Still, after using Jackson’s phrase, Polk followed with a robust defense of slavery. “It is a source of deep regret,” he declared, “that in some sections of our country misguided persons have occasionally indulged in schemes and agitations whose object is the destruction of domestic institutions existing in other sections—institutions which existed at the adoption of the Constitution and were recognized and protected by it.”5 Polk then returned to the Texas question, repeating points made by Tyler and Calhoun: “Texas was once a part of our country—was unwisely ceded away to a foreign power—is now independent, and possesses an undoubted right . . . to merge her sovereignty as a separate and independent state in ours.”6 Without mentioning Tyler, Polk offered to “congratulate my country that by an act of the late Congress of the United States the assent of this Government has been given to the reunion.”7 He expressed equally steadfast support and recognition of “the right of the United States to that portion of our territory which lies beyond the Rocky Mountains.”8 Knowing that Britain laid claim to the Oregon territory and that its ambassador was in the crowd, Polk repeated the pledge of the Democratic platform: “Our title to the country of the Oregon is ‘clear and unquestionable,’ and already are our people preparing to perfect that title by occupying it with their wives and children.”9 Polk reminded constituents that to his administration “belongs the duty of protecting them adequately wherever they may be upon our soil.”10 Echoing Jackson’s declaration less than a decade before, he concluded that “in his official action he should not be the President of a part only, but of the whole people of the United States.”11
Polk’s messages, then and while at the White House, were clear (though not always trustworthy, in Lincoln’s judgment), and so was his determination. He intended to work hard, and he did: He personally reviewed every unit of the government, including every department, and carefully monitored all his appointees to ensure they were sticking to his policies. His approach to Cabinet selection helped to ensure allegiance within his administration to him and his priorities, though the exception was Polk’s appointment of James Buchanan as his secretary of state. Jackson opposed the appointment, because he thought Buchanan had been in league with Adams’s “corrupt bargain,” which had denied him the presidency in 1824. Polk did not trust Buchanan, even though Buchanan had served as Jackson’s minister to Russia. Polk, however, respected Buchanan’s experience in foreign affairs (which also included serving as chairman of the powerful Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs). Even more important, Polk wanted to lower the tariff and needed Buchanan’s support in Pennsylvania, a state that favored protective duties for manufacturing and mining operations. Though Buchanan initially favored Polk’s appointing him to the Supreme Court to fill a vacancy Tyler had failed to fill before the end of his term, Buchanan eventually relented and agreed to become Polk’s secretary of state. It came as no surprise that the most difficult relationship Polk had with any Cabinet officer was with Buchanan, whose allegiance always appeared to be in service to his own rather than the president’s ambitions.
For much of his first year in office, Polk tried to avoid being drawn into war on two fronts: one on the western coast against the British over the Oregon territory and another in Mexico over California, New Mexico, and Texas. Polk had declared in his Inaugural Address that the United States’ claim to the entire Oregon territory was “clear” and “indisputable,” and in his end-of-the-year message to Congress in 1845, he requested a joint resolution approved in both chambers to notify the British of the termination of the joint occupancy agreement. Not surprisingly, these bold declarations angered the British. Knowing that such a resolution would bring the two nations closer to war and that Britain’s naval power was far superior to that of the United States, Congress debated the issue for months. Eventually, in April 1845, Congress settled on a relatively mild resolution calling upon the parties to settle the matter amicably. Even so, Polk welcomed the result, which, he believed, strengthened his negotiating position. With most of its ships on the eastern seaboard, Britain did not relish the hardships of moving the bulk of its force to the opposite coast nor the likely war that might ensue if it did. Fourteen months later, on June 18, 1846, the Senate ratified a treaty that Buchanan had negotiated with the British to transfer the Oregon territory into American hands and establish its northern boundary at the 49th parallel, which had become Polk’s fallback once it was clear the British would never agree to the 54th. (Slogans were designed to win campaigns, not bind a president once in office.)
In the meantime, Polk was discovering that avoiding war with Mexico was much trickier than it had been with the British. Though Polk worked tirelessly on each matter, the job of annexing Texas presented far more problems. Securing congressional approval of the acquisition of Texas—something he desperately wanted—was one thing, but finishing the job turned into a bloody drama.
