Polk Country
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As America debates whether to send tens of thousands more troops to Afghanistan, in the ninth year of a war for ends we cannot discern, a riveting new history recalls times when Americans fought for vital national interests.
A Country of Vast Designs: James K. Polk, the Mexican War and the Conquest of the American Continent is Robert Merry’s brilliant biography and history of that time. Merry goes far toward righting the injustice done by historians who have denied this great man his place in the pantheon of presidents, because they believe “Jimmy Polk’s War” to have been a war of aggression against a Third World people.
As Merry relates, the problem is not with “Young Hickory,” the protege of Andrew Jackson, but with historians who ever allow political correctness to blind them to true greatness.
The Mexican War was as just a war as we have ever fought.
In 1836 at San Jacinto, Sam Houston had won the independence of Texas with his defeat of Santa Anna, butcher of the Alamo and Goliad. In eight years, Mexico had not tried to recapture Texas. For eight years, Houston and Texas had sought admission to the Union.
In 1844, Polk, twice defeated for governor of Tennessee, was seeking the Democratic vice presidential nomination on a ticket with ex-President Martin Van Buren, Jackson’s vice president.
But when the issue of annexation of Texas caught fire in the country, Van Buren opposed it, losing his patron Jackson. Polk rode the Texas issue to victory in Baltimore as the “dark horse” in the most dramatic convention in history. His opponent that November, the Whig Henry Clay, running a third time, was also fatally wrong on Texas.
Lame-duck president John Tyler, however, stole a march on Polk by annexing Texas by joint resolution of Congress.
But where was the southern border of Texas?
Santa Anna had signed Texas away to the Rio Grande. Mexico said the border was the Nueces River, far to the north. In dispute were thousands of square miles. To enforce America’s claim, Polk sent Gen. Zachary Taylor to the Rio Grande.
A Mexican army arrived on the south bank, and an American patrol, north of the Rio Grande, was ambushed and cut to pieces by Mexican troops. When word reached Washington, Polk sent Congress a message: “The cup of forbearance” has “been exhausted.”
Congress voted a near-unanimous declaration of war.
And as ever in wartime, bold men rise to immortality.
Col. Stephen Kearny set out from Kansas with 1,500 troops, marched to Santa Fe, claimed New Mexico for the Union and, with 300 dragoons, rode on to Los Angeles, into a clash with Capt. John C. Fremont, son-in-law of Polk’s mighty Senate ally, Thomas Hart Benton.
Zachary Taylor, “Old Rough and Ready,” routed Santa Anna at Buena Vista in a victory that would make this Whig general Polk’s successor as president. Bayoneted to death at Buena Vista had been the young hero Henry Clay Jr. His father had bitterly opposed the war.
To Gen. Winfield Scott, Polk gave command of an army that was to land at Veracruz and take the path of Cortez to the capital to dictate terms if Mexican diehards rejected a negotiated peace.
Leading an invasion force half the size of the defending army, Scott never lost a battle on his six-month march to Mexico City. The Duke of Wellington called Scott the world’s “greatest living soldier” and said his campaign “was unsurpassed in military annals.”
Riding with Scott’s army was Polk’s agent, Nicholas Trist, who would bring home a triumph rivaled only by the Louisiana Purchase. Trist was the chief clerk of the State Department under that devious secretary of state and future president James Buchanan, who ever had his eyes on the prize.
Given specific instructions by Polk on what he could offer Mexico, the cantankerous Trist ran afoul first of Scott, then of Polk, who ordered him recalled.
But Trist rode on to Mexico City, reconciled with Scott, seized the opportunity of a peace party in power, negotiated the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, came home and was sacked.
But under Trist’s treaty, Mexico had agreed to the Rio Grande as the Texas border, ceded all of New Mexico, which included half a dozen future American states, and signed away California, for $15 million and forgiveness of Mexico’s debts.
The renegade envoy had come home with half of Mexico. They ought to rename the State Department for this great American.
Some urged Polk to break his pledge and run again. He refused. He had done what he came to do: annex all of Texas, acquire California and settle the Oregon Territory dispute with Great Britain on terms favorable to the United States.
Polk went home to Tennessee and, in 100 days, was dead.
He lacked the character of Washington, the brilliance of Jefferson, the charisma of Jackson, but James K. Polk belongs with the immortals. None gave more or did more for America. Bob Merry has made a major contribution to historical truth and written one splendid book.
