Document-Based Essay

DOCUMENT-BASED ESSAY

America's war with Mexico has been labeled, both then and since, an unprovoked and unjustifiable war of aggression and territorial aggrandizement. Using the documents as well as your knowledge of the diplomatic history of the years from 1836 to 1846, evaluate this assertion.

Document A

"Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled: That Congress doth consent that the territory properly included within and rightfully belonging to the Republic of Texas, may be erected into a new state, to be called the State of Texas, with a republican form of government to be adopted by the people of said republic by deputies in convention assembled, with the consent of the existing government, in order that the same may be admitted as one of the states of this Union...." Source: Joint Congressional Resolution Offering Annexation to Texas (March 1, 1845).

Document B

"Care has been taken - that all our military and naval movements shall be strictly defensive. - We will not be the aggressor upon Mexico; - but if her army shall cross the [Rio Grande] del Norte and invade Texas, we will if we can drive her army to her own territory. Less than this , in good faith to Texas, I think the government could not have done. We invite Teas to unite her destinies to ours. She has accepted the invitation, upon the terms proposed . . . . and if because she has done so, she is invaded by the Mexican army, surely we are bound to give her aid in her own defense." Source: Letter from President James K. Polk to Senator William H. Haywood (August 1845).

DocumentC

John L. O'Sullivan, the influential Democratic editor who gave the movement its name, wrote in 1845 that the American claim to new territory. . . . 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. Richard N. Current et al., A Survey of American History, Vol 1, 6th ed. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1983), p. 375.

Document D

"We love to indulge in thoughts of the future extent and power of this Republic - because with its increase is the increase of human happiness and liberty. . . . What has miserable, inefficient Mexico - with her superstition, her burlesque upon freedom, her actual tyranny by the few over the many - what has she to do with the great mission of peopling the New World with a noble race? Be it ours, to achieve that mission! Be it ours to roll down all of the upstart leaven of old despotism, that comes our way!" Walt Whitman, Editorial, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 7, 1846.

Document E

Less than a year before he became President, Lincoln wrote that "the act of sending an armed force among the Mexicans was unnecessary, inasmuch as Mexico was in no way molesting or menacing the United States or the people thereof; and that it was unconstitutional, because the power of levying war is vested in Congress, and not in the President" (June 1, 1860). Abraham Lincoln quoted in The American Pageant by Thomas A. Bailey and David M. Kennedy (Lexington Massachusetts: D.C. Heath Co., 1983), p. 268.

Document F

"As affairs resolved themselves, California stood out as the chief subject in the impending war; and with Mr. Thomas Hart Benton and other governing men at Washington it became a firm resolve to hold it for the United States. To them it seemed reasonably sure that California would eventually fall to England or to the United States and that the eventuality was near. This was talked over hilly during the time of preparation for the third expedition and the contingencies anticipated and weighed. The relations between the three countries made a chief subject of interest about which our thoughts settled as the probability of war grew into certainty. For me no distinct course or definite instruction could be laid down, but the probabilities were made known to me as well as what to do when they became facts. The distance was too great for timely communication; but failing this I was given discretion to act. " Source: Memoirs of John Charles Fremont.

Document G

Document H

"Sir: I am directed by the President to instruct you to advance and occupy, with the troops under your command, positions on or near the east bank of the Rio [Grande] del Norte, as soon as it can be conveniently done with reference to the season and the routes by which your movements must be made....

In the positions you may take in carrying out these instructions and other movements that may be made, the use of the Rio [Grande] del Norte may be very convenient, if not necessary. Should you attempt to exercise the right, which the United States [has] in common with Mexico to the free navigation of this river, it is probable that Mexico would interpose resistance. You will not attempt to enforce this right without further instructions....

It is not designed, in our present relations with Mexico that you should treat her as an enemy; but, should she assume that character by a declaration of war, or any open act of hostility toward us, you will not act merely on the defensive, if your relative means enable you to do otherwise...." Source: Order from Secretary of War William L. Marcy to General Zachary Taylor, U.S. Army (January 13, 1846).

Document I

"The President, in consultation with the Cabinet I agreed that the Hon. John Slidell of New Orleans, who spoke the Spanish language and was otherwise well qualified, should be tendered the mission.... One great object of the mission, as staled by the President, would be to adjust a permanent boundary between Mexico and the United States, and that in doing this the Minister would be instructed to purchase for a pecuniary consideration Upper California and New Mexico. He said that a better boundary would be the Rio [Grande] del Norte from its mouth to the Passo, in latitude about 320 north, and thence west to the Pacific ocean, Mexico ceding to the United States all the country east and north of these lines. The President said that for such a boundary the amount of pecuniary consideration to be paid would be of small importance. He supposed it might be had for fifteen or twenty million, but he was ready to pay forty million for it, if it could not be had for less. In these views the Cabinet agreed with the President unanimously.

(October 1845)

The conversation then turned on California, on which I remarked that Great Britain had her eye on that country and intended to possess it if she could but that the people of the United States would not willingly permit California to pass into the possession of any new colony planted by Great Britain or any foreign monarchy and that in reasserting Mr. Monroe's doctrine I had California and the fine bay of San Francisco as much in view as Oregon. Col. Benton agreed that no foreign power ought to be permitted to colonize California, any more than they would be to colonize Cuba. As long as Cuba remained in the possession of the present government we would not object, but if a powerful foreign power was about to possess it, we would not permit it. On the same footing we would place California...." Source: Diary of President James K. Polk (September-October 1845).

