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324 were required to leave the country within a short time, under penalty of being reduced to bondage.

The slave-holders, whose representative man at that time was Thomas H. Benton, senator from Missouri, thought of forming nine slave states out of Texas alone. But the Texans wanted to allure them with the prospect of a larger accession; and with that end in view, on the 19th of December, 1836, voted themselves the territory lying between the United States and the Rio Grande, from its source to its mouth. The option of an independent nationality, or the consecration of that large domain to slavery through annexation to the United States, was submitted to the popular vote, and was decided in favor of the latter by 3,279 votes against 91. The slaveholders in the United States kept themselves well informed on these movements, and showed their alacrity to meet such manifestations half-way.

President Jackson despatched an agent to Texas to