Mexican War Dbq Essay

How would you feel if someone walked into your house and exclaimed that it was theirs? To fill the emptiness of their northern territory, Mexico insisted on letting people in from the United States into their land to settle as long as the U.S. followed the rules of Mexico. Conflict started because of the United State’s belief in expanding to the Pacific, causing the Mexican-American War to break out. Today, historians question whether or not the U.S. was reasonable in going to war with Mexico. Back then, many would say it was justified, but by analyzing many sources, the United States was not justifiable in going to war with Mexico because the settlers broke rules, the Thornton Affair should not be entirely blamed on Mexico, and O’Sullivan was racially bias.

One reason the Mexican War was not justified was upon O’Sullivan’s claims about Mexico.

In his writing, O’Sullivan calls Mexico “Imbecile and distracted,” then states they “never can exert any real governmental authority over such a country” (Doc A). He claims they can not exert real authority, yet they had won their independence from Spain. O’Sullivan does not view the reasonings and talents of Mexico, and is only saying these to strengthen his idea of Manifest Destiny. What he says is more of insults rather than facts uncovering that he had a racial bias.

A second reason the Mexican War was not justified was that Mexico did not attack Thornton's army for no reason. Jesus Velasco-Marquez, a writer from the Center for Research on North America, explains that, “In the eyes of the [Mexican] government, the mobilization of the U.S. army was an outright attack on Mexico” (Doc C). Since the U.S. traveled onto disputed land, Mexico assumed that they were coming in to attack. In fear, they retaliated by attack first in hopes of maintaining an

upperhand.
The third reason the Mexican War was not justifiable was that the settlers who came to the land broke Mexico’s rules. Charles Sumner, a young state legislator from Massachusetts, states the following about Mexico, “Mexico, on achieving her independence of the Spanish Crown … decreed the abolition of human slavery within her dominions, embracing the province of Texas....” (Doc D). Later in the same document, Sumner calls settlers “slaveholders” who “crossed the Sabine [river between Louisiana and Texas] with their slaves, in defiance of the Mexican ordinance of freedom.” Like stated in the background, Mexico let U.S. settlers onto their land on the condition of following their rules. One of their rules was that no one should withhold slaves. However, slaves were still brought to their lands. This angered Mexico, giving the U.S. no rights to be angry if they were guilty of breaking another country’s rule.
In conclusion, the U.S. had no obligation to think going to war with Mexico was justifiable. Mexico was the one being attacked by the U.S. when they had offered the people to come to their land only to have them break their rules. Not only that, U.S. had made them frightened of an attack when passing disputed land and the U.S. backed themselves up with unreasonable, racial claims. The question of whether the U.S. was justificable about going to war with Mexico is very important because it debates on whether or not the U.S. should be considered a good country that had made good decisions throughout history. This is still important to this day in thinking upon how the U.S. would be if they did not go to war and taken the land.