Aftermath
The Reckoning
The
story wasn’t really over, of course. The consequences of
Texas annexation would play themselves out over the next fifteen
years.
Opponents
of annexation had claimed it would lead to war with Mexico, and
they were right. President Polk attempted to pressure Mexico to
recognize the Rio Grande as the new boundary between the United
States and Mexico, and to sell California to the United States.
No Mexican politician could agree to negotiate on these points
and hope to remain in office. Faced with a standoff, Polk resolved
to settle the matter militarily. He sent U.S. army troops under
General Zachary Taylor to occupy the Rio Grande across from Matamoros.
In April 1846, Mexican and U.S. troops skirmished, and Polk had
his war. Major combat commenced almost immediately.
Although
longer and more costly in terms of blood and treasure than the
United States expected, the Mexican War ended in complete triumph
for the U.S. and disaster for Mexico. In the 1848
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the United States gained California,
Arizona, New Mexico, and the Rio Grande boundary for Texas, as
well as portions of Utah, Nevada, and Colorado. Because of Texas
annexation, America ended up gaining a huge expansion of territory.
The United States was now a true world power.
But
annexation and the war had unleashed forces that no one had foreseen
and no one could control. The war had been widely supported in
the South and opposed in the North. Now the territory gained fell
into the same seething cauldron of sectionalism. President Polk,
unable to reconcile the desires of Northern abolitionists and
Southern expansionists, became ill. He decided not to seek a second
term and died only a few months after leaving office.
The
drawn-out drama of Texas annexation had sometimes threatened to
become farce. Now it evolved into tragedy. Over the next years,
compromises were made and broken. Political fights turned into
real mayhem and killing in Kansas and Missouri. Both sides became
radicalized until political action was no longer possible.
Like
the rest of the United States, Texas threw itself headlong into
the maelstrom of the hateful forces unexpectedly unleashed. In
the drama’s final act, Texas would join the Confederacy,
and the questions raised by annexation would be settled once and
for all on the battlefields of the American Civil War.
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