The South Coveted A Caribbean Empire In The Years Preceding The Civil War

Expansionism was one of the driving factors of the fire-eaters

19th Century Cuba (The British Library)

From the end of the Mexican-American War through the start of the US Civil War, southern states harbored a ravenous appetite for new territory. Many southern senators and newspapers imagined great swaths of new territory being added to the United States. The areas of their affection included the remaining parts of Mexico that had not been taken after the conclusion of the war, the island of Cuba, and Central American states such as Nicaragua. Any territory added to the Union that lay below the Mason-Dixon line would be free game for slavery. Southerners imagined fertile lands filled with plantations, slaves, and newly minted southern senators loyal to the Southron way of life.

Unfortunately, this dream took a major hit due to obstructionists in Congress. The Whig Party, which was barely clinging to life in the early 1850s, was opposed to nearly all new territory acquisitions. A variety of political groups from the north had opposed adding any lands to the United States, especially lands that could potentially become new slave-holding states. Many of these politicians voted against taking more Mexican territory and some of them wanted no Mexican territory at all following the war.