The time has not yet come when the war with Mexico can be treated with the philosophic dignity of which it is worthy, embellished with the imagination of poetry, and its events appropriated by the historical novelist. Certain it is, whether strange or not, that no hand has been put forth to extract the philosophy of its history, to direct our opinions of its events and its men, to trace the connections of its causes and effects, and to draw from its occurrences and results general lessons of political wisdom. Almost all the histories and sketches of it were written soon after its close, and may be considered almost contemporaneous with it, when the authors of the period could not avail themselves of the mass of material which time has now made accessible. The party passions of the hour, intensified by the slavery struggle, so tinged all efforts at the philosophical discussion of it that its great, enduring, and far-reaching consequences were not foreseen, much less appreciated, and are only just now beginning to be felt under the influence of the material development of the vast regions that were added to the country at its termination. Numerous books have been written about it, many of which will have some value to him who shall in the future assume the task of illustrating this brilliant period of American history, and there is appended to this essay a list of those volumes which have been examined and seem worthy of study. So little, however, is the history of this portion of the nation’s life appreciated that President Porter, of Yale College, in the list of historical studies in his work upon “Books and Reading” omits all reference to works upon the Mexican War, and gives but bare mention to that valuable authority upon the subject, “Benton’s Thirty Years View,” a work of which William Cullen Bryant has said: “Its literary execution, the simplicity of its style, and the unexceptionable taste which tempers all its author’s allusions to his contemporaries have been the subject of universal admiration.” For a clear and dispassionate discussion of the causes of the war, for just judgment of the motives of the actors in it, and the impartial statements of the facts that are given, Col. Benton’s chapters on the Mexican War cannot be commended too highly to the student or the historian. It is worthy of mention that the chapter which contains his address of welcome to Doniphan and the Missouri Volunteers at St. Louis on their return from the war is a masterpiece of dignified and graphic eloquence, worthy of a place as a classic model, and calls to mind the days when Athens witnessed the most splendid exhibitions of oratory the world has ever known. Since most of the histories of this war have been written a valuable addition has been made to the stores of knowledge on the subject in an admirable translation by Col. Albert E. Ramsey of a Mexican history of the conflict, which has been published under the title, “The Other Side.”