The Middle Period 1817-1858 Part 24

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CHAPTER XIII.

TEXAS

Arkansas and Michigan--Florida and Iowa--Texas--The Austin Grant--Local Government in Texas--The Attempts by the United States to Purchase Texas--The Texan Revolution--General Sam Houston--San Jacinto and Independence--The Recognition of the Independence of Texas--Calhoun's frank Declaration in Regard to the Annexation of Texas--The Mission of Mr. Morfit to Texas, His Report and Advice--Jackson's Recommendation to Delay the Recognition of Texan Independence--Jackson's Request of Congress for Authority to Issue an Ultimatum to Mexico in the Claims Question--Texan Independence Recognized by the United States--The Question of Annexation--Texan Proposition for Annexation--The Mexican Claims Commission and its Work--Tyler as an Advocate of Annexation--Mr. Webster in the Way of Annexation--The Adams Address on Annexation--The Retirement of Webster--The Promotion of Upshur, and His Negotiations with the Texans--The Threat of the Mexican Government to Consider the Annexation of Texas a Cause of War--The Administration Proposes Annexation to the Texan Agent--The Difficulty in the Way of Acceptance of the Proposition--The Demand of the Texans for Protection in the Interim--Mr. Calhoun in the State Department--The Treaty of Annexation Signed--The Treaty in the Senate and its Rejection--Mr. Archer's Opposition to the Treaty--The New Plan for Annexation.

After the admission of Missouri there remained as territory, upon which, according to existing law, it was {290} probable that slaveholding Commonwealths would be established, only Arkansas and Florida.

[Sidenote: Arkansas and Michigan.]

[Sidenote: Florida and Iowa.]

In 1836, Arkansas was admitted as a slaveholding Commonwealth, and Michigan as a non-slaveholding Commonwealth, thus keeping the exact balance in the Senate. By a compact of the year 1832, the Seminoles in Florida had agreed to emigrate within three years to the west bank of the Mississippi. At the end of this period, one of their chiefs, Osceola, repudiated the agreement, and with a large following began hostilities. By a long and expensive war the Indians were at last expelled; and the white inhabitants immediately chose delegates to a convention, who met, in December of 1838, formed a Commonwealth const.i.tution, one of the provisions of which legalized slavery, and demanded of Congress admission into the Union. Congress kept Florida waiting, however, for six years, until Iowa was ready, and then admitted the two at the same time and by the same Act.

[Sidenote: Texas.]

Meanwhile the events in the Southwest had been so shaping themselves as to open up prospects for the long desired territorial extension in that quarter. The long dispute between Spain and France, and then after 1803, between Spain and the United States, in regard to the territory between the Rio Grande del Norte and the Sabine Rivers, called Texas, was first definitely settled in 1819, or rather in the Treaty of that year, between the United States and Spain, which Treaty was not executed, as we have seen, until a little later. In it this territory was recognized by the United States as belonging to Spain.

It seems that a few persons from the United States had settled upon this territory, while it was disputed ground, and raised some complaint at having been left unprotected by the Government in the Treaty with Spain.

{291} [Sidenote: The Austin grant.]

The successful rebellion of Mexico against Spain made this territory a part of the new Mexican state, and before Mexico had had time to consolidate its powers or estimate the value of its northern possessions, a shrewd Yankee from Connecticut, who had removed to Missouri, and had become well skilled in the arts and practices of border life, Moses Austin, went to Mexico, and representing himself, it is said, as the leader of a company of Roman Catholics, who had suffered persecution in the United States, for their religion's sake, solicited a grant of land from the Catholic government of Mexico, and permission to make a settlement upon it. The Mexicans gave ready ear to his complaints and pet.i.tion, and made him a large grant of land in the central part of Texas on the Colorado River. Mr. Austin died before effecting the settlement, and left the work to his son, S. F.

Austin, who, in 1822, colonized the grant, and received a ratification of the same from the Mexican Government, the following year.

[Sidenote: Local government in Texas.]

