mexican american war essay conclusion

The Mexican-American War Essay

The US-Mexican War started on 25 April 1846 and lasted for 2 years until 1848 (Bauer, 1992). The war broke out mainly because both the US and Mexico were interested in Texas, which had gained independence from Mexico in 1836. People have divided opinion on whether the US should have been involved in this war. On one side, some people argue that the US should not have been involved in the war because it had refused to incorporate Texas into the Union in 1836 after gaining independence. On the other side, some individuals hold that the US should have been involved in the war as retaliation after Mexico attacked American soldiers on the disputed land. However, this paper holds that the US should not have engaged in the 1846 Mexican-American War.

The Mexican president at the time, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, had warned the US that any efforts to annex Texas would break the already fragile relationship between Mexico and the US (Frazier, 1998). However, the US president at the time ignored such warnings. Mexico and the US were equal partners in the region, and President James Polk should have respected the calls to leave Texas alone. The Mexican president was only concerned about the peace of the region. President de Santa Anna even went to the extent of begging the US to stay out of Texas, but President Polk was determined to annex Texas to the Union. Therefore, for the interest of peace in the region, the US should not have engaged Mexico in this bloody war.

To show its commitment to resolve the Texan conflict amicably, the Mexican government decided to negotiate with a low-level US government official. Having a low-level government official would keep politics out of the already volatile issue. However, the US government would not divorce the politics of supremacy from the confrontation, and thus it sent a minister to negotiate with Mexico. At this point, it is clear that the US was set for a military confrontation by defying all the demands from the Mexican government. If the US sent a low-profile government official as required, perhaps the war would have been averted.

However, the proponents of the war argue that Mexico had to be held responsible for attacking American troops and killing two officers (Henderson, 2008). Apparently, Mexico had no right to dictate whether Texas wanted to join the Union or remain an independent country. Texas needed help from its allies after being ravaged by the struggle for independence from Mexico. Therefore, the US was simply helping its ally at the time of need through annexation. Additionally, Mexico refused to honor its promise of receiving the US emissary with honor befitting an American government official in foreign land. Therefore, Mexico pushed the US into the war.

In conclusion, there are compelling reasons explaining why the US should or should not have engaged in the Mexican-American War. However, the US should not have engaged in the war. Mexico had categorically stated that the annexation of Texas to the United States would cause conflicts in the region, and President Polk should have respected this stand. Besides, Mexico indicated its willingness to negotiate with a low-profile US government official. However, the US sent a high-ranking minister in the government.

The proponents of the war hold that Mexico had no right to determine if Texas would join the US. However, this argument is weak because Mexico wanted peace in the region and the US should have respected that view. Therefore, the arguments on why the US should not have engaged in the war are highly compelling because peace should surpass supremacy battles.

Bauer, J. (1992). The Mexican War: 1846–1848 . Winnipeg, MB: Bison Books.

Frazier, D. (1998). The U.S. and Mexico at war . Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan.

Henderson, T. (2008). A glorious defeat: Mexico and its war with the United States. New York, NY: Hill and Wang.

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Mexican-American War

By: History.com Editors

Updated: August 10, 2022 | Original: November 9, 2009

The Mexican-American War of 1846 to 1848 marked the first U.S. armed conflict chiefly fought on foreign soil. It pitted a politically divided and militarily unprepared Mexico against the expansionist-minded administration of U.S. President James K. Polk, who believed the United States had a “Manifest Destiny” to spread across the continent to the Pacific Ocean. A border skirmish along the Rio Grande that started off the fighting was followed by a series of U.S. victories. When the dust cleared, Mexico had lost about one-third of its territory, including nearly all of present-day California, Utah, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico.

Causes of the Mexican-American War

Texas gained its independence from Mexico in 1836. Initially, the United States declined to incorporate it into the union, largely because northern political interests were against the addition of a new state that supported slavery . The Mexican government was also encouraging border raids and warning that any attempt at annexation would lead to war.

Did you know? Gold was discovered in California just days before Mexico ceded the land to the United States in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

Nonetheless, annexation procedures were quickly initiated after the 1844 election of Polk, a firm believer in the doctrine of Manifest Destiny , who campaigned that Texas should be “re-annexed” and that the Oregon Territory should be “re-occupied.” Polk also had his eyes on California , New Mexico and the rest of what is today the American Southwest.

When his offer to purchase those lands was rejected, he instigated a fight by moving troops into a disputed zone between the Rio Grande and Nueces River that both countries had previously recognized as part of the Mexican state of Coahuila .

The Mexican-American War Begins

On April 25, 1846, Mexican cavalry attacked a group of U.S. soldiers in the disputed zone under the command of General Zachary Taylor , killing about a dozen. They then laid siege to Fort Texas along the Rio Grande. Taylor called in reinforcements, and—with the help of superior rifles and artillery—was able to defeat the Mexicans at the Battle of Palo Alto and the Battle of Resaca de la Palma .

Following those battles, Polk told the U.S. Congress that the “cup of forbearance has been exhausted, even before Mexico passed the boundary of the United States, invaded our territory, and shed American blood upon American soil.” Two days later, on May 13, Congress declared war, despite opposition from some northern lawmakers. No official declaration of war ever came from Mexico.

U.S. Army Advances Into Mexico

At that time, only about 75,000 Mexican citizens lived north of the Rio Grande. As a result, U.S. forces led by Col. Stephen Watts Kearny and Commodore Robert Field Stockton were able to conquer those lands with minimal resistance. Taylor likewise had little trouble advancing, and he captured the city of Monterrey in September.

With the losses adding up, Mexico turned to old standby General Antonio López de Santa Anna , the charismatic strongman who had been living in exile in Cuba. Santa Anna convinced Polk that, if allowed to return to Mexico, he would end the war on terms favorable to the United States.

But when Santa Anna arrived, he immediately double-crossed Polk by taking control of the Mexican army and leading it into battle. At the Battle of Buena Vista in February 1847, Santa Anna suffered heavy casualties and was forced to withdraw. Despite the loss, he assumed the Mexican presidency the following month.

Meanwhile, U.S. troops led by Gen. Winfield Scott landed in Veracruz and took over the city. They then began marching toward Mexico City, essentially following the same route that Hernán Cortés followed when he invaded the Aztec empire .

The Mexicans resisted at the Battle of Cerro Gordo and elsewhere, but were bested each time. In September 1847, Scott successfully laid siege to Mexico City’s Chapultepec Castle . During that clash, a group of military school cadets–the so-called ni ños héroes –purportedly committed suicide rather than surrender.

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo 

Guerrilla attacks against U.S. supply lines continued, but for all intents and purposes the war had ended. Santa Anna resigned, and the United States waited for a new government capable of negotiations to form.

Finally, on Feb. 2, 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed, establishing the Rio Grande (and not the Nueces River) as the U.S.-Mexican border. Under the treaty, Mexico also recognized the U.S. annexation of Texas, and agreed to sell California and the rest of its territory north of the Rio Grande for $15 million plus the assumption of certain damage claims.

The net gain in U.S. territory after the Mexican-American War was roughly 525,000 square miles, an enormous tract of land—nearly as much as the Louisiana Purchase’s 827,000 square miles—that would forever change the geography, culture and economy of the United States.

Though the war with Mexico was over, the battle over the newly acquired territories—and whether or not slavery would be allowed in those territories—was just beginning. Many of the U.S. officers and soldiers in the Mexican-American War would in just a few years find themselves once again taking up arms, but this time against their own countrymen in the Civil War .

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The Impact of the Mexican American War on American Society and Politics

On February 2, 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed which officially ended the Mexican-American War. However, as the guns fell silent, and the men returned home, a new war was brewing, one that continues to shape the course of this country to this day. 

While Ulysses S. Grant might have argued that the Civil War was God’s punishment for the Mexican-American War, a “wicked war" that was rooted in imperialism and the expansion of slavery, many Americans supported the Mexican-American War as they viewed it as the fulfillment of Manifest Destiny: the promise that the United States would extend from “sea to shining sea.” While Manifest Destiny remains a core of U.S. national identity, in the 1840s it encouraged a slew of ideological debates over this potential new territory, specifically if the territory should be free or enslaved. The Louisiana Purchase caused a major crisis over the organization of new states which Congress ultimately resolved with the Missouri Compromise, the compromise to end all compromises. It is important to note that the debates in 1820 were largely split among party lines, i.e. Democrats vs. Whigs . However, the Mexican American War reopened past wounds and sent the United States into another legislative crisis.

Even before the war was won and territory had been ceded, Congress was already discussing how to organize any potential new territory gained as reparations from Mexico.  One of the most important of proposals was the Wilmot Proviso  which Representative David Wilmot of Pennsylvania proposed in 1846, two years before the war ended. Under this proviso, any territory gained by war with Mexico should be free and thus reserved exclusively for whites. Wilmot was a free-soiler, which meant that he did not want to abolish slavery in the places it currently existed but rather prevent its expansion to new territories. However, Wilmot was also a Northern Democrat, and most Democrats supported slavery and protected it, even if they themselves did not own slaves. Many Northern Whigs believed in something called the Slave Power Conspiracy, a conspiracy theory in which slaveowners (the Slave Power) dominated the country’s political system even though they were a minority group, which was accomplished through a coalition with “dough-faced Democrats,” Northern Democrats who supported and protected slavery. While the Wilmot Proviso failed in the Senate, it passed in the House of Representatives because of a coalition between Northern Democrats and Northern Whigs and illustrates the first shift from party alliances to sectional alliances. Indignation over the Wilmot Proviso united southerners against northern threats to their most valuable institution, slavery. After this vote, the antebellum political landscape was forever changed.

The failure of the Wilmot Proviso only put off the issue of slavery for so long. With the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Mexico ceded over 525,000 square miles of territory to the United States in exchange for $15 million and the assumption of Mexican debts to American citizens, which reopened the slavery issue. In order to promote party loyalty without aggravating sectional tensions, the Whigs did not include specific resolutions on slavery in their official platform for the Election of 1848. The Democrats ran on popular sovereignty , which is the idea that the status of a territory will be determined by the people residing in that territory. Popular sovereignty is neither explicitly pro-slavery or anti-slavery; however, it does nullify the Missouri Compromise . Neither party adopted a firm stance on slavery in the 1848 election; however, the free-soilers made the election about slavery. Consequently, the Whigs and the Democrats developed campaign materials to be sectionally distributed which highlighted their candidate's support and opposition for slavery respectively. The separate campaign materials in this election reveal the growing sectional divide in antebellum America.

Despite the growing sectionalism, Zachary Taylor, a hero of the Mexican-American War and a slaveholding Whig was elected president in 1848 and served for two years before dying in office of natural causes. The Mexican-American War projected Taylor into a position of celebrity and enabled his election in 1848. After his election, Taylor promised not to intercede with Congress’s decision for the organization of the Mexican Cession. Many southerners felt betrayed by Taylor, a slaveowner from Louisiana, as they equated his position with those of a free-soiler. In this time of heightened sectional tensions, southerners believed that if one did not actively protect slavery and its expansion, one supported abolition.

