A deep dive into the political history of the United States, hosted by President Shrimpo. In the West Wing with President Shrimpo is a deep dive into the political history of the United States. Each episode looks at the people and driving factors that created the country we live in today with special focus on the stories and voices least heard.
President Shrimpo 0:00
Hello, my name is President Shrimpo, and you're listening to in the West Wing, a political history podcast brought to you by WKNC 88.1. And in this week's episode, we will be exploring the rise of young hickory, the protege of Andrew Jackson, Old Hickory, and the single largest expansion of American territory in its entire history, the Mexican American War.
So, last episode, we kind of left off with a bit of a bit of a cliffhanger with the election of 1844. And sort of the unclear direction that the country was going in with with the incredibly unpopular John Taylor seeking to annex Texas. While it seemed that neither major party was going to sort of embrace this, this push to expand America into the Southwest, and Tyler was poised to run in a third party bid for the presidency. But that did not actually have to come to be. So as John Tyler pursued to the annexation of Texas, the Democratic Party experienced this this sort of tremendous internal rift within the party. Because the former President Martin Van Buren, was expected to be renominated for a second non consecutive term in 1844. But the problem was that he was opposed to the annexation of Texas. It was because he personally believed that by annexing Texas, the issue of slavery would be sort of brought to the forefront of politics, and the divisions between northern and southern interests would come to clash once again. And that by annexing Texas, it would it would only make the issue of slavery worse. And that position fundamentally, was at odds with the interests of Southern Democrats. And so because Southern Democrats sort of perceived a weakness in the presumptive nominee Martin Van Buren. On the sort of the last minute at the 1844 Democratic National Convention, Southern delegates moved to change the rules last minute, and changing it so that in order to win the presidential nomination, a candidate had to secure two thirds of the convention is delegate votes. So while Martin Van Buren controlled a strong majority of delegates, he did not control the necessary two thirds of delegates. And as a result, the balloting at the convention would go on for many rounds, with with the sort of various factions split between the candidates, Martin Van Buren, a candidate who was opposed to the expansion of slavery, and then a number of of pro slavery candidates, including Richard mentor Johnson, the former vice president, James Buchanan, and Lewis Cass, senator from Michigan, each of these candidates were perceived to be stronger on on in supporting slavery than Van Buren. But none of them were able to consolidate the sort of multi factional support that was necessary to secure that two thirds that was so important. And so after successive ballots, you know, there was there was no clear breakthrough with with which candidate would be nominated. And very suddenly, seemingly out of the blue on the eighth ballot, a certain James Knox Polk, the former governor of Tennessee, and at one time, the briefly, Speaker of the House, garnered 44 votes. 44 votes, certainly was nowhere near the necessary two thirds majority. But it kind of suddenly thrust him into the spotlight as this very sudden candidate that kind of came out of nowhere. And the fact of the matter is, Polk really had not been interested in seeking the presidential nomination. At most, he was really kind of expecting to maybe be the vice presidential candidate for whichever nominee and he actually came in, supporting Van Buren nomination. But suddenly there was there was this this A candidate that was able to kind of bring together the sort of Van Buren wing and the sort of pro slavery wing. And on the next ballot, he would quickly gain steam. And on the ninth and final ballot, James K Polk would be nominated for the presidency. And this sort of is the first of many Darkhorse candidates in American presidential politics. And it's certainly not the last but but Polk, Polk was sort of perceived as the the political successor in many ways to Andrew Jackson, and that he sort of was was the protege of Jackson before Jackson was was elected president. So much so that, you know, Andrew Jackson's nickname was Old Hickory. And so of course, James K. Polk was then called Young hickory, because of his his close relation with Jackson. And in fact, actually, this this nomination struggle, it's sort of one of the arguments for why Polk was able to win over so many delegates so quickly is that he had this close relation, and that Jackson sort of behind the scenes pushed for Polks nomination over Van Buren. And a big factor in pokes successful campaign was that that Polk was was unyielding in his position that both Texas and the Oregon territory were bite by sort of this divine right American land, and that the United States had to pursue their immediate annexation. But, but instead of the the sort of north south divide, that annexation sort of inflamed generally, Polk sort of fuse the two together, and was sort of able to satisfy the demands of Southerners who hope to expand the institution of slavery, while also sort of balancing out with with the expansion of northern territories with the assumption that there were to be this counterbalance with Oregon in the creation of Northern free states alongside the slave state of Texas. And so through this, this Polk was able to sort of marry together these these two sort of generally opposing factions and sort of unite them in the unifying goal of immediate American expansion. On the other hand, the Whig Party nominated a certain Henry Clay, this was his third time running for the presidency. And Clay was staunchly opposed to the annexation of Texas, because much like Van Buren, he believed that doing so would inflame the divisions between North and South in the country. And actually, most southern Whigs, unlike in the Democratic Party, sort of agreed with clay and believed that that the expansion of slavery would only sort of inflame the issue even more. And so through this, Clay was able to rally support, both among Northern and Southern delegates in a way that Van Buren was unable to do so. Because up to this point that the Whig Party was still not beholden to sort of the most extreme interests of slaveholders in the way that the Democratic Party was quickly becoming. And so essentially