Patrick Buchanan is the author of the new book Churchill, Hitler, and ‘The Unnecessary War,’ now available in paperback.
COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS.COM
Filed under: War
Ulysses S. Grant didn’t think so, and he was there.
Ah, the good old days, trump up a war with the brown people, take half their country and make it a third of ours. Too bad they keep trying to come back. Then all we needed to do was get rid of the red people (worked, great for America!) and keep the black people down (oops, messed that one up, bad for America!). The Buchanan-Meat Loaf Theory of the 19th Century: 2 out of 3 ain’t bad.
Imagine if the Mexicans still had Texas… bet they’d be executing retarded people and contributing narcissistic delusionals to the political process; not to mention secession, tried once and back in vogue in certain quarters even now. Utah under Mexico would probably be full of polygamist teetotalers. Arizona would have golf courses in the desert and a collapsing real estate market. And of course under Mexico Los Angeles would probably be a polluted farce. All of which would have been subsidized by an immense drain on the treasury of the central Mexican government, and all the profit generated from environmental devastation to exploit natural resources would have benefitted politically connected Mexican corporations. Good thing we stole it all and none of that happened!
Grant? Guy must have hated America! What’d he ever do for this country, anyway?
Oooo-WOOOOO!
Grant messed up Cold Harbor and a lot of other things. I wouldn’t call him an authority.
I’m stunned that Pat is standing with Polk and empire on this one. I’m also stunned that Pat likes Nicholas Trist, a James Madison protege who ended up as a supporter of Radical Reconstruction.
Look, the strange alliance of Whigs, abolitionists and southern conservatives who stood against Polk were right. Mexico is the forbidden fruit cried John C. Calhoun and Alex Stephens, Henry Clay, John Quincy Adams and Abe Lincoln agreed.
Or as Grant said in his memoirs:
“The Southern rebellion was largely the outgrowth of the Mexican war. Nations, like individuals, are punished for their transgressions. We got our punishment in the most sanguinary and expensive war of modern times.”
Polk helped open a Pandora’s box and for Pat Buchanan, opponent of empire in the Middle East and critic of Western involvement in WW2, to defend this war is odd to say the least.
Pat Buchanan, servant of empire. Who would have thunk it?
So Bill, should we trust Robert E. Lee as an authority due to the ANV being thrased at Malvern Hill of for his bright idea of sending three divisions under Pickett, Pettigrew and Trimble to be slaughtered up on Cemetery Ridge?
Pat’s fellow Catholics in the Batallion of St. Patrick disagree.
Or what is more ironic – which I might excuse in that centuries differ in what is acceptable and common – is that in his recent book on WW2 and in articles he noted the Versailles treaty – at gunpoint – did not create peace, merely resentment. How much of the territory was kept? At what price. Or was the treaty Hitler had the French sign under similar circumstances valid?
Or just go one war back. Canada and the United States might be one (though we might have the problem with Quebec) if the war of 1812 didn’t happen – the natural course would have been for unification and we might have gotten everything from Alberta through the Alaskan border.
The Louisiana purchase was mostly open territories – France wasn’t managing them. I could compare that to Alaska. Mexico was also an empire and was local.
I would also note that Mexico was Catholic, and the shift brought something else in. If Buchanan thinks that culture is so good, then he should convert. At least to Anglicanism if he insists on being high-church.
Which is the strangest thing of all – The old (and I would argue the current) Catholic church was in Europe, Africa, Asia – all over, and it was at the same time the most multi-cultural (in the good sense) and the most unified.
Greg Panfile are you 16? Are you a teenage moron? Did the millions of people in Texas, Utah, Arizona, and Los Angeles pick on you or something? “Los Angeles is a polluted farce” -what does that even mean?
Some of the reactions to this column are ludicrous. Go ahead, take an “even more conservative” approach to history than Pat Buchanan, take some more shots at “empire”; but if you really think that going to war 150 years ago for possession of Texas, and getting the entire American West in the process, was bad for our country, then you’ve taken this conservative thing too far. Like many miles too far. You might think that’s smart or that Ullyses S Grant was right, and taking a large percentage of what is now our country (and some of the most productive states in our history) was a bad idea, but there are about 6 billion people on Earth (minus some of Mexico) that will disagree with you. If that’s what you think is sane, then you owe thousands of tea-partiers an apology.
[...] Pat Buchanan comes out swinging for James K Polk, as did John and John. [...]
