Why Texas might never have joined the U.S. were it not for the 1844 election
How history turned on 5,106 votes in New York
(We’ve all heard the sentiment that “every vote counts” in an election, but it’s sometimes difficult to wrap our heads around this fact since most contests aren’t decided by just a few votes. Yet American history abounds in stories of elections that turned on very small margins. Moreover, as this story shows, one could even say that the entire history and geography of the United States was altered by a very small number of voters in New York in 1844.)
John Tyler and the annexation of Texas
It seems obvious today that Texas was always destined to be part of the United States, doesn’t it? And yet, were it not for 5,106 votes in New York during the 1844 election, Texas might never have joined the Union. This, in turn, may have kept much of the American Southwest and the Pacific Coast out of the Union as well. So if you ever wonder whether presidential elections really matter all that much, here is some food for thought.
This story begins, in a way, with the death of President William Henry Harrison in 1841, after only one month in office. He was succeeded by his vice president, John Tyler, who soon put the annexation of Texas on the national agenda. Texas was then a republic, having declared its independence from Mexico in 1836. Many Southerners favored having Texas join the United States, but most Northerners were opposed because of the assumption it would add more slave territory to the country.
Despite this national difference of opinion, President Tyler entered into negotiations with Texas. And while he didn’t ultimately run for re-election in 1844, the annexation issue he raised became central to that year’s campaign.
In fact, it even dashed the electoral hopes of former President Martin Van Buren, who’d hoped to run for another term after losing a bid for re-election four years earlier. But Van Buren was rejected by southern Democrats when he came out against the idea of Texas joining the U.S. Instead, the party nominated James Polk of Tennessee, a former Speaker of the House and Governor, who ran on a platform of annexing Texas.
The Whigs, meanwhile, nominated Henry Clay of Kentucky, a former Secretary of State, Senator, and Speaker of the House. Clay, like Van Buren, also opposed bringing Texas into the Union.
“Texas is destined to be settled by our race, who will carry there, undoubtedly, our laws, our language, and our institutions, and that view of her destiny reconciles me much more to her independence,” said Clay. “We may live as good neighbors, cultivating peace, commerce and friendship.”
So Polk and Clay, who were on opposite sides of the debate over Texas’ annexation, battled to the end in a close election. Polk defeated Clay by 49.5 to 48.1% in the popular vote, and 170–105 in the electoral vote.
How a third party impacted the 1844 vote
But those raw totals don’t tell the whole story of the vote count.
That’s because there was also a third-party candidate, James Birney of the abolitionist Liberty Party, who won 2.3% of the national vote. That doesn’t sound like much, but Birney’s ballots were concentrated among northern antislavery voters who otherwise would almost surely have backed Clay, a fact that proved vital in the key state of New York.
It turns out that Polk won New York by just 5,106 votes in a contest that saw 15,812 votes go to Birney. Absent these votes for the Liberty Party, Clay likely would have edged Polk in New York, and that state’s electoral votes would have swung the election to the Whig candidate.
Abraham Lincoln, at the time a 35-year-old local Whig politician in Illinois, bemoaned Clay’s narrow defeat. “If the Whig abolitionists of New York had voted with us … Clay would now be President, Whig principles in the ascendant and Texas not annexed,” he said.
So 5,106 votes in New York were all that separated James Polk and Henry Clay in the 1844 presidential race. With a different presidential result, American history and geography might look vastly different.
What if Clay had won the 1844 election, rather than Polk?
As it was, Texas joined the Union during Polk’s presidency, and a territorial dispute soon triggered the Mexican-American War. U.S. battlefield victories forced the Mexicans into peace negotiations, and Mexico had to cede to the U.S. the region that now encompasses California and the American Southwest.
But if Clay had instead prevailed in the 1844 election, it’s likely there would have been no annexation of Texas (at least at that time) and no war with Mexico. In which case, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Nevada might today still be part of Mexico. America’s Pacific coastline would be confined to Oregon and Washington.
Moreover, some historians have even speculated that, if California hadn’t joined the U.S., it might eventually have gone the way of Texas in declaring its own independence from Mexico since immigrant Americans would still have moved there with the gold rush. If you follow these scenarios to their logical conclusion, then the United States, Canada, California and Texas might now all be independent English-speaking nations in North America. Imagine that possibility.
It’s a lot of speculation, but it does show how presidential elections can impact history in unforeseen ways. Think about those 5,106 ballots in New York in 1844 the next time you wonder if your vote matters.
This essay was written for Substack, but parts of it were adapted from my book, Quest for the Presidency: The Storied and Surprising History of Presidential Campaigns in America (Lincoln, Nebraska: Potomac Books/University of Nebraska Press, 2022).
(Photo by viswanath muddada on Unsplash)