Maximum Plausible US Annexation from Mexico?

scholar

Banned
It's worth noting that IOTL merely annexing half of Mexico touched off the Civil War. ITTL the USA would start disintegrating from the expense and culture-crisis caused by raising an army large enough to sit on Mexico forever.
That's not what happened, actually. The causes of an American Civil War existed before the civil war and only became more pronounced after the inherent failure of the Missouri Compromise to keep the North and the South in balance. California's refusal to become a slave state, or give would be slave states some of its territory was a major problem. Another was that after the Missouri Compromise was done away with, neither side played fairly in allowing the territories to choose for themselves to be slave states or not to be slave states. Various sympathetic acts of terrorism against the South also comes to mind. And then there was the apparent battle lines being drawn by the parties, and a lack of motivation to compromise with the South, which was increasingly getting weaker. In the end they seceded because their power over the country had been marginalized and they believed, rightly or wrongly, that the north would end their slave rights on a sanctimonious moral crusade that they believed, wrongly, had no business in politics and was a flagrant violation of States Rights.

Granting the South more mostly empty land, land that won't object to becoming Slave States, alongside making California a Slave State (delay the discovery of gold, more promotion of Southern Emigration), and the Civil War could reasonably be avoided for decades. The Failure of the Missouri Compromise would still become apparent inside of Mexico, but enough of a bone to the South could be given to keep up the mutual feeling of compromise, and there is also the very likely prospect that while the North and the Deep South agree on the stance of the abolition of slavery that they will not agree on much else, adding a third dynamic to internal politics rather than North and South [as the West, while it captured the minds of pulp readers everywhere, did not hold much political power even in California until well after the civil war].
 
That's not what happened, actually. The causes of an American Civil War existed before the civil war and only became more pronounced after the inherent failure of the Missouri Compromise to keep the North and the South in balance. California's refusal to become a slave state, or give would be slave states some of its territory was a major problem. Another was that after the Missouri Compromise was done away with, neither side played fairly in allowing the territories to choose for themselves to be slave states or not to be slave states. Various sympathetic acts of terrorism against the South also comes to mind. And then there was the apparent battle lines being drawn by the parties, and a lack of motivation to compromise with the South, which was increasingly getting weaker. In the end they seceded because their power over the country had been marginalized and they believed, rightly or wrongly, that the north would end their slave rights on a sanctimonious moral crusade that they believed, wrongly, had no business in politics and was a flagrant violation of States Rights.

Granting the South more mostly empty land, land that won't object to becoming Slave States, alongside making California a Slave State (delay the discovery of gold, more promotion of Southern Emigration), and the Civil War could reasonably be avoided for decades. The Failure of the Missouri Compromise would still become apparent inside of Mexico, but enough of a bone to the South could be given to keep up the mutual feeling of compromise, and there is also the very likely prospect that while the North and the Deep South agree on the stance of the abolition of slavery that they will not agree on much else, adding a third dynamic to internal politics rather than North and South [as the West, while it captured the minds of pulp readers everywhere, did not hold much political power even in California until well after the civil war].

No, that is what happened, it's what was narrowly averted in 1850 and what fell apart because of the ambitions of Stephen Douglas later on in the 1850s. The decision to annex half of Mexico is exactly why the Missouri Compromise finally exploded. If you're going to claim that direct causation is merely correlation, you need good evidence to back the claim up.
 

scholar

Banned
No, that is what happened, it's what was narrowly averted in 1850 and what fell apart because of the ambitions of Stephen Douglas later on in the 1850s. The decision to annex half of Mexico is exactly why the Missouri Compromise finally exploded. If you're going to claim that direct causation is merely correlation, you need good evidence to back the claim up.
I fail to see how giving the South more slave territory to take for its own makes the South want to secede from the Union from fear of encroachment of the North.

Please cite a source.
 
Wait, so All Mexico was plausible, just very bad?

yes.

