After the adoption of the Missouri compromise, there remained to the South only the limits of Florida and Arkansas and the territory extending west from the latter to the Spanish possessions for the expansion of her “peculiar institution.” From the northern side of the compromise line stretched an imperial domain to the furthermost boundary of the United States, dedicated to freedom by that famous bill. The North found an outlet for its restless population in this immense sweep of territory, acquired by the purchase of Louisiana; but the creation of new political centers by this tide threatened to disturb again the equilibrium between the North and the South. The coils of free-soilism seemed at that time to be gradually closing around the area appropriated to the slave-holding States. Even throughout Mexico, which stood in the way of any possible future expansion toward the west, that form of servitude permitted by the Southern States was abolished in 1829. Only in the department of Texas, then being settled by colonists from the South, had this decree been left inoperative. 1
After the Fredonian revolt (1826-1827), the Mexicans regarded with serious apprehension the settlement of Texas by the Anglo-Americans, a race differing from them in origin, habits, religion, and political training. To frustrate any further attempt to separate the department from the Southern republic and annex it to the United States, the Mexican congress passed a law prohibiting the colonization of her border States by citizens of countries adjacent and forbidding the further importation of slaves, a measure evidently intended to exclude settlers from the Anglo-American States. 2 Subsequently Santa Anna abrogated this law and gave conciliatory assurances to deceive and quiet the enraged colonists; but, at the same time, with characteristic craftiness, he was forging, by political intrigue, the fetters of an intolerable despotism. It required no deep penetration to foresee the effect of severe repressive measures on the sturdy, liberty loving colonists, and the revolution which culminated on the field of San Jacinto in the accomplishment of Texan independence.
The States of the South, circumscribed both by the ordinance of 1787 and the Missouri compromise, looked to the acquisition of Texas as a way of relief from the impending constriction with the resulting loss of influence in national legislation. Senator John Bell, of Tennessee, in 1850, affirmed that “the general, though by no means universal, sentiment of the slave States, was in favor of the policy of annexation, as a means of preserving the equilibrium of power between the free and the slave States.” 3 Daniel Webster, in his memorable speech of March 7, 1850, said that the profitable cultivation of cotton gave a new desire to promote slavery, to spread it, and to use its labor. The cotton age became a golden age for the South, and the desire for improvement and accumulation which it gratified soon became “an eagerness for other territory—a new area or new areas for the cultivation of the cotton crop”; and new measures were brought forward rapidly, one after another, to accomplish the end desired. 4 Unquestionably, at that time, cotton was found to be more profitable than any other agricultural product, and hence its cultivation confirmed or created a sentiment in favor of slavery; yet there were still vast areas in the Gulf States of fertile, virgin soil, suited for its cultivation. The economic consideration for acquiring “other territory” for its cultivation was certainly less urgent and intense than the desire for sectional aggrandizement in order to maintain the political power and thereby preserve the rights of the South. 5 Texas possessed interests and ties that bound her to the South. The men who colonized Texas, followed Houston to San Jacinto, filled the offices and shaped the destiny of the young republic, and engrafted in the constitution an article recognizing slavery and permitting the importation of negroes only from the United States, 6 were mostly immigrants from the slave-holding States. 7 Annexation to the United States was a natural sequence to such intimate affinities.
The treaty for the annexation of Texas, negotiated during Tyler's administration by Mr. Calhoun, secretary of state, was signed by the Texan commissioners, but was rejected in the senate of the United States by the vote of Northern senators, who contended that it favored the extension and perpetuation of slavery, and would be accepted by Mexico as cause for a declaration of war. The rejection of the treaty, however, was but a temporary defeat of the measure. The project became the cardinal policy in the next presidential election, controlled the nomination, and elected Mr. Polk to the presidency. The fear of foreign interference in the affairs of Texas, 8 the glorification of the nation's manifest destiny, 9 and the promise offered by annexation of preserving the equilibrium of the sections, succeeded in coalescing opposing political factions and won such increased support, that joint resolutions providing for annexation passed congress, and were signed among the last official acts of Tyler's administration.
Pending this overture to Texas of annexation, the United States was warned through Mr. Donelson, chargé to Texas, that the ministers of France and England had preceded him to the Texan seat of government, bearing a joint note from the embassies of these powers, conveying the consent of Mexico to acknowledge the independence of Texas on condition that she would not annex herself, or become subject to any other country. 10 But the Texan congress, by a unanimous vote, acceded to the proposals for annexation, and rejected those offered by Mexico. The two European powers no doubt wished to see Texas under an English or joint protectorate, without slavery, but “the United States courted Texas as an ardent lover wooes his mistress,” and at last won the suit. In accordance with the terms of annexation, the United States was charged with the duty of effecting a settlement of the western boundary of the State.
