TEXAS
Arkansas and Michigan--Florida and Iowa--Texas--The Austin
Grant--Local Government in Texas--The Attempts by the United States to
Purchase Texas--The Texan Revolution--General Sam Houston--San Jacinto
and Independence--The Recognition of the Independence of
Texas--Calhoun's frank Declaration in Regard to the Annexation of
Texas--The Mission of Mr. Morfit to Texas, His Report and
Advice--Jackson's Recommendation to Delay the Recognition of Texan
Independence--Jackson's Request of Congress for Authority to Issue an
Ultimatum to Mexico in the Claims Question--Texan Independence
Recognized by the United States--The Question of Annexation--Texan
Proposition for Annexation--The Mexican Claims Commission and its
Work--Tyler as an Advocate of Annexation--Mr. Webster in the Way of
Annexation--The Adams Address on Annexation--The Retirement of
Webster--The Promotion of Upshur, and His Negotiations with the
Texans--The Threat of the Mexican Government to Consider the
Annexation of Texas a Cause of War--The Administration Proposes
Annexation to the Texan Agent--The Difficulty in the Way of Acceptance
of the Proposition--The Demand of the Texans for Protection in the
Interim--Mr. Calhoun in the State Department--The Treaty of Annexation
Signed--The Treaty in the Senate and its Rejection--Mr. Archer's
Opposition to the Treaty--The New Plan for Annexation.
After the admission of Missouri there remained as territory, upon
which, according to existing law, it was {290} probable that
slaveholding Commonwealths would be established, only Arkansas and
Florida.
[Sidenote: Arkansas and Michigan.]
[Sidenote: Florida and Iowa.]
In 1836, Arkansas was admitted as a slaveholding Commonwealth, and
Michigan as a non-slaveholding Commonwealth, thus keeping the exact
balance in the Senate. By a compact of the year 1832, the Seminoles in
Florida had agreed to emigrate within three years to the west bank of
the Mississippi. At the end of this period, one of their chiefs,
Osceola, repudiated the agreement, and with a large following began
hostilities. By a long and expensive war the Indians were at last
expelled; and the white inhabitants immediately chose delegates to a
convention, who met, in December of 1838, formed a Commonwealth
constitution, one of the provisions of which legalized slavery, and
demanded of Congress admission into the Union. Congress kept Florida
waiting, however, for six years, until Iowa was ready, and then
admitted the two at the same time and by the same Act.
[Sidenote: Texas.]
Meanwhile the events in the Southwest had been so shaping themselves
as to open up prospects for the long desired territorial extension in
that quarter. The long dispute between Spain and France, and then
after 1803, between Spain and the United States, in regard to the
territory between the Rio Grande del Norte and the Sabine Rivers,
called Texas, was first definitely settled in 1819, or rather in the
Treaty of that year, between the United States and Spain, which Treaty
was not executed, as we have seen, until a little later. In it this
territory was recognized by the United States as belonging to Spain.
It seems that a few persons from the United States had settled upon
this territory, while it was disputed ground, and raised some
complaint at having been left unprotected by the Government in the
Treaty with Spain.
{291} [Sidenote: The Austin grant.]
The successful rebellion of Mexico against Spain made this territory a
part of the new Mexican state, and before Mexico had had time to
consolidate its powers or estimate the value of its northern
possessions, a shrewd Yankee from Connecticut, who had removed to
Missouri, and had become well skilled in the arts and practices of
border life, Moses Austin, went to Mexico, and representing himself,
it is said, as the leader of a company of Roman Catholics, who had
suffered persecution in the United States, for their religion's sake,
solicited a grant of land from the Catholic government of Mexico, and
permission to make a settlement upon it. The Mexicans gave ready ear
to his complaints and petition, and made him a large grant of land in
the central part of Texas on the Colorado River. Mr. Austin died
before effecting the settlement, and left the work to his son, S. F.
Austin, who, in 1822, colonized the grant, and received a ratification
of the same from the Mexican Government, the following year.
[Sidenote: Local government in Texas.]
