TEXAS

87 TEXAS AND CALIFORNIA ANNEXATION (I845)

Texas and California Annexation (1845)

Territorial expansion had been a uirtual wt of faithfor many Americans sinre the aniual of the frst settlers. By the 1840s, the sense of a special mission shared by many Amer- icans, coupled with economic depression, Ied to renewed calls for expansion.The issue divided the parties: Democrats argued inJauor of expansion, while theWhigs opposed the acE.tisition of added territories. The Jollowing selection frst appeared in the New Yorb-based United States Magazine and Democratic Review in the summer of 1845.lts author,John L. O'Sulliuan, tuumpets his view of America\ "manifest des- tiny" and captures the boisterous spirit of the expansionists. O'Sulliuan established the Review in 1837 to foster America's "demouatft genius." By the mid-1840s, he also serued as editor of tfte New York Morning News, which he had founded with

Juture Democratic presidential eandidate Samuel J.Tilden.Tbritorial expansion became the leading issue in the 1844 election eampaign, and dfferenees ouer the annexation of Texas fueled sectional tensions.

6'.4 .a

5

&

e

-E - e :

8 7

C H A P T E R 1 2 M A N I F E S T D E S T I N Y A N D A M E R I C A N E X P A N S I O N

Q u e s t i o n s t o C o n s i d e r

1. How doesJohn O'Sullivan define "manifest destiny"?

2. According to O'Sullivan, why was Texas acquired?

3.'What does America offer the unsettled regions, especially California?

4. How do you suppose O'Sullivan would respond to the views expressed in "Tecumseh onWhite Encroachment" (Document 56) or "Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of theWorld" (Document 80)?

IT IS TIME NOW for opposition to the annexation of Texas to cease . . . Texas is now ours. Already, before these words are written, her convention has undoubtedly ratified the acceptance, by her congress, ofour proffered invi- tation into the Union; and made the requisite changes in her already republi- can form of constitution to adapt it to its future federal relations. Her star and her stripe may already be said to have taken their place in the glorious blazon of our common nationality; and the sweep of our eagle's wing already includes within its circuit the wide extent of her fair and fertile land. . . .

Why, were other reasoning wanting, in favor of now elevating this ques- tion of the reception of Texas into the Union, out of the lower region of our past parfy dissensions, up to its proper level ofa high and broad nationrlity, it surely is to be found, found abundandy, in the manner in which other nations have undertaken to intrude themselves into it, between us and the proper parties to the case, in a spirit of hostile interference against us, for the avowed object of thwarting our policy and hampering our power, limiting our greatness and checking the fulfillment of our manifest destiny to over- spread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions. . . .

The independence of Texas was complete and absolute. It was an inde- pendence, not only in fact, but of right. No obligation of duty toward Mex- ico tended in the least degree to restrain our right to effect the desired recovery of the fair province. . . . IfTexas became peopled with an American population, it was by no contrivance of our government, but on the express invitation of that of Mexico herself, accompanied with such guaranties of state independence, and the firaintenance ofa federal system andogous to our own, as constituted a compact fully justifying the strongest measures of redress on the part ofthose afterward deceived in this guaranry and sought to be enslaved under the yoke imposed by its violation.

She was released, rightfirlly and absolutely released, from all Mexican alle- giance, or duty of cohesion to the Mexican political body, by the acts and fault of Mexico herself, and Mexico alone. There never was a clearer case. It was not revolution; it was resistance to revolutidn. . . .

Nor is there any just foundation for the charge that annexation. is a great pro-slavery measurHalculated to increase and perpetuate that insdtution.

John O'Sullim,"Amcution," Unikd St4lts Magazirc and Demmatit Rniw fluly 1845):5-10.

1 9 5

87 TEXAS AND CALIFORNIA ANNEXATION (1845) 197

Slavery had nothing to do with it. Opiniorx were and are gready divided, both at the North and South, as to the influence to be exerted by it on slav- ery and the slave states. That it will tend to facilitate the disappearance of slavery from all the northern tier of the present slave states, cannot surely admit of serious qriestion. The greater value in Texas of the slave labor now employed in those states, must soon produce the effect of draining off that labor southwardly, by the same unvarying law that bids water descend the slope that invites it. . . .

The Spanish-Indian-American population of Mexico, Central America, and South America, afford the only receptacle capable of absorbing that race whenever we shall be prepared to slough it off-to emancipate it from slav- ery and (simultaneously necessary) to remove it from the midst of our own. Themselves already of mixed and confused blood, and free from the "p..Jr- dices" which among us so insuperably forbid the social amalgamation which can alone elevate the Negro race out of a virtually servile degradation. . . .

