By 1848 wasn't there universal white male suffrage in every state except S. Carolina?
Greater Mexican Cession to the United States
- Thread starter Politician
- Start date
I dunno. I suppose someone can comment on that. To what extent was there suffrage in the territories, and to what extent was suffrage extended or to be extended to Hispanics.
Should anything resembling OTL's Civil War come around, that'd be the prime opportunity, especially if the Anglo settlers were particularly unpleasant sorts (i.e. slavers).
On the other hand, there were secessionist regimes in much of Mexico at the time of the Texan revolt, but only the Texan one succeeded. It might be that the Mexican populations might not want to rejoin Mexico (although they might want to go independent), especially if there's the possibility of a slavery-free USA.
http://theautry.org/explore/exhibits/suffrage/suff_time.html
The territories had legislatures of their own, with Wyoming Territory allowing women to vote before it was even admitted into the Union.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_California_through_1899#Statehood:_1849.E2.80.931850
This would indicate Californios still had some political influence even after the US conquest of California.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Californio#Californios_after_U.S._annexation
I'd thought there'd been some kind of effort to systematically steal Californios' land, but that didn't seem to have happened. In fact, some of them did rather well.
What is the ethnic/class breakdown of any realistic extra territories taken from Mexico? I imagine the richer and whiter Mexicans would do better and would be more supportive of the Union, if the Californios are a realistic example.
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Thats very different from the arms just drying up. Thats active British Military aid to the Mexicans against the Maya, not just abandonment.
I could see the USA annexing Baja, Sonora, and Chihuahua, with their small populations. The rest, not so much. And... the Yucatan? With it's big population and isolated from the rest of the US? Doesn't seem likely.
And slavery... even if the new territories are somewhat flooded with southerners (although you have to wonder just how many southerners would be willing to uproot themselves and go settle in these marginal lands, and how many could; the population of the south wasn't even big enough to fill in the lands of the old south yet) and slavery was allowed, how much would there be? How much of these new lands are conducive to southern style plantation slavery? Would it ever get beyond the 'house slave' level? Interestingly, wealthy Mexican families were known to have Native American house slaves, so the concept wouldn't be alien to them, and it was a non-issue for the commoners. The big difference would be the race of these slaves, black vs. native.
And slavery... even if the new territories are somewhat flooded with southerners (although you have to wonder just how many southerners would be willing to uproot themselves and go settle in these marginal lands, and how many could; the population of the south wasn't even big enough to fill in the lands of the old south yet) and slavery was allowed, how much would there be? How much of these new lands are conducive to southern style plantation slavery? Would it ever get beyond the 'house slave' level? Interestingly, wealthy Mexican families were known to have Native American house slaves, so the concept wouldn't be alien to them, and it was a non-issue for the commoners. The big difference would be the race of these slaves, black vs. native.
What did Nicolas Trist get into trouble for not annexing OTL? IIRC he didn't take as much as he was told even though he could.
What was he told?
What was he told?
One thing the acquisition of more land does is to reduce the immediate political tensions in the US. When California has the gold rush and is admitted into the Union, there is a much different Compromise of 1850. Cuba might be admitted as slave state so the South doesn't get some other things. There may be no fugitive slave law. Slavery is probably prohibited outright in the Utah Territory. New Mexico Territory and any other territory in the additional Mexican lands may get a form of popular sovereignty where slavery might be instituted.
There is likely no Kansas-Nebraska Act. With slaveholders seeing Mexico as possible expansion, they are likely not going to risk overturning the Missouri Compromise. That means the Whigs likely stay together and the Republican Party does not form, or at least not yet.
If there is a Civil War, it likely gets delayed by several years. And the longer it gets delayed, the more advantage the North has over the South, and it becomes more and more apparent that it is a very strong advantage which is likely to make moderate Southerners less likely to support seccession.
Most of the new Mexican lands are not conducive to larg scale plantations. Even if they are admitted as slave states, those states are more likely to be similar to the pro-Union Border States where the bulk of the population is not sympathetic to any Confederacy. So let's say Kansas is admitted as a free state in 1860. Southerners might demand a new slave state to be added at the same time or very soon.
What are the candidates? Maybe a state of "Rio Grande" that combines Coahuila, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas. It'll be similar to Texas, but unlike Texas won't have any native slaveholders. It'll be immigrants from the South, perhaps those who IOTL moved to Kansas-Nebraska. This creates the political crisis because there will be a large number of people in Rio Grande who don't want slavery. Thus we may see the rhetoric and compromises in the 1860-1864 period we saw in 1850-1860.
