The Time Texas Threatened to Send Its Militia To Reinforce it's claims on New Mexico

BlueandGrayl

First Sergeant
Joined
May 27, 2018
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Corona, California
Years prior to the outbreak of the Civil War there was an existential crisis that almost broke up the Union it pertained to the newly acquired Western territory of the United States after the Mexican-American War over whether they should be Northern or Southern states efforts to contain the spread of a certain institution were led by the Free-Soilers and Northern Whigs such as David Wilmot (the writer of the Wilmot Proviso) while those who wanted it included Southern Democrats and Whigs it also included an issue pertaining to fugitives, the newly-elected president was Zachary Taylor (a war hero) while he was from Virginia and was a slaveowner but he did not want to expand the institution westward and preferred keeping the peace between North and South over anything else.

The potential for a conflict between the Northern Union and Southern Confederacy almost came in the form of not in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina but in the form of a territorial dispute in the desert between New Mexico and Texas you see when Texas was a republic between 1836-1846 it had a claim to a stretch of land surrounding the aforementioned New Mexico, Oklahoma (the panhandle part), Kansas, Colorado, and Wyoming because the Missouri Compromise of 1820 barred the om peculiar institution along the 36-30 line some of Texas' land was not compatible with it and so things would get heated.

From Texas State Historical Association's Compromise of 1850 by Roger A. Griffin article:
"COMPROMISE OF 1850. The results of the Mexican War (1846–48) brought Texas into serious conflict with the national government over the state's claim to a large portion of New Mexico. The claim was based on efforts by the Republic of Texas, beginning in 1836, to expand far beyond the traditional boundaries of Spanish and Mexican Texas to encompass all of the land extending the entire length of the Rio Grande. Efforts to occupy the New Mexican portion of this territory during the years of the republic came to naught (see TEXAN SANTA FE EXPEDITION).

In the early months of the Mexican War, however, federal troops, commanded by Gen. Stephen W. Kearny, easily occupied New Mexico. Kearny quickly established a temporary civil government. When Texas governor J. Pinckney Henderson complained to United States secretary of state James Buchanan, the latter replied that, though the matter would have to be settled by Congress, Kearny's action should not prejudice the Texas claim. By the provisions of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Mexico relinquished all claim to territory north and east of the Rio Grande. The treaty did not, however, speak to the issue of the Texas claim to that portion of New Mexico lying east of the river.

By this time New Mexico and all other lands ceded to the United States by Mexico had become embroiled in the slavery controversy. Southern leaders insisted that all of the new territory be opened to slaveholders and their human property. Northern freesoilers and abolitionists were determined to prevent such an opening and so resisted the claims of Texas to part of the area in question. Texas attempted to further its claim by organizing Santa Fe County in 1848, with boundaries including most of New Mexico east of the Rio Grande. In New Mexico military and civilian leaders then petitioned the federal government to organize their area into a federal territory. Texas governor George T. Wood responded by asking the legislature to give him the power and means to assert the claim of Texas to New Mexico "with the whole power and resources of the State." Soon afterward his successor, Peter H. Bell, made a more moderate request, asking only for authority to send a military force sufficient to maintain the state's authority in that area. Bell then sent Robert S. Neighbors west to organize four counties in the disputed area. Although he was successful in the El Paso area, Neighbors was not welcomed in New Mexico.

Publication of the report of Neighbors's mission in June of 1850 led to a public outcry in Texas. Some persons advocated the use of military force; others urged secession. Bell reacted by calling a special session of the legislature to deal with the issue. Before the session began, the crisis deepened. New Mexicans ratified a constitution for a proposed state specifying boundaries that included the territory claimed by Texas. Also, President Millard Fillmore reinforced the army contingent stationed in New Mexico and asserted publicly that should Texas militiamen enter the disputed area he would order federal troops to resist them. Southern political leaders responded by sending Governor Bell offers of moral and even military support".

