Book Review: Joel H. Silbey, Storm Over Texas: The Annexation Controversy and the Road to the Civil War

As part of remembering Treason in Defense of Slavery Month, I will be reviewing some of the recent literature on the Civil War and related issues, including Southern identity, Reconstruction, and slavery.

I want to start this little series by discussing Joel H. Silbey's 2005 excellent work, Storm over Texas: The Annexation Controversy and the Road to the Civil War. This is one of the best books on antebellum politics I have read in a long time. Silbey asks a straightforward question: What role did Texas annexation have in propelling the nation to Civil War. The answer: A lot.

I'm not sure that there's a lot that is particularly new in Storm over Texas. But what Silbey provides is a well-written narrative of how the annexation controversy destroyed the Second Party System and allowed sectionalism to dominate American politics.

Before 1840, American politics were exceptionally partisan. Party concerns predominated while sectional concerns were kept under the rug. This was promoted by leading Democrats, especially Martin Van Buren. How long could have this continued? How long could slavery not dominate American politics? It would have destroyed the nation eventually, but a few unfortunate events in the 1840s allowed it to pop up earlier.

Texas became independent in 1836, as part of the first Treason in Defense of Slavery act. Anglo Texans, invited into Mexico to protect the nation's heartlands from Comanches and U.S. expansion were told they could have land if they became Catholic and did not bring in their slaves. Of course, Mexico in the 1820s was a remarkably weak nation and had very little day to day control over its northern territories. Thus, Texans agreed to these stipulations and then ignored them. When General Santa Anna took over Mexico and became the first strong ruler in that nation's short history, he looked to crackdown on Texan slavery. The Texans, who wanted to be part of the United States and who saw Texas as a natural extension for their cotton economy based upon slave labor, revolted. While the Texans defeated these pro-slavery traitors at the Alamo, they lost the war overall when the Texans captured Santa Anna. The Texans now assumed the United States would welcome them with open arms. However, Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren saw the danger in acquiring Texas and put the question off for several years. They feared the effect Texas would have on national politics and the balance of power in the Senate.

In 1840, the Whig William Henry Harrison won the presidency. Harrison did not have particularly strong feelings on the slavery issue. He likely would have left the question lie if he could. But only a month into his presidency, Harrison died of pneumonia he got at his inauguration. Vice-President John Tyler took over. Tyler was not popular among Whigs. He was only on the ticket so that the Whigs could expand their vote among southerners who hated Jackson. Tyler, from Virginia, was soon excommunicated by the Whigs as he agreed with them on almost nothing. Tyler, who hated the Jacksonians and the Whigs, looked for a base that he could build political capital on. He found that among sectionalist Southerners who did not have a political home in either party. Tyler looked at acquiring Texas as the best way he could be elected to the presidency in 1844. Thus, he named John C. Calhoun to be Secretary of State. Calhoun began to berate British ambassador to the United States Richard Packenham on the benefits of slavery and telling Britain to stay out of Texas. When Calhoun's correspondence was revealed to the nation, the sectional crisis began to bubble over. The small antislavery camp began to grow in the North; in response, Southerners began to feel that slavery was under attack and that it was in their interests to organize sectionally rather than along the old party lines.

All of this began to erode the Second Party System. Silbey goes into detail into how these issues split the New York Democratic Party, particularly after the Wilmot Proviso of 1846. The election of James K. Polk ensured the annexation of Texas early in 1845. Polk then went on to instigate a war with Mexico, a war that allowed the United States to steal the northern half of that nation. Many northerners were furious at the war, leading to the Wilmot Proviso and the fear that the nation would collapse over whether the new territories would be slave or free. Henry Clay managed to piece the nation back together through the Compromise of 1850. But these sectional demons could never be completely put away. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 brought them all back to the forefront and by then Clay was dead. The Whigs collapsed and the Republican Party formed in 1854, running John C. Frémont for president in 1856. The Democrats could have stayed in power for a very long time but sectional rivalries and increasingly belligerent South meant that even Stephen A. Douglas was not an acceptable candidate for half the party in 1860. The Democrats split apart, Abraham Lincoln was elected president, South Carolina seceded to protect slavery, and the Civil War began.

What I really took from Silbey is how dominant the slavery issue was in starting the Civil War. Confederate apologists always underplay slavery's role, but they are telling half-truths at best. Texas was about slavery, from their secession from Mexico in 1835 through the Mexican War in 1848. The fanatical pro-slavery Texans helped pull the nation away from the compromise of the Second Party System and to sectional rivalries that destroyed the nation in 1861. Joel Silbey's work tells this story in a convincing way and is well worth reading for anyone interested in these issues.

Also, I recommend reading this review of the book in the greatest review journal in the field of history, Reviews in American History.