Texas Annexation Timeline

The Missouri crisis sharpened expansionist commitments among slaveholding interests. The Thomas proviso established the 36°30′ parallel and imposed free-soil and slave-soil futures in lands acquired through the Louisiana Purchase.

Image source: Missouri Compromise

Richmond Enquirer editor Thomas Ritchie argued that if the South were constrained in the north, it would need western room and would ultimately require Texas.

Image source: Texas annexation

Representative John Floyd of Virginia accused Secretary of State Adams of conceding Texas to Spain in 1819 to satisfy Northern antislavery interests, thereby depriving the South of potential slave states.

Although Andrew Jackson strongly supported Texas independence, he delayed recognizing the new republic until the last day of his presidency to avoid raising the issue during the 1836 general election.

Texas minister Memucan Hunt Jr. presented a formal annexation proposal to President Martin Van Buren in August 1837. Van Buren summarily rejected it.

After repeated failures to secure annexation, Texas president Mirabeau B. Lamar withdrew the republic’s offer in 1838.

Image source: Mirabeau B. Lamar

Whig presidential nominee William Henry Harrison defeated President Martin Van Buren in the 1840 general election, preceding John Tyler’s arrival in the White House.

Image source: 1840 United States presidential election

John Tyler entered the White House in 1841. He was expelled from the Whig Party after repeatedly vetoing its domestic finance legislation, leaving him politically unaligned while Texas annexation became a possible source of support.

Image source: John Tyler

In his first address to Congress during a special session, Tyler announced an expansionist agenda intended to preserve the balance between state and national authority and protect American institutions, including slavery, from sectional conflict.

After the Webster–Ashburton Treaty was ratified, Tyler decided independently to pursue Texas annexation as his top political priority and as a potential base of support for another four years in office.

The Tyler administration sent executive agent Duff Green to Europe to gather intelligence and arrange treaty discussions concerning Oregon. Green also worked with minister Lewis Cass against efforts by European powers to suppress the maritime slave trade and later reported an alleged abolitionist loan plot involving Texas.

Sam Houston’s administration resumed discussions with Mexico about a rapprochement that might preserve Texas self-government, potentially as a Mexican state, with Great Britain serving as mediator.

Tyler arranged the resignation of the anti-annexation Secretary of State Daniel Webster and appointed Abel P. Upshur, a Virginia states’ rights advocate and ardent supporter of Texas annexation.

Image source: Abel P. Upshur

After consulting Upshur, Tyler ordered secret negotiations with Isaac Van Zandt, the Texas minister to the United States, to discuss annexing Texas.

Secretary Upshur wrote to American minister Edward Everett expressing opposition to Britain’s global antislavery posture and warning that British involvement in Texas would be treated as interference with established United States institutions.

Face-to-face negotiations between United States and Texas representatives over annexation commenced on October 16, 1843.

Upshur assured Texas officials that 40 of the 52 senators supported ratifying the Tyler–Texas treaty, a number exceeding the two-thirds majority then required.

With the 1844 election approaching and both major parties opposed to annexation, Secretary Upshur urged Texas diplomats to begin talks and sent an appeal to President Sam Houston. After receiving assurances of military defense, Houston authorized negotiations to reopen.

Secretary of State Abel P. Upshur and Secretary of the Navy Thomas W. Gilmer died in an accident aboard USS Princeton, one day after reaching a preliminary treaty draft agreement with the Republic of Texas.

Image source: USS Princeton (1843)

After becoming secretary of state, John C. Calhoun sent British minister Richard Pakenham a letter denouncing alleged British antislavery interference in Texas.

Image source: John C. Calhoun

The Tyler–Texas treaty was signed on April 12, 1844. It proposed bringing Texas into the Union as a territory through constitutional treaty procedures.

Tyler submitted the treaty to the Senate on April 22, 1844, where ratification required a two-thirds majority.

The Whig-majority Senate rejected the Tyler–Calhoun annexation treaty by a vote of 16–35, decisively blocking ratification.

Texas annexation and the reoccupation of Oregon became central issues in the 1844 presidential campaign after the treaty’s terms became public.

Image source: 1844 United States presidential election

At the Democratic convention in May 1844, pro-annexation southern delegates denied anti-annexation leader Martin Van Buren the presidential nomination.

Image source: 1844 Democratic National Convention

Tyler withdrew from the presidential race in August 1844 while the campaign increasingly focused on Texas annexation.

Pro-annexation Democrat James K. Polk narrowly defeated anti-annexation Whig Henry Clay in the 1844 presidential election. Clay’s support collapsed in the Deep South amid pro-annexation excitement.

During the lame-duck session in December 1844, Tyler called on Congress to pass Texas annexation by simple majorities in both houses, seeking to avoid another overwhelming Senate treaty rejection.

Representatives Milton Brown and Alexander Stephens and Senator Ephraim Foster introduced an amendment recognizing Texas as a slave state, retaining its public lands, and preserving its bonded debt accrued since 1836.

The House of Representatives approved the amended Texas annexation measure by a vote of 120–98.

Senator Thomas Hart Benton proposed an alternative resolution that avoided specifying the future free-or-slave status of Texas and called for bipartisan commissioners to settle border disputes and establish acquisition conditions.

Image source: Thomas Hart Benton (painter)

Less than a week before Polk’s inauguration, the Senate voted 27–25 to admit Texas under the Tyler protocols allowing passage by simple majorities.

President Tyler signed the Joint Resolution for annexing Texas to the United States on March 1, 1845. The law was enacted as J.Res. 8, 5 Stat. 797.

Image source: Secession in the United States

On his last full day in office, Tyler dispatched an offer of annexation to the Republic of Texas under the Brown–Foster option of the joint resolution.

Texas President Anson Jones called for a convention to meet on July 4, 1845, to consider annexation and draft a state constitution.

The Texan Congress accepted the United States Congress’s joint resolution of March 1, 1845, and consented to convening a convention.

The Texas convention remained in session through August 28 and adopted the Constitution of Texas on August 27, 1845.

Texas citizens approved both the annexation ordinance and the new constitution on October 13, 1845.

President Polk sent John Slidell as a secret representative to Mexico City with a monetary offer for disputed land and other Mexican territories.

Image source: John Slidell

President James K. Polk signed the legislation admitting the former Republic of Texas to the Union as the 28th state on December 29, 1845. The measure was J.Res. 1, 9 Stat. 108.

Image source: List of U.S. states by date of admission to the Union

Texas relinquished its sovereignty to the United States at the inauguration of Governor James Henderson on February 19, 1846, formally completing its integration into the Union.

Texas’s formal admission and the dispute over its southern boundary contributed to the Mexican–American War, which began in April 1846. Polk subsequently ordered General Zachary Taylor to garrison the border claimed by the former republic.

Image source: Mexican–American War

The joint-resolution method used for Texas became a precedent for annexing Hawaii. After President Benjamin Harrison’s treaty effort failed to secure Senate support, President William McKinley revived the proposal, and Congress approved Hawaii’s annexation by joint resolution in July 1898.

Image source: Newlands Resolution