During the second week of March, Mr. John Nelson, the Secretary of the Navy, was temporarily transferred to the State Department, and one of his first acts was to officially disavow Murphy's promise to President Houston. He very nearly informed Murphy, however, that President Tyler was personally pleased with what he had done. The Texan agents at Washington refused, however, to proceed with the negotiations until President Tyler would ratify Murphy's promise. Mr. Nelson would not risk his reputation as a constitutional lawyer by inventing an interpretation of the Constitution which would warrant this. At the end of the month Mr. Calhoun was put in his place, and he was remanded to the Department of the Navy.
| Mr. Calhoun in the State Department. The Treaty of annexation signed. |
About a fortnight after taking possession of his office, Mr. Calhoun officially informed the Texan agents at Washington that the President had ordered the concentration of a strong squadron of war-vessels in the Gulf of Mexico, and had commanded the movement of land forces to the southwestern boundary of the United States to meet all eventualities, and that the President would use "all the means placed within his power by the Constitution" to protect Texas against foreign invasion during the pendency of the Treaty of annexation. On the day following this communication, the Treaty of annexation was signed by the President of the United States and by the Texas plenipotentiary for the President of Texas.
Ten days after this, the Treaty was sent to the Senate of the United States for ratification. In the message accompanying the Treaty the President informed the Senate of the disposition he had made of the troops and naval vessels, and justified the same by the claim that the President makes the treaties, that the Senate only ratifies them, that the validity of the treaties, therefore, dates from the President's agreement, and that, therefore, in this case, Texas was, from and after April 12th, 1844, a part of the territory of the United States, all of which the President was bound to defend against foreign attack. Whether this was President Tyler's constitutional law or Mr. Calhoun's we do not know. If this doctrine is to be ascribed to Mr. Calhoun it certainly marks a great departure from the general principles taught by him after 1830. One would think that his "States' sovereignty" theory of the Union would have led him to attribute as little power as possible to the general Government, and as much of that little as possible to the Senate, but here were both nationalism and Cæsarism combined.
| The Treaty in the Senate and its rejection. Mr. Archer's opposition to the Treaty. |
The Treaty was before the Senate, in secret session, from April 22nd until June 8th, when it was rejected by a vote of thirty-five to sixteen. It is not necessary to examine the reasons which moved the Northern Senators to vote against it, but it is important to understand some of the grounds upon which Senators from the slaveholding Commonwealths opposed it. Senator Benton declared that the Treaty annexed not only Texas but parts of four other Mexican provinces, which would be an international outrage upon Mexico. Most of the Southern Senators, however, were influenced by the fear of war with Mexico. But the most significant objection to it, from the point of view of subsequent events, was that urged by Mr. Archer, of Virginia, the chairman of the Senate committee for Foreign Affairs. He claimed that a foreign state could not be annexed to the United States by means of a treaty, and that, if a foreign state could become connected with the Union at all, it must be by means of an act of Congress. A large number of the Senators approved of this doctrine. It was a pregnant idea to the President and Mr. Calhoun. It indicated that there was another way to accomplish annexation.
While the Treaty was under consideration in the Senate, the national conventions for the nomination of presidential candidates had assembled. The Whigs had nominated Mr. Clay, who was regarded as opposed to annexation. The friends to annexation in the Democratic party had been able to put Mr. Van Buren aside, and had nominated James K. Polk, of Tennessee, an outspoken advocate of immediate annexation, and had made the "re-occupation of Oregon and the re-annexation of Texas" the chief plank in the party platform.