Antiwar activistLater, as president, Lincoln wasn't too sympathetic to peaceniks.Lincoln in the 1840sIn 1846, Lincoln was elected to a term in the U.S. House of Representatives. A staunch Whig, Lincoln often referred to party leader Henry Clay as his political idol. As a freshman House member, Lincoln was not a particularly powerful or influential figure in Congress. He spoke out against the Mexican-American War, which he attributed to President Polk's desire for "military glory — that attractive rainbow, that rises in showers of blood." Besides this rhetoric, he also directly challenged Polk's claims as to the boundary of Texas.[11] Lincoln was among the 82 Whigs in January 1848 who defeated 81 Democrats in a procedural vote on an amendment to send a routine resolution back to committee with instructions for the committee to add the words "a war unnecessarily and unconstitutionally begun by the President of the United States." The amendment passed, but the bill never reemerged from committee and was never finally voted upon.[12]
Lincoln damaged his reputation by an intemperate speech in the House. He announced, "God of Heaven has forgotten to defend the weak and innocent, and permitted the strong band of murderers and demons from hell to kill men, women, and children, and lay waste and pillage the land of the just." Two weeks later, Polk sent a peace treaty to Congress. No one in Washington paid any attention to Lincoln, but the Democrats orchestrated angry outbursts from all over his district, where the war was popular and many had volunteered. In Morgan County, resolutions were adopted in fervent support of the war and in wrathful denunciation of the "treasonable assaults of guerrillas at home; party demagogues;" slanderers of the President, defenders of the butchery at the Alamo, traducers of the heroism at San Jacinto. Lincoln's law partner William Herndon warned Lincoln that the damage was mounting and irreparable; Lincoln himself was despondent, and he decided not to run for reelection. In the fall 1848 election, he campaigned vigorously for Zachary Taylor, the successful general whose atrocities he had denounced in January. Lincoln's attacks on Polk and Taylor came back to haunt him during the Civil War and indeed was held against him when he applied for a major patronage job from the new Taylor administration. Instead Taylor's people offered Lincoln patronage jobs in remote Oregon Territory. Acceptance would end his career in the fast-growing state of Illinois, so he declined. Returning instead to Springfield, Lincoln gave up politics and turned his energies to making a living as an attorney, which involved grueling travels on horseback from county courthouse to county courthouse.[13]
