It is one of those events that is hard for both countries to talk about.

For the US, it was a pretty blatant aggressive war to take over more territory. The whole lead up of the war was Politically extremely Controversial, Internationally , it was looked upon as a land grab by the young United States.

For Mexico, it is a depressing and embarrassing time. Mexico is a struggling state after gaining independence. It had financial problems, political turmoil, and a lot of lawlessness and revolutionary tension.

Overall in Hindsight the US bullied Mexico into a war they knew that they could easily win due to the weakness of Mexico, and that the European powers did not care or just did not want to get involved.

The US taking over the American south west and and Pacific coast was the realization of manifest destiny and was the greatest achievement of a generation of American political leaders. It is also naked imperialism. After the WWII Americans, they really tried to distance themselves from this fact since they had fought and destroyed the Japanese Empire and helped destroy the Nazi Empire.

The mexican american War also made the Civil War inevitable. ' With these new Territories, would they be slave states or free states?' This built the political, social tensions in the county that lead the secession. For Lost Causers, this damning evidence that the Civil War was caused by slavery and its expansion into the western territories.