The Patriot Post® · Moving From Republic to Statehood

Texas declared its independence from the Republic of Mexico on March 2, 1836, but was not admitted to statehood in the United States until December 29, 1845.

What? Nine years as an independent republic! What created the delay in admission to the United States when everyone knew Texas should be part of the country? Had all those settlers died at the Alamo, Goliad, and San Jacinto to create their own country? So many questions, right?

Texas applied for admission to the Union in 1836, but the application was rejected by U.S. Secretary of State John Forsyth, a former member of the U.S. Congress and a Georgian. While the majority of the Republic of Texas citizens wanted to join the United States, the members of Congress, representing all states and both political parties, were not yet enthusiastic about the idea. Why?

The Democrats and the Whigs knew the “Texas Question” was a potential powder keg that could explode and create a crisis. Texas was a vast slaveholding territory that could potentially be divided into several states, each below the Missouri Compromise line. Each of those new states would be added to the pro-slavery column and then swamp the anti-slavery states in the balance of power in Congress. If that happened, conflict between the two factions could escalate into open warfare. Remote, but a possibility…

There was also a second reason.

Congress, working closely with President Andrew Jackson and Vice President Martin Van Buren, presidential candidate in the 1836 election, hoped to avoid war with Mexico. While the Texans under Sam Houston’s leadership had won their fight for independence and had even captured General Santa Anna during the fray, Mexico refused to acknowledge the region’s autonomy and refuted their independence. If the U.S. Congress approved the Texas application for statehood while it was being claimed as a Mexican territory, war was almost inevitable. Jackson and Congress hoped to avoid that scenario.

Fast-forward to the Tyler administration in 1843. (We’ll come back later and talk about the Van Buren administration and the one-month presidency of William Henry Harrison.) John Tyler, Virginian and vice president during William Henry Harrison’s presidency, was not tied closely to either political party and decided to strike out on his own sense of destiny by supporting Texas statehood. What was his motivation? While he was a Southerner and pro-slavery, he knew that the British government was acting as a mediator between the Texans and Mexico. The Brits had outlawed slavery in the early 1830s, and Tyler feared that any compromise recognizing Texas independence might include an “anti-slavery” clause.

It was time to act on statehood. Or, so President Tyler believed.

The secret negotiations about Texas statehood did not remain secret, and the presidential election of 1844 began fraught with sectionalism. In a compromise to secure an electable candidate, Speaker of the House James Knox Polk of Tennessee was drafted as a “dark horse” for the Democrat nomination in May 1844. Polk supported Texas annexation, but he was also considered a reasonable, intelligent leader by leaders on both sides of the aisle. Even if the quickly disappearing Whig Party scions disagreed with him, they considered him the best option in a situation where they would have little input.

But they would not go quietly.

In a final shot, fired the following month, the Senate, with its Whig majority, rejected Tyler’s recommendation on Texas admission. When Polk narrowly defeated Whig Henry Clay in the fall election, Tyler pushed for a new vote. Was it a lame-duck attempt to gain immortality? Perhaps. Tyler’s brilliance was in advocating that the House and Senate simply add Texas by an amended bill, requiring a simple majority, instead of by treaty, requiring a two-thirds vote. The bill passed easily in the House and by a very narrow majority in the Senate. It allowed President Polk to either immediately annex Texas or request amendments to the legislation.

Tyler signed the annexation bill on March 1, 1845, and sent the signed bill to the Texas legislature. James K. Polk took the oath of office at noon on March 4, and he encouraged Texas to “apply” for statehood. The Texans, in a vote of popular sovereignty, approved the process, and Polk signed the bill approving Texas as the 28th state later that year. It became official on February 19, 1846.

And war with Mexico erupted in April.