For some more context regarding the situation here are some excerpts from America's Great Debate: Henry Clay, Stephen A. Douglas, and the Compromise That Saved the Union by Fergus M. Bordewich:
"Texans had expected everything east of the Rio Grande would automatically be turned over to them after the war. By 1848, their patience was running out. That March, Governor George T. Wood asked President Polk to order the military authorities in Santa Fe 'to cooperate to the end that the State of Texas may in no wise way be embarassed in the exercise of her rightful juridisction', Wood appointed a young lawyer from Nacogdoches, Spruce Baird, to personally carry his writ of juridisction to Santa Fe. The hustling, red-haired Baird was emblematic of the buccaneering spirit thatt drove Texan spirits but a poor choice for a mission that required diplomatic finesse. He spoke no Spanish, and was interested (if not more so) in finagling business opprotunities for himself as he was in carrying out his official duties. When New Mexicans learned that Texas meant to enforce its claims, they reacted with alarm. Anglos and Latinos alike took to the streets. The Santa Fe Republican thundered 'New Mexico does not belong, nor has Texas even has a right to claim as a part of Texas', adding 'We would so advise Texas to send her with her civil officiers for this country [United States], a large force, in order that they may have a sufficient bodyguard to escort them back safe'...

"In Zachary Taylor, Texans faced a man who had no respect at all for their claims. Nor did he have much use for Texans. Freewheeling, trigger-happy [Texas] Rangers had caused him more trouble than they were worth during the war [Mexican-American War], when like 'packs of human bloodhounds' they had pillaged their way across northern Mexico, slaughtering civilians as they went. Taylor believed that everything acquired from Mexico was now federal land. And that was that. Hoping to head off the congressional collision that loomed, he resolved with a soldier's decisiveness to make both regions fully-fledged states, and to do it without delay. In a personal letter to the president, Governor [George T.] Wood confessed that Texas was embarassed - it desperately wanted to sell New Mexico land to pay off its creditors. But such crass concerns were beside the point: Texan honor was at stake. 'To yield to a sevverence of any portion of her soul would be as humiliating to Texas as it would be unjust on the part of the United States' he wrote. Wood's restrained language veiled a threat: Texas would not surrender her claim, come what may. In frustration, Baird issued a proclaimation that had been burning a hole in his pocket for the past half-year. Santa Fe was now officially a part of Texas, he declared to all, and the town of Santa Fe was its country seat:
'All proceedings not in accordance with the laws of [Texas] will be held as absolutely null and void', there was no going back now. The rest was in the hands of his compatriots. A few weeks later he left home'...

"The delegates tiptoed through the minfield that had thrawted their earlier petition, hinting at a willinges to cmpromise on the problem of slavery, and fuzzliy describing New Mexico's eastern boundary simply as the 'State of Texas'. But their hedging case came too late. Texas was aroused".

"It was now clear to Texans that Zachary Taylor was actively working to snatch the prize from their grasp. Protest meetings demanded action against the 'greasers rebellion' in Santa Fe, while the drum-beating Texas State Gazette editorialized, 'Rather than surrender to the usurpation of the General Government one-inch of our blood-won territory, let every human habitation in Santa Fe be leveled to the earth, and we, if the necessity of the case requires it, buried beneath the ruins'. The threat of a Texan invasion of New Meixco had become as Henry Clay memorably put it 'the crisis of a crisis', the single issue that had the capacity to tumble the country into civil war overnight...

"[Robert] Neighbors was the perfect choice to carry out the imperial dreams of Texans and their militant new governor Peter Hansborough Bell, across the desert to New Mexico. Bell, a former Texas Ranger, had promised immediate action against the recalcitrant New Mexicans. 'We have trusted too much and too long ', he declared in his first message to the Texas legislature, on December 26, 1849. Declaring that further inaction would only embolden those who were ignoring Texan rights, he asked for the authority to raise an army to enforce Texan claims at Santa Fe, 'without reference to to any anticipated action of the Federal Government'. What those words eliptical words meant was that Bell intended to fight for New Mexico, and that he would accept nothinbg less than a complete surrender of federal authority. There could be no question in the minds of his listeners, that Bell ws prepared to go to war with the United States". Neighbors was given copies of the Texas constitution, sets of state ordinances, decrees, and laws that had paseed the most recent sessions of the legislature, in both English and Spanish, and eighty copies of Bell's address to the people of New Mexico. In this inagurating screed, the governor reassured his new subjects that Texas, having learned of New Mexicans' 'friendly dispositon towards us, and your expressed desire that such facilities should be extended to your own people' - this was utter hogwash- Texas was not extending over them by fulfilling 'the design which she has long entertained of extending wholesome and salutary laws over every portion of her territory' Bell promised them freedom of religion, peace, and liberty and all the 'advantages' of the Texas constitution, presumably slavery. Rejoice, New Mexicans! 'How many of our fellow beings, while groaning under the iron rod of despotism, would be made thrice happy could they embrace the golden opportunities which we are permitted to enjoy'.

