The Texas Annexation of 1845 Year 1845 was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Monday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar) was the voluntary annexation Annexation is the de jure incorporation of some territory into another geo-political entity (either adjacent or non-contiguous). Usually, it is implied that the territory and population being annexed is the smaller, more peripheral, and weaker of the two merging entities, barring physical size. It can also imply a certain measure of coercion, of the Republic of Texas The Republic of Texas was an independent state in North America, bordering the United States and Mexico, that existed from 1836 to 1846 to the United States of America ^ b. English is the de facto language of American government and the sole language spoken at home by 80% of Americans age five and older. Spanish is the second most commonly spoken language as the twenty-eighth state This is a list of U.S. states by date of statehood, that is, the date when each U.S. state joined the Union. Although the first 13 states can be considered to have been members of the United States from the date of the Declaration of Independence – July 4, 1776 – they are presented here as being "admitted" on the date each ratified. It quickly led to the Mexican War (1846–48) in which the U.S. captured further territory west to the Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east. Texas claimed but never controlled parts of present-day Colorado Colorado is nicknamed the "Centennial State" because it was admitted to the Union as the 38th state in 1876, the centennial year of the United States Declaration of Independence. Colorado is bordered on the north by Wyoming and Nebraska, on the east by Nebraska and Kansas, on the south by Oklahoma and New Mexico, and on the west by Utah, Kansas Historically, the area was home to large numbers of nomadic Native Americans who hunted bison. It was first settled by European Americans in the 1830s, but the pace of settlement accelerated in the 1850s, in the midst of political wars over the slavery issue. When officially opened to settlement by the U.S. government in 1854, abolitionist Free-, New Mexico Inhabited by Native American populations for many centuries, it has also been part of the Imperial Spanish viceroyalty of New Spain, part of Mexico, and a U.S. territory. Among U.S. states, New Mexico has the highest percentage of Hispanics, at 44 percent , including descendants of Spanish colonists and recent immigrants from Latin America. It, Oklahoma A major producer of natural gas, oil and agriculture, Oklahoma relies on an economic base of aviation, energy, telecommunications, and biotechnology. It has one of the fastest growing economies in the nation, ranking among the top states in per capita income growth and gross domestic product growth. Oklahoma City and Tulsa serve as Oklahoma's, and Wyoming As specified in the designating legislation for the Territory of Wyoming, Wyoming's borders are lines of latitude, 41°N and 45°N, and longitude, 104°3'W and 111°3'W , making the shape of the state a latitude-longitude quadrangle. Wyoming is one of only three states (along with Colorado and Utah) to have borders along only straight latitudinal, and disputed them with the federal government and New Mexico until the Compromise of 1850 The Compromise of 1850 was an intricate package of five bills, passed on September 4, 1850, defusing a four year confrontation between the slave states of the South and the free states of the North that arose from expectation of territorial expansion of the United States with the Texas Annexation and the following Mexican-American War (1846–1848) in which these lands became parts of other territories of the United States Territories of the United States are one type of political division of the United States, administered directly by the federal government of the United States and not any part of a U.S. state. These territories were created to govern newly acquired land while the borders of the United States were still evolving. Territories can be classified by in exchange for the U.S. federal government assuming the antecedent republic's $10 million in debt.

Annexation

Background

Anglo-American Episcopalian, Methodist, Baptist, Mormon, Congregationalism, Other Protestant, Roman Catholic, etc immigrants, primarily from the South The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, Down South, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive region in the southeastern and south-central United States. Because of the region's unique cultural and historic heritage, including Native Americans, early European settlements of English, Ulster Scots,, began immigrating to Mexican Texas Many of the Anglo-American settlers owned slaves. Texas was granted a one-year exemption from Mexico's 1829 edict outlawing slavery but Mexican president Anastasio Bustamante ordered that all slaves be freed in 1830. To circumvent the law, many Anglo colonists converted their slaves into indentured servants for life. By 1836 there were 5,000 in the early 1820s at the request of the Mexican government, which sought to populate the sparsely inhabited lands of its northern frontier.^[1] Anglo-Americans soon became a majority in Texas and eventually became disillusioned with Mexican rule. Coahuila y Texas, a Mexican state of which Texas was a constituent part after 1824, endorsed a plan for the gradual emancipation of the state's slaves in 1827, which angered many slaveholding settlers who had moved to Texas from the South.^[2] For this and other reasons, Texas declared independence The Texas Declaration of Independence was the formal declaration of independence of the Republic of Texas from Mexico in the Texas Revolution. It was adopted at the Convention of 1836 at Washington-on-the-Brazos on March 2, 1836, and formally signed the following day after errors were noted in the text from Mexico, resulting in war with Mexico. In 1836, the fighting ended and Sam Houston Samuel Houston, known as Sam Houston , was a 19th-century American statesman, politician, and soldier. He was born in Timber Ridge in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, of Scots-Irish descent. Houston became a key figure in the history of Texas, and was elected as the first and third President of the Republic of Texas, US Senator for Texas after became the first president of the Republic of Texas, elected on a platform that favored annexation to the United States.