California will, probably, next fall away from the loose adhesion which, in such a country as Mexico, holds a remote province in a slight equivocal kind of dependence on the metropolis. Imbecile and distracted, Mexico never can exert any real government authority over such a country. . . .

TheAnglo-Saxon foot is already on its borders.Already the advance guard of the irresistible army of Anglo-Saxon emigration has begun to pour down upon it, armed with the plough and the rifle, and marking its trail with schools and colleges, courts and representative halls, mills and meetinghouses. A population will soon be in actual occupation of California, over which it will be idle for Mexico to dream of dominion.They will necessarily become independent. . . .

Their right to independence will be the natural right of self-government belonging to any communiry strong enough to maintain-distinct in posi- tion, origin and character, and free from any mutual obligations of member- slup of a common political body, binding it to others by the duty of loyalty and compact of public faith. This will be their title to independence; and by this tide, there can be no doubt that the population now fast streaming down upon California will both assert and maintain that independence.

Whether they will then attach themselves to our Union or not, is not to be predicted with any certainry. Unless the projected railroad across the con- tinent to the Pacific be carried into effect, perhaps they may not; though even in that case, the day is not distant when the empires of the Atlantic and Pacfic would again flow together into one, as soon as their inland border should approach each other. But that great work, colossal as appears the plan on its first suggestion, cannot remain long unbuilt.

Its necessity for this very purpose of binding and holding together in its iron clasp our fast-setding Pacific region with that of the Mississippi Val- l.y. . . . these considerations give assurance that the day cannot be distant which shall witness the conveyance of the representatives from Oregon and California to Washington within less time than a few years ago was devoted to a similar journey by those from Ohio; while the magnetic telegraph will

q '' li.:

1 9 8 CHAPTER 12 MANIFEST DESTINY AND AMERICAN EXPANSION

enable the editors of the San Francisco Union, the Astoria Euening Posf, or the Nootka Morning Neu/t to set up in ry?e the first half of the President's inau- gural before the echoes of the latter half shall have died away beneath the lofty porch of the Capitol, as spoken from his lipr. . . .

American Description of Mexican Women i n S a n t a F e ( 1 8 4 5 )

The expansion-minded spirit of manifest destiny that characteized the United States in the 1830s and 1840s contributed to growing interest in the Southwest and the Pacific Coast.American interest in New Mexico was primarily economie.Tiadersfol- Iowed the roughly 900-mile Santa FeTlailfom lndependence, Missoui, to the remote Mexican town of Santa Fe, where the exchange of goods brought enormous profts. The arriual of American merchants contributed to the inueasingly multiethnic commu- nity there. Georye W Kendall was one of those who maile the trip to Santa Fe. A newspaper editor and journalist, who had worked on ffiany of the nation's leading newspapers, Kendall had moued in 1837 to New Orleans, where he established the Times-Picayune. In 1841, he joined a Republic of Tbxas-sanetioned expedition to Santa Fe.Thefollowing selection ofers Kendall's obseruations on Mexican women. He would later report the Mexican-American War bacle to the Picaylune, becoming one of Ameim's frst war rorrespondents.

Q u e s t i o n s t o C o n s i d e r

1 . What is the historical context of this account?

2. What can you deduce from this document about 19th-century sexual mores? How do they differ from those expressed by Cotton Mather in "The Evfu of 'Self-Pollution"' (Document 1 4)?

3. What does this document tell you about 19th-century attitudes con- cerning ethnicity and gender?

. . . The dress worn by the females of Northern Mexico, in fact all over the country, is a cotton or linen chemise and a blue or red short woollen petti- coat-frequendy, among the more wedthy, the latter is made of a gaudy,69- ured merino, imported e4pressly for the purpose. These simple articles of rai- ment are usually made with no litde degree of neatness, the cher.nise, in particular, being in many cases elaborately worked with flowen and difiirent conceits, while the edges are tastefully decorated with rufles or laces, if it lies

G.W Kcnddl, Nanatiuc oJ theTlxaf, Saita Fe Erpcdilion @ristol, England, 1845),23t-236.

8 8

orm

he economic and social changes that swept antebellum America were

accompanied by a reform crusade that sought to morally revitalize the

republic. Influenced by such diverse elements as the Second Great Awak-

ening, republican ideas of liberry and the perceived decline of revolutionary

values, reformers strove to perfect American society and institutions. Although

reformers could be found throughout America, the movement was centered

in the northern states. There, a small but vocal minority agitated for an end

to slavery expanded political rights for women, reform of the penal system,

and free public education for the masses, often in the face of a hosrile audi-

ence. The following documents illustrate some of the reformers', and their

opponents', methods and goals.

