Ken Bridges
In one of the most delicate moments in the history of Texas, Anson Jones stood at the center. When Sam Houston became president of the Texas Republic a second time in December 1841, he quickly named Jones as secretary of state. Examining continuing skirmishes with Mexico and failing finances, Houston hoped to try annexation a second time. Jones, a physician by training, had to navigate the chaotic diplomatic waters.
The entire question of Texas’s fate hinged on the increasingly tense debate over slavery. Slavery was still legal in Texas. Northern abolitionists were horrified at the prospect of admitting such a large slave territory into the Union, one that they feared would wreck the delicate political balance in the country. Talk of splitting Texas into smaller states, expanding the South’s Senate influence even further, frightened abolitionist politicians. President Andrew Jackson favored annexation, but with his term in office ending in 1837 and Mexico threatening war with the United States over the issue, he decided not to pursue it. Jackson would not enter a fight he could not finish. His successor, President Martin Van Buren of New York, increasingly moved against slavery and saw interest in Texas annexation fading. President William Henry Harrison of Indiana never had time to weigh in on the Texas question in his one month in office in 1841. All this had left Texas alone in the wilderness.
By 1842, President John Tyler of Virginia began expressing interest in Texas again. Houston and Jones knew annexation was not assured. Both worked to maintain healthy trade relations with Europe, hoping that expanding them might make the U. S. more inclined to bring in Texas. On April 12, 1844, an annexation treaty was signed, but it faced ratification in the U. S. Senate. On June 8, it failed by a vote of 16-35. Tyler pursued a simple bill to admit Texas, which would require both houses of Congress; but the year of 1844 meant presidential elections in the U.S. and in Texas. In the U.S., James Polk of Tennessee won a close contest where Texas annexation figured prominently.
In Texas, the 1844 presidential election pitted Jones against Vice-President Edward Burleson. Texans were heavily in favor of annexation. Burleson charged Jones with being against annexation because of his diplomatic overtures to Europe, a charge Jones denied. In the contest, Jones prevailed by a margin of 7,037 to 5,668.
When Jones assumed office in December, he knew annexation was far from certain. Mexico still threatened, Texas was near bankruptcy, and trade with Europe faltered as negotiations with the U.S. continued. Jones said nothing about annexation in his inaugural address. Inflation had made the Texas currency all but worthless. Nevertheless, Jones pursued construction of a 75-foot lighthouse as well as a hospital on Galveston Island. He pushed a policy of peace with the Native Americana, securing a peace treaty with the 11 major tribes of Texas by February.
In January 1845, the U. S. House passed an annexation bill, one that passed the U.S. Senate by a one-vote margin a month later. Tyler signed the bill on March 1, just before he left office.
Mexico tried to derail annexation by offering a peace treaty and recognition of Texas of which attracted little interest. Jones pushed the Texas Congress to support annexation and a state constitutional convention. Congress approved the measures in June. His vice-president, Kenneth Anderson of San Augustine, died suddenly in July 1845 at age 39. The office would never again be filled.
Texas statehood was made official on December 28. On February 19, 1846, statehood was made official. In a solemn ceremony, Jones turned over his office to the state’s first governor, J. Pinckney Henderson. He told the gathering, “The final act in this great drama is performed. The Republic of Texas is no more.”
After his presidency, Jones co-founded the Texas Medical Society in 1853. He bought a large plantation near Washington-on-the-Brazos, which he named Barrington, after his hometown. While his plantation remained prosperous, he grew increasingly frustrated and despondent that his political career had come to a halt. His attempts at a political comeback were repeatedly thwarted, and he sank into depression. The state legislature, increasingly frustrated with Houston’s performance as a U.S. Senator, prepared to vote to replace him in January 1858. Jones hoped to secure the position but lost decisively. Despondent, Jones went to the site of the old Texas capitol in Houston and, on January 9, took his own life. He was 59.
In 1884, the state legislature named Jones County in his honor. His homestead in Washington County has become a state historic park and acts as a historic living farm for tourists. Jones is buried in Houston.