"When the resolution passed by the House of Representatives for the annexation of Texas reached the Senate, it was ascertained that it would fail in that body. Benton, Bagby, Dix, Haywood, and as I understood, you also, were opposed to this naked proposition of annexation, which necessarily brought with it the war in which Texas was engaged with Mexico. All had determined to adhere to the bill submitted by Col. Benton, for the appointment of a commission to arrange the terms of annexation with Texas, and to make the attempt to render its accession to our Union as palatable as possible to Mexico before its consummation. It was hoped that this point might be effected by giving (as has been done in the late treaty of peace) a pecuniary consideration, fully equivalent in value for the territory desired by the United States, and to which Texas could justly assert any title. The Senate had been polled, and it was ascertained that any two of the democratic senators who were opposed to Brown's resolution, which had passed the House, could defeat it—the whole whig party preferring annexation by negotiation, upon Col. Benton's plan, to that of Brown. While the question was thus pending, I met Mr. Brown (late Governor of Tennessee, then a member or the House), who suggested that the resolution of the House, and the bill of Col. Benton, preferred by the Senate, might be blended, making the latter an alternative, and leaving the President elect (who alone would have time to consummate the measure), to act under one or the other at his discretion. I told Mr. Brown that I did not believe that the democratic senators opposed to the resolution of the House, and who had its fate in their hands, would consent to this arrangement, unless they were satisfied in advance by Mr. Polk that the commission and negotiation contemplated in Col. Benton's plan would be tried, before that of direct legislative annexation was resorted to. He desired me to see Colonel Benton and the friends of his proposition, submit the suggestions he had made, and then confer with Mr. Polk to know whether he would meet their views. I complied; and after several interviews with Messrs. Haywood, Dix, Benton, and others (Mr. Allen, of Ohio, using his influence in the same direction), finding that the two plans could be coupled and carried, if it were understood that the pacific project was first to be tried, I consulted the President elect on the subject. In the conference I had with him, he gave me full assurance that he would appoint a commission, as contemplated in the bill prepared by Col. Benton, if passed in conjunction with the House resolution as an alternative. In the course of my conversation with Mr. Polk, I told him that the friends of this plan were solicitous that the commission should be filled by distinguished men of both parties, and that Colonel Benton had mentioned to me the names of Crittenden and Wright, as of the class from which it should be formed. Mr. Polk responded, by declaring with an emphasis, 'that the first men of the country should fill the commission.' I communicated the result of this interview to Messrs. Benton, Dix, Haywood, &c. The two last met, on appointment, to adapt the phraseology of Benton's bill, to suit as an alternative for the resolution of the House, and it was passed, after a very general understanding of the course which the measure was to take. Both Messrs. Dix and Haywood told me they had interviews with Mr. Polk on the subject of the communication I had reported to them from him, and they were confirmed by his immediate assurance in pursuing the course which they had resolved on in consequence of my representation of his purpose in regard to the point on which their action depended. After the law was passed, and Mr. Polk inaugurated, he applied to Gen. Dix (as I am informed by the latter), to urge the Senate to act upon one of the suspended cabinet appointments, saying that he wished his administration organized immediately, as he intended the instant recall of the messenger understood to have been despatched by Mr. Tyler, and to revoke his orders given in the last moments of his power, to thwart the design of Congress in affording him (Mr. Polk) the means of instituting a negotiation, with a view of bringing Texas peaceably into the Union."
All this was perfectly satisfactory with respect to the President elect; but there might be some danger from the actual President, or rather, from Mr. Calhoun, his Secretary of State, and who had over Mr. Tyler that ascendant which it is the prerogative of genius to exercise over inferior minds. This danger was suggested in debate in open Senate. It was repulsed as an impossible infamy. Such a cheat upon senators and such an encroachment upon the rights of the new President, were accounted among the impossibilities: and Mr. McDuffie, a close and generous friend of Mr. Calhoun, speaking for the administration, and replying to the suggestion that they might seize upon the act, and execute it without regard to the Senate's amendment, not only denied it for them, but repulsed it in terms which implied criminality if they did. He said they would not have the "audacity" to do it. Mr. McDuffie was an honorable man, standing close to Mr. Calhoun; and although he did not assume to speak by authority, yet his indignant repulse of the suggestion was entirely satisfactory, and left the misgiving senators released from apprehension on account of Mr. Tyler's possible conduct. Mr. Robert J. Walker also, who had moved the conjunction of the two measures, and who was confidential both with the coming in and going out President, assisted in allaying apprehension in the reason he gave for opposing an amendment offered by Mr. Ephraim H. Foster, of Tennessee, which, looking to the President's adoption of the negotiating clause, required that he should make a certain "stipulation" in relation to slavery, and another in relation to the public debt. Mr. Walker objected to this proposition, saying it was already in the bill, "and if the President proceeded properly in the negotiation he would act upon it." This seemed to be authoritative that negotiation was to be the mode, and consequently that Mr. Benton's plan was to be adopted. Thus quieted in their apprehensions, five senators voted for the act of admission, who would not otherwise have done so; and any two of whom voting against it would have defeated it. Mr. Polk did not despatch a messenger to recall Mr. Tyler's envoy; and that omission was the only point of complaint against him. Mr. McDuffie stood exempt from all blame, known to be an honorable man speaking from a generous impulsion.
Thus was Texas incorporated into the Union—by a deception, and by deluding five senators out of their votes. It was not a barren fraud, but one prolific of evil, and pregnant with bloody fruit. It established, so far as the United States was concerned, the state of war with Mexico: it only wanted the acceptance of Texas to make war the complete legal condition of the two countries: and that temptation to Texas was too great to be resisted. She desired annexation any way: and the government of the United States having broken up the armistice, and thwarted the peace prospects, and brought upon her the danger of a new invasion, she leaped at the chance of throwing the burden of the war on the United States. The legislative proposition sent by Mr. Tyler was accepted: Texas became incorporated with the United States: by that incorporation the state of war—the status belli—was established between the United States and Mexico: and it only became a question of time and chance, when hostilities were to begin. Mr. Calhoun, though the master spirit over Mr. Tyler, and the active power in sending off the proposition to Texas, was not in favor of war, and still believed, as he did when he made the treaty, that the weakness of Mexico, and a douceur of ten millions in money, would make her submit: but there was another interest all along working with him, and now to supersede him in influence, which was for war, not as an object, but as a means—as a means of getting a treaty providing for claims and indemnities, and territorial acquisitions. This interest, long his adjunct, now became independent of him, and pushed for the war; but it was his conduct that enabled this party to act; and this point became one of earnest debate between himself and Mr. Benton the year afterwards; in which he was charged as being the real author of the war; and in which Mr. Benton's speech being entirely historical, becomes a condensed view of the whole Texas annexation question; and as such is presented in the next chapter.
[ADMINISTRATION OF JAMES K. POLK.]