As a direct result of the Mexican Cession, the California Gold Rush began in 1849 which caused a massive frenzy to organize and admit California into the Union.  The Missouri Compromise stated that any territory north of the 36°30’ parallel would be free; however, the line would divide California into two sections. California was never a US territory and approved a free constitution, elected a Governor and legislature and applied for statehood by November 1849. Since California did not wish to be divided into two separate states, a new compromise was formed, aptly named the Compromise of 1850. Under the Compromise of 1850 , California was admitted as a free state without deciding the fate of the remainder of the Mexican Cession. Additionally, under this compromise, there was the federal assumption of Texas debt, the abolishment of the slave trade in the District of Columbia, and a stronger fugitive slave law. While controversial, the Compromise of 1850 alleviated the growing tensions over slavery and delayed a full-blown crisis over the issue.

However, in 1854 tensions over slavery once again skyrocketed over the organization of Kansas and Nebraska. While Kansas and Nebraska were not part of the Mexican Cession, their debates over their organization are linked to the Mexican-American War. As stated above, the Mexican-American War re-opened the discussions over how to organize territory, and one of the proposed solutions was popular sovereignty. While the Compromise of 1850 elected not to include popular sovereignty, it reemerged in 1854 with the Kansas-Nebraska Act , where Kansas and Nebraska would be organized using popular sovereignty.  The Kansas-Nebraska Act caused Bleeding Kansas , where pro-slavery and anti-slavery Americans flocked to Kansas in an attempt to establish either a slave or free government in that state, which eventually erupted into violence where neighbor killed a neighbor in the name of slavery and abolition. Bleeding Kansas is also the first instance where John Brown , famous for his 1859 raid on Harper’s Ferry, used violence to enact his radical abolition vision. Moreover, the Kansas-Nebraska Act propelled future President Abraham Lincoln into the national spotlight. The Kansas-Nebraska Act was Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois’s pet project and popular sovereignty is often associated with Douglas. Lincoln and Douglas engaged in a series of debates in 1858, which mainly focused on popular sovereignty and slavery’s expansion. While Lincoln lost the senatorial election in 1858 to Douglas, he became well known because of the debates, which positioned himself to be the Republican candidate for the Presidential Election of 1860. Additionally, the Kansas-Nebraska Act was the final nail in the coffin for the Whig Party and paved the way for the establishment of the Republican Party, the first prominent anti-slavery party which was rooted in sectionalism.

Ralph Waldo Emerson prophetically wrote, “Mexico will poison us.” The Mexican-American War and the massive territory gained reopened debates over slavery which diminished party alliances and increased sectional alliances. These debates over slavery eventually led to the demise of the Second Party System and paved the way for the rise of Republicanism. Sectional tensions had never been stronger and there were open discussions of disunion which increased as the 1850s progressed. All these tensions and issues would come to head with the Election of 1860 and eventually with the Civil War, where brother fought against brother. To say "Mexico poisoned" the United States is an understatement, the bloodshed during the Civil War rivaled any other American conflict and today we are still in the process of healing wounds that occurred over 150 years ago.

Further Reading:

• So Far From God: the U.S. War with Mexico 1846-1848 : By John S. D. Eisenhower
• A Wicked War: Polk, Clay, Lincoln, and the 1846 U.S. Invasion of Mexico : By Amy S. Greenberg
• The Fate of Their Country: Politicians, Slavery Expansion and the Coming of the Civil War : By Michael F. Holt
• The Impending Crisis: America Before the Civil War 1848-1861 : By David M. Potter

Hispanic-Americans in the Civil War

Federico Fernández Cavada: Union Ties and Cuban Roots

Tejano Heroes of the Texas Revolution

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14.2: The Mexican-American War

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In the days after the election of 1844 before Polk’s inauguration, at the behest of lame duck President Tyler, Congress passed a resolution to annex Texas. Although Mexico had finally recognized Texas’s independence in 1845, it held that the border between Mexico and Texas was the Nueces River, as it had been from the colonial era. Texas—and now the United States—held the border as the Rio Grande. The area between the two rivers was not the real point of contention for the two countries. The Rio Grande wanders aimlessly for hundreds of miles far into New Mexico and presentday Colorado; in effect, claiming the Rio Grande as the boundary tacitly laid claim to hundreds of thousands more acres. Mexico responded to annexation by cutting off diplomatic relations with the U.S.; both countries prepared for war. As a last-ditch effort to avoid war, Polk sent emissary John Slidell to Mexico City to resolve the border dispute. His secondary mission, however, was to secure California and New Mexico for the United States. Slidell was authorized to pay $5 million for New Mexico and as much as $25 million for Alta (Upper) California. Soon after Slidell’s arrival in Mexico City, the Mexican press learned of his mission to attempt buying so much Mexican territory. Newspapers and journals denounced Slidell and the United States, and leaflets appeared all over the city threatening rebellion if the government negotiated. Slidell was sent away.

Polk seized this opportunity to provoke war with Mexico. He ordered General Zachary Taylor into the disputed territory between the rivers. When a skirmish broke out between Taylor and the Mexican general assigned to patrol the disputed territory, Polk declared war, saying that he had tried every effort at reconciliation. “Mexico,” he stated, “has passed the boundary of United States, invaded our territory, and shed American blood upon the American soil.” Despite opposition from some Whigs, most notably Abraham Lincoln, Congress overwhelmingly approved the declaration of war. The view from Mexico City was very different, however. Mexico contended that the United States had not only taken Texas, but also tried to double Texas’s size. Moreover, when Mexico tried to defend its territory, the United States claimed that Mexico had invaded U.S. land.

The U.S. strategy for the Mexican-American War called for a three-pronged attack on Mexico. The Army of the West was to take and occupy New Mexico; the Army of the Center, to remain in northern Mexico. In anticipation of war with Mexico, the United States assembled a Navy fleet off the coast of California, deploying Marines to the ships. In June of 1846, a small group of mostly American settlers seized the garrison at Sonoma, California. The takeover was peaceable; in fact, no shots were fired. Many of the settlers and californios, or Mexican residents of California, supported the rebellion, as the government of the California territory was ineffectual and notoriously unstable: in the twenty-five year period before the revolt, leadership had changed hands more than forty times. Upon taking the garrison, the rebels proclaimed a new government of the California Republic. This Republic was very short-lived, lasting less than a month; indeed, few Californians knew of its existence. Twenty-six days after the birth of the California Republic, an army corps of engineers under the command of John Frémont marched into Sonoma. The Republic disbanded, and Frémont and the U.S. took over.

Meanwhile, the third prong of the U.S. attack on Mexico, the Army of Occupation, was to take Mexico City. General Winfield Scott led an amphibious assault against the port city of Veracruz and, after taking the city, began his march to the capitol. Scott’s arrival in Mexico coincided with great political turmoil in the nation; in the time since the outbreak of war, the Mexican president had been overthrown by a general. The general then tried to abrogate the constitution, declare martial law, and take power himself; consequently, he was overthrown in a rebellion. The army then invited Santa Anna back from exile to resume the presidency. By the time that Scott took Veracruz, Santa Anna had only just arrived and taken command.

Scott’s army was successful in taking much of the city. On August 20, Scott asked for surrender from Santa Anna; Santa Anna agreed to negotiate. Rather than seriously negotiating surrender, however, Santa Anna used the time to shore up the city defenses. By the time the armistice was at an end, Santa Anna was ready for battle, with his forces concentrated at Chapultepec Castle at the center of the city. The defenders of the Castle, about 1,000 men and the cadets from the military academy, laid land mines all over slopes of the steep hill upon which the Castle was located. The land mines failed to explode. After a fierce battle, Scott’s forces prevailed. Mexican sources attest that by the time Scott’s forces reached the Castle, only a handful of cadets remained to defend it. After the death of his comrades, the last remaining cadet wrapped himself in the Mexican flag and jumped from the palace terrace, plummeting to his death on the steep rocks below.

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the Aftermath of the War

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended Mexican-American War, was signed in February of 1848. The treaty confirmed the U.S. title to Texas and ceded the Alta California and New Mexico territories to the United States, some 525,000 square miles. Mexico was allowed to keep everything south of the Rio Grande. The United States agreed to pay $15 million and to assume the claims of Americans against the Mexican government, about $3,250,000. In short, Mexico lost more than half of its territorial landmass in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The land ceded to the United States eventually became the states, or part of the states, of California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Utah, Nevada, Colorado, Wyoming, and Kansas, tremendously increasing the U.S. holdings and stoking the fires of Manifest Destiny. The most radical adherents of Manifest Destiny had gone so far as to demand the annexation of not only “all of Texas,” but all of Mexico as well. Why, given the expansionist climate of the era, did the United States not lay claim to all of Mexico? Perhaps the best answer to this question lies in an examination of the problems that arose from the Mexican Cession itself.

Through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the United States acquired about 55% of Mexico. Of course these lands were not “empty” but (sparsely) populated with indigenous peoples and Mexican citizens who suddenly, and through no choice of their own, found themselves residents of the United States. It is estimated that there were 80,000 Mexican citizens in California in the late 1840s. Many of the families had been residents of the California or New Mexico territories for generations, since the Spanish colonial period. Mexico was keenly interested in ensuring that these Mexicans would be provided for under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which stated that all Mexican citizens who remained in the ceded lands for more than one year could become naturalized U.S. citizens. Moreover, the original version of the treaty guaranteed that Mexican and Spanish land deeds and grants would be recognized by the United States, allowing resident Mexicans to retain ownership of their lands. Later amendments and interpretations of the treaty weakened this provision.

However, racial tensions emerged as the conquest of the territories of the Cession set a pattern for violence and racial antagonism that still resonates today. Over the next decades, Mexicans and Mexican-Americans alike (some having become citizens, some having declined the offer and remaining Mexican citizens) lost their lands as Texas, California, New Mexico, and the United States government itself declared the Mexican and Spanish land deeds “imperfect,” questioned their veracity, and ultimately took the lands of tejanos, californios, and others. Before the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Mexicans owned all lands valued over $10,000 in California; by the 1870s, they owned only one-quarter of these lands; by the 1880s, californios were relatively landless. Thousands went from being landowners to laborers, sometimes on the very land they had once owned. Much of the work was migratory in nature, and Mexican laborers were paid as much as two-thirds less than white laborers. California, Texas, and other soon-to-be states also passed laws that targeted and politically unempowered Mexican-Americans. A good example of this type of legislation was California’s Greaser Act, enacted in 1885. Technically, the Greaser Act was an antivagrancy law. However, “vagrants” were defined in the law as “all persons who are commonly known as ‘Greasers,’ or the issue of Spanish and Indian blood…and who go armed and are not peaceable and quiet persons.” In general, Hispanics became more and more alienated from the dominant society in the decades after Guadalupe Hidalgo.

So why didn’t the United States acquire “all of Mexico” after conquering Mexico City? Some historians argue that racism played a large role. It was one thing to take the thinly-populated portions of Mexico that could be populated with many more Caucasian Americans and another thing entirely to take over a country, or “uncontrolled dominion,” with a turbulent history, populated with people of mixed ancestry, whom many Americans considered to be “mongrels.” Ultimately, Mexico would have been an expensive, complicated problem for the United States. In taking the California and New Mexico territories, the U.S. increased its land mass by some 20% and gained the important ports of San Diego and San Francisco, thus allowing for trade with Asia, a much more pragmatic and manageable arrangement.

