Question

How should the legacy of the Mexican-American War be remembered?

Answer 1

Secretary of State James Buchanan proposed in 1847, with the conflict still raging, that President James K. Polk send an emissary to Mexico to help bring the war to a close. Agreeing, Polk selected Nicholas Trist, Chief Clerk of the State Department, and sent him south to join the army near Veracruz of General Winfield Scott. Initially disliked by Scott, who resented the presence of Trist, the emissary soon gained the trust of the general and the two became close friends. Trist received orders from Washington, DC to negotiate for the annexation of California and New Mexico to the 32nd Parallel as well as Baja California, with the army heading south to Mexico City and the enemy in retreat.

After Scott's capture of Mexico City in September 1847, the Mexicans appointed three commissioners to meet with Trist to negotiate peace terms, Luis G. Cuevas, Bernardo Couto, and Miguel Atristain. Trist's situation was complicated at the beginning of talks in October when Polk, who was unhappy with the inability of the representative to conclude a treaty earlier, recalled him. Believing that the president did not fully understand Mexico's situation, Trist chose to ignore the order for the recall and wrote a 65-page response to Polk outlining his reasons for doing so. The final terms were negotiated in early 1848 when the Mexican delegation began to meet.

Sent north, the Guadalupe Hidalgo Treaty was sent for ratification to the U.S. Senate. The Senate approved it on March 10 after lengthy debate and some amendments. An effort to introduce the Wilmot Proviso, which would have abolished slavery in the newly acquired territories, failed 38-15 along sectional lines in the course of the debate. On May 19, the Mexican government signed the treaty. American troops began to leave the country with Mexican recognition of the treaty.

The Mexican War can be directly linked to the Civil War in many respects. Arguments regarding the expansion of slavery into newly acquired territories further intensified sectional tensions and forced the addition of new states through negotiation. Moreover, Mexico's battlefields acted as a realistic training ground for those officers who would play prominent roles in the war ahead. Leaders including Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, Braxton Bragg, Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, George McClellan, Ambrose Burnside, George G. Meade, and James Longstreet led either Taylor or Scott's armies. The experiences gained by these leaders in Mexico helped shape their civil decisions