What do you think of this?

Question

This is something that Frederick Douglas said

"They (who favor Mexican War) have
Succeded in robbing Mexico her
Territory. And they are rejoicing
over their sucess under the hypocritical
pretense of regard for peace. Had they not
succed in robbing Mexico of the most important
and most valuable part of her territory, many
of those now loudest in cries of favor
for peace would be loudest and wildest
for war.... we are not the people to
rejoice. We ought ratter blush and hang
our heads for shame"

Answer 1

Nice poem. But Frederick does not know what the hell he's talking about. Is he talking about Mexico or another Country. Because he sure as hell is not talking about the USA.

Answer 2

I did not know the existence of this text but I completely agree with the words of the author.

I am Mexican living in Mexico City and I think that lost of our territory during XIX century was terrible, although we can not blame it all to the Americans. Our presidents (and specially Antonio López de Santana) were an arquetypical example of dictators without a real knowledge of what was the real extension of our richness as a newly born country (Mexico got Independence from Spain until 1821).

What I can judge is the attitude of the ambitious Americans that taking advantage of our critical situation in those fatidic years just bite lands as much as they can, of the then Mexican territories while us were trying to understand what we had to do in order to be a free newly born country (we were mess up in terrible civil wars due to political and ideological differences in order to gain the power).

If some Americans (as Douglas shows himself) dedicated some words to those people I thank him but unfortunately, the actions produced their results and now we just have a country of less than a half of what it could be.

Thanks to you for letting us know these verses!

Good luck!

ADDITIONAL NOTE: Bonecrusher is maybe right, we have received what we deserve due to our fragile stability in those hard times. After three hundred years of Spanish domination and without experience in governing such a great territory maybe give the Americans their opportunity to take advantage on this situation.

But I can tell you that what Mexico did not deserve was the existence of ambititious people like Polk just trying to get the better from the worst: "Mexico was swamped by political struggles so, here we go to catch what we can from it"

Answer 3

It's one man's opinion. It sounds a lot like today's bleeding heart, left wing liberal Democrats in Congress.
Texas was once part of Mexico. The people there decided they wanted to be free of Mexico. Remember the Alamo?
Europeans took away land from many different tribes of natives to form the country, in the first place.
Frequently borders are changed after wars. I do not agree with Mr. Douglas.

Answer 4

I think Frederick Douglas was a great American but I don't agree with what he said.

"To the victors go the spoils"

Answer 5

Frederick Douglas was a great american, but I do not agree with him on this. There was no land stolen. The land was bought.

Answer 6

Mexico got what they deserved

Shut up Paco, in an earlier question you thought Zachery Taylor was from the civil war, proves you know nothing of what your speaking right now

Answer 7

Yes, anyone smart knows the the United States STOLE the land from Mexico. We can't give robbery another name, but even if they did, now it's theirs. The fact that they stole it from Mexico doesn't mean it's still theirs. If that was so, Mexico would also have to give Central America all South Mexico.

Answer 8

Its lame considering my ancesters DID NOT LOSE THE LAND THEY OWNED!! They still have it today! Stop the lies and whining!

Answer 9

i read that in my history book. i agree wit him, american settlers started crossin to mexico's territory, mexico got mad, n then the president started a war when mexico didnt wanna give up their land. so yeah, we pretty much stole mexico's land...

Answer 10

Hmmmm,very interesting ! Shhhh,don't say it too loud,the racists might hear you.