At that moment, Texas and Coahuila formed a single Mexican province, and, after the establishment of the federal system of government in Mexico, the province became, in 1827, a Commonwealth. In the Coahuila part the population was Mexican, and as it was much larger than the Anglo-American population in the Texas part, the government of the Commonwealth was practically in the hands of Mexican officials. The rule of these officials was arbitrary and uncertain, and the race prejudice between Spaniard and Anglo-Saxon was immediately excited by it. It was pretty evident that the expulsion of the Americans from Texas was intended. In 1830, came at last the decree from the Mexican President, Bustamente, prohibiting further immigration into Texas from the United States.

{292} The Texan colonists now numbered some twenty thousand, mostly bold and hardy men, and it was not to be expected that they would either give up their lands, or a.s.sist in preventing further immigration, or submit much longer to the foreign rule, as they felt it to be, of Mexico or Coahuila.

[Sidenote: The attempts by the United States to purchase Texas.]

Both in 1827 and in 1829, the United States Government attempted to purchase Texas, and in the latter year the proposition was actually made to the Mexican Government to sell to the United States the territory lying to the northwest of the watershed of the River Nueces.

It was, however, promptly rejected by that Government.

Naturally these attempts encouraged the colonists in Texas to feel that the United States sympathized with them in their desire for emanc.i.p.ation from Mexican rule, and to hope that this sympathy might, at some future time, lead to positive a.s.sistance.

[Sidenote: Overthrow of the federal system in Mexico.]

The Texans were, however, for the moment, left to their own devices.

They first tried to have Texas separated from Coahuila and made a separate Commonwealth of the Mexican Union, but the Mexican central government refused to a.s.sent to this. This was in 1833. Two years later Santa Anna, the Mexican President, forcibly displaced the federal system of government established in Mexico by the const.i.tution of 1824, and inst.i.tuted the centralized system, virtually by a presidential edict.

Some of the Commonwealths of the Mexican Union resisted this usurpation of the President, and among them, naturally, was Coahuila-Texas. Moreover, some of the Coahuila members of the legislature of the Commonwealth, partisans of Santa Anna, withdrew from that body, and the Texan members found themselves, for the first time, in a majority in it. Of course the feeling {293} of resistance to the overthrow of the right of local self-government became now a settled and resolute purpose with them, and Santa Anna, upon learning their att.i.tude, resolved to reduce them to obedience by military power.

[Sidenote: The Texan revolution.]

In September of 1835, a Mexican war-s.h.i.+p appeared upon the Texan coast, and its commander declared the Texan ports in a state of blockade. About the same time, the Mexican General Cos appeared, with a force of some fifteen hundred soldiers, at the Texan village of Gonzales. The resistance of the inhabitants of the town to Cos' order to surrender their arms precipitated the struggle. The Texans immediately organized a temporary government, drove the Mexicans out of the country before the close of the year, and, on March 2nd, 1836, declared their independence of Mexico.

While the Texan convention, which had declared independence and was framing the const.i.tution for the state of Texas, was still in session, the Mexican soldiery, under the command of Santa Anna himself, returned to Texas and committed the atrocities of the Alamo and of Goliad. After these barbarous deeds there could no longer be any hope of an accommodation between the Mexicans and the Texans. It was independence or extermination.

[Sidenote: General Sam Houston.]

[Sidenote: San Jacinto and independence.]

Happily for the Texans they had now found their proper leader, General Sam Houston. Many of the descriptions of this hero are caricatures. Of those which approach the truth, that given by Senator Benton is perhaps most nearly correct. Benton was the lieutenant-colonel of the regiment in which Houston served during the war with the Creeks; and said later of his old comrade, "I then marked in him the same soldierly and gentlemanly qualities which {294} have since distinguished his eventful career; frank, generous, and brave, ready to do, or to suffer, whatever the obligations of civil or military duty imposed; and always prompt to answer the call of honor, patriotism, and friends.h.i.+p." He was a Virginian by birth, but an early resident of Tennessee, and had been Governor of Tennessee before attaining his thirty-fifth year. He appeared in Texas in 1833, and in 1835 was made commander of the Texan army. It was chiefly his skill and bravery, which effected the expulsion of Cos and his army in the winter of 1835-36. After the disasters at the Alamo and at Goliad, he, in command of the remnants of the Texan army, retreated slowly before Santa Anna's comparatively large force, until Santa Anna made the blunder of dividing his army by the swollen waters of the San Jacinto, when he turned suddenly upon the Mexicans, and inflicted upon them the crus.h.i.+ng defeat known as the battle of San Jacinto, in which the Mexican loss was double the number of Houston's army, some sixteen hundred men, including Santa Anna himself among the captives. The part of the Mexican army which had not crossed the river retreated precipitately from Texan soil, and the new state had won its independence.

