Creating the Line 9 The resurvey team increased the number of boundary monuments from 52 to 258. Six-­ feet high and 12 inches square at the base, the obelisks sat in concrete and featured attached plaques identifying the border in both En­glish and Spanish. In the years following, the number of markers would increase to nearly 500, as city officials in growing towns and cities felt it necessary to mark clearly the border line. Many of the original fifty-­ two monuments still stand. The first one erected, a block of polished marble, stands a few hundred feet from the Pacific Ocean between Tijuana and San Diego. It rests in an area dedicated in 1972 by First Lady Pat Nixon as “Friendship Park.” In the letters, memoirs, and other ­later writings of the intrepid surveyors and their teams that participated in the massive undertaking of marking the boundary are many musings about the landscape through which they passed—­about the rug- ged, sometimes almost impassable terrain about the unforgiving desert heat about the lack of lush vegetation and about the dangers that seemed a constant, from Indians to snakes and strange insects, to unknown diseases that might lurk in the surroundings. What they did not see in ­ these environs, in this the American Southwest, was the ­ future, one that soon would be characterized in terms of ­ cattle, agriculture, and minerals, especially copper and silver. In what some saw as waste- land ­there would be a bonanza of riches. DOCUMENTS Speech of Representative Abraham Lincoln (Whig-­IL) on Mexican War, January 12, 1848 In his first and only term in the U.S. House of Representatives, Abraham Lincoln did not, as so many other newcomers, take a back seat. Although his opposition to the Mexican War made him unpop­ u ­ lar with many politicians, as well as the public caught up in patriotic fervor, he echoed the call for restraint that had distinguished his esteemed Whig colleague from Kentucky, Henry Clay. Lincoln’s “Spot Resolu- tions” questioning President Polk’s assertion that American blood had been spilled in U.S. territory, brought much notice and contention. In his speech to the House on January 12, 1848, Lincoln, far from backing down, pressed the issue. The war would soon end, but Lincoln’s challenge to its legitimacy and U.S. aggression never wavered. This is an excerpt from that speech. Mr. Chairman: . . . ​ When the war began, it was my opinion that all ­ those who, ­ because of know- ing too ­ little, or ­ because of knowing too much, could not conscientiously approve the conduct of the President, (in the beginning of it,) should, nevertheless, as good citizens and patriots, remain ­silent on that point, at least till the war should be ended. Some leading Demo­crats, including ex-­President Van Buren, have taken this same view, as I understand them and I adhered to it, and acted upon it, ­until since I took
Previous Page Next Page