Texas and the Massachusetts resolutions

TEXAS

AND THE

MASSACHUSETTS RESOLUTIONS.

EY CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS.

BOSTON:
1844.

EASTBURN'S PRESS.

THE substance of this Essay has already been published in the col-
umns of the Boston Courier, in nine separate newspapers. It is now
slightly enlarged and put in a continuous form, in order that the views
therein taken of two much disputed questions of great national interest
at this time, as well as of the policy to be adopted by the Free States in
respect to them, may be submitted entire to the impartial judgnent of
a free people.

REMARKS

The People of the United States have been lately taken
somewhat by surprise upon the announcement that a Treaty
was actually on foot between the American Government and
Texas by which the annexation of the latter to the Union,
the favorite measure of a great party in the country is at last
to be effected. They had scarcely supposed that this ques-
tion so lately thought to be put at rest was about to rise be-
fore them again so soon and in so novel a manner. The
newspapers, the usual organs by which events are an-
nounced, for reasons which may readily be understood, long
abstained very carefully from sounding any alarm, and it was
not until the measure was almost upon us that they apprised
us even of its existence. Even since the fact has become
notorious beyond the possibility of contradiction, it cannot be
said that they treat the subject in the full and open and un-
disguised manner which its paramount importance to the
country demands. The great mass of thinking people are
not led fully to comprehend what it is that makes this point
one of such deep interest to carry in some quarters of the
Union, and in others to resist, nor are they prepared by the
momentary and evanescent censure which they find nowr and
then passed upon it to devise a plan of action which shall
stop the whole movement, while there is time.

And when we say movement, we do not mean by this
simply the effort of John Tyler to finish the scheme by what
the French would call a "coup de main." That is merely
the end of what has been in the process of accomplishment
for years back. Mr. Holmes of South-Carolina said in his
place in Congress, that the annexation of Texas was " the
settled policy of the government." His remark was full of
meaning ; but how few are there in the Free States, who have
been led to give it a moment's consideration ? His remark
may go somewhat to illustrate the motives of the appointment
of Mr. John C. Calhoun to the Department of State, and
yet the newspapers of the Free States of all parties seem to
hail that appointment, as if it was the announcement of a sa-
viour to the nation. If Mr. Calhoun is likely to save the

4

State by any policy which he introduces into the administra-
tion, then did George Washington greatly misconceive what
that policy ought to be, in the legacy which he left to his
countrymen.

The annexation of Texas has been the settled policy of
the government for many years past. But it has been only
one of a series of measures which have constituted that pol-
icy. Perhaps it was the one most difficult to accomplish,
and therefore the longer delayed, that all the initiatory
steps might be more firmly taken. There have been those
in the Free States, who have watched the progress made
with unsleeping vigilance, and who have more than once suc-
ceeded in defeating the scheme for the moment, but it never
has been laid aside. It never will be laid aside until it is ac-
complished. Time will be given to remove from the scene
the most powerful opponents, or to soften the roughest obsta-
cles. But the thing will be done, peaceably if possible,
forcibly if necessary. Let no man in the Free States hug
the delusion that it is stopped, because two thirds of the Sen-
ators cannot now be found to ratify Mr. Tyler's treaty.
There are many ways in America to arrive at the same re-
sult. If one fails, another will be tried. Money, promises,
bribes, threats, will be used, bargains will be made, and the
end of it will be, that unless they interfere with a voice of
thunder to prevent it the people of ihe Free States will be
sold, and Texas will be bought for the bauble of the Presi-
dency.