DDanicic,
Thanks. It’s hard to imagine how expanding the contiguous U.S. was a bad thing. Did it accelerate the conflict over slavery? Sure, but is that a bad thing? The War Between the States may have provided a pretext for all kinds of abuses of liberty, but it’s hard to imagine liberty meaning anything in a society without completely free labor. I also remember reading that Stephen Douglas was in favor of expanding American empire into all of Mexico and beyond. I wonder what would have happened if popular sovereignty had caught on.
Mr Panfile,
Haven’t heard from you in a while. Still afraid the Confederacy will rise again and come storming into the Hudson River Valley? We do have a lot of guns.
Texas? Did Mexico control Texas in 1846? Brush up on your history DDanicic.
Look, the benefits of the war with Mexico are obvious and California was a far bigger prize than Texas for the US in the long run. But I don’t think we should be celebrating Polk. Polk had severe flaws and he basically put American interests at risk for political reasons-namely stripping Taylor of forces and leaving what was left of Taylor’s command in the North vulnerable. Polk also used the war to dole out patronage-which helps explain why he did as much to cut Taylor and Scott out while pushing such inept Democratic politicians made generals as John Quitman, Gideon Pillow and even Franklin Pierce to the fore-not to mention the whole bizarre attempt to make Thomas Hart Benton a general. It was an awful precedent-as men serving under Ben Butler, Nathaniel Banks, John McClernand and a host of other inept political generals could testify in less than 20 years.
A shorter DDanicic: The end justifies the means.
Lot of nastiness and anger here.
Pat, you collect a lot of leftys and then try to step out of the labels they use to box you in, and you’ll see this general anger emerge.
But for anybody with the patience to take a deep breath, and appreciate the work done by yourself, and Mr Merry, while we may never make the time to read his work, we enjoyed your summary of it.
Hopping up and down, and expressing our snark, won’t change history, nor will it help us understand it in most cases.
How strange that those sympathetic to a muslim’s mandate to bring the advantages of a knowledge of Allah to all the world, will at the same time scream bile and hatred at our ancestors who had the same mandate to bring “civilization” to the world.
So now let some hypocrite with a cel phone and a computer, make some snarky comment about whether there is any advantage to “civilization”.
That same person would observe a church hospital with 50 workers caring for the sick and poor, living in poverty themselves, and one fat/rich/corrupt Bishop, and come to the conclusion that the “Church” (Catholic, Christian) is NOTHING BUT corruption.
If your (the people who would fling anger and snark at the US) thesis has a shred of credibility, then we would expect to find no mexican nationals north of the Nueces River.
For those open to reality, if you find a mexican national north of the Nueces River, he is chasing the dream given to it’s citizens by the US, inherited from those responsible for giving that same gift to Texas and the SouthWest.
I see that the alternative right and left and agree on one thing. The expansion of America and the exercise of military power by the United States is wrong and must be renounced. How decadent.
Americans used the language of empire to describe their westward expansion, but to confuse this with the desire for a colonial empire is historically obtuse. We as a people inherited a vast frontier at our birth as a nation. Any land we did not occupy would be occupied by another power. These powers did seek to constrain and frustrate our growth. Examples are many such as Britain in the Ohio Valley and Spain in Kentucky. Indian populations were relative to territory, small. They tended to be , migratory and difficult to deal with. So it was wise to expand as we did and the fact that Mexicans today prefer to live in our country rather than their own should register something, even in the minds of the anti-American scolds on this site.
Jack Tracy, I wonder how successful slavery would have been in the Southwest? Slave-based agriculture didn’t catch on in West Texas as it did in the coastal areas. The failure of slavery to turn a profit in the Southwest would not have been enough to vanquish slavery as an institution or stop the civil war but it might have had some effect on the margins of Southern thought.
DDanicic, there is a hard corps of self flagellating “conservatives” commenting here who seem to believe that it is possible to be conservative sans any love of country. I wonder what they are trying to conserve?
Sean, There is a timely lesson to be drawn from the San Patricios episode. The US needs to beware of enlisting unassimilated foreigners into her armed forces. Hasan is not the first to turn on his country for tribal reasons.
In fairness, it should be admitted that US troops were brutal in many cases toward the Mexican populace. The Irish Catholic troopers more or less fresh from the docks of New York and Boston were in a very difficult position. Ordinary Mexicans tend to be friendly, welcoming people. With their tenuous connection to the US, it’s easy to imagine their quandary. Unfortunately, like Col. Hasan, they chose to turn on the party to whom they swore an oath, rather than just run away.
