http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1844
Would have backed Polk for his expansionist views.
Would have backed Clay for his American System.
Clay was more forward-thinking than Polk, who was more of a land grabber than someone who wanted to consolidate what we had.
Would have voted against Polk for his expansionist views. In those days, expansionism was driven by the slave states’ wish to expand slavery. I’m for the abolitionists.
That didn’t work out too well for them, though. In fact, Southern frustration on that point was one of the causes of the Civil War.
I’m for Polk. We had to grab while the grabbing was good. Yes, the opposition to annexation (of Texas) was driven by opposition to slavery, which was commendable. But, it was too shortsighted. Slavery would be dead within 20 years; the United States has survived for 170 years (since 1844) and counting.
Without Texas and California (and the states in between), the United States would have been a smaller, poorer, and less powerful nation. For all that the Twentieth Century sucked, it would have sucked even more without a wealthy and powerful United States. We had to do what we had to do.
Perhaps, but now, in 1844, we don’t know any of that.
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