The Mexican-American War, Were We Justified

The Mexican-American fight was a war between the United States and Mexico which lasted from April 1846 to February 1848. It stemmed from the United States annexation of Texas in 1845 and from a dispute over whether Texas ended at the Nueces River (Mexican claim) or the Rio Grande (U. S. claim). The war was the most devastating event in Mexican history, where Mexico scattered the modern day areas of California, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado and Montana. The Mexican-American spawned out of land lust. The persuasion of Manifest Destiny and the promising lands of California, which were coveted by many European nations, led to a war of greed.Even Abraham Lincoln, then a young Congressman, and Ulysses S. Grant, the hereafter Civil War victorious commander and U. S. President, believed that the invasion of Mexico was not justified. Mexico had jilted a $15 million cash-for-land deal offered by the US. The area include what now covers the states of California, Arizona, New Mexico and parts of Colorado and Utah. This territory was Mexican, but precisely nominally control over the area was slight, and open to intrusion. Irritated at the rebuff, the US struck back in1845 by annexing Texas, a territory coarse disputed and fought over by both countries.Mexico responded by severing diplomatical relations. U. S. President Polk further provoked Mexico by moving troops atomic number 16 to the Rio Grande, a river that historically was considered well within Mexico. U. S. and Mexican troops skirmished crossways the river, leading Polk to declare to Congress on May 11, 1846, that the cup of clemency has been exhausted, and that American blood has been spilled on American soil. (Source Eisenhowers So further From God, pages 49-55) The U. S. -Mexican War is the pivotal chapter in the history of North America.It is the war that loaded the fates of its two participants. For the United States, the War garnered huge amounts of territory and wealth, bootstrapping the fledgling res publica onto the world stage. For Mexico, the War sent the emerging nation into a twist that it is still reckoning with today, one hundred fifty years later. In the United States the US-Mexican War is virtually forgotten, and for good reason, as it is the clearest example of American greed and undiplomatic actions. The Mexican-American War was waged upon Mexico out of pure greed and disuse for international liberty.In conclusion, the United States was unjust in its declaration of war on Mexico in 1846. The U. S. was clouded with dreams of Manifest Destiny. It had a president that was obsessed with fulfilling advertize promises and greed for new land. Polk was looking for revenge for the denial of the proposal for get California as was evident in his original reasons for declaring war on Mexico. Also the U. S. provoked this border dispute into the two-year war that it became by purposely inciting the Mexicans into a fight. All these reasons are the evidence that th e US was not justified in declaring war on Mexico.