The eastern boundary of the Republic of Texas conformed to the limits established by the treaty of 1821 between the United States and Mexico, extending northward to the forty-second degree of latitude, a line beyond the northern boundary of Colorado. On the west, as a part of the Mexican Republic, Texas was bounded near the Gulf by the Nueces River and further inland by the Medina, 11 but as a republic, by an act of her congress, passed in 1836, she asserted a claim to all the territory southwestward and westward to the Rio Grande and to a line running from its source northward to the forty-second parallel.
At the time of annexation, as before mentioned, a state of war existed between Texas and Mexico, each asserting sovereignty over territory claimed by the other, though the independence of the former had been acknowledged by the United States and some of the European powers, and her autonomy had been maintained without serious invasion for the period of ten years. But Texas was admitted into the Union with her well-known and declared, though disputed, western boundary. This boundary the government, according to the terms of annexation, attempted to adjust through its envoy to Mexico, who, with other instructions, was empowered to purchase at least the territory of New Mexico east of the Rio Grande, evidently for the purpose of affirming the right of Texas and to acquire it in a way least offensive to Mexico. 12 Having succeeded to the claim set up by the Texan Republic, and having failed to fix the boundary through diplomatic channels, the United States was “functus officio as to the power she had reserved” in annexing Texas, and her obligation under the constitution “to protect Texas to the full extent of her asserted boundary, became single and absolute.”
The invasion of the disputed territory by armed forces from beyond the Rio Grande precipitated the war with Mexico. In a message invoking the action of Congress to recognize a state of war and to grant means for prosecuting it, President Polk declared that Mexico had invaded our territory, and “shed American blood upon American soil.” Authoritative action immediately prevailed in congress over the opposition of the Whigs, led by Clay, Corwin, and Webster, who protested that the war was wantonly started to despoil a weaker nation and to obtain by conquest, under the plea of indemnity, territory for the expansion of Southern interest. The “Spot Resolutions” introduced by Abraham Lincoln, then a member of the house of representatives, requiring the president to locate the spot where American blood had been shed, and to inform the house whether the “citizens” referred to in his message had not been armed soldiers, were but a covert insinuation that a collision had been designedly provoked for the purpose of commencing a war. The earnest and eloquent protest of Senator Corwin against the policy and continuance of the war added a classic to American oratory, but it did not prevent Congress from voting supplies. In 1846, a bill being before Congress on the recommendation of the president for an appropriation of three millions of dollars to conclude a treaty of peace, Wilmot of Pennsylvania threatened the further expansion of slavery by introducing as an amendment to the bill his famous proviso. The amended bill passed the house, but the proviso was stricken out in the senate, and the original bill passed both branches of congress.
The treaty of peace, signed at Guadalupe Hidalgo, making the Rio Grande from near El Paso to the Gulf the boundary, and ceding New Mexico and California to the United States, again brought to the front the question involved in the Wilmot proviso. Its agitation excited sectional apprehension and feeling so intensely, that nearly every subject of congressional action was drawn into the “great and dangerous maelstrom of African slavery.” The annexation of Texas had restored the equilibrium between the two sections of the Union, but the new acquisitions again opened the contest for sectional supremacy in the national legislature. California had received a sudden and rapid immigration, attracted by the discovery of gold, which forced the consideration of her admission into the Union, while the demands of Utah and New Mexico for territorial governments revived the exciting question of the right to introduce slavery into the public domain of the United States.
The first session of the Thirty-first Congress faced these issues and addressed itself to the difficult task of restoring quiet to the disturbed country by means of pacific measures. This congress, commencing its first session December 1, 1849, and closing it September 30, 1850, became memorable in the political history of the government. It was especially noted for its array of talent, the melancholy incidents that attended it, the important issues that demanded settlement, the fervency of the debates, and the unusual length of the session.
