Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 1).djvu/463

commercial distress of the country produced, in the elections of 1840, a political revolution, and on 4 March, 1841, the whigs came into power under President Harrison. His death in April placed in the executive chair Mr. Tyler, who proved to be opposed to a national bank, and vetoed two bills: the first for a national bank, and the second for a “Fiscal Corporation of the United States.” Mr. Clay made freqnent attacks upon Mr. Tyler's vetoes, and even proposed a joint resolution for an amendment of the constitution requiring but a bare majority, instead of two thirds, of each house of congress to pass a bill over the president's objections. Mr. Buchanan, on 2 Feb., 1842, replied to Mr. Clay in a speech that may be ranked very high as an exposition of one of the most important parts of our political system. He showed that the president's veto was the people's safeguard, through the officer who “more nearly represents a majority of the whole people than any other branch of the government,” against the encroachments of the senate. The veto power “owes its existence,” said he, “to a revolt of the people of Rome against the tyrannical decrees of the Roman senate. The president of the United States, elected by his fellow-citizens to the highest official trust in the country, is directly responsible to them for the manner in which he shall discharge his duties; and he will not array himself, by the exercise of the veto power, against a majority in both houses of congress, unless in extreme cases, where, from strong convictions of public duty, he may be willing to draw down upon himself their hostility.” Mr. Buchanan was one of those that opposed the ratification of the treaty with England negotiated by Mr. Webster and Lord Ashburton in 1842. In 1843 he was elected to the senate for a third term, and in 1844 his name was brought forward us the democratic candidate of Pennsylvania for the presidential nomination; but before the national convention met he withdrew in order that the whole strength of the party might be concentrated upon one candidate. James K. Polk was elected; he asked Mr. Buchanan to become his secretary of state, and the invitation was accepted. In this responsible position Mr. Buchanan had two very important questions to deal with, and they required the exercise of all his political tact and indefatigable industry. One was the settlement of the boundary between the territory of Oregon and the British possessions. (See Polk, James Knox.) The other was the annexation of Texas, which resulted in the Mexican war. Texas had been for nine years independent of Mexico, and now sought admission into our union. The difficulties that attended this question were, on the one hand, the danger of increasing the excitement, already considerable, against slavery (for Texas would be a slave-holding state); and, on the other, the danger of interference on the part of England if Texas should remain independent and resume her war with Mexico. The adoption by Texas of the basis of annexation proposed by the United States was followed by the refusal of the Mexican government to receive Mr. Slidell, sent by Mr. Polk as envoy extraordinary, with the object of avoiding a war and to settle all questions between the two countries, including the western boundary of Texas. The result of the Mexican war was the cession to the United States of California and New Mexico and the final settlement of the Texan boundary. The policy of Mr. Polk's administration toward the states of Central America and on the subject of the Monroe doctrine was shaped by Mr. Buchanan very differently from that adopted by the succeeding administration of Gen. Taylor, whose secretary of state was Mr. Clayton, the American negotiator of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty with Great Britain. Acting under Mr. Buchanan's advice, President Polk, in his first annual message, in December, 1845, reasserted the Monroe doctrine that no European nation should henceforth be allowed by the United States to plant any colony on the American continent or to interfere in any way in American affairs. This declaration was intended to frustrate the attempts of England to obtain a footing in the then Mexican province of California by an extensive system of colonization. England's aims were defeated for the time. Two years afterward, when the Mexican war was drawing to a close, Mr. Buchanan turned the attention of President Polk to the encroachments of the British government in Central America, under the operation of a protectorate over the kingdom of the Mosquito Indians. Great disturbances followed in Yucatan, and the Indians began a war of extermination against the whites. If not actually incited by the British authorities, the savages were known to be supplied with British muskets. The whites were reduced to such extremities that the authorities of Yucatan offered to transfer the dominion and sovereignty of the peninsula to the United States, as a consideration for defending it against the Indians, at the same time giving notice that if this offer should be declined they would make the same proposition to England and Spain. The president recommended to congress the appeal of Yucatan, but declined to recommend the adoption of any measure with a view to acquire the dominion and sovereignty over the peninsula. In April, 1848, the United States appointed a chargé d'affaires to Guatemala, and Mr. Buchanan instructed him to “promote, by his counsel and advice, should suitable occasions offer, the reunion of the states that formed the federation of Central America; to cultivate the most friendly relations with Guatemala and the other states of Central America; and to communicate to the state department all the information obtainable concerning the British encroachments upon the Mosquito kingdom.” The new chargé was prevented from reaching Guatemala until late in Mr. Polk's administration, and the plan wisely conceived by Mr. Buchanan was not carried out. In the mean time the British government seized upon the port of San Juan de Nicaragua, the only good harbor along the coast. Instead of carrying out the policy of President Polk and Mr. Buchanan, the administration of President Taylor, without consulting the states of Central America, entered in 1850 into the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, the ambiguous language of which soon gave rise to such complications and misunderstandings between England and the United States that Mr. Buchanan was obliged to go, subsequently, as minister to London, to endeavor to unravel them. Instead of a simple provision requiring Great Britain absolutely to recede from the Mosquito protectorate, and to restore to Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica their respective territories, the treaty declared that neither of the parties should “make use of any protection which either affords or may afford, or any alliance which either has or may have, to or with any state or people, for the purpose of erecting or maintaining any fortifications, or of occupying, fortifying, or colonizing any part of Central America, or of assuming or exercising any dominion over the same.” It soon became the British construction of this clause that it recognized the existence of the Mosquito protectorate for all purposes other than those expressly prohibited; and down to the time when Mr. Buchanan