[Sidenote: Texas as a const.i.tutional Republic.]

The battle of San Jacinto was fought on April 21st, 1836. The convention had finished the const.i.tution more than a month before. In September following, General Houston was elected President of the new republic, and the const.i.tution was almost immediately put into operation. This const.i.tution legalized the existence of slavery in Texas, as a const.i.tutional right of the masters, prohibited the residence of free negroes within the State without special official permission, and interdicted the importation of negro slaves, except from the United States.

{295} [Sidenote: The recognition of the independence of Texas.]

A little more than a month after the battle of San Jacinto, the legislature of Connecticut set the ball in motion for the recognition of the independence of Texas by the Government of the United States.

On May 27th, 1836, the two Houses of that body pa.s.sed a resolution instructing the Senators, and requesting the Representatives, in Congress from Connecticut "to use their best endeavors to procure the acknowledgment, on the part of the United States, of the independence of Texas." Evidently the Yankee Commonwealth considered itself, in an especial degree, the motherland of the new state. The founder of the colony, which had now become an independent state, was one of its children, and it hastened to antic.i.p.ate Virginia, the birthplace of Houston, in owning its offspring. A careful perusal of the whole of this Connecticut doc.u.ment will certainly leave the impression upon the mind of the impartial reader, at this day, that the people of the North then considered the Texan revolution to have been provoked by Mexican misrule and barbarism, and to have been fully justified in political ethics as well as by practical success.

On June 13th, Senator Niles, of Connecticut, presented the Connecticut memorial to the Senate, and it was immediately referred to the committee on Foreign Relations. On the 18th, Mr. Clay, the chairman of the committee, reported a resolution: "That the independence of Texas ought to be acknowledged by the United States whenever satisfactory information shall be received that it has, in successful operation, a civil government capable of performing the duties and fulfilling the obligations of an independent Power." The resolution was adopted by the Senate, on July 1st, without a dissenting voice.

[Sidenote: Calhoun's frank declaration in regard to the annexation of Texas.]

During the course of the debate upon it, Mr. Calhoun {296} frankly told the Senate that he regarded the great importance of the recognition of the independence of Texas to consist in the fact that it prepared the way for the speedy admission of Texas into the Union, which would be a necessity to the proper balance of power in the Union between the slaveholding and the non-slaveholding Commonwealths, upon which the preservation of the Union and the perpetuation of its inst.i.tutions rested. After such a statement it is difficult to see how anybody could speak of the annexation of Texas being a slaveholders'

secret intrigue. Mr. Calhoun, the great leader of the slaveholders, the director of their policy, here at the very outset openly proclaimed their purpose. The fact is that, at the time of the Texan declaration of independence, almost everybody would have favored the annexation of Texas to the United States, out of race sympathy with the Texans and desire for territorial extension, except for the international complications with Mexico, which must inevitably result.

It was the struggle over the Abolition pet.i.tions in 1836, 1837, and 1838 which turned the thoughts of men upon the internal questions involved in the movement, and caused the North generally to reconsider its att.i.tude upon the question.

On July 4th, 1836, the House of Representatives pa.s.sed a resolution of the same tenor, and expressed in nearly the same words, as the Senate resolution of July 1st. It seems to have been called forth by memorials from citizens of Ohio and Pennsylvania.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TEXAS, at the Time of Annexation.]

