manoeuvres was only surpassed by the tragedy of them. Amos Kendall said, after the hostilities began, "There can be no peace with that people [the Mexicans] but through victory or with dishonor," and any person of judgment could see this; yet prejudices, passions and interests prevented many from honestly supporting a national war, and turned not a few into virtual enemies of their country. Markoe wrote from Vera Cruz with reference to Clay, Webster, Gallatin and others of their school, "These great men have by their speeches done more to prevent peace than though they had each of them severally arrayed 10,000 Mexicans against Scott"; and when one recalls the expense and bloodshed that would almost certainly have been spared this country and Mexico had our government felt at liberty to spend with decent liberality in meeting Scott's requisitions promptly, patience itself takes fire.[1]
To think of giving him so small an army that the Mexicans felt positively ashamed to yield! And then to reflect how politics went into the army itself, endangering the lives of men and the fortunes of the country through unfit appointments. "How we have been gulled and led about," exclaimed a soldier, "by a set of political demagogues, who, regardless of the fearful responsibility, have forced themselves into positions they possess no qualifications to fill, with a hope thereby to promote their future political aggrandizement!" We recall, even though we do not endorse, the Frenchman who observed, "The more I see of the representatives of the people, the more I love my dogs"; and we also recall the opinion of a British king: "Politics area trade for a rascal, not for a gentleman."[2]
The President showed himself a small man, but the saying of La Rochefoucauld comes to mind: "We may appear great in an employment beneath our merit, but we often appear little in ones too great for us." The situation in which Polk, essentially a local politician from Tennessee, found himself — called upon to re-make the fiscal system of the country, to dispose of long-standing and now critical issues with Great Britain and Mexico, to cope with a factious and unscrupulous opposition in Congress, and to face a war in a foreign land, almost unknown to us, with a handful of regulars commanded by Whigs — -was extremely difficult; but he steered his course firmly to the end, set an example of honest, faithful administration,
