Alta California : embracing notices of the climate, soil, and agricultural products of northern Mexico and the Pacific seaboard : also, a history of the military and naval operations of the United States directed against the territories of northern Mexico, in the year 1846-'47 : with documents declaratory of the policy of the present administration of the national government in regard to the annexation of conquered territory to this union, and the opinion of the Hon. James Buchanan on the Wilmot Proviso, &c
Description of area: p. 9-12; history and documentation: p. 13-64.
Anti-annexation tract.
Summary
The 1847 publication briefly address climate soil and agriculture in Alta and Baja California in chapter I. The following eight chapters consist of communications from the U.S. Government consisting of instructions in the event Mexico declared war, justification of and motives for war, various reports to Washington, communications with Mexican officials in Alta California, accounts of the military operations in California, the articles of capitulation entered into at Rancho of Cowanga on January 13, 1847, all of which are interspersed with personal observations and comments by the author. The final chapter deals with the question of whether slavery would be allowed in California, the policy of the South and its motive for a slave market and emigrants to California and Northern Mexico [from California State University's Digital Commons]
James Harlan (August 26, 1820 - October 5, 1899) was an attorney and politician, a member of the United States Senate, a U.S. Cabinet Secretary at the United States Department of Interior under President Andrew Johnson, and a Federal Judge.
Summary
Speech by Iowa senator in defense of President Lincoln's action in raising an army when the Southern confederacy made war upon the United States.
Equal suffrage : speech of the Hon. J.F. Farnsworth of Illinois, delivered in the House of Representatives on Thursday, January 11th, 1866, upon the bill extending the right of suffrage to colored men in the District of Columbia
The issue dwarfing all others in the 1848 national elections was the disposition of territory acquired as the result of the Mexican War. Slave and Free states battled to add them to their ranks. Whig campaign pamphlets portrayed their candidate Taylor as anti-slavery in the North and as pro-slavery in the South. His opponent, Democrat Lewis Cass, was portrayed as pro-slavery in the North and anti-slavery in the South. The Democrats proceeded in a like manner. Here, for Northern consumption, Democrats demonstrate Taylor's "Southern face," i.e., his expressed comfort with Southern institutions and opposition to the Wilmot Proviso, barring slavery from the conquered territories.
Gen. Cass's extra pay, $64,865.46--General Taylor not one cent: proved by documents, officially certified and appended. Speech of Hon. Andrew Stewart, of Penn., delivered in the House of Representatives, U.S., August 3, 1848
