"Was the US justified in going to war with Mexico..." Topic
12 Posts
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Tango01  | 09 Nov 2025 3:40 p.m. PST |
… in 1846? Of possible interest?
Free to read
PDF link
Armand
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 John the OFM | 09 Nov 2025 7:59 p.m. PST |
Lincoln certainly didn't think so. |
| ThunderAZ | 09 Nov 2025 8:10 p.m. PST |
Not picking sides here. I just happened to have watched a somewhat related video that I'm sure you will have opinions about: link |
 Editor in Chief Bill   | 09 Nov 2025 8:42 p.m. PST |
Beats me, but my great-grandfather drove wagon trains out of Veracruz for the US Army. When he eventually got to Mexico City, he found both his brothers there, one of them running a hotel!  |
| John the OFM | 09 Nov 2025 10:23 p.m. PST |
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 Wolfshanza | 09 Nov 2025 10:35 p.m. PST |
They did an interesting movie on the San patricios. Think it was called ' One mans Hero' ? |
| Frederick | 10 Nov 2025 6:07 a.m. PST |
No disrespect but at least in the historical community I know locally they would regard this as a dodgy justification for a straight out war of conquest Which, to be fair, was pretty much the pattern for most of the 19th century for most European countries as well – they just did it on different continents |
| doc mcb | 10 Nov 2025 8:29 a.m. PST |
Short answer, yes. First, recall that the Mexicans never accepted Texan independence, invaded Texas at least twice in 1840 (iirc), so the 1846 war was really the end of the decade of war that began in 1835. The Texan revolt was justified because Santa Anna had overthrown the liberal constitution of 1824 (did I get that date right>) Yes, the Texans had slaves, but the Mexicans had peonage that was pretty nearly as bad and a lot more widespread. And slavery ended in Texas long before peons were freed in Mexico. The Spanish and then Mexican southwest was quite undeveloped, with no roads, few cities, and a small population. American conquest was inevitable, and justified. |
| TimePortal | 10 Nov 2025 9:50 a.m. PST |
In the 1800s, the Mexican army was highly regarded. A long term professional army. The USA army was ranked fourth, iirc. One writer had them lower since they counted the Russians in Alaska, British in Canada, battle experienced South American due to their conflicts.
So it was a big upset |
| Red Jacket | 10 Nov 2025 11:11 a.m. PST |
This question can be related to something posed by John OFM a while back when he commented about sites claiming to have identified the "top 5 or top 10" of anything. In the absence of some type of quantifiable basis for the ranking, the sites are simply opinion. Was the Mexican War justified, they seemed to think it was at the time. We can lament "poor Mexico" ruthlessly attacked by the evil Yankees who were just interested in greedy conquest. You can find a reason to question the legitimacy of just about any war. The American Revolution was an economic war at its root. Does that mean that it wasn't justified? I believe that we have to judge history by the contemporary values of the time. Trying to judge history by our modern values is folly. I assume that most of us can agree that the American Civil War was a war that had to be fought. The Spanish American war was probably not a "justified" war, but it had a lot of popular support at the time. WWI, from the American perspective, I don't know. Germany was sinking ships, but those ships were carrying very profitable American munitions going to the Allies. America could have survived without going to war, but it would have lost millions in trade and in loans to the Allies. WWII probably had to be fought to protect America's position in the World economy. More importantly, I think that America would have had to fight Japan and probably Germany at some point because the Axis powers were fundamentally aggressive. From our modern perspective, WWII was a good war because Germany and Japan were evil, in the way that they conquered weaker nations and because of how they were treating minorities and conquered populations. At the time, the U.S. government knew about the concentration camps and the treatment of the Jews and Japan's treatment of conquered peoples and did not really care. If you read contemporary news papers, there were a lot of articles about persecution and concentration camps. The extent of mass extermination may not have been fully understood, however, nobody was particularly interested in helping the at risk populations. [Warning: Extremely simplistic analysis] The Korean War was politically justified given the alignment of the world at the time. If North Korea's invasion of the south [supported by the Soviets and Communist China] was allowed to stand, I believe that China and possibly Russia would look to "pick-off" other capitalist countries. A line had to be drawn. If we can conclude that the Korean War was justified, then Vietnam was also justified as another example of Communist imperialism. I know that conclusion is not popular, however, it is at least consistent. Most of the world agreed that the Gulf War was justified, however, it can also be seen as nothing more that an aggrieved country seeking to recover its historic territory that was unjustly seized by colonial powers and then given to the current ruling family. It turned in to be a good war because there was a large number of nations that agreed that Iraq had to be stopped. [To avoid a very contentious topic, I will omit any comment on the Second Gulf War and the Afghan incursion] Circling back to the start, was the Mexican American War justified? I think it depends on how you look at it. At the time, it had popular support. There were opponents, but the war still went forward. As far as the seizure of Mexican territory, it wasn't Mexican for very long, only about 30 years. The territory was Spanish that was taken by Mexico through war. Before the Spanish, the territory belonged to the indigenous peoples who acquired rights to the land through conquest. It is simply impossible to quantify "justification" while trying to apply modern values to something that took place almost 200 years ago. If I was forced to give a yes or no answer, I think yes, the war was justified. The seized territory would have had to become American at some point or the US would have been economically disadvantaged and the potential of the territory would not have been realized for decades, if ever. Look at Mexico today, it has vast natural wealth and it is still something close to a failed state. Mexico had not developed as a country by the time of the war and probably would not have for years. the government was unstable and the economy was in the hands of a few large landowners. Texas, which gained its independence through war, just as Mexico fought for its independence from Spain. The people of Texas asked to join the US and it was in the best interests of the US to agree. The rest of the territory, as mentioned above, was "conquest," however, I have never read anything that leads me to believe that the majority of the people in those territories were opposed to American sovereignty, with the exception of the Indians, who just wanted to be left alone. |
| Tango01 | 10 Nov 2025 3:54 p.m. PST |
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| Tgerritsen | 11 Nov 2025 8:14 p.m. PST |
Just out of curiosity, why does it matter? Either we were, and we won, or we weren't but we still won. What then? Do we give it back? Does every winner of an unjust war have to give the land back? Or is there a statute of limitations? Who decides the justification? |
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