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In July 1846, as two armies were massing south of the Rio Grande, a philosopher and poet in Massachusetts refused to pay his poll tax and spent a night in the Concord jail to protest what he viewed as an unjust war. It was, he said, the work of a few individuals who were using the government as their tool. Because peace-loving citizens respected the law, they gave support to a governmental decision that was turning men into "a file of soldiers--colonel, captain, corporal, privates, powder monkeys, and all--marching in admirable order over hill and dale to the wars, against their will, ay, against their common sense and consciences ...." Its eloquence notwithstanding, Henry David Thoreau's protest did little to diminish the enthusiasm with which regiments from New Hampshire, North Carolina, Kentucky, or Illinois marched to the Mexican War. But his theme was revived 120 years later, along with a brief interest in that war, as protest mounted against the United States' involvement in Vietnam. The two wars were described as acts of aggression, in which a strong nation attacked the weak, to wrest concessions that apparently could not be gained through negotiation. Although each war was justified by its supporters as being fought to preserve fundamental beliefs--the doctrine of Manifest Destiny, in one case, and the right of a nation to choose its own destiny, in the other--these principles were of dubious merit. Both wars were proclaimed to be immoral misadventures that ultimately divided the nation and tarnished its reputation. This comparison did not go unanswered. Students of history were quick to point out that Mexico and the United States were essentially equal in the 1840s and that Mexico, indeed, had a much stronger military tradition. At the outset many European observers believed that the upstart Yankees would receive the drubbing they so clearly deserved. Always outnumbered, sometimes five to one, the U.S. forces consisted largely of volunteers led by officers whose only combat experience came from battles with the Indians. Moreover, Mexico had been clamoring for war in its newspapers and in the oratory of its politicians. By adopting a bellicose attitude and refusing to bargain, Mexico was as much at fault as its neighbor to the north. Thus ran a typical exchange in this brief, impassioned debate of the 1960s. But public attention quickly shifted, and the Mexican War was consigned once more to the Limbo of history, where it has wandered for more than a century in the company of other events that are deemed irrelevant to modern concerns. So the question now is "Why remember?" What meaning can be found in a lithograph of the Battle of Buena Vista or a song written to commemorate those who died in the war? Unless we like quaint illustrations or have a fondness for names and dates from the past, why should we stop to look at photographs of mementos and artifacts from this forgotten war? One reason, of course, is that Mexico remembers. Each September the nation pays tribute to Los Niños Héroes, the six cadets who gave their lives in defense of Chapultepec Castle and thereby gained immortality as the nation's symbol of patriotism. But Mexicans also harbor dark memories of a humiliating defeat that stripped the nation of almost half its territory. For decades after signing the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, Mexico regarded the United States with a burning hatred that it was powerless to express. In his lithograph of General Scott's triumphant entry into Mexico City, the German-born artist Carl Nebel deftly sketches the Mexican attitude in a few citizens who watch the Yanquis in cautious silence, while a beggar snatches up a cobblestone to hurl at the conquerors. Another reason to remember is the hope that an understanding of the past may shed light upon the character of the modern Southwest with its pride, its prejudices, its diverse cultures that often jostle but do not easily intermingle, its profound mistrust of federal government, and its impatience with the genteel process of negotiation. Although the Southwest has undergone great changes in the past 150 years, the region retains the imprint of those attitudes that separated it from Mexico and joined it to the United States. BY OFFICIAL RECORD, the Mexican War lasted from 1846 to 1848, but the origins of hostility may be dated to 1836, when the United States supported the Texas revolution; or to 1821, when Mexico gained independence from Spain and came into possession of the Southwest; or to 1819, when the United States conceded with reluctance that the Louisiana Territory did not extend to the Rio Grande, as the French had sometimes claimed. It was, in short, a war for territory that the United States intended to possess--territory that President James K. Polk preferred to purchase but was willing to fight for. The ultimate provocation to war, in the eyes of Polk and the Congress, was the Mexican ambush of a scouting party in disputed territory on the north side of the Rio Grande. To judge by the documents that survive, the war was welcomed by most people in the United States. Eager for the nation to grow, many citizens suspected that negotiation was a sign of weakness. They perceived war as an appropriate solution to the conflict over territorial rights. When the call went out for volunteers, recruiting officers could have filled many regiments beyond their quota. The cause of expansion, the patriotism of the volunteers, and the winning ways of commanders were heralded in story and song. Not everyone supported the war, but the majority seemed convinced that their cause was just. "American blood," they said, "has been spilled on American soil." Such iniquity demanded a military response. Mexican leaders did not believe, however, that the ambush was iniquitous or even aggressive. By right, the