After the total defeat of the Mexican War, a group of Mexican elites basically offered up the whole country for Annexation. Congress basically rejected it as potentially giving too much power to the slave states (all of Mexico was below the Missouri Compromise)
 
Here's a good overview of the OTL occupation of Mexico during the Mexican War (both during active hostilities and during the 6-month period between the end of major combat operations and the signing of the treaty):
http://www.history.army.mil/brochures/Occupation/Occupation.htm

The short version was that there were four different zones of Mexico, and the conduct of the occupation and Mexican resistance was very different in each.

In California and New Mexico, Kearny faced no significant guerrilla resistance. There were probably less than 100,000 total inhabitants in the region, many of whom were American settlers.

In the rest of Northern Mexico, Taylor's force was largely accepted at first, but there were major discipline problems among his Volunteers, including many incidents of looting and assaults by American soldiers against Mexican civilians. The resentment this provoked lead to a popular resistance movement against the occupation, which Taylor was only partly able to suppress.

In Central Mexico, Scott did a much better job of keeping his force disciplined, and faced much less popular resistence than Taylor, but he was never able to suppress partisan bands organized and supported by what was left of the Mexican government.

South of Mexico City and Veracruz, the US made no attempt to occupy, and the Mexican government more-or-less retained control despite a fairly strong popular uprising against them.

Eventually, the US cut a deal with the Mexican government where for the duration of treaty negotiations, Mexico would withdraw their partisans from Scott's occupation zone and Scott would support the Mexican government against the popular uprisings in the South.
 
I fail to see how giving the South more slave territory to take for its own makes the South want to secede from the Union from fear of encroachment of the North.

Please cite a source.

Because the North did not want slavery to expand at all into territory it viewed as properly free labor? This failed to erupt in 1850 because the two sides "compromised", but by 1856 Popular Sovereignty is when the shit hit the fan. The whole root of the crisis was that the South wanted more territory to keep a monopoly on Federal power and the North wanted a democracy to work democratically. The problem too is further exacerbated by the territory in question having already abolished slavery for some decades by this point, and scenes of Southerners engaging in barbarism to restore slavery where it had disappeared will cause the Civil War to accelerate as the North will begin to suspect that the South will move to abolish free states next.
 

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Banned
Wait

Even that's implausible. The best you could hope for close to that is annexing to the Tropic of Cancer, setting up a puppet Republic of the Yucatan, and maybe another puppet buffer state on the US/Mexican border. Then, as white settlers move down to the lower American annexations, they could also branch down to the Yucatan and the other buffer state, eventually petitioning for annexation. But really only the Yucatan is plausible.



No, no, no. Well, yes. It's possible that it could have happened, had we had a more… liberal Congress. It would NOT have lasted. We're talking major guerrilla nonsense in the super-deep South leading up to the Civil War (which is also pushed up a few years), and when the Confederacy breaks free, you can bet the super-deep South will, too. The former will obviously be defeated and reincorporated, but I doubt all of the latter would.

And that's only because we were intolerant, racist idiots back then. Treating all citizens of former-Mexico as true, legitimate US citizens and you don't wind up with guerrilla warfare.
with Mexico revolting the South might actually win limited independence if it agrees to allign with Mexico, as crazy as that sounds
 

Numb

Banned
NOOOOO

Because the North did not want slavery to expand at all into territory it viewed as properly free labor? This failed to erupt in 1850 because the two sides "compromised", but by 1856 Popular Sovereignty is when the shit hit the fan. The whole root of the crisis was that the South wanted more territory to keep a monopoly on Federal power and the North wanted a democracy to work democratically. The problem too is further exacerbated by the territory in question having already abolished slavery for some decades by this point, and scenes of Southerners engaging in barbarism to restore slavery where it had disappeared will cause the Civil War to accelerate as the North will begin to suspect that the South will move to abolish free states next.
THe north just wanted to dominate the south, and it new if the slavves were gone, so was the souths economic power.
 
THe north just wanted to dominate the south, and it new if the slavves were gone, so was the souths economic power.

