Texas Woman

AUTHOR’S NOTE

On July 4, 1845, the Texas Congress voted at Washington-on-the-Brazos to accept the American offer of annexation and to begin work on a state constitution. Of the men who drafted the Texas constitution, only one was born in Texas. Eighteen writers came from Tennessee, eight from Virginia, seven from Georgia, six from Kentucky, and five from North Carolina. The constitution was approved, along with annexation, by a vote of 4000 to 200 on October 13, 1845.

Texas entered the Union on December 29, 1845, when American President James Knox Polk signed the annexation proposal. The actual transfer of power from the officers of the Republic to the state’s new leaders didn’t occur until a ceremony held on February 19, 1846.

Before the annexation treaty was even ratified, President Polk sent General Zachary Taylor to Texas with a small army from the United States. It was not a wasted effort. As predicted, Mexico and Texas went to war. In fact, hostilities had commenced by April 1846.

By the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, ratified in July 1848, the United States made peace with Mexico. For $15 million and an agreement to assume all Mexican debts, the United States purchased from Mexico the areas now comprising California, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, Wyoming, and a part of Colorado, and Mexico relinquished all claims to Texas, with its boundary set, as it is today, at the Rio Grande.