Welcome to Blogging the Presidents: A Voting While Intoxicated™ Almost Original Series. We will be taking a serious look at the 42 men who have led our country and hopefully finding a few laughable details.
PART XI
There is much to be impressed about with the Presidency of James Polk. For one, he made a pledge to only serve one term and laid out four main goals. He stuck to his pledge and accomplished all of his goals. Those goals involved lowering tarrifs and providing greater treasury independence (good things) as well as expansion into the Northwest (peacefully negotiating with Britain) and into the Southwest (not so peacefully negotiating with Mexico).
The Mexican-American war is curious in hindsight. Here is what Polk’s wiki entry has to say about it:
Some in Congress expressed doubts about Polk’s version of events, but Congress overwhelmingly approved the declaration of war. Many Whigs feared that opposition would cost them politically by casting themselves as unpatriotic for not supporting the war effort….The war had serious consequences for Polk and the Democrats. It gave the Whig Party a unifying message of denouncing the war as an immoral act of aggression carried out through abuse of power by the President (even though they did vote for the funding of it).
I of course read it more like this:
Some in Congress expressed doubts about Bush’s intelligence reports, but Congress overwhelmingly approved the authorization of force. Many Democrats feared that opposition would cost them politically by casting themselves as unpatriotic for not supporting the war effort….The war had serious consequences for Bush and the Republicans. It gave the Democratic Party a unifying message of denouncing the war as the wrong war at the wrong time carried out through lies and deception by the President (even though they did vote for the funding of it).
Yes, it seems the Mexican-American War was probably started under questionable circumstances and was largely agitated in order to take land from the Mexicans, which by more modern standards would be unacceptable. On the other hand, the US is definitely better off for having the Southwest (particularly California) and one might argue those in the Southwest were better off becoming Americans than they would be staying Mexicans. Either way, this war was much more successful than some of the others started under dubious circumstances.
I am largely able to overlook the continued problems of slavery (which the new territory continued to stoke as an issue) and of treatment of indigenous peoples. Too few people avoided great ignorance on these issues and thus one has to grade leaders of the time on a bit of a curve, though one that recognizes those few exceptional people like John Quincy Adams. On the whole, Polk was a pretty stellar President.