By the end of 1845, Texans had voted overwhelmingly in favor of annexation, which Congress had approved as well. While Texas planned a constitutional convention on the matter, Mexican authorities refused to budge. Polk then arranged for John Slidell, who spoke Spanish and was a loyal Democratic supporter of Polk in the House, to travel to Mexico in December 1845 to offer $25 million in exchange for Texas. Mexico had been notoriously unstable since the country had secured its independence from Spain in the 1820s. While the government initially refused to receive Slidell, his arrival coincided with a successful revolution by nationalist forces. The new government, led by General Mariano Paredes y Arrillaga, was even less receptive to Slidell’s overtures to purchase Texan independence and more determined to prevent Texas from becoming part of the United States.
Next, Polk hit upon the idea of trying to turn the instability of Mexico’s government to his advantage. He arranged safe passage for Mexico’s deposed president, General Antonio López de Santa Anna, to travel from exile in Cuba into Mexico, where Santa Anna promised that, in exchange for $30 million for himself, he would arrange for Mexico to sell all contested property to the United States at a reasonable price. Nevertheless, once successfully returned to Mexico in August 1846, Santa Anna reneged on his promise to Polk and instead declared his intention to lead Mexican forces to defend against U.S. aggression.
In the meantime, Polk’s success in convincing Texas to take steps to support American annexation brought war closer. Polk was aggressive not just in his rhetoric, but also in his use of power, particularly his use of the military. After Polk accepted Texas’s claim of the Rio Grande as its boundary with Mexico, Mexican leaders threatened to attack the Texas frontier. Having promised to protect Texas as soon as they had accepted annexation, Polk dispatched a naval squadron along the Gulf Coast and moved several thousand troops from the Louisiana border to the northern edge of the disputed boundary zone, granting permission to the commanding general to move south if he thought necessary. General Zachary Taylor did just that.
In choosing Taylor to lead the United States’ defense against Mexican aggression, Polk bypassed several more-senior officers, including Winfield Scott, the commanding general of the U.S. Army. His reasoning was with a less exotic battlefield in mind: Polk distrusted Scott because he was an unapologetic Whig. Taylor, commander of the army’s Western Division, appealed to Polk because he had a long-standing reputation as apolitical. Perhaps more important, Jackson had recommended Taylor to Polk. Jackson had grown close to Taylor and developed great respect for his leadership when he had served as a commander under Jackson in fighting the Seminole tribe in Florida.
Zachary Taylor had been a soldier all his adult life. Born in 1784 to relatively wealthy landowners in Virginia, he grew up in Kentucky and joined the army in 1808, a year before Lincoln was born. For the next several decades, Taylor rose steadily in the ranks. He commanded troops as a captain in the War of 1812, serving under Andrew Jackson. He was a colonel in the Black Hawk War in 1832 and a brigadier general in the Second Seminole War in 1837. In 1840, he was assigned to a post in Louisiana, w
here he settled on a large estate, with more than one hundred slaves, in Baton Rouge. His Southern heritage and support for slavery made him popular in the South—and with Polk. All along the way, Taylor’s men revered him for many distinctive qualities—keeping his head under fire, always being willing to listen to and trust his officers and troops in the heat of combat, his ingenuity and undefeated record in major battles, and his honest and unassuming nature. His soldiers dubbed him Old Rough and Ready based on his gruff language and preference to dress plainly during battle rather than in uniform.
As Taylor and his army moved deeply into the disputed territory between the Rio Grande and Nueces River, he heard rumors of possible attacks coming from both north and south of where his troops were placed. Taylor decided to investigate. He sent one group of soldiers farther south to determine whether a threat was coming from that direction. The group reported back that there was none. Taylor then sent other troops north under the command of Captain Seth Thornton, who encountered Mexican troops who had crossed the Rio Grande. The Mexicans attacked his men. They retreated quickly and sent word of the attack to Taylor. In turn, Taylor relayed the news to Polk, who informed Congress of an attack on American forces, one that he considered unprovoked.
