[Peace-discuss] July 4th float -- okay, seriously...

[Neil Parthun]

 From the Lincoln Library.

Major part bolded and cut up here for my commentary: Lincoln voted  
for a resolution that declared the war unnecessary and accused Polk  
of violating the Constitution in commencing it. He nonetheless voted  
to supply the American army and he did not support legislation that  
would have prohibited acquiring territory from Mexico as part of a  
peace settlement. -- said it violated the Constitution and it was  
unnecessary but he continued to fund the damn thing the whole f'n  
time as well as accepting the territory gotten via imperial gains.   
Unbelievable...
__

The Mexican War dominated Lincoln's brief congressional career. In  
1846 President James K. Polk, a Tennessee Democrat, ordered General  
Zachary Taylor's army to advance to the Rio Grande River. Mexico had  
never recognized the United States' 1845 annexation of Texas, and  
skirmishes followed the arrival of Taylor's force. Lincoln opposed  
the resulting war, which he thought a contest Polk provoked as a vote- 
getting device, and he hoped his arguments against the war would make  
his reputation in the United States House of Representatives.

Lincoln contended that the disputed territory between the Nueces  
River and the Rio Grande only belonged to Texas where her  
jurisdiction had been clearly established, and he did not think it  
extended to the Rio Grande. "It is a fact, that the United States  
Army, in marching to the Rio Grande, marched into a peaceful Mexican  
settlement, and frightened the inhabitants away from their homes and  
their growing crops," Lincoln said. In his "Spot" resolutions of  
1847, he called on Polk for proof of the president's insistence that  
the war began when Mexicans shed American blood on American soil  
"That soil was not ours; and Congress did not annex or attempt to  
annex it." Lincoln voted for a resolution that declared the war  
unnecessary and accused Polk of violating the Constitution in  
commencing it. He nonetheless voted to supply the American army and  
he did not support legislation that would have prohibited acquiring  
territory from Mexico as part of a peace settlement.

Solidarity,
-N.

Neil Parthun
  Sports journalist, Public i  ||  http://publici.ucimc.org

"There are many victories worse than a defeat." - George Eliot




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