Initial Texan proposal

In August 1837 Year 1837 was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian Calendar (or a common year starting on Friday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar), James Freeman, the Texan ambassador to the United States, submitted an annexation proposal to the Van Buren administration Martin Van Buren was the eighth President of the United States from 1837 to 1841. Before his presidency, he served as the eighth Vice President (1833–1837) and the 10th Secretary of State under Andrew Jackson. He was a key organizer of the Democratic Party, a dominant figure in the Second Party System, and the first president who was not of. Believing that annexation would lead to war with Mexico, the administration declined Texas’ proposal. After the election of Mirabeau B. Lamar Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar was a Texas politician, diplomat and soldier who was a leading Texas political figure during the Texas Republic era. He was the second President of the Republic of Texas, after David G. Burnet (1836 as ad-interim president) and Sam Houston, an opponent of annexation, as president of Texas in 1838 and the United States’ apprehension regarding annexation, Texas withdrew its offer.^[3]

Failed treaty

In 1843, President John Tyler John Tyler, Jr. was the tenth President of the United States (1841–1845) and the first to succeed to the office following the death of a predecessor came out in support of annexation, entering negotiations with the Republic of Texas for an annexation treaty, which he submitted to the Senate The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral United States Congress, the lower house being the House of Representatives. The composition and powers of the Senate and the House are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution . Each U.S state is represented by two senators, regardless of population. Senators serve staggered.^[4] On 8 June 1844, the treaty was defeated 35 to 16, well below the two-thirds majority necessary for ratification.^[5] Of the 29 Whig The Whig Party was a political party of the United States during the era of Jacksonian democracy. Considered integral to the Second Party System and operating from 1833 to 1856, the party was formed in opposition to the policies of President Andrew Jackson and the Democratic Party. In particular, the Whigs supported the supremacy of Congress over senators, 28 voted against the treaty with only one Whig, a southerner, supporting it.^[6] The Democratic The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's modern liberal platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. It is one of the world's oldest political parties and boasts the lengthiest record of continuous operation in the United senators were more divided on the issue with six northern Democrats and one southern Democrat opposing the treaty and five northern Democrats and ten southern Democrats supporting it.^[7]

Annexation by joint resolution

James K. Polk James Knox Polk (November 2, 1795 – June 15, 1849) was the 11th President of the United States (1845–1849). Polk was born in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. He later lived in and represented the state of Tennessee. A Democrat, Polk served as Speaker of the House (1835–1839) and Governor of Tennessee (1839–1841). Polk was the surprise (&, a Democrat and a strong supporter of territorial expansion, was elected The United States presidential election of 1844 saw Democrat James Knox Polk defeat Whig Henry Clay in a close contest that turned on foreign policy, with Polk favoring the annexation of Texas and Clay opposed president in November 1844 with a mandate to acquire both the Republic of Texas and Oregon Country The Oregon Country was a predominantly American term referring to a region of the Pacific Northwest of North America. The region was occupied by British and French Canadian fur traders from before 1810, and American settlers from the mid-1830s, with its coastal areas north from the Columbia River frequented by ships from all nations engaged in the.^[8] After the election, the Tyler administration realized that public opinion was in favor of annexation, consulted with President-elect Polk, and set out to accomplish annexation by means of a joint resolution In the United States Congress, a joint resolution is a legislative measure that requires approval by the Senate and the House and is presented to the President for his/her approval or disapproval, in exactly the same case as a bill.^[9] The resolution declared that Texas would be admitted as a state as long as it approved annexation by 1 January 1846, that it could split itself up into four additional states, and that possession of the Republic’s public lands would shift to the state of Texas upon its admission.^[10] On 26 February 1845, six days before Polk took office, Congress passed the joint resolution.^[11] Not long afterward, Andrew Jackson Donelson Andrew Jackson Donelson was an American diplomat and a candidate for Vice President of the United States, the American chargé d'affaires in Texas and the nephew of former president Andrew Jackson Andrew Jackson was the seventh President of the United States (1829–1837). He was military governor of pre-admission Florida (1821), commander of the American forces at the Battle of New Orleans (1815), and eponym of the era of Jacksonian democracy. A polarizing figure who dominated American politics in the 1820s and 1830s, his political, presented the American resolution to President Anson Jones Jones was born on January 20, 1798 in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. In 1820, Jones was licensed as a doctor by the Oneida, New York, Medical Society, and began medical practice in 1826. However, his practice didn't prosper, and he moved several more times before finally being arrested in Philadelphia by a creditor. He stayed in Philadelphia for of Texas.^[12] In July 1845, the Texan Congress endorsed the American annexation offer with only one dissenting vote and began writing a state constitution.^[13] The citizens of Texas approved the new constitution and the annexation ordinance in October 1845 and Polk signed the documents formally integrating Texas into the United States on 29 December 1845.^[14]

