|
||||||
|
|
||||||
|
Book, page 162 / 313 CHAPTER XIV CAMPAIGN FOR CONGRESS In the months that remained of his term, after the election of his successor, President Tyler pursued with much vigor his purpose of accomplishing the annexation of Texas, regarding it as the measure which was specially to illustrate his administration and to preserve it from oblivion. The state of affairs, when Congress came together in December, 1844, was propitious to the project. Dr. Anson Jones had been elected as President of Texas; the republic was in a more thriving condition than ever before. Its population was rapidly increasing under the stimulus of its probable change of flag; its budget presented a less unwholesome balance; its relations with Mexico, while they were no more friendly, had ceased to excite alarm. The Tyler government, having been baffled in the spring by the rejection of the treaty for annexation which they had submitted to the Senate, chose to proceed this winter in a different way. Early in the session a joint resolution providing for annexation was introduced in the House of Representatives, which, after considerable discussion and attempted amendment by the anti-slavery members, passed the House by a majority of twenty-two votes. In the Senate it encountered more opposition, as might have been expected in a chamber which had overwhelmingly rejected the same scheme only a few months before. It was at last amended by inserting a section called the Walker amendment, providing that the President, if it were in his judgment advisable, should proceed by way of negotiation, instead of submitting the resolutions as an overture on the part of the United States to Texas. This amendment eased the conscience of a few shy supporters of the Administration who had committed themselves very strongly against the scheme, and saved them from the shame of open tergiversation. The President, however, treated this subterfuge with the contempt which it deserved, by utterly disregarding the Walker amendment, and by dispatching a messenger to Texas to bring about annexation on the basis of the resolutions, the moment he had signed them, when only a few hours of his official
|
Knowledgerush Search
|
|
Contact Us
| Privacy Statement & Terms of Use
|