as a whole was
with the Secretary. The President's views were much nearer to those of
the Democratic opposition, but that opposition, smarting under its
defeat, was not disposed to help either combatant out of the
difficulties and humiliations which had so unexpectedly fallen on both
in the hour of triumph. Yet, if Webster were dismissed or driven to
resign, someone of note must be found to take his place. Personal
followers the President had none. But in his isolation he turned to the
one great figure in American politics that stood almost equally alone.
It was announced that the office vacated by Webster had been offered to
and accepted by John Caldwell Calhoun.

Calhoun's acceptance of the post is sometimes treated as an indication
of the revival of his ambitions for a national career. It is suggested
that he again saw a path open to him to the Presidency which he had
certainly once coveted. But though his name was mentioned in 1844 as a
possible Democratic candidate, it was mentioned only to be found wholly
unacceptable, and indeed Calhoun's general conduct when Secretary was
not such as to increase his chances of an office for which no one could
hope who had not a large amount of Northern as well as Southern backing.
It seems more likely that Calhoun consented to be Secretary of State as
a means to a definite end closely connected with what was now the
master-passion of his life, the defence of Southern interests. At any
rate, the main practical fruit of his administration of affairs was the
annexation of Texas.

Texas had originally been an outlying and sparsely peopled part of the
Spanish province of Mexico, but even before the overthrow of Spanish
rule a thin stream of immigration had begun to run into it from the
South-Western States of America. The English-speaking element became, if
not the larger part of the scant population, at least the politically
dominant one. Soon after the successful assertion of Mexican
independence against Spain, Texas, mainly under the leadership of her
American settlers, declared her independence of Mexico. The occasion of
this secession was the abolition of Slavery by the native Mexican
Government, the Americans who settled in Texas being mostly slave-owners
drawn from the Slave States. Some fighting took place, and ultimately
the independence of Texas seems to have been recognized by one of the
many governments which military and popular revolutions and
counter-revolutions rapi