Lincoln and the Whigs at Sprigg’s
Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose—and you allow him to make war at pleasure.
—Abraham Lincoln, 1848
Lincoln has married the woman he said it would kill him to marry. They have two young sons and he’s come to Washington, DC, to represent the good people of Illinois in Congress. The city is unfinished, yet already decaying. The Potomac is choked green with algae and the smell of dead fish permeates. Dead cats rot on the streets. Still! Washington!
They take rooms at Ann Sprigg’s boardinghouse, where more than twenty other Whigs are already in residence. Restless, ambitious, Lincoln wants to see and do everything. But Mary finds it hard to keep their young sons entertained. She quarrels with the other boarders, demands that Lincoln take her side in all things. He feels a guilty relief when she takes the boys to her family’s home in Kentucky.
Sprigg’s is known locally as Abolition House. Those slaves that work for Ann Sprigg disappear north with mysterious regularity. The Whigs residing there see the Mexican War as a mere ruse for expanding the slaveholding territories. James Polk is president. In a grand tradition reaching back through the centuries, he insists that war was forced upon him by unprovoked aggression. He seizes huge swaths of the West as recompense.
Lincoln takes to the floor of the House to accuse Polk of lying. He demands to know the exact spot on which the first gun was fired, the first blood shed. Wasn’t it, in fact, on Mexican soil? The word spot is repeated many times during this speech. Later he hears himself referred to as “spotty Lincoln.”
Back in Illinois, folks are surprised by his attack on Polk. Even those who opposed the war find his speeches close to treason. Lincoln is surprised in return. He supported every measure to fund and supply American troops without condition or argument. The Democrats cynically conflated that with support for the war itself.
Lincoln abhorred the war and admired the soldiers. How hard is that to understand?
There is a second principle at stake. The power to declare war rests only with Congress.
The Illinois State Register, which once supported Lincoln, now says that he has demeaned the courage and sacrifice of Illinois’ fighting men. When the Whigs lose the seat, the paper suggests Lincoln’s obituary—“Died of Spotted Fever.”