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Rh latitude, and all north of that line to the Pacific Ocean. Poinsett, however, aware that a proposition to that effect would be met with scorn, forbore even to make an overture for the purchase of Texas. The opposition of the Mexicans to all arrangements leading to the loss of national territory became more intensified from year to year. There were not wanting, nevertheless, representative men in Mexico willing to accede to the annexation of Texas to the United States rather than to see her an independent country, or under the control of England; for if a nation, other states of Mexico would unite with it willingly or by conquest; and if anywise connected with England, goods from the latter country would be smuggled through Texas into Mexico, to the ruin of Mexican manufactures and revenue. But the feeling finally culminated into a question not only of national pride, but of actual fear of the consequences that the alienation of Texas would entail.

The Texan colonists had, however, from the earliest times desired to unite with the northern republic, a feeling which became intensified after their declared independence from Mexico. The slave-holders of the American southern states wanted no independent state there forming a barrier to the advance of their favorite institution. The Texans, on their side, in order to stimulate the desire of the slave-holders for annexation, a few days after declaring their independence, inserted in their constitution a clause giving the rights of citizenship to all white emigrants after a residence of only six months, and authorizing them to bring in their slaves, at the same time that the importation of slaves, except from the United States, was strictly forbidden. Free negroes and mulattoes