Not in Our Name: American Antiwar Speeches, 1846 to the Present

1 Mexican-American War (1846–1848)

1 Mexican-American War (1846–1848) Before the Mexican-American War broke out in 1846, the United States encompassed approximately two million square miles, from Maine in the north to Florida in the south, and west far past the Mississippi River. At the end of the war in 1848, the size of the country had increased by 25 percent with territories obtained from Mexico, including present-day California, Nevada, Utah, most of New Mexico and Arizona, and parts of Colorado and Wyoming. From Mexico’s perspective, during approximately the same amount of time its nominal territory was halved.1 The ultimate cause of the Mexican-American War is best attributed to the widespread sentiment for mid-nineteenth-century American expansionism. ‘‘To enlarge its limits is to extend the dominions of peace over additional territories and increasing millions,’’ James K. Polk said of the United States during his 1845 inaugural.2 ‘‘The world has nothing to fear from military ambition in our Government,’’ he added.3 John L. O’Sullivan , editor of the United States Magazine and Democratic Review, famously summed up the country’s territorial ambition, writing that the United States meant to fulfill ‘‘our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions.’’4 The proximate cause of the war was a boundary dispute between the United States and Mexico. The United States drew the line between itself and its southern neighbor along the Rio Grande. Mexico, for its part, believed the correct border to be the Nueces River, which ran some fifty to one hundred and fifty miles to the north. In fact, the disputed territory between the Rio Grande and the Nueces was settled almost entirely by Mexicans, and neither the United States nor Texas (which was annexed by the United States early in 1845 and admitted into the Union at the end of the year) had ever controlled it.5 Nevertheless, President Polk ordered General Zachary Taylor and his troops to march past the Nueces and through the disputed region to the banks of the Rio Grande. Fighting ensued. President Polk asked Congress for a declaration of war on May 11, 1846, claiming that Mexico ‘‘has passed the boundary of the United States, has invaded our territory and shed American blood upon American soil.’’6 Within two days, both the PAGE 15 ................. 18232$ $CH1 05-30-12 14:56:43 PS 16 not in our name House of Representatives (174–14)7 and the Senate (40–2)8 authorized Polk to make war on Mexico. Over the course of the subsequent war nearly 80,000 Americans enlisted, over 13,000 of whom died.9 While only 1,733 were killed in combat, disease overcame 11,550.10 As for the Mexicans, it is commonly estimated that 25,000 died, but other estimates place the toll at twice that number.11 The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which was signed on February 2, 1848, and ratified by the Senate on March 10, 1849, formally ended hostilities between the United States and Mexico. The terms established the Rio Grande as the southern boundary of Texas and provided for the acquisition of some 525,000 square miles of Mexican territory. In exchange, the United States would pay Mexico $15 million and assume up to $3.25 million in claims.12 Adjusted for inflation, the total purchase price was just over $470 million. Of course, the agreement proved to be bountiful for the United States. California , for example, was a particularly valuable region: not only did it allow the United States to lay valid claim to lands stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, but gold was discovered at Sutter’s Mill a few days before the treaty was signed. The discovery led to the California Gold Rush and the almost immediate industrialization of this new frontier. Dissent during the Mexican-American War was animated, at different times, by political opportunism, concern that the war was being fought to perpetuate slavery in newly acquired territories, and the belief that the war was both morally and legally wrong. These threads, and others, are demonstrated in the speeches that follow. In ‘‘Sermon on War,’’ delivered in Boston on June 7, 1846, Theodore Parker provides a wide-ranging antiwar critique with sustained metaphors. In ‘‘Withdrawal of American Troops from Mexico,’’ delivered on February 4, 1847, Charles Sumner argues that the war in Mexico was a war of ‘‘offence’’ not of ‘‘defence’’ and appeals to the...