Position of the President-His Cabinet-The Washington Globe and The Union-Meeting of Congress-First Annual Message-The Oregon Boundary Question-History and Progress of the Negotiation-Ultima- tum of the American Government-Proposition of Great Britain-Con- Opposition of Mexico to the Annexation of Texas-The Question of Boun- dary-American troops ordered to Texas-Attempt to Negotiate-Re- fusal to receive a Minister-Advance of General Taylor to the Rio Grande-Commencement of Hostilities-Incidents of the war-Repeated The Independent Treasury-Tariff of 1846-Course in regard to Appoint- ments-River and Harbor Veto-Second Annual Message-Special Mes- sage on the Improvement Bill-Thirtieth Congress-President's Mes- sage-Refusal to Communicate Diplomatic Correspondence-Oregon Territorial Bill-Views of Mr. Polk-Presidential Election-Last Con- gress during his administration-Inauguration of his successor. LIFE OF JAMES K. POLK. CHAPTER I. Thomas Jefferson.-Declaration of American Independence.-Origin of the Movement.-Early Settlers of North Carolina.-Character.-The Mecklenburg Resolutions. - The Polk Family. -Their History. - Patriotic Conduct during the Revolution On the southwestern slope of Monticello,-in the midst of the native forest hallowed by associations which have protected it from the faggot and the axe, and where the soft winds that disturb its solemn stillness murmur ceaselessly of the storied past,-there stands a plain granite obelisk, looking forth over the fair land, which he, who reposes there in the silence of death, loved with the affection of a son, and whose institutions he regarded with peculiar veneration. No heraldic blazonry may be witnessed there,—none of the sculptured pomp of woe. AĽ is simple, chaste, appropriate—yet impressive. Read the few lines graven upon this humble memento, in remembrance of one who asked no nobler monument! -The inscription, in brief but eloquent words, relates a whole chapter, and that the brightest and the proudest in the life of him whose memory is thus consecrated."Here lies buried, THOMAS JEFFERSON," so runs the record," Author of the Declaration of Independence !" This is not merely the assertion of a claim to the authorship of that memorable document, which can perish only with the nation that it called into existence; but it is also an important historical fact, and one of which the party directly concerned, and those interested, in his memory, have just right to be proud. It is, as it were, the impartial judgment of the recording Muse. As such, it will live in the history, and be perpetuated in the traditions, of the American people. But neither the Sage of Monticello, nor his most ardent admirer, ever claimed that he was the sole originator of the great movement to which the Declaration of '76 gave form and substance. Its germs were planted in ten thousand hearts, long before the resolutions of Patrick Henry concerning the Stamp Act were offered, or his eloquent voice had sounded the alarm; its hopes and its impulses throbbed in ten thousand bosoms long before the chimes of the old State-house bell in Philadelphia proclaimed "liberty throughout this land, unto all the inhabitants thereof;" and they only waited "the hour and the man" to call them into action, and give them expression. Occasions were not wanting, when the intolerance of oppression, and the stern resistance to tyranny, which were characteristic of the colonists, found utterance in something more than mere words and protestations. Such were the opposition of Massachusetts, in 1680, to the commercial restrictions; the refusal to surrender the charter of Connecticut to Sir Edmund Andros; the public sympathy evinced in New York, in behalf of those who were prosecuted for libels on Governor Cosby; Bacon's rebellion in Virginia; and the repeated efforts made in the Carolinas to resist the oppressions of the proprietaries. At a later day, as the time approached for the general outbreak, its foreboding thunders were heard not only among the hills of New England, but they were echoed amid the leafy forests and luxuriant savannas of the sunny South; and when the signal of war was given at Lexington, the citizens of Mecklenburg County, in fardistant North Carolina, assembled in Convention, and were the first solemnly and deliberately to proclaim their independence of the British crown. The first settlers and inhabitants of North Carolina had conceived a strong "passion for representative government ;" they were opposed, alike from prejudice and from principle, to excessive taxation, to commercial monopolies and restrictions, and to any abridgment of their political liberties. They were men "who had been led to the choice of their residence from a hatred of restraint, and had lost themselves among the woods in search of independence. Are there any who doubt man's capacity for self-government, let them study the history of North Carolina; its inhabitants were restless and turbulent in their imperfect submission to a government imposed on them from abroad; the administration of the colony was firm, humane, and tranquil, when they were left to take care of themselves. Any government but one of their own institution was oppressive."* * Bancroft's History of the United States, vol. ii., p. 158. |