All of Mexico Movement
The All of Mexico Movement, or All Mexico Movement, was a political movement to expand the
After the
Background
Before US President
US success on the battlefield by the summer of 1847 encouraged calls for the annexation of all of Mexico, particularly by eastern Democrats, who argued that bringing Mexico into the Union would be the best way to ensure peace in the region.[citation needed]
Opposition
The proposal to annex all of Mexico was controversial. Idealistic advocates of Manifest Destiny, such as
That debate brought to the forefront one of the contradictions of Manifest Destiny. Identitarian ideas inherent in Manifest Destiny suggested that Mexicans, as people of color, would present a threat to white racial integrity and so were not qualified to become US citizens, but the "mission" component of Manifest Destiny suggested that Mexicans would be improved (or "regenerated," as it was then described) by bringing them into American democracy.
An example of this identity-based and racist position was that of John C. Calhoun, Senator from South Carolina, former vice president and future spokesperson for southern secession, in which, in his own words in a speech to Congress on January 4, 1848, he explained that: [We] have never dreamt of incorporating into our Union any but the Caucasian race the free white race. To incorporate Mexico, would be the very first instance of the kind of incorporating an Indian race; for more than half of the Mexicans are Indians, and the other is composed chiefly of mixed tribes. I protest against such a union as that! Ours, sir, is the Government of a white race.[2]
Supporters of total annexation of "All Mexico" regarded it as an anti-slavery measure. Many Americans were troubled by Mexico's
Final result
The controversy was eventually ended by the Mexican Cession, which added the territories of Alta California and Nuevo México to the United States, both more sparsely populated than the rest of Mexico. Like the All of Oregon movement, the All of Mexico movement quickly abated.
The historian Frederick Merk, in Manifest Destiny and Mission in American History: A Reinterpretation (1963), argued that the failure of the All of Oregon and All of Mexico movements indicates that manifest destiny had not been as popular as historians have traditionally portrayed it to have been. Merk wrote that belief in the beneficent mission of democracy was central to American history, but aggressive "continentalism" was an aberration supported by only a minority of Americans, mostly Democrats, but opposed by Whigs and some Democrats. Thus, Louisiana Democrats opposed the annexation of Mexico,[5] while those in Mississippi supported it.[6]
See also
- Golden Circle
References
- ^ Frederick Merk, Manifest destiny and Mission in American History (1963).
- ^ "A Southern Senator Opposes the "All-Mexico" Plan · SHEC: Resources for Teachers". shec.ashp.cuny.edu. Retrieved 2024-04-28.
- ^ Pinheiro, John C. "'Religion without Restriction:' Anti-Catholicism, All Mexico, and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo," Journal of the Early Republic (2003): 69-96. in JSTOR
- ISBN 0803261071.
- ^ Billy H. Gilley, "'Polk's War' and the Louisiana Press." Louisiana History (1979): 5-23 in JSTOR.
- ^ Robert A. Brent, "Mississippi and the Mexican War." Journal of Mississippi History (1969) 31#3 pp: 202-14.
Further reading
- Fuller, John Douglas Pitts. The Movement for the Acquisition of All Mexico, 1846-1848. Baltimore 1936.
- Lambert, Paul F. "The Movement for the Acquisition of All Mexico." Journal of the West XI (April 1972) pp. 317–27.