In the deliberations of this session the great American triumverate participated for the last time. The strenuous, uncompromising defender of the rights reserved by the constitution to the States, Mr. Calhoun, in his last argument, delivered March 4, 1850, said: “Looking back to the long course of forty years' service here, I have the consolation to believe, that I have never done one act which would weaken it [the Union]—that I have done full justice to all sections. And if I have ever been exposed to the imputation of a contrary motive, it is because I have been willing to defend my section from unconstitutional encroachments.” 13 Enfeebled by long, wasting disease, he made his last defense of the South, and less than one month afterwards, his death was announced to the senate. Responding to the resolutions introduced by Calhoun's colleague, from South Carolina, Clay and Webster, with whom he had so often crossed swords in political contest, paid eloquent tributes to the purity of his exalted patriotism, his commanding talents, and the eminent virtues of his “unimpeached honor and character.” In July, the illustrious expounder of the constitution, Daniel Webster, resigned his seat to become secretary of state under Fillmore, never to return to the arena of his brilliant triumphs. Clay, whose name had been associated with so many pacific measures, remained to champion his last compromise, but that session virtually closed his long, distinguished career. There were other eminent statesmen in both chambers, many of whom lived to see the apprehended dissolution of the Union become an accomplished fact and to participate in the legislation of the Reconstruction period.
As before observed, upon this congress devolved the duty of considering measures affecting the status of the new acquisition, the most serious of which was the adjustment of the boundary between Texas and New Mexico. As the Democrats had a majority of only eight in the senate, while thirteen Free Soliers held the balance of power in the house between 112 Democrats and 105 Whigs, 14 it was obvious that a fierce and protracted struggle would ensue in the effort to secure a fair scheme of pacification.
To settle the disputed boundary, Mr. Benton introduced a bill early in the session to retire the western limit of Texas to the parallel of 102 degrees of west longitude, and the northern boundary “from the frozen region of 42 to the genial clime of 34,” two and one-half degrees south of the Missouri compromise line, ceding to the United State all the territory exterior to these limits. The senator said that the territory which Texas claimed at the time of her admission into the Union was too large. “She covers sixteen degrees of latitude, and fourteen degrees of longitude. She extends from 26 to 42 degrees of north latitude, and from 96 to 110 west longitude; that is to say, from four degree south of New Orleans to near four degrees north of St. Louis, and from the longitude of Western Missouri to the summit of the Rocky Mountains. Her southeast corner is in the mouth of the Rio Grande—region of perpetual flowers; her northwest corner is near the South Pass in the Rocky Mountains—region of eternal snow.” 15 By the line Benton proposed, the boundary commenced about three hundred miles, on a straight line, below El Paso, near the mouth of the Pecos, and extended northward to the 34th degree of north latitude, which he said conformed to the civil and geographical divisions of both countries. 16
On the same day, Senator Foote, of Mississippi, who entertained a bitter resentment against the Missouri senator, 17 introduced an omnibus bill providing territorial governments for the newly acquired possessions, and enabling the citizens of Texas east of the Brazos river to be organized into a state by the consent of Texas, to be designated as the State of Jacinto. The bill made the Rio Grande the boundary between New Mexico and Texas. In explaining his bill Foote uttered a scathing denunciation of Benton for unsettling the slavery question in attempting to surrender to free soilism conceded slave territory, applying to him the language used by Cicero in delineating the character of the degenerate Roman senator. 18 The 53rd section of the bill embraced a provision that the constitution and the laws of the United States were to be extended over the territories and to be in full force, intending that the constitution should follow the flag and prevent the recognition of the lex loci.
To quiet all agitation arising from the institution of slavery, the great pacificator, Henry Clay, introduced a series of resolutions, January 29, one of which fixed the western boundary of Texas along the Rio Grande northward to the southern line of New Mexico, conceded to be at or near El Paso, thence eastwardly to the line as established between the United States and Spain—excluding all the territory of New Mexico east of the river from the jurisdiction of the State. The senator denied the validity of the Texan title to any portion of New Mexico, but added that certain facts made her claim plausible, and for the sake of general quiet and harmony he was willing to tender a reasonable sum for its relinquishment. 19 In reply, Senator Rusk maintained that the title of Texas to all of New Mexico east of the Rio Grande was incontrovertible, and protested against any attempt to dismember Texas “to make a peace offering to a spirit of encroachment on the constitutional rights of one-half of this Union.” 20
Another compromise was embraced in the resolutions offered. February 28, by Senator Bell, proposing, with the assent of Texas, to restrict her limits within the territory lying east of the Trinity and south of Red River, to provide for a new state on the west, and extending north to the 34th degree of north latitude, and to accept a cession from the State of all the unappropriated domain west of the Colorado, and extending north to the 42d parallel. Provision was made for the prospective admission of another state to be carved out of the unappropriated domain west of the Colorado and south of the 34th parallel, which would embrace a part of the present limits of New Mexico, while the territory north of the line, containing all of the Panhandle, was to be incorporated with the territory of New Mexico. 21 The bill surrendered more than two and one-half degrees of slave territory for which the author claimed compensation was made by including an equivalent of free territory in the limits of the prospective state west of the Colorado. The senator, whose bill was regarded as a modified form of the executive policy, 22 sought to recognize by its terms the conditions and guarantees of the joint resolutions of annexation by the creation of two new states, one to offset the admission of California into the Union and the other of New Mexico.