Not really, the North wanted a share in the federal system appropriate to the region with the most modern economic structure and the largest population. The South didn't want to yield its monopoly on power and a group of Southerners launched a very-ill-considered rebellion that wrecked a huge part of the South in the process.
 
with Mexico revolting the South might actually win limited independence if it agrees to allign with Mexico, as crazy as that sounds

No way is the US going to let the Confederacy go, in any form. They'd cave to rump Mexican freedom in a heartbeat if it meant beating the Confederacy.
 

scholar

Banned
Because the North did not want slavery to expand at all into territory it viewed as properly free labor? This failed to erupt in 1850 because the two sides "compromised", but by 1856 Popular Sovereignty is when the shit hit the fan. The whole root of the crisis was that the South wanted more territory to keep a monopoly on Federal power and the North wanted a democracy to work democratically. The problem too is further exacerbated by the territory in question having already abolished slavery for some decades by this point, and scenes of Southerners engaging in barbarism to restore slavery where it had disappeared will cause the Civil War to accelerate as the North will begin to suspect that the South will move to abolish free states next.
That actually is pretty incorrect and I notice we didn't get a source.

It wasn't the Mexican American War that set off the civil war, it was the North's repeated attempts to stymy the growth of the South while accelerate their own. It was not "Democracy" because the south was Democratic. The South wanted to expand just as much as the North Did, but the North only cared for the expansion of its own political power, justified by a moral crusade against the evils of slavery. California did not become a Slave state, though it should have according to the rules regarding new states. Nor did it surrender the territory to the south of the parallel so that it could be made into a slave territory as Texas had done with its northern edges. In a sense the North was praciticing nothing less than containment against the influence of the South, influence that was waning to the plutocrats of New England, New York, and the other growing industrial centers. The Agrarian way of life was too against the industrial complex driving the wealth of the north. Like any good capitalist they wanted to control the lands to the west and only differed on whether or not they should destroy the South's economy and release the slaves or simply contain them. Containment was popular, and was a major aspect inside the compromise of 1850. Popular sovereignty was a bone tossed to the South to keep the state of California and other decidedly anti-southern measures from causing irreparable disagreement between the two. It was expected that not many states would willingly choose slavery, but both sides played unfairly in this. The South and the North both tried to take the option to choose away from the settlers and to neighboring states to promote their own interests. Acts of terrorism against the South were seen as heroic acts. It was nothing less than a religious crusade, one which we're all proud of in the modern era. I'm certainly happy that Slavery is gone. But make no mistake, this wasn't a noble deed. The South's power before its secession was already crippled and destined to be lost. All attempts to establish a "balance" with northern interests failed miserably. Their power inside of the House and Senate were already destined to become diminished to the point where the South would no longer be able to stop any northern measure to end slavery. By the time the 1850s and 1860s came and the promise of new lands for the expansion of both Northern and Southern ways turned out to be lies the South really only had two options. Lose everything in a fight or lose everything without one.

Making California a slave state, or at least dividing it so that part of it becomes a slave state, could postpone this for over a decade. It would eliminate the compromise of popular sovereignty and reaffirm the Missouri Compromise in the new territories. Giving them all of the lightly populated northern regions of Mexico eliminates the virtual ultimatum enforced upon the South. It gives the South a place to expand to and it removes the idea that the South will lose its ability to have any say in the government of the United States.
 
That actually is pretty incorrect and I notice we didn't get a source.