At that moment, Texas and Coahuila formed a single Mexican province,
and, after the establishment of the federal system of government in
Mexico, the province became, in 1827, a Commonwealth. In the Coahuila
part the population was Mexican, and as it was much larger than the
Anglo-American population in the Texas part, the government of the
Commonwealth was practically in the hands of Mexican officials. The
rule of these officials was arbitrary and uncertain, and the race
prejudice between Spaniard and Anglo-Saxon was immediately excited by
it. It was pretty evident that the expulsion of the Americans from
Texas was intended. In 1830, came at last the decree from the Mexican
President, Bustamente, prohibiting further immigration into Texas from
the United States.
{292} The Texan colonists now numbered some twenty thousand, mostly
bold and hardy men, and it was not to be expected that they would
either give up their lands, or assist in preventing further
immigration, or submit much longer to the foreign rule, as they felt
it to be, of Mexico or Coahuila.
[Sidenote: The attempts by the United States to purchase Texas.]
Both in 1827 and in 1829, the United States Government attempted to
purchase Texas, and in the latter year the proposition was actually
made to the Mexican Government to sell to the United States the
territory lying to the northwest of the watershed of the River Nueces.
It was, however, promptly rejected by that Government.
Naturally these attempts encouraged the colonists in Texas to feel
that the United States sympathized with them in their desire for
emancipation from Mexican rule, and to hope that this sympathy might,
at some future time, lead to positive assistance.
[Sidenote: Overthrow of the federal system in Mexico.]
The Texans were, however, for the moment, left to their own devices.
They first tried to have Texas separated from Coahuila and made a
separate Commonwealth of the Mexican Union, but the Mexican central
government refused to assent to this. This was in 1833. Two years
later Santa Anna, the Mexican President, forcibly displaced the
federal system of government established in Mexico by the constitution
of 1824, and instituted the centralized system, virtually by a
presidential edict.
Some of the Commonwealths of the Mexican Union resisted this
usurpation of the President, and among them, naturally, was
Coahuila-Texas. Moreover, some of the Coahuila members of the
legislature of the Commonwealth, partisans of Santa Anna, withdrew
from that body, and the Texan members found themselves, for the first
time, in a majority in it. Of course the feeling {293} of resistance
to the overthrow of the right of local self-government became now a
settled and resolute purpose with them, and Santa Anna, upon learning
their attitude, resolved to reduce them to obedience by military
power.
[Sidenote: The Texan revolution.]
In September of 1835, a Mexican war-ship appeared upon the Texan
coast, and its commander declared the Texan ports in a state of
blockade. About the same time, the Mexican General Cos appeared, with
a force of some fifteen hundred soldiers, at the Texan village of
Gonzales. The resistance of the inhabitants of the town to Cos' order
to surrender their arms precipitated the struggle. The Texans
immediately organized a temporary government, drove the Mexicans out
of the country before the close of the year, and, on March 2nd, 1836,
declared their independence of Mexico.
While the Texan convention, which had declared independence and was
framing the constitution for the state of Texas, was still in session,
the Mexican soldiery, under the command of Santa Anna himself,
returned to Texas and committed the atrocities of the Alamo and of
Goliad. After these barbarous deeds there could no longer be any hope
of an accommodation between the Mexicans and the Texans. It was
independence or extermination.
[Sidenote: General Sam Houston.]
[Sidenote: San Jacinto and independence.]
