Seeds of Empire: Cotton, Slavery, and the Transformation of the Texas Borderlands, 1800-1850 (The David J. Weber Series in the New Borderlands History)

by Andrew J. Torget

Tyler and Van Zandt had long discussed various fallback measures if the U.S. Senate failed to ratify the 1844 treaty, and they agreed to attempt to push a joint resolution for annexation through the U.S. Congress. An unprecedented method (and therefore legally questionable), a joint resolution would require only a bare majority in both houses rather than the clearly impossible two-thirds majority in the Senate. The U.S. Congress took up the matter when it reconvened in early 1845, and the House of Representatives passed the resolution on January 25, 1845, by a vote of 120 to 98. The wisdom of a joint resolution became apparent on February 27, 1845, when the U.S. Senate approved the measure by a razor-thin margin: 27 to 25. President Tyler wasted no time, signing the resolution on March 1 and sending an urgent dispatch to the Republic of Texas. The United States had, finally, approved annexation—it was now up to the people of Texas to decide if they would accept.