was the U.S. war with Mexico in 1840's justified???

The US/Mexico war was going to happen anyway. There was room for only one major continental power. The US also was sure of its Manifest Destiny Doctrine and that meant that the two nations had to duke it out. We won and took the legitimate spoils of war in the eyes of the people of that era. There was even some debate about annexing ALL of Mexico but it was not viable at that time.

I think it is worth putting the war in context of the time it occurred.

First, the land in the west had not been settled to any large extent. The population of California at the time was less than 10, 000. There were no cities, aircraft industry, movie industry, etc.

Territories were not consolidated yet. For example, the border with Canada in the northwest was disputed. Earlier, some settlers wanted to join with Spain so that they could ship their goods down the Mississippi River. This was before Napoleon invaded took the territory from Spain, then sold it in the Louisianna purchase. Obviously, nations had not consolidated their hold on sparsely settled lands.

The idea of Manifest Destiny was not that "all land belongs to the US", but that North America would be ruled by democracy.

At the time of the war, Mexico had been independent from Spain for about twenty years, and had continual troubles with corruption, coups, debt and dictatorship (as they still do). They then attacked the US to draw attention away from internal problems. At the end of the war, the land was not "taken", but sold to pay Mexico's debt to the US.

The Mexican government in the 1840s was a totalitarian state run by a dictator. After California and Texas kicked him out he kept reneging on the treaties he had signed.

Then after the people of Texas choose to join the United States - he thought that he could conquer Texas and take the city of New Orleans from us.

After every battle we offered him peace terms. At first we were extremely generous but as time went on our patience waned and our terms became less generous.

The ironic thing about the whole war is that Mexico only lost territories it had no effective control of in the first place.

All wars are justified in the mind of someone.

No it wasn't.

U.S. immigrants fought and too Texas from Mexico....

Mexico was mad about that but signed the treaty....

U.S. and Mexico were in dispute over the border between Mexico and Texas (Rio Grande River or Nueces River?)......

U.S. soldiers WENT INTO Mexico and claimed the area where they posted at was the border (though it was in Mexico).....

U.S. were shot at there.....

Polk pushed for the war (was an expansionist)....

War started.....

Yes it was. The next one will be justified too.

No war is right. War doesn't determine who's right just who's left.

yes, they started it we finished it

and the only reason we didn't keep the whole country...

was it was deemed worthless...

and full of non English speaking people

that would have weakened America....

we held everything north of and including Mexico city

YES it was justified

Yes, they invaded and we kicked the mess out of them.