Why Is Mexico's War Unjust

In 1846, the United States went to war with Mexico. The war, nicknamed “Mr. Polk’s War”, was not justified. The reasons for the war were unjust. The official reason for declaring war was a small skirmish that was debated in more ways than one. Many believed that it was set up by Polk to push his agenda. He had always been a strong advocate in expansion and had built his platform on wanting to expand into parts of northern Mexico and to gain territories further to the west that Mexico controlled. Overall, the war was costly, probably unnecessary, and completely unjust.
In 1845, President James K. Polk asked Congress for an official declaration of war against Mexico. For twenty years, many Americans had been settling in the Mexican territory …show more content…
Many believed that Polk deliberately occupied the disputed land as a tactic to force the start of the war. Even a U.S. army officer agreed with this, saying about the skirmish, “We have not one particle of right to be here. It looks as if the government sent a small force on purpose to bring war…” Another argument against how the war started was whether or not the land was American or Mexican. If the land was Mexican than people believed that the war was unjust. However, the only official Mexican recognition of the Rio Grande as Texas’s border was the dictator Santa Anna, who was no longer in control of Mexico at the time of the war. By sending soldiers to occupy that land, land that Mexico also claimed as their own, Polk provoked the attack that unfairly justified the …show more content…
The official reason was that Mexico had attacked American soldiers, the real reason was more likely to further expand the United States. Polk’s agenda had always been to expand the United States and he had his sights set on northern parts of Mexico and other territories held by them. By setting up the attack over the land between the two borders, Polk was given an opportunity to declare war against Mexico and was then able to gain more territory from them. Many Northerners, especially abolitionists, also believed that the war was an attempt by Southerners to spread slavery further and add another slave state to the Union, which Texas would likely become because slavery was already widely spread in the territory. It was unjust for Polk to wage war against Mexico just so that he could expand the country, and slavery. The Mexican-American war was unjustified. Neither the official nor unofficial reasons for starting the war were fair. The attack that started it all was likely planned by Polk, was not actually reason enough to start a war, fought on Mexican soil, or all of the above. Polk, and many other Americans, were trying to expand the country, a goal that a war with Mexico would help achieve. Northerners also believed that Southerners supported the war to continue the spread of slavery, a definite outcome of the war. Overall, the war was unjust and should not have been