Published: Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2004

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This Week in History

February 9-15, 1847
Lincoln on the Presidential Power to Make War

When Abraham Lincoln took his seat in the House of Representatives on Dec. 6, 1847, as a new Congressman from Illinois, the Mexican War was almost over. But the issues raised by that conflict were anything but settled, and some of them are still of critical importance today. The United States had annexed Texas in December of 1845, and the Mexican government subsequently broke off diplomatic relations. The boundary between Mexico and Texas was under dispute, especially the area between the Nueces and Rio Grande Rivers, and Congress passed a series of joint resolutions when Texas was admitted to the Union, leaving all questions of boundary to future adjustment. The next year, President James K. Polk sent John Slidell to Mexico to offer U.S. government assumption of any American monetary claims against Mexico, in return for boundary adjustments in the Southwest. Slidell was also instructed to purchase California and New Mexico, part of which was claimed by Texas.

The Mexican government, rightly feeling threatened, declined to negotiate. Slidell, Polk and most of his cabinet belonged to the faction which wanted to extend slavery as far south and west as possible, even all the way to the southern tip of South America. The British, who manipulated and supported this faction, settled the dispute over America's Oregon boundary in June of 1846, consciously freeing a large group of American military on the northwest border for action further south.

After the failure of Slidell's mission, Gen. Zachary Taylor was ordered to advance to the Rio Grande, where he occupied Point Isabel at the mouth of the river. The Mexicans considered this an act of aggression, as Taylor's troops had scared away the Mexican residents of the town, and occupied their fields. On May 3, 1846, the guns of Matamoros, Mexico began to shell the advanced American position near the present Brownsville, Texas. President Polk, having obtained his desired result, claimed that Mexico had invaded U.S. soil, and on May 12, 1846, Congress declared war on Mexico.

By the time Lincoln entered the House of Representatives, the conflict was winding down, but Lincoln was convinced that the illegal nature of the war had to be revealed, and that there must be a concrete plan for concluding the peace. First, on Dec. 22, Lincoln introduced a series of resolutions which sharply questioned whether the spot on which the first blood of the war had been shed had been United States territory. these came to be known as the "Spot Resolutions." Secondly, in a major speech on the war, delivered on Jan. 12, 1848, he questioned President Polk's intention to bring about a peace: "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 prosecution of the war in the vital parts of the enemy's country; and, after apparently, 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 prosecution.' 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 new, he snatches up the old one again, which he has some time before cast off. His mind, tasked beyond its 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 this war to terminate. At its beginning, General [Winfield] 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, ... after all this, this same President gives us a long message, without showing us, that, as to the end, he himself, has, even an imaginary 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!"

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