Document J

"Saw company until twelve o'clock today. Among others the Hon. John Slidell late United States Minister to Mexico, called in company with the Secretary of State. Mr. Buchanan retired after a few minutes, and Mr. Slidell remained about an hour in conversation concerning his mission and the state of our relation with Mexico. Mr. Slidell’s opinion was that but one course towards Mexico was left to the United States, and that was to take the redress of the wrongs and injuries which we had so long borne from Mexico into our own hands, and to act with promptness and energy. In this I agreed with him, and told him it was only a matter of time when I would make a communication to Congress on the subject, and that I had made up my mind to so so very soon." Source: Diary of James K. Polk (May 8, 1846)

Document K

Document L

"At the time Mr. Slidell presented himself, the troops of the United States occupied our territory, their squadrons threatened our ports, and they prepared to occupy the peninsula of the Californias, of which the question of the Oregon with England is only a preliminary. Mr. Slidell was not received, because the dignity of the nation repelled this new insult. Meanwhile, the army of the United States encamped at Corpus Christi, and occupied the Isla del Padre; following this, they then moved to the point Santo Isabel, and their standard of the stars and stripes waved on the right bank of the Rio Bravo del Norte, opposite the city of Matamoros, blockading that river with their vessels of war. The village of Laredo was surprised by a part of their troops, and a small party of our men, reconnoitering there, were disarmed. Hostilities, then, have been commenced, by the United States of North America, beginning new conquests upon the frontier territories of the departments of Tamaulipas and New Leon, and progressing at such a rate that troops of the same United States threaten Monterey in Upper California. No one can doubt which of the two republics is responsible for this war: a war which any sense of equity and justice, and respect for the rights and laws of civilized nations, might have avoided...." Source: Proclamation of President Don Mariano Paredes y Arrillaga (April 23, 1846)

Document M

"The strong desire to establish peace with Mexico on liberal and honorable terms, and the readiness of this Government to regulate and adjust our boundary and other causes of difference with that power on such fair and equitable principles as would lead to permanent relations of the most friendly nature, induced me in September last to seek the reopening of diplomatic relations between the two countries. Every measure adopted on our part had for its object the furtherance of these desired results in communicating to Congress a succinct statement of the injuries which we had suffered from Mexico, and which have been accumulating during a period of more than twenty years, every expression that could tend to inflame the people of Mexico or defeat or delay a pacific result was carefully avoided. An envoy of the United States repaired to Mexico with full powers to adjust every existing difference. But though present on the Mexican soil by agreement between the two Governments, invested with full powers, and bearing evidence of the most friendly dispositions, his mission has been unavailing. The Mexican Government not only refused to receive him or listen to his propositions, but after a long-continued series of menaces have at last invaded our territory and shed the blood of our fellow-citizens on our own soil...." Source: Polk's War Message to Congress (May 11' 1846).

Document N

Document O

“Polk, further aroused, sent a vigorous war message to Congress. He declared that despite "all our efforts" to avoid a clash, hostilities had been forced upon the country by the shedding of "American blood on the American soil." A patriotic Congress overwhelmingly voted for war, and enthusiastic volunteers cried, "Ho for the Halls of the Montezumas!" and "Mexico or Death!" Inflamed by the war fever, even antislavery Whig centers joined with the rest of the nation, though they later condemned "Jimmy Polk's war.. . . . In his message to Congress, Polk was making history--not writing it. If he had been a historian, he would have explained that American blood had been shed on soil that the Mexicans had good reason to regard as their own. A gangling, rough-featured Whig congressman from Illinois, one Abraham Lincoln, introduced certain resolutions that requested information as to the precise "spot" on American soil where American blood had been shed. He pushed his "spot" resolutions with such persistence that he came to be known as the "spotty Lincoln," who could die of "spotted fever." The more extreme antislavery agitators of the North, many of them Whigs, branded the president a liar--"Polk the Mendacious.” The American Pageant, Chapter 19.

Document P

Document Q

“Now, sir, for the purpose of obtaining the very best evidence as to whether Texas has actually carried her revolution to the place where the hostilities of the present war commenced, let the President answer the interrogatories I proposed. . . . Let him answer Fully, fairly, and candidly. Let him answer with facts, and not with arguments. . . . And if, so answering, he can show that the soil was ours where the first blood of the war was shed--that it was not within an inhabited country, or, if within such, that the inhabitants had submitted themselves to the civil authorities of Texas, or of the United States. . . . then I am with him for his justification. . . . But if he cannot or will not do this--if, on any pretense, or no pretense, he shall refuse or omit it--than I shall be fully convinced, of what I more than suspect already, that he 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; that originally having some strong motive--what I will not stop now to give my opinion concerning--to involve the two countries in a war, and trusting to escape scrutiny by fixing the public gaze upon the exceeding brightness of military glory--that attractive rainbow that rises in showers of blood--that serpent's eye that charms to destroy--he plunged into it, and has swept on and on, till, disappointed in his calculations of the ease with which Mexico might be subdued, he now finds himself he knows not where.” Abraham Lincoln, January 12, 1848, The Congressional Globe, 30th Congress, 1st Session, pp. 94-95.