Mexican -American War....No Turning Back
1846-1848
By the 1840s, Texas had gained its independence from Mexico through the Texas Revolution and had asked the United States if it could be annexed into the Union. After nearly 10 years of debate, America agreed to allow TX to enter the Union as a slave state.
Mexico on the other hand did not feel that America had the right to annex TX because TX still belonged to them (I think Gen. Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, president of Mexico, had forgotten about the battle at San Jacinto in which he had signed a treaty giving TX its independence!). This dispute brought America and Mexico to war.
In this war America was outnumbered in every battle. Sometimes 3:1! Yet America won the Mexican American War! When we signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hildalgo we acquired the present-day states of CA, NM, NV, AZ, UT, and TX (the Mexican cession and Gadsden Purchase). This war was a success for the United States. We had met our goal of Manifest Destiny, our obvious fate of stretching from "sea to shining sea" promoted by President James K. Polk. But these new lands opened America back to debates and disputes along sectional differences between slave states and free states. When California entered the Union as a free state in 1850, Congress had to figure out how to keep the South happy.....
Next: California......Compromise of 1850
Mexico on the other hand did not feel that America had the right to annex TX because TX still belonged to them (I think Gen. Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, president of Mexico, had forgotten about the battle at San Jacinto in which he had signed a treaty giving TX its independence!). This dispute brought America and Mexico to war.
In this war America was outnumbered in every battle. Sometimes 3:1! Yet America won the Mexican American War! When we signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hildalgo we acquired the present-day states of CA, NM, NV, AZ, UT, and TX (the Mexican cession and Gadsden Purchase). This war was a success for the United States. We had met our goal of Manifest Destiny, our obvious fate of stretching from "sea to shining sea" promoted by President James K. Polk. But these new lands opened America back to debates and disputes along sectional differences between slave states and free states. When California entered the Union as a free state in 1850, Congress had to figure out how to keep the South happy.....
Next: California......Compromise of 1850