Mr. Polk's War ( ¿sound familiar ?)

[underpants]

http://www.rwe.org/commentary/thirst_for_war.htm

THE PRESIDENT of the United States wanted war. He not only wanted it; he thirsted after it.

"There was nothing brilliant about James K. Polk," observed that eminent historian James Truslow Adams. Clearly, Polk's "narrow and undistinguished mind" was "intensely limited in interests" on the eve of the Mexican War. (Adams never hesitated to give exact, if acerbic, descriptions.)

But what Polk lacked in brilliance, he more than compensated for in determination. And he was determined.

The American public of the 1840s, bombarded ceaselessly with pro-war sentiments and arguments, rallied round the president. Chauvinism was the order of the day. Those who opposed the idea of war were looked upon with utter disfavor as pariahs, their patriotism questioned.

But Polk with Procrustean mentality went full steam ahead. Without consulting Congress, he ordered troops into the disputed territory, and hostilities followed.

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/ops/mexican_war.htm
General Ampudia's prediction came true on 25 April 1846, when General Taylor received word that a large Mexican force had crossed the border a few kilometers up the river. A small force of American soldiers went to investigate. The Mexican cavalry attacked the mounted American patrol, killing five, wounding eleven, and capturing forty-seven. General Taylor quickly sent a message to President Polk in Washington. It said war had begun.

The vote for war on May 13, 1846, in the House was 173-14; in the Senate, 42-2. Thus began what the opposition called "Mr. Polk's War."

[MSchreader]

1. Very familiar

And I seem to recall a certain Whig legislator, who later became president, denouncing the war in no uncertain terms.

Let him answer, fully, fairly, and candidly. Let him answer with facts, and not with arguments. Let him remember he sits where Washington sat, and so remembering, let him answer, as Washington would answer. As a nation should not, and the Almighty will not, be evaded, so let him attempt no evasion -- no equivocation. And if, so answering, he can show that the soil was ours, where the first blood of the war was shed -- that it was not within an inhabited country, or, if within such, that the inhabitants had submitted themselves to the civil authority of Texas, or of the United States, and that the same is true of the site of Fort Brown, then I am with him for his justification. In that case I, shall be most happy to reverse the vote I gave the other day. I have a selfish motive for desiring that the President may do this. I expect to give some votes, in connection with the war, which, without his so doing, will be of doubtful propriety in my own judgment, but which will be free from the doubt if he does so. But if he can not, or will not do this -- if on any pretence, or no pretence, he shall refuse or omit it, then I shall be fully convinced, of what I more than suspect already, that he is deeply conscious of being in the wrong -- that he feels the blood of this war, like the blood of Abel, is crying to Heaven against him; that he ordered General Taylor into the midst of a peaceful Mexican settlement, purposely to bring on a war; that originally having some strong motive -- what, I will not stop now to give my opinion concerning -- to involve the two countries in a war, and trusting to escape scrutiny, by fixing the public gaze upon the exceeding brightness of military glory -- that attractive rainbow, that rises in showers of blood -- that serpent's eye, that charms to destroy -- he plunged into it, and has swept, on and on, till, disappointed in his calculation of the ease with which Mexico might be subdued, he now finds himself, he knows not where. How like the half insane mumbling of a fever-dream, is the whole war part of his late message! At one time telling us that Mexico has nothing whatever, that we can get, but teritory; at another, showing us how we can support the war, by levying contributions on Mexico. At one time, urging the national honor, the security of the future, the prevention of foreign interference, and even, the good of Mexico herself, as among the objects of the war; at another, telling us, that "to reject indemnity, by refusing to accept a cession of teritory, would be to abandon all our just demands, and to wage the war, bearing all it's expenses, without a purpose or definite object(.)" So then, the national honor, security of the future, and every thing but teritorial indemnity, may be considered the no-purposes, and indefinite, objects of the war! But, having it now settled that teritorial indemnity is the only object, we are urged to seize, by legislation here, all that he was content to take, a few months ago, and the whole province of lower California to boot, and to still carry on the war -- to take all we are fighting for, and still fight on. Again, the President is resolved, under all circumstances, to have full teritorial indemnity for the expenses of the war; but he forgets to tell us how we are to get the excess, after those expenses shall have surpassed the value of the whole of the Mexican teritory. So again, he insists that the separate national existence of Mexico, shall be maintained; but he does not tell us how this can be done, after we shall have taken all her teritory. Lest the questions, I here suggest, be considered speculative merely, let me be indulged a moment in trying (to) show they are not. The war has gone on some twenty months; for the expenses of which, together with an inconsiderable old score, the President now claims about one half of the Mexican teritory; and that, by far the better half, so far as concerns our ability to make any thing out of it. It is comparatively uninhabited; so that we could establish land offices in it, and raise some money in that way. But the other half is already inhabited, as I understand it, tolerably densely for the nature of the country; and all it's lands, or all that are valuable, already appropriated as private property. How then are we to make any thing out of these lands with this incumbrance on them? or how, remove the incumbrance? I suppose no one will say we should kill the people, or drive them out, or make slaves of them, or even confiscate their property. How then can we make much out of this part of the teritory? If the prosecution of the war has, in expenses, already equalled the better half of the country, how long it's future prosecution, will be in equalling, the less valuable half, is not a speculative question, pressing closely upon us. And yet it is a question which the President seems to never have thought of. As to the mode of terminating the war, and securing peace, the President is equally wandering and indefinite. First, it is to be done by a more vigorous prossecution of the war in the vital parts of the enemies country; and, after apparantly, talking himself tired, on this point, the President drops down into a half despairing tone, and tells us that "with a people distracted and divided by contending factions, and a government subject to constant changes, by successive revolutions, the continued success of our arms may fail to secure a satisfactory peace(.)" Then he suggests the propriety of wheedling the Mexican people to desert the counsels of their own leaders, and trusting in our protection, to set up a government from which we can secure a satisfactory peace; telling us, that "this may become the only mode of obtaining such a peace." But soon he falls into doubt of this too; and then drops back on to the already half abandoned ground of "more vigorous prossecution.(") All this shows that the President is, in no wise, satisfied with his own positions. First he takes up one, and in attempting to argue us into it, he argues himself out of it; then seizes another, and goes through the same process; and then, confused at being able to think of nothing same process; and then, confused at being able to think of nothing new, he snatches up the old one again, which he has some time before cast off. His mind, tasked beyond it's power, is running hither and thither, like some tortured creature, on a burning surface, finding no position, on which it can settle down, and be at ease.

Again, it is a singular omission in this message, that it no where intimates when the President expects the war to terminate. At it's beginning, Genl. Scott was, by this same President, driven into disfavor, if not disgrace, for intimating that peace could not be conquered in less than three or four months. But now, at the end of about twenty months, during which time our arms have given us the most splendid successes -- every department, and every part, land and water, officers and privates, regulars and volunteers, doing all that men could do, and hundreds of things which it had ever before been thought men could not do, -- after all this, this same President gives us a long message, without showing us, that, as to the end, he himself, has, even an immaginary conception. As I have before said, he knows not where he is. He is a bewildered, confounded, and miserably perplexed man. God grant he may be able to show, there is not something about his conscience, more painful than all his mental perplexity! (Abraham Lincoln, Speech in United States House of Representatives: The War with Mexico, January 12, 1848)

Martin