The study explores how American- Mexican war of 1846 to 1848 changed the history of America. The research further describes reasons why without the said war, history told would have been different. The essay further elucidates ways through which slavery altered American history.
The war affected the efforts to abolish slavery as large territory was acquired from Mexico after surrender of Mexican soldiers and secession of Texas, California and New Mexico to the United States. United States was driven by economic ambitions of occupying the whole of North America. The dispute of the border between Texas and Mexico and the already annexed Texas fuelled the war between the two countries. Mexico claimed the boundary at Nueces River while US claimed Rio Grande but the US won the battle enabling them to acquire a large Mexican territory that extended westward to the Pacific Ocean. The effect of the war was the large territory acquired from Mexico that brought about slavery.
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After the war, a large territory that had been acquired from Texas, California and New Mexico left a huge debate as to what to do with the newly acquired land. The territory acquired was from the South that supported slavery but the North was against slavery thus creation of another slave state would cause imbalance as per the Missouri Compromise of 1820. However, a consensus was reached by creation of another Compromise of 1850 that permitted formation slave states. In the treaty, the South gave conditions to the North to help in bringing back fugitive slaves who had fled to the North. The run-away slaves would help work in the farms from the huge acquired territories in the South. This way, the economy of the country would grow due to the availability of cheap labor. Therefore, the war played a big role to encourage slavery in the South.
The war was meant to expand slavery and boost the power of the South to create more slaves states from the targeted territories of Mexico. The President of the time claimed it was just a war to rsesolve dispute but abolitionists claimed it is a plan to extend slavery in the south. Before the war, a treaty appropriations bill was brought to the Congress that banned slavery from any state that was to be acquired from Mexico but the bill was never passed. It led to fierce debate and greatly contributed to sectional antagonism. The war was adding Texas as slave state and aimed to protect it from being controlled by Mexico after the state was captured. Most of the generals in the war had profited from the battle experience and slavery, who later claimed that it was a war waged by stronger against the weaker nation. Slavery was allowed in the newly acquired slave states as the Comprise of 1850 affirmed the same while California was resolved as a free state.
If there was no war between America and Mexico the acquired territories would be belonging to Mexico even today. Texas, California, New Mexico and among other states in the south which are major economic zones would be part of Mexico. USA would have lost major sea ports to the south west of United States. The economy of the America would not have improved without the acquisition of the new states. The war led the birth of Republicanism a prominent anti-slavery party. The slavery in the South would not have ended any time soon. There were more slavery activities due to the large tracts of land that was taken from Mexico. It would have taken another century to abolish slave trade. More people could have died due to evils of slavery. The states would have been colonized for the second time by the Spanish colonizers. Mexico would have been a prosperous nation due to the large economic bloc that would be under its control. Mexico would not have incurred huge loss of property and decline of economic activities if the war never happened.
In conclusion, Mexican-American war led to acquisition of the massive territory that ignited debate over slavery thus reducing party alliances but increased sectional alliances. Further disagreement led to demise of Second Party System that led to formation Republicanism. Tensions of disunion increased from 1850 that finally lead to Civil War in 1861 where Americans fought among themselves from tribal and race backgrounds. Mexico “poisoned” United States where the bloodshed from the civil war rivaled any other American conflict.
