Heritage, Volume 13, Number 4, Fall 1995 Page: 7
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"The Republic of Texas is No More...
Texas Joins the Union
By Archie P. McDonaldhen Texas President Anson
Jones spoke the words "The
Republic of Texas is no
more...," in his valedictory during ceremonies
in Austin on February 19, 1846, he
marked the passage of the Republic into
statehood in the American Union. Later
Texans might liken the experience of
Texas' national status to the "Camelot"
myth because of the contribution of this
brief period to the uniqueness for their
state they so cherish. After all, what other
American state advertises itself as "a whole
other country"?
The original "other country" was born
of battle with nature and with Mexican
armies and Indians, and with nature some
more. Founded by the Consultation meeting
in Washington-on-the-Brazos in March
1836, an independent Texas weathered
nearly six months of military, political,
and economic uncertainty before interim
President David G. Burnet turned its government
over to the first "permanent" president
Sam Houston.
On the day Houston won the office,
contradictorily 97 percent of Texans voting
on whether Texas should remain independent
or seek admission to the Union
opted for the latter course. Many, perhaps
most of those voting in the election had
come from the United States within the
past six months, and such a policy seemed
natural to a people who had been expanding
westward for more than three centuries.
President Houston also favored annexation.
Assuming leadership of a government
with literally no treasury and no
treasure other than land, which could not
be converted to cash quickly, and a continuing
war with Mexico after a new regime
repudiated the captive Santa Anna's
concessions at Velasco, Houston decided
the best way to handle these problems was
to turn them over to an established, friendly
government.
Joint Resolution (H.R. 46) for the Annexation of
Texas, January 27, 1845. United States Senate and
the National Archives. Courtesy of Texas Humanities
Resource Center.Perhaps Houston's long association with
President Andrew Jackson led him to believe
that admission to the Union would be
as easy as it was logical. Such was not the
case. Jackson doubtless wanted Texas, but
he, too, had problems. For one, Mexico not
only renounced Santa Anna's concessions,
they also made plain their belief that the
Texans' success had resulted from bad leadership
from Santa Anna and assistance from
the U.S., and that any attempt to add Texas
to the United States would result in war
between the nations. Equally important
was the opposition of former President John
Quincy Adams, now in the Congress, to the
admission of additional slave territory. In
the event, the best Jackson could do was to
grant diplomatic recognition to Texas and
that was accomplished only after Congress
agreed.
So Houston served his entire two-year,
constitutionally limited term, dealing with
Texas' problems well enough but in a finger-in-the-dike
fashion, hoping for a change
in fortune. His successor in 1838, Mirabeau
B. Lamar, favored a completely different
course for Texas. If Houston wanted to join
the Union, Lamar preferred continued independence
and even expansion into New
Mexico, perhaps to the Pacific Coast; where
Houston had sought to calm the troubles
with Mexico, Lamar provoked them; and
where Houston had attempted to co-exist
with Indians, Lamar wanted to chase them
from the country.
Because he favored continued independence,
Lamar obtained more international
On the day Houston won
the office, contradictorily
97 percent of Texans
voting on whether Texas
should remain independent
or seek admission to
the Union opted for the
latter course.recognition for Texas among European nations,
but not loans, and his other policies
increased the public debt dramatically.
Houston returned to the presidency in 1841
and to old problems, in his view, made
worse by Lamar; he favored the same remedy
for them- admission to the United
States.
Houston sent James Reilly and then
Isaac Van Zandt to speak with Daniel
Webster, secretary of state to President
John Tyler. Webster had been appointed
to the post by President William Henry
Harrison, a Whig. Harrison died one month
into his administration and was succeeded
by Tyler, really an old-line, state's right
Democrat who had fallen out with Jackson
and so had affiliated with the party dedicated
to getting rid of "King Andrew," but
he was never a Whig at heart. When congressional
Whigs could not get along with
Tyler, they literally read him out of the
party and the cabinet he had inherited
from Harrison resigned - except Webster,
who remained to continue diplomatic business.Webster had no interest in affiliating
Texas to the Union; it had slavery and its
admission could mean war with Mexico.
Able P. Upshire replaced Webster in October
1843, and he did want to talk to the
Texans. Upshire felt that a treaty of annexation
could win Senate approval. Unfortunately
Upshire was killed in an accident
before the treaty materialized, but he was
replaced by John C. Calhoun, who also
favored annexation.
James Pinckney Henderson joined Van
Zandt in Washington and in 1844 they
worked out a treaty with Calhoun that
called for the annexation of Texas as a U.S.
territory; Texas would surrender control of
its greatest asset, the public lands, but would
pass along a great liability, the public debt.
Some Texans grumbled that full statehood
was not immediate, but the majority favored
the treaty; the U.S. Senators did not,
at least not sufficiently. On June 8, 1844,
the treaty failed by a vote of 35 to 16.
The rejection of the treaty played a role
in the presidential elections of both naHERITAGE * FALL 1995 7
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Texas Historical Foundation. Heritage, Volume 13, Number 4, Fall 1995, periodical, Autumn 1995; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth45411/m1/7/: accessed April 23, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas Historical Foundation.