Because the Mexican Cession delineated by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo represented a tremendous increase to the land mass of the United States, it did much to further manifest destiny. The last major territorial acquisition of the continental United States followed on the heels of the Mexican Cession of 1848. In 1854, the United States and the Mexican government, once again under the control of the corrupt Santa Anna, signed the Mesilla Treaty, confirming the Gadsden Purchase. The United States paid $10 million for Arizona’s Mesilla Valley, approximately 30,000 acres. The purchase also clarified and finalized the border between the United States and Mexico. The U.S. desired this land for two additional reasons. First, the Mesilla Valley offered the best terrain for building a transcontinental railroad along a deep southern route. Second, by securing the land south of the Gila River, the United States finalized the border between California and Baja California (now the U.S. and Mexico) as south of the San Diego Bay, offering an excellent harbor. Plans were made for building the trans-continental railroad from Texas to San Diego, but nothing ever materialized.

The war was a tremendous military victory for the United States. The American military gained much experience. West Point and the Naval Academy claimed that their training were the key to success and justified their existence with the war’s success. The Marines won prestige as well and still sing of the conquest of “the halls of Montezuma.” The British and foreign skeptics also reevaluated their opinion on American military strength in the war’s aftermath. However, the war was also costly. Some 13,000 Americans died, most from disease. The war’s monetary cost was about $100,000,000. The war also influenced foreign relations in Latin America, especially with Mexico, in lasting ways. Mexico, and much of Latin America, considered that the United States had deliberately provoked the war and that American greed was its primary underlying cause. The war intensified what has been referred to as “Yankeephobia” in Latin America, leading to distrust and suspicion. The United States, many contended, was untrustworthy, considered itself superior to others, and was a bully. It was called the “Colossus of the North.” Perhaps most significantly, the war upset the carefully-maintained domestic political truce over slavery. Some felt that the war would lead to a severe sectional crisis; poet Ralph Waldo Emerson observed, “Mexico will poison us!” Many Whigs opposed the war on principle, believing that the U.S. had no legal right to the land south of the Nueces River, the original boundary dispute between Texas and Mexico; many abolitionists believed that the war was provoked by the South in order to expand slavery. The sheer amount of possible slaveholding territory coming into the Union upset the balance established by the Missouri Compromise, reignited the slavery debate, and threatened stability. In response to this, Congressman David Wilmot introduced a bill, called the Wilmot Proviso, which would have banned slavery in any territory acquired from Mexico in the war. The measure was eventually defeated and never became law. However, it was strongly supported by representatives of Congress from the free states. Ultimately, the Mexican War represented the looming question of slavery’s future.

Technological Development and Manifest Destiny

As the United States expanded geographically, it also underwent a period of growth and development in technology. Many advocates of manifest destiny saw a clear link between territorial growth and technological development; internal development, the mechanism that would spread American influence, followed on the heels of expansion. Two technologies were particularly important in facilitating communication and travel across the great distances from coast to coast: the telegraph and the railroad.

The development of a railroad infrastructure had begun in the 1830s in a limited area and proved to be viable and profitable. Rail travel transformed the American economy in the 1840s and 1850s, linking port cities to the interior. Before the advent of rail, the main route of commerce was along canal lines, which remained rail’s biggest competitor for quite some time. Although the steam locomotive was faster, shipping costs were cheaper by canal. By the 1850s, however, the railroad network had grown into the dominant means of transport by far. The growth of the telegraph and railroads also provided stability to the growing nation. The United States had become so big that critics doubted its ability to effectively govern so much land and so many people. Railroads and the telegraph provided one solution. Moreover, they facilitated the emergence of a national market system.

The expansion of railroads and the telegraph was not just an effect of manifest destiny. It was a continuation of an ongoing discussion in the American government: the debate over internal improvements. The issue was first raised under Jefferson and focused on the building of canals to better connect the trans-Appalachian frontier to the United States. The debate changed with evolving technology and was raised again and again, most notably during the Madison and Jackson presidencies. A constant in the debate was the discussion of whether or not it was appropriate to use federal money to fund these internal improvements. Manifest destiny and its accompanying technological advances was simply the latest incarnation of this debate.

The significance of these technological advances to the concept of Manifest Destiny appears in various cultural artifacts. In John Gast’s “American Progress” (1872), for example, the floating figure above the landscape resembles an angel and symbolizes the American belief that Manifest Destiny was divinely ordained. How does the angel express the concept of Manifest Destiny as espoused by John O’Sullivan? The paragraph below is from a nineteenth century description of the painting by George Crofutt, who widely distributed his engraving of it.

In “American Progress,” a diaphanously and precariously-clad America floats westward through the air with the “Star of Empire” on her forehead. She has left the cities of the east behind, and the wide Mississippi, and still her course is westward. In her right hand she carries a school book— testimonial of the national enlightenment, while with her left she trails the slender wires of the telegraph that will bind the nation. Fleeing her approach are Indians, buffalo, wild horses, bears, and other game, disappearing into the storm and waves of the Pacific coast. They flee the ponderous vision— the star “is too much for them.”

Technology enabled American expansionism throughout the North American continent by facilitating travel and communication. Americans were not the only ones to harness this technological power towards an expansionist goal; during the 1800s, these technologies further enabled European powers such as France, Britain, and Germany to establish a new kind of colonialism: imperialism. The telegraph and railroad, along with other new technologies such as the steamboat and the Maxim gun, one of the first machine guns, allowed a small number of Europeans to dominate large areas and great numbers of people and fuel their own Industrial Revolutions. In this way, Manifest Destiny became a part of a greater nineteenth century movement in expansionism.

In 1845, the United States annexed Texas and admitted it to the Union. Tensions arose between the U.S. and Mexico over the boundary; the U.S. claimed the Rio Grande as the border, with Mexico claiming the long-established boundary at the Nueces River. The real reason for this border dispute was deeply linked to the expansionist desires of the United States; establishing the Rio Grande as the border would lay claim to a substantial portion of Mexico outside of the confines of Texas. John Slidell’s mission to Mexico exemplifies this intent; although his formal mission was diplomatic, he was secretly charged with buying a substantial portion of the Mexican northwest for the United States. When Mexicans responded to this offer with outrage, Polk took advantage by provoking war. The Mexican-American War, fought from 1846 to 1848, culminated with General Winfield Scott’s invasion of Mexico City.

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the Mexican-American War. The treaty confirmed the U.S. title to Texas and ceded the Alta California and New Mexico territories to the United States, some 525,000 square miles. Mexico lost more than half of its territorial land mass. This ceded land eventually became all of, or part of, the U.S. states of California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Utah, Nevada, Colorado, Wyoming, and Kansas, tremendously increasing U.S. holdings and stoking the fires of Manifest Destiny. In 1848, the Gadsden Purchase finalized the present border between the United States and Mexico with the purchase of Arizona’s Mesilla Valley.

The incorporation of so much Mexican territory and so many Mexican citizens into the United States led to great problems. The conquest of the territories of the Mexican Cession set a pattern for violence and racial antagonism that still resonates today. Over the next decades, Mexicans and Mexican-Americans alike lost their lands in Texas, California, and New Mexico; the United States government declared the Mexican and Spanish land deeds “imperfect,” questioning their veracity and ultimately taking the lands of tejanos, californios, and others.

The Mexican-American War adversely and lastingly influenced foreign relations in Latin America. Mexico, and much of Latin America, believed that the United States deliberately provoked the war, with American greed being its primary underlying cause. The war intensified Latin American “Yankeephobia,” leading to distrust and suspicion. The war also upset the carefully-maintained domestic political truce over slavery. Some felt that the war would lead to a severe sectional crisis. The sheer amount of potential slaveholding territory coming into the Union upset the balance established by the Missouri Compromise, reignited the slavery debate, and threatened stability.

Finally, the growth of technologies such as the telegraph and the railroad accompanied and enhanced the growth of Manifest Destiny, connecting the burgeoning country in communication and ease of travel. Rail linked the ports and the interior, facilitating trade and propelling the emergence of a national market system.

Exercise \(\PageIndex{1}\)

The “Greaser Act” is an example of

• a law that targeted and politically unempowered Mexican-Americans.
• “Yankeephobia” in Mexico.
• an attempt to maintain the balance between free and slaveholding states in the aftermath of the Mexican-American War.
• an attempt to settle territorial disputes between the United States and Mexico.

Exercise \(\PageIndex{2}\)

The Wilmot Proviso is an example of

Exercise \(\PageIndex{3}\)

As a result of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Mexico lost more than half of its territorial land mass.

Exercise \(\PageIndex{4}\)

The growth of rail and telegraph was hailed by expansionists as a means to

• spread American influence.
• enhance internal development.
• facilitate trade.
• all of the above.

Mexican-American War

By William V. Bartleson

Despite taking place in the American Southwest and Central America, the Mexican-American War (1845-48) had significant ties to the Philadelphia area. As one of the most populous urban centers in the country, the Delaware Valley became a hotbed of activity for one of the most controversial wars in American history.

War between the United States and Mexico followed the admission of Texas as the twenty-eighth state of the United States in December 1845. This exacerbated preexisting tension with the Mexican government, which never recognized Texas independence, American annexation of Texas, nor the proposed border of the new state at the Rio Grande River. After an armed clash between U.S. forces led by General Zachary Taylor (1784-1850) and Mexican troops in the disputed area between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande, Congress declared war on Mexico on May 13, 1846, and authorized President James K. Polk (1795-1849) to call up fifty thousand volunteers to join the existing U.S. Army.

In Philadelphia and elsewhere, the controversy surrounding the coming and course of the Mexican-American War illustrated the widening divide in American society over the issues of territorial conquest and the expansion of slavery. Initially, support for the war was strong in the mid-Atlantic states, and Philadelphia’s historic ties to the American Revolution made it a centerpiece for pro-war patriotism by politicians and cultural figures who viewed Manifest Destiny as the legacy of American independence. The Philadelphia North American, a “penny press” newspaper owned by George R. Graham (1813-1894), reported news from Mexico and supported “Mr. Polk’s War” in editorials. However, Philadelphia’s active abolitionist community opposed the war as a vehicle for expanding slavery into new territory. In June 1846, The National Anti – Slavery Standard, published in Philadelphia, strongly opposed the war based on its abolitionist views against expansion of slavery into the West.

The war was equally controversial in New Jersey and Delaware. In New Jersey, a strong Whig Party presence in state politics made unified action difficult. In October 1847, a convention of New Jersey Whigs condemned the Polk administration’s drive for territorial annexation. Niles’ National Register reported that their resolutions “strongly denounced the present national administration for violations of the liberties of the people and interests of the Union, especially in having made war without consulting the people or their representatives, and that too, for party purposes.” This sentiment was common across New Jersey. When New Jersey Governor Charles C. Stratton (1796-1859) responded to President Polk’s call to organize volunteers for service, the turnout was so meager that only a New Jersey Battalion of Volunteers could be formed, not a regiment. In Delaware, opposition to the war ran so strong that only a dozen residents volunteered to serve.

