Territorial Expansion

1. Territorial Expansion 1836-1848

2. The “Lone Star Republic” • The Texas Revolution • Texas belonged first to Spain and then, after 1821, to Mexico. The Mexican government opened Texas to settlers from the United States. The Anglo-Americans received generous land grants at low prices. In exchange they agreed to become Roman Catholics and citizens of Mexico. By 1830, there were about 30,000 people in Texas, ninety percent of whom were Anglo-Americans. • Friction soon developed between the Mexican government and the Anglo-American settlers. Few converted to Catholicism or applied to become Mexican citizens. • The rapid growth of the Anglo-American population of Texas alarmed Mexican officials. In 1830, the Mexican government announced that slaves could no longer be brought into any part of Mexico and that Americans could no longer settle in Texas. Faced with these restrictions, the Texans rebelled and declared their independence on March 2, 1836.

3. The “Lone Star Republic” • The Texas Revolution lasted less than two months. After suffering defeats at the Alamo and Goliad, Texan forces led by Sam Houston destroyed the Mexican army at the Battle of San Jacinto on April 21, 1836.

4. The “Lone Star Republic” • The annexation issue • Sam Houston, the hero of San Jacinto, was elected President of the newly founded Republic of Texas in October of 1836. Houston and most Texans wanted to join the United States. • Many Americans opposed admitting Texas into the Union. The Texas constitution allowed slavery. Northern antislavery Whigs opposed admitting another slave state into the Union. Other opponents of annexation warned that this action might provoke a war with Mexico. • President Jackson resisted admitting Texas into the Union. He feared that a prolonged debate over the admission of a slave state would ignite a divisive campaign issue that could cost the Democrats the presidential election. As a result, Jackson postponed annexation and Texas remained an independent “Lone Star Republic.””

5. Polk and Manifest Destiny • The expansionist spirit • During the 1820s many Americans thought the boundaries of the United States would not go beyond the Rocky Mountains. However, the quest for land, opportunity, and adventure excited a new generation eager to explore and settle the western frontier. By 1860, over 4 million people lived west of the Mississippi River. • John L. O’Sullivan, the editor of the Democratic Review, gave the nation’s expansionist spirit a name when he coined the term Manifest Destiny. O’Sullivan declared that America’s right to expansion lay in “our manifest destiny to occupy and to possess the whole of the Continent which Providence has given us.” • O’Sullivan and other proponents of manifest destiny believed that expansion was necessary to extend democratic institutions and the blessings of American agriculture and commerce to sparsely populated regions. America had a God-given destiny to extend its civilization across the continent and create a country that would serve as a shining example to the rest of the world.

6. Polk and Manifest Destiny • Polk’s election • The annexation of Texas and territorial expansion emerged as the key issues in the 1844 presidential campaign. The Whig Party nominee Henry Clay refused to support the annexation of Texas. In contrast, the Democrat candidate James K. Polk ran on a platform demanding the annexation of Texas and asserting America’s right to all of Oregon. • Polk won a narrow electoral victory. As an ardent expansionist he used manifest destiny as an argument to justify annexing Texas, claiming Oregon, purchasing California, and displacing Native American tribes.

7. Polk and Manifest Destiny • Texas and Oregon • Following the election, Congress approved a resolution annexing Texas as the nation’s 18th state. President Tyler signed the resolution three days before Polk took office. • Acquiring Oregon proved to be more difficult than annexing Texas. Both the United States and Great Britain claimed the territory. The Democrat’s campaign slogan “Fifty-four forty or fight” meant that the United States would go to war with Britain in order to obtain the entire Oregon territory. Despite his belligerent (warlike) campaign slogan, Polk proposed a compromise that would divide Oregon at the 49th parallel. The British accepted Polk’s proposal thus averting a war with the United States.

8. The Mexican War • The outbreak of war • While Polk avoided a war with Great Britain, the explosive Texas question remained to be settled with Mexico. Outraged by the annexation of Texas, Mexico broke off diplomatic relations with the United States. • Polk exacerbated (worsened) tensions by supporting Texas’ claim to the Rio Grande River as its southwestern boundary. The Mexican government denied this claim insisting that Texas went no farther than the Nueces River. • On April 25, 1846 a large Mexican force crossed the Rio Grande and attacked a small American reconnaissance party. In the ensuing fight eleven Americans were killed and the rest wounded or captured. Polk promptly demanded that Congress declare war on Mexico, declaring the “Mexico has…shed American blood upon America soil.” Congress agreed and approved a declaration of war on May 13, 1846.

9. The Mexican War • Opposition to the Mexican War • New England abolitionists denounced the Mexican War as an unjust conflict designed to extend slavery into new territories. Henry David Thoreau refused to pay his state poll tax as a gesture of opposition. He then wrote a classic essay “Civil Disobedience” urging passive resistance to laws that require a citizen “to be an agent of injustice.” Thoreau’s essay later influenced Dr. King’s philosophy of non-violent protest. • Whig leaders also opposed the war with Mexico. Abraham Lincoln, then an obscured Whig congressman from Illinois, challenged Polk to identify the exact spot on American soil where American blood had been shed. Like other Whigs, Lincoln believed that Polk used the skirmish as a pretext (excuse) for declaring war so that he could claim new territories.

10. The Mexican War • The conquest of Mexico • Led by General Zachery Taylor, American forces won a series of victories in northeastern Mexico. Taylor became a national hero when he defeated a much larger Mexican army at the Battle of Buena Vista.

11. The Mexican War • Led by Colonel Stephen W. Kearny, American forces captured Santa Fe, New Mexico and then helped secure California. • Led by General Winfield Scott, American forces landed at Vera Cruz and then battled their way to Mexico City. Scott entered and took control of the Mexican capital on September 14, 1847.

12. The Mexican War • The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo • Under the terms of this treaty Mexico lost about one-third of its territory. It ceded New Mexico and California to the United States and accepted the Rio Grande as the Texas border. It is important to remember that New Mexico actually included present-day Arizona, Nevada, and Utah, as well as parts of Colorado and Wyoming. • The United States acquired more than 500,000 miles of new territory. In return the U.S. agreed to pay Mexico $15 million and pay all the claims American citizens had against the Mexican government.

13. The Mexican War • The war’s consequences • The Mexican War gave combat experience to a group of junior officers that included Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant. • The Mexican War transformed America into a continental nation that spanned from the Atlantic to the Pacific. • The Mexican War added vast new territories thus igniting an increasingly bitter dispute about the extension of slavery. The Mexican War marked a key step in the road to disunion.