pansionists for Texas and Oregon, our troubles with the mother country would seem to have come to an end. The most absorbing issue of Tyler's administration, and one of the most fateful issues in all our history, was the annexation of Texas. Whatever claims we may have had to Texas as part of the Louisiana Purchase territory in 1803 were surrendered by the treaty of 1819 with Spain, which fixed the southwestern boundary of the United States at the Sabine River. Two years later Mexico (of which Texas was a province) threw off its allegiance to Spain in the general revolt of the South and Central American colonies. The new republic of Mexico was at first very favorable to immigration from the United States into Texas and granted large tracts of land on easy terms. It even excepted Texas from the operation of the decree of 1829, which abolished slavery in Mexico. But the very next year a sudden reversal of policy, which aimed at expelling the foreigners from Texas, led to an uprising in which the Americans joined the native "Liberals" in ejecting the Mexican troops from the province. A wily adventurer named Santa Anna took advantage of the Liberal revolt to get control of the government in Mexico and then threw off his disguise and whipped the province with scorpions where his predecessors had used rods. Texas was deprived of her government and made a mere military department in the province of Coahuila. The inhabitants of Texas, of whom about 75 per cent were American immigrants, had no intention of yielding to such tyranny. They organized a temporary government, declared their independence of Mexico on March 2, 1836, and on April 21, under the command of Sam Houston of Tennessee, completely defeated the invading Mexican army at the battle of San Jacinto and took its general, Santa Anna, prisoner. The connection between Mexico and Texas was forever severed. Then began the campaign for the annexation of Texas to the United States, urged by Houston (who had been elected president of the Texan republic) and approved by the almost unanimous opinion of the citizens of Texas, but denounced by Mexico as a cause of war against the United States. For, in spite of the fact that she was impotent to recover her authority over the revolted province, Mexico steadily refused to recognize the independence of Texas. President Jackson was heartily in favor of the annexation of Texas. He had made two attempts (1829, 1835) to purchase the province from Mexico, raising John Quincy Adams's offer of $1,000,000 in 1827 to $5,000,000 and even urging, in the proposition of 1835, that Mexico relinquish the land between the parallels of 37° and 42° north latitude from the Rio Grande to the Pacific. Furthermore, Jackson was little disturbed by delicate scruples in his methods of acquiring desirable territory for the United States, as had been proved by his conduct in Florida. But now, in spite of the overwhelming sentiment of the Texans in favor of annexation and in spite of the vote of both Houses of Congress to recognize the independence of Texas when she should have shown herself fit to maintain her government, Jackson hung back. The alleged reason was that the annexation of Texas would bring on a war with Mexico, but the fear of injuring the chances of his candidate Van Buren in the approaching election may have been the more cogent reason. The abolitionist agitation over the rejection of the antislavery petitions by Congress and the exclusion of the antislavery literature from the mails was at its height (p. 388). Van Buren needed the Northern votes to win, and until the election was over, Jackson confined himself to harmless negotiations with Mexico. In the spring of 1837, however, he recognized the independence of Texas and heightened his tone in dealing with Mexico. Van Buren, however, was little interested in expansion and not at all in slavery. He would have had no inclination to favor the annexation policy, even if the storm raised by the panic of 1837 had not occupied the administration with financial problems. Instead of listening to the overtures of the Texan envoy 1It was asserted by Jackson's enemies that the failure of the proposition of 1835 caused Jackson to give encouragement to Houston to secure the separation of Texas from Mexico by arms. There is some color given to the charge by the fact that Houston, after a visit to the White House, boasted that Texas would be independent and that he should be its first president. But this is slim evidence on which to condemn Jackson. at Washington, Van Buren preferred to negotiate a convention with Mexico for the settlement of our claims against her.' Interest in the annexation project waned both in the United States and in Texas. The activities of the American Antislavery Society, the insistence of the Northern press that we had "territory enough, bad morals enough, public debt enough" already, the petitions to Congress (which were "measured by the cubic feet"), the three weeks' speech of John Quincy Adams against annexation (in the closing session of 1838), seemed to have put the quietus on the measure. The new president of Texas (Lamar) in his inaugural address of December, 1838, advocated a free and independent Texas. The British minister at Mexico City spoke of the annexation project as "dead." It was evident that the friends of annexation would have to wait until the wheel of political fortune brought round a favorable moment. That moment came in 1842. Tyler had "dished the Whigs,' and the Whigs had repudiated Tyler. The president was free to develop his own policy, supported by his new cabinet and his coterie of Virginian