As Polk prepared to ask Congress for a declaration of war, Taylor and his army of roughly four thousand men found themselves under assault. As they had done in attacking Thornton’s units, Mexican troops again crossed the Rio Grande, this time to directly challenge Taylor’s forces. The American army decisively defeated Santa Anna’s forces on two successive days in the battles of Palo Alto (May 8) and Resaca de la Palma (May 9). On May 13, 1846, Congress agreed, at Polk’s request, to declare war against Mexico. Polk’s Cabinet wanted him to order American forces to take all of Mexico, but Polk rejected their advice. He defined the American objective as securing Texas.
For the victories in Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma, Taylor received a brevet promotion to major general and a formal commendation from Congress. Back in the states, he became a popular hero and was promoted to the full rank of major general. The national press began comparing Taylor to both George Washington and Andrew Jackson, whose status as military heroes became stepping stones to the presidency, but he quickly rejected the comparison, saying, “Such an idea never entered my head, nor is it likely to enter the head of any sane person.”
Taylor did not rest on his newly won laurels. He led his troops south across the Rio Grande and advanced toward the city of Monterrey. They captured the city on September 22–23, and Taylor, on his own initiative, then granted the Mexican army an eight-week armistice.
This grant of respite infuriated Polk, who was already disturbed by Taylor’s growing popularity. He pressed Taylor to push his advantage harder, but Taylor angered Polk further by writing a letter, which found its way into the press, criticizing both the president and his secretary of war, William Marcy, for their handling of the conflict. In response, Polk ordered Taylor to confine his actions to those necessary for defensive purposes and transferred Taylor’s best troops to the army led by Winfield Scott, relenting on his earlier decision to bar any Whig commanders for the sake of electoral victory.
In February 1847, Taylor learned that Santa Anna was mobilizing an army to attack his diminished forces. Taylor marched his troops south into a narrow pass that made an attack by Mexican forces difficult. As Taylor was ordering his men forward, the Mexican army attacked. Santa Anna had intercepted an American letter acknowledging Taylor’s depleted forces and tried to press the advantage against the smaller American contingent. In the ensuing Battle of Buena Vista during February 22–23, 1847, Taylor’s troops won a significant victory over a Mexican army that outnumbered the Americans nearly four to one.
The headlines praising Taylor for his unexpected victory at Buena Vista were the last straw for Polk. He was angrier at Taylor than ever before. He considered that his order to Taylor to assume only a defensive position meant that Taylor should no longer take the initiative in the fight against Mexico. Polk relieved him of his command. Taylor spent the next few months in Mexico waiting for leave to return home, which came in November. His victory in the Battle of Buena Vista was his last battle.
Scott oversaw several more victories against Mexican forces, which brought the Mexican government to the bargaining table and the war to its end. The Mexicans agreed to settle the dispute through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed on February 2, 1848. It granted to the United States more than 500,000 square miles of new territory, including land that now makes up part or all of eight Western states—California, Texas, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming. With that one stroke, Polk expanded the United States nearly one-third in size. In return for the lands Mexico ceded to the United States, the United States paid Mexico $15 million and agreed to assume $3.25 million in debts that Mexico owed to American citizens.
Taylor returned to the United States a hero, but many did not come back. Nearly 14,000 Americans lost their lives, the largest number of casualties that the United States suffered in any military conflict until the Civil War.
II
* * *
As Polk was struggling to avoid war with the British on the west coast and to end the war with Mexico, Abraham Lincoln’s attention was elsewhere. He was intent on going to Congress.
Ron Keller suggests, in his study of Lincoln’s years in the Illinois House, that “something awakened in Lincoln in 1839 and 1840. His stature as a Harrison presidential elector, his visibility and attention as a statewide spokesman for Whig policy, and his leadership position in the state legislature instilled in him a certain consciousness.”12 Whether the interest in higher office came earlier, later, or at that time, Lincoln undoubtedly had it. Many years later, Herndon agreed that by 1840, Lincoln “had begun to dream of destiny.”13 Lincoln’s runs for the state legislature, beginning in 1832, suggest that his “little engine” of ambition (as Herndon called it) had been changing hard for some time.
