Joel Poinsett In 1825 President John Quincy Adams appointed Joel Poinsett as the first U.S. minister to Mexico. His first assignment was to persuade the Mexican government to sell the U.S. the province of Texas, thus continuing the rapid expansion of the American democracy. The United States continued to pursue Texas with little success for the next 20 years. It was not until December 1845 when the U.S. finally annexed Texas by a joint resolution (…showed first 75 words of 544 total…

…showed last 75 words of 544 total…regards to acquiring Mexican territories, and beginning a war to do so. Unquestionably the most important domestic issue in the years prior to the American Civil War was slavery. John C. Calhoun recognized that, ...if the treaty ending the conflict was silent on the subject of slavery in the ceded territory, the North will oppose it, and if it should prohibit slavery the South would, and in either event there would be a constitutional majority.