History Learner
Well-known member
Vice President George Dallas (the namesake of the Texan City), Secretary of the Treasury Robert Walker, and Secretary of State James Buchanan were all in favor of annexing Mexico during the Mexican-American War. More importantly, perhaps, is that a large and growing faction in the Senate, increasingly dominant in the Northern states and having split the South, was also in favor of annexing Mexico. To quote from The Slavery Question and the Movement to Acquire Mexico, 1846-1848 by John D. P. Fuller, The Mississippi Valley Historical Review Vol. 21, No. 1 (Jun., 1934), pp. 31-48:
Further:
Often, when this is proposed, I see race cited as an issue against it but I don't think it is as much of a hindrance as often suggested. The media at the time propagated the idea of romance between American men and Mexican women as a means of assimilating the Mexicans, even going as far as to write poetry on such. These sentiments did not stop at rhetoric, however, as such inter-marriages were actually common in the parts of the Mexican cession that had existing, sufficiently large populations and were, apparently, considered respectable. Essentially, everyone outside of Calhoun's Pro-Slavery faction didn't really care and it was pretty well understood Calhoun's stance was born out of fears of additional free states entering the Union as opposed to his rhetorical concerns of a threat to the WASP ruling elite of the United States.
As far as Mexican sentiment on the issue, the Federalists, one of the two major Pre-War factions in Mexico, were in favor of annexation:
Winfield Scott also suggested this in his own correspondence:
The United States Army in Mexico City, by Edward S. Wallace (Military Affairs, Vol. 13, No. 3 (Autumn, 1949), pp. 158-166) also states a desire for annexation among the well off of Mexico City, and goes into detail about the relationships cultivated between American soldiers and Mexican civilians. Mexican opposition to slavery is also over-stated. To quote Noel Maurer, an economist for GWU and a former employee of the U.S. Federal Government stationed in Mexico:
So, the PoD is Nicholas Trist being among the many Americans to die to Yellow Fever in late 1847 in Mexico. By the time a replacement is sent, the Pro-Annexationist crowd is in the majority and the we end up with Mexico in it's entirety being absorbed by the United States sometime in 1848. No insurgency pans out, as most Mexicans prove indifferent or even in favor of this change in political circumstances. What happens from here?
First and foremost in my mind is that the Civil War is likely averted, as the Missouri Compromise line can be easily extended to the Pacific with minimal fuss. Now, IOTL, both the Abolitionists and the Planters expected that slavery would fail to take root in Mexico but I'm not so sure. The more populated regions definitely won't see such occur, but the Northern tier is well suited to it. So firm slave states in what IOTL became Northern Mexico as well as a nominal slave state in the form of New Mexico and another solid one in IOTL SoCal (likely with Baja attached). Slavery could expand into the rest of Mexico but given the population on the ground and the limited number of slaves in the United States, I see this unlikely. This does not mean, however, that all of Mexico could not be firmly attached to Southern interests:
Rethinking the Coming of the Civil War: A Counterfactual Exercise by Gary J. Kornblith, Journal of American History (Volume 90, No. 1, June 2003):
This would assuage Southern fears about retaining power in the Senate, as well as likely convince Southern Whigs, who were the decisive vote on the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, to never support such a thing given the Compromise of 1850 would largely settle the issue. Speaking of the Whigs, without the aforementioned Bill they likely remain around and thus abort the Republican Party without the Bill to engender Northern anger like it did IOTL. Thus, sectional issues are largely resolved by the start of the 1850s, with the North free to settle the West and the South free to do whatever it may so desire in Mexico, both free of worry of the other intervening in their own affairs.
It's truly hard to conceive of an America without the experience of the Civil War, as that fundamentally reshaped the United States. Not only was slavery ended decades before it could be naturally ended with all that entails, it further resulted in a very clear shift in American perceptions best reflected in the the US was no longer referred to in a plural sense but in a singular one. Further, the swath of Civil War Amendments, in particular the 14th, forever changed conceptions of American law and further led to a whole host of political changes that continue to this day.
For some more specific examples of changes, one that immediately leaps to me is that the Vicksburg to San Diego railway gets built. The route was actually considered easier to build, which motivated the Gadsen purchase IOTL and the lack of a need to do it in this ATL is certainly a boon for it as well as the fact the center of the U.S. has shifted significantly South. Such would result in San Diego becoming the premier West Coast city while San Francisco and Los Angeles would ultimately die out. Vicksburg and New Orleans would also grow into a greater importance because with the rail connections West starting there and the lack of a Civil War to divert barge traffic onto lateral rail, the commerce of the Midwest will continue to come downriver to them. This would also likely lead to greater rail developments in the Deep South, likely fostering an early development of Birmingham in the 1850s. Indirectly it'd also keep the Midwest more aligned with Southern interests going forward as well.
