Even though the tin says a Texas Timeline, other countries are unfortunately required to contextualize (contexastualize?) the goings-ons of the Republic. And so we start a side-narrative looking into the affairs of its neighbor to the North, exploring the buildup to and aftermath of the Mexican War.
Part Eight
Feet of Clay
Henry Clay was elected to the Presidency during a tumultuous period of American history. The United States had not even truly begun to incorporate the territory of the Louisiana Purchase when President Clay settled the ownership of the smaller, but still significant, Oregon Territory. Any new acquisition of territory was contentious because of the Missouri Compromise, which had helped keep order between the slave and free states since its passage in 1820. The most important term of the Compromise was that, barring the state of Missouri, slavery would be prohibited above the parallel 36°30' north. But throughout the 40s several new free states had been admitted, with more to come in both the Louisiana and Oregon territories, all without a growth of slave states sufficient to maintain parity. And now the Iowa territory was knocking on statehood's door. The South had grown restless. Though many still eyed Mexico’s northernmost territories, especially California, there was as of yet no clear path to their acquisition. By the time the rest of the Louisiana Purchase states were admitted, free states would easily outnumber slave states, even before considering the Oregon Territory.
Clay began his term during this era of heightened tension, and immediately set out to shape a solution to mollify the restive slave states. However, it was difficult to find a position that in any real way constituted a compromise. There simply was no territory to carve new states out of below the compromise line. A new Fugitive Slave Act was proposed, but was insufficient to soothe the South. It was Mississippi Senator Robert J. Walker who first noted there was territory below the compromise line - Indian Territory.
"Who haven't we harassed enough? INDIANS!"
“Upon the south, the line of division is bounded by the great southwestern Indian territory. This is one of the most salubrious and fertile portions of this continent; it is a great cotton growing region, admirably adapted by soil and climate for the products of the south. It ought speedily to become a state of the American Union; the Indian treaties will constitute no obstacle any more than precisely similar treaties did in the past; for their lands, valueless to them, now for sale, but which, sold with their consent and for their benefit, would make them a most wealthy and prosperous people; and their consent, on these terms, would be most cheerfully given. This territory contains double the area of the state of Indiana, and, if necessary, an adequate portion of the western and more elevated part could be set apart exclusively for these tribes, and the eastern and larger portion be formed into a state, and its lands sold for the benefit of these tribes, thus greatly promoting all their interests..."
-Floor Speech of Senator Walker of Mississippi, 1846
Senator Walker’s idea gained traction amongst his Congressional colleagues, and later from a source that might have been unexpected - the Indians themselves. Specifically, the Five Civilized Tribes (Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole) who at this point controlled the vast majority of the Indian Territory, and many of whom themselves owned slaves. Ambassadors from these tribes spoke privately to Southern Congressmen about their adherence to the peculiar institution and the cultural traits they had adopted from their original homes in the American South (artfully failing to bring up how they had been expelled from those homes). These tribes not only wanted to ensure that they were not again expelled from their lands, but also desired the creation of a state that they would dominate, and which would have the benefit of protection from the Southern states due to the slavery issue. Before long, a consensus had begun to form - the entire Indian Territory would be admitted as a state (in order to placate the Northerners, who didn’t want to allow the largely empty territory to be eventually made into two slave states) at the same time as Iowa, the new Fugitive Slave Act would be passed, and there would be no Congressional challenge to the Missouri Compromise line. Many in his own party attacked Clay as weak for granting the South concessions in return for otherwise maintaining the status quo, but the President held down the furor with private reassurances that soon new free states would be admitted, more than balancing out the new slave state, and eventually making it safe to repeal to new Fugitive Slave Act. Thus it was that in late 1846 the United States flag added its 28th and 29th stars. The name for the new state was suggested to Senator Walker by a young aide named George Willing, a self-professed expert in Indian languages. The ambassadors of the Five Civilized Tribes were nonplussed to find their new state named after a word they had never heard of, but were unwilling to make a fuss. Indians and Americans both were on hand for the official flag raising, and a new name entered the lexicons of all assembled: Idaho!
