Assuming it happens. What they be annexed as free or slave states? If they former, would the southerners push for more pro-slavery states (namely through the Caribbean) even harder? Or would they fear the shift in power would tilt far too much and force the Civil War to occur sooner?
How would American annexation of Mexican border states impact the Civil War
- Thread starter MrNumbahOne
- Start date
Which border states, though? All of them? Some of them?
Also, technically, Baja California was a territory of Mexico, rather than a full state.
Also, technically, Baja California was a territory of Mexico, rather than a full state.
Deleted member 109224
Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leone are the only ones with a climate suitable for slavery, I think. I can't see any of the others ending up as slave states.
All of them, yes.
I'm not sure Baja would be worth for Mexico to have if it's been severed from the rest of the Mexican mainland.
FillyofDelphi
Banned
T-191 disagrees with you. The Turtledove just not be questioned
But they'd be slave states due to internal American political reasons. The South will insist on keeping something at least as close to parity in the Senate as they can get, and those states are clearly far enough south that the Northerners don't have an indisputable claim to them.
Just because they don't have climates conducive to growing cotton or sugar doesn't mean they can't be slave states. Many northern states are similarly hostile to agriculture, but they maintained slavery as an institution well into the 1820s. Just because slaves wouldn't be growing cotton doesn't mean slavery couldn't still exist as an institution, it would just take on a different character in these states
Even if they become slave states, there's no way there's significant enough support for slavery to see them joining the Confederacy though they would lay claim to the states. More likely they try to break off and rejoin Mexico, simply try to gain independence for themselves, or stay neutral. Though perhaps the War could happen even sooner if Fremont somehow gets elected in 1856 as a result of the potential of even more slave states leading to the Republicans gaining more support in the North than in the OTL.
Brunaburh
Banned
They already had a population of about half a million and were free states, slavery being prohibited in Mexico considerably before the US. It would require a conquest and subjugation of the native population by incoming pro-slavers, and given the US population was only 20 million at this time, I find this a stretch. It is unlikely that they would be admitted to the union until they were effectively colonized and the native population culturally dominated, but if they were, it would be as free states. I also predict a Mexican rebellion within the first 10 years if this happened, given the degree of resistance OTL in the barely inhabited Mexican acquisitions.
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that might not be as big an issue as you'd think. First, the US tended to swamp native populations with it's own civilians and immigrants... the real question is if the land in the border states is attractive enough to draw southerners there. Second, while slavery was technically illegal, it's been noted by several historians that the peonage system in Mexico was scarcely better, and that wealthy Mexicans had slaves, although they were generally kidnapped Native American children used as house servants instead of the agricultural slaves used in the south. So, if you have a situation where southerners swarmed into the border states, slavery might not be such an issue there.
Brunaburh
Banned
The problem you have there is, why swarm settled territory whose fertile land is taken? And who's going to swarm? It's difficult to overstate how empty of Mexicans New Mexico (incl. 5 modern states), California and Texas were: Less than 100k people between the three. Of course they were swamped. The border provinces had 6-7 times as many people in a 10th of the area. To swamp that population you require a movement of 700k settlers, which would be 3% of the US population, into populated territory with little available land. Meanwhile, in California...Gold!
And, for this to have the effect of creating a slave state, the vast majority of settlers must be southern. You are quite right about Mexico's social ills, but there is a long way from that to opening up slave markets. I just don't understand how it is conceivable to have these states as pro-southern slave-states within 12 years, it requires not just migration, but an exodus from the South, and the North to be fine with that.
BTW, in this scenario, whatever happens, the region rebels during the Civil War, probably with support from Mexico. Chaos ensues.
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I'd say you're right.... too many natives, not enough potential settlers. So... that might actually aggravate the US's slave vs. free state problem... of course, the border states just might still be territories at the start of the war, so maybe not. If they aren't, then the slave vs. free state balance might flare up earlier...
Brunaburh
Banned
I think they would have to be territories, but that leaves lots of questions over how they are governed. What laws are imposed and who imposes them? I suspect nobody would stop white Americans bringing in personal slaves in ones or twos, even if illegal, but plantation agriculture is out.