APUSH (G): 1/27

“It was not automatically apparent how any of the filibustering targets of the post-1848 period could ‘fit’ into an American republic, or even into an American empire. . . . While it seemed only logical to some to simply take all of Mexico as booty [spoils] of the war, cut Mexico up, and turn it into new territories and states, most Americans rejected this idea. They did so because central Mexico was densely populated. . . . Many Americans feared the result of the integration of Mexico’s people into the United States. Critics also doubted whether Americans could be happy in the alien landscape of central and southern Mexico.”

Amy Greenberg, historian, Manifest Manhood and the Antebellum American Empire, 2005

“American settlers had eclipsed the Mexicans in Texas and, with ample aid from southern Whites, had rebelled and won their independence. . . . A small band of Americans, many of them merchants, lived in Mexican California when war broke out in 1846. This dispersion of hardy migrants inspired observers to insist that pioneers and not politicians won the West. . . .

“Pioneers played a role in expansion, but the historical record points to politicians and propagandists as the primary agents of empire. Racial, economic, social, and political factors coalesced [combined] to make territorial and commercial expansion enticing to American leaders. . . .

“Denying any parallels between earlier empires and their own, expansionists insisted that democracy and dominion were complementary, not contradictory. Since leaders intended to transform [territorial] cessions into states and their inhabitants (at least Whites) into citizens, they scoffed at misgivings about governing a vast domain.”

Thomas Hietala, historian, Manifest Design: American Exceptionalism and Empire, 2003

Which of the following arguments about the Mexican-American War do the excerpts best support?

• It resulted in the first efforts at western expansion.

• It generated debates over citizenship.

• It ended sectional tensions between the North and South.

• It contributed to the elimination of the domestic slave trade.

“Mr. President, it was solemnly asserted on this floor, some time ago, that all parties in the non-slaveholding States had come to a fixed and solemn determination upon two propositions. One was that there should be no further admission of any States into this Union which permitted, by their constitutions, the existence of slavery; and the other was that slavery shall not hereafter exist in any of the territories of the United States, the effect of which would be to give to the non-slaveholding States the monopoly of the public domain. . . . The subject has been agitated in the other House [of Congress], and they have sent up a bill ‘prohibiting the extension of slavery . . . to any territory which may be acquired by the United States hereafter.’ At the same time, two resolutions which have been moved to extend the compromise line from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, during the present session, have been rejected by a decided majority.

“Sir, there is no mistaking the signs of the times; and it is high time that the Southern States—the slaveholding States—should inquire what is now their relative strength in this Union, and what it will be if this determination is carried into effect hereafter.”

John C. Calhoun, senator, speech in the United States Senate, 1847

Which of the following can be concluded based on the situation in which Calhoun gave this speech?

• The United States attempted to establish trade with western American Indian nations.

• Americans debated how to integrate conquered territories into the United States.

• Americans wanted to access natural resources in the western North America.

• The United States sought to gain markets for its manufactured goods in East Asia.