The U.S. War with Mexico Was Meant to Help Mexico

            There was a great divide of opinion between the politicians towards the acquisition of western territory. Both the free-labor advocates and pro-slavery supporters supported and/or opposed the war with Mexico for various reasons based upon their political agendas. There were other factors that garnered American support for the war with Mexico. Some newspapers of the time supported the war for other reasons than free-labor or slavery extension. The Southern newspaper, the Edgefield advertiser, on February 4, 1846, not only indicated a rumor that “instigation of the British” was leading to “a declaration of war against” the United States, but also that “a little fight would do our country good” to help “let off some of the spirit for hard fighting now pent up.”[1] This author obviously hoped that a good fight would help alleviate the tension growing between the North and South.

Another newspaper from South Carolina, The Banner, did not even mention internal American tensions as a reason to go to war, but of their right of duty to help Mexico. The newspaper explained months later in April before the war broke out how Mexico needed American’s assistance to reclaim her previous glory:

A country possessing the advantages of climate and soil that Mexico does, under the influence of civilization, might be made a happy and prosperous land, the home of genius, and nursery of the arts and science; but under her present lords, how abject and low her condition! It is the destiny of America to dispel the moral darkness which has sit down upon her, and to restore this land which, once under the Aztec dynasty, flourished as a garden to is former beauty.[2]

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[1] Edgefield Advertiser, (Edgefield, S.C.), Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress, February 4, 1846, http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026897/1846-02-04/ed-1/seq-1/.

[2] The Banner,(Abbeville, S.C.), 22 April 1846. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress, April 22, 1846, http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85026944/1846-04-22/ed-1/seq-2/.