Even now there is living on the banks of the Hudson river
an individual, the chief merit of whose political life is to be
found in the fact that he, as President of the United States,
refused to negotiate a treaty like that which John Tyler
now proposes. The recollection of that act, at this time,
weighs heavily against him and his hopes of again reach-
ing the station which he lost. He has, through his friends,
bargained away much that the Free States deem valuable,
the right of petition, the protection of home industry, the
freedom of speech, and, indeed, almost every other se-
curity to liberty, for the sake of assuring himself of the sup-
port of the Southern States. They are not yet satisfied.
They require the surrender of all opposition to Texas, and it
is to be feared that this also will be sacrificed to them. For
instead of meeting halfway the generous feelings of four fifths
of the people of the Free States, indignant at this secret
manoeuvre of John Tyler's, the Legislatures of at least three
States friendly to Mr. Van Buren, have cooly determined in
silence to await the issue. We were not disappointed in this

result, for we know the calculating policy of that gentleman.
The principles of liberty are never safe in the hands of men
who make a trade of public affairs. Mr. Van Buren must
he judged by his preceding course, taken as a whole — and
from that let no man delude himself with the belief that he is
fixed to any thins; but his own interest. If the citizens of the
Free States are to have any hope of maintaining to them-
selves and their children the blessings of liberty, they must
rely upon themselves. For their voice alone will form the
potential rule by which the conduct of such men as Mr. Van
Buren will be guided. And with regret it must he confessed
that of such men, do, for the most part, our legislative bodies
consist.

In order to a full comprehension of the merits of this ques-
tion, it is necessary to go a great deal deaper than Mr.
Tyler's treaty with Texas. That is but an incident — an
important one, it may be — but still only one of many, which
spring from the same cause. What that cause is, few of the
leading politicians of the present day dare to tell if they
know. The exposure of it to the light is not a very safe
process to any one ambitious of a share of power, to get
which it is necessary to gain the assent of Senators from the
Southern States. The Massachusetts resolutions ventured to
point to that cause in a manner that could not be misunderstood.
Hence the extraordinary way in which they have been re-
ceived throughout the chain of the slave States, and in both
branches of the federal legislature. Massachusetts struck
directly at the root of the evil. She showed from whence
came the policy which has already put fetters on the Free
States, the galling nature of which they will only begin to
feel when the annexation of Texas shall have brought its train
of evils along with it, and the consequence has been a gen-
eral burst of indignation from the parties interested in main-
taining the delusion. It must be confessed that Massa-
chusetts, in making the exposition which she did of the
power wielded by the representation of property in man,
conceded by the constitution of the United States, over the
interests of the Union, went a step beyond public opinion,
even in the Free Stales, and she has no.t yet been properly
sustained in any quarter, but, on the whole, this is not to be
regretted. There is time enough. .Events will show wheiher
she is right or wrong. If the duty of sustaining the great
principles of human progress against attack, is to devolve
upon any one, who so fit to lead as the people of Massa-
chusetts ?

Let no one, however, be so simple as to imagine that the

6

question thus opened can end here. Mr. Dromgoole of Vir-
ginia may flatter himself that his resolution, forced through
the House of Representatives at Washington at the expense
of every privilege which makes a deliberative assembly valu-
able to the people, will set it at rest for the present. But his
action, and that of his servile majority, will only tend to sup-
ply another illustration of the evil which Massachusetts point-
ed out. That cannot be a good cause which stands in need
of such aid to support it. That must be a tyrannical system
which needs the protection of silent and hurried measures to
prevent it from falling. If the eyes of this people are ulti-
mately to be opened, no better means can be devised for the
purpose than such as are now often and unblushingly resorted
to for the purpose of keeping them blind.

