Mexican War Dbq Essay

How would you feel if someone walked into your house and exclaimed that it was theirs? To fill the emptiness of their northern territory, Mexico insisted on letting people in from the United States into their land to settle as long as the U.S. followed the rules of Mexico. Conflict started because of the United State’s belief in expanding to the Pacific, causing the Mexican-American War to break out. Today, historians question whether or not the U.S. was reasonable in going to war with Mexico. Back then, many would say it was justified, but by analyzing many sources, the United States was not justifiable in going to war with Mexico because the settlers broke rules, the Thornton Affair should not be entirely blamed on Mexico, and O’Sullivan was racially bias.

In his writing, O’Sullivan calls Mexico “Imbecile and distracted,” then states they “never can exert any real governmental authority over such a country” (Doc A). He claims they can not exert real authority, yet they had won their independence from Spain. O’Sullivan does not view the reasonings and talents of Mexico, and is only saying these to strengthen his idea of Manifest Destiny. What he says is more of insults rather than facts uncovering that he had a racial bias. A second reason the Mexican War was not justified was that Mexico did not attack Thornton's army for no reason. Jesus Velasco-Marquez, a writer from the Center for Research on North America, explains that, “In the eyes of the [Mexican] government, the mobilization of the U.S. army was an outright attack on Mexico” (Doc C). Since the U.S. traveled onto disputed land, Mexico assumed that they were coming in to attack. In fear, they retaliated by attack first in hopes of maintaining an