Happily for the Texans they had now found their proper leader, General
Sam Houston. Many of the descriptions of this hero are caricatures. Of
those which approach the truth, that given by Senator Benton is
perhaps most nearly correct. Benton was the lieutenant-colonel of the
regiment in which Houston served during the war with the Creeks; and
said later of his old comrade, "I then marked in him the same
soldierly and gentlemanly qualities which {294} have since
distinguished his eventful career; frank, generous, and brave, ready
to do, or to suffer, whatever the obligations of civil or military
duty imposed; and always prompt to answer the call of honor,
patriotism, and friendship." He was a Virginian by birth, but an early
resident of Tennessee, and had been Governor of Tennessee before
attaining his thirty-fifth year. He appeared in Texas in 1833, and in
1835 was made commander of the Texan army. It was chiefly his skill
and bravery, which effected the expulsion of Cos and his army in the
winter of 1835-36. After the disasters at the Alamo and at Goliad, he,
in command of the remnants of the Texan army, retreated slowly before
Santa Anna's comparatively large force, until Santa Anna made the
blunder of dividing his army by the swollen waters of the San Jacinto,
when he turned suddenly upon the Mexicans, and inflicted upon them the
crushing defeat known as the battle of San Jacinto, in which the
Mexican loss was double the number of Houston's army, some sixteen
hundred men, including Santa Anna himself among the captives. The part
of the Mexican army which had not crossed the river retreated
precipitately from Texan soil, and the new state had won its
independence.
[Sidenote: Texas as a constitutional Republic.]
The battle of San Jacinto was fought on April 21st, 1836. The
convention had finished the constitution more than a month before. In
September following, General Houston was elected President of the new
republic, and the constitution was almost immediately put into
operation. This constitution legalized the existence of slavery in
Texas, as a constitutional right of the masters, prohibited the
residence of free negroes within the State without special official
permission, and interdicted the importation of negro slaves, except
from the United States.
{295} [Sidenote: The recognition of the independence of Texas.]
A little more than a month after the battle of San Jacinto, the
legislature of Connecticut set the ball in motion for the recognition
of the independence of Texas by the Government of the United States.
On May 27th, 1836, the two Houses of that body passed a resolution
instructing the Senators, and requesting the Representatives, in
Congress from Connecticut "to use their best endeavors to procure the
acknowledgment, on the part of the United States, of the independence
of Texas." Evidently the Yankee Commonwealth considered itself, in an
especial degree, the motherland of the new state. The founder of the
colony, which had now become an independent state, was one of its
children, and it hastened to anticipate Virginia, the birthplace of
Houston, in owning its offspring. A careful perusal of the whole of
this Connecticut document will certainly leave the impression upon the
mind of the impartial reader, at this day, that the people of the
North then considered the Texan revolution to have been provoked by
Mexican misrule and barbarism, and to have been fully justified in
political ethics as well as by practical success.
On June 13th, Senator Niles, of Connecticut, presented the Connecticut
memorial to the Senate, and it was immediately referred to the
committee on Foreign Relations. On the 18th, Mr. Clay, the chairman of
the committee, reported a resolution: "That the independence of Texas
ought to be acknowledged by the United States whenever satisfactory
information shall be received that it has, in successful operation, a
civil government capable of performing the duties and fulfilling the
obligations of an independent Power." The resolution was adopted by
the Senate, on July 1st, without a dissenting voice.
[Sidenote: Calhoun's frank declaration in regard to the annexation of
Texas.]
During the course of the debate upon it, Mr. Calhoun {296} frankly
told the Senate that he regarded the great importance of the
recognition of the independence of Texas to consist in the fact that
it prepared the way for the speedy admission of Texas into the Union,
which would be a necessity to the proper balance of power in the Union
between the slaveholding and the non-slaveholding Commonwealths, upon
which the preservation of the Union and the perpetuation of its
institutions rested. After such a statement it is difficult to see how
anybody could speak of the annexation of Texas being a slaveholders'
secret intrigue. Mr. Calhoun, the great leader of the slaveholders,
the director of their policy, here at the very outset openly
proclaimed their purpose. The fact is that, at the time of the Texan
declaration of independence, almost everybody would have favored the
annexation of Texas to the United States, out of race sympathy with
the Texans and desire for territorial extension, except for the
international complications with Mexico, which must inevitably result.
It was the struggle over the Abolition petitions in 1836, 1837, and
1838 which turned the thoughts of men upon the internal questions
involved in the movement, and caused the North generally to reconsider
its attitude upon the question.
On July 4th, 1836, the House of Representatives passed a resolution of
the same tenor, and expressed in nearly the same words, as the Senate
resolution of July 1st. It seems to have been called forth by
memorials from citizens of Ohio and Pennsylvania.
