AP®︎ US History: Topic 5.3 Flashcards

1846–1848 war provoked by annexation, expansionism, and the disputed Texas border; U.S. victory produced the Mexican Cession and intensified conflict over slavery and western peoples

Expansionist Democratic president who supported Texas annexation, sought California and New Mexico, sent troops into the disputed borderland, and led the United States into war with Mexico

Belief that the United States was destined or divinely authorized to expand across North America, often justified by racial and cultural claims of American superiority

The United States admitted Texas as a slave state in 1845 despite Mexico’s continued claim to it, creating a diplomatic crisis and sectional controversy

Polk’s failed 1845 effort to settle claims, gain recognition of the Rio Grande border, and purchase California and New Mexico from Mexico

Texas and the United States claimed the Rio Grande as Texas’s boundary, while Mexico claimed the Nueces River, leaving the land between them disputed

April 25, 1846 attack by Mexican troops on Captain Seth Thornton’s patrol in the disputed borderland, used by Polk as the immediate justification for war

Polk’s May 1846 claim that Mexico had invaded U.S. territory and shed American blood on American soil, leading Congress to authorize war

Abolitionist who condemned the Mexican–American War as an immoral expansion of slavery and American imperial power

General who advanced into northern Mexico and became a national hero after victories including Buena Vista, helping him win the presidency in 1848

U.S. general who occupied New Mexico and continued west toward California during the war

1846 uprising by American settlers in California that accompanied U.S. naval and military efforts to seize the region from Mexico

American leader who participated in the takeover of California during the Mexican–American War

General who landed at Veracruz, marched inland, and captured Mexico City in 1847, forcing Mexico toward a peace settlement

1848 treaty ending the war: Mexico recognized the Rio Grande border, ceded California and New Mexico, and received $15 million, while Mexican residents were promised citizenship and property protections

Approximately 525,000 square miles transferred by Mexico in 1848, including California and New Mexico; it expanded the United States to the Pacific and reopened the slavery question

1853 U.S. purchase from Mexico of land in present-day southern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico for $10 million, partly for a southern railroad route

David Wilmot’s unsuccessful 1846 proposal to prohibit slavery in any territory acquired from Mexico; it exposed growing sectional voting and conflict

Position that slavery should not expand into western territories, often to reserve western land for free labor rather than to establish racial equality

Proposal that settlers in each territory should decide whether slavery would be permitted there

Law requiring holders of Spanish and Mexican land grants to seek federal validation of their titles, with costs and delays contributing to Mexican American land loss

Whig congressman who challenged Polk to prove that the war’s first bloodshed occurred on United States soil

Lincoln’s 1847 resolutions demanding that Polk identify the exact spot of the first bloodshed and prove it belonged to the United States

Writer who refused to pay a poll tax in protest against slavery and the Mexican–American War

Thoreau’s essay defending individual resistance to an unjust government, inspired by his opposition to slavery and the war

Pennsylvania Democratic representative who introduced the Wilmot Proviso to bar slavery from territory acquired from Mexico