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Root, Joseph M : Speech of Mr. Joseph M. Root of Ohio, on the Message of the President Transmitting Documents in Relation to the Return of Santa Anna and Paredes to Mexico, Delivered in the House of Representatives of the U. S., Wednesday, March 15, 1848

Printed by J. & G. S. Gideon, Washington, D.C., 1848

Original publisher's beige paper wrappers. Text printed in black ink. 5 3/4" x 9." Fourteen pages, complete. Pages are very clean and intact overall except for light age toning, a few faint spots of foxing or discoloration, some chipping and splitting along spine, and a few small wrinkles. A Very Good copy. A speech originally delivered before the United States House of Representatives on March 15, 1848 by Joseph M. Root (1807-1879), an American lawyer and politician. Root served as a U.S. Representative from Ohio from 1845-1851. He was a Whig and affiliated with the Free Soil Party. In 1848, Root introduced a resolution recommending that the territorial governments of California and New Mexico be established with the stipulation that slavery would be banned in both territories. Root promotes a free-state proviso in this speech, perhaps the very one that recommended California and New Mexico be free territories. Root also addresses several other subjects in the speech. Despite the title, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna and Mariano Paredes are seldom referenced herein. Root begins part of his speech by countering the claims made by Frederick Stanton, a Congressman from Tennessee, that favored President James K. Polk and the Mexican-American War. In particular, Root criticizes Polk's lack of transparency regarding his instructions to the John Slidell, the U.S. Minister to Mexico. Root claims that Polk's instructions were duplicitous in nature as well as the recent land acquisitions resulting from the war. He also criticizes Nicholas Trist, the American diplomat who negotiated the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo which ended the war, and the way in which the treaty was secured. He appears to claim that Polk's acquisition of the Mexican territories amounted to bribery. Ultimately, most of Root's speech is an adamant critique against Polk, the war, and the president's actions. In one of the last parts of his address, Root prophetically references the Civil War when he states, "The acquisition of Mexican territory in one form or another is inevitable, and so is the strife between slavery and anti-slavery--free States and slaves States--North and South. It cannot be avoided; it must come: aye, it has come.". Book. Book Condition: Very Good. Binding: Soft cover

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