People's History: Mexican War 1840s (Chap 8)
Music: Piano and Orchestra
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Summary We ordered Europe not to occupy the west, and asked our God for all the grace He might bestow, for now at last our destiny was manifest: with honor, blood, and faith to conquer Mexico. Chapter Monroe's exalted "Doctrine" ordered Europe "Stay away from western territories!" What we say and what we do are quite at odds, for Mexico, just recently endeavoring to overthrow its long-unwelcome Spanish conquerors, possessed the Rio Grande and Texas borderland southwest to California. Texas wished to be a state, so Polk, the President, prepared to 'liberate' the whole southwest from Mexico - with Providence bestowing grace for civilized deliverance of "weaker" foreign blood. For national defense the President sent troops with every confidence that liberty was being spread - our destiny was manifest. And very few would disagree the west was ours, for several reasons: splendid land in California (people couldn't understand such beauty lying "dormant"); commerce, number two: (the "hum of industry" was in the nation's view); and racist sentiment - indeed, should Mexico deserve it more than us? For wouldn't God bestow his sacred wisdom on a race superior, like ours? Yet calling other men inferior disgusted some Americans: for one, Thoreau, whose civil disobedience was apropos at times like this. And Fredrick Douglass, former slave, considered it a great disgrace that we'd deprave ourselves by conquering a neighbor. Much too late resistence came. Possessed by liquor, lust, and hate the soldiers plundered villages, and women fled with children as the martyrs for expansion bled beneath the surgeon's knife, and officers rejoiced amidst the triumph, while decision-makers voiced their pleasure as the Halls of Montezuma stood awaiting them. And noting that our neighbor would be paid, we reveled in a virtuous facade, for not "by conquest" did we take their land, "thank God." |