50"Mr. Polk is not the first President to give me the command of the
army against Mexico--General Jackson himself proposed it in 1836, when
our affairs with that country looked warlike, and then, as now, I agreed
to take it," Benton says, in a speech in the Senate, January 25, 1847, on
the Lieutenant-General bill. Cong.
Globe,
29 cong., 2 sess., 247.
