February 2 - The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

On this day in labor history, the year was 1848.

That was the day the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed.

It signaled the end of the Mexican-American War.

The war began in May 1846 when the United States sought to expand its annexation of Texas.

It immediately became a partisan issue between pro- and anti-slavery forces.

Southern Democrats and slave plantation owners favored war with Mexico.

They hoped to undercut rising Northern industrial power with the expansion of slave territory.

Whigs and Northern abolitionists opposed the war for the same reason.

After almost two years of fighting, the war ended.

In exchange for $15 million, the United States gained 525,000 square miles of land.

This territory included all or parts of Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.

Mexico gave up all claims to Texas and the Rio Grande was established as the border.

The initial Treaty promised protection of land and civil rights, and full citizenship for those Mexicans who stayed on the newly acquired territory.

These guarantees were deleted from the final ratification.

Expansionist aims reignited debates about the extension of slavery.

The newly formed Free Soil Party gained traction with its campaign “to limit, localize and discourage slavery.”

Their banner read “Free Soil, Free Speech, Free Labor and Free Men.”

Antagonisms were briefly tempered with the Compromise of 1850.

This allowed California to be admitted as a free state.

It also prevented the outlawing of slavery in the new territories.

The slave trade was banned in the District of Columbia.

But a new and more stringent Fugitive Slave Law was enacted.

Debates regarding expansion of slavery would rage on throughout the 1850s, culminating in the Civil War.