Nearly ten years passed between Texas’s fight for independence from Mexico and its annexation by the United States. What political changes occurred to facilitate Texas joining the Union?

What will be an ideal response?

Northern interests in the U.S. Congress, led by John Quincy Adams, resisted greatly the admission of another slave state into the Union. As Texas made assertions of owning larger territory than its widely accepted borders and made attempts at alliances with European powers, sentiment in Washington changed, and a centerpiece of James K. Polk’s successful presidential campaign in 1844 was the annexation of Texas.