Comment by Der_Einzige
12 hours ago
The Mexican government and especially Santa Anna were not even close to saints and were not primarily fighting the Texans for reasons of slavery. The Mexican empire carved out slavery as being explicitly allowed in the Mexican state that become known as Texas.
This is no different than what happened in the Civil War.
Each side had a list of grievances. A big one on one side, was the preservation of slavery in perpetuity. The other side wanted to preserve the unity of the nation as a whole.
You are right that Mexico was not fighting to ban slavery. But it was clear that eliminating slaver was still in their roadmap. Texas had only gotten an extension.
Similarly the election of Lincoln wasn't an immediate threat to slavery in the Confederacy. But the Confederacy still was motivated to head off the long-term threat to their economic system.
So the fact that Mexico wasn't fighting to end slavery, doesn't contradict the fact that Texans were fighting to preserve it.
> [1]: The Republican Party was founded by anti-slavery activists who opposed the Kansas–Nebraska Act
I mean, Lincoln being elected is a direct threat to slavery.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_(United_State...
Oh really? A direct threat?
Opposition to that act was, "We're not going to create new states with slavery." It wasn't, "We're getting rid of slavery in places that already have it." Which meant that it was not a direct threat to existing slave states. (Though there was a prospect that maybe, some day...)
Lincoln didn't like slavery. But he wasn't trying to ban it. It wasn't until the war had been going on for nearly two years that he signed the Emancipation Proclamation. Which basically said, "If you're still in rebellion a couple of months ago, we're going to free your slaves." It didn't eliminate slavery for any slave state that was part of the Union. It was an incentive to surrender. It was 2 years after that until the 13th amendment was passed.
It is very unlikely that slavery would have been banned during Lincoln's time in office, if the Civil War hadn't happened.
Was there a long-term prospect of a threat? Obviously. But there was no immediate threat. And so the fight wound up with protecting slavery on the one side, and asserting the indivisibility of the nation on the other side.
This is exactly parallel to the Mexico-Texan issue. Slavery was not being banned in the rebelling states.
Mexico was about to end that carve out. But slavery was only one of the causes (and you're right about Santa Anna).
The myth is that Bowie and Crockett battled until their last breathes. The truth is that Bowie was sick and died in bed. Crockett gave up and was executed.
That's all from the 2021 book Forget the Alamo.