Vidaurri sells Nuevo Leon y Tamaulipas and Coahuila to the CSA: How screwed is he?

The possibility of Northern Mexico to the CSA came up a few times on this board. If Vidaurri was actually crazy enough to attempt that how screwed is he? How screwed is the CSA if they actually try to control the land they just "purchased"?
 
If the Confederacy does accept Northern Mexico I doubt they're going to do much with it. They can't spare more than a token force but they don't really have to since Vidaurri brought them the land and will likely remain in control. I can see him being appointed territorial governor by Richmond. What Mexico thinks about all this I can't say but I seriously doubt they'll let the US/CSA take more land peacefully.

It's going to be very interesting when the CSA loses the war. Does the US return the land to Mexico, make it an independent country, or go "finders keepers". Vidaurri's policies seem much more in line with the USA rather than the CSA. If he aids the Union at least somewhat during the closing days of the war I can see him going straight from a CSA governor to a USA one as long as Northern Mexico didn't contribute much to the war.
 
I can see this as a golden opportunity for Max, at least in the short run. He could rally a lot of the nation behind him to kick out the "traitorous forces of Vidaurri and his slave owning masters." If that happens the CSA's goose is cooked in Mexico. Worst case scenario France backs Max by declaring war on the CSA and helps blockading CSA ports! :eek::eek::eek:
 
The possibility of Northern Mexico to the CSA came up a few times on this board. If Vidaurri was actually crazy enough to attempt that how screwed is he? How screwed is the CSA if they actually try to control the land they just "purchased"?

Remember that admitting whatever states Vidaurri controlled would require a two-thirds vote of the Confederate Senate. I can see a lot of Confederate senators objecting to it on the following grounds:

(1) Do we really want to get involved in Mexico's internal disputes this way? "One war at a time"--why fight Juarez as well as Lincoln?

(2) Do we really want to admit a lot of free dark-skinned anti-slavery people to Confederate citizenship?

(3) Mexico faced likely European intervention because it was unable to pay its debts. (Incidentally, in 1861 it was not clear that France would be the leading interventionist power; some Confederates expected Spain to fill that role.) This could lead to a clash between France or Spain and the US. But if the CS were to annex Mexican land, the European interventionists would probably be more angry with the Confederacy than with the Yankees.

(4) Annexing northern Mexico would mean that the area's ports would be subject to the Yankee blockade. It is more advantageous for the Confederacy to keep such ports part of neutral Mexico, so that European supplies could be shipped there free of the blockade and then be sent across the Rio Grande to Texas (with cotton taking the same route in reverse, though at first the Confederates imposed an embargo on cotton ).

(5) Finally--though this is not really an "argument"--if Davis agrees to it, some Davis-hating senators will object to it precisely for that reason...

There *are* some counter-arguments.

(1) First of all, there was still the spirit of expansion, which Southerners had championed when they were part of the US. It is true that Pickett had told Juarez that the only reason Southerners had previously favored southward expansion was to get new slave states to counterbalance the growing number of free states. Now that the South was no longer in the Union, Pickett explained, this motive was no longer relevant, and the South desired no further expansion, having plenty of land. It was now only the United States which coveted Mexico. However, Pickett's real opinion was indicated in his letter to Secretary of State Toombs in which he explained that he said all this for Mexican consumption and that it need not be taken too seriously in Richmond because "It must not be supposed from the expression in this capital, of the foregoing diplomatic language, that I am not fully impressed with the fact that 'manifest destiny' may falsify the foregoing declaration." (Quoted in Frank Owsley,*King Cotton Diplomacy*, p. 94.) (Incidentally, one of Pickett's problems was that his dispatches to Richmond, which indicated his very low opinion of the Mexicans, were regularly intercepted by the Mexicans and shown to Juarez...)

(2) With respect to the prospect of European intervention, one could use it--as Pickett did--as an argument for getting Mexican territory *now*, since it might be impossible to get it once the Europeans came. If a few northern Mexican states were already part of the Confederacy by the time the Europeans intervened, the intervening powers might accept this as a *fait accompli*; after all, the Confederacy would not object to their occupation of the great majority of Mexico. (And of course if the Yankees objected to such occupation, all the better for the Confederacy, since this could force any intervening power into an alliance with the Confederates which would amount in effect to the partition of Mexico.)

(3) As for fighting Juarez, maybe Davis or some less cautious Confederate president might decide that this was not a very frightening prospect. Pickett gave a very unfavorable estimate of Juarez's military strength. Indeed, even before the European intervention, Juarez faced severe problems with an uncooperative Congress and a countryside that had by no means been completely pacified.

(4) There was also Pickett's argument that the Confederates should acquire Mexican territory if only to prevent Mexico from pledging it to the United States under US envoy Tom Corwin's proposed loan treaty.