But soon, another name would distract the nation from their new state: Cassius, an unlettered slave whose lawsuit would overturn the fragile balance of free/slave state power...
♫ Twenty nine pretty fine United States ♫
Part Eight
Feet of Clay
Henry Clay was elected to the Presidency during a tumultuous period of American history. The United States had not even truly begun to incorporate the territory of the Louisiana Purchase when President Clay settled the ownership of the smaller, but still significant, Oregon Territory. Any new acquisition of territory was contentious because of the Missouri Compromise, which had helped keep order between the slave and free states since its passage in 1820. The most important term of the Compromise was that, barring the state of Missouri, slavery would be prohibited above the parallel 36°30' north. But throughout the 40s several new free states had been admitted, with more to come in both the Louisiana and Oregon territories, all without a growth of slave states sufficient to maintain parity. And now the Iowa territory was knocking on statehood's door. The South had grown restless. Though many still eyed Mexico’s northernmost territories, especially California, there was as of yet no clear path to their acquisition. By the time the rest of the Louisiana Purchase states were admitted, free states would easily outnumber slave states, even before considering the Oregon Territory.
Clay began his term during this era of heightened tension, and immediately set out to shape a solution to mollify the restive slave states. However, it was difficult to find a position that in any real way constituted a compromise. There simply was no territory to carve new states out of below the compromise line. A new Fugitive Slave Act was proposed, but was insufficient to soothe the South. It was Mississippi Senator Robert J. Walker who first noted there was territory below the compromise line - Indian Territory.
"Who haven't we harassed enough? INDIANS!"
“Upon the south, the line of division is bounded by the great southwestern Indian territory. This is one of the most salubrious and fertile portions of this continent; it is a great cotton growing region, admirably adapted by soil and climate for the products of the south. It ought speedily to become a state of the American Union; the Indian treaties will constitute no obstacle any more than precisely similar treaties did in the past; for their lands, valueless to them, now for sale, but which, sold with their consent and for their benefit, would make them a most wealthy and prosperous people; and their consent, on these terms, would be most cheerfully given. This territory contains double the area of the state of Indiana, and, if necessary, an adequate portion of the western and more elevated part could be set apart exclusively for these tribes, and the eastern and larger portion be formed into a state, and its lands sold for the benefit of these tribes, thus greatly promoting all their interests..."
-Floor Speech of Senator Walker of Mississippi, 1846
Senator Walker’s idea gained traction amongst his Congressional colleagues, and later from a source that might have been unexpected - the Indians themselves. Specifically, the Five Civilized Tribes (Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole) who at this point controlled the vast majority of the Indian Territory, and many of whom themselves owned slaves. Ambassadors from these tribes spoke privately to Southern Congressmen about their adherence to the peculiar institution and the cultural traits they had adopted from their original homes in the American South (artfully failing to bring up how they had been expelled from those homes). These tribes not only wanted to ensure that they were not again expelled from their lands, but also desired the creation of a state that they would dominate, and which would have the benefit of protection from the Southern states due to the slavery issue. Before long, a consensus had begun to form - the entire Indian Territory would be admitted as a state (in order to placate the Northerners, who didn’t want to allow the largely empty territory to be eventually made into two slave states) at the same time as Iowa, the new Fugitive Slave Act would be passed, and there would be no Congressional challenge to the Missouri Compromise line. Many in his own party attacked Clay as weak for granting the South concessions in return for otherwise maintaining the status quo, but the President held down the furor with private reassurances that soon new free states would be admitted, more than balancing out the new slave state, and eventually making it safe to repeal to new Fugitive Slave Act. Thus it was that in late 1846 the United States flag added its 28th and 29th stars. The name for the new state was suggested to Senator Walker by a young aide named George Willing, a self-professed expert in Indian languages. The ambassadors of the Five Civilized Tribes were nonplussed to find their new state named after a word they had never heard of, but were unwilling to make a fuss. Indians and Americans both were on hand for the official flag raising, and a new name entered the lexicons of all assembled: Idaho!
But soon, another name would distract the nation from their new state: Cassius, an unlettered slave whose lawsuit would overturn the fragile balance of free/slave state power...
♫ Twenty nine pretty fine United States ♫
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