Page:Life of Henry Clay (Schurz; v. 2).djvu/250

240 tion with whom the United States were at peace; that, therefore, he (Murphy) had gone too far in his promises; but that the President was “not indisposed to concentrate in the Gulf of Mexico and on the southern borders of the United States a naval and military force to be directed to the defense of the inhabitants and territory of Texas, at a proper time.”

Tyler offered the secretaryship of state to Calhoun, who accepted it, declaring that he would resign as soon as the annexation of Texas should be accomplished. He entered upon his duties on March 29, 1844. The following day the Texan envoy, Henderson, arrived at Washington. Nothing stood in the way of the conclusion of the treaty but the question whether the United States would protect Texas during the pendency of the treaty before its final consummation. Calhoun's constitutional conscience was troubled, but he finally replied that the concentration of the naval and military forces promised by Murphy and Nelson would be made, and that the President, during the pendency of the treaty of annexation, “would deem it his duty to use all the means placed within his power by the Constitution to protect Texas from all foreign invasion.” This was an equivocation. Calhoun knew that, Congress alone possessing the power to declare war, the means placed by the Constitution within the power of the President were not the means required for protecting a foreign state from invasion. He knew that the Ex-