Reasons For The Mexican American War

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American-Mexican War The Mexican-American War marked the first American military battle to be fought on foreign soil. The Mexican American War was mainly driven by the idea of “Manifest Destiny”; the belief that the United States had a right to spread across the continent to the Pacific Ocean. The motives that were really behind Manifest Destiny was the acquisition of new territory ,and the Americans wanted territories which were relatively uninhabited by people they considered inferior, such as Indians, blacks and Mexicans. President Pork provoked war with Mexicans with the aim of pushing Mexico into negotiating with Americans. To achieve this, he was willing to threaten them with war. His aim was to convince Mexicans …show more content…

With the end of the Mexican War, the United States absorbed one third of that nation’s total area. Even though American’s gained a considerable amount of land, it created great political sectionalism in America. Mexico was fighting to keep what they thought was their property and the U.S desired to retain the disputed land of Texas and obtain more of Mexico’s northern lands. This fast expansion of the size of America combined with a number of other military successes and improvement of the country’s infrastructure and communication powered ideas of Anglo-Saxon sovereignty, which merged with America’s pride to create a manifest destiny. Due to American Mexican war , Manifest destiny instilled nation building through territorial expansion, endorsed slavery’s growth, and promoted the notion of American racial superiority (Chavez, 3). The Mexican American War was mainly driven by the idea of Manifest Destiny, that instilled nation building through territorial expansion, endorsed slavery’s growth and promoted the …show more content…

American Mexico war raised the slavery issue in the United States leading to intense debates. Many Americans saw the expansion of territory brought about by war with Mexico as a positive impact, but not all Americans did share this view. For example, Henry David Thoreau and Abraham Lincoln opposed the war. Henry David Thoreau said “Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison” as a protest against the war with Mexico ( Chavez 87). Abraham Lincoln also gave a speech questioning the Mexican American war that he believed was unnecessary. Lincoln wanted to know if blood was indeed shed on United States soil. In addition, some northerners oppose the war because they were against slavery. David Wilmot proposed a resolution prohibiting slavery from all territory acquired from Mexico. Northerners supported the Wilmot Proviso, but Southerners felt that prohibiting slavery was a violation of their rights .Manifest Destiny was a justification used by southerners for extending slavery. The southern states had the desire to gain more slave states and this was a view held by many Northern states. By gaining another slave state, especially one as large as Texas, the South would in effect significantly increase their political power in the United States. the Compromise of 1850 deepened the division between

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