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Rh In the Matamoras expedition the Texan forces were severely crippled on account of a quarrel between Governor Smith, who desired independence, and the majority of his council, who favoured union with the Mexican Liberals. The command was divided between Houston, who was supported by the governor, and two leaders, Frank W. Johnson and J. W. Fannin, who were appointed by the council. The Mexicans under Santa Anna captured the Alamo on the 6th of March 1836 and slaughtered its garrison of 183 men; on the 20th of the same month they captured Fannin and his force of 371 men, and a week later slaughtered all except twenty who escaped. Houston now assumed active command and, surprising Santa Anna near the San Jacinto, on the 21st of April, he dealt h the enemy a crushing blow and brought the war to an end; nearly all of Santa Anna's army were killed, wounded or taken prisoners, and even Santa Anna himself was captured the next day, while the Texans lost only two killed and twenty-three wounded. The weakness of the Mexican Liberals and the necessity of securing aid in the States led the Austin party to abandon their opposition to independence. A convention, assembled in the town of Washington on the 1st of March, adopted a declaration of independence on the 2nd and a republican constitution on the 17th. Houston was elected president in September 1836, and the independence of the republic was recognized in 1837 by the United States, Great Britain, France and Belgium. After a long conflict over the slavery question, the state was admitted into the Union under a joint resolution of Congress adopted on the 1st of March 1845, on condition that the United States should settle all questions of boundary with foreign governments, that Texas should retain all of its vacant and unappropriated public lands, and that new states, not exceeding four in number, might be formed within its limits. The western boundary claimed by the republic was the Rio Grande to its source and the meridian of longitude from that point to the forty-second parallel, although as a political division of Mexico its limits never extended farther west than the Nueces and the Medina. The United States government asserted the Rio Grande claim and prepared to enforce it at the cost of war; at the same time the Mexican government considered annexation, regardless of the boundary question, a declaration of war by the United States. An army of 2000 men under (q.v.) arrived on the north bank of the Rio Grande, opposite Matamoras, on the 28th of March 1846. The Mexican commander, Pedro de Ampudia, demanded Taylor's withdrawal beyond the Nueces within twenty-four hours. He did not obey, and Mariana Arista, Ampudia's successor, opened hostilities. The Americans, outnumbered three to one, defeated the Mexicans in the battles of Palo Alto (May 8th) and Resaca de la Palma (May 9th). The War terminated in the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (February 2, 1848) by which Mexico accepted the Rio Grande boundary. By the Compromise of 1850 Texas received $10,000,000 for its territory lying north and west of a line drawn from the 100th meridian to the Rio Grande, following 36° 30' N., 103° W. and 32° N. The final step in the determination of the present boundaries of the state was taken in 1896, when the Supreme Court of the United States decided the Greer county case. Under the Florida treaty of 1819-21 a portion of the Red river was to be the northern boundary of Texas east of the 100th meridian, but as there are two branches of the river meeting east of the meridian the enclosed territory (Greer county) was in dispute. The decision of 1896 selected the southern branch and thus deprived Texas of a large tract of fertile land over which it had previously exercised jurisdiction.

In the crisis of 1860-61 Texas sided with the other Southern States in spite of the strong Unionist influence exerted by the German settlers and by Governor Sam Houston. An ordinance of secession was adopted February 1, 1861, and Governor Houston was deposed from office on March 16th. The state was never the scene of active military operations during the

Civil War (1861-65), although it is interesting to note that the last battle of the conflict was fought on its soil, at Palmito, near Palo Alto, on the 13th of May 1865, more than a month after the surrender at Appomattox. In conformity with President Johnson's plan of reconstruction, a constitution recognizing the abolition of slavery, renouncing the right of secession, and repudiating the war debt was adopted in 1866, and J. W. Throckmorton, Unionist Democrat, was elected governor. When, in 1867, the Congressional plan of reconstruction was substituted, Texas was joined to Louisiana to constitute the fifth military district, and the first commander, General P. H. Sheridan, removed Throckmorton from office as “an impediment to reconstruction” and appointed E. M. Pease in his place. Delegates to a new constitutional convention were elected in 1868, the constitution framed by this body was ratified in November 1869, state officers and congressmen were elected the same day, the new legislature ratified the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments, and on the 30th of March 1870 Texas was readmitted to the Union. But the state remained under the rule of negroes and carpet-baggers, supported by United States troops until the inauguration of Governor Richard Coke in 1874. It has since been consistently Democratic. The supremacy of the party was threatened for a time by the growth of Populism, but the danger was avoided by the acceptance of free silver, and the partial adoption of the Populist local programme. This surrender aroused strong opposition among the conservative or Cleveland Democrats, which culminated in the Hogg-Clark gubernatorial campaign of 1892. The victory of the Radicals resulted in the establishment of a railway rate commission, based upon a constitutional amendment of 1890 and a statute of 1891, the passage of an alien land law in 1891, which was declared unconstitutional and amended in 1892, the adoption of the Australian ballot system for cities and towns of more than 10,000 inhabitants (1892), the retirement of Roger Q. Mills from the United States Senate (1899) and the sending of free silver delegations to the national conventions of 1896 and 1900.