Chaper 2 History Of Intervention

Dear Diary,

     Today my father told me about President Washington's farewell address to the country. He said that Washington doesn't want the United States to get involved with other countries problems and the if we do, we will end up fighting wars that the United States people do not need to be fighting. Today the talk with my father was a lot simpler than others we've had. My father mentioned the Louisiana Purchase, War of 1812, Monroe Doctrine, and the idea of Manifest Destiny with the Mexican-American War and the Annexation of Texas and Oregon. To be completely honest with you, I don't know what those words mean but i will attempt to explain them all to you in an effort for you to understand Washing's perspective on what America is becoming with out him in power.

     To start us off, we have the Louisiana Purchase. This took place between 1801-1829. We bought this land from Spain and we bought it for $15 billion! I can't help but wonder where we got that money from. We bought 530,000 acres from them. America bought this because they needed a port to transfer goods to ocean-going vessels. To do this they picked the port of New Orleans.

    Next, we have the War of 1812. I don't think i need to tell you when this war was. But it lasted until 1815. The United States became tangled up in European conflict that put France against Great Britain and her continental allies. I started to think about how Washington would feel about us getting involved with this War because in his farewell speech, he told us, very clearly, to not get involved with other world powers' problems. But many Americans supported this war because they saw British and Spanish territory as "prizes" if we won this war.

     The Monroe Doctrine is next. This doctrine was announced in 1823 and it stated a policy on the new political order developing in the rest of the Americas and the roll of Europeans in the Western Hemisphere. In simpler words, the western part of the world is overall "saved" for America to build and expand to make their empire. This included the western independent land. I don't think Washington would like this doctrine because we had to get involved with European issues.

     Last but not least we have the Manifest Destiny. First half of this is the Mexican-American War. This war divided and unprepared the Mexican military. President James K. Polk believed the United States could expand across the Pacific Ocean. Mexico lost 1/3 of its territory and we took it and renamed and made the states that are now named California, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico. The second half of of Manifest Destiny is the Annexation of Texas and Oregon. Americans and non-Americans kept moving west to these two territories and we didn't know who owned them so we made the 49th Parallel in 1846. Washington would not like this idea because we went to war with Mexico when we could have just bought the land for expansion.

Picture Sources:

http://images.encyclopedia.com/utility/image.aspx?id=2797158&imagetype=Hero

http://lensofhistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/war-of-1812-wallpaper.jpg

http://www.fasttrackteaching.com/burns/Unit_6_World/Monroe_Doctrine_1896_Judge_dbloc_crop.gif

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/American_progress.JPG