We know how that will fall out. The Whigs collapse and are replaced by free soil Republicans. The native Mexicans become a large component of this Republican Party, giving the party a solid basis in the Mexican territories and Rio Grande. This totally throws out the existing strategy of the Southerners. Mexico won't be the key to preserving the institution of slavery. Instead of reliable pro-slavery votes, the situation is at best much more complicated. At worst, future Mexican states might be anti-slavery.
The crisis reaches a head in 1864 or 1868 when the first Republican is elected President. The question now is without the circumstances of 1860, does the same domino chain hold? South Carolina will still want to secede, but unless additional states join in, we won't get a war. Instead, we have the same crisis in 1832. There is a very different balance of power now. The Transcontinental Railroad is being built. There is likely strong support for the Republican Party in (American) Mexico. The "North" has even more economic and industrial power than it did in 1860.
If there isn't an effectual President like Buchanan in office, how successful would be any attempt to seize Federal property? What if the incumbent President takes a very strong pro-Union stance by making sure commanders of Federal troops in the South are not Southern sympathizers, but strong union men? Or gives orders that soldiers are not too surrender any arms or arsenals without express permission by the War Department? A strong stance, something a President like Andrew Jackson or Zachary Taylor would have done, would send a chilling message to the South. It might enrage the fire eaters even more, but it will be the moderates who decide what to do.
The Civil War might be avoided entirely as moderates keep delaying a showdown and every year that passes establishes the economic dominance of the "North" and strengthens the anti-slavery forces. Slavery could last a lot longer, but is slowly overturned as some point paid compensation for abolition goes into effect.
There is likely no Kansas-Nebraska Act. With slaveholders seeing Mexico as possible expansion, they are likely not going to risk overturning the Missouri Compromise. That means the Whigs likely stay together and the Republican Party does not form, or at least not yet.
If there is a Civil War, it likely gets delayed by several years. And the longer it gets delayed, the more advantage the North has over the South, and it becomes more and more apparent that it is a very strong advantage which is likely to make moderate Southerners less likely to support seccession.
Most of the new Mexican lands are not conducive to larg scale plantations. Even if they are admitted as slave states, those states are more likely to be similar to the pro-Union Border States where the bulk of the population is not sympathetic to any Confederacy. So let's say Kansas is admitted as a free state in 1860. Southerners might demand a new slave state to be added at the same time or very soon.
What are the candidates? Maybe a state of "Rio Grande" that combines Coahuila, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas. It'll be similar to Texas, but unlike Texas won't have any native slaveholders. It'll be immigrants from the South, perhaps those who IOTL moved to Kansas-Nebraska. This creates the political crisis because there will be a large number of people in Rio Grande who don't want slavery. Thus we may see the rhetoric and compromises in the 1860-1864 period we saw in 1850-1860.
We know how that will fall out. The Whigs collapse and are replaced by free soil Republicans. The native Mexicans become a large component of this Republican Party, giving the party a solid basis in the Mexican territories and Rio Grande. This totally throws out the existing strategy of the Southerners. Mexico won't be the key to preserving the institution of slavery. Instead of reliable pro-slavery votes, the situation is at best much more complicated. At worst, future Mexican states might be anti-slavery.
The crisis reaches a head in 1864 or 1868 when the first Republican is elected President. The question now is without the circumstances of 1860, does the same domino chain hold? South Carolina will still want to secede, but unless additional states join in, we won't get a war. Instead, we have the same crisis in 1832. There is a very different balance of power now. The Transcontinental Railroad is being built. There is likely strong support for the Republican Party in (American) Mexico. The "North" has even more economic and industrial power than it did in 1860.
If there isn't an effectual President like Buchanan in office, how successful would be any attempt to seize Federal property? What if the incumbent President takes a very strong pro-Union stance by making sure commanders of Federal troops in the South are not Southern sympathizers, but strong union men? Or gives orders that soldiers are not too surrender any arms or arsenals without express permission by the War Department? A strong stance, something a President like Andrew Jackson or Zachary Taylor would have done, would send a chilling message to the South. It might enrage the fire eaters even more, but it will be the moderates who decide what to do.
