Excerpt from Speech of John Bell, of Tennessee, on the Mexican War

Again, sir, I consider that to vote for this measure is to approve, to the fullest extent, the policy of the Administration in the further prosecution of this war. To sit in silence and to suffer it to pass without remonstrance would be an acquiescence in that policy, not in the power of those who are now silent, when hereafter the evil is upon the country, to retract or deny. They cannot say that they wore not sufficiently forewarned by the Administration of what would or might be the final and momentous result of this policy.

I believe, with one or two exceptions, the entire Senate has heretofore promptly voted every supply, both of men and money, demanded by the Executive for the prosecution of this war. The Senator from Illinois, (Mr. Douglass) in his speech on yesterday, insisted that the Whigs of the Senate had suddenly changed their tactics, and are now in opposition to their former liberal course. It is my purpose, sir, to show that the Administration has changed its policy - that it is no longer what it was twelve months ago.

But, Mr. President, I must be indulged in a few other preliminary remarks before I proceed to the main purpose of my argument.

I shall not stop to discuss several of the questions which distinguished Senators seemed to think of importance, and upon which they have employed much close and cogent argument. I shall not stop to inquire whether the President, by his order to General Taylor of the 13th of January, 1846, intended to bring on a war, I shall not inquire whether Mexico or the United States committed the first act of military aggression upon disputed territory, nor shall I delay to inquire whether the war was constitutionally brought on. It is enough for me that it exists, that that it has received the sanction of the legislative department of the Government, whatever I may think of the notable device by which that sanction was extorted. I shall not inquire whether the war might not have been avoided, though I think it might and should. I shall not inquire whether the President was, from the first, actuated by a settled purpose of acquiring territory by conquest, nor shall I examine the circumstances connected with the origin of the war to prove that it is unjust and iniquitous. If it were so, for myself I would rather seek to cast a veil over the record, or blot it out forever. Rut in saying this I mean no censure upon the course of honorable Senators, or others who take a different view of the question. They doubtless have a deep and abiding conviction of the injustice of this war, and their exalted sense of duty to themselves and their country impels them to proclaim this their honest conviction. Put I shall neither seek to fasten this conviction upon my own mind, nor upon that of others. For myself I choose to indulge the pleasing reflection, the illusion, if it be one, that up to this period at least no such untoward development of the tendencies of our system has occurred, as that the constituted authorities selected by the free and enlightened suffrages of the people have, in the mere wantonness of power and the unbridled lust of dominion, perpetrated so great an outrage upon a neighboring nation, and upon the rights of humanity.

Sir, I take this occasion to say that I have little sympathy for the Mexican republic or the Mexican rulers, now or at any recent period. So far as they could, by their example, they have brought opprobrium and disgrace upon the cause of free institutions, and upon the very name of republic. I have none at all for those faithless, gasconading chiefs, who have so long oppressed the masses of their countrymen with their exactions and all the evils of fiction and anarchy. I can sympathize with the honest and enlightened patriots, as there are doubtless some such in Mexico, who are struggling to maintai