It is a remark made by Mr. Stiles, a representative of
Georgia, in a late speech of his, which has been circulated
far and wide, that "slavery and the constitution have^owr-
ishtd together ; their existence is the same and inseparable."
Now if it were possible to destroy in the minds of respecta-
ble citizens all respect for that instrument, no more effectual
mode could be devised than to admit the truth of such a pro-
position. For what does it imply ? Nothing more nor less
than that the frame of government which all lovers of freedom
had fondly hoped would prove the greatest protection to hu-
man liberty ever known, had actually proved the hot-bed for
the forcing into rank luxuriance a system of tyrannical despo-
tism by one class over another and larger class of their fellow
beings. Mr. Stiles seems to speak as if it were conceded
on all hands that the intention of the instrument was to guar-
anty the perpetuation of slavery. Yet to admit this, would be
equivalent to charging its framers with deliberate falsehood ;
for they, in their preamble, expressly declare the object of
the people to be "to secure the blessings of liberty to them-
selves and their posterity," as well as " to establish justice,"
to ensure domestic tranquillity, to provide for the common
defence and promote the general welfare." Is it then true
or not true, what Mr. Stiles says of the constitution ; and if
true, how comes it to be true in the face of so solemn a pre-
amble, which so directly contradicts him ? These are seri-
ous questions, and we propose to try to answer them with
equal seriousness.

The framers of the constitution meant what they said in
the preamble. They were honest and honorable men. They
well knew the character of the task which they had undertaken.
They felt (hat the hopes of the people, ay, and of the friends
of liberty all over the civilized world, rested upon the sue-

cess of their efforts. And they labored to erect a system of
government which should answer the public expectation.
They strove to incorporate into it the safeguards of every
known principle of liberty, and what they did not formally
recognise, the people, by amendments, insisted upon ex-
pressly securing. Thus it was that the writ of habeas cor-
pus was reserved, except in cases of extreme public clanger,
bills of attainder and ex post facto laws were prohibited, trial
by jury was secured, convictions for treason should be had
only upon the concurrent testimony of two witnesses to a sin-
gle overt act, no corruption of blood should be made a pun-
ishment of the offence, and republican forms of government
were guaranteed to the several States. These were provisions
made to guard against invasions of personal liberty, of which
history had furnished examples under arbitrary governments
on the other side of the water. But the people of the States,
not content with all this, insisted upon articles of amendment
which expressly guard against an establishment of religion,
against the prohibition of the free exercise of speech by Con-
gress, the abridgement of the freedom of speech or of the
press, and the infringement of the right of the people to as-
semble and to petition for a redress of grievances. So with
their right to bear arms, and to be secure in their persons,
houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and
seizures, arid also with their right to an impartial trial. All
this, and more that might be enumerated, has but one end, and
that is — " the securing the blessings of liberty to the people
and their posterity'1 —the very end mentioned in the pream-
ble. The care that was taken to define all these points suffi-
ciently proves the sincerity of the persons engaged in making
the form of government. They thought they were creating
a republic, — or, as it is now more common though less proper
to style it, a democracy. They recommended it, because it
appeared to carry out the principles of the revolutionary
struggle. It gave a practical sanction to the doctrines of the
Declaration of Independence. The people thought so too.
They ratified it and adopted it, and boasted of enjoying the
freest government on the face of the earth.

And yet Mr. Stiles tells us that " slavery and the constitu-
tion have flourished together — their existence is the same and
inseparable." The first part of the sentence, at least, is true.
Slavery has flourished under the constitution. Not because it
was the design of the constitution to make it flourish. No !
we abhor the idea as a slander upon our forefathers. It was
because the framers of the constitution whished to deal mildly
with an existing evil. They trusted to the healing influences

8

of the system which they were about to establish, gradually to
remove the sore. They made a mistake. That sore has
spread, and proves a corroding ulcer. For the sake of gain-
ing the security to freedom in all the other provisions which
have been specified, they unwillingly assented to one aristo-
cratic condition, which gave to a small number of whites, in
the slave States, a disproportionate share of political power,
on account of their property in their fellow-men. That sin-
gle aristocratic condition has, from its commencement, work-
ed unmixed evil to the Union. It now bids fair to overturn
and destroy all the safeguards of the constitution. It bids fair
to make that instrument a mere nose of wax, with which to
accomplish the selfish purposes of the class whom it protects.
The policy of the United States has been and is to make
slavery flourish under the constitution. Mr. Stiles says it
has succeeded — thus far. Perhaps so. But it is as yet bare-
ly established. The victory has not been gained without a
struggle. And the last act yet remains to be done — the an-
nexation of Texas — before it can be said to be beyond the
reach of clanger. This once accomplished, it will not be diffi-
cult to foresee the consequences, as it respects any hope of
effective counteraction on the part of the Free States.