[Illustration: TEXAS, at the Time of Annexation.]
[Sidenote: The mission of Mr. Morfit to Texas, his report and advice.]
Assured thus of the feeling of Congress, the President sent an agent,
Mr. Henry M. Morfit, to Texas during the summer of 1836, in order to
procure exact information of the state of affairs there. Mr. Morfit
wrote to the Secretary of State, Mr. Forsyth, that the {297}
constitution of March 17th was soon to be put into operation; that
General Houston had been elected President; that the constitution was
fashioned after that of the United States; that the desire for
annexation to the United States was universal; that the boundaries
asserted by the new state were the Rio Grande del Norte on the south
and southwest, the longitude from the source of the Rio Grande to the
boundary of the United States on the west, the southern boundary of
the United States on the north and northeast, and the Gulf of Mexico
on the east; that the population amounted to about sixty-five thousand
souls, of whom about fifty thousand were Anglo-Americans; that the
standing army numbered about twenty-two hundred men, and could be
increased to seven or eight thousand in an emergency; that the navy
consisted of four vessels, carrying twenty-nine guns; that the funds
of the State consisted of from fifty to one hundred millions of acres
of public lands, worth, at least, ten millions of dollars, and that
contributions were flowing in from private individuals in the United
States; that the debt was about twelve hundred and fifty thousand
dollars; that the supplies for the winter campaign were already
provided; and that there was not a Mexican soldier north of the Rio
Grande, although there were rumors that the Mexican government was
making preparations for a new invasion in the winter, which were not,
however, credited by the Texans.
This was certainly a good showing for Texas. If with an army of seven
hundred men, under a provisory government, the Texans drove the
Mexicans out of Texas, they could, under well established government,
and with an army ten times as large, most surely keep them out. It
must also be remembered that Santa Anna was still a prisoner in their
hands. Mr. Morfit, {298} however, expressed the belief that most of
the men and money for the army came from the United States, and,
therefore, advised delay in assuming a definite attitude toward the
new state.
[Sidenote: Jackson's recommendation to delay the recognition of Texan
independence.]
President Jackson transmitted this information to Congress, in his
message of December 21st, 1836, and recommended delay in recognizing
the independence of Texas. On January 11th, 1837, however, Senator
Walker, of Mississippi, offered a resolution in the Senate to the
effect that it would be expedient and proper to recognize the
independence of Texas, and stated that he had information that the
projected invasion of Texas by a new Mexican army, the rumors of which
were reported by Mr. Morfit, had most probably been abandoned.
[Sidenote: The question of Mexico's obligations to the United States.]
Before the resolution offered by Mr. Walker was taken up for
discussion, a message from the President was communicated to Congress
recommending the passage of an act, authorizing the President to make
reprisals upon Mexico, in case Mexico should refuse another demand
made upon her for an amicable adjustment of the matters in controversy
between her and the United States. The citizens and the Government of
the United States had many claims against Mexico and the Mexicans for
depredating the commerce, seizing the seamen, and insulting the flag
of the United States, and the demands for the satisfaction of these
claims had been almost uniformly disregarded. The relations between
the two Governments were already greatly strained on this account, and
when, in the autumn of 1836, President Jackson authorized General
Gaines to advance his troops into northwestern Texas, if he should
deem it necessary for the protection of the frontiers of the United
States against the Indians in Texas, who, on account of the {299} War
between Mexico and Texas, had been thrown into a great state of
excitement and unrest, the Mexican Minister, Senor Gorastiza, demanded
his passports, issued a sort of manifesto to the people of the United
States, and left Washington.
[Sidenote: Jackson's request of Congress for authority to issue an
ultimatum to Mexico in the claims question.]
It was hardly to be expected that President Jackson would quietly
brook such defiance from a half civilized state and its agents. He
immediately caused Mr. Ellis, the Charge d'Affaires of the Government
at the Mexican capital, to make a final demand on the Mexican
government. Mr. Ellis made his demand in writing, on September 26th.