During the opening stages of mobilization, Philadelphia joined other cities in holding a pro-war rally, but this fervor was not universal. In response to impassioned opposition speeches delivered by Whig politician Henry Clay (1777-1852) in the autumn of 1847, anti-war rallies took place in Philadelphia and Trenton, New Jersey.

The “Killers” in the Ranks

Following the declaration of war, Pennsylvania Governor Francis R. Shunk (1788-1848) called for forming six regiments to serve in the U.S. Army. In contrast to the tepid response in New Jersey and Delaware, patriotic enthusiasm quickly satisfied the quotas, and several full companies had to be turned away. Recruits from the Keystone State were organized into the First  and Second Pennsylvania Volunteer Regiments. Of the ten companies constituting the First  Regiment, six hailed from Philadelphia, including the City Guards of Philadelphia, The Philadelphia Light Guards, and the Cadwalader Grays. The Second Regiment became home to Company F, known as the Philadelphia Rangers.

Along with the patriotism that motivated Philadelphia men to serve, the disorder and violence that had been hallmarks of Philadelphia during the 1830s and 1840s also traveled west with the volunteers who mustered in Harrisburg and then proceeded to Pittsburgh en route to Mexico. In Pittsburgh, soldiers from Company D (The City Guard) invaded a local theater in an incident that ended in a violent clash with police. This riotous behavior continued later New Orleans, where a soldier claiming membership in the notorious Philadelphia “Killers” gang attacked citizens and destroyed property across the city. Later, a faction of the Killers intimidated Company D’s commanding officer, Captain Joseph Hill, who temporarily fled the regiment in April 1847. Another veteran of Philadelphia street violence led the Pennsylvania volunteer regiments after their transport down the Mississippi River and across the Gulf to Lobos, Mexico, where they landed in February 1846. Major General Robert Patterson, a former Pennsylvania militia commander, had led troops against rioters during the destruction of the Pennsylvania Hall in Philadelphia in 1838. In Mexico, he commanded the Second Division of a brigade led by Brigadier General Gideon J. Pillow (1806-1878), which took in the Pennsylvania volunteers.

The Pennsylvania Volunteers in Mexico

The fighting men from Philadelphia saw their first significant combat at the Siege of Veracruz in March 1847. In the thunderous twenty-day siege, the Pennsylvania regiments lost the service of fifteen soldiers to enemy cannon fire, including three who were killed. After the fall of Veracruz, the regiments moved into the Mexican interior and saw action again in April at the Battle of Cerro Gordo as part of an assault on Mexican artillery at Jarero, south of the Mexican encampment near Vasquez. Despite the ferocity of the engagement, the regiments suffered few casualties. For the next two months, they continued inland toward Mexico City, fighting guerillas, the elements, and disease.

In September 1847, the Pennsylvania Regiments were split by General Winfield Scott (1786-1866) to prepare for the assault on Mexico City. While three of the Philadelphia companies were reassigned to garrison duty at Puebla, the Reading Artillery of Company A and the Philadelphia Rangers of the Second Regiment proceeded with the main army toward Mexico City. Both companies saw heavy fighting at close range with the Mexican defenders. In two days of combat, the Second Regiment suffered its worst losses of the conflict with eight men killed and eighty-nine wounded.

Mexican troops flushed out of Mexico City and led by General Antonio López de Santa Anna (1794-1876) next attacked Puebla, where the Philadelphia remnant of the First Regiment had been stationed.  A nearly month-long siege ensued began in September 14, 1847. Forces under Lieutenant-Colonel Samuel Black (1816-1862), a Pittsburgh native and future Pennsylvania congressional representative, faced repeated assaults and dwindling supplies until Santa Anna withdrew his troops on October 12. The Siege of Puebla was not only the Pennsylvanians’ finest performance, it was also the most costly. The First Regiment suffered fifty-five casualties with twenty-one men killed in action. In December 1847, the survivors marched to Mexico City, where they reunited with the Second Regiment to much fanfare and celebration.

Philadelphia-area soldiers also served in areas of the war other than Mexico. A veteran of the War of 1812, Rear Admiral William Mervine (1791-1868), commanded the USS Savannah in the Pacific, and his Marine detachment captured the city of Monterey in July 1846. Samuel Francis Du Pont (1803-65) of the famed DuPont family of Delaware commanded the blockade of California and achieved the rank of rear admiral. Future U.S. senator from New Jersey Commodore Robert Stockton (1795-1866) was instrumental in the capture of Monterey and Pueblo de Los Ángeles in California. Between July 1846 and January 1847, Stockton served as  military governor of California.

In Mexico, Philadelphia native and Brigadier General Persifor Frazer Smith (1798–1858) served as military governor during the occupation of Mexico City, when duty for the Pennsylvania volunteer regiments consisted of a mixture of drill, boredom, and sporadic chaos as Mexican guerilla units harassed U.S. forces. When U.S. troops withdrew on March 6, 1848, the regiments’ long journey home took them from Mexico back to New Orleans, then up the Mississippi River and Ohio Rivers to Pittsburgh, where they arrived on July 11, 1848. The Pittsburgh units mustered out of service quickly, but the Philadelphia companies resolved to end their service at home. Between July 27 and August 5, parades, speeches, banquets, and community events across the Delaware Valley marked their return. Of the 2,415 men who served in the Pennsylvania Volunteer Regiments, 477 died in Mexico or in transport. Fifty-two were killed in combat. New Jersey’s volunteers saw little combat in Mexico and returned to the Garden State in July 1848.  Delaware’s volunteers, who took part in the Battle of Huanmantla in October 1847, returned in August 1848, having suffered a single casualty.

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the Mexican-American War on February 2, 1848, and expanded the territory of the United States by 525,000 square miles. However, the costly victory, earned after two years of ferocious combat, exacerbated the simmering tensions throughout the country. Volunteers from Philadelphia and the surrounding region participated in the military actions while local citizens debated the war’s political and moral ramifications, making Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley a microcosm of the conflict.

William V. Bartleson is an independent scholar of military history who has worked with the New Jersey National Guard Militia Museum and the Center for Veterans Oral history. He is a member of Phi Alpha Theta . ( Author information current at time of publication .)

Copyright 2017, Rutgers University

Army of Occupation Camp

Library of Congress

Philadelphia native and Brigadier General Persifor Frazer Smith (1798–1858) served as military governor during the occupation of Mexico City until the withdrawal of U.S. troops on March 6, 1848. Duty for the Pennsylvania volunteer regiments consisted of a mixture of drill, boredom, and sporadic chaos as Mexican guerilla units harassed U.S. forces. Soldiers from Philadelphia’s Company C produced a bi-weekly publication, the Flag of Freedom, to inform garrison troops of local sites, current events, and the progress of the war. The newspaper remained the only soldier-published work by U.S. soldiers during the war.

General Winfield Scott at the Battle of Buena Vista

During several engagement of the Mexican-American War, the Pennsylvania Volunteer Regiments served directly under General Winfield Scott, depicted on horseback in this lithograph titled "A Little More Grape Capt. Bragg," by Nathanial Currier. After the Siege at Puebla in 1847, General Scott presented the 1st and 2nd Regiments with their own regimental colors to show his appreciation for their efforts and sacrifice.

Beachhead at Veracruz

The First and Second Pennsylvania Volunteer Regiments, the New Jersey Battalion of Volunteers, and the Delaware Squad of volunteers all passed through the beachhead at the port of Veracruz, depicted here.

Despite the opposition to the war, New Jersey eventually furnished troops for the war. In May 1846, New Jersey Governor Charles C. Stratton (1796-1859), responded to President Polk’s call for state regiments by asking New Jersey citizens to “organize uniform companies and other citizens of the state to enroll themselves.” The turnout of those willing to serve was so lacking only a “New Jersey Battalion of Volunteers” could be formed, not a regiment. Consisting of four companies and led by Captain M. Knowlton, left for Vera Cruz, Mexico on September 29, 1847. Much like their Philadelphia counterparts, troops from New Jersey displayed riotous behavior during the journey. The New Jersey volunteers saw little combat in Mexico and returned to the Garden State in July 1848.

Battle of Buena Vista

In Delaware, opposition to the war made the raising of a state regiment for U.S. Army service impossible. However, a dozen residents answered President Polk’s call for troops and formed the Delaware Squad. The Delaware Squad was attached to the 5th Indiana Regiment of Indiana Volunteers under the command of future senator and American Civil War general James Lane (1814-1866) and took part in the Battle of Buena Vista (pictured) in February 1847 and the Battle of Huanmata in October 1847. The Delaware Squad returned to the United States in August 1848, having suffered a single casualty.

Battle of Cerra Gordo

After their first significant combat at the Siege of Veracruz, where they lost 15 soldiers to enemy cannon fire, the Pennsylvania regiments saw action again at the Battle of Cerro Gordo on April 17, 1847. Despite the ferocity of the engagement, depicted here in a lithograph published in Philadelphia, the regiments suffered few casualties. For the next two months, they continued inland toward Mexico City, fighting guerillas, the elements, and disease typical of camp life.

Siege of Monterey

Several Delaware Valley residents took part in the September 1846 siege and occupation of Monterey, depicted in this lithograph. Philadelphia native Rear Admiral William Mervine (1791-1868) commanded the USS Savannah in the Pacific, and his Marine detachment captured the city of Monterey in July 1846. Samuel Francis Du Pont (1803-65) of Delaware commanded the blockade of California. Future U.S. senator from New Jersey Commodore Richard Stockton (1795-1866) was instrumental in the capture of Monterey and Pueblo de Los Ángeles in California. Between July 1846 and January 1847, Stockton served as military governor of California.

Mexican War Monument

At Philadelphia National Cemetery in Northwest Philadelphia, the Mexican War Monument marks the burial site for 38 who died in the conflict. Their remains were moved to the national cemetery in 1927, after the closing of their original burial place, Glenwood Cemetery at Twenty-Seventh Street and Ridge Avenue in North Philadelphia.

Philadelphia National Cemetery, at Haines Street and Limekiln Pike north of Germantown, was among 14 national cemeteries established in 1862, during the Civil War. In its first year, it served as a burial place for soldiers who died in Philadelphia hospitals. In addition to the Mexican War Monument, the cemetery has a Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument, commemorating soldiers and sailors whose remains were reinterred after the Civil War, and a Revolutionary War Memorial.

Related Topics

• Greater Philadelphia
• Philadelphia and the World
• Philadelphia and the Nation

Time Periods

• Nineteenth Century to 1854
• Northeast Philadelphia
• Mexicans and Mexico
• National Guard
• Philadelphia Navy Yard
• Slavery and the Slave Trade
• Spanish-American Revolutions
• Irish (The) and Ireland

Related Reading

Hackenburg, Randy W. Pennsylvania in the War With Mexico . Shippensburg, Pa.: White Mane Publishing Co., 1992.