pulk was able to turn this sort of quest for western expansion into America's right to expand sort of America's Manifest Destiny westward, which is a phrase that's thrown around quite a lot, but sort of this this idea that the growth of the American Empire is is this God given right? That that white European Americans have a right to conquer western territories. And through this, this narrative, Polk is essentially able to shift the way voters looked at western expansion instead of it being an issue of of the expansion of slavery, the expansion of free states. This was simply American expansion. And this really gave Polk the upper hand in the election. And so, come election day 1844. Polk was able to carry Deep South, the Midwest, portions of the sort of upper Atlantic so so Pennsylvania, New York, a portion of New England, Wild Clay won out in in sort of in the new New England area and then down into sort of traditional Southern wigs strongholds in the Upper South in Kentucky, Tennessee, and and new North Carolina. With Polk winning in a margin of one Didn't 70 electoral votes to clays 105. And and with the popular vote margin of only 1.4%. The popular vote mandate that boat that Polk garnered was was significantly narrower than the Jacksons. But it was enough, it was enough. And upon entering office, Polk made it incredibly clear, he only wanted to serve a single four year term. He didn't want to be reelected in a second term in the way that previous Presidents had sought. And he laid out a very succinct, and concrete list of what his objectives were as president, and they included completing the annexation of Texas, reestablishing the independent Treasury system rather than rechartering. The National Bank, which gets kind of into the weeds of economic policy, I'll explain it more in detail later in the episode. But just for all intents and purposes, it's it is a system that is distinct from the bank system that the Whig Party sort of pushed for. Additionally, he hoped to reduce the tariff rate is under previous Whig control, the rate of tariffs hadn't had been raised from from their previous rates. Additionally, Polk aimed to acquire some or all of the Oregon territory, which up to this point, was a co dominium with the British. Additionally, he aimed to annex California and all of New Mexico from Mexico. And so the first big issue of poults presidency was the annexation of Texas. annexation had been very narrowly rejected by the Senate, under the presidency of John Tyler. But essentially, Polk was able to successfully negotiate with the new Congress in session. And so as a result, the Senate would be able to pass the annexation resolution is very, very narrowly. And the legislature of the Republic of Texas would follow suit. And in December of 1845, Texas would become the 28th state. Now, for some background, to the Republic of Texas, was essentially a breakaway rebel state from Mexico. It was primarily populated by white, English speaking American settlers, who generally were slaveholders. The reason that they had rebelled from the Mexican Republic was that ah, well, Mexico didn't allow slavery, you say, and so So, Texans believed that it was their God given right to sort of own human beings as property. And this paired with sort of religious divides is most Americans. Most English speaking Americans were Protestant, and most Mexicans were Catholic. You know, this, this led to heightened tensions until the Texans rebelled and declared independence in a war against Mexico. The thing is, Mexico never recognized Texas's independence. And so as a result, Mexico viewed the annexation of Texas by the United States as an entirely illegal move, and the illegal annexation of Mexican territory, which is certainly an issue that will come up again. So with the annexation of Texas, Polk then moved to handle the Oregon territory, essentially, without getting into a whole lot of detail. The Oregon Territory is a stretch of land encompassing the modern states of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and British Columbia, in what is now Canada. And over many years, different countries claimed this stretch of land, this included the Spanish, the Americans, the British, the Russians. But ultimately, the territory had come to sort of generally be under the Joint occupation of American and British forces was sort of agreed in which this stretch of land would be, quote unquote, cold dominium, which is sort of an area where two countries sort of jointly occupy but American expansionist we're not happy with this sort of status quo. And so at the behest of American war hawks that sort of hoped to expand America as far as possible, the Polk administration pursued a settlement sort of abolition a concrete border with the Oregon territory. The most extreme of these demands was for the United States to annex the entirety of the Oregon territory with a very famous slogan being 5440, or fight, which was in reference to the sort of parallel that set the northmost boundary of the Oregon territory, way up in Canada.