Resolutions of a similar nature to the foregoing were introduced in the house of representatives, but no particular measure seemed to warrant exclusive consideration. It became evident that the discussion of abstract resolutions was delaying a speedy, deliberate, and final settlement of the distracting questions, and to avert further agitation, the senate, April 19, raised by ballot a committee of thirteen to mature a scheme of compromise for the adjustment of the pending questions growing out of the subject of slavery. The crisis certainly had become intense and exigent to justify an expedient so unusual in so conservative a body. The chairman of the committee, Mr. Clay, on May 18, presented its report and the bill which it had framed, known as the Compromise bill. This was a composite measure, providing for the admission of California without slavery, the establishment of territorial governments in Utah and New Mexico, without the Wilmot proviso, and the settlement of the disputed boundary between New Mexico and Texas. “This garment of compromise, thus quilted of various fabrics with artistic skill,” was pieced out with two other bills concerning slavery in the District of Columbia and the recovery of fugitive slaves.
The first subject to command the attention of the committee had been the resolutions of Senator Bell providing for additional states within the limits of Texas. It decided that in the execution of the compact with Texas, the initiative in constituting a new state should not originate in congress, but should be taken by the people themselves within the territorial limits of the proposed new state with the consent of Texas, and the majority declined to recommend any new state or states to be carved out of Texan territory. The boundary proposed for Texas in the bill recognized the Rio Grande to a point twenty miles in a straight line above El Paso and thence eastwardly to a point where the 100th degree of west longitude crosses Red River, excluding from the present limits of Texas all the territory north of a line running from near El Paso to a point on the western line of Childress county. Mr. Clay stated that the beginning of the line that distance above, instead of at El Paso, on the true line of New Mexico, was due to the desire of Texas to bring within her limits some settlements above El Paso, and also a desire on their part to be attached to the State. 23 He thought the true boundary of New Mexico east of the river would be a line beginning at El Paso, thence running to the head of Red River, and from there northward to the 42d parallel of north latitude. 24 In Clay's opinion, the divisional line of the compromise bill would detach a small triangle from the limits of New Mexico, but the loss would be compensated by the area added to the territory north of the line.
The boundary of New Mexico, as well as the boundaries of other territory taken from Mexico, seemed to be an uncertain quantity, with such values as political considerations assigned. Senator Benton contended that the proposed line would “cut New Mexico in two just below the hips,” and alienate 70,000 square miles of her territory. To avoid dismembering New Mexico, he proposed to commence the line at a point on the Rio Grande, where it is crossed by the 102d meridian west from Greenwich, thence running north along that meridian to the 34th parallel, and thence eastwardly to the intersection of the 100th meridian with Red River, 25 which would have alienated a vast area of the present domain of Texas. It is true that this country west of the Pecos, embraced in Benton's amendment, was not unknown to the early Spanish explorers. Coronado traversed the northern part, and in the country of the Teguas, in the valley of the Rio Grande, made his winter quarters in 1540. 26 In 1581, Father Rodriguez, accompanied by two other Franciscans and a few soldiers, went down the Conchos, and up the Rio Grande, naming the country San Felipe—“perhaps San Felipe de Nuevo Mexico,” says Bancroft. The following year, Espejo went by the same route, and after an extended exploration returned down the Pecos to the Rio Grande, calling the country Nueva Andalucia, but the name soon changed to New Mexico. 27 In 1589, Juan de Oñate, as governor and captain-general, took possession of the region around El Paso. Benton claimed to have based his contention on ancient authorities.
Senator Underwood found according to Humboldt's work and map that the line of New Mexico crossed the Norte at the 32d parallel and then ran almost north to the 38th, including a very small margin of the east side of the river, so by this delineation the committee's line would take no part of the territory of New Mexico. 28 Senator Bradbury quoted Wislizenus, who says: “New Mexico has generally been applied only to the settled country within the 32nd and 38th degrees of north latitude, and from about 104 to 108 degrees of longitude west of Greenwich.” No serious efforts, however, were made, except by Benton, to conform the line to any supposed boundary assigned to New Mexico.