It wasn't the Mexican American War that set off the civil war, it was the North's repeated attempts to stymy the growth of the South while accelerate their own. It was not "Democracy" because the south was Democratic. The South wanted to expand just as much as the North Did, but the North only cared for the expansion of its own political power, justified by a moral crusade against the evils of slavery. California did not become a Slave state, though it should have according to the rules regarding new states. Nor did it surrender the territory to the south of the parallel so that it could be made into a slave territory as Texas had done with its northern edges. In a sense the North was praciticing nothing less than containment against the influence of the South, influence that was waning to the plutocrats of New England, New York, and the other growing industrial centers. The Agrarian way of life was too against the industrial complex driving the wealth of the north. Like any good capitalist they wanted to control the lands to the west and only differed on whether or not they should destroy the South's economy and release the slaves or simply contain them. Containment was popular, and was a major aspect inside the compromise of 1850. Popular sovereignty was a bone tossed to the South to keep the state of California and other decidedly anti-southern measures from causing irreparable disagreement between the two. It was expected that not many states would willingly choose slavery, but both sides played unfairly in this. The South and the North both tried to take the option to choose away from the settlers and to neighboring states to promote their own interests. Acts of terrorism against the South were seen as heroic acts. It was nothing less than a religious crusade, one which we're all proud of in the modern era. I'm certainly happy that Slavery is gone. But make no mistake, this wasn't a noble deed. The South's power before its secession was already crippled and destined to be lost. All attempts to establish a "balance" with northern interests failed miserably. Their power inside of the House and Senate were already destined to become diminished to the point where the South would no longer be able to stop any northern measure to end slavery. By the time the 1850s and 1860s came and the promise of new lands for the expansion of both Northern and Southern ways turned out to be lies the South really only had two options. Lose everything in a fight or lose everything without one.

Making California a slave state, or at least dividing it so that part of it becomes a slave state, could postpone this for over a decade. It would eliminate the compromise of popular sovereignty and reaffirm the Missouri Compromise in the new territories. Giving them all of the lightly populated northern regions of Mexico eliminates the virtual ultimatum enforced upon the South. It gives the South a place to expand to and it removes the idea that the South will lose its ability to have any say in the government of the United States.

Your claim requires far more of a source given how unwilling the North actually was to fight, as opposed to how willing the South was to sanction violence and bloodshed to retain the monopoly it held. The Compromise was doomed when the North began to industrialize and the US federal system was to be required to work as it was supposed to. The claim that Popular Sovereignty, a concept five years later, had anything to do with 1850 is at best a sign of ignorance and at worst a sign of never having read a book on the lead-in to the US Civil War.

The Popular Sovereignty Idea had more to do with Stephen Douglas wanting to be POTUS, the Mexican Cession is where the USA finally began to shatter under its own internal contradictions. This is nonsense masquerading as history, the reality is a much simpler chain of events. California demanded to be let in as a slave state, the small group of Southerners who wanted secession tried ad failed to engineer a war over this, because there was to them no democratic choice against slavery. The Fugitive Slave Law began a process of escalating violence with the South treading all over the states' rights of the North, while shedding hypocritical crocodile tears over its having to face that it had been able to secure a monopoly on power it could not sustain.

The question of a Continental Railroad was the next accelerating factor, this was how Douglas wanted to get the job of POTUS, and the price was Kansas-Nebraska, rationalized for both sides via Popular Sovereignty. The CSA came about because the South demanded slavery spread into the West, and ultimately was to spread to the entirety of the USA. It's worth remembering that in Dred Scott v. Sanford the US Supreme Court declared blacks were never citizens of the USA.
 

scholar

Banned
Your claim requires far more of a source given how unwilling the North actually was to fight, as opposed to how willing the South was to sanction violence and bloodshed to retain the monopoly it held.
If this were true than ho come the South didn't have a monopoly, nor anything close to it. If you want to say the North was unwilling to fight, then why were they constantly fighting the spread of Southern Influence?

350px-ElectoralCollege1852.svg.png


1+6+13+10+7+2+10+8+2+6+7+8+6+1+4+2 = 93
2+2+3+4+9+11+21+25+5+33+4+2+11+3+3+8 = 146

Slave States vs. Free States. Notice the disparity in political power between the North and the South in 1952, tell me where the monopoly is. The senate, however, was even. Given time, however, it was obvious that there would be far more free states than slave. Further, the north's population was growing more rapidly than the south. The disparity in the House would only grow. The North's power in the senate would soon be a unanimous monopoly.

