Before the beginning of the Civil War and the obvious military improvements and clashes of the 1860's, the United States had tried to expand outwards to other sections of the Americas such as Canada, the Caribbean, and even Central America. While these never ended up becoming part of the vast American system, the territorial acquisitions of the earlier presidents highlighted some interesting concepts about political morality. These debates lead us to the decisions leading up to the largest land acquisition for the United States since the 1802 Louisiana Purchase under Jefferson.
In a typical fashion of American politics during the 1840's, different resolutions were drafted in the upper and lower houses of the United States Congress, each one proposing a much different solution to the Texas question. The Texas Question in this case was regarding Texas' admission to the Union and the subsequent debate over slavery and the balance in Congress.
"...which narrowed down to A. V. Brown's resolutions in the House for direct, immediate annexation and Senator Benton's bill for negotiation to smooth out international difficulties and prevent a Mexican embroglio" (33).1
A small group of senators appeared to have been vocally against the House Resolution and in favor of Sen. Brenton's bill for a more peaceful solution. Strangely enough, from a private interview after the fact, it is claimed that Pres. Polk gave his assurances to not go along with the House Resolution if it were to pass in conjunction with the Senate bill, so the senators voted for the Sen. Brenton's Bill. The condition had been made with President Tyler who agreed to pass the winning resolution to his successor who was coming in a couple days. But Tyler quickly backtracks and sends the House Resolution to Texas in his final days of presidency. Polk also supposedly backtracks on his promise to set up a committee to explore both options and instead opts to continue Tyler's campaign of direct annexation, although he denies this in his personal diaries. His political opponents however assert that they had been deceived and the vote had gone through in face of a game of trickery and deceit.
With the question of Texas now achieving Congressional recognition in 1845 as the last act of Tyler, a questionable border was set up along alternating borders of the Rio Grande and Nueces Rivers. As history then goes, expansionist President Polk ordered Gen. Zachary Taylor past the Nueces River where he is then attacked and the United States went to war backed by a Congressional vote of 40 to 2. As a result of this war, the United States ended up with the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo which granted them massive quantities of open land in the Southwest.
"The Mexican Government not only refused to receive him [Slidell], or listen to his propositions, but after a long continued series of ..., have at last invaded our territory and shed the blood of our fellow citizens on our soil" -President Polk's official statement listing reasons for war with Mexico2
A trend almost starts here, where American forces are committed to action based on the questionable attacks on American lives. We see here in the attacks on Gen. Taylor's force, the sinking of the USS Maine, the weapons-bearing passenger carrier Lusitania, the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, and many others that the United States is not always innocent in its actions.
But the main question here is, how should we view the actions of our forefathers and builders of our country?
Perhaps they should not receive a complete hero status as some of our presidents do for their own actions, but we must remember history's moral compass. The past is not like the present and what we see as rationalism and political ethics is not the same as the mindset that guided the world in the mid 19th century. Their politicians who did not act, lost, and those who lost, could not maintain their country. Our most beloved presidents (depending on who you are) Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Reagan, etc all did questionable things ranging from suspension of habeas corpus to ignoring mass killings on the other side of both oceans. But those presidents lived in treacherous and more dangerous times. You may tell me that there is ISIS and that international players are stronger than ever, but unlike before, there are international communities and strong global organizations to help reign us in a bit. Global peace on such a large scale has never been seen before with so many nation states not actively engaged in war with each other.
Some actions many can agree on should not really be justified in any era such as the forcible removal of the Five Indian nations under Jackson. But when it comes to territorial expansion and conquest, every country was just like those to its east and to its west, they all wanted more. To play these kinds of politics in an era of so much treachery and political intrigue, even the highest of the men, the President of the United States, must do everything to keep America as strong as it could.
While I do not entirely agree with the methods utilized under these administrations to obtain more land, I see no other way it could have been done while at the same time acting both on popular will and the ever treacherous waters of international affairs. The presidents Tyler and Polk have been cast off as inefficient and weak, but under them, we achieved the final holdings in the foundation of our nation as it is today. Without their actions, our nation would not be where it is today so in and indirect way, these presidents who have been labelled as poor, set up the borders of our planet's sole surviving superpower. I believe that we should tread this ground lightly and understand that the immorality and treachery of politics that we so decry today were what set up this country in all stages of its development. For without our ancestor's disregard to ethics, we would most likely be a weak nation restricted to the rocky fields of the east coast. I would not honor them necessarily as the best of American heroes, but I would honor them as loyal American leaders who acted in the best interests of their people and their country.
It all basically comes down to the idea that we cannot compare our modern concepts of morality and political ethics to those of over a century ago. While it would not be right to carry their mindsets into the politics of today, I feel that it would be equally wrong to lambast the expansionist actions of the United States on the sole reasoning that it was unethical. Politics was politics and it was an incredibly brutal game that required such trickery to dominate. At the same time though, at what point can we apply morality to our nation without blaming it on "politics as usual". Hopefully, not long, because we have cemented our place in this world and it is time we took lead not with force, but through ethical and honorable actions.
_________________________________________________________________________________
1 PRESIDENT POLK AND THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS
RICHARD R. STENBERG The Southwestern Social Science Quarterly
Vol. 14, No. 4 (MARCH, 1934) , pp. 333-356
Published by: Wiley
2Cong. Globe, 29th Cong., 1st Sess. 782 (1846).
Your take on the morality of politics seems to justify action in the name of American success. I too agree American success is a wonderful thing, both for our country and for our planet. However, I disagree that we look back at the past through different concepts of morality and political ethics. While it may be true that 19th century America was a younger nation struggling to gain credence on the international change, some standards of morality do not change: killing people was wrong 200 years ago, just as it is now. I think we can both agree that the actions taken by presidents like Jackson and Polk were immoral, but I would further assert that they were simply not justified.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, your justification is based upon the assumption that an American empire is fundamentally good for the world. Maybe it is, but we can never truly say how history would have played out, and how capitalism would have developed in the absence of the American behemoth. It is said that calculus would have been invented even if neither Newton nor Leibniz had lived, and the same could hold true for all that America has done.