time of her annexation and admission as
a state of the Union.

The cause of the war with Mexico, then, was her resentment because
Texas began to move for annexation to the United States. The fact that
Texas had been for many years an independent republic and been so
recognized by the United States, Great Britain, France, and some
smaller countries, gave Texas the right on her part to ask for
annexation, and the United States the right to annex her. But in order
to bring Texas into the Union and save her people from the Mexicans,
the United States was obliged to declare war against Mexico. This she
did May 13, 1845, although Texas was not admitted as a state until
December 29th of that year. The war lasted nearly three years, peace
being declared February 2, 1848. As an outcome of the war the peaceful
possession of Texas was secured, and also possession of the territory
of California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and a part of Colorado and New
Mexico, for which territory, however, our government in final
settlement paid Mexico, $15,000,000.

New States--1845-1861

During the Mexican War, Iowa (1846), the "Hawkeye" state, came into
the Union, followed by the state of Wisconsin (1848), {334} the
"Badger." Next comes the story of the "Forty-niners," and California
(1850), the "Golden State," enters the Union; and then comes Minnesota
(1858), the "North Star" State, and the Great Lakes are walled in,
this state completing the circuit. Oregon, (1859), the "Beaver"
follows, then the "Garden of the West," Kansas (1861), and the Civil
War is upon us. Of course, we do not mean to say that Kansas was the
cause of the Civil War, although it had much to do with it.

The Civil War--1861-1865

The Civil War was a war between states, in the government of the
United States between states that were slave and states that were
free.

The rights of property ownership are involved in state rights, and
slaves held as property in slave-holding states were not recognized as
such in states that were free. Therefore, the principle of slavery
became involved not alone in the individual ownership of slaves, but
also in the rights of a state, and the relationship of states to each
other in the government of the United States.

At the close of the Revolutionary War, one of the first things to be
settled was the boundaries as between states of the land comprising
the thirteen original states; and as an outcome of this settlement,
there came in