This was the opening of the conflict, and this might well have been the end, if Mexico had been capable of rational negotiation. But there was no government long enough in place to be negotiated with. The special envoy sent from Washington, agreeably to an intimation on the part of one President, that negotiations would be cordially entered upon, was refused an audience by the new President who had usurped the place of the other one. Such weakness in Mexican high places furnished an excuse to the American government for continuing the war, while this same weakness on the part of their antagonist made it almost discreditable for the United States to continue an aggressive warfare upon forces so unequal. However, the war was begun. Hostilities had been opened by Mexico, and the American people of all parties were aroused. Bills were promptly passed in Washington providing men, money, and munitions with alacrity, as if there were but one opinion of the justice of the cause. The President was authorized to call for volunteers, in any number not exceeding fifty thousand, to serve for the period of one year, or during the war, and volunteers readily answered the appeal to arms. "Indemnity for the past and security for the future," is the watchword of the United States in its wars with foreign nations. As indemnity for the wrongs inflicted by Mexico,--that is, her objection to the admission of Texas to the Union, it was determined to cross her boundary line and seize upon her territory. California, then sparsely settled, and comparatively unknown, at a long distance from the central and civilized part of Mexico, had been explored already by American travellers, who brought back accounts of its climate, fertile soil, and mineral resources that showed it to be worth having. The harbors on its coasts were known to be the only good ones on the shores of the Northern Pacific Ocean. California lay immediately south of the United States territory of Oregon, with no defined natural boundary between them. Many Americans were already settled there, and altogether it seemed well to transfer this goodly region to the keeping of the United States. New Mexico, another department of the Mexican Republic, lying upon the direct route to California, and in great part included in the boundaries claimed by Texas upon her admission to the Union, was also another territory that claimed attention.