Fragile Freedom

When the Texas War of Independence ended on April 21st, 1836 there were many in the newly formed Southern Republic that believed it would be openly welcomed into the United States as a part of the Union. Yet, there was more to consider than just territorial expansion. President Andrew Jackson had remained neutral on the issue during the Revolution that begun in his final year in office, believing that Texas wouldn’t be able to stand alone or maintain its independence against the newly formed Centralist Republic of Mexico. As the slavery question raged on he didn’t want to give an issue to the anti-slavery candidates by recognizing the large slaveholding nation that, in his opinion, was doomed to failure. Martin Van Buren, his successor, would recognize Texas as free and independent in 1837 but he was unwilling to welcome a new state that would ultimately shift the equilibrium struck with the 1820 Missouri Compromise, which established the balance of free versus slave states in the Union. At any rate Mexico re