Schroeder, John H. Mr. Polk’s War: American Opposition and Dissent, 1846-1848 . Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1973.

Millett, Allan Reed and Peter Maslowski. For the Common Defense: A Military History of the United States of America . Rev. and expanded. New York and Toronto: Free Press, 1994.

Smith, Justin Harvey. The War With Mexico . Gloucester, Mass.: P. Smith, 1963.

Tucker, Spencer, et al. The Encyclopedia of the Mexican-American War: A Political, Social, and Military History . Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 2013.

Related Collections

• Militia Resource Guide 1815-1870 Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission 300 N. Street, Harrisburg, Pa.
• Mexican War (1846-1848) Document Collection Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission 300 N. Street, Harrisburg, Pa

Related Places

• Independence Square (site of pro-war and anti-war rallies and victory celebration)
• Mexican War Monument, Philadelphia National Cemetery (near Section P)
• State of Pennsylvania Mexican War Monument

Backgrounders

Connecting Headlines with History

• Play written for Philly butcher shop a lesson in Mexican-American history (WHYY, February 24, 2016)
• Geary Family Papers (Historical Society of Pennsylvania Digital Library)
• A Forgotten American Hero: Captain John B. Page (Historical Society of Pennsylvania)
• The Mexican-American War in a nutshell (National Constitution Center)
• Santa Anna's Proclamation, published in Philadelphia, 1847 (Library of Congress)
• The Storming of Chapulapec, Song of War, published in Philadelphia (Library of Congress)
• A Guide to the Mexican War (Library of Congress)
• The U.S.-Mexican War (PBS)
• Mexican-American War and the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo (National Park Service)

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History Resources

The Mexican-American War: Arguments for and against Going to War

By tim bailey.

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The Mexican-American War (1846-1848)

The conflict under consideration, the Mexican-American war, which started in 1846 and lasted two years, is notable for its role in the history of the relationships between the countries. This event reflects the attempts to expand the territory by the United States’ leaders and the resistance of Mexico, which could not be overcome in a peaceful manner. In this way, the problems began when U.S. President James K. Polk declared his intention to purchase California and New Mexico to move the borders to the Rio Grande River (Guardino, 2017).

This deal was also connected to the fact that he wanted Texas to become a part of the United States in the first place, which was another cause for disagreement (Guardino, 2017). However, Mexico refused the offer, and Polk sent military forces to the country, thereby demonstrating his desire to use any means to ensure further expansion of the United States. Even though the northern lawmakers disapproved of this decision, which was deemed to be unconstitutional and, therefore, inappropriate, the war could not be prevented due to the greater support of manifest destiny (“The Mexican-American War,” n.d.).

In other words, the alleged necessity to expand the territory of the United States and corresponding rights granted by God overweighed any other considerations (“The Mexican-American War,” n.d.). Over the course of the war, the battles were fought in Palo Alto, Resaca de la Palma, Monterey, Yerba Buena, Cañoncito, Chino, Tabasco, Santa Clara, and many other locations (Guardino, 2017). In the end, it was concluded with signing the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo in 1848, according to which the United States received not only Texas but also New Mexico and California (“The Mexican-American War,” n.d.). Thus, it was significant for the formation of the borders between the countries.

Guardino, P. (2017). The dead march: A history of the Mexican-American war. Harvard University Press.

The Mexican-American War . (n.d.). U.S. History. Web.

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Speech on the Mexican-American War

• Commercial Republic
• Defense and War
• Federal Government
• Race and Equality
• Rights and Liberties

No study questions

The day is dark and gloomy, unsettled and uncertain, like the condition of our country, in regard to the unnatural war with Mexico. The public mind is agitated and anxious, and is filled with serious apprehensions as to its indefinite continuance, and especially as to the consequences which its termination may bring forth, menacing the harmony, if not the existence, of our Union.

It is under these circumstances, I present myself before you. No ordinary occasion would have drawn me from the retirement in which I live; but, whilst a single pulsation of the human heart remains, it should, if necessary, be dedicated to the service of one’s country. And I have hope that, although I am a private and humble citizen, an expression of the views and opinions I entertain, might form some little addition to the general stock of information, and afford a small assistance in delivering our country from the perils and dangers which surround it.

I have come here with no purpose to attempt to make a fine speech, or any ambitious oratorical display. I have brought with me no rhetorical bouquets to throw into this assemblage. In the circle of the year, autumn has come, and the season of flowers has passed away. In the progress of years, my spring time has gone by, and I too am in the autumn of life, and feel the frost of age. My desire and aim are to address you, earnestly, calmly, seriously and plainly, upon the grave and momentous subjects which have brought us together. And I am most solicitous that not a solitary word may fall from me, offensive to any party or person in the whole extent of the union.

War, pestilence, and famine, by the common consent of mankind, are the three greatest calamities which can befal our species; and war, as the most direful, justly stands foremost and in front. Pestilence and famine, no doubt for wise although inscrutable purposes, are inflictions of Providence, to which it is our duty, therefore, to bow with obedience, humble submission and resignation. Their duration is not long, and their ravages are limited. They bring, indeed, great affliction whilst they last, but society soon recovers from their effects. War is the voluntary work of our own hands, and whatever reproaches it may deserve should be directed to ourselves. When it breaks out, its duration is indefinite and unknown—its vicissitudes are hidden from our view. In the sacrifice of human life, and in the waste of human treasure, in its losses and in its burthens, it affects both belligerent nations; and its sad effects of mangled bodies, of death, and of desolation, endure long after its thunders are hushed in peace. War unhinges society, disturbs its peaceful and regular industry, and scatters poisonous seeds of disease and immorality, which continue to germinate and diffuse theirbaneful influence long after it has ceased. Dazzling by its glitter, pomp and pageantry, it begets a spirit of wild adventure and romantic enterprise, and often disqualifies those who embark in it, after their return fromthe bloody fields of battle, from engaging in the industrious and peaceful vocations of life.

We are informed by a statement which is apparently correct, that the number of our countrymen slain in this lamentable Mexican war, although it has yet been of only 18 months existence, is equal to one half of the whole of the American loss during the seven years war of the Revolution! And I venture to assert that the expenditure of treasure which it has occasioned, when it shall come to be fairly ascertained and footed up, will be found to be more than half of the pecuniary cost of the war of our independence. And this is the condition of the party whose arms have been every where and constantly victorious!

How did we unhappily get involved in this war? It was predicted as the consequence of the annexation of Texas to the United States. If we had not Texas, we should have no war. The people were told that if that event happened, war would ensue. They were told that the war between Texas and Mexico had not been terminated by a treaty of peace; that Mexico still claimed Texas as a revolted province: and that, if we received Texas in our Union, we took along with her, the war existing between her and Mexico. And the Minister of Mexico [Juan N. Almonte] formally announced to the Government at Washington, that his nation would consider the annexation of Texas to the United States as producing a state of war. But all this was denied by the partisans of annexation. They insisted we should have no war, and even imputed to those who foretold it, sinister motives for their groundless prediction.

But, notwithstanding a state of virtual war necessarily resulted from the fact of annexation of one of the belligerents to the United States, actual hostilities might have been probably averted by prudence, moderation and wise statesmanship. If General Taylor had been permitted to remain, where his own good sense prompted him to believe he ought to remain, at the point of Corpus Christi; and, if a negotiation had been opened with Mexico, in a true spirit of amity and conciliation, war possibly might have been prevented. But, instead of this pacific and moderate course, whilst Mr. Slidell was bending his way to Mexico with his diplomatic credentials, General Taylor was ordered to transport his cannon, and to plant them, in a warlike attitude, opposite to Matamoras, on the east bank of the Rio Bravo; within the very disputed territory, the adjustment of which was to be the object of Mr. Slidell’s mission. What else could have transpired but a conflict of arms?

Thus the war commenced, and the President after having produced it, appealed to Congress. A bill was proposed to raise 50,000 volunteers, and in order to commit all who should vote for it, a preamble was inserted falsely attributing the commencement of the war to the act of Mexico. I have no doubt of the patriotic motives of those who, after struggling to divest the bill of that flagrant error, found themselves constrained to vote for it. But I must say that no earthly consideration would have ever tempted or provoked me to vote for a bill, with a palpable falsehood stamped on its face. Almost idolizing truth, as I do, I never, never, could have voted for that bill.

The exceptionable conduct of the Federal party, during that last British War, has excited an influence in the prosecution of the present war, and prevented a just discrimination between the two wars. That was a war of National defence, required for the vindication of the National rights and honor, and demanded by the indignant voice of the People. President Madison himself, I know, at first, reluctantly and with great doubt and hesitation, brought himself to the conviction that it ought to be declared. A leading, and perhaps the most influential member of his Cabinet, (Mr. Gallatin,) was, up to the time of its declaration, opposed to it. But nothing could withstand the irresistible force of public sentiment. It was a just war, and its great object, as announced at the time, was “Free Trade and Sailors Rights,” against the intolerable and oppressive acts of British power on the ocean. The justice of the war, far from being denied or controverted, was admitted by the Federal party, which only questioned it on considerations of policy. Being deliberately and constitutionally declared, it was, I think, their duty to have given to it their hearty co-operation. But the mass of them did not. They continued to oppose and thwart it, to discourage loans and enlistments, to deny the power of the General Government to march the militia beyond our limits, and to hold a Hartford Convention, which, whatever were its real objects, bore the aspect of seeking a dissolution of the Union itself. They lost and justly lost the public confidence.—But has not an apprehension of a similar fate, in a state of case widely different, repressed a fearless expression of their real sentiments in some of our public men?

How totally variant is the present war! This is no war of defence, but one unnecessary and of offensive aggression. It is Mexico that is defending her fire-sides, her castles and her altars, not we. And how different also is the conduct of the whig party of the present day from that of the major part of the federal party during the war of 1812! Far from interposing any obstacles to the prosecution of the war, if the Whigs in office are reproachable at all, it is for having lent too ready a facility to it, without careful examination into the objects of the war. And, out of office, who have rushed to the prosecution of the war with more ardor and alacrity than the Whigs? Whose hearts have bled more freely than those of the Whigs?—Who have more occasion to mourn the loss of sons, husbands, brothers, fathers, than whig parents, whig wives and whig brothers, in this deadly and unprofitable strife?

But the havoc of war is in progress, and the no less deplorable havoc of an inhospitable and pestilential climate. Without indulging in an unnecessary retrospect and useless reproaches on the past, all hearts and heads should unite in the patriotic endeavor to bring it to a satisfactory close. Is there no way that this can be done? Must we blindly continue the conflict, without any visible object, or any prospect of a definite termination?—This is the important subject upon which I desire to consult and to commune with you. Who, in this free government is, to decide upon the objects of a War, at its commencement, or at any time during its existence? Does the power belong to the Nation, to the collective wisdom of the Nation in Congress assembled, or is it vested solely in a single functionary of the government?

