Polarized Times: The Mexican War
There have been times in US history (such as 1941 or 2001) when war in response to aggression united rather than polarized the nation. Sometimes, as in the case of the second world war, the nation remains united. Other times, as in the case of Vietnam or Iraq, the decision to go to war leaves the nation deeply divided. In 1846, when it was reported that Mexican troops had attacked some of General Zachary Taylor's soldiers, the U.S. Congress approved a declaration of war against Mexico on May 13, 1846, after only a few hours of debate. Southern Democrats gave their strong support. Only 14 Whigs voted against going to war, including Massachusetts Congressman (and former President) John Quincy Adams. Support for the war was generally divided along sectional lines. Most Whigs opposed the war, while most Democrats supported it. Southern Democrats supported the war in the hope of adding territory to the South where slavery would be permitted, and in order to avoid being outnumbered by the faster-growing North. John L. O'Sullivan, the editor of the Democratic Review, wrote that "it must be our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions." The phrase "manifest destiny" soon caught on.
Northern antislavery elements feared the expansion of the Southern Slave Power. Whigs wanted to strengthen the economy with industrialization. John Quincy Adams voiced concerns about expanding into Mexican territory in 1836 when he opposed Texas annexation. He continued this argument in 1846 for the same reason. War with Mexico would add new slavery territory to the nation.
After Texas was admitted to the Union as a state in the dying days of John Tyler's administration, James K. Polk turned his mind to acquiring more land from Mexico. At first he tried to negotiate for the purchase of Mexican land. In 1845, he sent diplomat John Slidell to Mexico to purchase California and New Mexico for between 20 and 30 million dollars. Slidell's arrival caused political turmoil in Mexico after word leaked out that he was there to purchase additional territory and not to offer compensation for the loss of Texas. The Mexicans refused to receive Slidell, so in January 1846, to increase pressure on Mexico to negotiate, Polk sent troops under General (and future President) Zachary Taylor into the area between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande-territory that was claimed by both the U.S. and Mexico.
Polk's critics alleged that he had been dishonest on two grounds. Firstly, they disputed whether on not Polk had the authority to send the Army to Mexico in the first place, or whether he needed Congressional approval to do so. The second issue concerned whether the army that Polk sent had proper cause to enter Mexico once they were there.
The Constitution was unclear on the first of these issues. It gave Congress the power to declare war, while making the President the Commander in Chief. In 1827, the US Supreme Court ruled in the case Martin v. Mott that it was constitutional for Congress to vest the president with the discretionary authority to decide whether an emergency had arisen and to raise a militia to meet such a threat of invasion or civil insurrection.
Polk addressed Congress on May 11, 1846. In his speech, he told Congress: "Mexico has passed the boundary of the United States, has invaded our territory and shed American blood upon the American soil." Polk claimed the move was a defensive measure. Expansionists supported his action. But some Whigs said that the movement was an invasion of Mexico rather than a defense of Texas. On May 13, Congress declared war, with a vote of 40-2 in the Senate and 174-14 in the House.
When the war was won, the acquisition of new land seemed to validate Democrats' belief in Manifest Destiny. While the Whigs had opposed the war, they made Zachary Taylor their presidential candidate in the election of 1848, seeing his military performance as a means of winning the presidency, notwithstanding their previous criticism of the war. But many veterans of the war returned home as broken men. Henry Clay, Jr., son of the man that James K. Polk defeated to win the presidency, was killed in the war at the Battle of Buena Vista.
A month before the end of the war, Polk was criticized in a United States House of Representatives amendment to a bill praising Major General Zachary Taylor for "a war unnecessarily and unconstitutionally begun by the President of the United States." This criticism was one in which Congressman Abraham Lincoln played an important role. Lincoln and others in Congress called for congressional scrutiny of the war's beginnings, including factual challenges to claims made by President Polk.
Lincoln moved a number of resolutions in the House of Representatives on December 22, 1847, as a Whig representative from Illinois. The resolutions called on President James K. Polk to provide Congress with the exact location (the "spot") upon which blood was shed on American soil, as Polk had claimed in 1846 when asking Congress to declare war on Mexico. Lincoln was very persistent in pushing his "spot resolutions" and some began referring to him as "spotty Lincoln." Lincoln's resolutions were a challenge to the validity of the president's words, and to Polk's integrity. They were representative of an ongoing and polarizing political power struggle between Whigs and Democrats of the issue of the expansion of slavery and of the allegation that Polk and the Democrats were using the war for this ulterior motive.
Lincoln brought a total of eight resolutions which called on Polk to account for his decision to take the nation into war. The first resolution read: "whether the spot on which the blood of our citizens was shed, as in his messages declared, was or was not within the territory of Spain, at least after the treaty of 1819, until the Mexican revolution." The second asked "whether that spot is or is not within the territory which was wrested from Spain by the revolutionary Government of Mexico." The other six resolutions sought to determine whether the territory on which the casualties occurred was ever under the government or laws of Texas or of the United States.
The House of Representatives never acted on Lincoln's resolutions, but they understood the Whig position that President Polk lacked persuasive grounds to begin the war. Lincoln biographer David Herbert Donald wrote, "nobody paid much attention to his resolutions, which the House neither debated nor adopted". Democrats spun the resolutions as unpatriotic. Many Whigs were concerned that criticism of the war would hurt the Whigs politically.
