Opposition to the war
In the U.S., increasingly divided by
sectional rivalry, the war was a partisan issue and an essential element in the
origins of the American Civil War. Most
Whigs in the North and South opposed it;
[23] most Democrats supported it.
[24] Southern
Democrats, animated by a popular belief in
Manifest Destiny, supported it in hopes of adding territory to the South and avoiding being outnumbered by the faster-growing North. John O'Sullivan, the editor of the "Democratic Review", coined this phrase in its context, stating that it must be "Our manifest destiny to overspread the continent alloted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions."
[25] Northern anti-slavery elements feared the rise of a
Slave Power; Whigs generally wanted to strengthen the economy with industrialization, not expand it with more land. Democrats wanted more land; northern Democrats were attracted by the possibilities in the far northwest.
Joshua Giddings led a group of dissenters in Washington D.C. He called the war with Mexico "an aggressive, unholy, and unjust war," and voted against supplying soldiers and weapons. He said:
In the murder of Mexicans upon their own soil, or in robbing them of their country, I can take no part either now or here-after. The guilt of these crimes must rest on others. I will not participate in them
.
[26]Fellow Whig
Abraham Lincoln contested the causes for the war and demanded to know exactly where Thornton had been attacked and American blood shed. "Show me the spot," he demanded. Whig leader
Robert Toombs of
Georgia declared:
This war is nondescript .... We charge the President with usurping the war-making power ... with seizing a country ... which had been for centuries, and was then in the possession of the Mexicans .... Let us put a check upon this lust of dominion. We had territory enough, Heaven knew."
;
[27]Northern
abolitionists attacked the war as an attempt by slave-owners—frequently referred to as "the
Slave Power"—to strengthen the grip of
slavery and thus ensure their continued influence in the federal government. Acting on his convictions,
Henry David Thoreau was jailed for his refusal to pay taxes to support the war, and penned his famous essay,
Civil Disobedience.
Former President
John Quincy Adams also expressed his belief that the war was primarily an effort to expand slavery in a speech he gave before the House on May 25, 1846.
[28] In response to such concerns, Democratic Congressman
David Wilmot introduced the
Wilmot Proviso, which aimed to prohibit slavery in new territory acquired from Mexico. Wilmot's proposal did not pass Congress, but it spurred further hostility between the factions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican%E2%80%93American_War