(5) There was considerable concern that Juarez would allow passage of US troops through Mexico. In fact, the Mexican Congress agreed to let US troops march through Sonora on their way from California to Arizona. Mexican officials later tried to reassure the Confederates that this had been done only because the Mexican government did not realize that the Confederacy claimed Arizona, but it could be argued that there was no way to prevent this sort of thing from happening except by outright Confederate annexation of northern Mexico. You could certainly *hope* that the Mexican government would not authorize any more troop movements like this, and that even if it did the northern Mexican governors would defy Mexico's central government, and prevent such troop movements, but you couldn't be sure. It would be safer to have those governors under the Confederate government than--even nominally--under Juarez's.

(6) As for the advantage of having northern Mexican ports not subject to the blockade: Was it really clear in 1861 whether trade from Europe to Tamaulipas to Texas would be that much cheaper than blockade-running, given that the Mexicans could impose stiff tariffs, etc.? (Indeed, at first "sometimes excessive duties were levied" according to Owsley, p. 118, but that changed once Vidaurri got control of Tamualipas in the spring of 1862.) In any event, according to Owsley (pp. 258-9) Matamoros was in fact blockaded, in the sense that "An American fleet watched just outside the bar, and many ships were seized (most of them were ultimately freed by the United States Supreme Court, but not until the war was about over), and the greater part of the other ships were subjected to the rigors of an ordinary blockade."

On the whole, I think Davis, who had trouble enough with recalcitrant governors, would not want another one with Vidaurri--and as I noted, even if he did approve annexation, he would have a hard time getting it through the Confederate Senate. Moreover, it is not really clear that Vidaurri was serious in his offer, though Ronnie C. Tyler in *Santiago Vidaurri and the Southern Confederacy* (Austin: Texas State Historical Association 1973), pp. 52-3 is inclined to believe that he was-- though he adds that it is possible that Vidaurri was just trying to test the Confederacy's willingness to add new territory to its domain.

It must be remembered that Vidaurri was in a difficult position in 1861. He had lost Juan Zuazua, his best military leader, in 1860. Furthermore, in 1859, Vidaurri had split with the liberals (as one might expect, it was over a question of power, not ideology) who now considered him a conservative--and some of the young liberals angry with his "betrayal" had fled to Mexico City and now had Juarez's ear. If Juarez, in control of Mexico City since January 1861, were to consolidate his position, the prospects for Vidaurri and other strong state governors maintaining their power would be dim. (And of course if some foreign power were to intervene and occupy Mexico it too might take a very unfavorable view of too-powerful governors.) By contrast, the Confederacy was supposed to be based on states' rights, which was just what Vidaurri wanted. Besides, Tyler seems to think that Vidaurri's admiration for American institutions was genuine, and of course annexation could help Vidaurri "Americanize" northern Mexico.

In any event, Davis, though otherwise pleased by the Quintero-Vidaurri negotiations, and favoring "intimate social and commercial relations" with northern Mexico, rejected annexation of the Mexican border states as "imprudent and impolitic." And it's hard to argue with him there, especially since Vidaurri did not really control all of the territory he claimed..

(See the thread I started at https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/tRYKR6t30cs/NBomiLybJToJ for further discussion of this.)
 
Vidaurri was a bit of a crazy SOB. But he was also rather smart for a politician at the time in Mexico.

I seriously doubt he would do such a thing. He was king in Coahuila and Nuevo Leon. Why risk loosing that?
 
Vidaurri was a bit of a crazy SOB. But he was also rather smart for a politician at the time in Mexico.

I seriously doubt he would do such a thing. He was king in Coahuila and Nuevo Leon. Why risk loosing that?

Agreed, which is why I said this " If Vidaurri was actually crazy enough to attempt that how screwed is he?". He would have to have been insane to do so. What would he get out of it. Basically I think he was bluffing to scare Mexico City.
 
Sell the land for what money? The CSA was very low on hard currency, afaik.

It would be a great excuse for the Union to expand south, though. ;)

Of course Vidaurri would not "sell" northern Mexico to the Confederacy; he would announce that the states he controlled had decided to join the Confederacy. As I said, it's doubtful that Davis, who had enough troublesome governors to work with, would want one more. If he did accept the offer, though, and if the Confederate Senate ratified, my guess is that the Union would give the territory back to Mexico (once the French were out of the country) rather than keeping it. The US was not in a particularly expansionist mood after the ACW--note the defeat of Grant's attempt to annex Santo Domingo and the controversial nature of Seward's purchase of Alaska.

Besides, the US would denounce the Confederacy's annexation of northern Mexico as robbery, etc.--after which it would look hypocritical to keep the territory itself. (Not that this would stand in the way if the US really was anxious to get the territory, but as I noted it was not.)
 
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