US Presidency
1847

On learning that hostilities had been commenced by Mexico I promptly communicated that fact, accompanied with a succinct statement of our other causes of complaint against Mexico, to Congress, and that body, by the act of the 13th of May, 1846, declared that by the act of the Republic of Mexico a state of war exists between that Government and the United States. This act declaring the war to exist by the act of the Republic of Mexico, and making provision for its prosecution to a speedy and successful termination, was passed with great unanimity by Congress, there being but two negative votes in the Senate and but fourteen in the House of Representatives. The existence of the war having thus been declared by Congress, it became my duty under the Constitution and the laws to conduct and prosecute it.