Was the Mexican-American War right? Is war ever right? To this day many view the war as controversial at best. Driven by Manifest Destiny and an essentially a desire for more territory to grow cotton and to expand the slave population, the United States felt it was their right to expand into Mexican territories.
Do morals exist on a national level? Few would debate that it is wrong to go across the street and kill your neighbor because you are having a bad day, but is it different for a country to go to its neighbor and kill thousands? The United States could have left what is now Texas and several other states to Mexico, but it the reward for taking it was so much greater. Getting to the West coast was crucial for the expanding country. By owning states such as California they had free access to the ports up and down the coast.[1] A country has to do what is in its best interest. If a country poses a possible threat, that problem can’t be ignored, and in the same sense if there are great rewards for taking something from another country, take it.
One important note is that those who were pushing for expansion into Mexican territories were mostly Southerners looking for additional land to spread slavery. However, many in America were against the idea and fought to avoid confrontation. When John O’Sullivan proposed the concept of Manifest Destiny, he gave the United States a way to take Mexican land and have a clear conscious while doing it. He said that it was the country’s duty to expand and bring with it the benefits of American democracy.[2] This concept was nothing more than a political tool. If the people don’t like what their government is doing, they don’t get re-elected. Manifest Destiny gave the general population peace of mind about taking Mexican land, and let those who wanted it all along what they wanted.
Whether it was right to go to war with Mexico or not is a question that has no real answer, only opinions. If you look at the benefits the U.S. received from taking lands such as California and Texas, its hard to say it wasn’t a good idea to do what they did.
[1]Antonia I. Castañeda of Saint Mary’s Univeristy,http://www.pbs.org/kera/usmexicanwar/prelude/
[2] Faragher, John, Mari Buhle, Daniel Czitrom , and Susan Armitage. Out of Many: A History of the American People. New Jersey: Pearson, 2006.
