Where Have All The Whigs Gone?
The nation was at war in a foreign land. The President was popular, so popular that even the opposition found that they could not criticize him or his war without being branded as unpatriotic. Of course, there were always the rare exceptions. One member of the Congress from the Midwest was vocal in his opposition to the President and his war, demanding to see concrete proof of the so-called provocation. This daring member, who tragically died while in service to the public, was ostracized by members of his own party, who thought it much more prudent and advantageous to embrace the President and his war than to oppose it. The daring Midwesterner? No, not the late Sen. Paul Wellstone of Minnesota, but the late Congressman Abraham Lincoln of Illinois. The popular President was not George W. Bush, but James K. Polk, and his war was the Mexican-American War. The party in power was the Democratic Party, and the opposition was the Whig Party. When President Polk asked for a Congressional bles