An amendment to restore the limits along the line claimed by Texas opened up the question of the validity of the State's title, and made the disputed boundary the leading issue of the compromise. The Texan delegation and their supporters believed that the treaty signed by Santa Anna and Filisola, after the defeat of the Mexican army at San Jacinto, was binding on Mexico, especially as she had participated in its benefits; that the act of the Texas congress, in 1836, defining the boundary of the Republic, was a formal notice to the powers of her claims; that the joint resolutions of annexation recognized her right to the territory lying north of 36° 30’, and authorized the United States to adjust any boundary dispute that might arise with other governments; and that this provision for adjustment constituted the United States a trustee to act in behalf of Texas, which precluded the government from assuming at any time the place of adversary litigant and setting up title in itself to the territory claimed by Texas. They asserted that President Polk conceded the claim in announcing the invasion of American territory by armed forces; that congress affirmed it in the declaration that war existed by act of Mexico in sending her troops across the Rio Grande; and that the instructions of the secretary of war to the commander at Santa Fé admitted the right of possession to belong to Texas. Senator Hunter said, “Our ministers to Mexico were instructed to maintain this claim. Our President, Mr. Polk, in reply to a letter from the Governor of Texas, acknowledged the right of Texas to the country, and excused his military possession of Santa Fé on account of the necessities of war. A map was made a part of the treaty of peace with Mexico, which marked the Rio Grande as the western limit of Texas. In every way in which it could be done, the title of Texas had been recognized by our Government.”
On the other hand, the opposition to the claim of Texas was no less earnest. It was argued that the boundary of New Mexico was well defined, and no part was fairly included within the limits of Texas, or had ever been subject to her sovereignty by conquest or otherwise; that the treaty made in 1836 was invalid, because it was made with a captive, under duress, and had never been ratified by Mexico; that Texas had never extended civil or military jurisdiction over the disputed territory; that the resolution of annexation only imposed an obligation on the United States to secure the area limited by the Nueces on the west and the Red river on the north; that New Mexico had never revolted and allied herself to Texas; and that the United States had acquired title and possession to the territory by purchase and conquest. Such, in brief, were some of the arguments advanced during the discussion on the compromise bill, and the amendment recognizing the boundary claimed by Texas.
Any question relating to slavery in the territories involved the area Texas was asked to cede, 29 for its status, as free or slave, would be determined by the bill itself or by territorial legislation. The first amendment to the bill, offered by Senator Davis, of Mississippi, was in effect to prevent the territorial legislature from legislating against the right of property growing out of the institution of slavery. He said it was introduced to test the sense of the senate, whether the right of property as it existed in the slave holding states of the Union should receive the protection given to any other property in the territories of the United States. 30 Senator Seward immediately proposed to strike out the amendment and insert the Wilmot proviso. The amendments offered by these distinguished ultraists, entertaining antagonistic policies, early forecast the character of the opposition to the compromise measures.
The question of the extension or restriction of slavery provoked the bitterest discussion, and delayed the vote on the proposed measures. The Free Soilers maintained that the right delegated to congress to organize governments for the territories included the power of legislation for the inhibition of slavery; that equal rights could only be claimed by the citizens of the States; that the institution existed only by virtue of local law; and that it “required for its validity and legality previous express legislative enactment.”