After much delay the Mexican Minister of Foreign Affairs replied,
admitting the justice of some of the claims, and requiring more
information about others, but offering no reparation at all for
insults to the flag and to the consular officers of the United States.
The President's patience was exhausted, and he sent the message of
February 6th, 1837, to Congress, asking for authority to make a final
demand from the decks of a war-ship.
[Sidenote: Texan independence recognized by the United States.]
Congress was not, however, willing to invest the President with the
contingent power to make offensive war. The recommendation of the
President in the case had, nevertheless, considerable influence in
determining the minds of the Senators in regard to the question of
recognizing the independence of Texas. On March 1st, 1837, the Senate
adopted Mr. Walker's resolution. On the previous day the House of
Representatives had voted to insert in the civil and diplomatic
appropriation bill an item for the expenses of a diplomatic agent to
Texas, whenever the President should receive satisfactory evidence
that Texas was an independent Power and should consider it expedient
to appoint such a minister. President Jackson had invited this
expression of the {300} views of Congress in his message of the
previous December, in which he expressed the view that Congress ought
to determine the expediency of recognizing the independence of Texas,
and, although the resolutions of the two Houses of February 28th and
March 1st, 1837, did not formally assume to recognize that
independence, the President evidently attributed to them some virtue,
since he soon opened diplomatic intercourse with the Texan agent at
Washington. The resolutions of the two Houses of Congress and this act
of the President, taken together, were regarded by the people of the
United States and by foreign Powers as a recognition of Texan
independence.
[Sidenote: The question of annexation.]
It was clear to all thinking minds that the next step after
independence would be annexation to the United States. There is little
question that Texas was big enough and strong enough to stand alone
against Mexico, certainly with the aid which she was sure to receive
from without and with the growth which she was destined to enjoy; but
there was no natural boundary between the United States and Texas, and
the inhabitants of Texas were chiefly Anglo-Americans. The natural
boundary of the United States on the southwest is the desert between
the Nueces and the Rio Grande, and the territorial extension of the
United States to that limit was simply the fulfilment of the moral
order of the world, which tends to make the lines of states correspond
with the lines of physical geography and of ethnical differences.
Except for the connection of the question of slavery extension with
that of territorial extension after 1836, the question of the
annexation of Texas would have been generally viewed in this natural
and national light. That connection, however, made the North generally
assume the attitude {301} of opposition to annexation, while it
greatly excited the desires of the South in favor of it.
[Sidenote: Webster on annexation.]
On his way homeward from the Congress which voted in favor of
annexation, Mr. Webster made a great speech in New York, in which he
declared himself opposed to annexation on the ground that it would
extend slavery. Mr. Calhoun had, nearly a year before, as we have
seen, declared himself in favor of it for the same reason. After these
two declarations, from such leaders, the eyes of the people were open
to every feature of the question, and it could not have been any
longer a matter of intrigue.
[Sidenote: Texan proposition for annexation.]
In August, 1837, the Texan agent at Washington, General Hunt, proposed
to President Van Buren the annexation of Texas to the United States.
The President promptly and firmly declined, and the matter rested
during the remainder of his Administration.
The sudden and unexpected accession of Vice-President Tyler to the
presidency, in 1841, was the event which opened the way for the
commencement of negotiations for annexation. The new President was
known to be favorable to the project.
[Sidenote: The Mexican Claims Commission and its work.]
Meanwhile the diplomatic relations between the United States and
Mexico, so suddenly broken off in the latter part of President
Jackson's Administration, had been renewed in the early part of
President Van Buren's Administration, and, after considerable
negotiation in regard to the claims against Mexico, a convention
between the two Powers had been arranged, and, on April 8th, 1840,
proclaimed by the President as definitely concluded. The convention
provided that the claims of the citizens of the United States against
Mexico should be submitted to, and decided by, a commission, which
should be {302} composed of two members appointed by the President of
the United States, and of two other members appointed by the President
of Mexico; that the commissioners should meet in Washington within
three months from the date of the exchange of ratifications of the
convention; that the commission should terminate its duties within
eighteen months from the time of its first meeting; and that when the
commissioners could not come to any decision, the question upon which
they might disagree should be referred to an arbiter appointed by the
King of Prussia, etc. With this the question of the private claims
against Mexico, already submitted, was, momentarily, put at rest. The
claim of satisfaction for public injuries and affronts remained
unsettled, and no provision was made for the consideration of private
claims which had not been submitted before the ratification of the
convention, or of those which might arise after the same date. Plenty
of opportunities were thus left for the rise of difficulties in the
claims question which might lead to hostile relations between the two
Powers.
