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12/12/21 8:17 PM

#393691 RE: brooklyn13 #393682

In this one slavery isn't mentioned until about halfway. To then the Mexican-American War looks more a territorial dispute than anything else.

Mexican-American War, also called Mexican War, Spanish Guerra de 1847 or Guerra de Estados Unidos a Mexico (“War of the United States Against Mexico”), war between the United States and Mexico (April 1846–February 1848) stemming from the United States’ annexation of Texas in 1845 and from a dispute over whether Texas ended at the Nueces River (Mexican claim) or the Rio Grande (U.S. claim).

[...]

Congress overwhelmingly approved a declaration of war on May 13, but the United States entered the war divided. Democrats, especially those in the Southwest, strongly favoured the conflict. Most Whigs viewed Polk’s motives as conscienceless land grabbing. Indeed, from the outset, Whigs in both the Senate and the House challenged the veracity of Polk’s assertion that the initial conflict between U.S. and Mexican forces had taken place in U.S. territory. Further, legislators were at odds over whether Polk had the right to unilaterally declare that a state of war existed. Principally at issue was where the encounter had actually taken place and the willingness of Americans to acknowledge the Mexican contention .. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/contention .. that the Nueces River formed the border between the two countries.

[...]

Abolitionists saw the war as an attempt by the slave states to extend slavery and enhance their power with the creation of additional slave states out of the soon-to-be-acquired Mexican lands. One abolitionist who agreed with that interpretation was author Henry David Thoreau .. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Henry-David-Thoreau , who was incarcerated in July 1846 when he refused to pay six years’ worth of back poll taxes because he felt the U.S. government’s prosecution of the war with Mexico was immoral. Although he spent only a single night in jail (his aunt, against his wishes, paid the taxes, thus securing his release), Thoreau documented his opposition to the government’s actions in his famous book-length essay Civil Disobedience .. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Civil-Disobedience-essay-by-Thoreau (1849), insisting that if an injustice of government is
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of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.
Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine.
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Invasion and war

When war broke out, former Mexican president and general Antonio López de Santa Anna (the vanquisher of the Texan forces at the Alamo in 1836) contacted Polk. The U.S. president arranged for a ship to take Santa Anna from his exile in Cuba to Mexico for the purpose of working for peace. Instead of acting for peace, however, on his return, Santa Anna took charge of the Mexican forces.


Mexican-American War: Battle of Buena Vista
Battle of Buena Vista, lithograph, 1848.
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

Following its original plan for the war, the United States sent its army from the Rio Grande, under Taylor, to invade the heart of Mexico while a second force, under Col. Stephen Kearny, was to occupy New Mexico and California. Kearny’s campaign into New Mexico and California encountered little resistance, and the residents of both provinces appeared to accept U.S. occupation with a minimum of resentment. Meanwhile, Taylor’s army fought several battles south of the Rio Grande, captured the important city of Monterrey, and defeated a major Mexican force at the Battle of Buena Vista in February 1847. But Taylor showed no enthusiasm for a major invasion of Mexico, and on several occasions he failed to pursue the Mexicans vigorously after defeating them. In disgust, Polk revised his war strategy. He ordered Gen. Winfield Scott to take an army by sea to Veracruz, capture that key seaport, and march inland to Mexico City. Scott took Veracruz in March after a siege of three weeks and began the march to Mexico City. Despite some Mexican resistance, Scott’s campaign was marked by an unbroken series of victories, and he entered Mexico City on September 14, 1847. The fall of the Mexican capital ended the military phase of the conflict.

https://www.britannica.com/event/Mexican-American-War/Invasion-and-war

Odds and ends of time past:

"An animation showing slave and free states and territories, 1789–1861." Background
2014 - https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=100830521

The GOP on the Eve of Destruction

[...]

All of these sad examples are but symptoms of a deeper disease – the corruption and debasement of society, government and politics. It is a disease that eats away at the root and heart of what democracy is all about. Remember the opening phrase of the Preamble to the Constitution committing “We, the People” to the most remarkable compact of self-government ever – for the good of all? The Republicans are shredding that vision as they make a bonfire of the hopes that inspired it and, in the process, reduce the United States to a third-rate, sorry excuse for a nation.

Why? For an analogy and an answer we have to go back to the slave-holding Democrats of the 1840s and 50s who were prepared to destroy the Union if necessary to protect and expand the brutal system of human slavery on which their economy and way of life were built. The extremism and polarization engendered made it impossible for politics peacefully to resolve the moral dilemma facing our country. If the Republicans – and the first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln — had not championed and fought to preserve the Union and its government, the United States would have been no more.

Now it is the Republicans who are willing to wreck the country to maintain the gross inequality that divides us
– inequality which rewards the party leaders and their donors, just as slavery rewarded white supremacists. They would tear the Republic apart, rip to pieces its already fragile social compact, and reap the whirlwind of a failed experiment in self-government.
2015 - https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=118970406

Fury at top of Republican Party over Trump snub of House speaker
[...]
More than any other major figure in the Republican establishment, Priebus worked to bring Trump into the party's fold despite the New York businessman's status as an outsider. Trump, who had never previously run for public office, beat 16 rivals to become the Republican presidential nominee for the Nov. 8 election.
P - Ahead of last month's Republican Party Convention, the RNC chairman sought to rally the fractured party behind Trump. Priebus feels burned by Trump's string of self-inflicted wounds and his refusal to observe basic decorum by giving Ryan his support.
[...]
Trump's feud with the Khans was the final straw for Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger, a former Air Force pilot and Iraq war veteran. Kinzinger, who had held off supporting Trump, told CNN on Wednesday: "I just don’t see how I get to Donald Trump anymore."
2016 - https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=124328388