Are you a domestic terrorist?

[Occhidiangela]

I thought Polk in a political double cross annexed Texas into the Union against the majority of Texan's will in 1845, a decade after the Alamo. Texas, and in a way the whole Manifest Destiny movement along with the bill that prohibited slavery in any of the new states was impetus for the civil war. Not so much that the Whigs embraced slavery. They were just anti-Imperialists seeking to limit federal power, which eventually spawned the republican party -- and Lincoln.

Quick question: how do you, a somewhat libertarian sort if I recall some of our previous discussions, square Jefferson's seriously affected "small government" principles with his imperial and expansionist habits? Standard Democratic imperialism, perhaps, from Jefferson to Monroe to Polk to Wilson to FDR? :D(Oh, wait, McKinley wasn't a Democrat ...)

As to Polk, within Texas there was no small political debate on the matter of annexation. That there was, in the end, only one dissenting vote in the legislature regarding the final agreement strikes me as a politically acceptable act, not Polk pulling a fast one on much of anyone.