Bailey reading is optional; you do not have to take notes. It will help you remember
Amsco, but I will write the test based on the Amsco reading and the lecture.
Mexican War
Context
Small group comparisons to 1812, Vietnam, Iraq?
Driving factors in American foreign policy:
City on the Hill
Pragmatic Realpolitik
Driving Factors: Manifest Destiny/Slavocracy
Mix?
Missouri Compromise (Review)
36-30
Stage Three of slavery: What part of government does South think it can hold?
Brainstorm.
Filibustering (2 definitions)
1)
William Walker
Ostend Manifesto
2) Debating tactic
Cloture
Senate v. House (Minority influence)
Thurmond
Supreme Court/Bolton nominations
Nuclear option/Constitutional Crisis
Texas
Austin
Mexican invitation: free land!
Compare settlement pattern of Mexican West to Northwest Ordinance
Why?
Weak political institutions
No tradition of representative government (Spanish Catholic absolutism)
Independence in 1810 not an internal political development (why?)
Series of dictators unable to unite Mexico under stable leadership:
Warlords (mountains)
Review Healy and Caudillos. Kleptocracy
Mexico to this day blames America for its lack of economic development
BUT caudillo government covers the entire period of Mexican history from independence
until recently (?) (interpretation: single party rule: Dressed up as a democracy?)
Conditions: Oath, taxes, convert, obey laws inc. no slavery
Violations
Enforcement: Tyranny
Texan independence
Santa Anna
Side note: Bubble Gum (1869)
Dictator of Mexico
Alamo
San Jacinto
Sam Houston
Capture/treaty: Rejected by legislature freed from their dictator.
Texan unrecognized independence -- De Jure v. De Facto
Alamo: Interpretations
Alamo docent (Mrs. Tueting holds back her husband)
Movies
Popular Culture (Disney, for God’s sake!)
King of the Hill
Overeaching/Overcompensation? (Broaden to expansion in general)
See Amsco historiography (4 focus topics)
Inaccurate picture?
Mexico Museum and Dad
Recent documents discovered about the fate of the Alamo
Annexation?
Goal of many Texans
Blocked in Senate. Why?
Nationalistic reaction (anti-slavery tempered by Manifest Destiny (John O’
Sullivan)
Election of James K. Polk
3 goals: Texas, California, Oregon
Clay: I was against the annexation of Texas before I was for it? Heh.
Kerry.
Annexation (5 state division rights: why?)
Slidell Mission
Nueces River/Rio Grande
Taylor moves into disputed territory
American blood on American soil
Spotty Lincoln
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
Other examples (I know someone will bring up Al Queda Link?/WMD)
Country split over war
HDT’s Civil Disobedience
Small groups provide examples of split:
Military success outpaces opposition (War of 1812 link?)
Kearney: New Mexico
Fremont: The Path Finder to California
Bear Flag Republic (Possible AP point?)
Political infighting
Taylor: Buena Vista
Winfield Scott: Vera Cruz/Mexico City
The whiny Nicholas Trist
Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo
Terms?
Gadsen Purchase (why?)