ul
congressional leaders and shrewd business men pressed too hard. He
simply adhered to his Independent Treasury Bill against all opposition,
fair and unfair. A group of conservative Democrats broke away from his
leadership in 1838 and deprived him of a majority; in the next Congress
he was no stronger, and the one measure of reform which he urged failed
to pass before June, 1840. Another legacy of Jackson, his "illustrious
predecessor," was a war with the Seminole Indians, who resisted removal
to the western frontier; and before 1842 the suppression of these
desperate natives and their slave allies, runaways from the Georgia
plantations, cost the Government $40,000,000, most of which had to be
borrowed at high rates of interest.

Even more threatening than the Seminole troubles was the Texas problem.
The last act of Jackson's official life was to recognize the
independence of that aspiring State. But this was only preliminary to
the real purposes of Texas and her agents, who pressed Van Buren in the
summer of 1837 for annexation to the United States; though these same
agents wrote home that if annexation did not succeed, the South would
break away from the Union, and that if it did succeed, the North would
withdraw from the federal compact. So that while Calhoun and his friends
aided the President in his financial measures, they at the same time
importuned him to help the South by adding another pro-slavery State to
the Union. This was not the first time this question had embarrassed a
president. As already seen, Clay had denounced Monroe for giving away
that princely domain; Benton and Van Buren had warred upon Adams and
Clay in 1826-28 for not compelling a restoration, and under this
pressure and that of the South in general, Adams had sought in vain to
purchase Texas; under Jackson the problem was several times taken up,
and as much as $5,000,000 was offered. Still the astute General had
steered clear of trouble when annexation "with war" was offered in 1836.

Van Buren likewise delayed and risked his Southern popularity. Meanwhile
a revolt against the British Government broke out in Canada, and
thousands of Americans along the border, from Maine to Wisconsin, lent
open assistance to their "oppressed" neighbors. Van Buren remained
strictly neutral. With much difficulty was the peace maintained, and at
the expense of many savage attacks upon the Administration for its
un-American policy and lack of sympathy with men