11

*

Social Ref

ti I

i'

80

"Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World " (1829)

West Indian anil southern slave inswrections of the late 18th and eaily 19th centuries made elear that large numbers oJAfrican Americans resisted their position.TheJollow- ing document contains a selection fom Walkert Appeal . . . to the Coloured Citi- zens of the World. Author Dauid Walker, a free black bom in North Carolina, had traueled widely in the South and was weII reail, upecially in the classics. In 1827,he Ieft the South to settle in Boston, where he openeil a elothing business and became actiye in the Massachusetts Ceneral Colored Association. In 1829, he produced this antislauery pamphlet. The Appeal not only refuted widely held myths of the happy slave and the ignorant Afican Ameican, but it abo demanded that Afiean Ameiuns respond to their oppression. Walker\ appeal alarmed many in both the North and South; the state legislatures of Ceorgia, Viryinia, and North Carolina helil secret ses- sions to consider the pamphlet, while Boston mayor Harison Cray Otis eonilemneil Walker's yiews.Walleer's worh, which he reissued shortly before his mysterious death in 18j0, prompteil nofthern abolitionists to adopt a more agressiue stance against slavery.

1 7 7

178 C H A P T E R 1 1 S O C I A L R E F O R M

Q u e s t i o n s t o C o n s i d e r

1. How does DavidWalker describe slavery?

2. What is Walker's appeal to slaves?

3. How doWalker's views differ &om those of his white contemporaries?

4. Compare and contrast the views contained in this document with those expressed in "MexicanView of U.S. Occupation" (Document 90).What conclusions can you draw concerning mid-19th-century white Ameri- cans' views toward people of other races and cultures?

. . . [A]ll the inhabitants of the earth, (except, however, the sons ofAfrica) are called men, and of course are, and ought to be free. But we, (colored people) and our children are brutes!! and of course are, and ought to be SLAVES to the American people and their children forever!! to dig their mines and work their farms; and thus go on enriching them, from one generation to another with our blood and our tears!!!!

. . . w€, (colored people of these United States of America) are the most wretched, degraded and abject set of beings that ever lived since the world began, and that the white Americans having reduced us to the wretched state of slavery treat us in that condition more cruel (they being an enlightened and Christian people,) than any heathen nation did any people whom it had reduced to our condition. These affirmations are so well confirmed in the minds of all unprejudiced men, who have taken the trouble to read histories, that they need no elucidation from me. . . .

Do they not institute laws to prohibit us from marrying among the whites? I would wish, candidly, however, before the Lord, to be understood, that I would not give a pinch of snuff to be married to any white person I ever saw in all the days of my life. And I do say it, that the black nurn, or man of color, who will leave his own color (provided he can get one, who is good for any thing) and marry a white woman, to be a double slave to her, just be- cause she is white, ought to be treated by her as he surely will be. . . .

. . . show me a page of history either sacred or profane, on which a verse can be found, which maintains, that the Egyptians heaped the insupportable insult upon the children of Israel, by telling them that they were not of the human family. Can the whites deny the charge? Have they not, after having reduced us to the deplorable condition of slaves under their feet, held us as descending originally from the tribes of Monkeys or Orangutans? . . . So far, my brethren, were the Egyptians from heaping those insuls upon their slaves, that the Pharaoht daughter took Moses, a son of Israel for her own. . . .

They think because they hold us in their infernal chains of slavery that we wish to be white, or of their color-but they are dreadfully deceived-we wish to be just as it pleased our Creator to have made us, and no avaricious

DevidVdkcr, Walke*Appeal,ia FourArticles:Tbgethqwith a heamble to Coloured Citizcrc of theWoild @oscon, 1830),11-87.

80 "APPEAL TO THE COLOURED CITIZENS OF THE WORLD" (1829)

and unmerciful wretches, have any business to make slaves of, or hold us in slavery. How would they like for us to make slaves of, and hold them in cruel slavery, and murder them as they do to us? . . .

Fear not the number and education of our enemies, against whom we shall have to contend for our lawfrrl light; guaranteed to us by our Maker; for why should we be afraid, when God is, and will continue, (if we continue humble) to be on our side?

The man who would not fight under our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, in the Glorious and heavenly cause of freedom and of God-to be delivered from the most wretched, a$ect and servile slavery that ever a people was aflicted with since the foundation of the world, to the present day-ought to be kept with dl of his children or family, in slavery or in chains, to be butchered by his mtel enemies. . . .

