Title: Manifest Destiny and President Polk | RealClearHistory
Headings: Manifest Destiny and President Polk
Manifest Destiny and President Polk
Oregon Territory
Mexican-American War
Post Presidency of James Polk
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Content: Ulysses Grant, who fought in the war, later wrote that sending forces to the border was a purposeful provocation by Polk to start a war: “ We were sent to provoke a fight, but it was essential that Mexico should commence it.” After the United States won the war, the 1948 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo granted the Southwest to America, including the modern states of California, Nevada, New Mexico and Arizona. The United States paid Mexico $15 million for the land, plus paid another $3 million in Mexican debts. On a cost per square mile basis, this was almost twice the cost of the Louisiana Territory. Slavery divided opinion on the war. Southerners tended to support it, wanting to expand slavery. Some Northerners opposed it, wanting to prevent any slavery expansion. Abraham Lincoln, in Congress at the time, came out against the war. He said the incident at the Rio Grande was over disputed territory, not American soil.