On February 1, 1848, Congressman Abraham Lincoln wrote his law partner, William Herndon, in response to a critical letter Herndon had written him. Herndon had complained that Lincoln’s “spot” resolutions of the previous December calling out President James K. Polk for starting an “illegal” war with Mexico as a pretense for taking massive amounts of land so that the United States could expand slavery. The resolutions called for Polk to explain the exact “spot” on which he claimed Mexico had “invaded” the United States. Polk and virtually everyone else ignored Lincoln and nothing happened with the bill. Herndon noted that there was a danger that Lincoln’s resolutions could paint him as not being supportive of the troops. Lincoln sought to set him straight – being against the war did not mean he didn’t support the troops, for whom he had repeatedly voted to provision.
In Lincoln’s response he tells Herndon:
That vote affirms that the war was unnecessarily and unconstitutionally commenced by the President; and I will stake my life, that if you had been in my place, you would have voted just as I did. Would you have voted what you felt you knew to be a lie? I know you would not…Richardson’s resolutions, introduced before I made any move, or gave any vote upon the subject, make the direct question of the justice of the war; so that no man can be silent if he would. You are compelled to speak; and your only alternative is to tell the truth or tell a lie. I can not doubt which you would do.
Lincoln adds that:
This vote, has nothing to do, in determining my votes on the questions of supplies. I have always intended, and still intend, to vote supplies…
He also claims that he is not alone in calling out the unconstitutionality of President Polk’s actions:
As to the Whig men who have participated in the war, so far as they have spoken to my hearing, they do not hesitate to denounce, as unjust, the Presidents conduct in the beginning of the war.
The spot resolutions did create a negative view of Lincoln back in Illinois. He hadn’t planned on running for a second term anyway (there had been an agreement to rotate the position among Whig hopefuls), but the blowback from the resolutions and a poorly run campaign by his proposed successor led to the Whigs losing the seat in the next election. Lincoln would be out of political office for the next dozen years before being elected President of the United States.
Lincoln was a freshman congressman, who normally are expected to sit in the back of the room, keep their mouths shut, and vote the way the party tells them to vote. Lincoln felt he could not remain silent and was compelled to speak out against the decisions of a sitting president whose actions he believed to be unjust and unconstitutional.
Our representatives must speak out against injustice. Lincoln did.
[Photo of Abraham Lincoln at the time he was in Congress]
Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America is available at booksellers nationwide.
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David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America and Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America.
His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.