On the other hand, the opinions of the South as to our system of government and the equal rights of the states to the territories, were clearly expressed in Mr. Calhoun's resolutions, introduced in the senate in 1847, 31 and in the very earnest and cogent argument of Chief Justice Sharkey, of Mississippi, as quoted by Senator Foote. 32
Ancillary to the theory of the restrictionists was the contention that as slavery was prohibited by the laws of Mexico throughout her domain, including the portion Texas claimed, the lex loci, as a municipal regulation, still prevailed and interdicted slavery, without the intervention of congress. 33 Senator Baldwin, of Connecticut, for the purpose of defining especially the condition of the territory claimed by Texas, offered an amendment declaring that this law of Mexico should remain in force in the acquired territory until altered or repealed by congress. This line of attack had been met as early as 1848, by Mr. Calhoun, who said, “To extend them [the humane provisions of the laws of nations] further and give them the force of excluding emigrants from the United States, because their property or religion are such as are prohibited from being introduced by the laws of Mexico, would not only exclude a great majority of the people of the United States from emigrating into the acquired territory, but would be to give a higher authority to the extinct authority of Mexico over the territory than to out actual authority over it. I say the great majority, for the laws of Mexico not only prohibit the introduction of slaves, but of many other descriptions of property, and also the Protestant religion, which Congress itself can not prohibit. To such absurdity would the supposition lead.” 34
It was maintained that the constitution followed the flag into the ceded territories, not as “a mere cripple,” but proprio vigore to secure and protect every right guaranteed to the citizens. 35 International usage did not warrant the conclusion that the lex loci, opposed to provisions of the constitution assertive of inalienable rights of liberty, property, and the religion which they professed, should prevail until abrogated by congress. The page of history is yet fresh which records the renewal of the question of the supreme authority of the constitution over the islands acquired by the Spanish American war. History repeats itself in the contention that the constitution follows the flag only so far as congress enacts that it shall.
Many senators and representatives who opposed the extension of slave territory declined to apply the principle of the Wilmot proviso to the compromise bill, as such an amendment would be considered a taunt and a designed indignity, and unnecessarily intensify the resentment existing between the sections. With Mr. Webster, they believed that the soil, climate and physical conditions had already consecrated the new domain to freedom by an irrepealable law, and that it was not necessary “to reaffirm an ordinance of nature, nor to reenact the will of God.”
A speedy and satisfactory adjustment of the boundary dispute was urged to avoid a threatened conflict between the troops of Texas and the United States. The governor of Texas had dispatched a commissioner with full powers to extend civil jurisdiction over four unorganized counties within the disputed district; but the United States officer, serving at Santa Fé as military governor of New Mexico, interposed adversely by an effort to establish a separate government for the territory, which would extend over the part claimed by Texas. Governor Bell promptly addressed a letter to the president, inquiring if the military governor, Colonel Monroe, had transcended his instructions, and if his proclamation for the assembling of a convention had the president's approval.
Fillmore made the letter the subject of a special message to congress, in which he adverted to the convoking of the legislature of Texas by the governor for the purpose of establishing by force the laws and the jurisdiction of the State over the unorganized counties, and charged that such proceedings were of so grave a character as to threaten a dangerous crisis, and of so great importance as to demand a speedy and amicable adjustment. He maintained the proposition that the constitution, as well as the acts of 1795 and 1807, concerning the power and duty of the president where the laws were obstructed, would compel him to interpose the strength of the United States to resist any force that Texas might send to establish her authority over the territory, as long as the controversy remained undetermined. He opposed a joint commission to formulate an acceptable adjustment, and urged congress to establish a divisional line with the assent of Texas, and allow a fair and liberal indemnity for the surrender of the State's claim. 36 The friends of the administration considered the message mild, dignified, and conciliatory, while Alexander Stephens and others declared the doctrine announced to be a menace and a dangerous assumption of power, revolutionary in its tendencies, and not warranted by a true construction of the acts cited or by the constitution. 37
The debate indicated that serious apprehensions were entertained that a conflict on the Rio Grande, fateful in results to the government, was imminent. In the speech of Mr. Stephens, just cited, he said, “The first Federal gun that shall be fired against the people of Texas without the authority of law will be a signal for the freemen from the Delaware to the Rio Grande to rally to the rescue.” Henry Clay, who was never considered an alarmist, said, “If a war breaks out between her [Texas] and the troops of the United States on the upper Rio Grande, there are ardent, enthusiastic spirits of Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama, that will flock to the standard of Texas, contending, as they believe they will be contending, for slave territory. And they will be drawn on, State by State, in all human probability, from the banks of the Rio Grande to the banks of that river which flows by the tomb of Washington.” 38 Winthrop, who succeeded Webster in the senate, preferred to have the boundary run by gold rather than by steel; by money than by blood. 39 The menacing doctrine of the president's message and the reputation of the Texans for vigorous and determined action in support of their rights warned the more conservative element in Congress that it would be better “to purchase a peace” than risk the result of further agitation and angry controversy.
