false ones. The war was to be continued, not to obtain a reimbursement of its expenses, not to collect a paltry debt, but solely for conquest. We have already seen that it was the President's determination to annex California to the Union. Let us now hsten to a few of the frank avowals of the partisans of the war in Congress.
Mr. Staxtox, of Tennessee, declared that, "The an- nexation of California to the United States, was the great measure of the age."^' Mr. Bedinger, of Virginia—" Was this to be a war of conquest ? He answered, yes ; trusting in Heaven, and on the valor of their arms, this should be a war of con- quest."!
Mr. Sevier, of Arkansas, speaking of the territories to be acquired from Mexico, observed, "He supposed no Senator would think that they ought to be less than New Mexico and Upper California. He did not suppose that a treaty of peace with less than this would ever pass that body."t Mr. Giles, of Maryland—" I take it for granted, that we shall gain territory, and must gain territory, before w^e * Cong. Globe, 10th Dec, 1846, p. 23.
t Cong. Globe, 6th Jan., 1847, p. 126.
t Cong. Globe, 2d Feb.. 1847, p. 306.
shut the gates of the temple of Janus, We must have it.
Every consideration of national policy calls upon us to se- cure it. We must march right out from ocean to ocean. We must fulfil what the American poet has said of us, from one end of this confederacy to the other, ' The broad Pacific chafes our strand.
We hear the wide Atlantic roar.' We must march from Texas straight to the Pacific ocean, and be bounded only by its roaring wave. We must admit no other government to any partition of this great territory. It is