TimeWake

Compare the social background and volunteer ethos of soldiers in the Mexican-American War versus the American Civil War.  Afterwards consider whether American soldiers in the Mexican American war fought out of a sense of duty, camaraderie, and honor, as did Confederate and Union soldiers.  Did the make-up of the army change over time?  What does it mean for an army to be "democratic"?  What were the advantages and perils of a "democratic" army.

A comparison of the Mexican-American War & the American Civil War.

            The social ethos background behind the Mexican-American 1846-1848 and the national Civil War 1861-1865 had incredibly diverse realities for the ordinary soldier and volunteer.  There were many factors involved, which led to the build up of American military power through its militia and army.  In

A Short, Offhand, Killing Affair, I came across a lot of new information on the attitudinal hardships that many soldiers were experiencing in the Mexican-American War.  This war had the highest rate of desertion of any American war.  Morality was low and dispirited soldiers had animosity towards their officers, whom they had to entrust with their lives during hostile or combative situations.  Also, the abusive nature of officers in the way they inflicted punishment, as a method maintaining discipline in the army.  “Courts-martial regularly doled out whippings and other corporal punishments and ritual humiliations to common soldiers, and this severity maintained the unbridgeable social gulf between officer and enlisted man”  (21).  Such ruthlessness inflicted towards American soldiers serving their country and president engendered public outrage.  The Mexican-American war created a perception of the volunteer militia that overshadowed the common soldier.  Before the Civil War volunteer militias were seen as the backbone of patriotism and community patronage and spirit, whereas regular soldier “constituted a servile and degraded class of men, who fought for pay and not out of patriotism”  (33).  This rift between volunteering companies and the ordinary foot soldiers did not go by unnoticed by astute politicians and enterprising individuals, who were able to acquire wealth by organizing volunteer units to go off and fight in Mexico.  My overall perception is that American soldiers in the Mexican-American war fought for reasons of their own making, rather than a sense of honor and duty.  Foos’ comments are similar and demonstrate the attitude of many volunteers in search of “the promise of Texas-sized personal wealth and individual license had an infectious and uninhibiting effect that made the project of conquest unpredictable and tenuous” (83).  After all, Anglo-Saxon Americans were living in a time when land was plentiful and one could start a new life with property and hard work.  However, as militaristic preferences began to divide the fighting forces and the aggressive prejudices and mistreatment of the Mexican population became more apparent, any sense of honor might’ve have disappeared.  

As for American soldiers in the Civil War, I firmly believe that they fought out of a sense and duty not land seeking opportunity.  War with Mexico could have been avoided if it were not for expansionist president Polk thinking continentally.  The Mexican-American War was nothing more than aggressive military campaigning to acquire the lands from the Mexican people and Native Americans of the Southwest and Great Plains for future economic growth and political power.  Northern and southern soldiers in the Civil War did have a sense of duty and carried out it out with much zeal and fervor.  Escalating sectionalism continued to divide the country over human rights, state’s rights, and the westward expansion of a nation intending to implement a slave economy reached a boiling point.  When the first shots were fired over Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861 the North and the South had no other recourse but to spill blood.  Therefore, the role of the soldier and militia in this war took on an entirely new ethos.  Soldiers from both sides intended to fight for their constitutional beliefs and preserve their sense of national identity and destiny, guaranteed under the amendments of the U.S. Constitution.  The Civil War, in my opinion, was the result of the North’s refusal to honor the constitutional slave arrangements that were agreed upon by our American Founding Fathers, when the U.S. Constitution officially extended slavery in order to preserve the Union after the American Revolution.  The amendments enacted in 1787, paradoxically gave the South a “right” they weren’t allowed to have anymore, and the federal challenge to the “natural order” of the South’s economy clearly demonstrated that the notion of self-government or the people’s right to govern themselves was forfeit. 

