In
July, 1845, the United States Army, under
the leadership of Zachary Taylor, arrived
in Texas. Talks began with the Mexican government but in December,
1845, James Polk, the president of the United
States, announced the annexation of Texas. Some member of Congress,
including Abraham Lincoln, voted against
the action, believing it to be imperialist war of aggression and an
attempt to seek new slave states.
General Zachary Taylor defeated the Mexicans
at Palo Alto on 8th May, 1846 while General Winfield
Scott organised a campaign that involved a seaborne invasion of
Mexico that captured Vera Cruz and a march inland to Mexico City,
which was captured on 14th September, 1846. Meanwhile General Stephen
Kearny
conquered New Mexico and with the support of John
Fremont took control of California.
Hostilities were terminated by the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo
in 1848. Under the terms of the treaty the United States gained the
territories of California, New Mexico and Utah. The treaty also established
that the Rio Grande River marked the definitive boundary line between
the two countries. During the war the United
States Army lost 13,283 men and had 8,304 wounded.
(2)
James
Polk,
speech in Congress (7th December, 1847)
The provinces of New Mexico and the Californias are contiguous to
the territories of the United States, and if brought under the government
of our laws their resources - mineral, agricultural, manufacturing,
and commercial - would soon be developed.
Upper California is bounded
on the north by our Oregon possessions, and if held by the United
States would soon be settled by a hardy, enterprising, and intelligent
portion of our population. The bay of San Francisco and other harbors
along the Californian coast would afford shelter for our Navy, for
our numerous whale ships, and other merchant vessels employed in the
Pacific Ocean, and would in a short period become the marts of an
extensive and profitable commerce with China and other countries of
the East.
These advantages, in which
the whole commercial world would participate, would at once be secured
to the United States by the cession of this territory; while it is
certain that as long as it remains a part of the Mexican dominions
they can be enjoyed neither by Mexico herself nor by any other nation.
In proposing to acquire
New Mexico and the Californias, it was known that but an inconsiderable
portion of the Mexican people would be transferred with them, the
country embraced within these provinces being chiefly an uninhabited
region.
These were the leading
considerations which induced me to authorize the terms of peace which
were proposed to Mexico. They were rejected, and negotiations being
at an end, hostilities were renewed. An assault was made by our gallant
Army upon the strongly fortified places near the gates of the city
of Mexico and upon the city itself, and after several days of severe
conflict the Mexican forces, vastly superior in number to our own,
were driven from the city, and it was occupied by our troops.
Immediately after information
was received of the unfavorable result of the negotiations, believing
that his continued presence with the Army could be productive of no
good, I determined to recall our commissioner. A dispatch to this
effect was transmitted to him on the 6th of October last. The Mexican
government will be informed of his recall, and that in the existing
state of things I shall not deem it proper to make any further overtures
of peace, but shall be at all times ready to receive and consider
any proposals which may be made by Mexico.
(2)
Charles
Sumner, speech on
the Mexican War (1847)
A
war of conquest is bad; but the present war has darker shadows. It
is a war for the extension of slavery over a territory which has already
been purged by Mexican authority from this stain and curse. Fresh
markets of human beings are to be established; further opportunities
for this hateful traffic are to be opened; the lash of the overseer
is to be quickened in new regions; and the wretched slave is to be
hurried to unaccustomed fields of toil. It can hardly be believed
that now, more than eighteen hundred years since the dawn of the Christian
era, a government, professing the law of charity and justice, should
be employed in war to extend an institution which exists in defiance
of these sacred principles.
It has already been shown
that the annexation of Texas was consummated for this purpose. The
Mexican War is a continuance, a prolongation, of the same efforts;
and the success which crowned the first emboldens the partisans of
the latter, who now, as before, profess to extend the area of freedom,
while they are establishing a new sphere for slavery.
The authorities already
adduced in regard to the objects of annexation illustrate the real
objects of the Mexican War. Declarations have also been made, upon
the floor of Congress, which throw light upon it. Mr. Sims, of South
Carolina, has said that "he had no doubt that every foot of territory
we shall permanently occupy, south of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes,
will be slave territory"; and, in reply to his colleague, Mr.
Burt, who inquired whether this opinion was "in consequence of
the known determination of the Southern people that their institutions
shall be carried into that country, if acquired," said, in words
that furnish a key to the whole project, "It is founded on the
known determination of the Southern people that their institutions
shall be carried there; it is founded in the laws of God, written
on the climate and soil of the country: nothing but slave labor can
cultivate, profitably, that region of country."
But it is not merely proposed
to open new markets for slavery: it is also designed to confirm and
fortify the "Slave Power." Here is a distinction which should
not fail to be borne in mind. Slavery is odious as an institution,
if viewed in the light of morals and Christianity. On this account
alone we should refrain from rendering it any voluntary support. But
it has been made the basis of a political combination, to which has
not inaptly been applied the designation of the "Slave Power."
The slaveholders of the
country - who are not supposed to exceed 200,000 or at most 300,000
in numbers - by the spirit of union which animates them, by the strong
sense of a common interest, and by the audacity of their leaders,
have erected themselves into a new "estate," as it were,
under the Constitution. Disregarding the sentiments of many of the
great framers of that instrument, who notoriously considered slavery
as temporary, they proclaim it a permanent institution; and, with
a strange inconsistency, at once press its title to a paramount influence
in the general government, while they deny the right of that government
to interfere, in any way, with its existence. According to them, it
may never be restrained or abolished by the general government, though
it may be indefinitely extended.
(3) Henry
David Thoreau,
Civil Disobedience (1849)
If I devote myself to other pursuits
and contemplations, I must first see, at least, that I do not pursue
them sitting upon another man's shoulders. I must get off him first,
that he may pursue his contemplations too. See what gross inconsistency
is tolerated. I have heard some of my townsmen say, "I should
like to have them order me out to help put down an insurrection of
the slaves, or to march to Mexico -see if I would go"; and yet
these very men have each, directly by their allegiance, and so indirectly,
at least, by their money, furnished a substitute. The soldier is applauded
who refuses to serve in an unjust war by those who do not refuse to
sustain the unjust government which makes the war; is applauded by
those whose own act and authority he disregards and sets at naught;
as if the state were penitent to that degree that it hired one to
scourge it while it sinned, but not to that degree that it left off
sinning for a moment. Thus, under the name of Order and Civil Government,
we are all made at last to pay homage to and support our own meanness.
After the first blush of sin comes its indifference; and from immoral
it becomes, as it were, unmoral, and not quite unnecessary to that
life which we have made.
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