The Final Round

Negotiations for annexation of Texas went smoothly until 1844.  John Calhoun became Secretary of State and said that the US had a duty to annex Texas to protect the South against a British plot to end slavery.  All of a sudden, antislavery factions saw Texas as proof of a conspiracy of slaveholders.  Northern support vanished and on June 8, the annexation treaty was defeated in the Senate 35 to 16. 

In the Presidential campaign of 1844, Van Buren thought annexation would lead to war with Mexico which cost him the nomination.  The new president, James Polk, was a Tennessee expansionist, and clearly expansionism had won the day.

Outgoing President Tyler wanted the credit for adding Texas to the Union, so he requested that Congress approve annexation by joint resolution (not requiring 2/3 majority).  The resolution passed in February 1845, signed by Tyler on March 1, three days before he left office. 

The resolution required Texas to adopt a state constitution to be submitted to the President no later than 1845. On December 29, 1845, Texas officially became a part of the United States.  Ceremonies in Austin in February 1846, included Anson Jones, the last president of the Republic, formally turning over power to J. Pickney Henderson, the first governor of the state of Texas.  Jones said "the Republic of Texas is no more."

In the past three centuries  six flags have flown over Texas - Spanish, French, Mexican, Confederate, but only two represented Texas - the Lone Star flag (first Republic flag), and the Stars and Stripes.

Next time...moving west to the Pacific
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Today in Pioneer History:  On November 14, 1851, Moby-Dick, a novel by Herman Melville about the voyage of the whaling ship Pequod, is published by Harper & Brothers in New York.