1, It’s perfectly consistent to think that the expansion of American borders was a good thing, while disagreeing with the means by which that expansion occurred.
2. Abraham Lincoln disagreed with the Mexican War, too, and introduce the “Spot Resolution” in the House demanding that Polk identify the spot at which the Mexicans supposedly attacked Americans on American territory.
I too am a fan of Polk, but I can’t remember why.
All I’m saying is that Grant’s casualty ratio when he faced off with Lee was horrific. He messed up the wilderness, cold harbor, won shiloh by the skin of his teeth. and basically won off a huge advantage in men and materiel. Then he was a lousy president. Quoting Grant has an authority is incorrect.
From a practical perspective, this huge swatch of territory seized during the Mexican war would have been claimed by another foreign power (England, Russia?) since nature in general abhors a vacuum. Greater Mexico at the time was a nascent country having only gained independence from Spain in 1821 and more importantly was ill-governed and corrupt (nothing has really changed today!). It had a small population centered around Mexico City and a large amount of territory most of which was uncharted in the north such as Utah and Nevada. From a moral point of view, the war was a setup by the American government not much different than the war in Iraq or better yet the Spanish American war. Since nations act in the self interest rather than from moral dictates, Polk seized the initiative given the pretext and opportunity. The modern parallels are so apparent. From a moral perspective, the war was wrong but from a strategic point of view it was reasonable and it was brilliant in its result with the United States positioned as a transcontinental power. Perhaps, Grant was right that the price paid 15 years later in the War between the States was the balloon payment paid in much more blood and treasure. If you condemn Polk, then be prepared to do the same to Lincoln for acting just as Machiavellian when pursuing nationalist objectives.
Hint for the humor-deprived: mentioning the artist still known as Meat Loaf in any posting about a political theory is a strong indicator that the writer just might be kidding. When it comes to matters like this, there’s an analogy going on… U. S Grant is to Pat Buchanan on 19th Century military matters as… the Duke of Wellington is to Margaret Thatcher’s speechwriter? Lord Nelson to Heath’s press secretary? That’s pretty close.
It was bizarre to read that Pat’s disdain for empire begins, I don’t know, when boats are involved? Is that where it is, Cuba, Spanish-American War? We’ve got to find that exact point where It All Went Wrong and the Golden Age ended to precisely chart how to fix the world by turning back the clock, don’t we?
Jack, for me the issue around the South here is the clinical to pathological dissonance that results when ‘Christians’ find reasons to retain that appellation while explicitly NOT loving their neighbors as themselves. And the issue around patriotism, to a great extent, is the lack of humility that comes when people seem to simply ignore that there was an apartheid culture here into the 1960’s. Comparatively better is not good.
Really guys, it is possible to love something and make fun of it, and to accept all of the associated facts about it, without the need to distort any of them with emotionally loaded rally-round jingoism that is more appropriate for a band of primates. That extra brain tissue for self awareness is supposed to be used, not to just get all hot and happy about how we have one more fig tree than the next bunch of chimps.
Well, I certainly have mixed feelings on the war issues involved, being pretty close to “Patrick” in my overall evaluation. But we should keep in mind that aside from New Mexico, most of the vast territory involved was basically almost empty semi-desert. I think that the entire Spanish-speaking population of California at that point was something like 8,000, and even that of Texas was just 15,000-20,000. Perhaps the analogy with Alaska might be closer than most people realize.
Greg Panfile, Conservative don’t believe that the world can be “Fixed.” The Mexicans were also Christians. We are in fact primates.
Americans should guard their own territory and expel anyone who is loyal to anything more than their country. Americans benefited from the expansion. Americans don’t benefit from those who aren’t Americans first, who seek to exploit other peoples, defending other territories on America’s dime and through America’s blood.
I don’t see much discussion by Buchanan of just war theory for an article in which he claims “[t]he Mexican War was as just a war as we have ever fought.”
More likely, the cup of forbearance was not exhausted but rather tipped over by a greedy Congress and President with visions of manifest destiny dancing in their head. To enforce a claim by sending generals in place of diplomats seems to beckon armed conflict. Even so, to have sustained a guerilla attack may not always be a cause for war, or at least under these circumstances where one could argue that our soldiers were on Mexican soil, it could be questioned whether this was a cause of war.
I like the historical touches but here they are omitted, the ones address that the crux of the question in any war, ie, whether it was justly entered and justly fought.