Oratory was instrumental to Lincoln’s success, as it had been for Clay’s. Since Lincoln had been a boy, he had worked tirelessly on his delivery. He was not just parroting Clay and Webster, another of America’s greatest orators, but identifying what worked best for each of them and adapting their techniques and language to fit his needs. Beyond the debates he’d had with Stephen Douglas in Stuart’s run for Congress and later during the 1840 presidential campaign as a Whig elector, he constantly honed his speaking style when campaigning across the state. After delivering what he considered to be a subpar performance in one debate with Douglas, he urged the organizers to give him a second chance. Witnessing the next debate between the two men, Lincoln’s friend Joseph Gillespie recalled, “I never heard and never expect to hear such a triumphant vindication as he then gave Whig measures or policy. He never after to my knowledge fell below himself.”14
At another Whig rally in 1840, an observer noted that Lincoln “discussed the questions of the time in a logical way, but much time was devoted to telling stories to illustrate some phase of his argument, though more often the telling of these stories was resorted to for the purpose of rendering his opponents ridiculous.”15 At yet another campaign event, a reporter observed that Lincoln was “highly argumentative and logical, enlivened by numerous anecdotes, [and was] received with unbounded applause.”16 Even some Democrats recognized the power of his delivery, as one did in observing that Lincoln “always replies [jokingly] and in good humor . . . and he is therefore hard to foil.”17 Robert Wilson, who studied Lincoln as he studied others and would have a bright political future himself, said that Lincoln “seemed to be a born politician. We followed his lead; but he followed nobody’s lead. It almost may be said that he did our thinking for us.”18
While there is no doubt Lincoln was blessed with considerable natural talents, he made it all look easy because he had studied classical speeches and Clay’s oratory for so long and, having diligently practiced his techniques, had begun masterin
g the art of adapting them to suit his purposes. By 1846, Lincoln was convinced that his turn for national office had finally come: his cousin-in-law John Hardin had served a term in Congress from 1843 to 1845, after which his competitor Edward Baker had served most of a two-year term in the House. If the Whig Party followed the Jacksonian practice of rotation, which Lincoln repeatedly urged, 1846 was his year.
Lincoln left nothing to chance. He had learned the hard lesson more than once that politics was do or die and early entry into a race was essential for victory. The first thing Lincoln had to do was to secure the Whig nomination, which he did not expect to be difficult as long as Hardin deferred to the practice of rotation. But while Lincoln liked the idea of rotating after a single term, Hardin did not, and he told everyone, including Lincoln, that he objected to following it in this election cycle. He argued that the party should back the most deserving man, who he thought was himself.
Hardin had several advantages over Lincoln. He had gained notoriety as the commander of five hundred state militia troops who had restored law and order in the Utah territory after the murder of Mormon prophet Joseph Smith. (In 1844, Orville Browning successfully defended five men charged with Smith’s murder.) And of course, Hardin had previously defeated Lincoln and Logan for the Whig nomination for the U.S. Senate in 1845.
Lincoln proceeded to use some of the same tactics and wiliness that he had learned from Stuart to outmaneuver Hardin. Stuart had been ruthless in his victory over Stephen Douglas in 1838, and Lincoln now followed suit. He wrote to several newspapers to push Hardin’s candidacy for Illinois governor to get him out of the way for the congressional seat. When Hardin read the papers, he announced his refusal of the invitation and blamed Lincoln for the ploy. Once Lincoln’s friend, Hardin was now his rival. Hardin proposed a direct primary of Whig voters in the district with the candidates restricted to electioneering only in their home counties. Lincoln objected and instead stood by the convention system, “the old system,” as he wrote Hardin.19 Under this system, Whigs gathered in each district to nominate their preferred candidates. He had early experience with this system and knew how to lobby the delegates in each district, so he could ensure that, by the time a general nominating convention was held, most districts would be supporting his nomination. He knew most of the likely attendees in each district anyway and felt confident he could persuade them to adopt the practice of rotation, which would work to his benefit. At the same time, Lincoln did what he and Stuart had done before, rallying the support of friendly newspaper editors in the district as well as reminding Whig elected officials, who would serve as convention delegates, “Turn about is fair play,”20 by which he meant that rotation, giving someone else a chance to win the office, was the right thing to do. Hardin angrily wrote Lincoln that he had never consented to a deal for rotation and defended his proposal for a direct primary. Lincoln, rather disingenuously, responded that he had not been trying to force Hardin out of the race and that Hardin’s accusations against him were an “utter injustice.”21
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