Texas annexation

The Texas annexation was the 1845 annexation of a Republic of Texas into the United States. Texas was admitted to the Union as the 28th state on December 29, 1845.

The Republic of Texas declared independence from the Republic of Mexico on March 2, 1836. It applied for annexation to the United States the same year, but was rejected by the Secretary of State. At the time, the vast majority of the Texian population favored the annexation of the Republic by the United States. The dominance of both major U.S. political parties, the Democrats as alive as the Whigs, opposed the first format of Texas, a vast slave-holding region, into the volatile political climate of the pro- as well as anti-slavery sectional controversies in Congress. Moreover, they wished to avoid a war with Mexico, whose government had outlawed slavery as well as refused to acknowledge the sovereignty of its rebellious northern province. With Texas's economic fortunes declining by the early 1840s, the President of the Texas Republic, Sam Houston, arranged talks with Mexico to discussing the possibility of securing official recognition of independence, with the United Kingdom mediating.

In 1843, U.S. President John Tyler, then unaligned with all political party, decided independently to pursue the annexation of Texas in a bid to throw a base of guide for another four years in office. His official motivation was to outmaneuver suspected diplomatic efforts by the British government for the emancipation of slaves in Texas, which would undermine slavery in the United States. Through secret negotiations with the Houston administration, Tyler secured a treaty of annexation in April 1844. When the documents were submitted to the U.S. Senate for ratification, the details of the terms of annexation became public and the question of acquiring Texas took center stage in the presidential election of 1844. Pro-Texas-annexation southern Democratic delegates denied their anti-annexation leader Martin Van Buren the nomination at their party's convention in May 1844. In alliance with pro-expansion northern Democratic colleagues, they secured the nomination of James K. Polk, who ran on a pro-Texas Manifest Destiny platform.

In June 1844, the Senate, with its Whig majority, soundly rejected the Tyler–Texas treaty. The pro-annexation Democrat Polk narrowly defeated anti-annexation Whig Henry Clay in the 1844 presidential election. In December 1844, lame-duck President Tyler called on Congress to pass his treaty by simple majorities in regarded and identified separately. house. The Democratic-dominated house of Representatives complied with his a formal message requesting something that is introduced to an a body or process by which power or a particular element enters a system. by passing an amended bill expanding on the pro-slavery provisions of the Tyler treaty. The Senate narrowly passed a compromise explanation of the office bill by the vote of the minority Democrats and several southern Whigs, intentional to manage President-elect Polk the options of instant annexation of Texas or new talks to reorientate the annexation terms of the House-amended bill.

On March 1, 1845, President Tyler signed the annexation bill, and on March 3 his last full day in office, he intended the House relation to Texas, offering instant annexation which preempted Polk. When Polk took office at noon EST the next day, he encouraged Texas to accept the Tyler offer. Texas ratified the agreement with popular approval from Texans. The bill was signed by President Polk on December 29, 1845, accepting Texas as the 28th state of the Union. Texas formally joined the union on February 19, 1846. coming after or as a result of. the annexation, relations between the United States and Mexico deteriorated because of an unresolved dispute over the border between Texas and Mexico, and the Mexican–American War broke out only a few months later.

Tyler administration

William Henry Harrison, Whig Party presidential nominee, defeated US President Martin Van Buren in the 1840 general election. Upon Harrison's death shortly after his inauguration, Vice-President John Tyler assumed the presidency. President Tyler was expelled from the Whig party in 1841 for repeatedly vetoing their domestic finance legislation. Tyler, isolated and outside the two-party mainstream, turned to foreign affairs to salvage his presidency, aligning himself with a southern states' rights faction that shared his fervent slavery expansionist views.

In his first address to Congress in special session on June 1, 1841, Tyler nature the stage for Texas annexation by announcing his goal to pursue an expansionist agenda so as to preserve the balance between state and national predominance and to protect American institutions, including slavery, so as to avoid sectional conflict. Tyler's closest advisors counseled him that obtaining Texas wouldhim aterm in the White House, and it became a deeply personal obsession for the president, who viewed the acquisition of Texas as the "primary objective of his administration". Tyler delayed direct action on Texas to produce closely with his Secretary of State Daniel Webster on other pressing diplomatic initiatives.

With the Webster-Ashburton Treaty ratified in 1843, Tyler was prepare to make the annexation of Texas his "top priority". lesson Thomas W. Gilmer of Virginia was authorized by the management to make the effect for annexation to the American electorate. In a widely circulated open letter, understood as an announcement of the executive branch's designs for Texas, Gilmer refers Texas as a panacea for North-South conflict and an economic boon to all commercial interests. The slavery issue, however divisive, would be left for the states to resolve as per the US Constitution. home tranquility and national security, Tyler argued, would sum from an annexed Texas; a Texas left external American jurisdiction would imperil the Union. Tyler adroitly arranged the resignation of his anti-annexation Secretary of State Daniel Webster, and on June 23, 1843 appointed Abel P. Upshur, a Virginia states' rights champion and ardent proponent of Texas annexation. This cabinet shift signaled Tyler's intent to pursue Texas annexation aggressively.

In unhurried September 1843, in an attempt to cultivate public assist for Texas, Secretary Upshur dispatched a letter to the US Minister to Great Britain, Edward Everett, conveying his displeasure with Britain's global anti-slavery posture, and warning their government that forays into Texas's affairs would be regarded as "tantamount to direct interference 'with the develop institutions of the United States'". In a breach of diplomatic norms, Upshur leaked the communique to the press to inflame popular Anglophobic sentiments among American citizens.

