o agree that the part of her dominions called
New Mexico, and that called California, shall be ceded to us. We are in
possession, as is said, and she shall yield her title to us. This is the
precise object of this new army of thirty thousand men. Sir, it is the
identical object, in my judgment, for which the war was originally
commenced, for which it has hitherto been prosecuted, and in furtherance
of which this treaty is to be used but as one means to bring about this
general result; that general result depending, after all, on our own
superior power, and on the necessity of submitting to any terms which we
may prescribe to fallen, fallen, fallen Mexico!

Sir, the members composing the other house, the more popular branch of
the legislature, have all been elected since, I had almost said the
fatal, I will say the remarkable, events of the 11th and 13th days of
May, 1846. The other house has passed a resolution affirming that "the
war with Mexico was begun unconstitutionally and unnecessarily by the
executive government of the United States." I concur in that sentiment;
I hold that to be the most recent and authentic expression of the will
and opinion of the majority of the people of the United States.

There is, Sir, another proposition, not so authentically announced
hitherto, but, in my judgment, equally true and equally capable of
demonstration; and that is, that this war was begun, has been continued,
and is now prosecuted, for the great and leading purpose of the
acquisition of new territory, out of which to bring new States, with
their Mexican population, into this our Union of the United States.

If unavowed at first, this purpose did not remain unavowed long. However
often it may be said that we did not go to war for conquest,

"credat Judaeus Apella,
Non ego,"

yet the moment we get possession of territory we must retain it and make
it our own. Now I think that this original object has not been changed,
has not been varied. Sir, I think it exists in the eyes of those who
originally contemplated it, and who began the war for it, as plain, as
attractive to them, and from which they no more avert their eyes now
than they did then or have done at any time since. We have compelled a
treaty of cession; we know in our consciences that it is compelled. We
use it as an instrument and an agency, in conjunction with other
instruments and other agencies of a more formidable and destructive
character, to