Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1916-07-06
In MEXICO 20 YEARS AGO


of volunteers and had won no special
military renown.
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and
the Territory Thereby Acquired
A treaty of peace between commits
sloners representing the United States
ana Mexico was signed at the small
Mexican town of Guadalupe -Hidalgo,
February I'd. 1S4S. but it was some
months before its provisions had been
ratified by the legislative bodies of
both countries. The articles of this
treaty were twenty-three in number,
the most important provision being
that Mexico. in addition to recogniz-
ing the Rio Grande as the boundary
line of Texas. ceded to the United
States an area of territory of North
ern Mexico 522, 56S square miles in ex-
tent for which the United States paid
S15,0O0,000 besides assuming the
claims of American citizens against
Mexico aggregating nearly $1,000, 600
more. This addition of territory was
supplemented, in 1853. by what is u.s.
ually termed the Gadsden purchase,
which added 45,535 additional square
miles of Mexican territory to the Unit
ed States at a price of $4,000, 900.
Thus, including the enormous State
of Texas with its 262.29 square miles,
our flag now waves over more than
$4,000 square miles of territory that
once belonged to Mexico.
One may be inclined to wonder that
the Mexican authorities should so
readily yield up so great an amount of
land. In the first place they were
thoroughly whipped and the conqueror
held their capital. In the second place
the Mexican authorities of that period
thought few millions of solid cash in
hand worth more to them than vast
areas of unsettled and unexplored
land. They had robbed and pillaged all
over Mexico in a succession of forced
next dollar was to come from. So
Uncle Sans coin looked very good
to them.
The Slavery Question in the Mexican
War
The territory acquired from Mexico
by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
has been carried into the States of
California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah.
New Mexico, while a considera BILE
part of Colorado and small portions Of
Wyoming, Kansas and Oklahoma also
belonged to this gigantic addition to
our national area.
The annexation of Texas, the re-
sultant war with Mexico, and the
Gadsden purchase were all bitterly op-
poseu by the antislavery element of
the Northern States because these
ject was the extension of the area of
Islave-holding territory in the United
States. And such. undeniably, was the
intention of the powerful and then
dominant pro-slavery element of our
country.
One of the fiercest opponents in Con-
gress of the Administrations measures
for the prosecution of the war was
Thomas Corwin, of Ohio, commonly
In ac of
his swarthy complexion. He delivered
series of speeches against the act
authorizing the president to call out
! 5000 volunteers which are among
the most ornate forensic efforts OF
Americas legislative halls, ranking in
beauty and force with the eloquence
of Webster, Clay and Everett. In one
of these speeches Corwin said:
"Yau may carry your banners to the
loftiest peaks of the Cordilleras. They
may wave in insolent triumph in the
halls of the Montezumas; the armed
men of Mexico may quail before them
But the weakest hand in Mexico, up
| lifted in prayer to the God of Justice,
may call down against you power in
the presence of which the iron hearts
of your warriors shall be turned into
ashes. There is a God who rules the
destinies of nations"
man! l will take for my text the last
sentence of the above quotation
There is a God who rules over the
destinies of nations" Not an acre of
all that vast area obtained as the re-
suit of the Mexican war ever became
slave territory. So bitter were the Nor
thern opponents of slavery in their op-
position to the Mexican war that their
utterances often verged closely on dis
loyalty Yet the results of that war
have been amongst the grandest vic
tories of civilization that the centuries
have seen. That war opened to Ameri-
can enterprise nearly 100000 square
miles up to that time sparsely settled
by people whom Dana, in his 1.-TWO
Years Before the Mast" has charac-
terized as "a race so lazy that they
hardly seemed to earn their sunshine.
1t actually appears as if daylight was
thrown away on this people"
What a wonderful. wonderful differ
ence it would make in the North AM
erica of to-day If all that vast eXpanse
of territory had remained under the
imbecile and corrupt domination of
Mexican authority. Yes! there is God
who rules the destiny of nations and
out of seeming evil He brings ever
lasting good.
And who knows but that the un-
speakable Carranza may be the very
instrument, in Gods plans for our ma
ton, to make us translate a meaning
less chatter about preparedness" in
to effective action.