The opposition to the proposed adjustment, to the boundary which it defined, and the indemnity offered Texas for the relinquishment of her claim, finally defeated the entire compromise bill, and by an unexpected procedure. Senator Bradbury, of Maine, offered an amendment to strike out all relating to the plan of settlement with Texas, and insert in lieu a provision for the appointment of three commissioners to act with a like number to be appointed by Texas to define the true and legitimate boundary of the State, and agree on considerations and conditions for its establishment, but to be binding only when approved by both governments. 40 To guard the interest of Texas, Senator Dawson presented an amendment to the effect that no territorial government authorized by the act, nor any state established for New Mexico, should become effective east of the Rio Grande, until the boundary line should be agreed to by Texas and the United States, 41 which was adopted by a vote of 30 to 28, three Southern Senators, Benton, Underwood, and Pearce, voting nay. Then to exclude the implication of title and the jurisdiction of Texas, guarded by Dawson's amendment, Pearce moved to strike from the compromise bill all that related to New Mexico and Texas, which was adopted by a vote of 33 to 22, the extremists of both sections voting yea to kill the bill. 42 This was the entering wedge to disrupt the compromise as a composite measure and cause its defeat.
Senator Pearce thought that the disputed boundary of Texas was the final difficulty of the compromise bill, and would be the principal cause of its defeat. He, therefore, presented a bill, unconnected with any other subject, for the establishment of the northern and western boundary of the State, and the relinquishment of the territory claimed by her, exterior to the defined limits. It provided that the boundary on the north should begin where the meridian of 100° west is intersected by the parallel of 36° 30’ north latitude, and run thence west to he 103d meridian; thence south to the 32d degree of north latitude; thence on that parallel to the Rio Bravo; and thence down the channel of that river to the Gulf of Mexico. In consideration of the reduction of boundaries, the cession of territory, and the relinquishment of claim, Texas was to receive ten millions of dollars. 43
The limits prescribed in this bill more exactly than any other proposed boundary accorded with what Senator Ewing supposed to be the two most important considerations involved in the adjustment of the boundary question. The first was that justice should be done between Texas and the United States, which was subserved by making a liberal allowance to Texas for the territory ceded, and avoiding to some extent the dismemberment of New Mexico, by preserving her domain so far as the territorial authority had practically been extended. The second was that no injury should arise to the political interests of the South by an unwarranted cession of territory south of 36° 30’, which had already been conceded to the South and to Southern institutions by the joint resolutions of annexation, framed in the intent of the Missouri compromise. The author of the bill said that he placed the western boundary one degree farther west than Benton's line to conciliate the senators from Texas. 44
After the adoption of some amendments, none, however, changing the boundary, the bill passed the Senate, August 9, by a vote of 30 to 20. The Pearce bill was more liberal in its allotment of territory to Texas than the omnibus bill, as it granted 16,200 more square miles, and it conceded to the State nearly 90,000 square miles more than the Benton bill. 45
Senator Houston said that a higher object than pecuniary consideration, a higher interest than sectional feeling animated him in supporting the bill. He would vote for it in order to conciliate and reconcile the great interests of the country. Senator Rusk, whom Webster considered as first among the young statesmen of the South, 46 said that if the bill passed, receiving his vote, it would result in the forfeiture of his seat in the senate, but he would vote for it cheerfully, looking “beyond it to a peace and quiet; to a time when affection and good feeling will exist between Texas and the balance of the United States and this Government.” Senator Hale, of New Hampshire, said that he accepted in part the senator's declaration as one of the things he believed on faith, discarding reason altogether. It was inexplicable that he should become unpopular with his constituents, unless it might be that the people of Texas might say, the United States is such a good cow, and so easily milked, that he ought not to have been content with ten million; he ought to have gone up to fifteen or twenty. Senator Benton paid tribute to the courage, fidelity, and skill shown by the Texas senators in the interest of their State. The representatives, Howard and Kaufman, both vigilant in guarding and defending the interest of Texas through the long session, also supported the bill. The former made a firm and successful stand against the ruling of the speaker, for a reconsideration of the vote refusing to engross the Texas bill for a third reading, which saved the bill in the house.
The bill passed the house September 6, with an amendment of seventeen sections for erecting a territorial government for New Mexico and providing for its admission into the Union, with or without slavery as its constitution at the time might prescribe, which the senate accepted. The vote in the house was 108 ayes and 97 noes, the North by a majority of 11 voting against the bill, and the South by a majority of 22 sustaining it. 47
The votes in both chambers on this bill, as well as on the omnibus bill, disclosed an extraordinary juncture of extremes. The ultra pro-slavery members, Barnwell, Butler, Soulé, Davis of Mississippi, and others of their political creed, who contended for the protection of slavery in the territories, and against the alienation of any of the domain claimed by Texas to become free soil, voted against the bill with such extremists of the North as Seward, Hale, Giddings, and Thaddeus Stevens, who wished to fasten the Wilmot proviso upon every acre of the national domain, and opposed purchasing territory which they claimed undoubtedly belonged to the United States. Thus it was that these uncompromising factionists, acting on principles so antagonistic, conjoined without a prearranged concert to defeat both bills. The conservative representatives of both sections succeeded in passing the Pearce bill as a pacific measure, but the rancor engendered in that long and excited session grew more furious as the years passed, and found its most fearful expression in the Civil War.
