Under the lead of John Quincy Adams, the power to discuss the whole subject of slavery in the National Legislature was won, and never again lost. This was the second triumph of the antislavery movement; its first was the power won by Garrison and his friends of discussing the subject before the people. The wolfish mob in the cities and in Congress might continue to howl, but it had lost its claws and teeth. But now came the first great triumph of the slave power, in the annexation of Texas. This was a cruel blow to the friends of freedom. It was more serious because the motive of annexation was openly announced, and the issue distinctly presented in the Presidential election. Mr. Upshur, Tyler's Secretary of State, in an official dispatch, declared that the annexation of Texas was necessary to secure the institution of slavery. The Democratic Convention which nominated Mr. Polk for the Presidency deliberately made the annexation of Texas the leading feature of its platform. Nor was the slave power in this movement opposed merely by the antislavery feeling of the country. Southern senators helped to defeat the measure when first presented in the form of a treaty by Mr. Tyler's administration. Nearly the whole Whig party was opposed to it. The candidate of the Whigs, Henry Clay, had publicly declared that annexation would be a great evil to the nation. Twenty members of Congress, with John Quincy Adams at their head, had proclaimed in an address to their constituents that it would be equivalent to a dissolution of the Union. Dr. Channing, in 1838, had said that it would be better for the nation to perish than to commit such an outrageous wrong. Edward Everett, in 1837, spoke of annexation as "an enormous crime." Whig and Democratic legislatures had repeatedly denounced it. In 1843, when the Democrats had a majority in the Massachusetts legislature, they resolved that "under no circumstances whatever" could the people of Massachusetts approve of annexation. Martin Van Buren opposed it as unjust to Mexico. Senator Benton, though previously in favor of the measure, in a speech in Missouri declared that the object of those who were favoring the scheme was to dissolve the Union, though he afterward came again to its support. And yet when the Presidential campaign was in progress, a Democratic torchlight procession miles long was seen marching through the streets of Boston, and flaunting the lone star of Texas along its whole line. And when Polk was elected, and the decision of the nation virtually given for this scheme, it seemed almost hopeless to contend longer against such a triumph of slavery. If the people of the North could submit to this outrage, it appeared as if they could submit to anything.