Fruits of Propaganda in the Tyler Administration

The first two essays of this volume and most of the 122-page documents section support the dust jacket’s claim that the book “explores . . . the use of the President’s secret fund . . . to gain domestic support for his [foreign] policy.” They focus primarily on the Maine boundary question. The third essay (previously published as an article) deals with Robert J. Walker’s widely published letter of 1844, in which he sought to convince Northerners to support the annexation of Texas on the ground that it would lead ultimately to the end of slavery in the United States and the exodus of the nation’s blacks to Latin America. Merk does not successfully link this letter directly to the Tyler administration.