Why exactly did the Republic of Texas fail?

[Riley Gardner]

I'm curious as to what people think about this.

Could the Republic of Texas have survived as it's own nation? What were the reasons it didn't? I know little of the Republic post-revolution, so I'm curious. I've got vague recollections of high inflation and military costs being a massive reason why the government was failing, but else could it have been?

Many thanks, friends.

[Rich Curilla]

If I remember correctly, the Republic had a mere $24.00 in the treasury when they ended. Just enough to buy Manhattan. Thus it might have simply been an economic problem -- but then again, nothing like this is simple, so I would search for deeper political reasons.

[loucapitano]

Being a Northerner, I can't help but consider that the forces in favor of slavery and Manifest Destiny from within and without Texas had to have a major influence on annexation. I was surprised that Texas came in as one state. I've heard historical references that promoted the concept of Texas being split into several states, enough to exceed the anti-slavery representatives in the Senate. But I agree with Rich, nothing was simple about Texas. It baffles many of us to this day, although I'm sure glad they're part of us.

[estebans]

To me it seems that it started with the ravaged state of the country after the revolution--much of it was a disaster area by our standards, with all the destruction, displacement from homes, and real loss of wealth through loss of livestock, and no FEMA or insurance to help people rebuild. The contending armies and refugees really did a job on the place. On top of that, the Western financial market was depressed for years, so investors did not want to buy into land speculation and the bonds the Texas government issued traded at a very, very severe discount, cotton prices were low, etc. That was probably the main reason, as Rich pointed out: Money was not coming into the country like they needed to drive its economy, so there was very little margin for mistakes. The Texas government was not all that effective on collecting revenues it was owed, either, as smuggling across all of Texas' borders went way back into Spanish colonial days.

One thing we can see in hindsight is that Texas may have spent way more than they actually needed on their military, as the inability of Mexico to get together a serious invasion threat meant that Texas didn't really need the large standing army they tried for at first, or the navy they had to build twice over when most of the first set of ships sank.

In reading through RoT newspapers in chronological order, I got a distinct impression that perhaps in 1841 things were in fact getting better despite the financial depression, through incremental improvement, until the failure of the Santa Fe expedition, which a. cost people in the state a lot of money they couldn't afford and b. drew the republic into a tit-for-tat cycle with Mexico that accomplished little but the waste of people, money and energy that Texas could ill afford. That cycle really started with the Republic of the Rio Grande fizzle, which fruitlessly took people away from things they needed to be doing in Texas, Tejano leaders in particular.

Indian raids were obviously a major problem until the 1841 treaties diverted a lot of the pressure towards Mexico, and the Mexican raids of 1842 did not look good to potential investors or immigrants either, badly disrupting the west of the country for a couple of years, i.e. the rest of the pre-annexation period.

I haven't mentioned Mirabeau Lamar, but it seems to me that if you wanted to drive Texas inexorably toward annexation, he'd be a darn good guy to elect as president, when it comes to making mistakes that there was no money to pay for.

Stephen Schneider

[Rich Curilla]

Dec 6, 2013 5:01:57 GMT -5 estebans said:

One thing we can see in hindsight is that Texas may have spent way more than they actually needed on their military, as the inability of Mexico to get together a serious invasion threat meant that Texas didn't really need the large standing army they tried for at first, or the navy they had to build twice over when most of the first set of ships sank.

Hindsight indeed. In Texas, after the revolution as before, there were constant rumors and warnings of a re-invasion with greatly exaggerated numbers, and it was virtually impossible, as before the revolution, to get a handle on truth. Thus, one element of the population probably just blew it all off as "some Indian told some vaquero," while another element had learned the lesson of February 23, 1836, and determined to be prepared this time -- hence, support a standing army.

Another undeniable problem was that all the U.S. volunteers who had headed for the sound of the guns in 1835-36 in response to broadsides from Houston and others finally got there -- and the guns weren't sounding anymore. "Here we are! Now use us / pay us." Must have been very hard to turn away from these men who came to help. So, I would think it was pretty hard to avoid this expense.

