Naturally the genesis of the conflict proved to be a favorite object of contemplation, and almost every complaint against the administration that wit could invent or stupidity fall into was brought forward. The fact that the action of the same Congress at its first session had turned the leaf upon that subject made no difference. The fact that Polk’s newspaper organ challenged in his name “the most rigorous investigation—not at any future time, but now”—into the Executive’s “whole conduct of our Mexican relations” did not signify. No such investigation was attempted, but invective continued. The opposition merely cocked its eye suspiciously at everything, and found everything iniquitous.
“He must have optics sharp, I ween,
Who sees what is not to be seen,”
but the feat was now accomplished.[27]
OPPOSITION SCHEMES
For example, Congress had scarcely assembled when attacks began on the establishment of civil governments in California and New Mexico. With such unusual strength of vision it could readily be seen that Polk had been indulging in some villainy there. For a week or so excitement raged. But after a while several things appeared. Our only aim had been to mitigate the harshness of military rule, about which the kindly Whigs had felt much exercised. The action complained of had been taken under a military sanction, and was proper legally as well as by common sense, for the Executive, as commander-in-chief, possessed the fullest military authority in regions occupied by our arms. Harrison, a Whig, had proceeded after a similar fashion in Canada during the War of 1812; and our Supreme Court had even endorsed the view of a Whig lawyer, Daniel Webster by name, that British occupation of Castine, Maine, during the same war gave England rights of sovereignty there for the time being. So far as Kearny, a Whig officer, had gone wrong, the fault had been his own; and, finally, the unholy word “conquest,” which had made the Whigs most unhappy when applied by Polk to the occupation of New Mexico, was found to have been applied to the British occupation of Castine by our own Supreme Court.[28]
Behind idealistic declamation lay schemes that were distinctly practical. It was thought, for example, that if the war could be made odious, and the government’s measures be hindered in Congress, Polk would have to placate the Whigs by restoring the protective tariff. This came out beautifully in the treatment of the proposal to lay a duty on tea and coffee, which even the National Intelligencer endorsed. A Democrat, “Long John” Wentworth of Illinois, fully as noted for corporeal as for spiritual grandeur, and wrathful over Polk’s course in the Oregon and river and harbor affairs, moved the rejection of the plan, and the Whigs fell into line.[29]
It was a noble scene. Regard for the poor man filled the mouths of the orators. Though his cottons, his sugar and his salt had been cheerfully made to pay, this duty would be “inhuman,” a “tax on poverty,” a tax “against the fireside and against woman,” a tax “against the wages of weary labor” to support the “extravagance” of the “Tiberius” in the White House. But almost in the same breath came the hint, “If the administration needs money, let it re-enact the [protective] tariff of 1842.” “The first condition [of Whig support] is,” explained the Boston Atlas, “repeal the British Bill. Repeal the bantling of the House of Lords. Repeal the offspring of British paternity and precedent.” “Should they be in want of money,” proclaimed Webster, “I would say to them—restore what you have destroyed.” A fairly definite understanding to this effect seems to have existed among the Whigs; malcontents on the other side gave them help; and the proposed duty was rejected in the House by a vote of 115 to 48. Partly for the same reason troops were not promptly voted. If the government does not need money, it does not need men, said the opposition. Thus the “patriotic sublimity” of the Whigs again commanded admiration, and some of the Democrats now had a share in it. [29]
Another illustration of sublimity was the “Wilmot Proviso,” that “firebell in the night,” as Alexander H. Stephens called it, which no doubt some Congressmen accepted at its face value, and a multitude of honest citizens regarded as a New Commandment revealed on a new Sinai. The introduction of this measure, which prohibited slavery in territory acquired from Mexico, was both unnecessary and unwise. It blocked needed war legislation, added to the prevailing discord, and weakened the government in the face of the enemy.[30]
But reasons of state outweighed all such trifling considerations. The northern Whigs, to hurt their opponents and gain recruits, had for some time been taunting the northern Democrats with subserviency to the slave power, and it seemed to the latter that a declaration of independence would help their electioneering. Van Buren men, especially in the state of New York, desired to annoy Polk in return for his beating their favorite, and taking an Old Hunker instead of a Barnburner into the Cabinet. Wilmot, the only Pennsylvania Democrat that had voted for the new tariff, did not feel precisely happy about his action, and was anxious to repel the charge of truckling. His great state and New England considered the “Southern” tariff an abomination, and longed to retaliate. Many felt that Walker and Tyler had used sharp practice in the annexation of Texas for the advantage of their section. The West believed the South had actually broken a bargain by getting its help in that matter and then dropping the Oregon issue. A general sense that southern politicians had been overbearing prevailed above the line. The fear that southern domination would blight interests dear to the North exerted its usual strength; and as a final merit, the Proviso helped to make the war odious by suggesting that it aimed to extend slavery.[30]