friends. He was personally in favor of annexation. He also saw in the issue a promising platform on which to unite the slave interests of the South and the expansionist sentiment of the North for the next presidential campaign. Moreover, Sam Houston, who, in spite of a certain affectation of indifference, was always at heart an annexationist, had been reëlected to the presidency of the Texan republic in 1841. Mexico herself stimulated the movement when, after six years of inactivity, she suddenly sent a considerable army northward for the reconquest of the lost province, inciting the adventurers of our Southwestern States to shoulder their muskets again and march to the defense of their "fellow-citizens" in Texas. Finally, the danger of British intervention in Texas 1 The behavior of Mexico in regard to these claims shows what kind of government we had to deal with in the decade preceding the Mexican War. Although the convention was concluded in 1838, more than two years elapsed before Mexico appointed her commissioners, and another two, filled with excuses and evasions, before she agreed to pay the modest sum of $2,000,000 in equal quarterly installments extending over a space of five years. After the first three installments of $100,000 each, Mexico stopped paying. began to loom large and to arouse all those fears and resentments which the American people have been quick to feel whenever the menace of European intervention has appeared on this continent. The interest of Great Britain in a free and independent Texas was obvious. She was willing to guarantee Texas a large loan in return for the abolition of slavery in the republic. She was eager to have in Texas a source of supply of cotton and other raw materials for which she could exchange her manufactures unhampered by the tariff laws of the American Union. Her minister in Mexico was working to effect an arrangement by which the independence of Texas might be acknowledged and hostilities brought to an end. As mediator between Mexico and her revolted province and as guarantor of the independence granted, Great Britain would inevitably have an enormous influence in both countries. The British government protested at every stage in the negotiations over Texas (and doubtless with truth) that her diplomatic conduct was perfectly "correct"; nevertheless, there was a widespread feeling in our country that Great Britain intended to establish a kind of "protectorate" over Texas. And against that the Monroe Doctrine was explicit.' When the two great Whig leaders were removed from public life by the retirement of Clay from the Senate in the spring of 1842 and the resignation of Webster from the cabinet a year later, Tyler moved directly toward his goal. Upshur of Virginia succeeded to the headship of the Department of State in the autumn of 1843 and began negotiations with Texas for a treaty of annexation. The Texan government, under the rebuff that it had suffered from the Van Buren administration, had given up the idea of annexation and concluded treaties with France (1839), Holland (1840), Belgium and Great Britain (1842). The latter power was determined that Texas should 1 For example, the Washington Madisonian (President Tyler's organ) said that if England interfered in Texas, the whole American people "would rise like one vast nest of hornets," and that the Western States "at the call of Captain Tyler would pour their noble sons down the Mississippi valley by millions." not be joined to the United States. Brougham made speeches in the House of Lords (August, 1843) denouncing the "hideous crime of breeding negroes," and members of Parliament openly declared that "England must maintain her ascendency in Texas." In the summer of 1843 the British minister in Mexico succeeded in bringing about a truce between Mexico and Texas, which gave promise of the recognition of the independence of the latter if she would not ally herself with the United States. Furthermore, the antislavery forces were aroused by the renewal of the attempt at annexation. John Quincy Adams and twelve of his associates in the House issued a defiant address in March, 1843, charging that the American settlements had been made in Texas, the revolt from Mexico instigated, and the efforts of Mexico to regain Texas prevented, solely in order that "the undue ascendency of the slave power should be secured and riveted beyond all redemption," and that there was no obligation on the part of the states of the Union to acquiesce in a treaty of annexation-since such a treaty could not be made "under the Constitution." Annexation, said other warning voices at the North, would lead to war with Mexico,1 would increase the power of the South, would whet a desire to acquire Mexico and Canada, would saddle us with a large Texan debt, and would enrich the speculators in Texan lands. "It is the contemptible scheme of a poor miserable traitor temporarily acting as President," said a Boston paper. John Greenleaf Whittier rang the tocsin for the country in danger: Up the hillside, down the glen, Summon out the might of men. But not all the men of the North felt like Adams and Whittier. Secretary Upshur appealed to the manufacturer and the 1 In the autumn of 1842 our Commodore Jones on the Pacific coast, acting on a rumor that war had actually broken out between the United States and Mexico, sailed into the Californian harbor of Monterey, occupied the town, and ran up the American flag on the government building. As soon as he learned of the falseness of the rumor he retired, and apologies were made. But the incident gave color to the charge that we were anxious for war. |