Volunteers for Mexico, 1846 (newsprint)

America went to war to gain territory from Mexico and expand the nation’s boundary from Texas to California. President James K. Polk believed it was the nation’s destiny to occupy these lands, and he planned an elaborate military campaign to seize them. But others decried the war. Newspaper editor Horace Greeley warned Americans: “Your Rulers are precipitating you into a fathomless abyss of crime and calamity!” With the discovery of gold in California and the ensuing gold rush, white settlement accelerated. Many of the attitudes of the new arrivals conflicted with Mexican culture and its strong Catholic faith. Still, earlier traditions survived and made the resulting society of the West distinctly different from that of the eastern states.