The Annexation of Texas and the Mexican Civil War



The Annexation of Texas and the Mexican Civil War

Intro: In 1833 fewer than 100,000 Americans had crossed the Mississippi River for settlement. The country expanded by large tracts with the treaty of Paris (1783), the Louisiana Purchase (1803), the Adams-Onis Treaty (1819). By the Jacksonian period there was debate about how much of North America would eventually come under American control.

I. The Annexation of Texas-

A. Manifest Destiny. The term was coined by John O’Sullivan in 1845. Editor and co-founder of the New York Morning News. Manifest Destiny was a belief that Providence provided the Americans with the bountiful continent, and therefore Americans were the chosen people, the new Israelites. Millions of Americans believed that God willed them North America. There was the belief that it was breaking God’s laws by the fact that the Mexicans were not using the western territory. Sullivan stated,

“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 the great experiment of liberty and federative self government entrusted to us. It is a right such as that of the tree to the space of air and earth suitable for the full expansion of its principle and destiny of growth.”

1. The Monroe Doctrine was being tested by foreign intervention in areas along its borders, especially by British activity in Texas, California, and Oregon.

2. Reasons for Manifest Destiny-

a. Americans felt they had a mission to settle agriculturally the untamed land the fur trappers had blazed paths through in the 1820s and 30s, strengthening the myth of the romance and adventure of the west.

b. Desire to trade with East Asia, Americans felt the Columbia River was the “North American road to India.” Eastern businessmen hoped to profit in the natural harbors of San Diego, San Francisco, and Puget Sound. These harbors were a large part of the motivation to use the west as an avenue to the far east.

B. From the Southern point of view, Texas represented the safeguarding and expansion of slavery.

C. Mexican society was a mixed society. Mexicans were a mix of European and Indian, whereas the American society was a purely transplanted European society that continuously excluded the American Indians and pushed them further and further to the west. The Catholic Church in Mexico declared that Indians had souls, and therefore with education, were equal to the Spaniards. No similar doctrine was adopted en masse in the United States.

D. Machinations for the Annexation of Texas began as soon as Andrew Jackson took office in 1828.

1. Americans were migrating to Texas since the early 1820s. Led by Moses Austin and his son, Stephen, they accepted the Mexican political control in Texas. The Mexican government made Catholicism and the abolition of slavery tenets for living in Texas, which were largely ignored by the Americans. By 1830 over 12 thousand Americans had emigrated to Texas.

a. Andrew Jackson never officially “sent” Sam Houston to Texas, nor did he “send” US army regulars to Texas either.

b. In 1830 the Mexican government began to regret its actions and prohibited further American immigration and began to enforce it laws and increase taxes in the territory.

2. 1836 the Battle of the Alamo followed by the Battle of San Jacinto, and Texas was independent from Mexico.

3. Texas was not annexed by Jackson in 1836 because he feared it would impair Van Buren’s election chances.

a. Van Buren therefore did not touch the issue during his reign as President due to the fact that northern Whigs and abolitionists feared the expansion of slavery into new southern territories.

b. John Quincy Adams was so opposed to the annexation of Texas that he led a 22 day filibuster against annexation. Actions such as this made Jackson realize the political consequences of annexation.

4. By 1844, the issue of Texas annexation became an election issue. President Tyler and Sam Houston launched a conspiracy to make Americans believe that Texas was conducting negotiations with the British government, to potentially put themselves under British control. The threat of Britain in Texas helped stoke the paranoia of Southerners who called for annexation of Texas as a slave territory. Opponents to expansion detested the idea, while southerner claimed “Texas or disunion!” Many Whigs feared the annexation of Texas would be fresh fuel for the continuation of slavery. After the election Tyler passed a joint resolution through Congress which only required 51% of Congress to bring Texas in as a state.

a. The only problem was that Mexico felt America was behind the plot to annex Texas.

b. A provision was added into the incorporation of Texas that provided for splitting Texas into five states which meant 10 more proslavery votes in the senate.

II. The Mexican War-

A. Causes of the Mexican American War

1. Anger of Mexican Patriots over Texas Annexation

2. Dispute over the Boundary of Texas and Mexico

3. Instability of the Mexican Government (making it difficult to deal with them).

4. Determination of Polk and expansionists to obtain California and Mexico.

B. Polk (1844-1848) was an ardent expansionist and realized the future value of California with its fertile valleys and the port of San Francisco which he regarded as the future gateway to China.

1. In the election of 1844 the Democrats found a winning combination in the expansionist policies of the west and south, so much that the Northeastern Whigs were isolated in their lackluster commitment to expansion. Polk was a Jacksonian Democrat. He disliked tariffs, banks, and federal funding for internal improvements.

C.Polk was eager to buy California from Mexico, but relations with Mexico city were dangerously embittered. The main bone of contention was Texas, the Mexican government, after threatening war if the United States should acquire the Lone Star Republic, had recalled its minister from Washington following annexation.

