Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Under the rubric of American political development this paper addresses a two-fold problem: 1). the question of antebellum state-building and the American weak state; and 2). the question of the periodization of the American presidency. As we know, the state formation literature draws a positive relationship between war and state formation. However, the American case poses a paradox: during the antebellum period, the United States was both war-prone and, as the literature in American political development argues, a weak state. As regards the second point about the inherent weakness of the antebellum American state, I argue otherwise. The Polk presidency and its conduct of the Mexican War represents a critical case of both antebellum state-building and the centralization of executive power.
My hypothesis is that the Polk administration engaged in purposeful, institutionalized, state-building during the Mexican War. Contra the current literature in American political development which focuses attention on the post-1877 period, I develop two claims related to antebellum state-building: 1). that a robust central state began to develop prior to the Civil War and, in fact, the state that wins the Civil War is, in large part, the state that was built during the Mexican War; and 2). that the Polk presidency exhibited some of the features of the modern-presidency, including covert diplomatic and military action, war-making without the consent of Congress (at the start of the war), and centralization of the executive branch, particularly in directing tactical military policies, all of which led to higher levels of political insulation and discretionary power.