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January 20, 2009
Exclusive: Presidents and History – Bush, Lincoln and Polk
In his final interviews and speeches before leaving the White House, George W. Bush expressed faith in history to render a positive judgment on his presidency. His greatest concern was the national security policy that became the core of his two terms in office following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.
It used to be that a successful leader could count on being remembered for forging alliances, vanquishing enemies, and creating a powerful military. As the old saying goes, “history is written by the winners.” But that is, unfortunately, an old saying. Today, history is written by academics sitting in ivory towers that are too often sanctuaries for ideological losers. They see their role not in heralding victories and learning what works in the real world, but in casting every American success as immoral, having been the product of values different from their own.
President Bush has often cited fellow Republican President Abraham Lincoln, who was vilified by opponents during the Civil War, and was assassinated only six weeks after he had delivered his second inaugural address. During the 1864 election campaign, the Democrat Party platform denounced the Union war effort as a “failure” and called for making peace with the Confederacy (though the Democrat presidential candidate General George McClellan repudiated the platform). Today, only a small remnant of libertarians and self-styled rebels caught up in the romance of Gone with the Wind still assail Lincoln for his “unconstitutional” actions to preserve the United States and end slavery.
Lincoln, however, is more the exception than the rule. Consider my favorite unsung hero, President James K. Polk, the 11th man to hold the office of commander-in-chief. He was a Democrat from Tennessee, and a disciple of Andrew Jackson. Elected in 1844, Polk served only one term, choosing not to run for re-election. At age 49, he was then the youngest President, yet he died less than four months after leaving office due in large part to exhaustion. His term was taken up by war and diplomacy, but what produced the most stress was the vicious political opposition to his foreign policy. After all, he led the country into war with Mexico, which netted for the United States the security of Texas, and the acquisition of California, along with most of what is now New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Colorado and Wyoming. He also negotiated the border with British Canada, establishing what is now Oregon and Washington State.
By any rational standard, Polk should be hailed as one of our greatest presidents, deserving of having his face on Mount Rushmore. During his term and since, however, he has been pilloried as a warmonger and conspirator against the Constitution. The eminent historian Allan Nevins wrote in his 1929 introduction to an edited version of Polk’s diary, “The accusations against him was that he lied to Congress to declare war on Mexico by a tissue of perversions, ambiguities, and suppressions of fact, and that his whole policy in foreign affairs was ‘tortuous and sordid.’ The majority of Whigs believed he and his Southern advisors had schemed a war of conquest partly to provide new territory for the expansion of slavery, and partly for other reasons, and that he had entered office deliberately intending to attack Mexico. Among the motives variously alleged for the aggressions against our southern neighbor were Polk’s desire for personal glory, for the perpetuation of Democratic ascendancy, and his own reelection.” If, 80 years later, one simply substitutes Iraq for Mexico in the above quotation, one has the Left’s indictment of President Bush.
Indeed, Jim Lindsey, who produced a documentary on the Mexican War shown on the History Channel, said in a 2006 interview “There are parallels between the war that’s going on today and the war in Mexico. There was certainly in the 1840s a rush to war, and afterwards a great deal of second-guessing on the part of Congress as to whether or not this was the right policy for the United States.” Among the Congressional critics of Polk was the young Abraham Lincoln.
The Mexican War started on April 25, 1846, when a U.S. Army patrol was ambushed north of the Rio Grande, in an area claimed by both the United States (via the annexation of an independent Texas) and Mexico. Eleven American soldiers were killed by the larger Mexican force. Rep. Lincoln introduced the infamous “spot resolution” in the U.S. House demanding that Polk prove that the “spot” where American blood had been shed was legitimate U.S. territory. Many Whigs were willing to accept Mexico’s claim to the disputed border and blame Polk for provoking the attack. The House voted a declaration of war against Mexico by a large margin, but the Senate passed it by only one vote.
Polk did come into office with the hope of buying California from Mexico, as well as securing the new state of Texas, which Mexico had never truly conceded it had lost ten years earlier. As to slavery, Polk wrote in his diary January 5, 1847, “There is no probability that any territory will ever be acquired from Mexico in which slavery could ever exist.” Polk believed that most of the new territory west of Texas would be above the 1820 Missouri Compromise line drawn across the Louisiana Purchase, which would logically be extended to the Pacific. Yet, partisan sniping and ideological disputes were still enough to convince some people to reject what was clearly in the long term national interest of the country; to finish its expansion to the Pacific coast.
Among the critics was the southern firebrand Sen. John C. Calhoun, a rival Democrat, who opposed the growth of presidential power. Calhoun’s doctrines of Congressional power and State’s Rights would do more to bring on the tragedy of the Civil War than the annexation of land taken from Mexico.
Retrospect has not improved matters. In his 2008 book Habits of Empire: A History of American Expansion, Walter Nugent, who had taught at the University of Notre Dame and Indiana University over a long career, titled his chapter on the Mexican War “Southern Aggression II.” “Southern Aggression I” was the purchase of Florida from Spain in 1819 by President James Monroe. In his view, all “aggression” is to be condemned because it entails “unconstitutional” uses of executive power, secret diplomacy and military threats.
Prof. Sam W. Haynes of the Univ. of Texas-Arlington, whose brief book James Polk and the Expansionist Impulse was the principle source for the History Channel documentary, summed up the current liberal-left take on Polk’s triumph. “Polk does more than any other Chief Executive to make the United States a hemispheric power. That in and of itself is a remarkable accomplishment. But it is the means by which that was accomplished that has made many American historians rather uneasy. He does bully a weaker nation....This was a war of conquest.”
Haynes did not mention that at the start of the war, the Mexican army was three times the size of the U.S. Army and that Mexican leaders were not only talking about taking back Texas, but of marching on New Orleans. Fortunately, it was American troops who did the marching, all the way to Mexico City despite being outnumbered in every major battle.
Haynes says the war presented the U.S. with a “moral dilemma.” Would America be a “good nation, or a great nation?” he asked. To be “good” means to put the “self-determination of neighbors” ahead of “our own self-interest,” he asserted.
Like Bush, President Barack Obama has embraced the iconic Lincoln to form a link with history. Lincoln is not honored for his naïve opposition to the Mexican War when he was in Congress, but for his stubborn pursuit of victory in the Civil War as President. Hopefully, Obama will make the same transition from the Senate to the White House, coming to understand that his responsibilities as commander-in-chief to the larger national interest makes untenable the wild and foolish rhetoric so easily tossed around the legislative branch and in faculty lounges.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor William R. Hawkins is a consultant specializing in defense and trade issues. E-mail him at HawkinsUSA@aol.com.
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