A declaration of war is the highest and most awful exercise of sovereignty. The Convention, which framed our federal constitution, had learned from the pages of history that it had been often and greatly abused. It had seen that war had often been commenced upon the most trifling pretexts; that it had been frequently waged to establish or exclude a dynasty; to snatch a crown from the head of one potentate and place it upon the head of another; that it had been often prosecuted to promote alien and other interests than those of the nation whose chief had proclaimed it, as in the case of English wars for Hanoverian interest; and, in short, that such a vast and tremendous power ought not to be confided to the perilous exercise of one single man. The Convention, therefore, resolved to guard the war-making power against those great abuses, of which in the hands of a monarch it was so susceptible. And the security, against those abuses which its wisdom devised, was to vest the war-making power in the Congress of the United States, being the immediate representatives of the people and the States. So apprehensive and jealous was the Convention of its abuse in any other hands, that it interdicted the exercise of the power to any State in the Union, without the consent of Congress. Congress, then, in our system of government, is the sole depository of that tremendous power.—The Constitution provides that Congress shall have power to declare war, and grant letters of marque and reprisal, to make rules concerning captures on land and water, to raise and support armies, to provide and maintain a navy, and to make rules for the government of the land and naval forces. Thus we perceive that the principal power, in regard to war, with all its ancillary attendants, is granted to Congress. Whenever called upon to determine upon the solemn question of peace or war, Congress must consider and deliberate and decide upon the motives, objects and causes of the war. And, if a war be commenced without any previous declaration of its objects, as in the case of the existing war with Mexico, Congress must necessarily possess the authority, at any time, to declare for what purposes it shall be further prosecuted. If we suppose Congress does not possess the controlling authority attributed to it; if it be conended that a war having been once commenced, the President of the United States may direct it to the accomplishment of any objects he pleases, without consulting and without any regard to the will of Congress, the Convention will have utterly failed in guarding the nation against the abuses and ambition of a single individual. Either Congress, or the President, must have the right of determining upon the objects for which a war shall be prosecuted. There is no other alternative. If the President possess it and may prosecute it for objects against the will of Congress, where is the difference between our free government and that of any other nation which may be governed by an absolute Czar, Emperor, or King?

Congress may omit, as it has omitted in the present war, to proclaim the objects for which it was commenced or has been since prosecuted, and in cases of such omission the President, being charged with the employment and direction of the national force is, necessarily, left to his own judgment to decide upon the objects, to the attainment of which that force shall be applied. But, whenever Congress shall think proper to declare, by some authentic act, for what purposes a war shall be commenced or continued it is the duty of the President to apply the national force to the attainment of those purposes. In the instance of the last war with Great Britain, the act of Congress by which it was declared was preceded by a message of President Madison enumerating the wrongs and injuries of which we complained against Great Britain. That message therefore, and without it the well known objects of the war, which was a war purely of defence, rendered it unnecessary that Congress should particularize, in the act, the specific objects for which it was proclaimed. The whole world knew that it was a war waged for Free Trade and Sailors’ Rights.

It may be urged that the President and Senate possess the treaty making power, without any express limitation as to its exercise; that the natural and ordinary termination of a war is by a treaty of peace; and therefore, that the President and Senate must possess the power to decide what stipulations and conditions shall enter into such a treaty. But it is not more true that the President and Senate possess the treaty making power, without limitation, than that Congress possesses the war making power, without restriction. These two powers then ought to be so interpreted as to reconcile the one with the other; and, in expounding the constitution, we ought to keep constantly in view the nature and structure of our free government, and especially the great object of the Convention in taking the war-making power out of the hands of a single man and placing it in the safer custody of the representatives of the whole nation. The desirable reconciliation between the two powers is effected by attributing to Congress the right to declare what shall be the objects of war, and to the President the duty of endeavoring to obtain those objects by the direction of the national force and by diplomacy.

I am broaching no new and speculative theory. The Statute book of the United States is full of examples of prior declarations by Congress of the objects to be attained by negotiations with Foreign Powers, and the archives of the Executive Department furnish abundant evidence of the accomplishment of those objects, or the attempt to accomplish them, by subsequent negotiation. Prior to the declaration of the last war against Great Britain, in all the restrictive measures which Congress adopted, against the two great belligerent Powers of Europe, clauses were inserted in the several acts establishing them, tendering to both or either of the belligerents the abolition of those restrictions if they would repeal their hostile Berlin and Milan decrees and Orders in Council, operating against our commerce and navigation. And these acts of Congress were invariably communicated, through the Executive, by diplomatic notes, to France and Great Britain, as the basis upon which it was proposed to restore friendly intercourse with them. So, after the termination of the war, various acts of Congress were passed, from time to time, offering to Foreign Powers the principle of reciprocity in the commerce and navigation of the United States with them. Out of these acts have sprung a class, and a large class, of treaties (four or five of which were negotiated, whilst I was in the department of State,) commonly called reciprocity treaties concluded under all the Presidents, from Mr. Madison to Mr. Van Buren, inclusive. And, with regard to commercial treaties, negotiated without the sanction of prior acts of Congress, where they contained either appropriations or were in conflict with unrepealed statutes, it has been ever held as the republican doctrine from Mr. Jay’s treaty down to the present time, that the passage of acts of Congress was necessary to secure the execution of those treaties. If in the matter of Foreign Commerce, in respect to which the power vested in Congress to regulate it and the treaty making power may be regarded as concurrent, Congress can previously decide the objects to which negotiation shall be applied, how much stronger is the case of war, the power to declare which is confided exclusively to Congress?

I conclude, therefore, Mr. President and Fellow-Citizens, with entire confidence, that Congress has the right either at the beginning or during the prosecution of any war, to decide the objects and purposes for which it was proclaimed, or for which it ought to be continued. And, I think, it is the duty of Congress, by some deliberate and authentic act, to declare for what objects the present war shall be longer prosecuted. I suppose that the President would not hesitate to regulate his conduct by the pronounced will of Congress, and to employ the force and the diplomatic power of the nation to execute that will. But, if the President should decline or refuse to do so, and, in contempt of the supreme authority of Congress, should persevere in waging the war, for other objects than those proclaimed by Congress, then it would be the imperative duty of that body to vindicate its authority, by the most stringent, and effectual, and appropriate measures. And, if, on the contrary, the enemy should refuse to conclude a treaty, containing stipulations securing the objects, designated by Congress, it would become the duty of the whole government to prosecute the war, with all the national energy, until those objects were obtained by a treaty of peace. There can be no insuperable difficulty in Congress making such an authoritative declaration. Let it resolve, simply, that the war shall, or shall not, be a war of conquest; and, if a war of conquest, what is to be conquered. Should a resolution pass, disclaiming the design of conquest, peace would follow, in less than sixty days, if the President would conform to his constitutional duty.

Here, fellow Citizens, I might pause, having indicated a mode by which the nation, through its accredited and legitimate representatives in Congress, can announce for what purposes and objects this war shall be longer prosecuted, and can thus let the whole people of the United States know for what end their blood is to be further shed and their treasure further expended, instead of the knowledge of it being locked up and concealed in the bosom of one man. We should no longer perceive the objects of the war, varying, from time to time, according to the changing opinions of the Chief Magistrate, charged with its prosecution. But I do not think it right to stop here. It is the privilege of the people, in their primitive assemblies, and of every private man, however humble, to express an opinion in regard to the purposes for which the war should be continued; and such an expression will receive just so much consideration and consequence as it is entitled to, and no more. Shall this war be prosecuted for the purpose of conquering and annexing Mexico, in all its boundless extent, to the United States?

I will not attribute to the President of the United States any such design; but I confess that I have been shocked and alarmed by manifestations of it in various quarters. Of all the dangers and misfortunes which could befall this nation, I should regard that of its becoming a warlike and conquering power the most direful and fatal. History tells the mournful tale of conquering nations and conquerors. The three most celebrated conquerors, in the civilized world, were Alexander, Caesar and Napoleon. The first, after overrunning a large portion of Asia, and sighing and lamenting that there were no more worlds to subdue, met a premature and ignoble death. His Lieutenants quarrelled and warred with each other, as to the spoils of his victories, and finally lost them all. Caesar, after conquering Gaul, returned, with his triumphant legions to Rome, passed the Rubicon, won the battle of Pharsalia, trampled upon the liberties of his country, and expired by the patriot hand of Brutus. But Rome ceased to be free. War and conquest had enervated and corrupted the masses. The spirit of true liberty was extinguished, and a long line of Emperors succeeded, some of whom were the most execrable monsters that ever existed in human form. And that most extraordinary man [Napoleon], perhaps, in all history, after subjugating all continental Europe, occupying almost all its Capitals, seriously threatening, according to Mr. Thiers, proud Albion itself, and decking the brow of various members of his family, with crowns torn from the heads of other monarchs, lived to behold his own dear France itself in the possession of his enemies, and was made himself a wretched captive, and far removed from country, family, and friends, breathed his last on the distant and inhospitable rock of St. Helena. The Alps and the Rhine had been claimed as the natural boundaries of France, but even these could not be secured in the treaties to which she was reduced to submit. Do you believe that the people of Macedon or Greece, or Rome, or France, were benefitted, individually or collectively, by the triumphs of their great Captains? Their sad lot was immense sacrifice of life, heavy and intolerable burdens, and the ultimate loss of liberty itself.

That the power of the United States is competent to the conquest of Mexico, is quite probable. But it could not be achieved without frightful carnage, dreadful sacrifices of human life, and the creation of an onerous national debt; nor could it be completely effected, in all probability, until after the lapse of many years. It would be necessary to occupy all its strongholds, to disarm its inhabitants, and to keep them in constant fear and subjection. To consummate the work, I presume that standing armies, not less than a hundred thousand men, would be necessary, to be kept perhaps always in the bosom of their country. These standing armies, revelling in a foreign land, and accustomed to trample upon the liberties of a foreign people, at some distant day, might be fit and ready instruments, under the lead of some daring and unprincipled chieftain, to return to their country and prostrate the public liberty.

Supposing the conquest to be once made, what is to be done with it? Is it to be governed, like Roman Provinces, by Proconsuls? Would it be compatible with the genius, character, and safety of our free institutions, to keep such a great country as Mexico, with a population of not less that nine millions, in a state of constant military subjection?

