<* Chapter XXII.

Population. Indians, 4,000,000 Whites, 1,000,000 Negroes, 6,000 All other casts, * 2,009,509 7,015,509 Exports from Mexico in 1842, exclusive of Gold and Silver, SI ,500,000 National debt, 85,000,000 —" Mexico as it was, and as it is.' was thus frankly stated by Mr. C. J. Ingersoll, as Chairman of the Committee of Foreign Relations, in a rejiort he presented February, 1847 : " Complaints of the resort to territorial conquests from Mexico are disarmed of reproach by the undeniable facts, that Mexico, by war, constrains the United States to take by conquest what, ever since the Mexican independence, e¥ery American administration has been striving to get by 'purchase ; and that the executive orders, and military and naval execution of them for the achievement of conquest, have con- formed not merely to the long established policy of our Government but wise principles of self-preservation indis- pensable to all provident Government." This official language of the report was but a repetition of sentiments advanced by the chairman, in a speech in the House, 19 th January, 1847 : "War as often waged," said Mr. Inger- soll, " is a theme of copious lamentation ; and so it should be. But what the old. women of both sexes are given to deplore as the calamities of war, where have they, been yet felt in these hostilities with Mexico ? Never was the country more prosperous, or so powerful as at present. I mean to show unanswerably that all parties in the United States, all administrations of this Government since Mexico ceased to be a Spanish Province, have united in the policy of getting from her by fair means jyrecisehj those territories which, and only which, she has now .?on- strained us to take by force, though even yet we are dis- posed to pay for them, not by blood merely, but by money too."* In other words, if Mexico will yet consent to sell us these coveted temtories—at our own price, we will cease to murder her citizens in order to acquire them.