dly set up and pulled down in Mexico proper. The
desire of the Texans--or at least of that governing part of them that
had engineered the original secession--was to enter the American Union,
but there was a prolonged hesitation at Washington about admitting them,
so that Texas remained for a long time the "Lone Star State,"
independent alike of Mexico and the United States. This hesitation is
difficult at first sight to understand, for Texas was undoubtedly a
valuable property and its inhabitants were far more willing to be
incorporated than, say, the French colonists of Louisiana had been. The
key is, no doubt, to be found in the internecine jealousies of the
sections. The North--or at any rate New England--had been restive over
the Louisiana purchase as tending to strengthen the Southern section at
the expense of the Northern. If Texas were added to Louisiana the
balance would lean still more heavily in favour of the South. But what
was a cause of hesitation to the North and to politicians who looked for
support to the North was a strong recommendation to Calhoun. He had, as
he himself once remarked, a remarkable gift of foresight--an
uncomfortable gift, for he always foresaw most clearly the things he
desired least. He alone seems to have understood fully how much the
South had sacrificed by the Missouri Compromise. He saw her hemmed in
and stationary while the North added territory to territory and State to
State. To annex Texas would be, to an extent at least, to cut the bonds
which limited her expansion. When the population should have increased
sufficiently it was calculated that at least four considerable States
could be carved out of that vast expanse of country.

But, though Calhoun's motive was probably the political strengthening of
the South, his Texan policy could find plenty of support in every part
of the Union. Most Northerners, especially in the new States of the
North-West, cared more for the expansion of the United States than for
the sectional jealousies. They were quite prepared to welcome Texas into
the Union; but, unfortunately for Calhoun, they had a favourite project
of expansion of their own for which they expected a corresponding
support.

The whole stretch of the Pacific slope which intervenes between Alaska
and California, part of which is now represented by the States of
Washington and Oregon and part by British Columbia, was then known
generally as "Oregon." Its ownership was claimed bot