The idea of a “democratic army” is not unfamiliar, tracing its roots back to the politically tumultuous current events of the “Jacksonian Era” (1829-1837).  Interestingly enough what emerged out of this era was the administratively restructuring of the American political character and expansion of democracy.  This period saw the common man move to the center of the political arena.  President Andrew Jackson personified the will of the majority, typically white male artisans, laborers, mechanics, and frontiersmen.  Jackson intended to personally eliminate elitism and privileges wherever he saw it.  Under his administration the political indifference towards lower class Americans became less.  “…the Jacksonian ethic based its growing economical and territorial nationalism on a military structure that was civic and revered democratic decision making” (36).  However, it is important to note that Jackson’s form of democracy only applied to Anglo-Saxon Americans.  The seventh president of the United States thought it was unconstitutional to abolish slavery, being a slave owner himself.  He considered abolitionists as “anti-democratic elitist” (Remini).  The same “democratic” rhetoric was applied to Americans during the Mexican-American war, but under the patriotic zeal of Manifest Destiny.  The “Jacksonian Era” is historically important because it demonstrates the flexibility of the U.S. framework of government to adapt to an ever-changing political forum.  Universal male white suffrage became a powerful tool that created many political alliances.   The government was able to repair the past social and ethnic distinctions between whites, which prior to the War of 1812 had kept the American character divided and blurred.  During the Mexican-America war the democratic values that once uplifted the male American character during Jackson’s administration, was conveniently propagandized as a right for Americans again.  This “right” quickly prompted militaristic action through the mobilization of volunteers, militias, and to some extent the army, all believing to be constituents of the “democratic army”.  This belief empowered a nation to go on the offensive and fulfill God’s promise to them to claim the right to possess new lands.   

I believe that there are extensive damages to a “democratic army”.  The word democracy has undergone so many creative transformations and has been readily applied to events when necessary.  The danger behind a democratic army, in my opinion, is the political and religious zeal that is expressed in order to ensnare ordinary citizens to believe in democracy.  Even in are own times, civil religion, a mutated form of democracy, plays a crucial part in politics.  Civil religion in the United States emphasizes America’s unique and blessed status amongst nations of the world, because we have been assigned the responsibility to do good in the world.  Political leaders invoke political language because it affirms their country’s commitment to God, thus receiving religious backing, typically manpower and sponsorship.  The values and ideologies that emerged out of manifest destiny or the democratic army are nothing by themselves.  Equally important are the political, social, and religious structures that are able to unite a people under a common belief system, that belief in turn, reassures the same people that politics and personal virtue should be inseparable.  Ordinary Americans in this era, as in every other era have become so sure of their nation’s virtue that they tend to see domestic and international affairs as a clash of moral and cultural opposition, rather than exploitation and destructive nature of governmental expansionists opportunities.  The psychology between the interplay of politics and religious is quite extraordinary.  In Foos’ book he states that the “Catholic Telegraph of Cincinnati urged each Catholic to enter with all his heart into the conflict…” (47).  Religion ultimately determines the fate of the soul.  So, if you can fuse religious fervor with patriotic and political rhetoric, religious and political leaders can skillfully organize and recruit individuals since they can play the sympathetic role to as many people as possible.        

As for the advantages of a “democratic army” you have to look at skillful attitudinal changes resulting from the perceptions that have been instilled in the ordinary soldier and volunteer.  Misleading “democratic” ideology has become an interconnecting social function that gains the allegiance and attention of the American people.  And once this is done, you can have a “democratic army” behave and act out according to those false nationalistic perceptions perpetuated by the government or religious institutions.  At this junction, the government can mobilize its war machine to pursue its goal, as clearly shown the in the Mexican-American War.  The war was result of the annexation of Texas over which Mexico claimed sovereignty.  When Polk became the president of the United States the idea of a continental nation became the focal point of his administration. 

In conclusion, the social ethos of soldiers in the Mexican-American war and the Civil War were very different from each other, but both were the results of political maneuvering based on the social, cultural, and foreign events of the time.  Two distinctive ideologies emerged from each war, but one common denominator is the presence of the U.S. government with its myriad of officials trying to secure wartime patronage through nationalism.  Universal white male suffrage has always played a crucial role in the founding of democracy in the United States as well as abroad.  Democracy, now and then, has demonstrated that the concept of modernization will not tolerate any group of people or foreign governments, who threaten the impulse of American modernization.

Jose R. Castilla III.

Foos, Paul. A Short, Offhand, Killing Affair. The University of North Carolina Press. London. 2002.

Remini, Robert V. Andrew Jackson and His Indian Wars. Viking Publishing: New York. 2001.