The Slave Power thought exultantly that it had choked off discussion. Instead, it had merely identified the antislavery movement with a traditional right of the English-speaking people. The "Old Man Eloquent," John Quincy Adams, now Representative from a Massachusetts district and formerly indifferent to slavery, crowned his long public life with its chief glory by standing forth as the unconquerable champion of the right of petition, which, he insisted, meant that his constituents and others had not merely the right to send petitions to the Congressional waste-paper basket, but the right to have their petitions read and considered. Tireless, skillful, indomitable, unruffled by tirades of abuse, quick to take advantage of all parliamentary openings, Adams wore out his opponents and roused the country; and in 1844 the gag rule was abandoned.

614. Thus while Garrisonian Abolitionists were trying to persuade the North that slavery was a moral wrong to the Negro, the folly of the Slave Power called into being a new Abolitionist party which thought of slavery first and foremost as dangerous to Northern rights. This party went into politics to limit slavery by all constitutional means in the hope of sometime ending it. The "political Abolitionists" were strongest in the Middle and North Central States; and among their leading representatives were Birney and the young lawyer, Salmon P. Chase.

"Like thousands of other antislavery men

Chase was aroused,

not by the wrongs of the slave, but by the dangers to free White men. He did not hear the cries of the Covington whipping post across the river [the Ohio], but he could not mistake the shouts of the mob which destroyed Birney's property and sought his life; and his earliest act as an antislavery man was to stand for the everyday right of a fellow resident of Cincinnati to express his mind." Hart, Salmon P. Chase, 48.

CHAPTER LIII

SLAVERY AND EXPANSION

615. IN 1825, Mexico became independent of Spain (§ 504) and decreed gradual emancipation of all slaves. In 1835, Santa Anna made himself dictator of the country. Texas was one of the States of Mexico. Its settlers were mainly from the Southwestern States of our Union. They held slaves, and until Santa Anna's usurpation, they had had a large amount of self-government. Now they seceded from Mexico, organized an independent state, with slavery, and chose for their president "Sam" Houston, a famous Indian fighter and an old friend of Andrew Jackson.

A Mexican army "invaded " Texas, captured a small Texan garrison in the Alamo (a fortified Mission), after a gallant resistance, and massacred every prisoner. April 21, 1836, it met the main body of Texan frontiersmen under Houston at San Jacinto. The Texans charged six times their number with the vengeful cry, "Remember the Alamo," and won a complete victory. The independence of Texas was promptly recognized by the United States. Mexico, however, did not give up her claims.

616. The Texans hoped to be annexed to the United States. Indeed, many of them had gone to the country years before with that express plan- -as other Americans still earlier had gone into West Florida (§ 464). War between the United States and the proud and sensitive Mexicans would almost certainly follow; but our South, too, clamored for the annexation. Texas was an immense territory, and was expected to make at least five slave States. The West, also, was eager for more territory, and had few scruples against fighting Mexico to get it; but in the Northwest there was some opposition to extending the area of slavery. New England opposed annexation fiercely.

In 1844 President Tyler negotiated with Texas an annexation treaty, but the Whig Senate rejected it by a decisive vote. Shortly before, John Quincy Adams and twenty-one other Northern members of Congress had united in a letter to their constituents advising New England to secede from the Union if Tyler's "nefarious" scheme went through. (§ Cf. 608.) On the other side, "fire-eating" Southerners were shouting, "Texas or disunion!"

617. The Slave Power now raised the cry that England would get Texas if we did not, and it played artfully on the sentiment for expansion. Calhoun warned the slave States of the Southwest that England was trying to persuade Texas to abolish slavery; and the Northwest was won over by the shrewd device of combining with the demand for Texas a demand for "all of Oregon."

Oregon was a vast territory bounded by the 42nd parallel on the South (§ 503) and by the line of 54°, 40' on the North (§ 505). The agreement with England for "joint occupation" was still in force (§ 503); but of late thousands of emigrants had been setting forth from Missouri with the boast that they would secure and hold the country for the United States. Twice England had proposed a division of the region; but the plan had been rejected by our government.

