The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 7, July 1903 - April, 1904 Page: 181
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Adjustment of the Texas Boundary in 1850. 181
failed to fix the boundary through diplomatic channels, the United \
States was "functus officio as to the power she had reserved" in an-
nexing Texas, and her obligation under the constitution "to protect
Texas to the full extent of her asserted boundary, became single.
and absolute."
The invasion of the disputed territory by armed forces from be-
yond the Rio Grande precipitated the war with Mexico. In a mes-
sage invoking the action of Congress to recognize a state of war
and to grant means for prosecuting it, President Polk declared that
Mexico had invaded our territory, and "shed American blood upon ~
American soil." Authoritative action immediately prevailed in -
congress over the opposition of the Whigs, led by Clay, Corwin, and
Webster, who protested that the war was wantonly started to despoil
a weaker nation and to obtain by conquest, under the plea of in-.f
demnity, territory for the expansion of Southern interest. The
"Spot Resolutions" introduced by Abraham Lincoln, then a member
of the house of representatives, requiring the president to locate the N
spot where American blood had been shed, and to inform the house
whether the "citizens" referred to in his message had not been
armed soldiers, were but a covert insinuation that a collision bad
been designedly provoked for the purpose of commencing a war. ,
The earnest and eloquent protest of Senator Corwin against the
policy and continuance of the war added a classic to American
oratory, but it did not prevent Congress from voting supplies.
In 1846, a bill being before Congress on the recommendation of
the president for an appropriation of three millions of dollars to
conclude a treaty of peace, Wilmot of Pennsylvania threatened the
further expansion of slavery by introducing as an amendment to
the bill his famous proviso. The amended bill passed the house.
but the proviso was stricken out in the senate, and the original bill/
passed both branches of congress.
The treaty of peace, signed at Guadalupe Hidalgo, making the "
Rio Grande from near El Paso to the Gulf the boundary, and ced-
ing New Mexico and California to the United States, again brought
to the front the question involved in the Wilmot proviso. Its /
agitation excited sectional apprehension and feeling so intensely,
that nearly every subject of congressional action was drawn into
the "great and dangerous maelstrom of African slavery." The \
annexation of Texas had restored the equilibrium between the two
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Texas State Historical Association. The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 7, July 1903 - April, 1904, periodical, 1904; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101030/m1/185/: accessed March 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.