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CHAP. powerful reasons why Texas should be a part of this Union. The Southern States, owning a slave population, 1844. were deeply interested in preventing that country from having power to annoy them." Said Webster: "That while I hold to all the original arrangements and compromises under which the Constitution under which we now live was adopted, I never could, and never can, persuade myself to be in favor of the admission of other States into the Union, as slave States, with the inequalities which were allowed and accorded by the Constitution to the slaveholding States then in existence."

Under the auspices of Calhoun, who was now Secretary of State, a treaty was secretly made with Texas, by which she was to be admitted into the Union. But the Senate immediately rejected it by a vote more than two to one, on the ground that to carry out its provisions would involve the country in a war with Mexico. This rejection was the signal for raising a great clamor throughout the land. Annexation was made a prominent issue in the pending presidential election-the Democratic party in favor of the measure, and the Whigs opposed. To influence the credulous, it was boldly asserted that England was negotiating with Texas to buy her slaves, free them, and, having quieted Mexico, to take the republic under her special protection. This story General Houston said was a pure fabrication; yet it served a purpose. In certain portions of the South conventions were held, in which the sentiment" Texas, or Disunion," was openly advocated. The threats of secession and uniting with Texas, unless she was admitted to the Union, had but little effect, however, upon the great mass of the people.

The following year it was proposed to receive Texas by a joint resolution of Congress. The House of Representatives passed a bill to that effect, but the Senate added an amendment, appointing commissioners to nego