They did not for years elect anybody, but they defeated many an ultra pro-slavery man, and their influence began to be felt.  In 1841 Joshua R. Giddings, from Ohio, and in 1843 John P. Hale from New Hampshire and Hannibal Hamlin from Maine brought in fresh Northern air and confronted the slave-power in Congress, in alliance with grand old John Quincy Adams,—­whose last years were his best years, and have illumined his name.

Most of the antislavery men were still denounced as fanatics, meddling with what was none of their business.  In 1843 they had not enrolled in their ranks the most influential men in the community.  Ministers, professors, lawyers, and merchants generally still held aloof from the controversy, and were either hostile or indifferent to it.  So, with the aid of the “Dough-Faces,” as they were stigmatized by the progressive party, Calhoun was confident of success in the Texan scheme.

At that time many adventurers had settled in Texas, which was then a province of Mexico, and had carried with them their slaves.  In 1820 Moses Austin, a Connecticut man, long resident in Missouri, obtained large grants of land in Texas from the Mexican government, and his son Stephen carried out after the father’s death a scheme of colonization of some three hundred families from Missouri and Louisiana.  They were a rough and lawless population, but self-reliant and enterprising.  They increased rapidly, until, in 1833, being twenty thousand in number, they tried to form a State government under Mexico; and, this being denied them, declared their independence and made revolution.  They were headed by Sam Houston, who had fought under General Jackson, and had been Governor of Tennessee.  In 1836 the independence of Texas was proclaimed.  Soon after followed the battle of San Jacinto, in which Santa Anna, the President of the Mexican republic and the commander of the Mexican forces, was taken prisoner.

Immediately after this battle Mr. Calhoun tried to have it announced as the policy of the government to recognize the independence of Texas.  When Tyler became President, by the death of Harrison, although elected by Whig votes he entered heart and soul into the schemes of Calhoun, who, to forward them, left the Senate, and became Secretary of State, as successor to Mr. Upshur.  In 1843 it became apparent that Texas would be annexed to the United States.  In that same year Iowa and Florida—­one free, the other slave—­were admitted to the Union.

The Liberty party beheld the proposed annexation of Texas with alarm, and sturdily opposed it as far as they could through their friends in Congress, predicting that it would be tantamount to a war with Mexico.  The Mexican minister declared the same result.  But “Texas or Disunion!” became the rallying cry of the South.  The election of Polk, the annexationist Democrat, in 1844, was seized upon as a “popular mandate” for annexation, although had not the Liberty Party, who like the Whigs were anti-annexationists,