One of the least of these consequences is war. War with
Mexico, certainly — with Great Britain, probably. Let the
people reflect upon these matters well. For to them the re-
sult is of no trifling importance. A war to protect slavery
against the civilized world, is the ultimate point of degrada-
tion to which a nation, boasting to be free, is likely to be
driven.

Let us however now consider still more closely the asser-
tion of Mr. Stiles, and let us ask ourselves whether the con-
stitution of the United States is what he leads us to infer it is,
only a stupendous fraud upon mankind. He affirms that its
object was to guarantee the existence of a state of domestic
slavery in the Union, and that whenever that object should
be made to cease, the constitution mnst cease also. We
should not rest upon the argument of this individual, if we
did not know that in it he represents the sentiments of the
great mass of the people in the Southern States, who really
believe that slavery is an inseparable attendant of our Iree
institutions. We may wonder at the strange nature of the
inconsistency committed by men who profess themselves to
go to the extreme of democracy in doctrine, but such is yet
the fact. Our business is rather with what is, than with what
ought to be. The Legislatures of Virginia, of Alabama, and
of Louisiana, as well as the House of Representatives at

Washington, have all, by their action upon the Massachu-
setts Resolutions, more or less committed themselves to the
maintenance of the same proposition. They cannot now get
away from it if they would.

Yet in the face of all this, we will undertake at once, and
unequivocally to deny, on behalf of the framers of the consti-
tution, any such fraudulent intention. The great body ol the
convention looked confidently to the day when slavery would
be abolished in all the States. The celebrated Judge Wil-
son announced it in the ratifying Convention of Pennsylvania
as one of the most valuable consequences to be expected
from the adoption of the constitution. George Washington
looked forward to it, if not in the same light, at least as fol-
lowing the voluntary act of the Southern States themselves.
Thomas Jefferson, though not a member of the convention,
yet a fair representative of Southern sentiment, was not a
whit behind-hand in his professions upon the subject. The
evil was then confined within comparatively small limits ; it
was not rapidly growing under the stimulus of the production
of an extraordinarily profitable staple, such as cotton has
since become and such as sugar may yet become. It was
generally believed at the time that the transplantation of the
negro to America was an artificial process, which could only
be kept up by perpetual importation, and that, without this,
the race would decline and die out of itself. Hence the ori-
gin of the effort to prevent the prohibition of the slave trade,
resulting in the adoption of the first clause of the ninth section
of the first article of the constitution, which put that trade
beyond the control of Congress for twenty years, or until
1803. This measure, if it meant any thing at all, was a meas-
ure of precaution against the supposed tendency of the con-
stitution, and by no means implies the opinion that slavery
would flourish under its protection — an opinion which Mr.
Stiles maintains to have been the prevailing one, and which
he, with a greater appearance of justice, assumes to be the
correct one.

But how has it come to be a fact, if it be admitted to be
true ? Is it not because the constitution gave to a hundred
and fifty thousand men, owners of slaves, — a number which
certainly has not doubled since, — a most disproportionate
share of political power over the affairs of the Union ? It
granted to them an aristocratic distinction of property which
forever marked them a favored and separate class, acting to-
gether for a common object, the maintenance at every hazard
of their special privilege. The consequence has been that
the power thus concentrated in few hands has met with no

