islation that would protect the settlers making their way to the
Pacific Northwest. He said he had no doubt that "our title to the
country of Oregon is clear and unquestionable." Polk demanded that
England grant the U.S. ownership all the way up to the 54th parallel,
thus including a substantial chunk of what is now Canada. He indicated
that he was willing to go to war with England in order to secure the
land. [See President Polk's First Annual Message to Congress (Excerpts) (primary document)]
However, Polk's demand was a negotiating ploy. In his private journal
he wrote that he actually did not want war with Great Britain, and as a
Southerner he was not eager to add free states to the Union. He also
knew that the lands above the 49th parallel were not prime farmland.
But by threatening war he was able to extract a compromise, and in
1846, the U.S. and Britain agreed to establish the boundary line
between American and British territories at the 49th parallel, where
the U.S.-Canadian border remains today.
Perhaps the defining aspect of the Polk administration, however, was
the war with Mexico. Texas had declared its independence from Mexico on
March 2, 1836, when Texas was under siege by Mexican forces. Mexico
never formally recognized Texas's declaration of independence, which
became a bone of contention when Texas joined the United States in 1845
under Polk's stewardship.
Many American settlers who lived in Mexico did not object to becoming
part of the U.S., because when the area belonged to Mexico, settlers
had to become Mexican citizens and convert to Roman Catholicism. As the
Anglo-Saxon population grew, so did the desire to become part of the
U.S. The annexation of Texas also pleased many Southerners because
Texas had been part of the original Louisiana Purchase, but had been
traded to Spain in 1819 for Florida.
It was also understood that Texas would come in as a slave state. That
fact, in turn, upset many people from the North, who also lamented that
the war was just the kind of show of brute force they had always
detested among the European powers.
Tensions between the U.S. and Mexico over Texas reached a breaking
point the following year. As hostilities led to combat, Polk said,
"After reiterated menaces, Mexico has passed the boundary of the United
States, has invaded our territory and shed American blood upon the
American Soil. She has proclaimed that hostilities have commenced, and
that the two nations are at war." [See Mexican-American War]
The war would last two years. When peace was negotiated, the defeated
Mexican government had little choice but to cede nearly half of its
northern territories (500,000 square miles) to the U.S. Under the
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the Rio Grande was fixed as the southern
boundary of Texas. The U.S., in return for $15 million, acquired
territory that today includes the states of California, Arizona, New
Mexico, Nevada, and Utah as well as parts of Colorado and Wyoming. In
fact, critics of the war claimed that Polk intentionally provoked the
war with Mexico in order to win California.
Following the conclusion of the war with Mexico, attention turned
southward. Polk sought to purchase Cuba from its Spanish colonizers,
but Spain refused to sell the island. Attention turned to Cuba again
during the presidency of Franklin Pierce (D, 1853-57). In 1854 three
American diplomats, Buchanan (ambassador to Britain at the time),
Pierre Soulé (ambassador to Spain), and John Mason (ambassador to
France) met in Ostend, Belgium; seeking to convince Spain that it
needed to sell Cuba to the U.S. or risk a war in which it would lose
Cuba by force.
The diplomats were speaking on behalf of southern slave holders who had
wanted the U.S. to acquire the island and continue the practice of
slavery on it. The time was urgent, slavery advocates believed, because
Spain was considering emancipating all Cuban slaves because of recent
slave rebellions in various Caribbean islands, including Haiti.
However, the diplomatic mission to Spain had not been approved by
Pierce, and he immediately renounced it