[Sidenote: Tyler as an advocate of annexation.]
As early as the winter of 1841-42, it was suspected that President
Tyler's Administration was preparing to move in the matter of
annexation. In fact, Mr. Wise, of Virginia, the President's bosom
friend, and his organ in the House of Representatives, reiterated upon
the floor of the House, on January 26th, 1842, Mr. Calhoun's doctrine
about annexation, pronounced in 1836, that the annexation of Texas was
essential to slavery extension, that slavery extension was necessary
to preserve the balance of power between the North and the South in
the Union, and that the preservation of this balance of power was the
necessary condition of the perpetuity of the Union.
{303} Mr. Wise expressed this opinion in the midst of an acrimonious
debate, and whether he, in an unguarded moment, betrayed the policy of
the President, or simply gave vent to his own excited feelings, is
still one of the speculations of American history.
[Sidenote: Mr. Webster in the way of annexation.]
[Sidenote: The Adams address on annexation.]
So long, however, as Mr. Webster remained at the head of the State
Department it was impossible for the President to make any progress
with a definite plan for annexation, even if he entertained one.
Nevertheless, thirteen anti-slavery Whig members of Congress, led by
Mr. John Quincy Adams, issued, on March 3rd, 1843, an address to the
people of the non-slaveholding Commonwealths, declaring that there was
a definite plan of annexation already settled upon, and about to be
consummated, and denouncing the execution of it as being tantamount to
a dissolution of the Union.
[Sidenote: The retirement of Webster.]
On May 8th, 1843, Mr. Webster resigned the secretaryship of State. It
was said by some that the President drove him out, in order to appoint
a Secretary who would carry out his plans for the annexation of Texas;
but Mr. Webster himself indicated by his acts and words that he had
determined to resign more than a year before, and had remained in
office only for the purpose of concluding the negotiations with Great
Britain which culminated in the Ashburton Treaty, an agreement in
which Mr. Webster's section had an especial interest.
There is little question, however, that President Tyler was glad to
have him go, for the President placed the annexation of Texas before
every other policy of his Administration.
[Sidenote: The promotion of Upshur, and his negotiations with the
Texans.]
Soon after Mr. Webster's resignation the President transferred Mr.
Upshur from the secretaryship of the {304} Navy to that of State. Mr.
Upshur was the man whom suspicion had already marked as the confidant
of the President in the annexation scheme. This suspicion was speedily
confirmed by his entering, almost immediately, upon negotiations with
the Texan agent at Washington, Mr. Van Zandt, for annexation.
Soon after the recognition of the independence of Texas by the United
States, Great Britain, France, and Belgium took the same step,
presumably for the purpose of establishing commercial relations with
the new state. But, in the summer of 1843, the British Government
appeared in the character of the most favored mediator between Mexico
and Texas for the recognition of the independence of Texas by Mexico;
and a friend of President Tyler's Administration wrote, from London,
that a representative of the anti-slavery men in Texas was in London,
negotiating a loan of money from an English company, with which to pay
for the liberation of all the slaves in Texas, and that the interest
upon the loan was to be guaranteed by the British Government, on the
condition that the Texan Government would abolish slavery.
The Administration professed to credit this story, and Mr. Upshur
wrote to General Murphy, the diplomatic agent of the United States in
Texas, informing him of this communication from London, and arguing
the double danger to the United States of British interference in
Texas, and of the abolition of slavery there. This letter bears date
of August 8th, 1843, and is considered as marking the beginning of the
actual negotiations for annexation. It was certainly intended to
prompt General Murphy to sound the Texan Government upon the question
of annexation.