As for culture, you'd probably see a lot of minor things, like Salsa emerging far earlier as a favored condiment and Spanish loan words entering into mass usage in the rest of the United States. However, I don't see language being an issue given that IOTL Hispanics have adopted English at faster rates than the Germans and other groups did; that the latter still assimilated is another factor to suggest the Ex-Mexicans would as well. Earlier Mexican communities in American cities would also lead to earlier introduction of Mexican cuisine, which could also lead to more regional variations on the same format as "TexMex" food. The biggest one, in my estimation, might be the abandoning of the "One Drop Rule" in favor of the Latin American Concept of Branciemento. Should such a concept gain national acceptance, it could over time come to be applied to other racial groups, which would be a change from IOTL; not a less racist America, mind you, but a different outlook all the same.
In the Congress which assembled in December, 1847, the question of the acquisition of all Mexico appeared in the open for the first time. Among those who may definitely be numbered with the expansionists were Senators Dickinson and Dix of New York, Hannegan of Indiana, Cass of Michigan, Allen of Ohio, Breese and Douglas, of Illinois, Atchison of Missouri, Foote and Davis of Mississippi, and Houston and Rusk of Texas. The leadership in the fight, against imperialism fell not to the anti-slavery element but to pro-slavery Democrats. On December 15, Calhoun in the Senate and Holmes in the House introduced resolutions opposing the acquisition of Mexico. Other pro-slavery Democrats, Butler of South Carolina, and Meade and Hunter of Virginia, also registered their opposition.
Further:
In the Congress which assembled in December, 1847, the question of the acquisition of all Mexico appeared in the open for the first time. Among those who may definitely be numbered with the expansionists were Senators Dickinson and Dix of New York, Hannegan of Indiana, Cass of Michigan, Allen of Ohio, Breese and Douglas, of Illinois, Atchison of Missouri, Foote and Davis of Mississippi, and Houston and Rusk of Texas. The leadership in the fight, against imperialism fell not to the anti-slavery element but to pro-slavery Democrats. On December 15, Calhoun in the Senate and Holmes in the House introduced resolutions opposing the acquisition of Mexico. Other pro-slavery Democrats, Butler of South Carolina, and Meade and Hunter of Virginia, also registered their opposition.
Between October, 1847, and the following February the theme of the story underwent considerable alteration. By the latter date, as noted above, the National Era was advocating the absorption of Mexico, insisting that it would be free territory, and citing along with other evidence, Calhoun's opposition to annexation as proof that the anti-slavery interests had nothing to fear from extensive territorial acquisitions. In other words, the National Era was convinced that if there had been a "pro-slavery conspiracy" to acquire all Mexico, it could not realize its ends even though the whole country were annexed. This conviction seems to have come largely as a result of the propaganda, which was streaming from the northern expansionist press and the opposition of Calhoun. The editor probably reasoned that since Calhoun was opposing absorption the expansionists at the North must be correct. If the main body of the anti-slavery forces could be converted to this point of view, the movement for absorption which was growing rapidly at the time would doubtless become very strong indeed.
Care should be taken not to exaggerate the anti-slavery sentiment for all Mexico. It is evident that some such sentiment did exist, but there was not sufficient time for it to develop to significant proportions. The Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo had already been signed in Mexico when the National Era took up the cry of all Mexico with or without the Wilmot Proviso. In a short while the war was over and whatever anti-slavery sentiment there was for all Mexico collapsed along with the general expansion movement. Had the war continued several months longer it is not improbable that increasing numbers from the anti-slavery camp would have joined forces with those who were demanding the acquisition of Mexico. Their action would have been based on the assumption that they were undermining the position of the pro slavery forces. It was, not to be expected that those abolitionists, and there were undoubtedly some, who were using the bogey of "extension of slavery" to cover up other reasons for opposition to annexation, would have ever become convinced of the error of their ways. They would hold on to their pet theory to the bitter end.
