(During President James K. Polk's March 4,1845 inaugural address, he announced the desire of the Republic of Texas to be annexed by the United States. Texas had declared its independence from Mexico in 1836, nine years earlier. Polk's address signaled the start of the campaign to wage war against Mexico, who Polk labeled a foreign power, and which resulted in the loss of more than half of that nation's territory. In his address, Polk refers to the Adams-Onis Treaty negotiated in 1819 – 26 years earlier – by U.S. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams and Spanish Foreign Minister Luis de Onis laying the boundaries of both nations as an agreement that had "imprudently ceded" Texas to a foreign power.
By May, he had directed Secretary of War William L. Macy to order Gen. Zachary Taylor, stationed in Ft. Jesup, La., to be ready to come to the aid of Texas and repel Indian attacks and aggression by "any foreign power." One year later, on May 1846, the armies of both countries clashed at Palo Alto, in present-day Brownsville.)
My fellow citizens,
The Republic of Texas has made known its desire to join our Union and form part of our confederacy and enjoy with us the benefit of liberty gained and guaranteed us by our Constitution.
Texas, which at one time formed part of our country and was imprudently given to a foreign power (Mexico), is now independent and has the irrefutable right to dispose of all or part of its territory and to fuse its sovereignty as an independent state with ours.
"I congratulate my country because in virtue of a decree by the U.S. Congress it has given its consent to this government for the reunion and all that is lacking is that both countries convene and agree on the terms on which we will achieve this most important purpose.
"I consider the problem of annexation as the exclusive concern of the United States and Texas. They are both independent powers capable of entering contracts, and foreign nations have no right to interfere between them or to object to their union. Foreign powers seem not to understand the real character of our government. Our Union is a confederation of independent states whose policy is peace between one another and with the rest of the world. Enlarging its territorial limits is equivalent to extend the dominion of peace over additional territories and millions of inhabitants. The rest of the world has nothing to fear over the military ambitions of our government..."Foreign powers should, in consequence, consider the annexation of Texas by the United States, not as a conquest of one nation that is trying to extend its dominion by force of arms and violence, but rather the peaceful acquisition of of a territory that at one time belonged to it, adding another member to our confederation with the consent of that member, diminishing by those means the possibility of war and opening (to Texas) new and growing markets for its products...
"This is important to Texas because the protective arms of our government will extend over her and its vast resources of fertile land and temperate climate will result in its rapid development, while the security of New Orleans and all of our southwest frontier against any hostile aggression will benefit from this (annexation.)
"No one can deny the danger to our national security and future peace if Texas continues to be an independent state or becomes an ally or a dependency of some foreign nation more powerful that her..."
"What there may be good and bad in the institutions in Texas (i.e. slavery) will continue being its own whether it is annexed or not.
"None of the actual states will be responsible for those institutions, just as they are not for the institutions of the other states...Just as those who advocate against annexation because of these institutions, these objections would have impeded our forefathers from forming our Union...I will try by all constitutional, honorable, and appropriate means that the wishes of the people of the United States for a union between us in the shortest time possible resting over the principles that form the base and resulted in the adoption of our Constitution and not with a spirit of partisan politics..."