[Sidenote: The threat of the Mexican Government to consider the
annexation of Texas a cause of war.]
[Sidenote: The Administration proposes annexation to the Texan agent.]
The Mexican Government evidently discovered the {305} movement
immediately, for, on August 23rd, the Mexican Secretary of State
declared to Mr. Thompson, the Minister of the United States to Mexico,
that the Mexican Government would consider any act of the United
States to annex Texas as a declaration of war on Mexico. For seven
years Mexico had made no war on Texas, though professing to regard the
new state as only a rebellious province. In September of 1842, several
marauding expeditions had crossed the Rio Grande, raided around for a
few days, and then returned to Mexico. The Mexican Government called
this a continuance of the war, and demanded that the states of the
world should observe the attitude of neutrals toward a friendly Power
engaged in suppressing a rebellion on the part of certain of its
lawful subjects. This was absurd. From the point of view of
international law Texas had won her independence, and might make what
agreements she pleased with any other Power. The President paid no
attention to the Mexican threat. On October 16th, 1843, Mr. Upshur
formally proposed annexation to Mr. Van Zandt, and in his message to
Congress, at the beginning of the session of 1843-44, the President
indicated to Congress that the negotiations for annexation were in
progress, and referred to the fact that Mexico threatened war in case
the United States should resolve to annex Texas.
[Sidenote: The difficulty in the way of acceptance of the
proposition.]
The great difficulty in the way of the negotiations was the fear on
the part of the Texans that, upon the signature of the Treaty by the
Presidents of the two countries, and before its ratification by the
respective Senates, as required by the respective Constitutions, the
Mexicans would collect all their forces and make one supreme effort to
reconquer Texas. The Texans wanted the {306} protection of the United
States in this interim, and the embarrassing question for Mr. Tyler's
Administration was whether the President of the United States had the
constitutional power to extend it. Would not war, undertaken in
defence of one foreign Power against another, be offensive war, in the
sense of the Constitution of the United States, such war as Congress
alone can authorize? Or, could Texas be considered a part of the
United States from the moment that the two Presidents signed the
Treaty of annexation, and before its ratification by the respective
Senates, thus making war in her defence defensive war, such war as the
President of the United States may, of his own power, undertake?
[Sidenote: The demand of the Texans for protection in the interim.]
About the middle of January, 1844, Mr. Van Zandt demanded of Mr.
Upshur whether, in case the President of Texas should agree to the
proposition of the President of the United States for annexation, the
President of the United States would protect Texas, from the moment of
this agreement between the two Presidents, against all foreign attack.
Mr. Upshur seems to have been greatly perplexed by the question, for
he made no reply.
About the middle of February, the President of Texas caused the same
question to be put to the United States agent in Texas, General
Murphy. Murphy was a blunt, brave man, full of chivalry, but quite
empty of constitutional and international law. He immediately returned
an affirmative answer, whereupon President Houston sent a special
envoy to Washington, armed with plenary power to conclude a treaty of
annexation.
Whether Secretary Upshur, and, of course, the President, knew of the
promise which Murphy had made for his Government to Texas, before the
sudden death of Mr. Upshur, on February 28th, has never been
determined.
{307} During the second week of March, Mr. John Nelson, the Secretary
of the Navy, was temporarily transferred to the State Department, and
one of his first acts was to officially disavow Murphy's promise to
President Houston. He very nearly informed Murphy, however, that
President Tyler was personally pleased with what he had done. The
Texan agents at Washington refused, however, to proceed with the
negotiations until President Tyler would ratify Murphy's promise. Mr.
Nelson would not risk his reputation as a constitutional lawyer by
inventing an interpretation of the Constitution which would warrant
this. At the end of the month Mr. Calhoun was put in his place, and he
was remanded to the Department of the Navy.
[Sidenote: Mr. Calhoun in the State Department.]
[Sidenote: The Treaty of annexation signed.]
