my course, and I
think all in the Cabinet except Mr. Buchanan still concur with me, and he may yet do so."
On November 18, Polk requested Buchanan to prepare a paragraph for the message to the effect: "That failing to obtain a peace, we should continue to occupy Mexico with our troops and encourage and protect the friends of peace in Mexico to establish and maintain a Republican Government, able and willing to make peace." By this time Buchanan had come into an agreement with the President, and on the 20th the cabinet all agreed that such a declaration should be inserted in the message. But if peace could not be obtained by this means the question was as to the next step. " In Mr. Buchanan's draft, he stated in that event that *we must ful- fill that destiny which Providence may have in store for both countries.'"
Experience warns us, when a statesman proposes humble submission to the leadings of Providence, that he is listening anxiously and intently to the voice of the people. President Polk was too independent a man to get his divine guidance by those channels and announced to his cabinet: "I thought this would be too indefinite and that it would be avoiding my constitutional responsibility. I preferred to state in sub- stance, that we should, in that event, take the measure of our indemnity into our own hands, and dictate our own terms to Mexico."
Yet all the cabinet except Clifford preferred with Buchanan to follow whither destiny should lead.^ The paragraph was still troublesome, and Polk presented a third draft to the cabinet, November 23. "Mr. Buchanan," records the diar}^ "still preferred his own draft, and so did Mr. Walker, the latter avowing as a reason, that he was for taking the whole of Mexcio, if necessary, and he thought the construction placed upon Mr. Buchanan's draft by a large majority of the people would be that it looked to that object. "
Polk's answer does him honor: "I replied that I was not
1 It is interesting to note that Buchanan nsed this rejected paragraph in a letter to a Democratic meeting in Philadelphia. Von Hoist, III, 341 n.