10

corresponding combination in other quarters of the Union to
resist il, and that it has overborne all opposition. The first
struggle, which could hardly be denominated one, took place
upon the acquisition of Louisiana to the United States — an
acquisition obtained at the sacrifice of every constitutional
principle that had ever been maintained in the southern coun-
try. This enlarged the territory over which the exclusive
privilege could be extended, and multiplied the number of its
representatives in the Senate of the Union. The next strug-
gle took place in 1819, at the time of the admission of Mis-
souri, when a serious attempt was made to put a stop to the
future increase of that number, by attaching a condition that
the right of property in man should not be recognized in the
new State. The champions of the exclusive privilege were
here again victorious, and they have enjoyed the fruits of that
victory down to this time. But the natural progress of
events, which increases the citizens of the free States and
territories much faster than the slave owners can multiply
slaves, has again brought their power into danger — and now
the third struggle is about to take place, which will open a
new territory, of indefinite extent, already occupied by a
sympathizing population active in cherishing the source of
their political power, and originally transplanted from the
United States to this spot it occupies, for the purpose of
bringing about this very result.

One of the most visible modes by which this small but
powerful combination has exercised a great degree of influ-
ence, has been through the election to the Presidency. Out
of the now considerable period since the adoption of the con-
stitution, there may be said to have been but one single term
of four years in which this combination has not preponderated
in the government — and the history of that term is the one
which it has most zealously endeavored to decry. We mean
the presidency of the elder Aclams. Out of fifty-six years,
the combination has obtained a Chief Magistrate from a slave-
holding section of the country forty-four years, and it held
almost unlimited sway during four of the remaining twelve.
The consequence may very easily be guessed. The gen-
eral policy of the country has been that of protection to
the interests of slavery. It is this which makes the words of
Mr. Stiles true, and not any supposed intent of the framers
of the constitution. Slavery has flourished because those
possessing the aristocratic distinction of property conceded in
it have always held the balance of power, and they have al-
ways used it with a single eye to the maintenance of their ex-
clusive privileges. It is, then, not without reason that Mr.

11

Holmes has pronounced the annexation of Texas to have been
the settled policy of the government. It has been so during
the last twenty years, but there has been a difference in the
nature of that policy at different periods, which those who
now advocate it very sedulously conceal from the public view.
In order that we may arrive at a true judgement of the
facts, let us look at them a little more closely.

The treaty with France, by which Louisiana was ceded to
the United States, left the Western boundary of that territo-
ry very uncertain. When the question came up for settle-
ment with Spain, which had the control at that time over the
neighboring country of Mexico, it became the duty of the
representatives of the two governments to argue it in that
manner which should be most for the interest of their respec-
tive nations. The Americans claimed the Rio del None as
the boundary, which would embrace all the country now call-
ed Texas, and more ; whilst the Spaniards, on the other
hand, insisted upon a line running North from the Gulf of Mex-
ico to the River Missouri, at about the ninety-third degree of
longitude West from London, which would have taken off a
part of what are now the States of Arkansas and Missouri, and
much of the Western Territory. As is usual in such cases,
an intermediate line was ultimately agreed upon by the treaty
of 1819, the third article of which, fixed the boundary at the
River Sabine, up to the thirty-second degree of latitude,
thence North to the degree of latitude where such a line
would strike the Red River, thence westward along this river
to the one-hundredth parallel of longitude west from London,
thence north to the Arkansas River, thence along this river
to its source in latitude forty-two degrees north, and thence
westward along that parallel to the Pacific Ocean. In the
annual message of President Monroe to Congress, of the 7th
December, 1819, this was distinctly announced as a com-
promise, in the following words:

"On the part of the United States, this treaty was evidently acceded

to in a spirit of conciliation and concession For territory

ceded by Spain, other territory of great value to which our claim was be-
lieved to be well founded, was ceded by the United States, and in a
quarter more interesting to her."

