Manifest Destiny and the Mexican American War

An Empire of Liberty?

Stephen A. Douglas – Senator from Illinois (1845): “would blot out the lines on the map which now marked our national boundaries… and make the area of liberty as broad as the continent itself.”

New York Morning News (1845): “Our way lies, not over trampled nations, but through desert wastes.”

John L. O’Sullivan – editor of Morning News(1845): “The American claim is by the right of our manifest destiny to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of liberty.” American expansion was promoted based on the belief that

it brought with it progress and civilization.

American Progress – John Gast (1872)

The Texas ? Texas wanted annexation, but

abolitionists (anti-slavery protestors) didn’t want another slave state added to the union. Election of 1844

James K. Polk: Democratic Party (expansionist)

Henry Clay: Whig Party (focus on internal improvements) Polk wins with just 49.6% Before he is sworn in,

congress votes to annex Texas.

A Border Dispute Mexican President, Antonio Lopez

de Santa Ana notified the U.S. that annexation would be “equivalent to a declaration of war.”

After the vote to annex, Mexico cuts off diplomatic relations.

Both counties move toward the border area between Texas and Mexico, but there was a disagreement: Was the border the Nueces River or Rio Grande?

A Border Dispute To provoke a war, Polk sent General

Zachary Taylor to move troops into the disputed area between the rivers.

In response, Mexican soldiers crossed the Rio Grande and killed 11 Americans

Polk’s War Message to Congress “Mexico passed the boundary of the United

States… has invaded our territory and shed American blood on the American soil.”

Some, like Abraham Lincoln, doubted the President; Lincoln demanded to know if “the particular spot on which the blood of our citizens was so shed was or was not at the time our own soil.”

House of Representatives vote: 174 to 14 for war

Senate vote: 40 to 2 for war

Pro-war rallies encourage young men to enlist, and they did.

Fremont, Vallejo, Benicia and Stockton

American settlers, led by John C. Fremont, invaded the home of General Mariano Vallejo and raised a flag with a lone star and bear, declaring a California Republic.

Commodore Robert Stockton helped to secure southern California at the battle of San Pasqual.

America’s first amphibious assault To force a treaty, Polk ordered

General Winfield Scott to launch the first amphibious assault in American military history.

Americans landed at Vera Cruz

Months later American soldiers reached Mexico City and raised the American flag at the National Palace.

Opposition to War First war covered by Samuel Morse’s telegraph

system (1844) More information divided opinion in the U.S. as

Americans learned more

Ulysses S. Grant: “some volunteers seem to think it perfectly right to impose on the people of a conquered city… and event to murder them…. And how they seem to enjoy acts of violence too!”

Abraham Lincoln (1848): “marching an army into the midst of a peaceful Mexican settlement, frightening the inhabitants away, leaving their growing crops and other property to destruction, to you may appear a perfectly amiable, peaceful, unprovoking procedure; but it does not appear so to us….”

The “All-Mexico” Movement

Some Americans were so angry that Mexico dared to put up a fight that they demanded all of Mexico as payment for the lost American lives and treasure.

Racists actually pushed against this idea; they didn’t want another dark race being introduced to the United States, but Polk seemed to want all of Mexico.

Polk’s representative to Mexico, Nicholas Trist, agreed to a treaty, that the president probably didn’t want.

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

In January 1848, Mexico… Acknowledged the annexation

of Texas. Gave up California and its

province of New Mexico (the present-day states of New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, and southern Colorado).

Established the Rio Grande as the border between the two countries.

Received $15 million

When the law is unjust, where does a just man belong?

Rather than pay taxes that would support the war, Henry David Thoreau chose jail.

When a friend, Ralph Waldo Emerson, asked Thoreau, “What are you doing in there?” Thoreau replied, “What are you doing out there?”