Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/884685
45 passed George Washington's estate at Mount Vernon. Tyler was about to join the group on deck but stayed behind along with Julia Gardiner, the vivacious daugh- ter of the wealthy New York politician David Gardiner, whom he was courting. It was a providential delay, for when the Peacemaker was fired, it exploded, sending pieces of the cannon and shrapnel across the deck (fig. 11). Eight were killed and more wounded. The dead included Secretary of State Upshur and Julia Gardiner's father. Had Tyler been near the cannon he might have died as well. 22 The Princeton disaster proved a fatal blow to the Texas annexation treaty. A week after the explosion Tyler nominated South Carolina Senator John C. Calhoun to serve as his third secretary of state. He proved an unfortunate choice. Calhoun was a statesman of great experience; he had represented South Carolina in the U.S. House of Representatives, served as secre- tary of war in James Monroe's administration, as vice president to John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson, and at that time was U.S. senator from South Carolina. But he was deeply identified with—and dedicated to— southern sectionalism and slavery. On 12 April 1844, Van Zandt, Henderson, and Calhoun formally signed the treaty. Texas would enter the union as a territory which would later be incor- porated as a state. Texas public lands would be trans- ferred to the United States and the federal government would assume the public debts of Texas. Slavery was not mentioned, but in their report home the Texas rep- resentatives assured their government that the treaty protected our "domestic institutions." Though they had felt "obliged" to avoid any direct reference to slav- ery, the treaty protected "the right of property, etc., which we understand to include our right to slaves, as the constitution of the United States recognizes that species of property." 23 Whether the treaty would have received a two- thirds vote of the Senate is a matter of conjecture. But Calhoun himself bears a measure of responsibility for derailing the agreement. On 18 April, in a letter to the British minister in Washington, Sir Richard Pakenham, Calhoun pronounced British antislavery efforts in Texas as a threat to the "prosperity and safety" Fig. 11. This 1844 Currier lithograph depicts the explosion aboard the Princeton. THE CAPITOL DOME