„Mexikó számunkra a tiltott gyümölcs.” John C. Calhoun, a mexikói háború és a korlátozott expanzió ideológiájának természetrajza
“Mexico to Us is the Forbidden Fruit”: John C. Calhoun, the Mexican War, and the Nature of the Ideology of Restricted Imperialism

Summary/Abstract: As Senator of South Carolina, John Caldwell Calhoun (1782–1850), former Secretary of State of the USA, paid close attention to the course of the American–Mexican war of 1846–1848 expressing his views of the conflict in several major speeches and private letters. In contrast to scholarship which has identified him either as a supporter or an opponent of the war and territorial expansion, this essay argues that his relationship to the war was ultimately defi ned by the ideology of restricted imperialism. As much as Calhoun was in support of the annexation of the sparsely populated north of Mexico, claiming its beneficial consequences for solving the problem of population growth in the USA as well as for the political system of the republic of Mexico, he was opposed to the conquest of the whole country. The major reason was that he doubted the Mexican people’s ability to establish a republic, primarily because of his low opinion of its Indian component. Furthermore, he feared the danger of the integration of a population with different cultural characteristics into a supposedly homogeneous American nation, also rejecting the idea of the subjugation of such a populace because of its subversive impact on American republican institutions.

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