Options for secession and the formation of new states

Right to secede

Neither the ordinance of annexation nor the joint resolution included provisions giving Texas the right to secede.^[15] In its decision in Texas v. White Texas v. White, 74 U.S. 700 was a significant case argued before the United States Supreme Court in 1869. The case involved a claim by the Reconstruction government of Texas that United States bonds owned by Texas since 1850 had been illegally sold by the Confederate state legislature during the American Civil War. The state filed suit directly in 1869, the United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest judicial body in the United States, and leads the federal judiciary. It consists of the Chief Justice of the United States and eight Associate Justices, who are nominated by the President and confirmed with the "advice and consent" of the Senate. Once appointed, Justices effectively ruled that Texas’ secession in 1861 had been illegal. The Court held that “[t]he Constitution, in all its provisions, looks to an indestructible Union, composed of indestructible States.” The court did allow that divisibility might be possible "through revolution, or through consent of the States."^[16]

Forming new states

The joint resolution and ordinance of annexation contain language permitting that formation of up to four additional states out of the former territories of the Republic of Texas:

New States of convenient size not exceeding four in number, in addition to said State of Texas and having sufficient population, may, hereafter by the consent of said State, be formed out of the territory thereof, which shall be entitled to admission under the provisions of the Federal Constitution.^[17]

The joint resolution required that if any new states were formed out of Texas’ lands, those north of the Missouri Compromise The Missouri Compromise was an agreement passed in 1820 between the pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions in the United States Congress, involving primarily the regulation of slavery in the western territories. It prohibited slavery in the former Louisiana Territory north of the parallel 36°30' north except within the boundaries of the proposed line would become free states and those south of the line could choose whether or not to permit slavery.^[18] Article Four Article Four of the United States Constitution relates to the states. The article outlines the duties states have to each other, as well as those the federal government has to the states. Article Four also provides for the admission of new states and the changing of state boundaries of the Constitution The Constitution of the United States of America is the supreme law of the United States. It is the foundation and source of the legal authority underlying the existence of the United States of America and the federal government of the United States. It provides the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the prohibits the creation of new states out of existing ones without the consent of both the legislature of that state and of Congress, but the division of Texas into multiple states has never been attempted.

Border disputes

The joint resolution and ordinance of annexation have no language specifying the boundaries of Texas, but only refer in general terms to "the territory properly included within, and rightfully belonging to the Republic of Texas", and state that the new State of Texas is to be formed "subject to the adjustment by this [U.S.] government of all questions of boundary that may arise with other governments."

According to George Lockhart Rives, "That treaty had been expressly so framed as to leave the boundaries of Texas undefined, and the joint resolution of the following winter was drawn in the same manner. It was hoped that this might open the way to a negotiation, in the course of which the whole subject of the boundaries of Mexico, from the Gulf to the Pacific, might be reconsidered, but these hopes came to nothing."^[19]

