John C. Calhoun: “On His Resolutions in Reference to the War with Mexico”

Explanation and Analysis of the Document

“On His Resolutions in Reference to the War with Mexico” is one of the most influential of Calhoun’s speeches. By the time he delivered it on January 4, 1848, he had chosen to forsake his ambitions to become president in order to support unpopular political views that he viewed as important to preserving the Union. In this speech Calhoun explains why he had opposed war with Mexico from the beginning—because Polk had placed U.S. troops in disputed territory, an act that led to hostilities, and because Polk had not fully explained the facts to Congress when he requested a declaration of war.

At the time that he took office in 1845, one of Polk’ avowed goals was to add the Mexican territories of New Mexico and Alta California to the United States. When attempts to negotiate with Mexico failed, Polk used a skirmish between Mexican and American forces in the area of the Rio Grande as a reason to declare war. At the close of the war in 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo carved out the territory of the Mexican Cession—the present-day states of California, Nevada, and Utah, along with parts of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming. In the months before ratification, debate raged in the Senate over the terms of the treaty, among them, the extent of land to be ceded.

Calhoun had been and remained staunchly opposed to the war—particularly to the possibility that the United States would subjugate Mexico. The resolutions that had been introduced by Calhoun in the course of debate on the treaty stated that “to conquer Mexico and to hold it, either as a province or to incorporate it into the Union, would be inconsistent with the avowed object for which the war has been prosecuted” and “in the end subversive of our free and popular institutions.” In discussing these resolutions, Calhoun objected to Polk’s view of how to bring the war to a close by putting down Mexico’s numerous factions, saying that it would result not in a democratic, constitutional government in Mexico but in an authoritarian government with few civil rights for the Mexican people. Moreover, he points out, “If all authority is overthrown in Mexico, where will be the power to enter into negotiation and make peace?” In Calhoun’s opinion a republican government can, in fact, be formed only by the desire of the people, “supported by their devotion to it, without support from abroad.” He prefers to see Mexico retain sovereignty and the United States to negotiate a treaty with the existing government.