under very different circumstances. They were in the minority, and were striving to gain the seats occupied by the present in- cumbents. Hence it was their policy to cast the utmost odium upon the Ad- ministration, and to represent its measures as unwise and dishonest, and injurious alike to the interests and the morals of the country. Hence no denunciations of the course by which the Administration had involved the nation in the calamities of war were too violent or too unmeasured. The conduct of Mr. Polk, in par- ticular, was all that was false, base, and wicked. The war was the President's war; and the assertion that it was the act of Mexico a palpable falsehood. But the multitude are ever fascinated with military glory, and ever ready to enjoy the spoils of war. It was therefore deemed most politic to make a distinction between the war and its authors. The latter were, if possible, to be hurled from office for commencing an iniquitous war; but the patriotism of the Whig party was to be manifested in their vigorous prosecution of this same iniquitous war, for theglory of the nation. Had the Whigs voted against supplies after they were told that war existed, they might have been charged at the polls with dereliction to the cause of their country. It was therefore deemed more expedient to con- car in sending fifty thousand men to rob Mexico, and murder her citizens, than to hazard the loss of votes at the approaching elections. The excuse generally made by the Whigs for supporting the war hill was, that General Taylor and his army were in danger of being destroyed or captured by the Mexicans. The excuse was not only false but it was palpably ridiculous. The very despatch in which Tay- lor announced that hostilities had commenced demonstrated his entire security.
The conduct, the cost, the losses, and the miseries created by the war both to America and Mexico, are exhibited with equal force and skill. Mr. Jay brings together from all quarters the more striking accounts of these things. By stripping the facts of their attendant glory, by show- ing from individual sources the state of things concealed under the glowing generalization of the despatches, or by digging out from official papers the confidential communications unknown at the moment and hidden afterwards in a mass of business documents, be gives a very de- plorable picture of the needless cruelty inflicted by the generals, the savage manner in which they were finally driven to conduct the war, and the atrocities perpetrated by the troops, especially the volunteers, contrary to the rules of war and in defiance of the efforts of the commanders. The terrible mortality from disease shows what a destructive contest it would have become had the Mexicans been able to hold their ground for any time, and what a loss of life the mere working of the campaign in- flicted on the Americans.
" A New Orleans paper, noticing the return of the Tennessee Regiment to that city, remarks, Just one year ago, there passed through our streets as noble and splendid a body of men as ever went forth to battle. They were about nine hun- dred strong. On Friday last, the whole of this gallant regiment arrived in our city: it numbers just three hundred and fifty —about one-third the force with which it left; and this loss it has sustained in a twelvemonth's campaign. It has
lost on an average fifty men a month. •
" We could fill sheets with extracts from the public journals giving mournful details of the ravages of disease in our Mexican army. Let the following from a Southern paper, and an advocate for the war, suffice. ' At Perote there were 2,600 American graves, all victims of disease; and at the city of Mexico the deaths were most of the time 1,000 a month. The first regiment that went out from Mississippi buried 155 men on the banks of the Rio Grande before it went into battle, and finally brought back less than half of its number. Two regiments from Pennsylvsma went out 1,800 strong, and came home with about 600. Two regiments from Tennessee, without being in any battle, lost 300 men. Captain Nay- lor, of Pennsylvania, took down a company of 104 men, and brought back seven- teen. He went into the battle of Contreras with thirty-three, and came out of it with nineteen. But the most frightful instance of mortality was in the Georgia battalion: it went to Mexico 419 strong; about 230 actually died ; a large num- ber was discharged with ruined constitutions, many of them doubtless gone long since to their graves; and thus the battalion was reduced to thirty-four men fit for duty. On one parade when a certain company once mustering more than 100 men was called, the call was answered by a single private, its only living repre- sentative. From officers of many other regiments we have received details very similar to the above, which may be taken as a pretty fair average of the losses in the volunteer regiments; the regulars did not suffer to the same extent.' " Mr. Clay, in a public speech, estimated the loss of our countrymen in the first eighteen months of the war as equal to one half the whole loss sustained in our seven years' revolutionary struggle. " Mr. Calhoun declared on the floor of Congress that the mortality of our troops could not be less than 20 per cent. " If then we estimate the total mortality of our troops, including those slain and such as afterwards died of their wounds, and those who have expired in Mexico and at home of diseases contracted in camp, at twenty thousand, we shall be in little danger of exaggerating the amount."
Emma Willard's Last Leaves of American History is a great contrast to Mr. Jay's Review. The loss of American life she rates higher than Mr. Jay does, (carrying it to twenty-five thousand persons,) independently of the pecuniary cost, and the misery inflicted on Mexico. The feminine feelings of the woman revolt at this, and she raises her voice against future wars. As for the past, she comforts herself with the thought of national glory, the party representations of national wrongs received from Mexico, and the idea that the men of the Union were raised up to punish the Spaniards for the cruelties committed in the original conquest. There is not much of critical or philosophic history in the Last Leaves, and the narrative is not very graphic or vigorous : the authorities seem mainly to be the newspaper narratives,—which, by the by, are quite as trustworthy as the pamphlets of olden times. The use of the book consists in its presenting a complete and continuous story, not powerful, but clear.
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