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During his tenure, U.S. President [https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0812976746/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0812976746&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=69a3bd8f0ab5dd2a0c0838d2b5ba9c81 James K. Polk ] oversaw the greatest territorial expansion of the United States to date. Polk accomplished this through the annexation of Texas in 1845, the negotiation of the Oregon Treaty with Great Britain in 1846, and the conclusion of the [https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674972341/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0674972341&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=9e0b1045b3d7ff8e6f91ab801fbbc5a3 Mexican-American War ] in 1848, which ended with the signing and ratification of the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo in 1848.
These events brought within the control of the United States the future states of Texas, California, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Washington, and Oregon, as well as portions of what would later become Oklahoma, Colorado, Kansas, Wyoming, and Montana.
The war had another significant outcome. On August 8, 1846, Congressman David Wilmot introduced a rider to an appropriations bill that stipulated that “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist” in any territory acquired by the United States in the war against Mexico. While Southern senators managed to block adoption of the so-called “Wilmot Proviso,” it nonetheless provoked a political firestorm. The question of whether slavery could expand throughout the United States continue to fester until the defeat of the Confederacy in 1865.
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* Republished from [https://history.state.gov/| Office of the Historian, United States Department of State]
* Article: [https://history.state.gov/milestones/1830-1860/texas-annexation| The Annexation of Texas, the Mexican-American War, and the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, 1845–1848]
[[Category:US State Department]] [[Category:Wikis]][[Category:United States History]] [[Category: Antebellum History]] [[Category:19th Century History]] [[Category:Political History]] [[Category:Diplomatic History]]
