Excerpt from Lincoln and the First ShotIn 1846, having ordered an army into disputed ter ritory along the Rio Grande, James K. Polk asked Con gress for a declaration of war after the troops had been fired upon. War exists, he said, and by the act of Mexico herself. American blood has been shed upon American soil. Polk was the first president to be accused of de liberately bringing about an attack, or the semblance of an attack, in order to rouse the American people and lead them to war.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.