Question

you have been reading about the war between the United States and Mexico from 1846 to 1848. It sprang out of a dispute between two countries over the southern border of Texas. The U.S. claimed the Rio Grande as the border, while Mexico claimed the Nueves River farther north. Each based its claim, in part, on agreements made at the end of the Texas war for independence, which ended in 1836. Each also based its claim on nationalism, or national self-interest, and a desire to expand its territory. For this portfolio project, you will explore different perspectives regarding the Mexican-American War. You will then present your findings in a short essay. Your final product will describe each point of view. It should give historically accurate facts.
write a 5 paragraph essay on this. Also, i think the mexican american war was justified

Answer 1

can u redo the last paragraph?

Answer 2

The Mexican–American War (1846–1848) grew out of a bitter dispute over Texas’s southern border after the United States annexed the Republic of Texas in 1845. The U.S. government, led by President James K. Polk, insisted that the Rio Grande was the legitimate border; Mexico insisted the boundary remained the Nueces River farther north. Each side based its claim partly on arrangements and assertions dating to Texas’s 1836 war for independence (including the Treaties of Velasco, which Mexico never accepted) and partly on competing national interests: American expansionism (often described as Manifest Destiny) and Mexican efforts to preserve territory and sovereignty. The war produced decisive results: following the conflict the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (Feb. 2, 1848) recognized the Rio Grande as Texas’s border, ceded vast territories (California, present-day Nevada and Utah, most of Arizona and New Mexico, and parts of Colorado and Wyoming) to the United States, and required the U.S. to pay $15 million and assume certain claims against Mexico.

From the American expansionist perspective the war was an extension of Manifest Destiny and a legitimate defense of settlers’ rights. Many Americans and their leaders argued that Texas had been an independent republic since 1836 and that once annexed it deserved secure borders; Polk and his supporters pointed to the Thornton Affair (skirmishes between U.S. troops and Mexican forces in April 1846) as proof that American blood had been shed on American soil and used that to justify asking Congress for a declaration of war. Expansionists also saw economic and strategic advantages in acquiring California and other territories on the Pacific coast. For these reasons many in the U.S. government and the public treated military action as an acceptable means of resolving a border dispute and of fulfilling national ambitions.

Mexico’s perspective emphasized sovereignty and legal continuity. Mexico never accepted the legitimacy of Texas’s full independence after 1836, viewed the Treaties of Velasco as invalid because they were signed under duress, and therefore considered the Nueces River its northern border. Mexican leaders and citizens saw the American annexation and subsequent troop movements as aggressive violations of their territory. The Mexican government, poorly equipped and politically unstable at the time, nevertheless fought to defend what it regarded as national soil. The war devastated parts of Mexico, produced large numbers of military and civilian casualties, and left Mexicans with a deep sense of grievance over the loss of roughly half their territory.

Not all Americans supported the war. Prominent opponents included Whigs such as Abraham Lincoln (whose “Spot Resolutions” demanded Polk show where blood had been shed on U.S. soil) and many abolitionists who argued the war was a pro-slavery land grab to expand slaveholding territory. Critics accused the Polk administration of manufacturing a casus belli and warned that the new territories would intensify sectional tensions in the United States. Beyond partisan politics, the war’s human cost—about 13,000 American deaths, most from disease, and thousands more Mexican casualties—along with the displacement and suffering of Indigenous peoples and Tejanos, made the conflict morally contentious in both countries.

In my view the Mexican–American War can be justified on the grounds that the United States acted to secure what it regarded as an annexed territory and to protect its citizens along an asserted border, and that the acquisition of the Pacific coast had lasting strategic and economic significance. At the same time it is important to acknowledge the valid objections: Mexico’s claim to the Nueces border had legal and moral weight, the Polk administration’s motives included expansionist ambitions tied to slavery, and the human costs were severe. A balanced historical judgment recognizes both the American arguments for enforcing a border after annexation and the Mexican perspective of violated sovereignty; given the complexity, one can defend the U.S. decision to go to war while still recognizing the ethical and political controversies that make the conflict a deeply contested episode in both nations’ histories.