Garrison's forecast of the future, directly after the annexation of Texas, proved singularly correct. Never, as at that moment, had the slave-power seemed so secure in its ascendency, yet never, at any previous period, was it so near its downfall. Freedom had reached that darkest hour just before dawn; and this, events were speedily to make clear. If the South could have trammeled up the consequences of annexation, secure, indeed, for a season, would it have held its political supremacy in America? But omnipotent as was the slave-power in the Government, it was not equal to this labor. In the great game, in which Texas was the stakes, Fate had, unawares, slipped into the seat between the gamesters with hands full of loaded dice. At the first throw the South got Texas, at the second the war with Mexico fell out, and at the third new national territory lay piled upon the boards.

Calhoun, the arch-annexationist, struggled desperately to avert the war. He saw as no other Southern leader saw its tremendous significance in the conflict between the two halves of the Union for the political balance. The admission of Texas had made an adjustment of this balance in favor of the South. Calhoun's plan was to conciliate Mexico, to sweep with our diplomatic broom the gathering war-clouds from the national firmament. War, he knew, would imperil the freshly fortified position of his section—war which meant at its close the acquisition of new national territory, with which the North would insist upon retrieving its reverse in the controversy over Texas.