Constitutional Rules, Political Accidents, and the Course of History

Contrary to many historians, the deciding factor in Texas’s annexation was not the colorful personalities involved but the U.S. Constitution, which shaped the incentives and constraints they faced. Although Texas was barely annexed by a simple majority, analysis of the political players’ preference rankings reveals that it could have been annexed less contentiously under a supermajority procedure-which would have made the history of the Lone Star state far less consequential.