Border wars and consequences of lack of empathy
As the government shutdown continues, the record shows a United States president creating a false crisis over our southern border, a prominent congressman and presidential hopeful insisting the president is delusional, and private citizens exhorting the American public to resist.
I’m speaking of course, about James K. Polk, Abraham Lincoln and Henry David Thoreau.
One hundred and seventyfive years ago, the civic culture of Pan America exploded over a land grab that forms the foundation, literally and figuratively, of our current debate about the southern border. American slave holders in Texas territory wanted land to preserve slavery. Mexico outlawed slavery in 1829 and had no intention of ceding ground. President Polk, himself a slaveowner, had his eye on the real prize — expansion of U.S. slave territory clear to Mexican California. And to achieve this Manifest Destiny, he needed a crisis to support declaring war against an opponent so weak militarily, financially and strategically it would never consider war against its northern neighbor. Polk ordered Gen. Zachary Taylor to move 4,000 American troops into Mexican territory to provoke Mexico — and in April 1846 that provocation was successful. Mexican Gen. Mariano Arista’s response to Taylor’s incursion was one of the few Mexican victories of the war. Polk’s mischief achieved its goal. His formal war declaration was a fait accompli.
In Washington, debate raged. One newly elected congressman eviscerated Polk’s rationale with an argument grounded in fact, logic and history. Lincoln’s famous “spot resolutions” demanded to know the specific place where Mexican soldiers shed American blood on American soil. There was no such “spot.” American soldiers had crossed into Mexican territory on purpose to goad Mexican reaction.
Abolitionists called Polk’s fake war what it was — a claim to preserve the economic interests of plantation farmers and the racial hegemony of white men. One prominent writer protested by refusing to pay his taxes and went to jail rather than support the government. Thoreau’s masterful discourse on civil disobedience was his additional response to Taylor’s interventions.
Connecting the dots between the eras of Presidents Polk and Trump is not simply a tally of obvious comparisons. Under the surface issue of border security lies a truer concern with America’s ongoing identity crisis — the fact that we still work to find our better angels when dealing with each other and acknowledge our founding credo — out of many, one — was forged on the lives of indigenous people and slaves.
But history can help us remember the why of things and understand aspirations for our republic were not place-based and requiring barriers of entry — but formed on an idea, one embraced fully by politicians like Presidents Reagan and Roosevelt — the idea of America as a welcoming place, where a hand is extended to its good neighbor and ports of call are beacons of hope. Our founding credo was forged on the lives of slaves and indigenous people, but we should remember this aspiration calls Cicero’s lesson of basic family and social bonds as the origin of societies and states: “When each person loves the other as much as himself, it makes one out of many (unus fiat ex pluribus).”
Politicians are not known for their empathy but statesmen are. Another American statesman used the power of memory to remind us of the awful consequence a lack of empathy creates. U.S. Grant, dying of cancer, didn’t need to falsify his memory of war, of Mexico, the Confederacy or the Union. In Mexico he put love on hold and lost one of his best friends. As a general matter, his memoirs are blunt. Of the American intervention in Mexico he said, “The Southern rebellion was largely the outgrowth of the Mexican war. Nations, like individuals, are punished for their transgressions. We got our punishment in the most sanguinary and expensive war of modern times.” Grant fought to define the meaning of American identity. Today we debate the latest photo op at the border. But the real conflict is within ourselves.