THE MEXICAN WAR – BACKGROUND CAUSES OF CONFLICT
The Mexican-American War of 1846-1848, like all wars, occurred because of various historical and political conditions preceding it. One of the biggest concepts leading to the first major conflict between the U.S. and Mexico was the idea of Manifest Destiny. Incorporated within the concept of Manifest Destiny was the ideas that Americans and America had a God-given right to push the borders of the nation from sea to shining sea. This concept would empower Americans and their government with the notion that they could extend their presence and jurisdiction from coast to coast regardless of the sentiments or land-rights of their neighbors to the North or South. After President Jefferson acquired the Louisiana Territory in the early nineteenth century, Americans had continued to migrate west in ever greater numbers. Often this migration saw Americans occupy lands that did not legally belong to the United States. The War of 1812 had sent America on a path of expansion based on an evangelical fervor, “The War of 1812 hastened the growth of a nationalism which warped the American view of her role into a divine mission to evangelize the rest of the world with her one true way…From the beginning of the nation American leaders had cultivated the myth of democratic egalitarianism, and naturally this concept became the cornerstone of the new national religion…America, Americans believed, represented the wave of the future and the hope of mankind. Her mission was to carry the gospel to the rest of the world, especially those nations suffering the plague of autocracy” (Bauer 1-2).
President Polk took office in 1845, and by this time the concept of Manifest Destiny had taken firm root in the American mentality. With more Americans moving west and a president who was a strong advocate of expansion, the concept of Manifest Destiny continued to grow in popularity. Americans overlo...