Shall it be annexed to the United States: Does any considerate man believe it possible that two such immense countries, with territories of nearly equal extent, with populations so incongruous, so different in race, in language, in religion and in laws, could be blended together in one harmonious mass, and happily governed by one common authority? Murmurs, discontent, insurrections, rebellion, would inevitably ensue, until the incompatible parts would be broken asunder, and possibly, in the frightful struggle, our present glorious Union itself would be dissevered or dissolved. We ought not to forget the warning voice of all history, which teaches the difficulty of combining and consolidating together, conquering and conquered nations. After the lapse of eight hundred years, during which the Moors held their conquest of Spain, the indomitable courage, perseverance and obstinacy of the Spanish race finally triumphed, and expelled the Africa invaders from the Peninsula. And, even within our own time, the colossal power of Napoleon, when at its loftiest height, was incompetent to subdue and subjugate the proud Castilian. And here in our own neighborhood, Lower Canada, which near one hundred years ago, after the conclusion of the seven years war, was ceded by France to Great Britain, remains a foreign land in the midst of the British provinces, foreign in feelings and attachment, and foreign in laws and language. And what has been the fact with poor, gallant, generous and oppressed Ireland? Centuries have passed away, since the overbearing Saxon overrun and subjugated the Emerald Isle. Rivers of Irish blood have flowed, during the long and arduous contest. Insurrection and rebellion have been the order of the day; and yet, up to this time, Ireland remains alien in feeling, affection and sympathy, towards the power which has so long borne her down. Every Irishman hates, with a mortal hatred, his Saxon oppressor. Although there are great territorial differences between the condition of England and Ireland, as compared to that of the United States and Mexico, there are some points of striking resemblance between them. Both the Irish and the Mexicans are probably of the same Celtic race. Both the English and the Americans are of the same Saxon origin. The Catholic religion predominates in both the former, the Protestant among both the latter. Religion has been the fruitful cause of dissatisfaction and discontent between the Irish and the English nations. Is there not reason to apprehend that it would become so between the people of the United States and those of Mexico, if they were united together? Why should we seek to interfere with them, in their mode of worship of a common Saviour? We believe that they are wrong, especially in the exclusive character of their faith, and that we are right. They think that they are right and we wrong. What other rule can there be than to leave the followers of each religion to their own solemn convictions of conscientious duty towards God? Who, but the great Arbiter of the Universe, can judge in such a question? For my own part, I sincerely believe and hope, that those, who belong to all the departments of the great church of Christ, if, in truth and purity, they conform to the doctrines which they profess, will ultimately secure an abode in those regions of bliss, which all aim finally to reach. I think that there is no potentate in Europe, whatever his religion may be, more enlightened or at this moment so interesting as the liberal head of the Papal See.

But I suppose it to be impossible that those who favor, if there be any who favor the annexation of Mexico to the United States, can think that it ought to be perpetually governed by military sway. Certainly no votary of human liberty could deem it right that a violation should be perpetrated of the great principles of our own revolution, according to which, laws ought not to be enacted and taxes ought not to be levied, without representation on the part of those who are to obey the one, and pay the other. Then, Mexico is to participate in our councils and equally share in our legislation and government. But, suppose she would not voluntarily choose representatives to the national Congress, is our soldiery to follow the electors to the ballot-box, and by force to compel them, at the point of the bayonet, to deposit their ballots? And how are the nine millions of Mexican people to be represented in the Congress of the United States of America and the Congress of the United States of the Republic of Mexico combined? Is every Mexican, without regard to color or caste, per capitum, to exercise the elective franchise? How is the quota of representation between the two Republics, to be fixed? Where is their Seat of Common Government to be established? And who can foresee or foretell, if Mexico, voluntarily or by force, were to share in the common government what would be the consequences to her or to us? Unprepared, as I fear her population yet is, for the practical enjoyment of self government, and of habits, customs, languages, laws and religion, so totally different from our own, we should present the revolting spectacle of a confused, distracted, and motley government. We should have a Mexican Party, a Pacific Ocean Party, an Atlantic Party in addition to the other Parties, which exist, or with which we are threatened, each striving to execute its own particular views and purposes, and reproaching the others with thwarting and disappointing them. The Mexican representation, in Congress would probably form a separate and impenetrable corps, always ready to throw itself into the scale of any other party, to advance and promote Mexican interests. Such a state of things could not long endure. Those, whom God and Geography have pronounced should live asunder, could never be permanently and harmoniously united together.

Do we want for our own happiness or greatness the addition of Mexico to the existing Union of our States? If our population was too dense for our territory, and there was a difficulty in obtaining honorably the means of subsistence, there might be some excuse for an attempt to enlarge our dominions. But we have no such apology. We have already, in our glorious country, a vast and almost boundless territory. Beginning at the North, in the frozen regions of the British Provinces, it stretches thousands of miles along the coasts of the Atlantic Ocean and the Mexican Gulf, until it almost reaches the Tropics. It extends to the Pacific Ocean, borders on those great inland seas, the Lakes, which separate us from the possession of Great Britain, and it embraces the great father of rivers, from its uppermost source to the Belize, and the still longer Missouri, from its mouth to the gorges of the Rocky Mountains. It comprehends the greatest variety of the richest soils, capable of almost all the productions of the earth, except tea and coffee and the spices, and it includes every variety of climate, which the heart could wish or desire. We have more than ten thousand millions of acres of waste and unsettled lands, enough for the subsistence of ten or twenty times our present population. Ought we not to be satisfied with such a country? Ought we not to be profoundly thankful to the Giver of all good things for such a vast and bountiful land? Is it not the height of ingratitude to Him to seek, by war and conquest, indulging in a spirit of rapacity, to acquire other lands, the homes and habitations of a large portion of his common children? If we pursue the object of such a conquest, besides mortgaging the revenue and resources of this country for ages to come, in the form of an onerous national debt, we should have greatly to augment that debt, by an assumption of the sixty or seventy millions of the national debt of Mexico. For I take it that nothing is more certain than that, if we obtain, voluntarily or by conquest, a foreign nation we acquire it with all the incumbrances attached to it. In my humble opinion, we are now bound, in honor and morality, to pay the just debt of Texas. And we should be equally bound, by the same obligations, to pay the debt of Mexico, if it were annexed to the United States.

Of all the possessions which appertain to man, in his collective or individual condition, none should be preserved and cherished, with more sedulous and unremitting care, than that of an unsullied character. It is impossible to estimate it too highly, in society, when attached to an individual, nor can it be exaggerated or too greatly magnified in a nation. Those who lose or are indifferent to it become just objects of scorn an contempt. Of all the abominable transactions, which sully the pages of history none exceed in enormity that of the dismemberment and partition of Poland, by the three great Continental Powers of Russia, Austria, and Prussia.—Ages may pass away, and centuries roll around, but as long as human records endure all mankind will unite in execrating the rapacious and detestable deed. That was accomplished by overwhelming force, and the unfortunate existence of fatal dissensions and divisions in the bosom of Poland.—Let us avoid affixing to our name and national character a similar, if not worse, stigma. I am afraid that we do not now stand well in the opinion of other parts of christendom. Repudiation has brought upon us much reproach. All the nations, I apprehend, look upon us, in the prosecution of the present war, as being actuated by a spirit of rapacity, and an inordinate desire for territorial aggrandizement. Let us not forfeit altogether their good opinions. Let us command their applause by a noble exercise of forbearance and justice. In the elevated station which we hold, we can safely afford to practice the Godlike virtues of moderation and magnanimity. The long series of glorious triumphs, achieved by our gallant commanders and their brave armies, unattended by a single reverse, justify us, without the least danger of tarnishing the national honor, in disinterestedly holding out the olive branch of peace. We do not want the mines, the mountains, the morasses, and the sterile lands of Mexico. To her the loss of them would be humiliating, and be a perpetual source of regret and mortification. To us they might prove a fatal acquisition, producing distraction, dissension, division, possibly disunion. Let, therefore, the integrity of the national existence and national territory of Mexico remain undisturbed. For one, I desire to see no part of her territory torn from her by war. Some of our people have placed their hearts upon the acquisition of the Bay of San Francisco in Upper California. To us, as a great maritime Power, it might prove to be of advantage hereafter in respect to our commercial and navigating interests. To Mexico, which can never be a great maritime Power, it can never be of much advantage. If we can obtain it by fair purchase with a just equivalent, I should be happy to see it so acquired. As, whenever the war ceases, Mexico ought to be required to pay the debt due our citizens, perhaps an equivalent for that Bay may be found in that debt, our Government assuming to pay to our citizens whatever portion of it may be applied to that object. But it should form no motive in the prosecution of the war, which I would not continue a solitary hour for the sake of that harbor.

But what, it will be asked, shall we make peace without any indemnity for the expences of the war? If the published documents in relation to the late negotiations between Mr. Trist and the Mexican Commissioners be true, and I have not seen them any where contradicted, the Executive properly waived any demand of indemnity for the expences of the war. And the rupture of that negotiation was produced, by our Government insisting upon a cessation from Mexico, of the strip of mostly barren land between the Nueces and the Rio Bravo and New Mexico, which Mexico refused to make. So that we are now fighting, if not for the conquest of all Mexico, as intimated in some quarters, for that narrow strip and for the barren Province of New Mexico, with its few miserable mines. We bought all the Province of Louisiana for fifteen millions of dollars, and it is, in my opinion, worth more than all Mexico together. We bought Florida for five millions of dollars, and a hard bargain it was, since, besides that sum, we gave up the boundary of the Rio Bravo, to which I think we were entitled, as the Western limit of the Province of Louisiana, and were restricted to that of the Sabine. And we are now, if not seeking the conquest of all Mexico, to continue this war indefinitely for the inconsiderable objects to which I have just referred.

But, it will be repeated, are we to have no indemnity for the expenses of this war? Mexico is utterly unable to make us any pecuniary indemnity, if the justice of the war on our part entitled us to demand it. Her country has been laid waste, her cities burned or occupied by our troops, her means so exhausted that she is unable to pay even her own armies. And every day’s prosecution of the war, whilst it would augment the amount of our indemnity, would lessen the ability of Mexico to pay it. We have seen, however, that there is another form in which we are to demand indemnity. It is to be territorial indemnity! I hope, for reasons already stated that that fire-brand will not be brought into our country.

Among the resolutions, which it is my intention to present for your consideration, at the conclusion of this address, one proposes, in your behalf and mine, to disavow, in the most positive manner, any desire, on our part, to acquire any foreign territory whatever, for the purpose of introducing slavery into it. I do not know that any citizen of the United States entertains such a wish. But such a motive has been often imputed to the slave States, and I therefore think it necessary to notice it on this occasion. My opinions on the subject of slavery are well known. They have the merit, if it be one, of consistency, uniformity, and long duration. I have ever regarded slavery as a great evil, a wrong, for the present, I fear, an irremediable wrong to its unfortunate victims. I should rejoice if not a single slave breathed the air or was within the limits of our country. But here they are, to be dealt with as well as we can, with a due consideration of all circumstances affecting the security, safety and happiness of both races. Every State has the supreme, uncontrolled and exclusive power to decide for itself whether slavery shall cease or continue within its limits, without any exterior intervention from any quarter. In States, where the slaves outnumber the whites, as is the case with several, the blacks could not be emancipated and invested with all the rights of freemen, without becoming the governing race in those States. Collisions and conflicts, between the two races, would be inevitable, and, after shocking scenes of rapine and carnage, the extinction or expulsion of the blacks would certainly take place. In the State of Kentucky, near fifty years ago, I thought the proportion of slaves, in comparison with the whites, was so inconsiderable that we might safely adopt a system of gradual emancipation that would ultimately eradicate this evil in our State. That system was totally different from the immediate abolition of slavery for which the party of the Abolitionists of the present day contend. Whether they have intended it or not, it is my calm and deliberate belief, that they have done incalculable mischief even to the very cause which they have espoused, to say nothing of the discord which has been produced between different parts of the Union. According to the system, we attempted, near the close of the last century, all slaves in being were to remain such, but, all who might be born subsequent to a specified day, were to become free at the age of twenty-eight, and, during their service, were to be taught to read, write, and cypher. Thus, instead of being thrown upon the community, ignorant and unprepared, as would be the case by immediate emancipation, they would have entered upon the possession of their freedom, capable, in some degree, of enjoying it. After a hard struggle, the system was defeated, and I regret it extremely, as, if it had been then adopted, our State would be now nearly rid of that reproach.

