it's been argued by gary cornblitz whom you mentioned that there probably would have been no mexican war. clay opposed the mexican war. though his son was to die in it. on one of the battle fields of the war. with clay as president would the nation have expanded all the way to the pacific? would california ever have become part of the united states? these are open questions. what do i think personally? i think the imperatives of expansion and the desire for empire, american ambitions, transcended the personality of any one man. and i think clay's politics might have held -- clay might have kept his finger in the dike a bit longer, but i don't really think that the on rush of empire would have stopped. >> and so then the will not proviso is the element that will make this disposition of real estate really incomparably difficult and challenging. without that proviso of pennsylvania backwoods congressman rather shambling and stumble bum, as you described it, and seems to be just who proposed that any of the territory exceeded to the united states from the mexican war would be based on p

you cite his torn gary cornblitz's of that in 1844, henry clay president, not james polling, and a very different scenario. well, before asking you to answer that question, would you remind us of the national real estate options presented at the conclusion of america's first imperil war. what did the treaty of gaud lieu pay actually give us? >> well, i'm eager to get the hypothetical that you pose, but to answer the, perhaps, larger question of what this war meant and indeed it was the country's first openly and eagerly em peer y'all war. the creation of the war was part of the language at the time. american easterl's by and large proud to march off to earn an empire in the battlefield by marching into mexico. what we acquired, what the nation acquired, of course, is virtually all the rest of the continent, as you know, from the western edge of the luis yan that purchase, including far more than the present day state of mexico and significantly california. just on the kusing of the discovery of gold in california. and, already, without gold stir into the political mix here, the question

you cite historian gary cornblitz's counterfactualization of that, of a different outcome in 1844. henry clay, president, not james polk. and a very different scenario. well, before asking you to answer that question, would you remind us of the national real estate options presented at the conclusion of america's first imperial war? what did the treaty of guadelupe actually give us? >> i'm happy to get to the hypothetical that you posed, but to answer the perhaps larger question of what this war meant and indeed it was the country's first openly and eagerly imperial war, the creation of an american empire was part of the warp and whiff of the language at the time. americans by and large though not without exception were proud to march off to earn an empire on the battlefield by marching into mexico. what we acquired, what the nation acquired of course was virtually all the rest of the continent. as you know, from the western edge of the louisiana purchase to the pacific ocean including all of the giant new mexico territory which encompassed far more than the present day state of ne