254. Mormons in Utah. (1846-1848.)- The opposition to the Mormons in no degree lessening, Brigham Young, a very able man, who had been chosen as Joseph Smith's successor, determined to lead the whole band to Utah in the far West, where they could carry out their laws and customs in peace. It was two years before the migration was completed, but in 1848 the whole band was settled in Utah beyond the Rocky Mountains near Great Salt Lake, where they founded Salt Lake City. They named their new state Deseret, which means, according to their interpretation, "The Land of the Honey Bee." The Mormon government for many years was autocratic. The additions to their numbers were chiefly made from Great Britain, Norway, and Sweden, gathered by missionaries frequently sent out. The Mormons were most industrious, and soon had built a handsome city, and had brought the surrounding country under rich cultivation.

255. The South and Texas. (1827-1836.) By the treaty of 1819-1821, by which the United States had acquired Florida, the western boundary of Louisiana was fixed at the river Sabine (sect. 199). The South, wishing to extend slavery, saw a promising field in Texas, which had become a part of Mexico. In 1827 and in 1829 the United States government had offered to buy Texas from Mexico, but the offers were declined, and indeed Mexico has seldom shown any disposition to part with a foot of her territory. Many American settlers, chiefly from the southern states, had migrated into Texas, taking their slaves with them. When Mexico, in 1824, abolished slavery, these settlers kept their slaves as before. In 1836 the Texans revolted from Mexico, set up an independent state of their own, and expelled the Mexican forces. Of the fifty-seven signers of the Declaration of Texan Independence, fifty are said to have been from the southern states of the

TEXAS ANNEXATION PUSHED.

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Union. The Texans, under General Sam Houston, defeated in the battle of San Jacinto the Mexicans led by Santa Anna, the Mexican Dictator, who was forced to recognize the independence of Texas; a recognition that the Mexicans disclaimed.

256. Texas Annexation Pushed. (1837-1844.) Owing largely to the disordered state of Mexican affairs, little or no effort was made to bring back Texas, though Mexico steadily refused to acknowledge her independence. In 1837 the United States, and not long after, England, France, and Belgium, recognized Texas as an independent power. An inefficient government soon brought the new state almost to bankruptcy, and an annexation to the United States, which many persons think was intended all along, became a matter of as great interest to Texas and her creditors as to the southern slaveholders. In 1837, through her minister at Washington, the first application for admission to the Union was made. A proposition to this effect was rejected in the Senate, and nothing was done for some time. Meantime, between the land speculators who held quantities of land in Texas, of little worth under Texan rule, but sure of a large advance in value should she be admitted as one of the United States, and the politicians who wished to increase the land open to slavery, and also to increase the representation of the South in the Senate, Texan annexation was pushed in every possible way.

It was a difficult undertaking, for neither the Whigs nor the Democrats of the North were in favor of it, and of course the small Liberty party was violently opposed to any such scheme. Van Buren, the most prominent man in the Democratic party, came out against the plan, and in consequence, through the influence of the southern members of the party, failed of nomination as candidate for the Presidency.

(1844-1845.)

257. Polk elected; Admission of Texas. The Democratic Convention, then sitting in Baltimore, chose James K. Polk, and his nomination was the first news sent over Morse's telegraph, just set up. Silas Wright in the same way received notice of his nomination as Vice-President, and declined it. The convention refused to believe the reply, and adjourned to the following day, until a messenger sent to verify the tidings could return. Clay, the Whig candidate, also opposed annexation, but in his anxiety to gain southern votes published declarations which displeased the Liberty party and some northern Whigs. In the election which followed he lost thereby the great state of New York by a small majority, and with New York, the election. The result of the election was taken as approving of the annexation; and accordingly, in the last hours of Tyler's administration, Congress passed a resolution in favor of admitting Texas. Tyler signed the document and at once sent off a messenger to Texas with the news; the proposition was accepted by Texas July 4, 1845, and in December of the same year she was formally admitted to the Union. The passage of a resolution which only required a majority of votes, instead of a treaty which would have required a twothirds vote, was a shrewd political device. Texas was the last slave state admitted, and she is the only truly independent state which has ever entered the Union, no others, not even the original thirteen, having ever exercised the power of making treaties, sending ambassadors, or making

war.

JAMES K. POLK.

POLK'S MEASURES.

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258. Polk's Measures. (1845.)-James K. Polk, of Tennessee, was born in 1795, and had held various political offices, among them Speaker of the House of Representatives for four years. So the cry of the Whigs, "Who is James K. Polk?" had little to justify it. He was a man of excellent private character, but somewhat narrow in his political views, and a strong partisan. Tenacious of his ends, he was generally successful in carrying out what he had planned. The four great measures which he placed before himself were: (1) reduction of the tariff; (2) re-establishment of the SubTreasury; (3) settlement of the Oregon boundary question; and (4) the acquisition of California.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE MEXICAN WAR AND SLAVERY.

REFERENCES.

General. James Schouler, History of the United States, iv. 495–550, v. 1-335; James F. Rhodes, History of the United States, i. 86–302, 384–506, ii. 1-168; Bryant and Gay, Popular History of the United States, iv. 369418; Thomas H. Benton, Thirty Years' View, ii. 639-788 (to 1850); Horace Greeley, The American Conflict, i. 185-251; E. Channing, The United States, pp. 230-248; Goldwin Smith, The United States, pp. 210-234; W. Wilson, Division and Reunion (Epochs of American History), pp. 147193; James G. Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, i. 41-137.

Biographies. See references for Chap. xii. John Bigelow, John C. Frémont; Edward L. Pierce, Charles Sumner; John G. Nicolay and John Hay, Abraham Lincoln, i. 237-456, ii. 1-46.

Special. A. Johnston, American Politics, Chaps. xvi.-xviii.; E. Stanwood, History of Presidential Elections, Chaps. xvii., xviii. For Mexican War: William Jay, A Review of the Mexican War; U. S. Grant, Personal Memoirs, i. 45-174; James Russell Lowell, Biglow Papers, first series. California and the Discovery of Gold: J. Royce, California, pp. 1-259; Century Magazine, vols. xl.-xliii. Slavery and Fugitive Slave Laws: J. J. Lalor, Cyclopædia, iii. 722-738; Marion G. MacDougall (Fay House Monographs, Ginn & Co., Boston), Fugitive Slaves, 1619-1865; James F. Rhodes, History of the United States, i. 303-383; James Russell Lowell, Political Essays, pp. 1-16; James S. Pike, First Blows of the Civil War, pp. 1-300; Alex. H. Stephens, The War between the States, ii. 176-262; The Pro-Slavery Argument. Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin (annotated edition); J. F. Rhodes, History of the United States, i. 278-285 (for influence of Uncle Tom's Cabin); Frederick Law Olmstead, The Seaboard Slave States, Texas Journey, A Journey in the Back Country, The Cotton Kingdom (a summary of the three preceding); Frances Anne Kemble, Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation, 1838-1839; Harriet Martineau, Society in Amer