Polke however, was was sort of more moderate in his in his demands, he was still willing to sort of provoke the British on the issue. But But he wasn't necessarily as dead set on getting the entirety of Oregon is somewhere pulk essentially asserted that the American British border should fall at the 49th parallel, which, which was the sort of parallel that's set the Canadian American border for a large stretch of land, but it was sort of essentially poked, just wanted it to then cut until it hit the Pacific Ocean. But the British disagreed. The British hoped instead, that the border would be set along the Columbia River, which would essentially have made much of the modern state of Washington fall under British territory. But poke refused, poke insisted it had to be the 49th parallel, or negotiations would break down and break down they did. And essentially, Polk threatened to withdraw from the joint occupation agreement with Britain. And sort of this, this game of territorial chicken eventually led to the British Prime Minister, Lord Aberdeen, blinking. Because Aberdeen was simply not willing to risk a war with the Americans because he was afraid that it would severely impact British trade with the United States. And so as a result, the British were willing to come back to the negotiating table, and agreed to the border being set at the 49th parallel, which is what the border is today. However, there one term was that the that that 49th parallel border would not extend, and essentially cut Vancouver Island and so that that vancouver island would then fall entirely under British occupation. And so with that sort of being set, the British and Americans ratified this this new border in the summer of 1846, sort of freeing up the Polk administration to sort of pursue other political aims that they were pursuing at the time. So with the settlement of the Oregon territory dispute, and the annexation of Texas, America wanted to continue expanding. Polk then sort of turned his eyes to sort of the other territories that he had promised to incorporate into the United States, that being California and New Mexico. Now, the the recognized border between Mexico, and Texas, was the new Oasis River. However, the vast majority of the international community recognize this, and even Mexico, which did not recognize Texas as an independent country. They also recognize this border as sort of being the division where their occupation ended, and Texas occupation began. The United States even recognized it. However, Polk, Polk sided with Texans, because the Texans insisted that the border actually was 150 miles south of the noisiest River, at the Rio Grande. So, in the spring of 1846, President Polk ordered General Zachary Taylor, to march south, down to the Rio Grande area that was occupied and inhabited by Mexicans. And so suddenly, with American troops on territory, officially recognized as being Mexican, they were intentionally putting themselves in a hostile environment. And during this sort of this, this maneuver in which American troops moved south, a small patrol of 16 American soldiers would be killed, with more wounded and captured by Mexican Armed Forces, which would sort of begin the commencement of, of hostilities between the two countries. A certain Colonel Evan a Hitchcock, who was serving in this, this expedition to the Rio Grande, would write in his diary at the time, quote,
Colonel Ethan A. Hitchcock 19:45
I have said from the first that the United States are the aggressors. We have not one particle of right to be here. It looks as if the government sent a small force on purpose to bring on a war, so as to have a pretext for take In California, and as much of this country as it chooses,
President Shrimpo 20:03
which is all to say that even Americans at the time recognize that this was an unintentional provocation of the Mexicans. And rather than being this sort of actual offense, that the Mexicans were committing against the Americans, it was actually America, that was the aggressor in this situation. But that simply was not the narrative that was pushed by the administration. Polk was impatient, he was excited, he wanted to start a war. And he called upon the Congress, in an address, calling for war, saying, quote,
James K. Polk 20:47
Mexico has passed, the boundary of the United States has invaded our territory, and shed American blood upon American soil. As war exists, notwithstanding all our efforts to avoid it, we are called upon by every consideration of duty and patriotism, to vindicate with decision, the honor, the rights and the interests of our country.
