Confederate "Heritage" Month, April 10: Polk's strategy to provoke war

Antonio López de Santa Anna (1794-1876), Mexican general and President (several times)

Mexico - and its predecessor, the Viceroyalty of New Spain, had never been able to exercise effective control over its Texas province. It was far distant from the central power in Mexico City and it was parsely populated with Spanish colonists and later Mexican citizens and also with Indian tribes, some of whom like the Comanche who were not known for being especially friendly.

Josephina Zoraida Vázquez writes in "War and Peace with the United States" in The Oxford History of Mexico (2000):

It is possible that the loss of Texas [by Mexico] was inevitable. Certainly, Mexico did not have a good start in its independent life. Spain had left it financially devastated, and radical federalism had weakened the national government, which was unable to respond to foreign threats. The Mexican setback suffered at San Jacinto on April 21 [1836], when [Mexican General] Santa Anna was defeated and imprisoned, became a total disaster with the absurd obedience of Vicent Filisola, who, upon receiving an order from the imprisoned general, withdrew beyond the Rio Grande. His action sealed the loss of Texas because Mexico lacked the resources to dispatch another expedition.

After Texas declared its independence in 1836, Mexico was not in a position militarily to retake Texas. But Mexico opposed the annexation of Texas to United States, which would have given them a border with a much larger, stronger, expansionist nation than the Lone Star Republic was.

But despite Mexico's opposition, it's certainly credible to think that the Polk administration could have put through the annexation of Texas, in fact as well as law, without a war with Mexico. But Polk didn't just want Texas. He sent Congressman John Slidell to Mexico in 1845 to negotiate the sale of California and New Mexico territory, along with Texas.

James Knox Polk (1795-1849): US President(1845-1849)

Mexico's government at the time was not particularly stable and was not in any position to even negotiate over such an offer. So Polk derived a strategy of military pressure on the Texas-Mexican border. Walter LaFeber describes his approach in The American Age (1989):

The president's policy was both simple and devious. He slowly squeezed Mexico militarily until it struck back. He then misrepresented the evidence for the attack to obtain Congress's declaration of war. In July 1845. ten months before war began, Polk instructed the U.S. military commander in Texas, Zacharv Taylor, to move across the Nueces River into territory (between the Nueces and the Rio Grande) that was hotly disputed between Texas and Mexico. In January 1846, the president told Taylor to encamp on the Rio Grande itself. In April, the Mexican army demanded that Taylor move back. He responded by blockading the Mexicans and threatening them with starvation. On April 24, they tried to break the blockade, and blood was spilled. Back in Washington, Polk was becoming frustrated by Mexico's refusal to deal with Slidell. On May 9, he and his cabinet decided to settle the claims against Mexico and block British influence [on Mexico to sell California to them] by declaring war. Later that day, Polk received word of the attack on Taylor's forces. (my emphasis)

LaFeber also gives a good summary of how the territory acquired during the Mexican War turned up the pressure on the slavery question. In fact, it appeared when Polk asked for an appropriation of $2 million just after the declaration to war to use in negotiating a peace with territorial acquisitions. He describes the proposal attached to the appropriation by Pennsylvania Democratic Congressman David Wilmot, which became known as the Wilmot Proviso:

The proviso required the money not to be used to purchase any territory that would allow slavery. Democrats and Whigs from the South immediately condemned the measure. In the House vote, Polk's Democratic party splintered, but the proviso passed. Fifty-two northern free-state Democrats supported, and all fifty southern Democrats opposed, the measure. The Senate, where free- and slave-state representation was in balance, prevented the Wilmot Proviso from becoming law. Nevertheless, everyone involved understood that a political monster had appeared, one that could not be easily killed.

"Reappeared" would probably be more accurate here, since the slavery issue had become increasingly potent as a divisive political issue since the Compromise of 1820.

Continuing with LaFeber's account:

Polk could not understand what he had done. He denied that the great domestic issue had anything to do with foreign policy: slavery "was purely a domestic question" and "not a foreign question." In reality, of course, slavery had everything to do with foreign policy. Expansion, the central theme of the American experience since 1607, now raised the possibility of one side - either slave or nonslave - controlling vast new territories and, thus, soon controlling the government itself. Polk did see that "the slavery question ... is a fire-brand in the body," but he also believed that because slavery could not exist on the poor soils of northern Mexico, Congress was raising the issue simply to embarrass him. The president proposed to settle the rising argument by extending the 1820 Missouri Compromise line of 36°30' to the Pacific. But that compromise was no longer adequate. It could leave the vast Mexican territories south of the line open to slavery. Foreign policy and domestic concerns were so intertwined that each now threatened to strangle the other. (my emphasis)

Paul Bergeron in The Presidency of James K. Polk (1987) describes how the Wilmot Proviso became a focal point for opposition to Polk's war policies. Polk wrote in his diary, "what connection slavery had with making peace with Mexico it is difficult to understand." Bergeron observes:

Perhaps this was difficult for the president to comprehend, but it was not difficult for the antislavery elements in Congress and in the northern states to understand. From this point forward, Polk's opponents would utilize the Wilmot Proviso to harass his administration and to foster their conviction that the Mexican War was unconstitutional, corrupt, and, in fact, immoral. They henceforth waged an unrelenting war upon a beleaguered president, who continued to maintain that he wanted peace - nothing more and nothing less. (my emphasis)

Tags: confederate heritage month 2008, guerra de estados unidos a méxico, guerra mexicano-estadounidense, manifest destiny