What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848

by Daniel Walker Howe

On February 2, 1848, the peace commissioners signed their document “In the Name of Almighty God” at Guadalupe Hidalgo, site of Mexico’s national shrine to the Blessed Virgin Mary, which Trist chose as a location to impress the Mexican public with the treaty’s authority.29 Polk’s order to General Butler to terminate the negotiations forcibly arrived too late to prevent the signing. Later the American diplomat revealed to his wife what had been his guiding principles. My object, through out was, not to obtain all I could, but on the contrary to make the treaty as little exacting as possible from Mexico, as was compatible with its being accepted at home. In this I was governed by two considerations: one was the iniquity of the war, as an abuse of power on our part; the other was that the more disadvantageous the treaty was made to Mexico, the stronger would be the ground of opposition to it in the Mexican Congress. Trist wanted a treaty that could realistically end the war, capable of ratification by both sides and avoiding such outcomes as the conquest of All Mexico, that country’s complete dismemberment, or the indefinite prolongation of anarchy and fighting. Privately, he also felt “shame” at his country’s conduct in the war. “For though it would not have done for me to say so there, that was a thing for every right-minded American to be ashamed of,” he remembered thinking.30 His recognition of a moral standard higher than the unbridled pursuit of national interest was no ...