Chapter 17, Manifest Destiny and its Legacy (pages 384-389)

1. Chapter 17, Manifest Destiny and its Legacy (pages 384-389)

2. Fighting Mexico for Peace • Polk sent Nicholas Trist to negotiate an armistice with Mexico for a cost of $10,000 (Santa Anna took the bribe and then used it for his defenses). • Afterwards, Trist was recalled, but he refused to leave. • Instead, he negotiated the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo on February 2, 1848, which gave to America all Mexican territory from Texas to California that was north of the Rio Grande for only $15 million. This land was called the Mexican Cession. • $3.5 million in debts from Mexico to the U.S. were absolved as well. • In essence, the U.S. had forced Mexico to "sell" the Mexican Cession lands.

4. Fighting Mexico for Peace • Polk sent Nicholas Trist to negotiate an armistice with Mexico at a cost of $10,000 (Santa Anna took the bribe and then used it for his defenses). • Afterwards, Trist was recalled, but he refused to leave. • He negotiated the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo on February 2, 1848, which… • Gave to America all Mexican territory from Texas to California that was north of the Rio Grande. This land was called the Mexican Cession since Mexico ceded it to the U.S. • U.S. only had to pay $15 million to Mexico for it. • $3.5 million in debts from Mexico to the U.S. were absolved as well. • In essence, the U.S. had forced Mexico to "sell" the Mexican Cession lands.

5. Fighting Mexico for Peace • In America, there were people clamoring for an end to the war (the Whigs) and those who wanted all of Mexico (but the leaders of the South like John C. Calhoun realized the political nightmare that would cause and decided not to be so greedy), so Polk speedily passed the bill to the Senate, which approved it, 38 to 14. • Polk had originally planned to pay $25 million just for California, but he ended up only paying $18,250,000 for ALL of northern Mexico. • Ultimately, the Mexican Cession was the largest single addition ever to American territory. • Many historians believe that America only paid even that much because it felt guilty for having bullied Mexico into a war it couldn’t win.

6. Profit and Loss in Mexico • In the war, America only had 13,000 dead soldiers, most taken by disease. • Interestingly, the war was indeed a sort of dress rehearsal for the Civil War, giving men like Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant invaluable battle experience. • Outside countries now respected America more, since it had made no major blunders during the war and had proven its fighting prowess. • However, it also paved the way to the Civil War by attaining more land that could be disputed over slavery. • Indeed, antislavery forces were the most opposed to President Polk’s expansionist program from the very beginning.

7. Profit and Loss in Mexico • David Wilmot of Pennsylvania introduced his Wilmot Proviso (a provision or amendment), which stated that slavery should never exist in any of the Mexican Cession territories that would be taken from Mexico; the amendment was passed twice by the House but it never got passed the Senate (where southern states equaled northern). • Although it failed, the importance of the Wilmot Proviso lay in the fact that it opened old wounds—those of slavery. • In other words, it opened a "can of worms" by raising the question, "Will we have slavery in the Mexican Cession lands?“ • It's this question that starts the Civil War in 1861, only 13 years later.

8. Profit and Loss in Mexico • The first Old World Europeans who had come to California were the Spanish, so the Mexicans were deeply resentful of the land that was taken from them, land they believed to be rightfully theirs, land that halved their country’s size while doubling America’s. • They took some small satisfaction when the same land caused disputes that led to the U.S. Civil War, a fate called "Santa Anna’s Revenge".