No time was lost by Mr. Tyler in making the choice offered to him by the joint resolutions. On the 3rd March, a few hours before his term of office expired, he despatched a messenger to the American agent in Texas, with a letter from Mr, Calhoun, instructing him to propose the resolution of annexation to the acceptance of the Texan Government, very sensibly objecting to annexation by treaty, because a treaty " must be submitted to the Senate for its ratification, and run the hazard of re- ceiving the votes of two- thirds of the members present, which could hardly be expected if we are to judge from recent ex2)erience.'''^ On the 4th July, Texas consented to * The late Chancellor Kent, of New York, was at this time unquestionably the most eminent Jurist in America. He thus wrote to a member of Congress :—" I acknowledge your speech t)f January last on the Annexation of Texas. I have perused it with much satisfaction ; and I deem it perfectly conclusive, that the Annexation of Texas, by concurrent, resolution of Congress, was unwarrantable, and a usurpation of the treaty-vialdng pojver in every view, violent, unjust, unconstitutional, and most perR'cions and unprincipled, and will lead to the ruin of the Union."
be annexed, and the 22nd of the ensuing December, she was formally received as a State into the Federal Union.
Independent of the violence done to the cause of mor- ality in the mode by which annexation was effected, and in the motive by which it Tvas prompted, the measure it- self was a gross and palpable violation of the neutral ob- ligations of the United States. It is freely admitted that Texas was at the time an independent State, and as such bad a right to forhi a union with the Federal Republic. But Texas was at war with Mexico ; and we have seen that Mr. Tyler not merely acknowledged the existence of the war, but, after his Treaty of Annexation had been rejected, officially remonstrated with Mexico on the bar- barous manner in which that power intended to prosecute hostilities. It is impossible to deny that a neutral nation, forming an alliance offensive and defensive with another