Now if we consider that the Floridas were the territory
ceded by Spain, a territory for the sake of gaining which it
may be remarked Mr. Jefferson himself whose authority has
been much relied upon in this connexion, always stood ready
to surrender the claim on Texas, we think it will scarcely be
maintained by any one who will cast a glance upon the map,
that this treaty was not, so far at least as territory is con-

12

cerned, and Southern territory too, an abundantly advanta-
geous one to the United States. Yet Mr. J. Q. Adams,
who was then in the Department of State, and conducted
the negotiation on the part of the Union, has been most sin-
gularly treated in connexion with it, by those who now un-
dertake the management of the Texas cause. In the first
place, they quote him as a strong authority, when he claimed
on the part of this country, the farthest western boundary,
which would have included Texas in our territory, and then
forgetting the compromise in the treaty, by which that claim
was surrendered, in consideration of the corresponding sur-
render by Spain of the Floridas, as well as of iis claim to a
part of Arkansas and Missouri and the Western territory,-
they insist that he betrayed the interests of the Union, by
giving up this claim on the territory of Texas. They seem
to forget or to neglect all notice of this contract by which ter-
ritory was acquired in the place of what was quit-claimed,
(for the right of the United States to Texas was never con-
ceded by the Spanish Government, and therefore it never
became more than a claim on our part,) and with a singular
exhibition of justice and impartiality, they not only insist
upon holding all that we got by the bargain, but also upon
taking back a part of the consideration that we gave to get it.
And the great argument by which Mr. Walker, who speaks
for the Texan party, endeavors to support this extraordinary
pretension is that Texas having become by virtue of the
Louisiana treaty an integral part of the United States, no
part of it could be ceded at all by the general government
without the consent of its inhabitants. Mr. Walker appears
to overlook the fact that in 1819 when this treaty was made
there were very few inhabitants in the territory to consult-
that none of them were emigrants from the United States,
and that those who were there, as they had never been
consulted when the Louisiana treaty was made, so they were
as little consulted when the claim was advanced which was
to bring them within the limits of the Union. Probably
if they had been, they would have adhered to the Spanish
side of the question. The question was in substance a ques-
tion of boundaries in a wilderness. The United States
have no right to insist at all times that their claim is not
simply a just one as against neighboring nations, but that it is
utterly impossible for them to divest themselves of it. Hence
that every negotiation and treaty which surrenders such a
claim is unauthorised and therefore wholly void. If this ar-
gument is always to prevail, where are we to stop ? The
boundaries of the territory of the Union are not yet per-

13

fectly defined in many quarters. Are we to assume that our
rights skall be acknowledged by other nations, to the furthest
limit of what we can show any claim for? If we do, then
will there never be any possibility of settling questions other-
wise than by war. It amounts to dictation to other countries,
to which they will never submit — it can never be called nego-
tiation with them. The great body of the people of the
United States are not so unreasonable as all this comes to.
When a good treaty is made, which secures the great ob-
ject of peace, and a definite boundary, equally satisfactory
to both the negotiating countries, it becomes all honest and
well-meaning citizens to abstain thenceforth and forever from
all complaint and much more from any effort to annul its force.

Yet we are not among those who can be said to approve
of one principle which was contained in that treaty, as af-
fecting the domestic concerns of the Union. We mean the
acquisition of additional territory. The example had been
unfortunately set by the cession of Louisiana, and a concur-
rence of circumstances appeared to make the step almost un-
avoidable. But we fear it has been, and will be, the parent
of mischiefs innumerable. One of these has been, what Mr.
Holmes calls the settled policy of the Government to annex
Texas. Another is the present dispute with the government
of Great Britain, about the terrritory of Oregon. Why
should the people of the United States want more lands,
when they do not know what to do with those they already
have? Why should the twenty-six States seek to open new
inducements to the emigration of their own citizens, when
those already existing are so great as to make them uncertain
of their ability to keep them at home ? Still there would be
no impulse of this kind sufficiently strong to excite a reason-
able share of alarm for the pacific policy of the Union, if it
were not for the restless desire of the privileged class to per-
petuate the sources of its power.