I have been for years troubling the pages of historians, to find out what our fathers have done to the white Christians ofAmerica, to merit such con- dign punishment as they have in-flicted upon them, and do continue to inflict upon us their children. But I must aver, that my researches have hitherto been to no effect. I have therefore, come to the immoveable conclusion, that they (Americans) have, and do continue to punish us for nothing else, but for enriching them and their country. For I cannot conceive of anything else. Nor will I ever believe otherwise, until the Lord shall convince me. . - .

We, and the world wish to see the charges of Mr. Jefferson refuted by the blacks themselves, . . . I know well, that there are some talents and learning among the colored people of this country which we have not a chance to develop, in consequence of oppression; but our oppression ought not to hin- der us from acquiring all we can. For we will have a chance to develop them by and by. God will not suffer us, always to be oppressed. Our sufferings will come to an end, in spite of all the Americans this side of eterniry. Then we will want all the learning and talents among ourselves, and perhaps more, to govern ourselves.-"Every dog must have its day,' the American's is coming to an end.

But let us review Mr.Jefferson's remarls respecting us some further. Com- paring our miserable fathers, with the learned philosophers of Greece, he says: . . ."Epictetus,Terence and Phaedrus, were slaves,-but they were of the race of whites. It is not their condition, then, but nature, which has produced the distinction." . . . I am after those who know and feel, that we are MEN, as well as other people; to them, I say, that unless we try to refute Mr. Jeft'er- son's arguments respecting us, we will only establish them.

. . . Are we MEN!!-I ask you, O my brethren! are we MEN? Did our creator make us to be slaves to dust and ashes like ourselves? Are they not dying worms as well as we? Have they not to make their appearance before the tribunal of Heaven, to answer for the deeds done in the body, as well as we? Have we any other Master but Jesus Christ alone? Is he not their Master as well as ours?-What right then, have we to obey and call any other Mas- teq but Himself How we could be so submissive to a gang of men, whom we cannot tell whether they are as good as ourselves or not, I never could

I

i I

i

i

& ! .

&

CHAPTER 11 SOCIAL REFORM

conceive. However, this is shut up with the Lord, and we cannot precisely tell-but I declare, we judge men by their works.

The whites have always been an unjust, jealous, unmerciful, avaricious and blood-thirsty set of beings, always seeking after power and authoriry. . . .

W i l l i a m L l o y d G a r r i s o n o n S l a v e r y ( 1 8 3 1 )

William Lloyd Canison's nAtne remains synonyffious with the abolitionist mouemeflt. A natiue of Newburyport, Massachusett5 Ganison bouneed from printing job to print- ing job before workingfor Quaker abolitionist Benjamin L,rmdy on f/le Genius of Uni- versal Emancipation in Baltimore. By 1830, Carrison had left Lundy because of philosophical diferences over emancipation and set out to publkh his own newspal,et. The following selection comes Jrom Garrison\ frst issue of The Liberator, published inJanuary 1831.ln it, Canison malees clear his uncompromising uiews toward slav- ery. Two years ldter, Ganison was instrumental in ueating the New England Anti- Slavery Society. Carrison's views brought him approbation in both the North and the South; in 18j5, Boston offcials requated that he sofien his publie statements,When he refused, a mob threatened hk life and loeal oficials jailed him for his own safety. Despite these setbacks, he remaineil resolute in his convictions. His support for female membership in the society led to a split amongAmeican abolitionists in the early 1840s.

Q u e s t i o n s t o C o n s i d e r

1. Why doesWilliam Lloyd Garrison advocate emancipation and enfran- chisement of slaves?

2. Why will he be uncompromising on the issue?

3. Why would Garrisont views be seen as conftoversial in the 1830s?

4. Would Garrison agree with DavidWalker (Document 80) about the status ofAfrican Americans?

During my recent tour for the purpose of exciting the minds of the people by a series of discourses on the subject of slavery every place that I visited gave fresh evidence of the fact that a greater revolution in public sentiment was to be effected in the free states---and particularly in New England-than at the south. I found contempt more bitter, opposition more active, detrac- tion more relentless, prejudice more stubborn, and apathy more frozen, than among slave owners themselves. Of course, there were individual exceptiors to the contrary. This state of things a#licted, but did not dishearten me. I determined, at every htzard, to lift up the standard of emancipation in the

"To the Public," @oston) fie Liberato4 Jnuary 1, 1831, p. 1

8 1