Chapter 8. WE TAKE NOTHING BY CONQUEST, THANK GOD Assignment

Chapter 8. WE TAKE NOTHING BY CONQUEST, THANK GOD - Assignment Example Though now when everything is forgotten, and it seems absolutely habitual and reasonable that these states belong to the US as they have become its pride and attraction. While several centuries ago these events caused numerous human victims and provoked serious disputes in the society. The question if this expansion can be considered justified or it is only a byproduct of the growing America`s pride and ambitions was raised in the society. Is there any way to persuade society and church that annexing the territories belonging to other nation is a necessary step for the country? Of course, there is! Such mechanisms as provoking revenge, manipulating socialoseopinion, and telling lies worked in the circumstances and will work as long as the human race exists. I was impressed by the thoughts of Colonel Hitchcock who managed to show the essence of this conflict and express the ambiguity of this choice for the nation: â€Å"I have said from the first that the United States are the aggressors. . . . We have not one particle of right to be here. ... It looks as if the government sent a small force on purpose to bring on a war, so as to have a pretext for taking California and as much of this country as it chooses, for, whatever becomes of this army, there is no doubt of a war between the United States and Mexico. . .. My heart is not in this business ... but, as a military man, I am bound to execute orders†. So after the horrible and cunning provocation which lead to the murder of the American General the country started acting more violently and forcefully. That was the time when the concept of the â€Å"manifest destiny† appeared and Americans felt the right to decide whom to live and whom to die. It is strange how the feeling of superiority can infect even religious people. The following quote evoked strong paradoxical feelings in me: â€Å"The Reverend Theodore Parker, Unitarian minister in Boston, combined eloquent criticism of