● ● ● Whittier launched powerful attacks against it in their poetry on the same grounds. The abolitionists opposed the war almost to a man.
On the other hand, most of the old Jacksonians hailed it enthusiastically. It was manifest destiny, an inevitable struggle waged for the extension of American democracy, however marred that democracy might at present be by the exploitation of black slave and, for that matter, white wage earner. Walter Whitman, the Brooklyn editor who had not yet become the bardic Walt of later years, urged that it was for “the interest of mankind” that the power and territory of the United States should be extended—“the farther the better.”44
Mrs. Glover had no doubts. In a poem written at the start of the war she declaimed:
Rouse free men from the lethargy
Of peace—ye long have slept
Rouse if your country’s honor calls
To victory or death
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Save from dishonor save from crime
And guard each priceless pearl
Unfold a second Washington
To an admiring world.45
Actually the war unfolded only General Zachary Taylor, but Mrs. Glover’s enthusiasm remained undiminished to the end.46 In the last months of the war the Patriot published four poems by her on the same theme: “Lines on the Death of Colonel Ransom,” “The Grave of [Major Samuel] Ringgold,” “Our Country,” “American Heroes’ Festival.”47 For all their marks of being hastily composed journalistic verse, they ● ● ●
44 [(Walt Whitman), “Mr. Gallatin’s plan of settling our dispute with Mexico,” The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 2 December 1847, p. 2.]
45 Mary Baker Glover, poem, A09002, pp. 63–64, MBEL.
46 From the military point of view it would be more correct to say that it unfolded General Winfield Scott, but Scott did not ride into the Presidency on his exploits.
47 See New Hampshire Patriot and State Gazette of 20 January (p. 4), 10 February (p. 4) [bracketed text Peel’s], 16 March (p. 4), and 6 July 1848 (p. 4). The last of these appeared well after the war had ended.