Since the epoch, a scheme of unmixed benevolence has sprung up, which, if it had existed at that time, would have obviated one of the greatest objections which was made to gradual emancipation, which was the continuance of the emancipated slaves to abide among us. That scheme is the American Colonization Society. About twenty-eight years ago, a few individuals, myself among them, met together in the city of Washington, and laid the foundations of that society. It has gone on, amidst extraordinary difficulties and trials, sustaining its elf almost entirely, by spontaneous and voluntary contributions, from individual benevolence, without scarcely any aid from Government. The Colonies, planted under its auspices, are now well established communities, with churches, schools and other institutions appertaining to the civilized state. They have made successful war in repelling attacks and invasions by their barbarous and savage neighbors. They have made treaties, annexed territories to their dominion, and are blessed with a free representative Government. I recently read a message, from one of their Governors to their Legislature, which, in point of composition, and in careful attention to the public affairs of their Republic, would compare advantageously to the messages of the Governors of our own States. I am not very superstitious, but I do solemnly believe that these Colonies are blest with the smiles of Providence; and, if we may dare attempt penetrating the veil, by which He conceals his allwise dispensations from mortal eyes, that he designs that Africa shall be the refuge and the home of the descendants of its sons and daughters, torn and dragged from their native land, by lawless violence.

It is a philanthropic and consoling reflection that the moral and physical condition of the African race in the United States, even in a State of slavery, is far better than it would have been if their ancestors had never been brought from their native land. And if it should be the decree of the Great Ruler of the Universe that their descendants shall be made instruments in His hands in the establishment of Civilization and the Christian Religion throughout Africa, our regrets on account of the original wrong, will be greatly mitigated.

It may be argued, that, in admitting the injustice of slavery, I admit the necessity of an instantaneous reparation of that injustice. Unfortunately, however, it is not always safe, practicable or possible, in the great movements of States and public affairs of nations, to remedy or repair the infliction of previous injustice. In the inception of it, we may oppose and denounce it, by our most strenuous exertions, but, after its consummation, there is often no other alternative left us but to deplore its perpetration, and to acquiesce as the only alternative, in its existence, as a less evil that the frightful consequences which might ensue from the vain endeavor to repair it. Slavery is one of those unfortunate instances. The evil of it was inflicted upon us, by the parent country of Great Britain, against all the entreaties and remonstrances of the colonies. And here it is among us, and we must dispose of it, as best we can under all the circumstances which surround us. It continued, by the importation of slaves from Africa, in spite of Colonial resistance, for a period of more than a century and a half, and it may require an equal or longer lapse of time before our country is entirely rid of the evil. And, in the meantime, moderation, prudence and discretion among ourselves, and the blessings of Providence may be all necessary to accomplish our ultimate deliverance from it. Example of similar infliction of irreparable national evil and injustice might be multiplied to an indefinite extent. The case of the annexation of Texas to the United States is a recent and obvious one where, if it were wrong, it cannot now be repaired. Texas is now an integral part of our Union, with its own voluntary consent. Many of us opposed the annexation with honest zeal and most earnest exertions. But who would now think of perpetrating the folly of casting Texas out of the confederacy and throwing her backupon her own independence, or into the armsof Mexico? Who would now seek to divorce her from this Union? The Creeks and the Cherokee Indians were, by the most exceptionable means, driven from their country, and transported beyond the Mississippi river. Their lands have been fairly purchased and occupied by inhabitants of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee. Who would now conceive of the flagrant injustice of expelling those inhabitants and restoring the Indian country to the Cherokees and the Creeks, under color of repairing original injustice? During the war of our revolution, millions of paper money were issued by our ancestors, as the only currency with which they could achieve our liberties and independence. Thousands and hundreds of thousands of families were stripped of their homes and their all and brought to ruin, by giving credit and confidence to that spurious currency. Stern necessity has prevented the reparation of that great national injustice.

But I forbear, I will no longer trespass upon your patience or further tax my own voice, impaired by a speech of more than three hours duration, which professional duty required me to make only a few days ago. If I have been at all successful in the exposition of the views and opinions which I entertain I have shown—

1st. That the present war was brought about by the annexation of Texas and the subsequent order of the President, without the previous consent and authority of Congress.

2d. That the President, being unenlightened and uninstructed, by any public declaration of Congress, as to objects for which it ought to be prosecuted, in the conduct of it is, necessarily, left to his own sense of what the national interests and honor may require.

3d. That the whole war making power of the nation, as to motives, causes and objects, is confided by the constitution to the discretion and judgment of Congress.

4th. That it is, therefore, the right of Congress, at the commencement or during the progress of any war, to declare for what objects and purposes the war ought to be waged and prosecuted.

5th. That it is the right and duty of Congress to announce to the nation for what objects the present war shall be longer continued; that it is the duty of the President, in the exercise of all his official functions, to conform to and carry out this declared will of Congress, by the exercise, if necessary, of all the high powers with which he is clothed; and that, if he fail or refuse to do so, it becomes the imperative duty of Congress to arrest the further progress of the war by the most effectual means in its power.

Let Congress announce to the nation the objects for which this war shall be further protracted and public suspense and public inquietude will no longer remain. If it is to be a war of conquest of all, or any part of Mexico, let the people know it, and they will be no longer agitated by a dark and uncertain future. But, although I might have foreborne to express any opinion whatever as to purposes and objects for which the war should be continued, I have not thought proper to conceal my opinions, whether worth any thing or not, from the public examination. Accordingly I have stated.

6th. That it seems to me that it is the duty of our country, as well on the score of moderation and magnanimity, as with the view of avoiding discord and discontent at home, to abstain from seeking to conquer and annex to the United States Mexico or any part of it; and, especially, to disabuse the public mind in any quarter of the Union of the impression, if it any where exists, that a desire for such a conquest, is cherished for the purpose of propagating or extending slavery.

I have embodied, Mr. President and fellow-citizens, the sentiments and opinions which I have endeavored to explain and enforce in a series of resolutions which I beg now to submit to your consideration and judgment. They are the following:

1. Resolved, as the opinion of this meeting, that the primary cause of the present unhappy war, existing between the United States of America, and the United States of the Republic of Mexico, was the annexation of Texas to the former; and that the immediate occasion of hostilities between the two republics arose out of the order of the President of the United States for the removal of the army under the command of General Taylor, from its position at Corpus Christi to a point opposite to Matamoras, on the East bank of the Rio Bravo, within territory claimed by both Republics, but then under the jurisdiction of that of Mexico, and inhabited by its citizens; and that the order of the President for the removal of the army to that point, was improvident and unconstitutional, it being without the concurrence of Congress, or even any consultation with it, although it was in session: but that Congress having, by subsequent acts, recognized the war thus brought into existence without its previous authority or consent, the prosecution of it became thereby National.

2. Resolved, That, in the absence of any formal and public declaration by Congress, of the objects for which the war ought to be prosecuted, the President of the United States, as Chief Magistrate, and as Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, is left to the guidance of his own judgment to prosecute it for such purposes and objects as he may deem the honor and interest of the nation to require.

3. Resolved, That, by the Constitution of the United States, Congress, being invested with the power to declare war, and grant letters of marque and reprizal, to make rules concerning captures on land and water, to raise and support armies, to provide and maintain a navy, and to make rules for the government of the land and naval forces, has the full and complete war making power of the United States; and, so possessing it, has a right to determine upon the motives, causes and objects of any war, when it commences, or at any time during the progress of its existence.

4. Resolved, as the further opinion of this meeting, that it is the right and duty of Congress to declare, by some authentic act, for what purposes and objects the existing war ought to be further prosecuted; that it is the duty of the President, in his official conduct, to conform to such a declaration of Congress; and that, if, after such declaration, the President should decline or refuse to endeavor, by all the means, civil, diplomatic, and military, in his power, to execute the announced will of Congress, and, in defiance of its authority, should continue to prosecute the war for purposes and objects other than those declared by that body, it would become the right and duty of Congress to adopt the most efficacious measures to arrest the further progress of the war, taking care to make ample provision for the honor, the safety and security of our armies in Mexico, in every contingency. And, if Mexico should decline or refuse to conclude a treaty with us, stipulating for the purposes and objects so declared by Congress, it would be the duty of the Government to prosecute the war with the utmost vigor, until they were attained by a treaty of peace.

5. Resolved, That we view with serious alarm, and are utterly opposed to any purpose of annexing Mexico to the United States, in any mode, and especially by conquest; that we believe the two nations could not be happily governed by one common authority, owing to their great difference of race, law, language and religion, and the vast extent of their respective territories, and large amount of their respective populations; that such a union, against the consent of the exasperated Mexican people, could only be effected and preserved by large standing armies, and the constant application of military force—in other words, by despotic sway exercised over the Mexican people, in the first instance, but which, there would be just cause to apprehend, might, in process of time, be extended over the people of the United States. That we deprecate, therefore, such a union, as wholly incompatible with the genius of our Government, and with the character of free and liberal institutions; and we anxiously hope that each nation may be left in the undisturbed possession of its own laws, language, cherished religion and territory, to pursue its own happiness, according to what it may deem best for itself.

6. Resolved, That, considering the series of splendid and brilliant victories achieved by our brave armies and their gallant commanders, during the war with Mexico, unattended by a single reverse, The United States, without any danger of their honor suffering the slightest tarnish, can practice the virtues of moderation and magnanimity towards their discomfited foe. We have no desire for the dismemberment of the United States of the Republic of Mexico, but wish only a just and proper fixation of the limits of Texas.

7. Resolved, That we do, positively and emphatically, disclaim and disavow any wish or desire, on our part, to acquire any foreign territory whatever,for the purpose of propagating slavery, or of introducing slaves from the United States, into such foreign territory.

8. Resolved, That we invite our fellow citizens of the United States, who are anxious for the restoration of the blessings of peace, or, if the existing war shall continue to be prosecuted, are desirous that its purpose and objects shall be defined and known; who are anxious to avert present and future perils and dangers, with which it may be fraught; and who are also anxious to produce contentment and satisfaction at home, and to elevate the national character abroad, to assemble together in their respective communities, and to express their views, feelings, and opinions.

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Home / Essay Samples / War / Mexican War / The Mexican-American War: Causes, Consequences, and Controversies

The Mexican-American War: Causes, Consequences, and Controversies

• Category: War
• Topic: Mexican War

Pages: 2 (1071 words)

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Introduction

Causes of the mexican-american war, border dispute and annexation of texas, manifest destiny and expansionist ambitions, the unfolding of the war, military campaigns and key battles, the treaty of guadalupe hidalgo, consequences of the war, united states: expansion and sectional tensions, mexico: loss of territory and national humiliation, controversies surrounding the war, debate over justifiability, impact on slavery and american expansionism.

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