In countless eyes the war itself soon lost its glamour. Imagining that our advance to the Rio Grande had been the cause of it, many felt bound to denounce it as unauthorized, unconstitutional, unjust, aggressive; and not a few, in dense ignorance of the history, character and views of the Mexicans, thought, like Professor Kent of Harvard University, that it was "demoniacal" to make war upon those poor innocents, as if they had not been shooting one another pretty continuously and also aching to shoot us. Not reflecting that nations begin to think of indemnities as soon, at least, as they begin to fight, and that legitimate advantages might accrue from occupying Mexican territory, people viewed suspiciously the operations of Taylor, Wool, Kearny, Stockton and Stevenson, threw up their hands, and exclaimed, "Conquest!" as if the ground they stood upon and half the world besides had not been gained by the sword. "Cormorants of territory!" hissed a Thersites. "Sages and Heroes of the Revolution, lo, the consummation of your labors!" wailed a Cassandra; Mexico is to be absorbed, and "the original, moving, burning stimulus" of the crime is the wish to manufacture glory for Polk, and gratify him with a second term. To be sure, the nation had officially endorsed the war; but multitudes were eager to have the nation disgraced, if they could only disgrace Polk.[34.10] Toward the future as well as the past frowned the critics of the administration. Territory seemed likely to be acquired, and it was feared that slavery would plant its black hoof upon the soil. In Massachusetts a group of young men, who doubtless believed in freedom unselfishly, believed also that it was the coming idea, and might carry them ahead of such conservative leaders as Webster and Winthrop. Sumner was one of these; and he, without offering proof that slavery stood behind the war, pushed through the legislature some bloodcurdling resolutions against the "gigantic crime"; while Lowell, not stopping to ascertain whether negro servitude could thrive on the Pacific, sounded an appeal to sectional feelings: "They jest want this Californy So's to lug new slave-states in To abuse ye, an' to scorn ye, And to plunder ye like sin."[34.11]