BOOK SECOND.

EPOCHS OF NATIONALITY, WAR AND GREATNESS.

CHAPTER XXIII.

We have now arrived at the beginnings of the most seri ous complications in which the United States was involved between the treaty of Ghent and the outbreak of the Civil War. The flux of Anglo-American civilization westward brought the vanguard of our American race at length to the borders of Mexico, and with that Hispanio-American power we were now to be involved in a brief but severe conflict for the possession of the imperial territories stretching from Missouri to the Pacific Ocean.

The agitation, upon an account of which we are here to enter, arose respecting the republic of Texas. That great State, if State it might be called, lying between Louisiana and Mexico had been from 1821 to 1836 a province of the latter republic. It had been the policy of Spain aforetime, while Mexico flourished and the United States grew apace, to keep Texas unpeopled; for by this policy it was possible to interpose an impassable barrier between the aggressive American race and the Mexican borders. This method of checking the expansion of the United States on the southwest was taken up by Mexico after the achievement of her independence in 1821, and Texas remained as beforean unpeopled empire.

At length, however, Moses Austin, of Connecticut, obtained a large land grant on condition that he should estab lish a colony of three hundred American families within Vol. III.-3 33

the limits of his Texan domain. This grant was confirmed to his son Stephen Austin, with the enlarged privilege of establishing five hundred families of immigrants. These charters were obtained from the government of Mexico, and between the years of 1820 and 1833 the American settlements in Texas had become so strong and well established as to furnish the nucleus of the Texan rebellion against the government of Mexico. That government had become oppressive, and held in its methods all the vices which have characterized the Spaniards and Spanish-Americans in the attempted establishment of free institutions.

Against such methods the Texans, already enjoying a sort of semi-independence, took up arms in the year 1835 and rallied in a general rebellion. War broke out between the parent State and the revolted province. Hereupon many adventurers and some heroes from the United States came hurrying to the scene of action and espoused the Texan cause. The first battle of the war was fought at Gonzales, and here a Mexican army numbering about a thousand was defeated by a Texan force of half the number. On the 6th of March, 1836, the old Texan fort of the Alamo de Bexar, near San Antonio, was surrounded by the Mexicans, eight thousand strong, under command of Santa Anna, President of Mexico. The garrison, though feeble in numbers, made a heroic defense, but was overpowered and massacred under circumstances of great atrocity. Here it was that the daring David Crockett, an ex-Congressman of Tennessee and a famous hunter of beasts and men, was killed. In the following month was fought the decisive battle of San Jacinto, in which the small American army, commanded by General Sam Houston, annihilated the host of Santa Anna and achieved the freedom of Texas at a blow. The independence of the new State was acknowledged by the United States, by Great Britain and by France, and Mexico was

obliged to yield. Texas became an independent republic and a government was organized on the model of that of the United States.

It soon appeared, however, that the movement for Texan independence had been inspired by the ulterior motive of gaining admission into the American Union. No sooner had the Texans gained their independence than they began to make petition for a place as a State in our republic. The first application of this kind was made during the administration of Van Buren; but the President, fearing a war with Mexico, declined to entertain the proposal. For four or five years the question lay dormant, but by no means dead. In the last year of Tyler's administration it sprang up more vital than ever. The population of Texas had by this time reached more than two hundred thousand soulsThe Territory had an area of two hundred and sixty-six thousand square miles, nearly six times more than Pennsylvania! It was like the annexation of an empire.

Immediately the question of annexing Texas to the American Union became political. It was indeed the great question on which the people divided in the presidential election of 1844. Nor will the thoughtful reader, nearing the close of the century, fail to discern in this old question of annexation the profound problem of slavery. Freedom in the free States had found a vent in the northwest, looking even beyond the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific; but slavery and the slave States seemed to be hampered on the southwest. Would not Texas open to the " peculiar institution" a field as broad and promising as that possessed by the Northern States? Could not the equipoise between the two parts of the Union be thus maintained?

In these questions and through them we may discover the bottom reason why the people of the South for the most part favored the annexation of Texas, and why the

proposition was received so coldly in the North. Again, the project was favored by the Democrats and opposed by the Whigs; so that here we have the beginning of that sectionalism in party politics which has not yet disappeared from the nation.

In the presidential contest of 1844 the two parties were nearly equally matched in strength. For this reason, and for the exciting nature of the issues involved, the contest surpassed in vehemence anything which had hitherto been known in American history. James K. Polk, of Tennessee, was nominated as the Democratic candidate, while the Whigs chose their favorite leader Henry Clay. The former was elected. Though the fame of the latter and his idolatry by the Whig party were unabated, yet his hope of reaching the Presidency was forever eclipsed. As VicePresident George M. Dallas, of Pennsylvania, was chosen.

An incident of another kind belonging to these days is worthy of special note. On the 29th of May, 1844, the news of the nomination of Polk was transmitted from Baltimore to Washington City by the magnetic telegraph. It was the first dispatch of such kind ever sent by man, and the event marks an era in the history of civilization. The inventor of the telegraph, which was destined to revolutionize the method of the rapid transmission of information and to introduce a new epoch in history, was Professor Samuel F. B. Morse, of Massachusetts. The magnetic principle on which the telegraph depends for its efficiency had been known to scientific men since 1774; but Professor Morse was the first to put the great discovery into the form of invention. He began his experiments in 1832, and wrought at the problem for five years before he obtained his first patent. He had in the meantime to contend with every species of prejudice and ignorance which the low grade of human intelligence could produce. After the issuance of the patent there was