[Sidenote: The mission of Mr. Morfit to Texas, his report and advice.]

a.s.sured thus of the feeling of Congress, the President sent an agent, Mr. Henry M. Morfit, to Texas during the summer of 1836, in order to procure exact information of the state of affairs there. Mr. Morfit wrote to the Secretary of State, Mr. Forsyth, that the {297} const.i.tution of March 17th was soon to be put into operation; that General Houston had been elected President; that the const.i.tution was fas.h.i.+oned after that of the United States; that the desire for annexation to the United States was universal; that the boundaries a.s.serted by the new state were the Rio Grande del Norte on the south and southwest, the longitude from the source of the Rio Grande to the boundary of the United States on the west, the southern boundary of the United States on the north and northeast, and the Gulf of Mexico on the east; that the population amounted to about sixty-five thousand souls, of whom about fifty thousand were Anglo-Americans; that the standing army numbered about twenty-two hundred men, and could be increased to seven or eight thousand in an emergency; that the navy consisted of four vessels, carrying twenty-nine guns; that the funds of the State consisted of from fifty to one hundred millions of acres of public lands, worth, at least, ten millions of dollars, and that contributions were flowing in from private individuals in the United States; that the debt was about twelve hundred and fifty thousand dollars; that the supplies for the winter campaign were already provided; and that there was not a Mexican soldier north of the Rio Grande, although there were rumors that the Mexican government was making preparations for a new invasion in the winter, which were not, however, credited by the Texans.

This was certainly a good showing for Texas. If with an army of seven hundred men, under a provisory government, the Texans drove the Mexicans out of Texas, they could, under well established government, and with an army ten times as large, most surely keep them out. It must also be remembered that Santa Anna was still a prisoner in their hands. Mr. Morfit, {298} however, expressed the belief that most of the men and money for the army came from the United States, and, therefore, advised delay in a.s.suming a definite att.i.tude toward the new state.

[Sidenote: Jackson's recommendation to delay the recognition of Texan independence.]

President Jackson transmitted this information to Congress, in his message of December 21st, 1836, and recommended delay in recognizing the independence of Texas. On January 11th, 1837, however, Senator Walker, of Mississippi, offered a resolution in the Senate to the effect that it would be expedient and proper to recognize the independence of Texas, and stated that he had information that the projected invasion of Texas by a new Mexican army, the rumors of which were reported by Mr. Morfit, had most probably been abandoned.

[Sidenote: The question of Mexico's obligations to the United States.]

Before the resolution offered by Mr. Walker was taken up for discussion, a message from the President was communicated to Congress recommending the pa.s.sage of an act, authorizing the President to make reprisals upon Mexico, in case Mexico should refuse another demand made upon her for an amicable adjustment of the matters in controversy between her and the United States. The citizens and the Government of the United States had many claims against Mexico and the Mexicans for depredating the commerce, seizing the seamen, and insulting the flag of the United States, and the demands for the satisfaction of these claims had been almost uniformly disregarded. The relations between the two Governments were already greatly strained on this account, and when, in the autumn of 1836, President Jackson authorized General Gaines to advance his troops into northwestern Texas, if he should deem it necessary for the protection of the frontiers of the United States against the Indians in Texas, who, on account of the {299} War between Mexico and Texas, had been thrown into a great state of excitement and unrest, the Mexican Minister, Senor Gorastiza, demanded his pa.s.sports, issued a sort of manifesto to the people of the United States, and left Was.h.i.+ngton.

[Sidenote: Jackson's request of Congress for authority to issue an ultimatum to Mexico in the claims question.]

It was hardly to be expected that President Jackson would quietly brook such defiance from a half civilized state and its agents. He immediately caused Mr. Ellis, the Charge d'Affaires of the Government at the Mexican capital, to make a final demand on the Mexican government. Mr. Ellis made his demand in writing, on September 26th.

After much delay the Mexican Minister of Foreign Affairs replied, admitting the justice of some of the claims, and requiring more information about others, but offering no reparation at all for insults to the flag and to the consular officers of the United States.

The President's patience was exhausted, and he sent the message of February 6th, 1837, to Congress, asking for authority to make a final demand from the decks of a war-s.h.i.+p.