Southern Support for Texas Annexation (1845)

The vast majority of white Southerners backed Texas annexation for three intertwined reasons:

1. Economic: Texas cotton lands promised expanded markets and profits for planters.
2. Political: Adding a slave state preserved Senate balance; the 1844 election turned on this.
3. Cultural affinity: Shared plantation society, Protestant evangelicalism, and frontier ethos.

Opposition came from Whigs (cost, war risk) and Northern Democrats (slavery expansion). The Tyler administration pushed a joint resolution through Congress; Texas entered the Union 29 December 1845.