As far as the general reasons for it all are concerned, every time somebody says, "Here's why," my initial response is, "No! That's only part of why."

[rayjr]

Riley,

This is a great question indeed. From what I can tell - just an impression - most concentrate on the second part of your question - as to why the Republic did not survive, rather than the first part of your question - could it have survived?

This requires some speculation: If the Republic was not invited to join the union, if the Republic did not agree to become part of the union, if strong political forces did not move the Republic towards union - could the Republic have continued to operate as an independent Republic? I have considered 3 reasons why it might have been possible:

1) Clearly, the Republic was broke, for many reasons, but nations can go broke and yet survive as economic entities. The Republic retained a vast wealth of natural resources, seemed to have a functional operating governmental system to control those resources to some extent. If I remember correctly, the United States of America was also broke upon independence - and this took quite some time to resolve. I can envision a number of scenarios in which in spite of the existing financial system conditions, over time, the Republic could have remained intact. For example, one of the key sources of funds to resolve the debt of the Republic was a sale of a big portion of land to the US. This could still have been negotiated to satiate the "manifest" urges of the States, without becoming a member. This could have put the Republic on a more sound foundation for which additional capital providers might have felt comfortable investing, etc.

2) As was pointed out earlier, the Republic was having difficulty maintaining the integrity of its lands due to continual incursions by Mexico. Yet, few of these had a lasting affect, and one can only speculate if enough resolve could have been marshaled within Mexico such that they would ever succeed. Also, if I remember correctly, there was an offer of recognition by Mexico on the table at the time of annexation. If annexation did not proceed, could this offer have also improved prospects for the Republic? Perhaps.

3) Another pointed out the challenges with dealing with the Indians. A good argument could be made that these Indian depredations would continue to interrupt the possibility of the Republic's survival. But, the true Indian conflicts were not really resolved until many years later after the annexation, as late as the 1870s. I am sure there could be a rich debate, relative to whether the Indian problem had to be addressed in this manner, or whether the US was more successful at this than the Republic could have been itself. In any regard, I think it could be imagined that the Republic could have survived the Indians.

I am sure there are many more factors and substantial ones indeed - but I thought I would jump into the speculation game from a slightly different angle.

Thanks for the excellent post,
Ray

[rayjr]

Riley,

I just had another thought - call me crazy, but I was watching IRobot and when Will Smith was speaking with a hologram about a murder investigation - the hologram told him "That is not the right question - my responses are limited"...anyway a bit of humor...

It could be that the Republic was not supposed to survive.  This would make questions about why it failed or could it have survived moot.
While certainly there are those that preferred an independent republic, there were certainly many more that perhaps never thought it should be so.  That is - it was merely an interim vehicle for eventual integration into the US as a state.

If I recall correctly, there were many states that started off as territories of the US, that eventually became states.  I have not heard folks asked about why the territories failed or could they have survived.  Puerto Rico might be an exception.

I admit that there would seem to be more involved in the creation of a republic versus a territory - perhaps this was necessary to execute the separation from Mexico - perhaps establishing a territory created different problems, that establishing a republic mitigated.

A butterfly begins activity as a caterpillar - and then becomes a butterfly - why does the caterpillar fail or not survive?

Anyway,if you flip the question - it would seem that the Republic of Texas was a success, having achieved that which was its design.

Regards,
Ray

[Riley Gardner]

Those are some great points there, rayjr. From what I can tell, the actual history of the Republic of Texas seems to be even less researched than the Revolutionary Period. Are there any works that deal particularly with the actual Republic? I'd be very interested to know about the various political infighting (or even commentary from the citizens) as to whether or not annexation was the right choice. I imagine there had to have been some opposition to statehood for various reasons.

