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Details
POLK, James K. Autograph letter signed ("James K. Polk"), as President, TO JAMES BUCHANAN, 20 March 1848. 1 page, 4to, matted and framed with an engraved portrait
"I MUST ANSWER THE RESOLUTION TODAY" - TEXAS, MEXICO AND AN ANGRY CONGRESS
Polk faces an angry House of Representatives over the Nicholas Trist scandal and the controversial Treaty of Guadalupe and Hidalgo: "Will you send me the correspondence called for by the Ho. Repts. between your department and Mr. Trist? I must answer the resolution today." In a postscript he adds: "Please return the Resolution." On 7 February the House demanded Polk to produce by 20 March all of his correspondence with Buchanan and Nicholas Trist concerning the negotiations to end the Mexican War.
When Polk sent Trist to Mexico City in 1847 he seemed an impeccable choice. Fluent in French and Spanish, Trist's Democratic pedigree stretched back to Thomas Jefferson, whose granddaughter he married. He also served as Jackson's private secretary. But in a diplomatic posting to Havana in the 1830s, he showed a disturbing tendency to live by his own rules and he conducted a brisk side business in slave trading. His instructions from Polk were to wrest from Mexico the province of Upper California and establish the southern Texas boundary at the Rio Grande. Polk became annoyed when Trist submitted to Washington the Mexican request to make the Texas border at the Nueces River instead. Polk fired Trist who promptly disregarded his recall order and penned a 65-page letter justifying his insubordination. Polk called it an "arrogant, impudent, and...personally offensive" document. But when Winfield Scott captured Mexico City, Trist had a new regime with which to deal and he signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo on 2 February 1848. Polk, happier with the Treaty than the negotiator, rushed it to the Senate for ratification. Congress, meanwhile, was in an uproar. Antiwar and antislavery Whigs like Lincoln and John Quincy Adams wanted no territorial conquest, while pro-slavery members wanted the U.S. to seize all of Mexico. The Senate ratified the treaty on 10 March 1848 by a vote of 38-14, just three more than the necessary two-thirds. Polk refused to reimburse Trist for his expenses and not until 1871 did the Congress vote him some $14,000 in compensation.
"I MUST ANSWER THE RESOLUTION TODAY" - TEXAS, MEXICO AND AN ANGRY CONGRESS
Polk faces an angry House of Representatives over the Nicholas Trist scandal and the controversial Treaty of Guadalupe and Hidalgo: "Will you send me the correspondence called for by the Ho. Repts. between your department and Mr. Trist? I must answer the resolution today." In a postscript he adds: "Please return the Resolution." On 7 February the House demanded Polk to produce by 20 March all of his correspondence with Buchanan and Nicholas Trist concerning the negotiations to end the Mexican War.
When Polk sent Trist to Mexico City in 1847 he seemed an impeccable choice. Fluent in French and Spanish, Trist's Democratic pedigree stretched back to Thomas Jefferson, whose granddaughter he married. He also served as Jackson's private secretary. But in a diplomatic posting to Havana in the 1830s, he showed a disturbing tendency to live by his own rules and he conducted a brisk side business in slave trading. His instructions from Polk were to wrest from Mexico the province of Upper California and establish the southern Texas boundary at the Rio Grande. Polk became annoyed when Trist submitted to Washington the Mexican request to make the Texas border at the Nueces River instead. Polk fired Trist who promptly disregarded his recall order and penned a 65-page letter justifying his insubordination. Polk called it an "arrogant, impudent, and...personally offensive" document. But when Winfield Scott captured Mexico City, Trist had a new regime with which to deal and he signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo on 2 February 1848. Polk, happier with the Treaty than the negotiator, rushed it to the Senate for ratification. Congress, meanwhile, was in an uproar. Antiwar and antislavery Whigs like Lincoln and John Quincy Adams wanted no territorial conquest, while pro-slavery members wanted the U.S. to seize all of Mexico. The Senate ratified the treaty on 10 March 1848 by a vote of 38-14, just three more than the necessary two-thirds. Polk refused to reimburse Trist for his expenses and not until 1871 did the Congress vote him some $14,000 in compensation.