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HENRY CLAY: THE GREAT COMPROMISER, PART IV

© John S. Cooper

As the election of 1844 approached, it seemed obvious to everyone that the candidates would be Henry Clay for the Whigs and former President Martin Van Buren for the Democrats. The main issue of the election would be territorial expansion and, more immediately, the annexation of Texas. Both candidates, seeking to compromise the opposing positions of the northern and southern wings of their parties, wanted to avoid the Texas issue. The two men met at Ashland, Clay’s Kentucky estate, and agreed not to bring up the Texas issue during the campaign.

Southerners talked about the “re-annexation of Texas” which they claimed had been part of the Louisiana Purchase, and had been foolishly traded away for Florida in 1819. They wanted Texas “restored” to its proper place in the Union as soon as possible. Texas had become an independent republic in 1836 after winning its struggle against Mexico. Although Texas was eager to join the Union, Mexico still claimed Texas, and any move to annex Texas would probably lead to war. Also, many in the North were not all that anxious to add a large slave territory to the United States.

Both Clay and Van Buren announced their opposition to any immediate annexation of Texas. This might have avoided the Texas issue, and the slavery issue it was bound to raise, but for President John Tyler’s “Texas bombshell.” Tyler, an ardent expansionist, submitted to the Senate a treaty of annexation, accompanied by Secretary of State John Calhoun’s vigorous defense of slavery, making the Texas issue the center of the campaign.

Clay won the Whig nomination by acclamation. Van Buren, however, was defeated for the Democratic nomination by James K. Polk. Van Buren’s refusal to support Texas had cost him important southern support, including that of former President Andrew Jackson, still a power in the party. Jackson and others threw their support to Polk, a former Congressman, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and former Governor of Tennessee, who strongly favored expansion. This made the Ashland agreement meaningless.

Polk came out strongly for annexation. He also tied Texas to the Oregon issue. The Oregon Territory had been jointly occupied by Great Britain and the United States. The United States had announced its intention to end the treaty and to divide the territory. Great Britain had announced that it intended to keep the entire territory. The Democratic platform included a plank which stated: “That our title to the whole of the Territory of Oregon is clear and unquestionable; that no portion of the same ought to be ceded to England or any other power, and that the reoccupation of Oregon and the reannexation of Texas at the earliest practicable period, are great American measures, which this convention recommends to the cordial support of the democracy of the Union.”

Henry Clay (1777-1852)

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