Essay Question: Using your knowledge of the time period and your sources compare and contrast three arguments for President’s Polk’s decision to go to war against Mexico with three arguments against his decision for war.

Background: In 1844 James K Polk ran for President on the platform that he would bring Texas (then an independent republic but wishing for annexation to the United States) into the Union. To do so, however, risked war with Mexico. Indeed, within one year of Polk’s inauguration he asked Congress for a declaration of war. The Mexican-American War was then and remains controversial despite the territories brought into the U.S. as a result of it.

1. President Polk, 1846 justifies war with Mexico.

The grievous wrong perpetrated by Mexico upon our citizens throughout a long period of years remain undressed, and solemn [claims] treaties pledging her public faith for his redress have been disregarded. A government either unable or unwilling to inforce the execution of such treaties fails to perform one of its plainest duties.
Instead of this, however, we have been exerting our best efforts to propitiate her good will. Upon the pretext that Texas, a nation as independent as herself, thought proper to unite its destinies with our own, she has

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