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Why didn't the USA annex all of Mexico in 1848? - Coggle Diagram
Why didn't the USA annex all of Mexico in 1848?
in 1848 after defeating Mexico in a war
the United States annexed these
territories from it and there were many
notable individuals in the U.S that
weren't happy at simply taking these
lands in fact they wanted to manifest
destiny the entirety of Mexico of course
they never did but given how thoroughly
the US won the war this does raise a
question why didn't the U.S take all of
Mexico so the war started after the U.S
Annex Texas and the new borders between
the United States and Mexico became
unclear the Texans and thus now the
Americans claim the border to be here
whereas the Mexican said it was here
both sent troops and after a small
Skirmish the U.S declared war the
Americans won the war handily and so
when it was time to make peace President
James K Polk had a dilemma just how much
land should they take Polk had been
elected on a promise to expand the
United States territorially the war with
Mexico had been contentious domestically
and there were several areas of
disagreement the first was slavery
Mexico had abolished slavery over a
decade before the war but if territory
was taken from it then its status is
either a slave state or a free state
wouldn't be clear those in the South
wanted to play for the practice to
expand to and if all of Mexico could be
turned into slave states then this
future would be secure Polk was himself
pro-slavery but given that his party had
just lost the midterms and the house was
now controlled by the Whig party he had
to compromise the second issue was that
Mexicans were seen as different there
were many U.S politicians who worried
about a sudden influx of
Spanish-speaking non-white Catholics
upsetting life there the third issue was
one of practicality Polk had promised a
quick war against an inferior enemy
which would give Americans lots of free
land as the war had dragged on and
American troops had to move further and
further into Mexico even occupying its
capital this was no longer the case as
such incorporating all of Mexico would
have led to a long and expensive
Guerrilla War those on the opposing side
including future President James I guess
it's okay if you secede Buchanan wanted
all of Mexico their arguments were that
the U.S could handle any Insurgency
similarly to how they had handled the
Native Americans before this they also
argued that all of Mexico should be
annexed on financial grounds Mexico's
Northern Territories were somewhat
Barren whereas The South was much more
arable and would allow the US Navy
access to Southern ports further
expanding its reach it was also believed
that annexing all of Mexico would make
up for the cost of the war so why did
the Lesser annexation plans win out well
it was mostly down to a man called
Nicholas tryst trist was sent to
negotiate a pea settlement and Polk had
ordered him to obtain these territories
trist was largely seen as being too
pro-mexican by the Army and so Polk
fired him the problem was that tryst
simply ignored him and then negotiated a
lesser settlement anyway he did this
because he opposed the war and didn't
believe that America could be both a
republic and an Empire he presented this
lesser treaty to an unhappy president
who just wanted everything over with at
this point Polk had hoped that this
lesser treaty would be signed off by a
hostile house this worked and despite
most Americans actually wanting more of
but not all of Mexico America only
annexed this