Note 9 — INDEX

Footnote 9: In an address to his constituents in September, 1842, Mr. Adams spoke of his course concerning Texas. Having mentioned Mr. Van Buren's reply, declining the formal proposition made in 1837 by the Republic of Texas for annexation to the United States, he continued: "But the slave-breeding passion for the annexation was not to be so disconcerted. At the ensuing session of Congress numerous petitions and memorials for and against the annexation were presented to the House, ... and were referred to the Committee of Foreign Affairs, who, without ever taking them into consideration, towards the close of the session asked to be discharged from the consideration of them all. It was on this report that the debate arose, in which I disclosed the whole system of duplicity and perfidy towards Mexico, which had marked the Jackson Administration from its commencement to its close. It silenced the clamors for the annexation of Texas to this Union for three years till the catastrophe of the Van Buren Administration. The people of the free States were lulled into the belief that the whole project was abandoned, and that they should hear no more of slave-trade cravings for the annexation of Texas. Had Harrison lived they would have heard no more of them to this day, but no sooner was John Tyler installed in the President's House than nullification and Texas and war with Mexico rose again upon the surface, with eye steadily fixed upon the Polar Star of Southern slave-dealing supremacy in the government of the Union."(back)