| [171] | Born in North Carolina, 1795; died, 1849. Graduated at University of North Carolina; migrated to Tennessee; congressman, 1825—1829; Speaker of the House, 1835–1839; Governor of Tennessee, 1839–1841; was elected President over Clay, 1844; favored the Mexican War; settled the Oregon controversy; approved the “Walker Tariff,” and vetoed the river and harbor bills of 1846 and 1847. |
| [172] | Tyler and Calhoun had at first thought that the passage of a treaty which would require a two-thirds vote of the Senate, was the proper method of annexation. On the failure of this treaty they took up a suggestion made during the congressional debates and pressed the passage of a joint resolution, which required only a majority of both houses. Such a change was especially curious on the part of strict constructionists. |
Territory claimed by Texas
when admitted into the Union,
1845
CHAPTER XXIII.
the administration of polk, 1845–1849.
THE OPENING OF THE MEXICAN WAR.
377. The Issues Involved.—As a Mexican state, Texas had extended on the south and west to the river Nueces; but her inhabitants and the United States insisted on holding to boundaries based on the Louisiana Purchase and on claiming the “country between the Nueces and the Rio Grande.” The Mexicans resisted this claim; and when Polk ordered General Taylor to cross the Nueces, and later to advance to the Rio Grande, they attacked and defeated a small body of the American troops (April 24, 1846). Polk at once sent a message to Congress, in which he declared that war existed, “through the act of Mexico herself.” This statement was, on the whole, unwarranted, although a technical defense was easily made for it. It was really a case of a strong nation’s bullying a weak one; and, as we have seen (§ [353]), the bullying had begun under Jackson and had been steadily carried on. But Congress, and a considerable portion of the people, especially in the South, accepted Polk’s proposition, and the war was effectively prosecuted. Its results were probably beneficial, in the main, since the territory was sure to become American some day; but its origin is not a pleasant topic for the patriotic American to dwell upon. Nor is it by any means certain that the Civil War was not in large part precipitated by that against Mexico. The latter contest gave the South a taste for fighting that was not altogether a warrant for the future calm of that section; and the additional territory acquired by the Union opened a new and disastrous phase of the slavery question (§§ [388], [411]).
