Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

The land that the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo brought into the United States became, between 1850 and 1912, all or part of nine states: California (1850), Nevada (1864), Utah (1896), and Arizona (1912), as well as, depending upon interpretation, the entire state of Texas (1845), which then included part of Kansas (1861); Colorado (1876); Wyoming (1890); Oklahoma (1907); and New Mexico (1912). The area of domain acquired was given by the Federal Interagency Committee as 338,680,960 acres.[17] The cost was $16,295,149 or approximately 5 cents an acre.[17] The remainder (the southern parts) of New Mexico and Arizona were peacefully purchased under the Gadsden Purchase, which was carried out in 1853. In this purchase, the United States paid an additional $10 million (equivalent to $260 million in 2021) for land intended to accommodate a transcontinental railroad. However, the American Civil War delayed the construction of such a route, and it was not until 1881 that the Southern Pacific Railroad finally was completed as a second transcontinental railroad, fulfilling the purpose of the acquisition.[18]

Some Eastern Democrats called for complete annexation of Mexico and recalled that a group of Mexico's leading citizens had invited General Winfield Scott to become dictator of Mexico after his capture of Mexico City (he declined).[26] However, the movement did not draw widespread support. President Polk's State of the Union address in December 1847 upheld Mexican independence and argued at length that occupation and any further military operations in Mexico were aimed at securing a treaty ceding California and New Mexico up to approximately the 32nd parallel north and possibly Baja California and transit rights across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.[21]

Despite several military defeats, the Mexican government was reluctant to agree to the loss of California and New Mexico. Even with its capital under enemy occupation, the Mexican government was inclined to consider factors such as the unwillingness of the U.S. administration to annex Mexico outright and what appeared to be deep divisions in domestic U.S. opinion regarding the war and its aims, which caused it to imagine that it was actually in a far better negotiating position than the military situation might have suggested. A further consideration was the growing opposition to slavery that had caused Mexico to end formal slavery in 1829 and its awareness of the well-known and growing sectional divide in the U.S. over the issue of slavery. It, therefore, made sense for Mexico to negotiate to play Northern U.S. interests against Southern U.S. interests.

The Mexicans proposed peace terms that offered only the sale of Alta California north of the 37th parallel north — north of Santa Cruz, California and Madera, California and the southern boundaries of today's Utah and Colorado. Anglo-American settlers already dominated this territory, but perhaps more importantly from the Mexican point of view, it represented the bulk of pre-war Mexican territory north of the Missouri Compromise line of parallel 36°30′ north — lands that, if annexed by the United States, would have been presumed by Northerners to be forever free of slavery. The Mexicans also offered to recognize the freedom of Texas from Mexican rule and its right to join the Union but held to its demand of the Nueces River as a boundary.

While the Mexican government could not reasonably have expected the Polk Administration to accept such terms, it would have had reason to hope that a rejection of peace terms so favorable to Northern interests might have the potential to provoke sectional conflict in the United States or perhaps even a civil war that would fatally undermine the U.S. military position in Mexico. Instead, these terms, combined with other Mexican demands (in particular, for various indemnities), only provoked widespread indignation throughout the United States without causing the sectional conflict the Mexicans hoped for.

Jefferson Davis advised Polk that if Mexico appointed commissioners to come to the United States, the government that appointed them would probably be overthrown before they completed their mission, and they would likely be shot as traitors on their return; so that the only hope of peace was to have a U.S. representative in Mexico.[27] Nicholas Trist, chief clerk of the State Department under President Polk, finally negotiated a treaty with the Mexican delegation after ignoring his recall by President Polk in frustration with the failure to secure a treaty.[28] Notwithstanding that the treaty had been negotiated against his instructions, given its achievement of the major American aim, President Polk passed it on to the Senate.[28]

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed by Nicholas Trist (on behalf of the United States) and Luis G. Cuevas, Bernardo Couto, and Miguel Atristain as plenipotentiary representatives of Mexico on 2 February 1848 at the main altar of the old Basilica of Guadalupe at Villa Hidalgo (within the present city limits) as U.S. troops under the command of Gen. Winfield Scott were occupying Mexico City.[29]

First page of the original treaty[29]

The version of the treaty ratified by the United States Senate eliminated Article X,[30] which stated that the U.S. government would honor and guarantee all land grants awarded in lands ceded to the United States by those respective governments to citizens of Spain and Mexico. Article VIII guaranteed that Mexicans who remained more than one year in the ceded lands would automatically become full-fledged United States citizens (or they could declare their intention of remaining Mexican citizens); however, the Senate modified Article IX, changing the first paragraph and excluding the last two. Among the changes was that Mexican citizens would "be admitted at the proper time (to be judged of by the Congress of the United States)" instead of "admitted as soon as possible", as negotiated between Trist and the Mexican delegation.