President Shrimpo 21:12
But this wasn't honorable. This was not an instance of Mexicans crossing the American border, and killing American soldiers in in legally recognized American territory. This was disputed land that the Americans essentially just asserted was theirs, and crossed the border to occupy. Really, this was a war of aggression on America's part. And in fact, this is all of this bluster about about American blood being spilled on American soil by Mexicans is is sort of just a total distraction from the truth of the matter. And while while this war was really essentially only being pushed by the Democratic Party, the Whig Party, on principle, generally opposed this war, they did not believe that it was a legitimate cause, for for a declaration of war. But in a bid to to prevent themselves from making a politically unpopular decision against the war. They recognize that openly blocking a declaration of war would be politically damaging. And so war was declared against Mexico, in the House of Representatives 174 to 14 against and only 40, to two in the Senate on May 13 1864. And only the most openly abolitionist Whigs in the Congress, voted against the war. And even though among those who were openly and explicitly opposed to the war, like Congressman John Quincy Adams, and Abraham Lincoln, they still voted to approve army appropriations for a war that they explicitly called unjust. This is all to say that weak opposition was paper thin. And that's because opposition to the war was ideologically incoherent. Without the war being sort of directly tied to the issue of slavery. By making the war a simple matter of American nationhood and the the right to expansion. Polk was able to sort of Aflac effectively deflect the sort of criticisms of, of his detractors and sort of was able to then maneuver politically in such a way that this was a word that was universally popular, and even among its opponents. Its opposition was sort of incoherent. And it was within this this opposition movement that we sort of see a split dynamic, in which there are those who are opposed to the war, on the grounds that they believed that it would be a justification for the expansion of slavery, the expansion of slavery would become this sort of very destructive force. And I think that's exemplified in a quote by the transcendentalist writer, Ralph Waldo Emerson, who who wrote of the war, saying, quote,
Ralph Waldo Emerson 24:34
The United States will conquer Mexico, but it will be as a man who swallow the arsenic, which brings him down in turn, Mexico will poison us.
President Shrimpo 24:41
And this is to say that that Mexico would essentially be this this poison pill, in which suddenly with all of this new territory that would suddenly become American states, the issue of the expansion of slavery would come to the forefront and that it will be such a destructive force. that it would destroy us from within. However, there were those who should have viewed the expansion into Mexico in a different light. Specifically, a Whig congressman, by the name of Columbus Delano oppose the expansion into Mexico on very ugly grounds. The following quote has a single word replaced as it is considered racially insensitive today. However, the original intent has not been altered in any way. And I think it still is representative of the beliefs held by Congressman Delano, that by annexing Mexico, white Americans would intermingle with people who quote,
Columbus Delano 25:49
embrace all shades of color, a sad compound of Spanish, English, Indian and [black] bloods, and resulting it is said in the production of a slothful, ignorant race of beings.
