The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 18, July 1914 - April, 1915 Page: 110
438 p. : ill. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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The Southwestern, Historical Quarterly
tion and presentation of his material he has been assisted by
excellent judgment and a singularly lucid historical style.
To the first and fourth topics mentioned above Mr. Rives has
added little that is new, but his work was well worth doing. Here-
tofore the only adequate account of the troubled politics of the
first quarter-century of Mexican independence has been Ban-
croft's somewhat sprawling volumes, and this clean-cut digest,
comprising about one-seventh of the book, will be welcome to the
general reader, whose interest in Mexico has been stimulated by
recent events, and to college classes touching this portion of
American history. Similarly, the only comprehensive military
history of the Mexican War has been Ripley's two volumes, pub-
lished in 1849, and now rare and expensive. For these Rives's
second volume forms a satisfactory substitute. The second and
third topics occupy roughly one-half-and much the better half-
of the book. Despatches from Murphy at London, Garro at
Paris, and Almonte at Washington to the Mexican foreign office
do much to illuminate the inter-related diplomacy of the three
principal states, and carefully co-ordinated with the results of
rnonographic studies give to those studies a new force. The pres-
sure of the British government for the recognition of Texas by
Mexico; its desire to prevent annexation, and its determination to
do so, at the cost of war if necessary, provided France would
assist; its determination to avoid war, without that assistance--
notwithstanding the tentative bribe of California offered by Mex-
ico-are all clearer than before. And Chapter XXIII is the
best statement yet available of the relations between the United
States and Mexico following the annexation treaty-made so largely
by the use of Almonte's despatches, showing the earnest efforts
of the United States to conciliate Mexico.
The author's conclusions on certain disputed points are worthy
of statement: (1) he thinks that while President Jackson was
far from being an impartial spectator of the Texas revolution,
he had a high sense of the dignity and honor of the United States
and did what he could to fulfill the neutral obligations of his gov-
ernment. "The bullying methods" which he employed in pushing
pecuniary claims against Mexico "were the subject of just crit-
icism," but he had followed substantially the same methods with
France, and it seems more reasonable to consider them the result110
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 18, July 1914 - April, 1915, periodical, 1915; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101064/m1/116/: accessed April 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.