What if Henry Clay would have lost New York and thus the U.S. Presidency back in 1844?
I dunno, but I do have a hard time seeing Texas not being annexed early.....or California not staying independent, for that matter. Mainly because IOTL, Clay had no desire to annex Texas unless it became necessary(well, we did anyway not too long after the Confederates invaded in 1863 IOTL, but that was under Lincoln. And mind, this was only a year after the Cuban conflict broke out-King Carlos sympathized with the CSA mainly because he came to really dislike Lincoln), while he was genuinely pissed at the Monterey Massacre on the day after Christmas, 1844, which ended up being one of the
Casi Belli for the Mexican-American War starting the year after-so California ended up being a state in 1850, while it took until 1869 for Texas.
OOC: yeah, I wanted to try to come up with something plausible, while not straying
too far from other posters' ideas as a compromise. Feel free to take it as you wish, though, since it's your thread.