The treaty with Spain of 1819, signed, sealed and duly
ratified by the contracting parties, fixed the Sabine and the
Red River as the boundary of the United States on the
south-west. It surrendered all claim, or shadow of claim,
to the territory of Texas. That was conceded to belong to
Spain, whilst Spain held the control of Mexico, and it fell to
the share of Mexico when that country made itself independ-
ent. Shortly after the acknowledgment of her independ-
ence, an effort was made to treat with her for the cession of
Texas. That effort was made by Mr. Clay, under the ad-
ministration of Mr. Adams. It is the beginning of what Mr.
Holmes has denominated the settled policy of this Govern-

14

ment, and inasmuch as the fact has been very much relied
upon by Mr. Walker, and other friends of the annexation of
Texas, as a justification of the extraordinary series of meas-
ures since taken, it may be well to explain precisely to what
it amounts.

In the year 1S24, or three years after Mexico threw off
the Spanish domination, she adopted a constitution, wherein
it was provided that "no person should thereafter be born or
introduced as a slave into the Mexican nation." At this
time the territory of Texas was comparatively a desert.
There were but a few settlements, and none of them had
shown any disposition to resist the policy thus declared. In
J825, Mr. Clay proposed the cession of the territory, for
such a reasonable sum of money as to Mexico would be per-
fectly satisfactory. It was the land that was in question, and
not the institutions established in it, for none had been then
established. It was an open bargain with a neighbor, which
that neighbor was perfectly at liberty to agree to or to reject
—and which it did reject in such a manner as to put an end
to the negotiation. There was no fraud, no fal.se play, no
open profession and secret treachery. We may disapprove
of the policy which sought for an enlargement of territory in
this quarter, if we please, but we have nothing to be ashamed
of in it. We may blame Mr. Adams and Mr. Clay for set-
ting a precedent in this instance, so likely to be abused, and
which in fact has been abused, but we cannot make them
justly responsible for not foreseeing the train of evils which
only the policy of the last fifteen years has brought to light.

In short, Texas is not, and never was ours. We had a
claim upon it, believed by us to be good, which we sold for
more than it was worth. We have not, therefore, had a
shadow of right to it since, and this pretence of getting round
a solemn treaty for the sake of reviving a disputed title, set-
tled, advantageously to us, long ago, is only one of many
movements which reflect no credit upon the advocates of the
annexation. Six years afterwards, it is true that the admin-
istration of Mr. Adams offered to buy the territory from
Mexico, before it was seriously encumbered with "the do-
mestic institution," and before citizens of the United States
had gone into it for the purpose of exciting disaffection, but it
did not pretend that Mexico was not fully possessed of all the
rights to it which Spain held under the Treaty of 1819, up to
the period of the overthrow of her domination. The offer
was made — it was declined, and there was an end of the bu-
siness. In making it, the United States conceded the validity
of the title by which Mexico held it. It would have been

15

well for the character of our diplomacy, if they had continu-
ed, as at first, contentedly to abide by the refusal.

But this was noi destined to be the case. We must now
go into a very brief examination of that which Mr. Holmes
has called the " settled policy of the government," respect-
ing Texas. We have no desire to say any thing unnecessa-
rily harsh, either of active or retired public men, but a part
of the truth, at least, must be told. The whole has never
yet been, and probably never will be, revealed to the public.
If in any particular we commit errors from want of all the
necessary evidence to substantiate our statements, we shall be
glad to be corrected. The times demand that the facts
should be presented with accuracy and without passion.

General Jackson was elected President of the United
States, and in March, 1S29, assumed the office. Mr. Van
Buren became his Secretary of State. On the 25th of Au-
gust following, the latter gentleman wrote to our minister in
Mexico, that the President wished him to open, without de-
lay, a negotiation for the purchase of Texas. For that which
the preceding administration had not thought of offering more
than one million of dollars, the General was willing to offer
four millions of dollars, or even as much as five.

