Diplomat73's Journal: history

U4R2
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo:
This was a Peace treaty between the United States and Mexico that ended the Mexican War in 1848. It confirmed U.S. claims to Texas and set its boundary at the Rio Grande. Mexico also agreed to cede to the United States California and New Mexico (which included present-day California, Nevada, and Utah, and parts of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming) in exchange for $15 million and assumption by the United States of claims against Mexico by U.S. citizens. Ultimetly, the United Sates got bigger.

Commonwealth vs. Hunt:
Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw of the Massachusetts Supreme Court held that it was not inherently illegal for workers to organize a union or try to compel recognition of that union by means of a strike. Less then 1 percent of the work force belonged to a labor union during the 1840s so thus the impact of the unions and the ruling was limited for a while.

Manifest Destiny:
This term expressed the belief that it was the Americans' providential mission to expand their civilization and institutions across the breadth of North America. This expansion would involve not just territorial aggrandizement but the progress of liberty and individual economic opportunity as well. Many Americans trying to secure Mexican territory, California, and the Oregon territory used this term. Essentially, it was the rallying cry for Americans determined for America to get more land.

Wilmot Proviso:
This was a free-soil measure proposed in 1846 by a northern Democracy. The proviso had insisted that Congress bar slavery in the territory ceded by Mexico form the Mexican war. Thus, much of the western states became free state.