Mexican-American War

Political implications of the war

Mexico lost much of its territory in the war, leaving it with a lasting bitterness towards the United States. Santa Anna fled to exile in Venezuela. General Porfirio Díaz, President of Mexico from 1877–1911, would later lament: "¡Pobre México! Tan lejos de Dios, y tan cerca de los Estados Unidos." ("Poor Mexico! So far from God, and so close to the United States.")

Related Topics:
Venezuela - Porfirio Díaz - President of Mexico - 1877 - 1911

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In the United States, victory in the war brought a surge in patriotism as the acquisition of new western lands – the country had also acquired the southern half of the Oregon Country in 1846 – seemed to fulfill citizens' belief in their country's Manifest Destiny. While Ralph Waldo Emerson rejected war "as a means of achieving America's destiny," he accepted that "most of the great results of history are brought about by discreditable means." The war made a national hero of Zachary Taylor, a Southern Whig, who was elected president in the election of 1848.

Related Topics:
Oregon Country - 1846 - Manifest Destiny - Ralph Waldo Emerson - Zachary Taylor - Election of 1848

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However, this period of national euphoria would not last long. The war had been widely supported in the southern states but largely opposed in the northern states. This division largely developed from expectations of how the expansion of the United States would affect the issue of slavery. At the time, Texas recognized the institution of slavery, but Mexico did not. Many Northern abolitionists viewed the war as an attempt by the slave-owners to expand slavery and assure their continued influence in the federal government. Henry David Thoreau wrote his essay Civil Disobedience and refused to pay taxes because of this war.

Related Topics:
Henry David Thoreau - Civil Disobedience

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The main issue which furthered sectionalism was the expansion of slavery into the national territories. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 banned slavery in national territories north of 36 degrees, 30 minutes (roughly the southern border of Missouri, although that state had been exempted). Also, the Senate was constructed to give equal balance to slave and free states. The Missouri Compromise, however, left room for more free states than slave states and, if continued, would upset the balance of power within the Senate. Thus, many Southerners supported the war to provide more room for slavery to expand (believing that if slavery were not allowed to continue to expand, it would ultimately die out). There were proposals during this time to split Texas (which was easily the largest state in the Union geographically) into multiple slave states, but this did not come to pass.

Related Topics:
Missouri Compromise - 1820 - Missouri - Texas

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During the first year of the war, Congressman David Wilmot introduced a bill which would prohibit slavery in any new territory captured from Mexico. This bill, which became known as the Wilmot Proviso caused an immediate outcry from Southerners on both sides of the congressional aisle. To Southerners, it looked as if the north was willing to abandon parity within the senate, and the Wilmot Proviso sparked further hostility between the sections. The bill itself was passed by the House of Representatives but failed in the Senate, with both votes on sectional lines.

Related Topics:
David Wilmot - Slavery - Wilmot Proviso

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In 1848 Democrats proposed a new solution to the issue of whether territories should have slavery, known as popular sovereignty. This would allow for voters within a territory to determine for themselves whether or not they would allow slavery within their territory. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 would make popular sovereignty the law of the land, striking down the Missouri Compromise. In protest of this, the Republican Party was organized that year by opponents of the expansion of slavery.

Related Topics:
1848 - Popular sovereignty - Kansas-Nebraska Act - 1854 - Republican Party

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Taylor, the hero of Monterrey and Buena Vista, was elected President in the

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canvass of November, 1848 running as a Whig but without a political history.

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He would not have the opportunity to resolve the intersectional problems

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stemming from the war, as his death in 1850 resulted in the

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elevation of Whig party insider Millard Fillmore to the Presidency.

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Fillmore turned to the problem of resolving the Texas boundary and

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territorial slavery disputes arising from the war, enlisting the aid

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of Whig party stalwarts Henry Clay and Daniel Webster. The three were able to fashion the Compromise of 1850 in an effort to produce a

Related Topics:
Henry Clay - Daniel Webster - Compromise of 1850

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final solution, but this compromise created more disputes, as well as

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helping to end the Whig party as a national force. The Whigs made one more

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effort to function as a national party, nominating the other key war general

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Winfield Scott after a bitter party convention that split its vote between

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Scott, Fillmore, and Webster. Surprisingly, Scott's campaign came apart

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not so much due to disagreements over the compromise and slavery, but rather the newly vexacious anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic sentiments which were

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spilling over into political discourse.

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Ulysses S. Grant, who served in the war under Scott's command, would later consider the war to be one of the causes of the American Civil War: "The occupation, separation and annexation [of Texas] were ... a conspiracy to acquire territory out of which slave states might be formed for the American Union." Many of the generals of the latter war had fought in the former, including Grant, Ambrose Burnside, Stonewall Jackson, George Meade, and Robert E. Lee, as well as future President of the Confederacy Jefferson Davis.

Related Topics:
Ulysses S. Grant - American Civil War - Ambrose Burnside - Stonewall Jackson - George Meade - Robert E. Lee - Jefferson Davis

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