To summarize briefly what seem to be the conclusions to be drawn from this study, it might be said that the chief support for the absorption of Mexico came from the North and West and from those whose pro-slavery or anti-slavery bias was not a prime consideration. In quarters where the attitude toward slavery was all-important there was, contrary to the accepted view, a "pro-slavery conspiracy" to prevent the acquisition of all Mexico and the beginnings of an "anti-slavery conspiracy" to secure all the territory in the Southwest that happened to be available. Behind both these movements was a belief that expansion would prove injurious to the slavery interest. Had the war continued much longer the two movements, would probably have developed strength and have become more easily discernible. Lack of time for expansionist sentiment to develop was the chief cause of this country's, failure to annex Mexico in 1848. Even as it was, however, there might have been sufficient demand for annexation in February and March, 1848, to have wrecked the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo had it not been for the opposition of pro-slavery Democrats led by Calhoun. Their attitude divided the party committed to expansion in the presence of a unified opposition. Whatever the motives which may be attributed to Calhoun and his friends, the fact remains that those who feel that the absorption of Mexico in 1848 would have meant permanent injury to the best interests of the United States, should be extremely grateful to those slaveholders. To them not a little credit is due for the fact that Mexico is to-day an independent nation.
Often, when this is proposed, I see race cited as an issue against it but I don't think it is as much of a hindrance as often suggested. The media at the time propagated the idea of romance between American men and Mexican women as a means of assimilating the Mexicans, even going as far as to write poetry on such. These sentiments did not stop at rhetoric, however, as such inter-marriages were actually common in the parts of the Mexican cession that had existing, sufficiently large populations and were, apparently, considered respectable. Essentially, everyone outside of Calhoun's Pro-Slavery faction didn't really care and it was pretty well understood Calhoun's stance was born out of fears of additional free states entering the Union as opposed to his rhetorical concerns of a threat to the WASP ruling elite of the United States.
As far as Mexican sentiment on the issue, the Federalists, one of the two major Pre-War factions in Mexico, were in favor of annexation:
Winfield Scott also suggested this in his own correspondence:
[34] However, two years later, after the treaty of peace was signed at Guadaloupe on Feb. 2, 1848, and sixteen days later, after he was superceded in the command of the army by Butler, he could write, "Two fifths of the Mexican population, including more than half of the Congress, were desirous of annexation to the US, and, as a stepping stone, wished to make me president ad interim.'"
The United States Army in Mexico City, by Edward S. Wallace (Military Affairs, Vol. 13, No. 3 (Autumn, 1949), pp. 158-166) also states a desire for annexation among the well off of Mexico City, and goes into detail about the relationships cultivated between American soldiers and Mexican civilians. Mexican opposition to slavery is also over-stated. To quote Noel Maurer, an economist for GWU and a former employee of the U.S. Federal Government stationed in Mexico:
We have an example of a populated area switching to American rule. New Mexico had a population about as large as Coahuila's and a little more than half of Nuevo León or Chihuahua. It provides a perfectly valid template for how those territories would have developed under American rule; with one wrinkle that I'll get to later. We also know what American troops experienced during the occupation. Mexican politicians in the D.F. were horrified at the level of indifference, shading over in many cases -- not least Nuevo León -- outright collaboration.
The wrinkle, which would make Coahuila and Nuevo León different from New Mexico, is that the elites in the northeastern states actively desired American annexation and the extension of slavery. We know this because they asked for it! Santiago Vidaurri wrote a letter to Richmond in 1861 volunteering Coahuila and Nuevo León to the Confederate cause. (Vidaurri annexed Coahuila to N.L. and installed himself as the governor of Tamaulipas.)
These sympathies predated the Civil War. In fact, Vidaurri had been perfectly happy in 1855 to return escaped slaves to Texas. The agreement failed because the Texans wanted to send in their own people to recapture the escapees, not principled opposition; ironically, he made a whole bunch of antislavery proclamations in 1857, only to reverse them and start sending slaves home in 1858. It is hard to believe that Vidaurri or the elites that supported him would have opposed slavery, given their opportunism and their incessant complaints about labor shortages.
More poignantly, Martin Robinson Delany, the biggest proponent of free black emigration to Mexico encouraged them to settle far away from the border; Mexicans in the north were not to be trusted. Moreover, the illegal status of the refugees meant that they were denied the most basic rights and often abused. (Rosalie Schwartz is the best source; I'd also look at Sarah Cornell if you're interested.)
There is a huge amount of fallow land at this time and no organized peasantry -- that's why there were labor shortages with migrants from the south brought up on indentures. So land grabs are not a problem. Moreover, the locals will control the state governments; the techniques that Anglos used in South Texas won't be applicable. Land grabs by slaveowning Anglos aren't the issue, although there will be some anger from smallholders. This could get particularly nasty in Chihuahua; thus our earlier speculation that Chihuahua would have strong Union sympathies. (Not unlike New Mexico.)
