Speech #550133880

It is acquired to become a State. and not to be held as a colony and governed by Congress with absolute authority. and as the propriety of admitting a new State is committed to the sound discretion of Congress. the power to acquire territory for that purpose. to be held by the United States until it is in a suitable condition to become a State upon an equal footing with other States. must rest upon the same discretion. It is a ouestion for the political department of the Government. and not the judicial. and whatever the political department of the Government shall recognize as within the limits of the United States the judicial department is also bound to recognize. and to administer in it the laws of the United States. so far as they apply. and to maintain in the territory the authority and rights of the Government. and also the personal rights and rights of property of individual citizens. as secured by the Constitution." In 1836 there came an application from the Republic of Texas for admission into the Union as a new and equal State. The dominant population there had always been composed of emigrants from the United States. President Adams had tried to purchase it from Mexico in 1827. while Andrew Jackson offered $5.000.000 for it in 1835. A year later Texas claimed to have achieved her independence. and sent commissioners to Washington to negotiate a treaty of annexation.