| The concurrence of the House in the Senate's amendment, and the passage of the measure for Admission. |
The House of Representatives concurred in the Senate's amendment, and the President signed the measure on March 1st, 1845. He immediately submitted the resolution to the Texan authorities, and on December 29th, 1845, Texas was formally admitted as a "State" into this Union.
There is little question that the President and Mr. Calhoun were correct as regards the manner in which a foreign state should be annexed to the United States, but they can hardly be justly blamed or criticised for following the method insisted upon by Congress as the constitutional form and prescript.
| The British proposition in regard to Oregon. The American proposition. |
In his first annual message President Polk informed Congress that when he came into office he found that Great Britain had proposed to settle the Oregon question by making the divisional line between the possessions of the two Powers, west of the Rocky Mountains, the forty-ninth parallel of latitude to the northeasternmost branch of the Columbia River, and, from this point, the course of the river to the Pacific; that his predecessor had refused this; that he himself had, upon invitation from the British plenipotentiary to make a proposition, offered the forty-ninth parallel from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, although he believed the claim of the United States to the territory up to the parallel of fifty-four degrees and forty minutes to be good; and that this proposition had been rejected by the British minister.
| Polk's recommendation in regard to the matter. |
The President further declared that all attempts to compromise with Great Britain had failed, and he recommended that Congress should give the notice, required by the convention of joint occupancy, for the termination of that agreement, as the first step toward asserting the power of the Government over the whole of Oregon. He also recommended the establishment of a line of posts along the Oregon route for the protection of emigrants to Oregon, and the immediate extension of the jurisdiction of the United States Government over the citizens of the United States in Oregon.