War Words

Criticism of James Polk's war on Mexico:

"As to the mode of terminating the war and securing peace, the president is equally wandering and indefinite.

"First, it is to be done by a more vigorous prosecution of the war in the vital parts of the enemy's country; and, after apparently talking himself tired on this point, the president drops down into a half despairing tone, and tells us that 'with a people distracted and divided by contending factions, and a government subject to constant changes, by successive revolutions, the continued success of our arms may fail to secure a satisfactory peace'.

"Then he suggests the propriety of wheedling the Mexican people to desert the counsels of their own leaders and, trusting in our protection, to set up a government from which we can secure a satisfactory peace, telling us, that 'this may become the only mode of obtaining such a peace'.

"But soon he falls into doubt of this too, and then drops back on to the already half abandoned ground of 'more vigorous prosecution'. All this shows that the president is, in no ways, satisfied with his own positions.

"First he takes up one and, in attempting to argue us into it, he argues himself out of it; then seizes another, and goes through the same process, and then, confused at being able to think of nothing new, he snatches up the old one again, which he has some time before cast off. His mind, tasked beyond its power, is running hither and thither, like some tortured creature on a burning surface, finding no position on which it can settle down and be at ease."

- Abraham Lincoln