In 1845 Polk dispatched John Slidell to Mexico city as his minister. Slidell was authorized to pay $25 million for California and territory to the east. The Mexicans would not even receive Slidell.

D. Opposition to Polk. Opposition to Polk’s plan came mainly from the North and primarily from reform minded Americans.

*** Most famous is Henry David Thoreau’s, Civil Disobedience.

1. Albert Gallatin stated, “However superior the Anglo American race may be to that of Mexico, this gives the Americans no right to infringe upon the rights of an inferior race. The people of the United States may rightfully, and will, if they use the proper means, exercise the most beneficial moral influence over the Mexicans and other less enlightened nations of America. Beyond this they have no right to go.

2. Abraham Lincoln martyred his seat in congress over the issue. Lincoln stated in Congress that, “he (Polk) is deeply conscious of being in the wrong; that he fells the blood of this war, like the blood of Abel, is crying to a heaven against him; that he ordered General Taylor into the midst of a peaceful Mexican settlement, purposely to bring on a war…”

3. Most Whigs supported the war - in part, because two of the leading American generals, Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott, were Whigs, and in part because they remembered that opposition to the War of 1812 had destroyed the Federalist Party. But many prominent Whigs, from the South as well as the North, openly expressed opposition. Thomas Corwin of Ohio denounced the war as merely the latest example of American injustice to Mexico: "If I were a Mexican I would tell you, "Have you not room enough in your own country to bury your dead." " Henry Clay declared, "This is no war of defense, but one of unnecessary and offensive aggression."

E. Military Campaign-Polk dispatched 4,000 troops under Gen. Zachary Taylor to march from the Nueces River 150 miles to the Rio Grande in an attempt to provoke a Mexican attack. Finally on April 25, 1846, Mexican troops crossed the Rio Grande, and attacked the Americans killing 16 soldiers. Polk immediately sent a war message to Congress which was approved by a Patriotic Congress.

The American military campaign was successful on all fronts, yet the Americans had trouble providing a decisive victory for the war. General Winfield Scott was left up to capturing the capital of Mexico city. Scott achieved this feat through very unconventional means. After landing at Vera Cruz, he used the guns from his ship on land to provide him with adequate artillery. He also limited civilian resistance by insisting that his soldiers pay for all the implements the army needed for its march inward towards Mexico City.

1. Human Cost- 1,721 died in action. Another 11,155 died from disease and exposure to the elements.

F. The Peace- Polk dispatched Nicholas P. Trist. Trist paid Santa Anna $10,000 to make the peace which Santa Anna used for time to reinforce his defenses.

Polk attempted to recall Trist, but Trist refused, sensing an opportunity was at hand. The Treaty of Guadeloupe Hidalgo was at hand, and Trist signed on February 2, 1848. The treaty yielded all of Texas and California to the United States for $ 15 million. Polk immediately submitted the treaty to the senate for ratification, for time was of the essence. Anti-expansionists did not want the massive land tract for fear of slavery issues, and proexpansionists wanted to annex all of Mexico, also an unwise choice.

G. The Aftermath- The Mexican American War was a training ground for the young officers of the U.S. Armed Forces, in which many would face each other in battle 15 years later. (Lee, Jackson, Beauregard, Davis, Grant, Meade, McClellan)

-This war was the first victory for the United States on foreign soil

-Zachary Taylor was lifted up as a war hero and propelled to the presidency

-the Treaty of Guadeloupe Hidalgo (1848) gave the U.S. the Mexican Cession territory for $15 million.

III. The Issue of Oregon was not as easily resolved- As JQA claimed, the USA should take Oregon for the purpose of “make the wilderness blossom as the rose, to establish laws, to increase, multiply, and subdue the earth, which we are commanded to do by the first behest of God Almighty.”

A. January 1845 the British government approached the USA to start arbitration to settle the boundary in the Pacific Northwest. The American government.

B. In his inaugural address, Polk declared that he was committed to obtaining all of the Pacific Northwest for the United States, standing firm with the policy of 54’40 or fight.

C. By 1845 Polk realized that War with Britain was unwanted when there was already the prospect of war with Mexico over a much larger territory.

D. July 1845 Polk notified the British minister in DC, Richard Pakenham that the United States was now open to arbitration on the issue. This time Pakenham was the one to flatly reject the offer. Polk then declared the British had one year to end joint occupation. He also invoked the almost forgotten Monroe Doctrine. Congress approved the end of joint occupation, which left the British with an ultimatum to fight or negotiate. In June 1846, Secretary of State James Buchanan received from Pakenham a proposal to divide the Oregon territory along the 49th parallel but to retain control of Vancouver Island and the right to navigate the Columbia River. By this point the United States was at war with Mexico and had no taste for another war with Britain.

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