Polk by Walter R. Borneman

Author:Walter R. Borneman
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781588367723
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2008-01-28T10:00:00+00:00

he following afternoon, May 13, 1846, a congressional delegation called on the president and presented him with the act declaring war against Mexico. Polk read it in the presence of the congressmen and then signed it. Afterward, he met with Secretary of War Marcy and General Winfield Scott to discuss troop dispositions and the many volunteers to be raised.

In what would be but the first of many adversarial encounters with his generals, Polk found Scott's plan for the troops from each state incomplete, and he requested “a more formal report.” The president also offered Scott command of the army, although as the country's senior general it seemed to be Scott's prerogative. Polk recognized this but noted, “I did not consider him in all respects suited to such an important command.”

That evening at a special Cabinet meeting, there was other dissension in the ranks. Buchanan presented a draft of his proposed dispatch to American missions abroad announcing the declaration of war. The secretary of state proposed to inform foreign governments that “in going to war we did not do so with a view to acquire either California or New Mexico or any other portion of the Mexican territory.” Polk for his part was incredulous. What Cabinet meetings had Buchanan been attending for the past year?

What made Buchanan weak-kneed was his continuing preoccupation with the possibility that Great Britain or France or both might declare war to prevent the United States from acquiring California. Polk dismissed these concerns out of hand and retorted that he would “stand and fight until the last man among us fell in the conflict” before he would make such a statement as Buchanan suggested.

Polk again declared his disdain for foreign meddling on the continent and repeated his previous assertion that “there was no connection between the Oregon and Mexican questions.” Before he would give a pledge renouncing any territorial claims, he would let the war that Buchanan feared with Britain come and “would take the whole responsibility.”

Buchanan continued the debate for some time, although the rest of the Cabinet strongly supported the president. Finally after a discussion that Polk called “one of the most earnest and interesting which has ever occurred in my Cabinet,” Buchanan was ordered to strike his territorial disavowal. In its place, Polk scribbled a paragraph for him to insert. “We go to war with Mexico,” Buchanan's dispatch to American missions now read, “solely for the purpose of conquering an honorable and permanent peace.”8

Once more it appeared that James K. Polk had followed the advice that his old Tennessee friend, Justice John Catron of the United States Supreme Court, had written him back in the days of his fight for the speakership of the House of Representatives. “Go for the expedient and for success—give and take—but act, and that quickly and boldly”9

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