In his initial report to Congress, Polk had said that the American soldiers fell on American soil. In point of fact, they had actually fallen on disputed territory, between the Rio Grande and Nueces River. Both Texas and Mexico laid claim to this land.
Lincoln's attack won lukewarm support from fellow Whigs in Illinois and the resolutions likely stunted his political future in the heavily Democratic state of Illinois. As for Polk, he died on June 15, 1849, 169 years ago today, and 103 days after leaving office. The issue of his accountability for the statement as to the reason for going to war also appears to have died with him, though it lives on in the minds and writings of many antebellum historians.
Northern antislavery elements feared the expansion of the Southern Slave Power. Whigs wanted to strengthen the economy with industrialization. John Quincy Adams voiced concerns about expanding into Mexican territory in 1836 when he opposed Texas annexation. He continued this argument in 1846 for the same reason. War with Mexico would add new slavery territory to the nation.
After Texas was admitted to the Union as a state in the dying days of John Tyler's administration, James K. Polk turned his mind to acquiring more land from Mexico. At first he tried to negotiate for the purchase of Mexican land. In 1845, he sent diplomat John Slidell to Mexico to purchase California and New Mexico for between 20 and 30 million dollars. Slidell's arrival caused political turmoil in Mexico after word leaked out that he was there to purchase additional territory and not to offer compensation for the loss of Texas. The Mexicans refused to receive Slidell, so in January 1846, to increase pressure on Mexico to negotiate, Polk sent troops under General (and future President) Zachary Taylor into the area between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande-territory that was claimed by both the U.S. and Mexico.
Polk's critics alleged that he had been dishonest on two grounds. Firstly, they disputed whether on not Polk had the authority to send the Army to Mexico in the first place, or whether he needed Congressional approval to do so. The second issue concerned whether the army that Polk sent had proper cause to enter Mexico once they were there.
The Constitution was unclear on the first of these issues. It gave Congress the power to declare war, while making the President the Commander in Chief. In 1827, the US Supreme Court ruled in the case Martin v. Mott that it was constitutional for Congress to vest the president with the discretionary authority to decide whether an emergency had arisen and to raise a militia to meet such a threat of invasion or civil insurrection.
Polk addressed Congress on May 11, 1846. In his speech, he told Congress: "Mexico has passed the boundary of the United States, has invaded our territory and shed American blood upon the American soil." Polk claimed the move was a defensive measure. Expansionists supported his action. But some Whigs said that the movement was an invasion of Mexico rather than a defense of Texas. On May 13, Congress declared war, with a vote of 40-2 in the Senate and 174-14 in the House.
When the war was won, the acquisition of new land seemed to validate Democrats' belief in Manifest Destiny. While the Whigs had opposed the war, they made Zachary Taylor their presidential candidate in the election of 1848, seeing his military performance as a means of winning the presidency, notwithstanding their previous criticism of the war. But many veterans of the war returned home as broken men. Henry Clay, Jr., son of the man that James K. Polk defeated to win the presidency, was killed in the war at the Battle of Buena Vista.
A month before the end of the war, Polk was criticized in a United States House of Representatives amendment to a bill praising Major General Zachary Taylor for "a war unnecessarily and unconstitutionally begun by the President of the United States." This criticism was one in which Congressman Abraham Lincoln played an important role. Lincoln and others in Congress called for congressional scrutiny of the war's beginnings, including factual challenges to claims made by President Polk.
Lincoln moved a number of resolutions in the House of Representatives on December 22, 1847, as a Whig representative from Illinois. The resolutions called on President James K. Polk to provide Congress with the exact location (the "spot") upon which blood was shed on American soil, as Polk had claimed in 1846 when asking Congress to declare war on Mexico. Lincoln was very persistent in pushing his "spot resolutions" and some began referring to him as "spotty Lincoln." Lincoln's resolutions were a challenge to the validity of the president's words, and to Polk's integrity. They were representative of an ongoing and polarizing political power struggle between Whigs and Democrats of the issue of the expansion of slavery and of the allegation that Polk and the Democrats were using the war for this ulterior motive.
Lincoln brought a total of eight resolutions which called on Polk to account for his decision to take the nation into war. The first resolution read: "whether the spot on which the blood of our citizens was shed, as in his messages declared, was or was not within the territory of Spain, at least after the treaty of 1819, until the Mexican revolution." The second asked "whether that spot is or is not within the territory which was wrested from Spain by the revolutionary Government of Mexico." The other six resolutions sought to determine whether the territory on which the casualties occurred was ever under the government or laws of Texas or of the United States.
The House of Representatives never acted on Lincoln's resolutions, but they understood the Whig position that President Polk lacked persuasive grounds to begin the war. Lincoln biographer David Herbert Donald wrote, "nobody paid much attention to his resolutions, which the House neither debated nor adopted". Democrats spun the resolutions as unpatriotic. Many Whigs were concerned that criticism of the war would hurt the Whigs politically.
In his initial report to Congress, Polk had said that the American soldiers fell on American soil. In point of fact, they had actually fallen on disputed territory, between the Rio Grande and Nueces River. Both Texas and Mexico laid claim to this land.
Lincoln's attack won lukewarm support from fellow Whigs in Illinois and the resolutions likely stunted his political future in the heavily Democratic state of Illinois. As for Polk, he died on June 15, 1849, 169 years ago today, and 103 days after leaving office. The issue of his accountability for the statement as to the reason for going to war also appears to have died with him, though it lives on in the minds and writings of many antebellum historians.