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Lamar disparaged annexation and believed that Texas could not with any sense of "national pride or dignity of character renew the negotiation." On 23 January 1839, the Texas Congress formally approved withdrawal of the annexation proposal. 17 In 1841, following Sam Houston's reelection as Texas president, James Reily, an attorney who had emigrated to Texas from Mississippi, was appointed chargé d'affaires to the United States. During his brief service in Washington, Reily signed a treaty of amity and com- merce with Secretary of State Daniel Webster, but the Texas Senate did not like the terms and declined to ratify it. 18 In 1842, Houston appointed Isaac Van Zandt (fig. 8), an attorney from Marshall, Texas and member of the Texas Congress, as chargé to Washing- ton. Van Zandt arrived in Washington at an auspicious time. John Tyler (fig. 9) of Virginia had succeeded to the presi- dency upon the untimely death of William Henry Harrison, in April 1841, only one month after taking office. Tyler, a slave-owning Virginian, was a dedicated adherent of the doctrine of Manifest Destiny, and he was deter- mined to bring Texas into the union. When his secretary of state, Daniel Webster of Massachusetts, balked at the prospect, Tyler eased him out of the cabinet and replaced him with Abel P. Upshur, a fellow Virginian, who was as eager to annex Texas as he was. Upshur wrote to a friend that the annexation of Texas was "the great object of my ambition. I do not care to control any measure of policy except this; and I have reason to believe that no person but myself can control it." On 16 October 1843, Upshur wrote Van Zandt that he was prepared to negotiate an annexation treaty whenever the Texan was granted authority to do so. Van Zandt sent the news to Texas by special courier; Houston presented the proposal to the Texas Congress in January 1844. The Texas Senate approved of the negotiation and dispatched veteran diplomat J. Pinckney Henderson to Washington to work with Van Zandt. 19 The discussions were secret and delicate. Texans had requested annexation before and had suffered embar- rassment when the United States declined its overture. They did not intend, as Houston wrote, to be the bride left at the altar again. Moreover, Texans had achieved a tenuous armistice with Mexico and worried that annex- ation talks with the United States would lead to renewed hostilities. Van Zandt asked if the United States would provide Texas with military and naval protection before a treaty was ratified. The suggestion made President John Tyler nervous but he agreed. Upshur assured Van 43 Fig. 9. John Tyler, oil on canvas by George Peter Alexander Healy (1859) THE CAPITOL DOME