Polk was ready to let California go — or at least wait — for the sake of maintaining peace. Besides, as we shall find when we Come to the operations on the western coast, Polk had a policy for the acquisition of that region, and this policy did not contemplate war. With nothing solid to stand upon, then, and much to stand against, this theory must be given up.[1]
The other explanations of Polk's alleged intention to fight Mexico are evidently mere conjectures, and prove nothing. The idea that contracts and offices could strengthen the administration and build up the party is mainly, or perhaps entirely, fallacious. There were not enough to satisfy more than a small percentage of the hungry patriots, and the rest were likely to take offence Moreover, if given to Democrats, these favors could make no converts; while if given to Whigs, the Democrats were sure to complain, and few of the recipients could change their party for such a reason many of Polk's chief troubles, as his diary shows, came from dissatisfied applicants for commissions, and any person well versed in public affairs could have foreseen that it would be so.[2] And yet, after all. the charge that he purposely brought on the war has been so commonly believed, or at least so frequently repeated, that it can fairly demand a more extended examination.[3]
First of all, then, we must form an estimate of Polk. For this purpose his diary is extremely useful. No doubt, like other documents of the sort, it colors some things and omits others; but so extremely busy a man could not have practised systematic misrepresentation in his daily record without hopelessly enmeshing and entangling himself and incurring the risk of detection at many points, while — occupying, as he did, a position where his every word and act were noted by others — he would have exposed himself often to documentary refutation. Besides, the marks of good faith are without number. The diary should therefore be accepted, and has been accepted, as essentially truthful; and the man it shows us — revealed also by a large amount of other evidence — is a cold, narrow, methodical, dogged, plodding, obstinate partisan, deeply convinced of his importance and responsibility, very wanting in humor, very wanting in ideality, very wanting in soulfulness, inclined to be sly, and quite incapable of seeing great things in a great way. All know the type. It is the leading citizen and schemer of
