were troubled by Mexico's Catholicism, weak republicanism, and threat of an upsurge in nationalism. Failure The controversy was eventually ended by the Mexican Cession, which added the territories of Alta California and Nuevo México to the United States, both more sparsely populated than the rest of Mexico. Like the All of Oregon movement, the All of Mexico movement quickly abated. The historian Frederick Merk, in Manifest Destiny and Mission in American History: A Reinterpretation (1963), argued that the failure of the All of Oregon and All of Mexico movements indicates that manifest destiny had not been as popular as historians have traditionally portrayed it to have been. Merk wrote that belief in the beneficent mission of democracy was central to American history, but aggressive "continentalism" was an aberration supported by only a minority of Americans, mostly Democrats, but opposed by Whigs and some Democrats. Thus, Louisiana Democrats opposed the annexation of Mexico, while those in Mississippi supported it. See also Golden Circle References Further reading Fuller, John Douglas Pitts. The Movement for the Acquisition of All Mexico, 1846-1848. Baltimore 1936. Lambert, Paul F. "The Movement for the Acquisition of All Mexico." Journal of the West XI (April 1972) pp. 317-27. History of United States expansionism 1840s in the United States 1840s in Mexico Expansion of slavery in the United States Mexican–American War