An amendment by Jefferson Davis giving the United States most of Tamaulipas and Nuevo León, all of Coahuila, and a large part of Chihuahua was supported by both senators from Texas (Sam Houston and Thomas Jefferson Rusk), Daniel S. Dickinson of New York, Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, Edward A. Hannegan of Indiana, and one each from Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Ohio, Missouri, and Tennessee. Most of the leaders of the Democratic party, Thomas Hart Benton, John C. Calhoun, Herschel V. Johnson, Lewis Cass, James Murray Mason of Virginia and Ambrose Hundley Sevier were opposed, and the amendment was defeated 44–11.[31]

An amendment by Whig Sen. George Edmund Badger of North Carolina to exclude New Mexico and California lost 35–15, with three Southern Whigs voting with the Democrats. Daniel Webster was bitter that four New England senators made deciding votes for acquiring the new territories.

A motion to insert into the treaty the Wilmot Proviso (banning slavery from the acquired territories) failed 15–38 on sectional lines.

The treaty was leaked to John Nugent before the U.S. Senate could approve it. Nugent published his article in the New York Herald and, afterward, was questioned by senators. He was detained in a Senate committee room for one month, though he continued to file articles for his newspaper and ate and slept at the home of the sergeant at arms. Nugent did not reveal his source, and senators eventually gave up their efforts.[32]

The treaty was subsequently ratified by the U.S. Senate by a vote of 38 to 14 on 10 March 1848 and by Mexico through a legislative vote of 51 to 34 and a Senate vote of 33 to 4, on 19 May 1848. News that New Mexico's legislative assembly had just passed an act for the organization of a U.S. territorial government helped ease Mexican concern about abandoning the people of New Mexico.[33] The treaty was formally proclaimed on 4 July 1848.[34]

President Manuel de la Peña y Peña

The Mexican Congress and President Manuel de la Peña y Peña met at Querétaro City in May, 1848 while Mexico City was occupied, and were now faced with the task of negotiating the treaty while dealing with separatism and anarchy spreading throughout the country. The Caste War was ongoing in Yucatán, and the insurgents in that conflict, had occupied the major cities. Many states considered the federal government to be an enemy and refused to pay taxes. Meanwhile, most notably in the Federal District there was a Mexican element advocating annexation of the entire country to the United States.[35]

The majority of congress supported the government's peace policy viewing in the Treaty of Guadalupe nothing but the unfortunate result of a poorly fought war, and viewed under this perspective as a national necessity. A foreign relations commission returned affirmative answers to two questions that congress had directed it to report upon: May the government with the consent of Congress cede a portion of territory? Is it suitable to make peace upon the terms which have been proposed? The first question was resolved based upon the principle that congress was the deposit of the national sovereignty. The second question was resolved upon the consideration that Mexico had never been in full possession of the territories that were about to be ceded, and that most of that land was either not populated, or populated by hostile indigenous tribes.[36] It was also taken into account that Mexico could not continue the war without facing certain defeat and risking the loss of the entire country.[37] After the commission reported upon its findings, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was approved by congress and President Peña y Peña now worked upon decrees to prevent disorder in the capital once the occupiers left, and for the establishment of a national guard. On 26 May 1848 the government received the commissioners Nathan Clifford and Ambrose Hundley Sevier who were in Mexico to negotiate the treaty after congress had approved it with some slight modifications.[38]