President Shrimpo 26:01
This gross display of racism, sadly, was sort of the backbone of the bulk of opposition to American expansion into majority non white territories well past the Mexican American War into other sort of adventures of of American imperialism. But it just had to be said that even the opponents to the Mexican American War, were not morally spotless, you know, and that, even if their opposition was a good thing, their their reasons were not always that good. And so with the declaration of war, we now turn to sort of the progression of the Mexican American War. Ultimately, Mexico's army was poorly supplied, and to political divisions back home between liberals and conservatives, within the military and political sphere, meant that their army just was not in tip top shape. And so while the American military certainly had shortcomings, they were able to sort of very effectively combat against a much larger force. And essentially, America's campaigns into Mexico can sort of roughly be divided into three distinct armies. Under a certain Captain John C. Fremont, a small band of several 100 men were marched westward and linked with American born rebels in the territory of Northern California, and they were able to quickly occupy the poorly defended territory. There was a short lived California Republic, which was declared, but really, this sort of ragtag group, they were really just aiming to become a new American state. Additionally, a much larger force under the command of General Zachary Taylor fraught, fought through the sort of rugged, mountainous terrain of northern Mexico with several 1000 Men sort of facing off against the bulk of the Mexican army, sort of successfully combating a much larger army facing the Mexicans. And then further south, we had General Winfield Scott. Scott led the first large scale naval invasion by American forces in America's military history, successfully invading in southern Mexico, capturing the city of Veracruz. Scotts forces would then advance further into Central Mexico, eventually besieging and capturing Mexico City itself. Throughout the duration of the Mexican American War, several prominent Civil War generals would sort of get their first experience with military sort of engagement. During the Mexican American War. Very notably, we had Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant and Stonewall Jackson serving under their superiors in the Mexican American War. And while the war was generally popular at home, soldiers faced terrible conditions with disease, mistreatment by their officers. And this will lead to large scale to desertions as the war dragged on. Which is to say that that this was not entirely a super popular conflict and that and there were certainly struggles that the American military faced, but ultimately, Mexico would surrender. With the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo signed February of 1848. America conquered roughly half of Mexico's territory and expanded the United States capturing what is now the modern states of Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and California. This was the largest single expansion of American territory in US history, and essentially set the modern border between the United States and Mexico, it would be shifted slightly with the Gadsden Purchase several years later, but this was sort of the bulk of the American Mexican border. And in return for this, this massive seizure of land, the Mexican government would pay be paid $15 million in return. Now, I did the math, and $15 million in 1848. That's a large sum of money. But it's less than half a billion dollars in today's money. I don't think that's a fair trade. But of course, the territorial expansion was not Polks only agenda and office and there in fact, was it equally, I think, important Polks economic agenda, which I haven't really touched on up to this point. But sort of this was sort of something that was being worked on, at the same time as the Mexican American War. Specifically, we had tariff reduction and the establishment of an independent treasury. Now under the Whigs, they, the American government had pursued a higher tariff rate than had existed under Jackson and Van Buren. And under Presidents Harrison and Tyler, the tariff rate was raised. But Polk moved to lower the tariff rate, because he sort of was far more in favor of sort of closer to something like free trade between the United States and the rest of the world. And in July of 1846, the Senate essentially voted to to lower the tariff rate. But the issue was the Senate was split exactly 5050. And the tie would be broken by Vice President George Dallas. And as a result of this lowered tariff rate, there was sort of this sudden spark of increased trade between the United States and the United Kingdom, which arguably, was a key factor in the softening of our country's relationship, which would eventually lead to sort of the end of hostilities between the United States and Great Britain, and sort of what would eventually become sort of known as the special relationship. And it can be traced back all the way to this, this lowered tariffs, right. But I think I think much more importantly than than tariffs, was the independent Treasury system. Essentially, the largest economic debate between Democrats and Whigs during this period was whether or not there should be a national banking system. Under Jackson, the Democratic Party sort of singularly pursued the destruction of a banking system. And Polk as the protege of Jackson, to was opposed to centralized banking and the return of the Bank of the United States. Instead, Polk supported a system known as the independent treasury. Now, the independent Treasury did briefly exist under Martin Van Buren, but it was under a limited charter, and was sort of in a reaction to the panic of 1837. I don't want to go into a whole lot of detail about how the independent Treasury system works, because frankly, I don't fully understand it. But to the best of my knowledge, essentially, the independent Treasury is a system in which the United States has a number of private vaults that it owns. And in these vaults, America stores the money that it prints rather than having a bank that is sort of this this third party that is open to corruption. The Democrats believe that that by having government owned vaults, America could sort of keep track of its money in a better way than just sort of letting states decide their monetary policy.
