Stateside With Rosalea Barker (At Annapolis) Texas
Click for big version
George Bush Intercontinental Airport, Houston, Texas
I have a theory about Texas—it merely wants to rule the universe. One of my acquaintances so hates what the place stands
for she has never set foot in it. Another acquaintance is a Texan so amiable that I can safely espouse my Texas
conspiracy theory to her while she has a Thanksgiving turkey-carving knife in her hand.
What does Texas stand for? Well, you should probably interact with the Flash timeline on the website of the PBS documentary about the US-Mexican War of 1846-48 to see its history. The period that relates
to Texas’s 1845 admission to the Union begins with the 1813 rebellion which declared Mexico was a constitutional
republic and not subject to Spanish rule. Eight years later, Mexico’s independence was formally recognized by Spain in
the Treaty of Aquala, and the country’s constitution was enacted in 1824.
Tejas (“friends, allies”) was a province of Mexico, and the Mexican government invited US settlers into the area by
giving away its Indian friends’ and allies’ land. By 1830, Americanos outnumbered Mexicanos three to one and they
petitioned the Mexican government to become a separate Mexican state. When that failed, the settlers seceded in what is
known as the Texas War of Independence, 1835-36. For ten years, Texas was a republic until its pleas for annexation into
the United States were acted upon in a cunning ploy by President Tyler in early 1845, just days before he was due to
leave office.
Here’s how it went down, according to the historian of the House of Representatives, Robert V. Remini, in his book The
House:
“In the 1844 [presidential] election, the Whigs nominated Henry Clay, who opposed territorial expansion, knowing it
would provoke a war with Mexico over Texas. Polk narrowly defeated Clay, whereupon the incumbent president, John Tyler,
capitalized on the Democrat’s victory and proposed a joint resolution by both houses of Congress admitting Texas as a
slave state into the Union. A simple majority from two houses was infinitely easier to obtain than a two-thirds majority
from one.”
Since annexation involved concluding a treaty, and treaties can only be ratified by the Senate under Article 2, Section
2 of the Constitution—[The President] shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make
treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur—the constitutionality of Texas’ admission to the Union was
subject to some debate. But Southerners were determined to get another slave state into the fold, especially since the
reason Mexico had rebuffed Texans’ earlier petition to be a Mexican state was the settlers’ desire to legitimize
slaveholding.
But it’s not the debate around slaveholding that marks Texas’s admission to the United States as the beginning of the
end for any hope that the still relatively new nation would be a peaceable one. In a magazine article in the summer of
1845, purportedly written by John O’Sullivan, the words that were to justify everything the States did for the next
several decades became a jingoistic catch cry: Manifest Destiny. You can read a rather typo-ridden transcript of the
article here, but the essential bit is this:
“Why, were other reasoning wanting, in favor of now elevating this question of the reception of Texas into the Union,
out of the lower region of our past party dissensions, up to its proper level of a high and broad nationality, it surely
is to be found, found abundantly, in the manner in which other nations have undertaken to intrude themselves into it,
between us and the proper parties to the case, in a spirit of hostile interference against us, for the avowed object of thwarting our policy and hampering our power, limiting our greatness and checking the
fulfillment of our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our
yearly multiplying millions.”
The “our” in “our manifest destiny” refers to Anglo-Saxons, and the limitation of having a mere continent to overspread
was soon replaced by the idea that Anglo-Saxons were destined to settle ever westward, even across the Pacific and all
the way around the world. In an article in the Winter 2009 edition of the magazine Indian (published by the National Museum of the American Indian), geographer George Herman writes that the concept of manifest
destiny was rooted in an intertwining of three ideas regarding the new republic that was the United States.
The first was the idea of an inherently Christian mission. Secondly, says Herman, there was a conviction “that the new
nation would expand naturally as others realized that the new freedom on which American institutions were based
constituted a higher standard of civilization. Moreover, held this conviction, the expansion of this new shining
civilization would be good for the world.”
How to reconcile this ideal Christian civilization with the reality of wholesale eviction of American Indians from their
land and the pernicious institution of slavery? Not a problem! The third idea was that not all peoples were ready for
the new civilization, and that “a particular race carried the burden of fostering free government,” writes Herman. White Man’s Burden, anyone?
The more I read about the history of Texas, the more appalled I am. But there was one seeming bright spot—Sam Houston, who was at one time or another President of the Republic of Texas, US Senator from Texas, and Texas Governor, being
relieved of that office in March 1861 when he refused to take an oath of loyalty to the Confederacy. Houston was a
slaveholder himself, but saw nothing good coming of the War Between the States, predicting that the North would prevail
in its desire to preserve the Union despite all the gold and lives that would be spent trying to win Southern
independence.
Texas became the 28th US state on December 29, 1845.
*************
--PEACE—