Congress adjourned without further action on the subject.

The victory of Polk in the November following called for the transmutation of Democratic platform utterances into a positive policy, and the twentyeighth Congress gathered for its second session with a new sense of the importance of annexation. President Tyler, in his fourth annual message, attacked the subject once more. He said, among other things, that the interests of the United States demanded the cessation of war between Mexico and Texas, but friendly efforts to stop it had hitherto proved vain; that, because of the complaint that the treaty had not been submitted to public opinion in the United States, he had felt bound to lay it before Congress as the best expounders of that opinion; that, since no definite action had been taken by Congress, the question had "referred itself" to the states and to the people, and that by the election a controlling majority of the people and a large majority of the states had declared in favor of immediate annexation. The two governments having, through their respective agents, agreed on the terms, he recommended the adoption of these terms by a joint resolution to be binding on both countries when ratified by the government of Texas.1 1

Congress took up the question at once. In the Senate, McDuffie reintroduced his resolution and 1 Richardson, Messages and Papers, IV., 340–345.

VOL. XVII.-10

Benton his bill, and other propositions were offered, all going to the committee on foreign relations;1 but no progress was made till after the House had acted. In this body still more numerous bills and resolutions for annexation were introduced, including one from the committee on foreign affairs, reported by its chairman, Charles J. Ingersoll, which was substantially identical with that offered by McDuffie in the Senate.

Meanwhile there were continued and strong indications that neither the "people" nor the "States" -to use the terms of Tyler's message-had forgotten the subject. Petitions against annexation,2 with now and then one in its favor,3 poured in from the New England states, and New York especially; and resolutions both for and against it came from the legislatures of various states. Senator Allen, of Ohio, a Democrat, was called on to present to the Senate resolutions adopted by the general assembly of his state protesting against annexation, and requesting its senators to do their best to defeat the measure. Both Allen, however, and his colleague, Tappan, also a Democrat, preferred to obey the mandate of the national Democratic convention rather than that of a Whig legislature. Henry Johnson, one of the two Whig senators from Louisiana, had, on the other hand, to present reso

1 Cong. Globe, 28 Cong., 2 Sess., 16, 19, 99, 129, 134.

2 Ibid., 73, 78, 89, 93, 133, 154, 178, 194, 211.

8 Ibid., 73, 237

▲ Ibid., 92, 171, 211, 233, 277, 299, 397.

lutions from the Whig legislature of his own state in favor of annexation. In spite of the political complexion of the legislature, and of possible fraud in the presidential vote, he knew well that the sentiment of his constituents was strongly for the measure. He therefore voted for it; but his colleague, Alexander Barrow, stood firm in opposition.

The debate in the House was earnest and acute, and was enlivened now and then with fine flashes of humor. In offering his resolutions Charles J. Ingersoll said that in his canvass during the election he had put the question prominently before the people of his district, and had told them at every meeting that, "if elected, he should deem himself instructed to vote for the immediate annexation of Texas." Pollock of Pennsylvania replied by remarking that he was a Whig from a Democratic district, and that, since he was elected in spite of his openly expressed disapproval of the policy, he presumed that the majority in his district were against it. Winthrop of Massachusetts referred to annexation as the measure of one who was president, not by election, but by accident. This expression Douglas neatly turned against him by imputing the origin of the policy to John Quincy Adams, and suggesting that Winthrop referred to him as the president not elected by the people.

January 24, Adams made a personal explanation of his change of attitude towards Texas. The only unanswerable argument for annexation that he had

heard was that nature intended Texas for the United States, which must have it. As to the charge that he had originated annexation in 1825, he said he had proposed to purchase Texas with the consent of the owner, but the proposition now was to take it without that consent. Slavery did not then exist there, and he would be willing to take Texas now without slavery and with the consent of Mexico. He supposed that the treaty-making power included that to acquire territory; but there was no power to transfer a man from one country to another without his consent. To annex foreign territory was to dissolve the Union. He claimed that the merging of two sovereignties could be accomplished only by the people themselves.1

Adams deserves a hearing. No man was more thoroughly dominated by principle, but there was none-except, perhaps, Benton-that had a less consistent record as to Texas. Aside, however, from the inaccuracy of his assertion that slavery did not exist in Mexico in 1825, and from his ungrounded assumption that Texas still belonged to that country, his argument is good. The treatymaking power cannot properly merge the separate nationality of one country in that of another without an appeal to the people. And even from the stand-point of the nation that swallows up another in this way there are strong considerations in favor of resting action on the popular verdict; for the 1 Cong. Globe, 28 Cong., 2 Sess., 188.

national life is profoundly affected by the process of expansion.

One of the arguments against annexation was that it would involve a war with Mexico. Though Texas had been practically independent for nearly nine years, and it had long been evident that Mexico could not enforce her pretensions to continued sovereignty over her former province, yet these pretensions were not abandoned. On the contrary, the Mexican government insisted that they should be treated with respect even by powers that had acknowledged Texan independence. Mexico would not concede that the war was over, although it had really lost the character of a national conflict and had degenerated into a series of ineffectual raids and counter-raids which served only to keep alive the mutual irritation. This attitude she persistently maintained, while it became constantly more evident that her claim was vain and unjustified.' The wound to her national pride involved in the loss of Texas and its incorporation with the United States can easily be understood; and that consideration, taken in connection with her relative weakness, naturally arouses sympathy. It is true also that the policy of discussing annexation at all, while Mexico remained unreconciled, was a legitimate subject for debate. But it is sufficiently evi

1 Cong. Globe, 28 Cong., 2 Sess., App., 311; cf. Rivera, Hist. Jalapa, III., 290, 291, quoted in Bancroft, North Mex. States and Tex., II., 289.