Storm over Texas: The Annexation Controversy and the Road to Civil War (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Storm over Texas: The Annexation Controversy and the Road to Civil War Joseph G. Dawson III Storm over Texas: The Annexation Controversy and the Road to Civil War. By Joel H. Silbey . New York: Oxford University Press, 2007 [ 2005]. ISBN 0-19-531592-8. Map. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliographic essay. Index. Pp. xx, 230. $15.95. Oxford University Press's "Pivotal Moments in American History" Series reexamines crucial issues that changed the direction of political discourse or social circumstances in the United States. In this book in the series, Joel H. Silbey contends that the process leading to the annexation of Texas and the state joining the Union set in motion a train of events causing the Civil War. Silbey explains in some detail that annexing Texas was a cause of the U.S.-Mexican War and, sooner or later, affected the views of many American politicians, newspaper editors, and voters. Rather than criticizing slavery, some northern politicians had tolerated the institution to maintain national unity as well as the party unity of both Democrats and Whigs. The struggle over annexing Texas as a slave state made some willing to oppose slavery's move into the western territories (as framed in the Wilmot Proviso) or even to consider supporting abolition. Silbey shows that, for some Americans, it took years for the multiple meanings of annexing Texas to crystallize. Some northern politicians left their old party and joined new parties opposed to slavery expansion, such as the Free Soilers in 1848 or the Republicans in 1856. Northern voters, often caught up in local issues (immigration policies, status of immigrants and Catholics, or temperance, for example) interpreted the expansion of slavery into the West as a matter of race, while others decided that slavery was a moral issue. Up to the annexation of Texas, Silbey describes how, for many Americans, slavery appeared to be firmly embedded in American political life. After 1845, more northerners were willing to look ahead to a time when slavery would be circumscribed in a limited region, not allowed to expand, or abolished. Silbey confirms that many white southerners, meanwhile, wanted Texas's annexation to be just one step in the expansion of slavery into the West and opposed emancipation. Silbey concludes that annexing Texas increased tension among North, South, and West, forced individual Americans to face difficult personal and political decisions for or against slavery and its expansion, and especially inflamed animosities within the Democratic party. All of these controversies helped to cause the Civil War. Silbey devotes great attention to the Democratic party's factions, leaders, and internal disagreements. As Silbey carefully discusses Democratic factionalism, he sometimes seems to allow social or political matters tangentially associated with Texas annexation to edge out the main focus of his work. Throughout, he offers the viewpoint that Martin Van Buren was significant as the conscience of the Democratic party, if not its presidential nominee or most important leader. Silbey's reexamination of Texas annexation will be helpful to students and to historians who have not kept track of the literature on the U.S.-Mexican War and Civil War causation. Joseph G. Dawson III Texas A&M University College Station, Texas Copyright © 2007 Society for Military History