Texas, the last of the slave states admitted into the Union, with privileges and conditions variant from any other, which her previous independent autonomy required, had her boundary at last adjusted and precisely defined by consenting to the terms offered in the bill, but New Mexico, after a territorial pupilage of more than half a century, is still seeking admission into the sisterhood of States.
2. Garrison, Texas, 103, 159; Bancroft, North Mexican States and Texas, II 114; McMaster, History of the People of the United States, V 553.
3. Congressional Globe, 31st Cong., 1st Sess., Appendix, 1103.
4. Cong. Globe, 31st Cong., 1st Sess., 478.
5. McMaster, History of the People of the United States, V 547; Wilson, History of the American People, IV 105-108.
6. Garrison, Texas, 217.
7. Rhodes, History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850, I 76; Wilson, History of the American People, IV 103.
8. Brown, History of Texas, 299; Bancroft, North Mexican States and Texas, II 377.
9. Rhodes, History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850, I 87
10. Cong. Globe, 31st Cong., 1st Sess., App., 1152.
11. Garrison, Texas, 262.
12. Cong. Globe, 31st Cong., 1st Sess., App., 874, 879.
13. Cong. Globe, 31st Cong., 1st Sess., 484; Von Holst, Constitutional History of the United States, II 496.
14. Cong. Globe, 31st Cong., 1st Sess., 1.
15. Cong. Globe, 31st Cong., 1st Sess., 165.
16. Ibid., 1380.
17. Roosevelt, Thomas H. Benton, 322; Von Holst, Constitutional History of the United States, II 476.
18. Cong. Globe, 31st Cong., 1st Sess., 168.
19. Ibid., 245: Von Holst, Constitutional History of the United States, II 484, et seq.
20. Ibid., 247.
21. Cong. Globe, 31st Cong., 1st Sess., 436, et seq.
22. Stephens, Constitutional View of the War Between the States, II 205.
23. Cong. Globe, 31st Cong., 1st Sess., App., 1262.
24. Ibid., 1262.
25. Cong. Globe, 31st Cong., 1st Sess., 1380.
26. Lowery, Spanish Settlements within the Present Limits of the United States, 314, note.
27. Bancroft, North American States and Texas, I 127, et seq.
28. Cong. Globe, 31st Cong., 1st Sess., App., 1265.
29. Von Holst, Constitutional History of the United States, II 305.
30. Cong. Globe, 31st Cong., 1st Sess., 1003.
31. Stephens, Constitutional View of the War Between the States, II 197.
32. Cong. Globe, 31st Cong., 1st Sess., 532-533.
33. Rhodes, History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850, I 94.
34. Cong. Globe, 31st Cong., 1st Sess., 425; ibid., App., 993.
35. Von Holst, Constitutional History of the United States, II 444, et seq.
36. Cong. Globe, 31st Cong., 1st Sess., 1525, et seq.
37. Cong. Globe, 31st Cong., 1st Sess., App., 1080, et seq.
38. Ibid., 1412.
39. Ibid., 1560.
40. Ibid., 1457.
41. Cong. Globe, 31st Cong., 1st Sess., App., 1458-1463.
42. Ibid., 1473, 1479, 1487.
43. Cong. Globe, 31st Cong., 1st Sess., 1555.
44. Cong. Globe, 31st Cong., 1st Sess., 1541.
45. Cong. Globe, 31st Cong., 1st Sess., App., 1559, 1560, 1566.
46. Blaine, Twenty Years in Congress, I 90.
47. Von Holst, Constitutional History of the United States, II 556.
How to cite:
Spillman, W. J., "ADJUSTMENT OF THE TEXAS BOUNDARY IN 1850 ", Volume 007, Number 3, Southwestern Historical Quarterly Online, Page 177 - 195. http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/publications/journals/shq/online/v007/n3/article_1.html
[Accessed Tue Dec 2 0:07:53 CST 2008]
