Annexation of Texas

• Author: William M. Wiecek
• Pages: 90

Page 90

American settlers in the Mexican province of Texas revolted against the central government and established the independence of the Lone Star Republic in 1836. President ANDREW JACKSON was unable to effect annexation, however, because many feared war with Mexico and because abolitionists suspected a slaveholders' plot to increase the number of slave states. In 1842, President John Tyler revived annexationist efforts, abetted by a clique of proslavery expansionists, but an annexation treaty failed once again, due in part to the argument that the territories clause (Article IV, section 3) permitted annexation only of dependent TERRITORIES of other nations, not of independent nations themselves. Tyler then recommended annexation by JOINT RESOLUTION of Congress to obviate the constitutional requirement of a two-thirds Senate vote to ratify a treaty. This aroused further opposition, now including influential southern Whigs, who insisted that the issue involved grave foreign policy risks and hence was precisely the sort of question for which the Framers had required a...