Manifest destiny
Was a widely held belief in the United States that its settlers were destined to expand across North America. Championed by president Polk, the USA based the manifest destiny on three themes, such as special virtues,and the essential duty of the American people to redeem the west given by God.
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The election of 1848 did nothing to quell the controversy over whether slavery would advance into the Mexican Cession. Some slaveholders, like President Taylor, considered the question a moot point because the lands acquired from Mexico were far too dry for growing cotton and therefore, they thought, no slaveholder would want to move there. Other southerners, however, argued that the question was not whether slaveholders would want to move to the lands of the Mexican Cession, but whether they could and still retain control of their slave property. Denying them the right to freely relocate with their lawful property was, they maintained, unfair and unconstitutional. Northerners argued, just as fervidly, that because Mexico had abolished slavery, no slaves currently lived in the Mexican Cession, and to introduce slavery there would extend it to a new territory, thus furthering the institution and giving the Slave Power more control over the United States. The strong current of antislavery sentiment—that is, the desire to protect white labor—only increased the opposition to the expansion of slavery into the West.
Men are degenerated and capable of doing wrong
He employed that peace was the only way because fighting would give them what they wanted to in other words he was trying to make it clear that peace was the only way