On the Brink of Civil War: The Compromise of 1850 and How It Changed the Course of American History by John C. Waugh noted Zachary Taylor's reaction to Texas' attempt at enforcing its territorial claims:
"Taylor resolve had calcified even more since coming to Washington. When word reached him that Texans might soon march on New Mexico and seize its claim by force, the president vowed that he would resist with federal troops. He had marched into Texas before and he would do it again. He knew the way. In April he told Alfred Pleasanton, an army officer about to join his command in New Mexico 'These Southern men in congress are now trying to bring on civil war. They are now organizing a military force in Texas for the purpose of taking New Mexico and annexing it to Texas, and I have ordered the troops in New Mexico to be reinforced, and directed that no armed force from Texas be permitted to go into that territory'. If there were not enough soldiers there to do that, Taylor told Pleasanton 'I will be with you myself... be-fore those people [Texans] shall go into that country or have a foot of that territory'. The whole business is infamous, and must be put down".
And as for Millard Fillmore handling this crisis well this how he could have done it:
"Filllmore was with Taylor on this one. He was just as ready to use force to derail the Texas intention. He viewed any Texas move into U.S. territory in New Mexico as an intrustion, under the protection of no lawful authority. He would resist such willful trespass by force if necessary 'however painful the duty' just as Taylor vowed to do. At the same time he was about to call on Congress for 'an immediate decision or arrangement or settlement of the question'".

Zachary Taylor was as mentioned before willing to use force had he lived a bit longer:
"[Robert] Toombs had warned Taylor that this new policy would drive him and every other Southern Whig into open opposition and that the entire South would rush to the side of Texas if New Mexico should forcibly resist. Taylor had denied the validity of the Texas claim... He told Toombs he was a soldier who knew his duty and would do it whatever the consequences. Toombs later told a friend "The worst of it is, he will do it".

Alexander Stephens (future Confederate Vice President, but back in the 1850s an anti-secessionist leader) wrote about a potential Taylor action:
"When the 'Rubicon' is passed, the days of the Republic [i.e. the Union/United States] will be numbered... the cause of Texas, is such a conflict, will be the cause of the entire South. This threat had been made by Southerners before, but this one, from this particular pro-Union Whig, had been reprinted across the country"
Ultimately after the death of Zachary Taylor and 3 bills by the likes of John Bell of Tennessee (future leader of the Constitutional Union Party and later pro-Confederate secessionist), Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, and Henry Clay of Kentucky all of which had failed a senator from Maryland named James A. Pierce gave Texas an offer they couldn't refuse in which they would give up all their territorial claims entirely in exchange for $10 million.


Perhaps for the Texan militia attempt to enforce its attempt on territorial claims in nearby New Mexico to escalate into full-scale fighting between them and the Federal troops stationed there regardless of who fires the first shot I think we need to kill off Henry Clay (the man behind the Compromise of 1850) let's say by a having tuberculosis much sooner than he did in OTL (in 1852) which isn't unreasonable considering that his partners in "The Great Triumvirate" Daniel Webster and John C. Calhoun were nearing death so along with Clay they could die much earlier or just simply Clay himself.

Reaction-wise either having Taylor or Fillmore (if the former still ends up dying) ordering the Federal troops to attack the Texan militia would reflect what Toombs and Stephens (who lived at the time and knew what was going on) said a Southern state having its personal citizens attacked by the Federal government would anger the South as well Southerners whether they were Whigs or Democrats and give Southern secessionists something for their brethren to rally around to their cause especially if it were the New York, Northern-born Fillmore who like his POTUS opposed any extension of slavery which would be seen as "Northern aggression", while Civil War doesn't entirely break out after that (at least yet) it does heat up tension between the North and the South much sooner and the Southern Whigs and Democrats perhaps deserting their parties' Northern branches after the standoff between Federal troops and Texan militia speeding up the Civil War.
 
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