Would the US have tried to annex Mexico after the Mexican American war?

I know that some alternate history writers say that at some point in time the US was going to annex Mexico due to manifest destiny. Could this have actually ever happened?
 
I know that some alternate history writers say that at some point in time the US was going to annex Mexico due to manifest destiny. Could this have actually ever happened?

No, too many brown people to effectively assimilate. Since it'd be very unlikely that the Mexican states would join as slave states (slavery had been abolished since independence), neither North nor South would support their entry.
 
I always thought Baja would be possible, as well as Rio Grande, they did have a bit of an independence streak for a while.
 
Polk wanted the whole thing; he was afraid he couldn't get that through the Senate. It pretty much needs to be taken care of before he leaves office, as his successor will almost certainly not be interested in all of Mexico - so you probably need to speed up the war a bit, to give a little more time for Senate arm-twisting at the close of '48.
 

CalBear

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No, too many brown people to effectively assimilate. Since it'd be very unlikely that the Mexican states would join as slave states (slavery had been abolished since independence), neither North nor South would support their entry.

It wasn't the skin color that was the real sticking point. Whole damned place was crawling with Catholics.:eek:
 
Polk wanted the whole thing; he was afraid he couldn't get that through the Senate. It pretty much needs to be taken care of before he leaves office, as his successor will almost certainly not be interested in all of Mexico - so you probably need to speed up the war a bit, to give a little more time for Senate arm-twisting at the close of '48.

Or Polk could just run for reelection.

The problem is that America is white, protestant, and tolerant of the slave holding south. Mexico on the other hand was mostly creole, catholic, and had abolished slavery. They are too dissimilar to assimilate.

You could see more of the northern states go like DrTron pointed out.
 

Eurofed

Banned
It wasn't the skin color that was the real sticking point. Whole damned place was crawling with Catholics.:eek:

Does one get a prize for debunking the quite overblown reputation of US Anti-Catholicism on this board for the millionth time ? :rolleyes:

Read the speech that Calhoun made to oppose the total annexation of Mexico. His opposition is all about anti-Native racism, the religion of Mexicans is never mentioned.

Having said that, the South had no objection about annexing northern Mexico, which was much less crowded of natives and mixed-bloods. Quite the contrary, they supported a larger annexation, but it failed for two butterflies: first, the US diplomat sent to negotiate the peace treaty went rogue and negotiated a more lenient peace that President Polk wanted, and second, the motion to get a larger annexation approved anyway failed in the Congress because of Northern opposition. Butterfly that diplomat away, or get the South to make concessions elsewhere, and you can easily turn Sonora, Chihuahua, and the Rio Grande states into US territory. To have all of Mexico annexed, however, you have to make the South less racist towards Natives.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
IIRC, Jefferson Davis pushed for an extension of Manifest Destiny to include all territory down to Panama. Others were of a similar mind.

It would have basically been impossible, though. Clever ways were found to ensure WASP domination of the sparsely-populated territories there were annexed, but such measures would not have worked in the heavily-populated areas farther south. I mean, seriously, can you imagine how Louis T. Wigfall would have reacted to some Hispanic grandee from Mexico City strolling onto the floor of the United States Senate?
 
Yeah, the biggest difficulty in annexing the whole of Mexico is that south of the Rio Grande there's just too many people for the white settlers to dominate them.

And Mexico was better about the slavery issue then. ;)
 
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