nnexations of 1845-1853]

At a cost of a few thousand lives and some eighty million dollars, eight
hundred thousand square miles of territory had been added to the country
and the long-standing quarrel with Mexico about Texas had been brought
to an end. The Treasury had stood well the heavy strain of war, every
bond that had been issued had been readily taken at par and on a low
rate of interest--an unprecedented fact in American history. The hard
times of the preceding decade seemed to be brought to a conclusion. No
one complained at the tariff, and even the veto of the internal
improvements bill was passing out of the public mind. The South and the
West had carried their program. Polk retired to his home to die a few
months later. There had been no appreciable public demand for his
renomination; and, rather strange to say, both the people and the
historians consigned him to comparative oblivion.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

G. P. Garrison's _Westward Extension_ (1906), in the _American Nation_
series, has given us the best brief general survey of the expansion
movement which closed with the war with Mexico. An exhaustive treatment
of the Texas question is Justin H. Smith's _The Annexation of Texas_
(1911), and George L. Rives's _The United States and Mexico, 1821-1848_
(1913), is almost as complete for the Mexican War. A good history of
Oregon and the Oregon movement has not yet been written; but Robert
Greenhow's _History of Oregon_ (1870), H. H. Bancroft's _Oregon_, in his
voluminous Western history series, and Josiah Royce's _California_, in
the _American Commonwealths_ series, are all valuable. Some special
articles of importance are: _The Slidell Mission to Mexico_, by L. M.
Sears, in _South Atlantic Quarterly_ for 1912; E. G. Bourne's _The
United States and Mexico, 1847-48_, in the _American Historical Review_,
vol. v, p. 491; and W. E. Dodd's _The West and the War with Mexico_, in
the _Journal_ of the Illinois State Historical Society for 1911. The
sources which some may wish to consult are _The Diary of James K. Polk_,
edited by M. M. Quaife and published by the Chicago Historical Society
(1910); Lyon G. Tyler's _The Times of the Tylers_, already mentioned;
John Quincy Adams's _Memoir_, also frequently cited; _The Correspondence
of John C. Calhoun, The Works of Calhoun_ (1853-55), edited by R. K.
Cralle; and the writings of both Clay and Webster as given in the notes
to previous chapters. _Niles's Register_, a w