Dichotomy?
Thoreau happens to be one of my
favorite historical personages. I have
read all of his writings (over and over),
including the 14 volumes of his Journal (3
times through). In 1846, Thoreau went to
jail for refusing to pay his pole tax. The
Mexican War was beginning, a war that
Thoreau believed to have been started by
the United States [it had been] on
behalf of slave holders who wished to
extend their slave territory.
An article on Thoreau and architecture
that I wrote in 1990 for the Early
American Industries Association
magazine The
Chronicle, posted online at
IronOrchid.com
And one on the Mocotagan
website on Thoreau's observations on
birch canoes and canoe building.
In 1846, another of my favorites
Frémont, in California on
his 3rd exploring expedition, happened to
be one of those starting
that war with Mexico.
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Thoreau: The Rights and Duties of the
Individual in Relation to Government
later titled
Civil
Disobedience
 How
does it become a man to behave toward this
American Government today?
Practically speaking, the opponents
to a reform in Massachusetts are not a
hundred thousand politicians at the South,
but a hundred thousand merchants and
farmers here, who are more interested in
commerce and agriculture than they are in
humanity, and are not prepared to do
justice to the slave and to Mexico, cost
what it may. I quarrel not with far-off
foes, but with those who, near at home,
cooperate with, and do the bidding of,
those far away, and without whom the
latter would be harmless. We are
accustomed to say, that the mass of men
are unprepared; but improvement is slow,
because the few are not materially wiser
or better than the many. It is not so
important that many should be as good as
you, as that there be some absolute
goodness somewhere; for that will leaven
the whole lump. There are thousands who
are in opinion opposed to slavery and to
the war, who yet in effect do nothing to
put an end to them; who, esteeming
themselves children of Washington and
Franklin, sit down with their hands in
their pockets, and say that they know not
what to do, and do nothing; who even
postpone the question of freedom to the
question of free-trade, and quietly read
the prices-current along with the latest
advices from Mexico, after dinner, and, it
may be, fall asleep over them both. What
is the price-current of an honest man and
patriot to-day? They hesitate, and they
regret, and sometimes they petition; but
they do nothing in earnest and with
effect. They will wait, well disposed, for
others to remedy the evil, that they may
no longer have it to regret.
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The American as conquerer is
unwilling to appear in public as
a pure aggressor: he dare not
seize a California as Russia has
seized so much land in Asia, or
as Napoleon, with full French
approval, seized whatever he
wanted. The American wants to
persuade not only the world, but
himself, that he is doing God
service, in a peaceable spirit,
even when he violently takes what
he has determined to get.
Josiah
Royce
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Frémont
Memoirs of
My Life
 The
cross of St. George hung idly down from
the peak of the great ship "Collingwood,"
the breeze occasionally spreading out
against the sky the small red patch which
represented centuries of glory. There lay
the pieces on the great chessboard before
me with which the game for an empire had
been played…I was but a pawn, and
like a pawn I had been pushed forward to
the front at the opening of the
game,
and from
the proceedings of the Court Martial
of Col. John Charles
Frémont
Knowing well the views of the
cabinet, and satisfied that it was a great
national measure to unite California to us
as a sister State, by a voluntary
expression of the popular will, I had in
all my marches through the country, and
in, all my intercourse with the people,
acted invariably in strict accordance with
this impression, to which I was naturally
farther led by my own feelings. I had kept
my troops under steady restraint and
discipline, and never permitted to them a
wanton outrage, or any avoidable
destruction of property or life.
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My own 3-great grandfather Captain John
Grigsby found himself involved in the same
political arena. When he crossed Truckee
Pass into California in 1845, he was
advised that all foreigners had been
ordered by General Jose Castro to leave
California within forty  days.
With their animals worn out from the long
journey, and without money or supplies,
they decided to remain. John moved his
family to the Napa Valley, and obtained
work from George Yount. As the situation
worsened, rather than leaveing California,
John chose to become a member of what
became known as The Bear Flag Party.
Thirty of them captured the Military
Garrison at Sonoma one morning and
declared California an Independent
Republic. They didn't know it yet, but war
had broken out with Mexico. Frémont
soon became active in the Bear Flag
Revolt, and commissioned John Captain of
the Garrison. Some months later, under a
commission by Commodor Robert S.
Stockton,he served as Captain of E Company
in Frémont's California Battalion
on the march to Los Angeles and The
Capitulation of Cahuenga, which ended the
hostilities in California.
Critics of the policies that resulted
in the acquisition of California,
including those residents such as
philosopher/pacifist Josiah Royce, were
not, however, willing to "give it back,"
or even to remove themselves to some other
region of the county (legitimately
acquired?) in which they felt more moral
justification in residing. It brings to
mind the immortal words (still ringing in
our ears) of the former president of The
University of California (then, Senator)
S. J. Hayakawa's 1977 objection to the
suggestion of returning the Panama Canal
to Panama: "We stole it fair and
square."
Thoreau's abolitionist objection over
the issue of Slaveholding and Slave States
and the war does not hold with
Frémont. Though both he a Jessie
came from the same southern heritage, they
were both abolitionists (see emancipation
Proclamation below).
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