Texas and the Mexican Cession Crisis | Henry Clay and the Struggle for the Union

Examine the political divide over Texas statehood and how it eventually led to war with Mexico and the Mexican Cession Crisis. Students will explore the ways in which the expansion of slavery in Western lands dominated the political era.

In 1844, Henry Clay, as the Whig nominee for president, opposed the annexation of the Republic of Texas as a slave state because he said it would upset the balance of power between slave and free states and would provoke war with Mexico, which still claimed Texas as a province. 

James K. Polk was elected president, and Texas became a state. War with Mexico soon followed. After the U.S. defeat of Mexico, Mexico ceded territory to the United States. Clay returned to Washington as a senator in March 1849, in time to deal with the question of whether slavery should be allowed Mexican Cession lands.