In his oft-quoted 2nd Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln said that we cannot criticize the justice of God if a drop of blood is spilled in war for every drop of blood spilled in slavery. Not many theologians today would make that point that way.
But some years after Lincoln's speech, Gen/Pres Grant said something similar in his Memoirs. He said that the war that he won was caused by the evil of the Mexican War. Lincoln said the war was a just punishment for what the nation did to black slaves; Grant said it was punishment for what the nation did to Mexico. Grant had fought in Mexico ("in the halls of Montezuma"), and had a right to his opinion. But he thought the war was unjustifiable -- was a greedy theft.
In several steps over several years, we took the land that later became TX, NM, AZ, CA, NV, and parts of CO and UT.
Of course, they (Mexicans) weren't using the land much. We saw work/opportunity there, and we took it. Was that justifiable?
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ReplyDeleteOn the face of it, it obviously wasn't justified.
ReplyDeleteI don't really care much about the war, but I do care somewhat about the land grant courts stealing my family's land.
Nevertheless, I am glad it happened because if it had not then neither would my children have been born.
Obviously, 164 years after the war, we aren't going to reverse the outcome. But I do think two questions remain. First, are the racist attitudes toward Mexico that made the war possible still a part of our thinking? And second, the war was not justifiable, but it was tempting and thinkable because we felt that we would utilize the land more fully than the Mexicans and native Americans who were there before us. Does that principle justify crossing a border to do farm work, or any other job that is available?
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