In the spring of 1844, Clay and Van Buren were the leading candidates for the Whig and Democratic nominations for the presidency. On April 20 they each gave out a public letter on political issues, and both advised against agitation for expansion. The country exclaimed that the two leaders were trying in secret conjunction to say what the people should not do. The Whigs, with some hesitation, submitted, and nominated Clay. The Democrats revolted. Three Southern States that had instructed delegates for Van Buren called new conventions and revoked the instructions. The Democratic National Convention nominated James K. Polk, and the platform declared for "the Reoccupation of Oregon and the Reannexation of Texas." In the Northwest, Democratic stump orators at once added the slogan "Fifty-four forty or fight." This war cry

§ 620]

TEXAS, 1836-1845

517

was sounded jubilantly in every Democratic meeting in the campaign. Some Western leaders did not hesitate to promise that their party would also get California and Canada for the United States, and hinted even at Mexico and Central America. 618. The political Abolitionists (§ 614), under the name of the Liberty party, nominated Birney, and drew enough antislavery votes from the Whigs in New York to give that close State, and the election, to Polk. Tyler and Congress accepted this result as a verdict for annexation; and on the last day of the old administration a "joint resolution" of the two Houses of Congress made Texas one of the States of the Union (March 3, 1845). Texas, however, never consented to be divided, and so the Slave Power gained less power in the Senate than it had planned.

619. Polk's inaugural indicated the intention to take all of Oregon, even at the cost of war with England. Such Western supporters as Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois and Lewis Cass of Michigan seemed ready for that result. Calhoun and other Southern leaders, however, feared that war with England might end in loss of Texas; Webster, powerful in the Senate, stood for compromise, as did also some enthusiastic Western expansionists like Benton; England renewed her sensible offer to divide Oregon, by extending the boundary line of the 49th parallel (already adopted east of the mountains) through the disputed district to the Pacific; and a treaty to this effect was ratified by our Senate. The dividing line was practically identical with the Northern watershed of the Columbia; and it gave us all that we could claim on the basis of "occupation," leaving to England that half of the district which Englishmen had "occupied." The Northwest, however, claimed bitterly that its interests had been betrayed by the President, and that he had surrendered to England's power in order the better to prey on Mexico's weakness.

620. Polk wanted California also, to which we had no claim whatever. He tried to buy, but could not bully Mexico into selling the coveted district. But other means remained.

Texas extended without question to the Nueces River. Not content with that southern boundary, she claimed to the Rio Grande-on grounds at least questionable. For the United States to back up this claim was to make war with Mexico certain. General Zachary Taylor, in command of American troops in Texas, was ordered to remove to the Rio Grande, where his position threatened a Mexican city across the river. The Mexicans demanded a withdrawal. Taylor refused, was attacked, won a victory, and crossed the river. Polk announced to Congress (May 11, 1846), "War exists, and, notwithstanding all our efforts to avoid it, exists by the act of Mexico!" Congress accepted the pretext and adopted the war.

621. Abolitionists again talked secession. But, outside New England, the unjust war was popular. Certainly it was waged brilliantly. General Taylor invaded from the north, and General Winfield Scott advanced from the Gulf. The Mexicans were both brave and subtle; but American armies won amazing victories over larger entrenched forces, and the contest closed with the spectacular storming of the fortified heights of Chapultepec and the capture of the City of Mexico (September 15, 1847).

622. At the outbreak of the war American troops had been dispatched to seize California and New Mexico (territory which included, besides the modern States of those names, most of the present Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and parts of Colorado and Wyoming). In the treaty of peace, after ceding Texas as far as the Rio Grande, Mexico was forced to accept $15,000,000 for this other territory. Members of the President's Cabinet wanted to take all of Mexico; Buchanan, Secretary of State, publicly declared, "Destiny beckons us to hold and civilize Mexico"; and the press boasted confidently that the American flag in the City of Mexico would never be hauled down. But Polk wisely insisted upon a more moderate policy, and took (and paid for) only what he had offered to buy before he began the war.

623. A misunderstanding soon arose as to some forty-five thousand square miles of the "Mexican cession," just south of