So, the PoD is Nicholas Trist being among the many Americans to die to Yellow Fever in late 1847 in Mexico. By the time a replacement is sent, the Pro-Annexationist crowd is in the majority and the we end up with Mexico in it's entirety being absorbed by the United States sometime in 1848. No insurgency pans out, as most Mexicans prove indifferent or even in favor of this change in political circumstances. What happens from here?
First and foremost in my mind is that the Civil War is likely averted, as the Missouri Compromise line can be easily extended to the Pacific with minimal fuss. Now, IOTL, both the Abolitionists and the Planters expected that slavery would fail to take root in Mexico but I'm not so sure. The more populated regions definitely won't see such occur, but the Northern tier is well suited to it. So firm slave states in what IOTL became Northern Mexico as well as a nominal slave state in the form of New Mexico and another solid one in IOTL SoCal (likely with Baja attached). Slavery could expand into the rest of Mexico but given the population on the ground and the limited number of slaves in the United States, I see this unlikely. This does not mean, however, that all of Mexico could not be firmly attached to Southern interests:
Rethinking the Coming of the Civil War: A Counterfactual Exercise by Gary J. Kornblith, Journal of American History (Volume 90, No. 1, June 2003):
"Yet without the Civil War, it seems highly unlikely that the states of the border South would have acted to abolish slavery anytime soon. Antislavery forces were growing weaker, not stronger, in the region at midcentury. In 1851 Cassius Clay, a gradualist, lost his bid for the governorship of Kentucky by an overwhelming margin. "Even in Delaware," Freehling acknowledged, 'where over fifteen thousand slaves in 1790 had shrunk to under two thousand in 1860, slaveholders resisted final emancipation"--and they did so successfully until 1865. Perhaps most revealing of all was President Lincoln's failure to persuade border South congressmen to support gradual, compensated emancipation. Had the United States followed the Brazilian path to abolition, the South's peculiar institution would almost surely have persisted beyond 1900."
This would assuage Southern fears about retaining power in the Senate, as well as likely convince Southern Whigs, who were the decisive vote on the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, to never support such a thing given the Compromise of 1850 would largely settle the issue. Speaking of the Whigs, without the aforementioned Bill they likely remain around and thus abort the Republican Party without the Bill to engender Northern anger like it did IOTL. Thus, sectional issues are largely resolved by the start of the 1850s, with the North free to settle the West and the South free to do whatever it may so desire in Mexico, both free of worry of the other intervening in their own affairs.
It's truly hard to conceive of an America without the experience of the Civil War, as that fundamentally reshaped the United States. Not only was slavery ended decades before it could be naturally ended with all that entails, it further resulted in a very clear shift in American perceptions best reflected in the the US was no longer referred to in a plural sense but in a singular one. Further, the swath of Civil War Amendments, in particular the 14th, forever changed conceptions of American law and further led to a whole host of political changes that continue to this day.
For some more specific examples of changes, one that immediately leaps to me is that the Vicksburg to San Diego railway gets built. The route was actually considered easier to build, which motivated the Gadsen purchase IOTL and the lack of a need to do it in this ATL is certainly a boon for it as well as the fact the center of the U.S. has shifted significantly South. Such would result in San Diego becoming the premier West Coast city while San Francisco and Los Angeles would ultimately die out. Vicksburg and New Orleans would also grow into a greater importance because with the rail connections West starting there and the lack of a Civil War to divert barge traffic onto lateral rail, the commerce of the Midwest will continue to come downriver to them. This would also likely lead to greater rail developments in the Deep South, likely fostering an early development of Birmingham in the 1850s. Indirectly it'd also keep the Midwest more aligned with Southern interests going forward as well.
As for culture, you'd probably see a lot of minor things, like Salsa emerging far earlier as a favored condiment and Spanish loan words entering into mass usage in the rest of the United States. However, I don't see language being an issue given that IOTL Hispanics have adopted English at faster rates than the Germans and other groups did; that the latter still assimilated is another factor to suggest the Ex-Mexicans would as well. Earlier Mexican communities in American cities would also lead to earlier introduction of Mexican cuisine, which could also lead to more regional variations on the same format as "TexMex" food. The biggest one, in my estimation, might be the abandoning of the "One Drop Rule" in favor of the Latin American Concept of Branciemento. Should such a concept gain national acceptance, it could over time come to be applied to other racial groups, which would be a change from IOTL; not a less racist America, mind you, but a different outlook all the same.