HIST 4071 Chapter : 04 09 The Territorial Issue
Document Summary
The critical matter finalizing the sectional conflict: centrality of expansion. America is growing geographically at a rapid pace. Expansion means power, and americans are proud of their growth. Slavery and freedom are moving west at the same time. The people migrating from the northeast are creating new free states in the northwest. Southeast states are moving southwest and bringing slavery with them: expansion is national and at the same time sectional. Between 1845-1848 the boundaries of the country expand exponentially: 1845 texas is annexed by the us. Comes in as a state (not a territory). Mexico does not recognize texas as an independent state. War with mexico 1846: war is popular in the south and the west. They believed it was a war to expand slavery because texas was a slave state: the mexican cession 500,000 sq. miles added to the us after the war. Decisions about this acquired territory had to be made.
