Would you agree or disagree with this statement by a young officer who fought in the Mexican War?

Question

The solider claimed that the Mexican War was "one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation."

The young soldier was Lieutenant Ulysses S. Grant.

Your thoughts?

Answer 1

absolutely...although i always thought it was abraham lincoln of the illinois militia...but then again, it's been YEARS since i took u.s. history...i can think of a more modern conflict that comes close...google the book 'fiasco'...

Answer 2

The specific evaluation "one of the most unjust ever" may be debated, as may most assertions that attempt to rank events.

But I would agree with the basic point. There was absolutely no question that THE push for annexation of Texas and then, by the war that move occasioned (to no one's surprise), to take a much larger piece of territory, was based.

The answers that have attempted to dismiss Grant's opinion on this matter are full of errors --some of them historical (see below). But, worse than that, many are based on basic logical fallacies. Specifically, the fact that you can find personal fault or weakness in an invidividual or group that holds a particular view, or can argue that it might be "in their interest" (political or otherwise) to espouse that view, do not demonstrate that the view is incorrect!

But those personal "charges" against the proponents of the view are mostly full of holes, and a look at the facts actually offers some support for their position.

To start with, whether Grant was a good or bad President is irrelevant to assessing his opinion on this matter. And the suggestion that he was drunk at the time is a clumsy smear (an ad hominem argument). Anyone who has studied Grant knows that he was not a lush, that his drinking problems seem to have been confined to specific times and situations, esp. in the period AFTER the Mexican War, not during it (nor at the end of his life, when he was writing his memoirs).

Also, it's not as if Grant was expressing his opinion for some political advantage. He wrote this in his memoirs nearly FORTY YEARS after the events, and as he way DYING of cancer.

As for the Northern Whigs and Republicans and the notion that they used opposition to the war for political advantage in the 1850s. Hardly! In fact, opposition to the war AFTER the fact was not a political winner for this group. They knew that and did not use it. (And by the way, Grant was never of this group, so the point is almost irrelevant.) Northerners had largely come to support the war and its aftermath because of the OTHER territories Polk managed to gain at that time, and because, even many critical of slavery DID share some of the EXPANSIONIST vision ("Manifest Destiny").

Again, on the "revisionism" charge. I cannot see how MODERN "political correctness" has anything to do with what GRANT wrote in 1885, or Lincoln and other Northern Whigs were saying in the 1840s!

And if the idea is that this was all cooked up for Whig and/or Republican political advantage in the 1840s-50s, well that doesn't fit the reality of that era at all! Not simply because Whigs were opposing the annexation of Texas (and then the war) in the years just BEFORE these events, and without much political gain from it then -- indeed this position is usually considered to be the one that cost Whig candidate Henry Clay this, his final, Presidential bid. (You might also consider the fact that many NON-Whigs opposed annexation, etc., including Martin VanBuren, the expected Democratic nominee, who himself lost support and the nomination in part over this issue.) No, the Whigs had opposed it for YEARS. One of my favorite images of John Quincy Adams is his "PERSONAL (one-man!) FILIBUSTER" on the floor of the House of Representatives (for three weeks!) of an attempt to annex Texas . . . in 1838. And he did NOT because he opposed all notions of expansion, but because of the pro-SLAVERY agenda of its advocates.
http://www.gilderlehrman.org/search/display_results.php?id=GLC00567

Now it IS true that there was something more to all this in that Texas of the 1840s was an independent republic which arguably could justly join another nation if it chose. But that argument does nothing to justify the use of these events to deliberately PROVOKE a war in order to take MORE territory. Further, Santa Anna's character and behavior are not necessarily irrelevant, esp to the SECOND question. It is entirely possible to condemn him and at the same time to fault the steps the U.S. took, esp. AFTER the annexation of Texas.

Answer 3

The notion that the Mexican War was purely an aggressive act by the United States caught on as part of the revisionist history that started with political correctness in modern America. The Northern faction of the Wig party, which later became the Republican party, used the argument that the Mexican War was fought as a great land grab by Southerners for the sole purpose of expanding slavery. This was politically expedient for them to grow their new party in the years leading up to the Civil War.

What is forgotten is that Santa Anna was a brutal dictator and he didn't want to recognize Texas independence or its sequential annexation by the US. Was American motivations completely pure? Of course not, but as long as Santa Anna was dictator of Mexico, war was going to happen. Most Democrats were in favor of the Mexican War and many Northerners fought in the Mexican War as well.

Answer 4

Yes, I agree. And this war was done to push slavery to the West. Abraham Lincoln, the poet Walt Whitman, Henry Throreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson were all against the war. Whitman was fired from his job as a reporter in a Brooklyn's newspaper, and Thoreau served jail term for refusing pay taxes he felt were used to support the war on Mexico.

Answer 5

Soldiers are not paid to have opinions. The military are trained to follow orders. Lt. Grant was not in charge of the country at the time, so his opinion is interesting, but that's all.

Answer 6

To be honest, he was probably drunk at the time. He is one of the worst presidents this country has had. I can name three others that fit in that catagory. initials for these would be L. C. and B.

Answer 7

I agree.