Mexico had notified the United States that the annexation of Texas would be treated as a cause of war. The Mexican press made threats. Yet there were so many internal quarrels in Mexico that open hostilities could have been avoided if the United States had not taken the position of supporting Texas in her claim to the Rio Grande as her southern boundary, disregarding the Nueces River as the southern boundary of Texas while a Mexican Province. Webster, Clay, Calhoun, Benton, and Tyler regarded the war as the result of poor management on the part of President Polk. The Whig party generally criticised it while the Democrats usually favored it, although, as the war continued, both groups were won over to its support. The Massachusetts legislature resolved in April, 1847, during hostilities, that the war had been "unconstitutionally commenced by the order of the President for the dismemberment of Mexico." Lincoln also criticised the war while it was in progress. He voted for a resolution offered by Mr. Ashburn in the House declaring that the war had been "unnecessarily and unconstitutionally" begun. On December 22, 1847, Mr. Lincoln offered the famous "Spot Resolution," calling upon the President to furnish Congress with information regarding the "spot" where hostilities had begun. A pamphlet was sent to Mr. Lincoln in which the author claimed that "in view of all the facts" the government of the United States had committed no aggression in Mexico. To this Mr. Lincoln replied: "It is a fact that the United States army in marching to the Rio Grande marched into a peaceful settlement, and frightened the inhabitants away from their houses and their growing crops. It is a fact that Fort Brown, opposite Matamoras, was built by that army within a Mexican cotton field, on which at the time the army reached it a young cotton crop was growing, which crop was wholly destroyed, and the field itself greatly and permanently injured by ditches, embankments, and the like." Although Lincoln voted for army supplies he always criticised the war. For this Lincoln's "patriotism" was questioned by Douglas in 1858 during the Lincoln-Douglas debates. General Grant in his Memoirs, Vol. I, page 53, said he considered the Mexican War "one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation." The direct cost of the conflict was $100,000,000, with a death list of 1,200 men. BIBLIOGRAPHY Macy, Jesse--_Political Parties in the United States, 1846-1861_. Chapters 7-22. Rhodes, James Ford--_History of the United States_. Vol. I, pages 87-92. Stephenson, N. W.--_Texas and the Mexican War_. Schlesinger, A. M.--_Political and Social History of the United States_. Chapter 7. Smith, Justin H.--_The War With Mexico_. Vols. I & II. Tarbell, Ida--_Life of Lincoln_. Vol. II, chapter 1. Wilson, Woodrow--_Division and Reunion_, chapter 6. CHAPTER V THE CIVIL WAR