About a fortnight after taking possession of his office, Mr. Calhoun
officially informed the Texan agents at Washington that the President
had ordered the concentration of a strong squadron of war-vessels in
the Gulf of Mexico, and had commanded the movement of land forces to
the southwestern boundary of the United States to meet all
eventualities, and that the President would use "all the means placed
within his power by the Constitution" to protect Texas against foreign
invasion during the pendency of the Treaty of annexation. On the day
following this communication, the Treaty of annexation was signed by
the President of the United States and by the Texas plenipotentiary
for the President of Texas.
Ten days after this, the Treaty was sent to the Senate of the United
States for ratification. In the message accompanying the Treaty the
President informed the Senate of the disposition he had made of the
troops and naval vessels, and justified the same by the claim that the
President _makes_ the treaties, that the Senate only ratifies {308}
them, that the validity of the treaties, therefore, dates from the
President's agreement, and that, therefore, in this case, Texas was,
from and after April 12th, 1844, a part of the territory of the United
States, all of which the President was bound to defend against foreign
attack. Whether this was President Tyler's constitutional law or Mr.
Calhoun's we do not know. If this doctrine is to be ascribed to Mr.
Calhoun it certainly marks a great departure from the general
principles taught by him after 1830. One would think that his "States'
sovereignty" theory of the Union would have led him to attribute as
little power as possible to the general Government, and as much of
that little as possible to the Senate, but here were both nationalism
and Caesarism combined.
[Sidenote: The Treaty in the Senate and its rejection.]
[Sidenote: Mr. Archer's opposition to the Treaty.]
The Treaty was before the Senate, in secret session, from April 22nd
until June 8th, when it was rejected by a vote of thirty-five to
sixteen. It is not necessary to examine the reasons which moved the
Northern Senators to vote against it, but it is important to
understand some of the grounds upon which Senators from the
slaveholding Commonwealths opposed it. Senator Benton declared that
the Treaty annexed not only Texas but parts of four other Mexican
provinces, which would be an international outrage upon Mexico. Most
of the Southern Senators, however, were influenced by the fear of war
with Mexico. But the most significant objection to it, from the point
of view of subsequent events, was that urged by Mr. Archer, of
Virginia, the chairman of the Senate committee for Foreign Affairs. He
claimed that a foreign state could not be annexed to the United States
by means of a treaty, and that, if a foreign state could become
connected with the Union at all, it must be by means of an act of
Congress. A large number of the Senators approved of this {309}
doctrine. It was a pregnant idea to the President and Mr. Calhoun. It
indicated that there was another way to accomplish annexation.
While the Treaty was under consideration in the Senate, the national
conventions for the nomination of presidential candidates had
assembled. The Whigs had nominated Mr. Clay, who was regarded as
opposed to annexation. The friends to annexation in the Democratic
party had been able to put Mr. Van Buren aside, and had nominated
James K. Polk, of Tennessee, an outspoken advocate of immediate
annexation, and had made the "re-occupation of Oregon and the
re-annexation of Texas" the chief plank in the party platform.
[Sidenote: The new plan for annexation.]
Here now were all the elements of a new plan for annexation, which
promised more success. They were, the doctrine unwittingly advanced by
Mr. Archer, and as unwittingly approved by many of the Senators, that
Texas could be connected with the United States only by means of an
act of Congress admitting her as a Commonwealth into the Union, the
plank of the platform making annexation the chief issue of the
campaign for the election of a new President and a new House of
Representatives, and the connection of the Oregon question with that
of annexation, in order to get votes in the North for both projects at
once.
On June 11th, President Tyler took the first step in the combination
of these elements. He sent a copy of the rejected Treaty, and all the
papers connected with it, to the House of Representatives, together
with a message, in which he reviewed the subject and justified his
position in regard to it, and declared, finally, that while he had
regarded a treaty as the most suitable means for accomplishing
annexation, he would {310} co-operate with Congress in the use of any
other means compatible with the Constitution and likely to accomplish
the result.
Before, however, following the history of the annexation of Texas
further, we must present briefly the main points in the development of
the Oregon question.
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