There was an ongoing border dispute between the Republic of Texas and Mexico prior to annexation. Texas claimed the Rio Grande The Rio Grande is a river that forms part of the Mexico – United States border. Its length varies as its course changes. According to the International Boundary and Water Commission its total length was 1,896 miles (3,051 km) in the late 1980s. Depending on how it is measured, the Rio Grande is the fourth or fifth longest river system in the as its border, while Mexico maintained that it was the Nueces The Nueces River is a river in the U.S. state of Texas, approximately 315 miles long. It drains a region in central and southern Texas southeastward into the Gulf of Mexico. It is the southernmost major river in Texas north of the Rio Grande. Nueces is Spanish for walnuts or pecans; early settlers named the river after the numerous pecan trees River and did not recognize Texan independence. President James K. Polk James Knox Polk (November 2, 1795 – June 15, 1849) was the 11th President of the United States (1845–1849). Polk was born in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. He later lived in and represented the state of Tennessee. A Democrat, Polk served as Speaker of the House (1835–1839) and Governor of Tennessee (1839–1841). Polk was the surprise (& ordered General Zachary Taylor Zachary Taylor was the 12th President of the United States and an American military leader. Initially uninterested in politics, Taylor nonetheless ran as a Whig in the 1848 presidential election, defeating Lewis Cass and becoming the first President never to have held any previous elected office. Taylor was the last President to hold slaves while to garrison the southern border of Texas, as defined by the former Republic. Taylor moved into Texas, ignoring Mexican demands to withdraw, and marched as far south as the Rio Grande, where he began to build a fort Fort Brown was a military post of the United States Army in Texas during the later half of 19th century and the early part of the 20th century near the river's mouth on the Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico is the eleventh largest body of water in the world. Considered a smaller part of the Atlantic Ocean, it is an ocean basin largely surrounded by the North American continent and the island of Cuba. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States, on the southwest and south by Mexico, and. The Mexican government regarded this action as a violation of its sovereignty.

The Republic of Texas never controlled what is now New Mexico Inhabited by Native American populations for many centuries, it has also been part of the Imperial Spanish viceroyalty of New Spain, part of Mexico, and a U.S. territory. Among U.S. states, New Mexico has the highest percentage of Hispanics, at 44 percent , including descendants of Spanish colonists and recent immigrants from Latin America. It. The failed Texas Santa Fe Expedition The Texas Santa Fe Expedition was a commercial and military expedition to secure the Republic of Texas's claims to parts of Northern New Mexico for Texas in 1841. The expedition was unofficially initiated by the then President of Texas, Mirabeau B. Lamar, in an attempt to gain control over the lucrative Santa Fe Trail and further develop the trade of 1841 was its only attempt to take that territory. El Paso El Paso is a city in and the county seat of El Paso County, Texas, United States, and lies in West Texas. According to the United States Census Bureau's 2009 population estimates, the city had a population of 620,447 (July 2009). It is the sixth-largest city in Texas and the 22nd-largest city in the United States. Its metropolitan area covers all was only taken under Texas governance by Robert Neighbors in 1850, over four years after annexation; he was not welcomed in New Mexico.^[20] Texas continued to claim New Mexico as far as the Rio Grande, supported by the rest of the South, and opposed by the North and by New Mexico itself, until agreeing to today's boundary in the Compromise of 1850 The Compromise of 1850 was an intricate package of five bills, passed on September 4, 1850, defusing a four year confrontation between the slave states of the South and the free states of the North that arose from expectation of territorial expansion of the United States with the Texas Annexation and the following Mexican-American War (1846–1848).

Controversy over legality of annexation

The original controversy about the legality of the annexation of Texas stems from the fact that Congress approved the annexation of Texas as a territory with a simple majority vote approval instead of annexing the land by Treaty A treaty is an agreement under international law entered into by actors in international law, namely sovereign states and international organizations. A treaty may also be known as: agreement, protocol, covenant, convention, exchange of letters, etc. Regardless of the terminology, all of these international agreements under international law are, as was done with Native American Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples from North America now encompassed by the continental United States, including parts of Alaska and the island state of Hawaii. They comprise a large number of distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as intact political communities. The terminology used to lands. After the United States ^ b. English is the de facto language of American government and the sole language spoken at home by 80% of Americans age five and older. Spanish is the second most commonly spoken language and The Republic of Texas were unable to reach a Treaty agreement, Congress passed a Joint Resolution for Annexing Texas to the United States.^[21] The Republic of Texas' Annexation Convention then submitted the Ordinance of Annexation^[22] to popular vote in October 1845 and the public approved the measure. This Ordinance of Annexation was submitted and approved by the House and Senate of the United States and signed by the President on December 29, 1845. While this was an awkward, if not unusual, treaty process it was fully accepted by all parties involved, and more importantly all parties performed on those agreements making them legally binding (see Contract Law). In addition, the United States Supreme Court decided in the case of DeLima v. Bidwell, 182 U.S. 1 (1901), that annexation by a joint resolution of Congress is legal.^[23]

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