Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/207

Rh exciting questions, before partially settled, became unsettled. When, at last, in March, 1845, just at the close of President Tyler's term, Texas was proffered terms of proposed union, among the objections of the opposers, that of the increase of slave territory was prominent. On this Webster planted himself; and during the debate uttered that memorable foreboding, framed in the words of the Hebrew prophet (Hos. vii. 9), as to the premature old age of Ephraim, as the representative of the divided kingdom of Israel; exclaiming, as he pictured what he regarded the weakness of the American Union—" Yea, gray hairs are here and there upon her, and she knoweth it not." Yet more, the annexation brought new Indian tribes bordering on Texas, before a virtual part of the constituency of the Mexican States, into a relation new to them, as wards of the Anglo-Saxon Republic. Most of all, difficulties before existing with the Mexican Government were magnified by Texan annexation; so that the flames of open hostility broke out.

For an entire year before Houston entered the United States Senate virtual annexation, under President Polk, had existed. As a Representative from Tennessee, entering the House in 1824, one year later than Houston, Mr. Polk, among the most decided of opponents of internal improvements, of a protective tariff, and of restriction of slave territory, had been elected specially as an advocate of Texan annexation in its bearings on the questions then dividing political parties. The issue of extended slave territory was settled for a time when Texas was annexed; but it lived in memory, and would come up again in discussion when other issues, resulting from annexation, arose. The new Indian relations, since they were local, affecting chiefly the people of the new State, and calling for the intervention only of the regular army, awakened very limited popular interest. The vital issue was a threatened war with Mexico, which called forth discussion throughout all the States, since volunteers, as well as regular troops, were demanded to meet the exigency. At this juncture Gen. Z. Taylor, who proved to be successor to Mr. Polk in the Presidency, and who since 1812 had risen in esteem as a soldier and commander on the western and southern frontier, especially in Indian wars, was in Arkansas. On-the 28th May, 1845, he had received instructions from the War Department, then presided over by Gov. Wm. L. Marcy, "that Texas would shortly accede to the terms of annexation," and was ordered to collect and dispose the troops in the Southwest, so as to be in readiness to protect the border from " foreign invasion and Indian incursions." In March, 1846, he was ordered to