[Allen Wiener]

The best book I've read on the Republic period is "The Texas Revolutionary Experience" by Paul D. Lack. It's not lively reading, but is a good account. It's sort of the flip side of Stephen Hardin's military history "Texian Illiad." Two other books that I'd recommend in this regard are "Lone Star Rising: The Revolutionary Birth of the Texas Republic" by William C. Davis, and "Lone Star Nation: The Epic Story of the Battle for Texas Independence" by H.W. Brands. Davis, of course, also wrote "Three Roads to the Alamo."

[estebans]

I agree that the republic could have limped along until there was a general economic recovery, and it strikes me that it was on the verge of being able to handle the Indian and Mexican threats--such as those were--in military terms, simply due to adopting Colts and developing the Rangers into superior irregular cavalry as a result. It seems like Mexico might never have gotten around to firming up its northern border defense against the Comanche incursions without the catalyst of the loss to the U. S., so the Indians would probably have continued raiding into there instead of Texas, giving Texas time to develop its own defensive perimeter against the Indians. And the precedent set by the successful revolt in Texas would have helped keep Mexican states rebelling, preventing Mexico from ever getting a sufficient invasion force together to retake even the Nueces Strip and hold it. The overland supply lines for that would never have held up under the pressure of units such as the Rangers were developing into, volunteers from the U. S. would have flocked to any actual fight, and the Texian navy could have blockaded the Corpus Christi bay to prevent resupply by sea. I'm not sure what would have happened with the larger Texas territorial claim; the region over to Santa Fe would have been harder for Texas to take on its own, but maybe a few years of stability and economic growth would have resulted in a tipping point where Texas could spare an army to go assert its claim there.

There was definitely a strong anti-annexation element in Texas. I bet the Tejanos were one group that was largely against it, whether Tory or rebel in 1836. And frankly, I suspect a lot of Texians preferred freedom to decide their own laws on slavery and other major issues. If you never join the Union, secession and emancipation aren't the same kind of problems, plus you get to keep all your tax revenue. I suspect that quite a few powerful Texians believed that the big money was going to be in plantations and selling land for plantations.

That is why the Santa Fe and Mier expeditions seem important to me in this question--I think they diverted the energies and even the physical persons of so many men who would probably have been actively anti-annexation for a couple of crucial years. Properly defined, a tipping point is not a perceptible thing at the time and maybe not even definable after the fact, but obviously the pro-annexation forces got the upper hand by 1844, and I think it was partly because a lot of the resistance to annexation swirled down the drain with those two fiascos. Until the start of 1842, there was more of a general perception that the republic might make a go of it despite the obstacles--at least that's the impression I get from reading mainly the contemporary accounts. I confess that so far I haven't read the secondary histories any more than absolutely necessary--only the Paul Lack book among those that Allen mentions. I like Lack's book a lot; it's clear that a lot of the political story resides in the sociological/demographic facts he has compiled. I just wouldn't try to read it straight through; the individual chapters on disparate groups and discrete phases in the revolution make good reading one at a time in the order that interests you--I'm not sure he was trying for overall narrative coherence of the sort that histories of the revolution usually seek, which would be precisely the virtue of his book that complements the more traditional approaches.

Stephen Schneider

[rayjr]

Riley,

I would add an additional volume that is good reading about many political aspects of the Republic.  Of course, I concur with both Allen & Stephen - Paul D. Lack's book is excellent!

A Political History of the Texas Republic, 1836-1845
by Stanley Siege

Contents from Amazon:

"This book is unique among the histories of the Texas Republic: it is the first to examine the fledgling nation from the point of view of its dynamic political life. Policies with far-reaching results were formulated in the nine years of Texas' independence, and the author clearly presents the many thorny issues that were to plague Texas for generations.

The political history of the Republic is one of strong figures vying with each other for popular support of their divergent policies. The author details the personal feuds and animosities that resulted and shows the effects of these differences on the governing of the nation. Thoughtful use of diaries, memoirs, and other contemporary sources gives the reader an excellent understanding of the sense of personal concern the citizens of the Republic felt toward the political issues of the day."

Best regards,
Ray