ANNEXATION BY JOINT RESOLUTION.
Until the refusal of the Senate to ratify Mr. Tyler's treaty, no other mode of annexation than by treaty had been imagined. Texas claimed to be an independent nation, and had been acknowledged as such by the United States, France, and Great Britain. But contracts between independent nations are treaties, and the constitution in- trusts the power of making treaties to the President and two-thirds of the Senate. Of all contracts between two nations, none can be more important and solemn than that which surrenders the sovereignty and domains of the one to the other. All the territory which had been added to the United States, had been acquired by treaty. Hence, when Texas contemplated annexation, she proposed doing it by treaty ; and Messrs. Tyler, Upshur, and Calhoun, all concurred at a later date in inviting Texas to enter the confederacy by the operation of a treaty. But the slave- holders were reminded by the recent occurrences, that it required a majority of two-thirds of the Senate to annex a foreign territory in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution ; and that, as half of the Senators repre- sented free States, such a majority Avas at present unat- tainable. Necessity is the mother of invention ; and the truth of the aphorism now received a remarkable illustration. It was suddenly discovered, that what could not be effected by treaty, could as well be performed by a joint resolution of the two houses of Congress. Such a reso- lution required only a bare majority in each branch. In this way treaties for the future, might be dispensed with whenever the Senate was found uncomplying ; and the foreign intercourse of the nation might be regulated, dis puted boundaries settled, and even the conditions of peace determined, by joint resolution. To whom is to be attri- buted this ingenious device for setting aside the Constitution, smothering the oaths taken to support it, and usurping