When Congress met in December, 1844, a remarkable change had come over the political would in the United States. The extraordinary popularity of Mr. Clay induced reflective men to believe, at the close of the last session, that he would be elected president, and that the prospects of immediate annexation would probably be blighted by that event. The great body of his partizans opposed the project of President Tyler; but the Democratic convention, assembled in Baltimore, in May, inscribed the fortunes of Texas on its banner together with the name of that party's candidate. The south immediately rallied around it, whilst the north assumed strange grounds of objection to the course of Mr. Clay. The Native American and Abolition parties in New York professed to vote with the friends of that gentleman in consequence of his opposition to annexation, and yet a sufficient number to defeat his election cast their ballots in direct contradiction of their principles. This was but another lesson of the danger of confiding in men or parties who have but a single idea. The folly of fanaticism commonly leads to violent inconsistencies, but perhaps a more palpable one was never exhibited than in the result of the presidential election of 1844. When the project of annexation was first discussed in 1843 in the gazettes of the day, and before any decided action by the president or secretary of state, General Almonté, who was then Mexican envoy at Washington, protested earnestly against the act, and even threatened, by express order of his government, that on sanction being given to the incorporation of Texas into the United States, he would consider his mission as ended, seeing that the Mexican government was resolved to declare war as soon as it received information of such a deed.[55] But Mr. Tyler, disregarding the irascible temper of the minister and his government, despatched pacific and soothing instructions to our chargé at Mexico, intimating a desire to act justly towards that republic, and to settle all questions growing out of the treaty as well as of boundary on the most liberal terms.[56] The Mexican government, however, would listen to no proposals of accommodation. The Texan question, as we have seen, was always one of great annoyance to the Mexican authorities; for although they acknowledged, in effect, that their dominion was really lost over Texas, yet their national pride and public feeling forced them to project, if they did not attempt, its reconquest.[57] Besides this, darkness was gathering around the fate of Santa Anna, who dared not undertake negotiations upon a subject so unpopular.