light, it is an offer to pay the consideration money of a purchase in advance, whether the title-deed may prove vahd or not, with per- mission to retain the money, although the deed should be refused. There must have been some weighty reason for this procedure. The credit of the United States was not so low, that it was necessary to pay in advance. Louisi- ana and Florida had been purchased by treaty ; but the consideration money in neither case had been paid before the treaties were ratified. The departure in the present case from the ordinary course of negotiation was caused by the burning desire to acquire additional slave terri- tory.
The war was expensive, and might prove hazardous to the popularity of the administration. Mr. Polk had no wish to kill Mexicans, provided they would surrender their lands. It was hoped our invasion, and the fearful aiTay of fifty thousand men, would have instantly frightened the enemy into the desii-ed cession of her territories ; but, in the language of the administration presses, Mexico was " mulish," was " obstinate." It was thought a large sum of money, judiciously distributed, might be more successful than intimidation had proved. The Mexican leaders were supposed to be mercenary ; the army was known to be necessitous. Three millions distributed among the officers and soldiers, either secretly as bribes, or openly under color of an instalment in advance for the purchase of territory, might induce the Mexican Congress through military coercion, to consent to the dismemberment of the Republic. This payment in advance of so la-ge a sum, might be useful, also, in compelling the American Senate to ratify the treaty. If they dechned, the mc^ney paid would be lost, and the responsibility of sacrificing the people's money would rest upon the Senators, who should dare to vote against the treaty. The attempt to re-annex the Wilmot proviso to this bill, and the long debate it occasioned; rent asunder the transparent veil with which the pro-slavery party had attempted to conceal the true object of the war, and provoked the southern members into unusual frankness.