Kecz Notes--in case my computer betrays me

MEXICAN WAR

Viewing Polk's victory as a public mandate for Texas annexation, President Tyler recommended that the "lame duck" Congress by joint resolution offer to annex Texas. A joint resolution requested only a majority vote of both Houses, while a treaty could be ratified only by a two-thirds vote of the Senate. Congress passed the resolution in February, and President Tyler signed it on March 1, 1845, three days before Polk's inauguration. Mexico then broke off diplomatic relations with the United States.
1845
In June, Polk ordered Brigadier General Zachary Taylor to move his forces into the disputed area (Rio Grande), and by July, Taylor had established a base on the south bank of the Nueces near Corpus Christi. In November, upon receiving confirmation that the Mexican government was prepared to receive a commissioner to discuss the boundary issue, Polk dispatched John Slidell, a Louisiana politician, to Mexico as Minister Plenipotentiary. He instructed Slidell to discuss three other outstanding issues: the purchase of California, the purchase of New Mexico, and the payment of damages to American nationals for losses incurred in Mexican revolutions. Slidell was authorized to offer twenty-five million dollars for California and five million dollars for New Mexico, and to propose United States assumption of American damage claims against the Mexican government in return for its recognition of the Rio Grande boundary.
Slidell reached Mexico City on December 6. The government of President José Joaquín Herrera, however, in response to growing domestic opposition to negotiations, refused to receive him. On January 13, 1846, the day after Slidell's report of the refusal reached him, Polk ordered Taylor to advance through the disputed territory to the Rio Grande. Meanwhile, in late December, the Herrera government was overthrown, in part because of its alleged lack of firmness toward the United States. The new President, General Mariano Paredes y Arrillaga, reaffirmed Mexico's claim to Texas and pledged himself to defend Mexican territory. On March 12, 1846, replying to Slidell's final inquiry, Paredes, too, refused to receive the American minister.
Slidell reported to Polk in Washington on May 8. During the Saturday morning of May 9, the Cabinet met and approved Polk's recommendation to ask Congress on Tuesday for a declaration of war. In the afternoon, news arrived from Taylor that on April 25 a large Mexican force had crossed the Rio Grande and surrounded a smaller American reconnaissance party; when it attempted to break out of the encirclement, eleven Americans were killed and the rest wounded or captured. The Cabinet reconvened and endorsed an immediate request for a declaration of war.
Polk's strategy was to occupy Mexico's northern provinces, blockade Mexican ports, and conquer New Mexico and California. By September, Taylor's army had taken Monterrey in northern Mexico, and by January, 1847, American forces in the West had secured New Mexico and California. Although successful militarily, the strategy failed to bring Mexico to terms; in order to do so, Polk decided to shift the major military effort from the northern periphery to the heart of the country. The plan called for Major General Winfield Scott to take Vera Cruz, march through the mountains, and capture Mexico City.

Mexico City had been captured, and President Santa Anna had abdicated. Fearing anarchy and the need for further campaigns, Scott and Trist hoped to secure an immediate peace. Because of the exigencies of the situation, Trist ignored his recall and negotiated the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, ratified by the Senate on March 10, 1848. By the treaty, Mexico relinquished New Mexico and California; in return the United States paid Mexico fifteen million dollars and assumed the claims of its citizens.
Source Citation:"The Mexican War, 1846-1848." DISCovering World History. Online ed. Detroit: Gale, 2003. Discovering Collection. Thomson Gale. Joplin High School (MO). 15 Dec. 2007
"The slave-based cotton production boomed as the number of slaves in Texas increased from 12,500 in 1840 to almost 170,000 in 1860."
Source Citation:"Texas Annexation." Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History. Ed. Thomas Carson and Mary Bonk. Detroit: Gale Group, 1999. Discovering Collection. Thomson Gale. Joplin High School (MO). 16 Dec. 2007


OREGON


Wilmot Proviso
David Wilmot introduced an amendment to the bill stipulating that none of the territory acquired in the Mexican War should be open to slavery

Author not available, WILMOT PROVISO., The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition 2007
The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Copyright 2007 Columbia University Press


In 1827 the two powers reconfirmed arrangements made in 1818 which provided for joint occupation of the territory and free entry of American and British subjects into Oregon without prejudice to the claims of either power.
Although immigration of Americans was not to become large until after 1841 (when great numbers of pioneers, possessed by "Oregon fever", came plodding west over the Oregon Trail), the stage was set in the 1830's by the missionary activities of Jason Lee, Marcus Whitman, and others who spread tales of Oregon's rich soil and mild climate. In 1845 alone, some three thousand immigrants reached this promised land, and by the end of that year there were about five thousand Americans in the region south of the Columbia river compared with some seven hundred British (almost all fur trappers and traders) north of the river.
the President privately approached Richard Pakenham, British Minister to the United States, with an offer to divide Oregon at latitude 49°. Though hardly a great step toward compromise, 49° was much less threatening than 54° 40′, since previous administrations had proposed a similar settlement on three occasions. Pakenham committed the grievous error of rejecting the proposal upon his own initiative. Polk now could portray himself as the injured party, and abruptly withdrew the 49° compromise.
----Bowing to the sentiments of his cabinet, Polk authorized Buchanan in May 1845 to offer the British ----negotiator Richard Pakenham a compromise agreement at the 49th parallel, allowing the British free ----use of ports south of that line. For reasons that are still not fully understood, Pakenham rejected ----Buchanan's offer without submitting it to London for consideration and issued a scathing retort.
----Source Citation:"The James K. Polk Administration." Presidential Administration Profiles for Students. Ed. Kelle S. Sisung and Gerda-Ann Raffaelle. Detroit: Gale Group, 2002. Discovering Collection. Thomson Gale. Joplin High School (MO). 16 Dec. 2007

Lord Aberdeen, Foreign Secretary of Great Britain, drew up a treaty proposal which reflected almost total acceptance of American demands and suggested a boundary of 49° to the Strait of Juan de Fuca if Great Britain could be guaranteed free navigation of the Columbia river. Polk received this proposal officially on June 6, 1846, almost a month after the United States' declaration of war against Mexico. On June 10, he sent the treaty without change to the Senate. The Senate approved it two days later.
The Oregon settlement was a great diplomatic success for the United States. By more than balancing the concessions offered to the British in the Webster-Ashburton Treaty, the United States gained rich and strategically situated land to which Great Britain possessed stronger claims. This favorable outcome was not primarily Polk's achievement; to a greater extent it was a victory of time and circumstance.
Source Citation:"Oregon Claimed by United States and Great Britain, 1823-1846." DISCovering U.S. History. Online ed. Detroit: Gale, 2003. Discovering Collection. Thomson Gale. Joplin High School (MO). 16 Dec. 2007

----Providing for an extension of the 49th parallel to the Pacific coast with Vancouver Island granted in its entirety to the British, the Buchanan-Pakenham Treaty of 1846 was essentially the same as the proposal initially considered, and rejected, in 1843. It is still in force today as the boundary between the United States and Canada.