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?)