The Civil War might be avoided entirely as moderates keep delaying a showdown and every year that passes establishes the economic dominance of the "North" and strengthens the anti-slavery forces. Slavery could last a lot longer, but is slowly overturned as some point paid compensation for abolition goes into effect.
Cuba would require war with Spain or a crisis that forces Spain to sell.
I'd still with "more of northern Mexico" for realism's sake.
Still, as an American I do like your scenario. More territory, less or no mistreatment of Mexicans (if they're Republicans that means they're likely voting), and no Civil War as slavery is marginalized and ultimately abolished.
I'd still with "more of northern Mexico" for realism's sake.
Still, as an American I do like your scenario. More territory, less or no mistreatment of Mexicans (if they're Republicans that means they're likely voting), and no Civil War as slavery is marginalized and ultimately abolished.
On the subject of how an American occupation of Mexico or a larger part of mexico would work, especially with a large rebellion at some point, I think the American-Philippine war provides an interesting example of how the US would handle these things.
There are some critical differences of course. Only part of Mexico's population is in a tropical climate. I imagine such a rebellion would start a lot earlier than the Philippine revolution (perhaps 1860's...which would be interesting) and I think there would be much greater collaboration from larger numbers of whiter, English speaking Mexicans.
There are some critical differences of course. Only part of Mexico's population is in a tropical climate. I imagine such a rebellion would start a lot earlier than the Philippine revolution (perhaps 1860's...which would be interesting) and I think there would be much greater collaboration from larger numbers of whiter, English speaking Mexicans.
On the subject of how an American occupation of Mexico or a larger part of mexico would work, especially with a large rebellion at some point, I think the American-Philippine war provides an interesting example of how the US would handle these things.
There are some critical differences of course. Only part of Mexico's population is in a tropical climate. I imagine such a rebellion would start a lot earlier than the Philippine revolution (perhaps 1860's...which would be interesting) and I think there would be much greater collaboration from larger numbers of whiter, English speaking Mexicans.
That was much later though and in an era of more overt imperialism and scientific racism.
Of course, there were some truly a-hole acts done OTL like the Sand Creek Massacre, so it's not like there wouldn't be war crimes.
The main thing when it comes to civilian casualties is starvation. In that way, I think Mexico would suffer a lot more than the Philippines did, what with a greater dependence on more vulnerable ranching and farming as opposed to coastal fishing and a greater urban population.
New Mexico had enough people to become a state in 1850, but its statehood was delayed for sixty-two years, until Anglos formed a majority of the population. That should be a big hint on how Hispanics were treated. Mexico got the guarantee that they were to be legally white, because they didn't want them to be enslaved. But to assert that Hispanics would be treated like white people, let alone be voting Republicans in slave states, is laughable.
AFAIK, there were no states with property qualifications for voting by 1840. At the time of the Framing, some states had such rules. This led to a very small number of prosperous "free colored" men voting, and in some cases women, and in New Jersey, even a few black women (I've heard). Bear in mind that what's acceptable for one or two or five can be much broader than for hundreds or thousands.
The egalitarian ethos that resulted from the Revolution cut against this, and "manhood suffrage" became the norm. At the same time, racial qualifications came in, to prevent any large number of free blacks voting. (It had to be all or none.)
The Territories had elected legislatures; suffrage rules were determined by Congress in the organizing act. When Montana Territory was organized in 1864, the bill provided for voting by "all white male residents aged 21 or older." Senator Ben Wade, a Radical Republican, offered an amendment striking the word "white".
AFAIK there were never explicit restriction on Hispanic voting. Romualdo Pacheco was elected Treasurer of California in 1863. He later served as Governor and U.S. Representative. José Francisco Chaves was President of the New Mexico Territorial Council, and Lieutenant Colonel of the First New Mexico Infantry in the Civil War. José Manuel Gallegos was the first elected Delegate from New Mexico, in 1853 (as a Democrat).
Suppose the U.S. annexs this slice of Mexico...
This will exacerbate and entangle the three of the hottest political issues of the next decade: slavery, immigration, and anti-Catholicism.
The latter two are already about to become entangled, as a flood of Catholic Irish immigrants fleeing the Great Famine triggered xenophobic reaction in the form of the "Know-Nothings".
Northern Mexico closes the circle.
Southerners would want to make the new territories into slave states. Most probably, the Mexicanos there would fight against this.
