Timothy Birdnow

Uh, the U.S. paid Mexico for Texas. We also did not "steal" it as it was a popular uprising of citizens of the state of Tejas against the changing of the Constitution unilaterally by then President Bustamante' and enforced by Gen. Antonio Santa Ana in a ruthless fashion. The American settlers had immigrated under the theory they were immigrating to a place with a democratically elected government and a constitution guaranteeing civil rights and had a dictator come along and suspend the constitution. Also they were made promises of land they never received; the Mexican government pulled a bait and switch on them.

I would add that it was not just Texas that rebelled but several other northern states did likewise. Sadly they were easier to reach and attack for Santa Ana and he did so ruthlessly, crushing the rebellion in the rest of those states. Only Texas was positioned (and had the help of their American cousins) to succeed in this, and even then nobody believed it was possible they could win. Santa Ana really screwed the pooch on that one! A competent general would not have been lured so far north away from his supply lines, nor into a swamp where his men had only one line of retreat. Oh, and Santa Ana gave them all the afternoon off while he despoiled a local girl (a slave girl, hence known as the Yellow Rose of Texas). It was his incompetence that cost Mexico Texas.

The fact is the Texans had every right to revolt, and Mexico only had a claim on that land because it fell in the old Spanish claim. Mexico couldn't settle it or develop it, which is why they invited Americans and Europeans to come. And that is why the revolt was successful in the first place; Mexico had almost no infrastructure there, and little in the way of a military presence.

When the U.S. annexed Mexico ten years after its independence it did so because the Mexican government was threatening to invade the financially ruined independent state, and then the Mexican government amassed troops to invade Texas and take it from the U.S. At every juncture Mexico was the aggressor and their claim to the land was minimal. The Texans came from elsewhere and built a state where a frontier had been.

Even so the Polk government paid Mexico for the southwestern territories in took from them including Texas as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. (The U.S. paid $15 million, then a lordly sum.) They don't have squat for a claim to the land, except that they once claimed it. If anyone has a claim to Texas it's the Indians who lived there and were pushed out.

If Mexico intended to continue to dispute the claim the should not have accepted the money.

For that matter, later on the Mexicans sold a large chunk of land (29,640 square miles) in Arizona and New Mexico to the U.S. for ten million bucks in 1854 so America could run a rail line. This was called the Gadsden Purchase. So if Mexico felt so ill-used by our annexation of Texas and the Southwest why did they sell us a huge chunk of it of their own volition?

We don't owe Mexico anything and they have no claim on the land. I suppose the Russians will want Alaska back next? California and Oregon and New Mexico too?

Texas is ours by any and all rights.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 11:05 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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