land was theirs (a point that was tacitly conceded in the United States' offer of purchase), and it had been invaded by a hostile army upon orders of the U.S. President. Moreover, the United States had annexed Texas and was clearly planning to take California as well. In fact, an impulsive Yanqui, Commodore Thomas Ap Catesby Jones, had invaded the California port of Monterey in 1842 and forced the Mexican governor to surrender, before learning that the two nations were not yet at war. Impoverished by incessant revolutions, Mexico could ill-afford to equip and maintain an army, yet political instability left the country with no choice. For more than a decade, each president had followed the same route to office, proclaiming that a Yanqui invasion was imminent and denouncing the man in office for failing to take action. Having come to power by this same argument, President Mariano Paredes y Arillaga found himself confronted by an invading army, and he could not escape acting upon his word. On April 23, 1846, he formally declared a defensive war against the United States. If ambition and the tactics of politicians propelled Mexico into war, a comparable level of ambition and fiercely partisan politics muddled the United States' conduct of that war. President Polk fervently hoped that he could assign a Democrat as field commander in Mexico, but the qualified generals were not only members of the Whig party but also potential nominees for the presidency. Thus, every decision that he made was viewed as a political ploy to advance or discredit his opponents. When he tried to circumvent the generals and their politics by negotiating an end to the war, Polk succeeded in handing back to Mexico its exiled leader, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, who prolonged the conflict by another year. There is no clearer illustration of Mexico's capacity to baffle and frustrate the expectations of the United States than the career of Santa Anna. Five times elevated to the presidency and five times ousted for his apparent betrayal of the national good, he veered unpredictably from the crafty to the maladroit in his exercise of leadership. Although he came close to defeating General Zachary Taylor's forces at Buena Vista, he withdrew from the field under cover of night. When he turned to confront General Winfield Scott's troops, who had made the United States' first amphibious landing at Veracruz, he was so confident of his battle plan that he brushed aside all reports that conflicted with his schemes. As he fell back from Cerro Gordo to Contreras to Churubusco and finally to Chapultepec, he remained confident that he would somehow emerge victorious. This conviction cost thousands of lives. Five thousand U.S. soldiers--one in every five--died during the seventeen months of armed conflict, chiefly from infection and disease. The toll of Mexican losses was far higher: 25,000 men died, and countless more were wounded and maimed in the savage battles. Ill-clothed, seldom paid, often unfed, poorly trained, badly equipped, and not always well-commanded, the Mexican soldiers put up a valiant but hopeless fight. In the end they fought for the honor of dying for their country.
FROM THIS WAR that is so seldom remembered, the United States emerged with its prize: one-half million square miles of new territory containing riches untold. It emerged also with a classic essay on the moral responsibility of citizens, Thoreau's Civil Disobedience, and a well-trained corps of officers who would put their combat skills to devastating use against each other in the Civil War. Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, "Stonewall" Jackson, and William T. Sherman, among others, gained their first combat experience in Mexico. But the victory also confirmed and strengthened the force of unfortunate Yanqui attitudes that the Mexicans had found so very threatening: a fierce intolerance of Catholicism; a conviction that the Mexicans, like the Indians and Negroes, were an inferior race; a belief that people who did not speak English were ignorant; and an open scorn for different attitudes toward the uses to be made of time and the land. These very attitudes had provoked armed rebellion in New Mexico and California after both states had surrendered almost without resistance, and they led also to the formation of the San Patricios, a battalion consisting primarily of Irish Catholic soldiers who deserted to fight for Mexico in the war. After the war, these same attitudes were directed against Mexicans who had lived in the Southwest for generations. Many had their ancestral lands taken by force or through lengthy court battles; others could not endure the open contempt of their customs and traditions or the public sanctions that restricted their freedom. Homeless in their homeland, they went to Mexico or to states like Louisiana, where cultural diversity was accepted. Some Mexicans remained in the Southwest, however, becoming citizens of the United States or its territories; and they were joined by others who migrated northward in the wake of revolution, famine, or other catastrophes that beset Mexico in successive decades.
TODAY THE SOUTHWEST stands in ironic reversal of its situation in 1845. Now it is part of the United States, and the people who stand at its boundaries, poised to enter either legally or illegally, are Mexicans, once the possessors of the land. As they increase in numbers, they are reasserting the language, the religion, and the customs that once defined the culture of the Southwest. This time it is they who challenge the Yanquis: for economic opportunity, for individual rights and liberties, and for tolerance of their cultural differences. They are, in short, challenging the people of the Southwest to share the destiny that was promised by the land.
For Younger Readers
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