You need to understand this. There was no "monopoly"; there was only desperation to hold on and maintain the balance of power, which was far from a monopoly. The Mexican American War didn't do this to the South, it was perhaps the only way to save it from this. Giving it more land for additional slave states would postpone or even prevent the civil war. And do not pretend that the North did nothing to stop the South from trying to retain some control over government, a government it at one time had a strong presence in. The South was destined, without expansion, to be lose its any power over the government. That is all. The North knowingly provoked a conflict when it actively undermined this attempt.

The claim that Popular Sovereignty, a concept five years later, had anything to do with 1850 is at best a sign of ignorance and at worst a sign of never having read a book on the lead-in to the US Civil War.
Did you even read up on the compromise of 1850? Take a look at what it entailed for New Mexico. Actually, I'll just quote it for you:

"The New Mexico and Utah territories were to decide the question issue by relying on “popular sovereignty,” allowing the actual settlers to vote on the issue."
 
1) Sigh, I can see that this is a lost cause dealing with another Anatoly Fomenko-type, only this one doesn't invent canals decades before they actually existed. That being said, look at the practical results of the Three-Fifths Clause and the requirement that the Senate represent all the states. Look at the personal occupation of almost all antebellum POTUSes. There was no balance of power, there was a monopoly endangered by industrial-caused demographic booms.

2) Provide a link instead of simply stating it. And you did realize the huge gap between what I was referring to and what you provide no citations for? My references are to things like the Anthony Burns and Margaret Garner cases, which galvanized Northern opinion. You're the one trying to claim that black is white (pun intended).
 

scholar

Banned
:rolleyes:

Not only have I provided citations, I did the math right out in front of you. You see the map on the screen? It was an electoral college representation of the presidential election of 1852, and I took the numbers of every electoral college number of each state, subtracted two, and added them together comparing Free States to Slave States. The result was a very clear picture of the complete lack of a monopoly over the House of Representatives inside of the South, the map also showed, quite clearly, how much land was open to the North and how much to the South. It painted an interesting picture, one which you've ignored for ad hominem assaults.

You said that the South had a monopoly over the country but its clear this wasn't true. The house of congress showed the South not only in a minority, but a rather sizable one. The Senate, while even, was destined to fall apart with the installment of new states. You can only make the argument that the Presidents were all southerners, but this doesn't really work either. These presidents were elected by the North and the South, and the Northerners had more votes than the South, once again shown by the map.

I've showed this very clearly. The only thing I didn't show was that the North was actively trying to contain the South, but this was completely obvious, something you yourself admitted to (albeit with different phrasing saying that the North was merely trying to break the Southern Monopoly, a Monopoly that was shattered decades earlier, and spread democracy, which is silly unless you're implying that the South was not democratic based on the very constitution of the United States and by its guidelines?).

As for popular sovereignty inside of the compromise of 1850, not only did I provide you with a link, I quoted you the passage inside of the link. And you claim I haven't provided a citation. Really now, this is interesting. However when I looked through your posts I haven't found a single reference to a source, in fact I've seen several things that were incorrect, as I've shown, and I've seen several assertions which I asked for a source to verify it. Instead you said that you were using Anthony Burns and Margaret Garner cases, which had absolutely nothing to do with your previous assertions. Instead they merely show the Fugitive Slave Act's own evilness, which was completely irrelevant to anything we were discussing. It was another aspect of the Compromise of 1850, but it was something that I never once even referenced.

Please get on the same page as me because its very difficult to talk to someone who seems to be reading an entirely different book, let alone being a page or two ahead or behind.
 
Not only have I provided citations, I did the math right out in front of you. It painted an interesting picture, one which you've ignored for ad hominem assaults. I've showed this very clearly. However when I looked through your posts I haven't found a single reference to a source, in fact I've seen several things that were incorrect, as I've shown, and I've seen several assertions which I asked for a source to verify it.

Please get on the same page as me because its very difficult to talk to someone who seems to be reading an entirely different book, let alone being a page or two ahead or behind.

Just ignore him. He does this every time anyone suggest the US should have been one square inch larger in any respect.
 
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