The Mexicanos would demand statehood, which these territories demographically qualify for - if not as the previous Mexican states, than as three states and Baja California as a territory.
This is going to freak out papiphobic New Englanders; but the Mexicanos want to be free states, and the sooner they are admitted the less chance for slaveowners to gain control there.
Pro-slavery Southerners will be seen as anti-Catholic for opposing statehood.
The Whigs will blow up. The election of 1856 could feature Republicans for north Mexican statehood, and by implication pro-Catholic, against Democrats trying to slavify the north Mexican lands. The Irish vote could swing the election for the Republicans.
Answers in red
Why?
I explained in the original post
First, the US wouldn’t have kept the old borders. Second, so?
What do you mean? If the slave states were outnumbered even more they probably wouldn't try. Plus I explained earlier.
The butterflies associated with taking more of Mexico–much less all (ASB)–make the modern illegal immigration problem nonexistent.
Yeah that's what I said
Now you’re just going on with nonsense.
Not really Britain and France were thinking about joining the Civil War but then Lee lost Sharpsburg, so they lost all hope. Britain also supported Texas to remain free instead of joining US. The truth is Britain was trying for America's downfall for a long long time. And if America started Steamrolling the Americas Britain would step in and stop them. Lots of Britain's interests lied in the Americas. If Britain didn't step in then it would basically be saying, "Hey USA go ahead and conquer everything, because we want to see you take our place as #1!,"
Racism may have been part of it, but it wasn't the key part; the major issue was that the entrance of New Mexico was to be as a free state, which would have only further tilted the balance against the slave states who were already worried about the admission of California without any balance on its part. After the slavery issue had been finally settled, it seems to have become more of a matter of Republicans wanting Arizona and New Mexico as a single state, Democrats wanting them as separate states; a political fight over extended influence in the Senate, similar to the Dakotas.
Here there might be little issue, especially if Southerners believe they could turn states such as Sonora or Tamaulipas into Slave-States at some point in the future. However I can see that backfiring spectacularly as they find Mexican partisans conducting regular raids on any plantations that might be established in those states, making the enterprise unprofitable in the long run (idea proposed in some alternate history book I had read where the Mexicans did exactly this; slavery was extended to those lands but the locals did all they could to prevent it from being established.)
Here there might be little issue, especially if Southerners believe they could turn states such as Sonora or Tamaulipas into Slave-States at some point in the future. However I can see that backfiring spectacularly as they find Mexican partisans conducting regular raids on any plantations that might be established in those states, making the enterprise unprofitable in the long run (idea proposed in some alternate history book I had read where the Mexicans did exactly this; slavery was extended to those lands but the locals did all they could to prevent it from being established.)
katchen
Banned
The New Mexican Hispanic population WERE legally full blooded white under Spanish and Mexican law. As it turned out, they were the descendants of Jews who fled the Inquisition in the 16th and 17th Centuries. They did NOT intermarry with the local Indians.
It is interesting that Arizona and New Mexico got statehood in 1912 now that I think about it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/62nd_United_States_Congress. The Senate was Republican and the House was Democrat. And when Arizona and New Mexico were split and had elections. Arizona elected Democrats and New Mexico elected Repubilicans, cancelling each other out in an election that was one of the closest and most pivotal (at least for the White House) in US history.
None of which is to say how much of Northern Mexico is slave or free in this TL, though. Take Arizona, for example. IOTL, the initial border is the Gila River and Tucson and the Salt River aren't even sold to the US until the Gadsden Purchase in 1858. And that land is uninhabited and inachttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/62nd_United_States_Congresscesible until a transcontinental railroad is built.
But as we know, the Gila and Salt River Valleys --and the Lower Colorado River Valley have no frost and can be farmed year round if irrigated. As can numerous river valleys around the Gulf of California in Sonora and Sinaloa which are fed by rain and snowmelt in the Sierra Madre, all the way down to Mazatlan. It is not difficult to designate THESE parts of Mexico (which are relatively unpopulated) as open to slavery while leaving more populated Chihuahua, Durango and Zacatecas in the interior as free. Baja California can also be open to slavery.
This also leaves the area wide open to the semi-illicit pacific slave trade, however. Which means a lot of friction with Great Britain. And cotton and sugar can easily be exported by sea around Cape Horn to the mills of the UK, since the Brits are hypocritical about not caring who has picked the cotton once it has been picked.