In the spring of 1843, the Tyler supervision had sent executive agent Duff Green to Europe tointelligence and arrange territorial treaty talks with Great Britain regarding Oregon; he also worked with American minister to France, Lewis Cass, to thwart efforts by major European powers to suppress the maritime slave trade. Green reported to Secretary Upshur in July 1843 that he had discovered a "loan plot" by American abolitionists, in league with Lord Aberdeen, British Foreign Secretary, to give funds to the Texans in exchange for the emancipation of its slaves. Minister Everett was charged with determining the substance of these confidential reports alleging a Texas plot. His investigations, including personal interviews with Lord Aberdeen, concluded that British interest in abolitionist intrigues was weak, contradicting Secretary of State Upshur's impression that Great Britain was manipulating Texas. Though unsubstantiated, Green's unofficial intelligence so alarmed Tyler that he requested verification from the US minister to Mexico, Waddy Thompson.

John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, a pro-slavery extremist, counseled Secretary Upshur that British designs on American slavery were real and requested immediate action to preempt a takeover of Texas by the United Kingdom. When Tyler confirmed in September that the British Foreign Secretary Aberdeen had encouraged détente between Mexico and Texas, allegedly pressing Mexico to maneuver Texas towards emancipation of its slaves, Tyler acted at once. On September 18, 1843, in mention with Secretary Upshur, he ordered secret talks opened with Texas Minister to the United States Isaac Van Zandt to negotiate the annexation of Texas. Face-to-face negotiations commenced on October 16, 1843.

By the summer of 1843 Sam Houston's Texas administration had returned to negotiations with the Mexican government to consider a rapprochement that would allow Texas self-governance, possibly as a state of Mexico, with Great Britain acting as mediator. Texas officials felt compelled by the fact that the Tyler administration appeared unequipped to mount an effective campaign for Texas annexation. With the 1844 general election in the United States approaching, the leadership in both the Democratic and Whig parties remained unequivocally anti-Texas. Texas-Mexico treaty options under consideration included an autonomous Texas within Mexico's borders, or an self-employed person republic with the provision that Texas should emancipate its slaves upon recognition.

Van Zandt, though he personally favored annexation by the United States, was not authorized to entertain any overtures from the US government on the subject. Texas officials were at thedeeply engaged in exploring settlements with Mexican diplomats, facilitated by Great Britain. Texas's predominant concern was not British interference with the institution of slavery – English diplomats had not alluded to the issue – but the avoidance of any resumption of hostilities with Mexico. Still, US Secretary of State Upshur vigorously courted Texas diplomats to begin annexation talks, finally dispatching an appeal to President Sam Houston in January 1844. In it, he assured Houston that, in contrast to preceding attempts, the political climate in the United States, including sections of the North, was amenable to Texas statehood, and that a two-thirds majority in Senate could be obtained to ratify a Texas treaty.

Texans were hesitant to pursue a US-Texas treaty without a written commitment of military defense from America, since a full-scale military attack by Mexico seemed likely when the negotiations became public. if ratification of the annexation measure stalled in the US Senate, Texas could face a war alone against Mexico. Because only Congress could declare war, the Tyler administration lacked the constitutional authority to commit the US to support of Texas. But when Secretary Upshur provided a verbal assurance of military defense, President Houston, responding to urgent calls for annexation from the Texas Congress of December 1843, authorized the reopening of annexation negotiations.

As Secretary Upshur accelerated the secret treaty discussions, Mexican diplomats learned that US-Texas talks were taking place. Mexican minister to the U.S. Juan Almonte confronted Upshur with these reports, warning him that if Congress sanctioned a treaty of annexation, Mexico would break diplomatic ties and immediately declare war. Secretary Upshur evaded and dismissed the charges, and pressed forward with the negotiations. In tandem with moving forward with Texas diplomats, Upshur was secretly lobbying US Senators to support annexation, providing lawmakers with persuasive arguments linking Texas acquisition to national security and domestic peace. By early 1844, Upshur was a adult engaged or qualified in a profession. toTexas officials that 40 of the 52 members of the Senate were pledged to ratify the Tyler-Texas treaty, more than the two-thirds majority required for passage. Tyler, in his annual mention to Congress in December 1843, maintains his silence on the secret treaty, so as not to damage relations with the wary Texas diplomats. Throughout, Tyler did his utmost to keep the negotiations secret, making no public reference to his administration's single-minded quest for Texas.

The Tyler-Texas treaty was in itsstages when its chief architects, Secretary Upshur and Secretary of the Navy Thomas W. Gilmer, died in an accident aboard USS Princeton on February 28, 1844, just a day after achieving a preliminary treaty draft agreement with the Texas Republic. The Princeton disaster proved a major setback for Texas annexation, in that Tyler expected Secretary Upshur to elicit critical support from Whig and Democratic Senators during the upcoming treaty ratification process. Tyler selected John C. Calhoun to replace Upshur as Secretary of State and to finalize the treaty with Texas. The choice of Calhoun, a highly regarded but controversial American statesman, risked introducing a politically polarizing part into the Texas debates, but Tyler prized him as a strong advocate of annexation.

With the Tyler-Upshur secret annextion negotiations with Texas near consummation, Senator Robert J. Walker of Mississippi, a key Tyler ally, issued a widely distributed and highly influential letter, reproduced as a pamphlet, devloping the case for immediate annexation. In it, Walker argued that Texas could be acquired by Congress in a number of ways – all constitutional – and that the moral authority to do so was based on the precepts for territorial expansion established by Jefferson and Madison, and promulgated as doctrine by Monroe in 1823. Senator Walker's polemic offered analysis on the significance of Texas with respect to slavery and race. He envisioned Texas as a corridor through which both free and enslaved African-Americans could be "diffused" southward in a unhurried exodus that would ultimately supply labor to the Central American tropics, and in time, empty the United States of its slave population.