exasperated by the outrageous reproaches that had been heaped upon him by the Whigs in Congress. He had involved himself in a very awkward position, and had extricated himself by force, rather than with honor.

carded.

His vetoes severed entirely his connection with the Whig party. Beyond measure disappointed and exasperated, Tyler dis- and imprudently hasty in their expressions of resentment, the Whig members of Congress publicly repudiated the President, declaring that "all political connection between them and John Tyler was at an end from that day forth;" and every member of the cabinet at once resigned, except Webster, who was in the midst of delicate diplomatic business which could not be suddenly abandoned. The President had to fill the empty offices as best he could, with men of somewhat looser party ties.

Distribution.

70. Some Whig Measures saved (1842).

The rest of the Whig programme went through without much difficulty. The immediate needs of the Treasury were provided for by a loan and a temporary Tariff Act. A law was passed providing for an annual division of the proceeds of the sales of public lands among the States, though a proviso was attached to it by the friends of low tariff, which in the end prevented it from going into effect. An amendment was incorporated which directed the suspension of the law whenever the tariff duties should exceed twenty per cent. Nevertheless, without the bank measure, the Whig policy was Deposit of sadly mutilated. The Independent Treasury balances. law had been repealed, but no other fiscal agency was provided for the use of the government: for the remainder of Tyler's term the handling and safe keeping of the revenues of the government remained unprovided for by law, to be managed at the discretion of

the Treasury. Fortunately the management of the administration was in this respect both wise and prudent, and the funds were handled without loss. In the regular session of 1841-1842 Congress passed a permanent Tariff Act. The twenty per cent duty which had been reached July 1, 1842, under the provisions of the compromise tariff of 1833, remained in force only two months. The new Tariff Act, which went into effect on the Ist of September, 1842, again considerably increased the duties to be levied. It had been only after a third trial that this Act had become law. Twice it had been passed with a provision for the distribution of surplus revenue among the States, and twice the President had vetoed it because of that provision; the third time it was passed without the obnoxious clause, and received his signature.

Tariff of 1842.

The diplomatic matters which kept Webster at his post when his colleagues were resigning, concerned the longThe Ashbur- standing dispute with Great Britain touching ton Treaty. the boundary line between the northeastern States of the Union and the British North American Provinces. The treaty of peace of 1783 had not disstinctly fixed the boundary line in that quarter, and it had long been in dispute. The dispute was now complicated, moreover, by other subjects of irritation between the two countries, connected with certain attempts on the part of American citizens to assist rebellion in Canada, and with the liberation of certain mutinous slaves by the British authorities in the ports of the British West Indies. The northeastern States, too, were interested in getting as much territory as possible, and were not disposed to agree to moderate terms of accommodation. In August, 1842, by agreement between Mr. Webster and Lord Ashburton, a treaty was signed which accommodated the boundary dispute by running a compromise

line across the district in controversy, and which also effected a satisfactory settlement of the other questions at issue. After seeing this treaty safely through the Senate and past the dangers of adverse criticism in England, Mr. Webster also retired from the cabinet.

71. The Independent State of Texas (1819-1836). Signs were not wanting that the people, as well as the President, were out of sympathy with the Whig policy, and were beginning to repent of the re-action Whig losses. against the Democrats. So early as the autumn of 1841 many state elections went against the Whigs, in States in which they had but recently been successful; and when the mid-term Congressional elections came around, the Whig majority in the House was swept utterly away, supplanted by a Democratic majority of sixty-one. The President, however, reaped no benefit from the change; he had ruined himself by being unfaithful to the party which had elected him. His Democratic opinions, however genuine, did not commend him to the Democrats, though they were of course glad to avail themselves of the advantages which his defeat of the Whig plans afforded them.

Lack of harmony.

The Senate remaining Whig, the second Congress of Tyler's administration groped about amidst counsellings more confused and ineffectual than ever. The want of harmony between the two houses was added to the lack of concert between the President and both parties alike. The legislation effected was therefore of little consequence, except in regard to a question which had so far been in no party programme at all. This was the question of the admission of Texas to the Union.

Texas had originally been part of the Spanish possessions in America, and when the United States acquired

Mexico.

Emanci

Florida from Spain by the treaty of 1819, Texas had, upon very shadowy grounds indeed, been claimed as part Texas and of the Louisiana purchase. This claim had, however, been given up, and a boundary line agreed upon which excluded her (Formation of the Union, § 124). In 1821, before this treaty had been finally ratified by Spain, the Spanish colonists in Mexico broke away from their allegiance, and established themselves in independence. In 1824 they adopted a federal form of government, and of this government the "State of Coahuila and Texas" became a constituent member, under a constitution, framed in 1827, which provided for gradual abolition of slavery and prohibited pation. the importation of slaves. But presently immigration transformed Texas from a Spanish into an American community. More and more rapidly, and in constantly augmenting numbers, settlers came in from the southern States of the Union, bringing their slaves with them, in despite of the Texan constitution. By 1833 the Americans had become so numerous that they made bold to take things in their own hands, and form a new constitution upon their own pattern. This constitution was never recognized by the Mexican government; but that mattered little, for the American settlers were presently to have a government of their own. In 1835 Santa Anna, the Mexican President, undertook to overthrow the federal constitution, and reduce the States Secession. to the status of provinces under a centralized government. Texas at once seceded (March 2, 1836); Santa Anna, with five thousand men, was defeated by seven or eight hundred Texans, under General Sam Houston, in the battle of San Jacinto (April 21, 1836); and an independent republic was formed, with a constitution establishing slavery. It was almost ten years before Mexico could make up her mind to recognize the

dence.

independence of the revolted State; but the commercial States of Europe, who wanted the Texas trade, and those Indepen- politicians in the United States who wanted her territory, were not so long about it. The United States, England, France, and Belgium recognized her independence in 1837. Her recognition by the United States had been brought about by her friends through Jackson, without the consent of Congress.

72. First Steps towards Annexation (1837-1844).

It was no part of the ambition of Texas to remain an independent State. The American settlers within her borPurpose of ders had practically effected a great conquest annexation. of territory, and it was their ardent desire to add this territory which they had won to the United States. Hardly had they achieved separation from Mexico when they made overtures to be admitted into the Union. But this was by no means easily to be accomplished. To admit Texas would be to add to the area of slavery an enormous territory, big enough for the formation of eight or ten States of the ordinary size, and thus to increase tremendously the political influence of the southern States and the slave-holding class. For this the northern members of Congress were not prepared. While public opinion in the North Opposition. had no taste for any policy in derogation of the compromises of the Constitution, it had, ever since the debates on the Missouri Compromise, been steadily making in favor of a limitation of the area of slavery, its exclusion from as large a portion as possible of the national domain. John Quincy Adams, now grown old in his advocacy of the right of the anti-slavery men to be heard in Congress, was looking about for some successor, and had been joined in the House by Joshua R. Giddings,