Meanwhile, the President had to deal with guerilla warfare throughout the country afflicting both the American occupiers and Mexican merchants. The aim of the guerillas was to disrupt the American supply chain from Veracruz to the capital. This was also leading to indiscriminate American reprisals.[39] As the peace treaty was concluded and the occupiers were on the point of leaving the country, congress named Jose Joaquin Herrera to the presidency of the republic, and Peña y Peña left his post as president in exchange for the presidency of the Supreme Court on 3 June 1848. The government left Querétaro and returned to the capital.[40]

On 30 May 1848, when the two countries exchanged ratifications of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, they further negotiated a three-article protocol to explain the amendments. The first article stated that the original Article IX of the treaty, although replaced by Article III of the Treaty of Louisiana, would still confer the rights delineated in Article IX. The second article confirmed the legitimacy of land grants pursuant to Mexican law.[41]

The protocol further noted that the Mexican Minister of Foreign Affairs had accepted said explanations on behalf of the Mexican Government,[41] and was signed in Querétaro by A. H. Sevier, Nathan Clifford and Luis de la Rosa.

The United States would later ignore the protocol on the grounds that the U.S. representatives had over-reached their authority in agreeing to it.[42]

The Treaty of Mesilla, which concluded the Gadsden purchase of 1854, had significant implications for the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Article II of the treaty annulled article XI of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and article IV further annulled articles VI and VII of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Article V, however, reaffirmed the property guarantees of Guadalupe Hidalgo, specifically those contained within articles VIII and IX.[43]

E. Gilman, [United States (after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo)], 1848

The United States received the territories of Alta California and Santa Fe de Nuevo México. Today they comprise some or all of the U.S. states of Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming from the treaty.

Disputes about whether to make all this new territory into free states or slave states contributed heavily to the rise in North–South tensions that led to the American Civil War just over a decade later.

Border disputes continued. Mexico's economic problems persisted,[48] leading to the controversial Gadsden Purchase in 1854, intended to rectify an error in the original treaty, but led to Mexico demanding a large sum of money for the revision, which was paid. There was also William Walker's short-lived Republic of Lower California filibustering incident in that same year.[49] The Channel Islands of California and Farallon Islands are not mentioned in the Treaty.[50]

The armed forces of both countries routinely crossed the border. Mexican and Confederate troops often clashed during the American Civil War, and the United States crossed the border during the war of Second French intervention in Mexico. In March 1916, Pancho Villa led a raid on the U.S. border town of Columbus, New Mexico, which was followed by the Pershing expedition. The shifting of the Rio Grande since the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe caused a dispute over the boundary between the states of New Mexico and Texas, a case referred to as the Country Club Dispute that was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1927.[51] Controversy over community land grant claims in New Mexico persists to this day.[52]

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo led to the establishment in 1889 of the International Boundary and Water Commission to maintain the border and, according to newer treaties, to allocate river waters between the two nations and to provide for flood control and water sanitation. Once viewed as a model of international cooperation, in recent decades, the IBWC has been heavily criticized as an institutional anachronism, bypassed by modern social, environmental, and political issues.[53]

Writing many years later, Nicholas Trist would describe the treaty as "a thing for every right-minded American to be ashamed of".[54]

• Davenport, John C. (2005). The U.S.-Mexico Border : The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Philadelphia: Chelsea House. ISBN 0-7910-7833-7.
• Griswold del Castillo, Richard (1990), The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo: A Legacy of Conflict, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, ISBN 0-8061-2240-4, retrieved 8 February 2023

• Klein, Julius (1905). The making of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, on February 2, 1848. Berkeley, The University press. Retrieved 8 February 2023.

• Ohrt, Wallace (1997). Defiant Peacemaker: Nicholas Trist in the Mexican War. College Station: Texas A&M University Press. ISBN 0-89096-778-4.
• Reeves, Jesse S. (1905). "The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo" (PDF). American Historical Review. 10 (2): 309–324. doi:10.2307/1834723. hdl:10217/189496. JSTOR 1834723.

• Rives, George Lockhart (1913). The United States and Mexico, 1821–1848: a history of the relations between the two countries from the independence of Mexico to the close of the war with the United States. Vol. 2. New York: C. Scribner's Sons.

• Wyllys, Rufus Kay (1933). "The Republic of Lower California, 1853-1854". Pacific Historical Review. 2 (2): 194–213. doi:10.2307/3633829. ISSN 0030-8684. JSTOR 3633829.