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Rh struction to Congress to create a new United States Bank. There was still opposition enough in the Senate to render it doubtful whether another annexation treaty would obtain the necessary two thirds vote. The expedient was therefore adopted of annexing Texas by joint resolution, which required only a simple majority of each house. On January 25 a resolution annexing Texas passed the House of Representatives, with an amendment, championed by Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, that, in such state or states as should be formed out of the Territory of Texas north of the Missouri compromise line of 36° 30′, slavery should be prohibited, the formation of four Slave States being contemplated south of that line. All the Whigs, with the exception of eight from the South, voted against the resolution.

In the Senate it found opposition from those who insisted that foreign territory could not be constitutionally incorporated with the United States except by treaty. It would probably have been defeated, had not Walker of Mississippi offered, as an amendment, an addition to the resolution giving the President the option between submitting to the Texan government the joint resolution for its acceptance, or beginning new negotiations for an annexation treaty. Five of those who thought the original resolution unconstitutional accepted Walker's amendment, thus authorizing the President to violate the Constitution or not, as he might think most convenient. One of the five was Benton,