And so, really, this this was very important. And the Treasury would be established by Congress in the August of 1846. And as an institution, it would last until the Federal Reserve system was created in 1913. More than half a century later, and it really kind of put to rest, the constant bickering between the two parties over monetary policy. And I think more importantly, it stripped the Whig Party I have an important piece of their party agenda. Why should the Whig Party create a new bank of the United States if the independent Treasury system is working and keeping American finances stable, all of this is just to say that that Hulk was able to sort of very successfully complete every single one of his policy agendas. Additionally, with alongside Texas is admission as a slave state. Polk would sort of keep the balance between free and slave states, absolutely in a state of balance. And so alongside the admission of Texas, Iowa was admitted as a free state in 1846. And then the state of Wisconsin was admitted in early 1848, meaning that slave and free states were in perfect balance 15 States each. But suddenly, with the Mexican session, annexing gobbling up a huge chunk of the Southwest, the entire balance of free and slave states was just up in the air. And we see this this sort of importance of this come to prominence with the election of 1848. Polka had kept to his promise to only serve a single term. And so he did not pursue renomination. But his policy success. This led to then Democrats being widely expected to be the easy winners of this election, they were sort of expected to be a bit of a layup. And so, in desperation, the Whig Party turned to war hero, general Zachary Taylor, who's whose service was so important in defeating the Mexicans. Taylor was by no means a committed Whig. He claimed to have never even voted in elections prior to 1848. Additionally, he was a southern slaveholder. So the idea was that he would be able to sort of appeal to the Southerners who sort of were becoming increasingly pro democratic. But he was not sort of seen as as a ideological firebrand in favor of slavery, which sort of helped his his standing in the north as well. And so with Taylor, with this sort of a political, just sort of strongman this this apolitical, sort of kind of thought to be a bit dumb, war hero, the weak party just kind of gave up on pushing really strongly for their agenda, at least where their presidential nominee and so I think more importantly, we then look to the Democratic nominating process. In New York, democratic delegates were split between two different factions, those who were dubbed barn burners and those who were dubbed hunkers. Essentially, they were divided over the issue of slavery. Barn burners were opposed to the expansion of slavery hunkers were in favor of the expansion of slavery, and with no consensus without at the national convention on which delegation should be seated. The barnburner faction staged a massive walkout led by a certain Martin Van Buren. And while the Democratic nomination would fall to Michigan Senator Lewis Cass, who was softly in favor of slavery, the Democratic Party was was deeply wounded by this New York walkout. And under Martin Van Buren barnburner jump Democrats would merge with supporters of the anti slavery Liberty Party, along with Northern wigs who were bitter over the nomination of Taylor. And they've merged together to form the new Free Soil Party, free soilers We're not abolitionist, I need to make that very clear. A lot of people say that Martin Van Buren was an abolitionist, by no means was the Free Soil Party, a an abolitionist party in the modern sense of the word. Instead, they stood very simply to block the expansion of slavery into new states. They they essentially, they just kind of wanted to contain the institution of slavery, they didn't want to wipe it out. They just wanted to prevent it from growing. At all, ultimately, the general election was very light on policy issues. America was riding on sort of a bit of a high from their victory in the Mexican American War. And so it kind of devolved into sort of more of a conflict of personality, with really only Van Buren running a ideologically minded campaign. And so as a result, Taylor would be elected president alongside Millard Phil More of New York as the Vice President, the Whig Party was essentially only able to win with a war hero candidate that was very apolitical in his standings and with a divided Democratic field. And so this would have points to sort of the breakdown of Whig Party strength. Even in this victory there, it shows the sort of underlying cracks and faults within their party structure. And in the next episode, we will explore it the collapse of the Whig Party as a national agenda, the rise of slaveholding interests within the Democratic Party and the sort of beginning of their stranglehold on the entire Democratic Party, and the beginning of a total realignment of the American party system. With blood being spilled in Kansas. As always, I had been your host President Trimco. And you have been listening to in the west wing political history podcast brought to you by WKNC Ada point one. Special thanks to those who helped give history a voice in this week's episode of In the west wing with Elijah Ensley is Colonel Ethan a Hitchcock, Jamie Lynn Gilbert as James K. Polk Csenge Balazs As Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Sanath Sekharan is Columbus Delano. The intro music used on in the West Wing, the Star Spangled Banner by the United States Marine Band, and our Outro Song is Libertad by Iriarte and Pesoa.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai