Page 332 - American Stories, A History of the United States

Read the Document Thomas corwin, Speech Against the Mexican War (1847) 13.1

U.S. troop
0 200 400 miles movements 13.2
0 200 400 kilometers
U.S. victories
OREGON COUNTRY
Mexican victories
Boundary of territory
ceded by Mexico, 1848
Bear Flag Revolt UNORGANIZED
June 14, 1846 TERRITORY
San Francisco Ft. Leavenworth ILL.
occupied July 10, 1846 Missouri R.
Monterey Colorado R. Kearny MO.
occupied July 7, 1846 KY.
San Gabriel Santa Fe Arkansas R. TENN.
occupied
Jan. 8, 1847 Aug. 16, 1846
ARK.
San Pasqual M
Stockton
Dec. 6, 1846 Red R. Mississippi R.
San Diego Gila R. Disputed
Kearny E Area MISS.
El Brazito
Dec. 25, 1846 TEXAS LA.
PACIFIC X
OCEAN Sacramento River New Orleans
Feb. 27, 1847 Rio Grande Nueces
R.
I
Chihuahua Corpus Scott
Detail Map C Doniphan Wool Taylor Christi
Palo Alto
Guadalupe Hidalgo May 8, 1846
O
Chapultepec Buena Vista Monterrey Matamoros
Sept. 13, 1847 Feb. 22–23, 1847 Sept. 21–24, 1846
Mexico City Gulf of Mexico
El Molino
del Rey Churubusco Tampico
Sept. 8, 1847 Aug. 20, 1847 occupied Nov. 14, 1846
Contreras
Aug. 20, 1847 Cerro Gordo
April 17–18, 1847
0 5 miles Veracruz
Mexico City occupied Mar. 29, 1847
0 5 kilometers (detail map)
mAP 13.3 tHe mexicAn–AmeRicAn WAR the Mexican–American War added 500,000 square miles of
territory to the United states, but the cost was high: $100 million and 13,000 lives.

while the conflict was going on, but they criticized the president for starting it.
More ominous, Northerners from both parties charged that the real purpose of
the war was to spread slavery and increase the power of the southern states. While
battles were being fought in Mexico, Congress was debating the Wilmot Proviso,
a proposal to prohibit slavery in any territories acquired from Mexico. A bitter
sectional quarrel over slavery was a legacy of the Mexican–American War (see
Chapter 14).
The domestic controversies the war aroused and the propaganda of Manifest
Destiny revealed the limits of mid-nineteenth-century American expansionism and
put a damper on efforts to extend the nation’s boundaries further. Concerns about
slavery and race impeded acquisition of new territory in Latin America and the Carib-
bean. Resolution of the Oregon dispute clearly indicated that the United States was not
willing to fight a powerful adversary to obtain large chunks of British North America,
and the old ambition of incorporating Canada faded. From 1848 until expansionism
revived in the late nineteenth century, American growth usually took the form of popu- Quick Check
lating and developing the vast territory already acquired. Although the treaty guaran- Why, given the expansionist spirit,
teed the rights of the former inhabitants of Mexico, they in effect became second-class did the United States not annex
citizens of the United States. Mexico in its entirety?

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