It must be noted that at this very time the government was
aware of the fact that an expedition had been fitted out by
Spain for the reconquest of Mexico, which appeared for some
time likely to be successful. We refer to that under General
Barradas. This was thought to be a highly favorable moment
'to press the offer of so large a sum of money. " It is" said
Mr. Van Buren in one of his despatches "regarded by us as
an auspicious one to secure the cession, and I will add, that
there does not appear to be any reasonable objection on the
score of delicacy, to its being embraced."

The Mexican character is somewhat peculiar. It is indo-
lent, but very stubborn. However delicate they might have
considered the offer at such a moment, the money was no
temptation, and the Spanish expedition came to nothing.
Mr. Poinsett was obliged to write home his conviction " that
we never can expect to extend our boundary south of the
Sabine, without quarreling with these people."

Here was a hint. How it was taken, may best be under-
stood by reading an extract from a newspaper, the Arkansas
Gazette of 1830, which announced, "from information deriv-
ed from a source entitled to the highest credit, that no hopes
need be entertained of our acquiring Texas, until some other
party more friendly to the United States shall predominate in
Mexico, and perhaps not until Texas shall throw of the yoke

16

of allegiance to that government, which they will do, no
doubt, as soon as they shall have a reasonable pretext for so
doing."

What was the "source entitled to the highest credit" from
which issued so remarkable an oracle ? Who was it that
thus succeeded in casting forward the shadow of coining
events ? Was it the President's correspondent in Arkansas,
the Secretary of State, Mr. Fulton ? Was it Mr Anthony
Butler, who had been in the confidence of the President in
1829, and who succeeded Mr. Poinsett in Mexico ? or the
still more remarkable person who became the instrument
through which conjecture was made reality, General Houston?
We shall not pretend to any ability to answer these questions,
but we shall endeavor to show as briefly as possible the rela-
tions which these persons bore to the history we have in hand.
It is a fact, that this Samuel Houston, a man who had
made himself conspicuous as a friend of General Jackson
prior to the election of 1828, who had been a representative
from Tennessee in Congress, as well as Governor of that
State, and who boasted much of his possessing the confidence
of the President, suddenly left Washington^ but not without
leaving behind him some who knew of his intended course,
and that he made his appearance in Texas as an expatriated
citizen, anxious to leave his own country in order that he
might take the benefit of the advantages held out by the su-
perior moral and social condition of Mexico, by becoming a
settler under its jurisdiction. His example was soon followed
by many of those who boast of belonging to the freest nation
under the sun. Mexico was indiscreet enough to suppose
that they came in earnest. No effort was made, by those
who knew better, to undeceive her, and she therefore was
lavish in her offers of land and all other privileges. But she
would not grant every conceivable demand. The Mexican
constitution by which the territories of Coahuila and Texas
were united abolished slavery. The new settlers insisted upon
separating Texas from Coahuila, and making a new constitu-
tion for the former, which omitted the clause abolishing slave-
ry. Mexico preferred the old form of government, and the
settlers deemed the moment auspicious for declaring their in-
dependence. And General Houston, not long afterwards,
wrote to his friend Dunlap of Tennessee, for aid in the strug-
gle that would ensue, because, to use his own words-
There is but one feeling in Texas, in my opinion, and that is, to estab-
lish the independence of Texas, and to be attached to the United States.

We make no comment on these facts, because we are con-
fident that with all reasonable and fair-judging citizens they

17

need none. The independence of Texas was established
principally by means of aid from the United States. And
now that the proposal to be attached is once more made, Mr.
Senator Walker, in his elaborate pamphlet, professes to see
no difference between the nature of this proposal, as it affects
the disposition towards us of Mexico, which has never yet
acknowledged the independence of Texas, and that made
during Mr. Adams's administration, to obtain by purchase the
territory from Mexico herself, before her independence had
been acknowledged by Spain. He maintains that Spain, with
whom we were then on friendly terms, had as much right to be
offended with us in the one case, as Mexico has in the other.
This is specious and plausible, but it is as unsound as every
other part of the argument in favor of annexation ; — for sure-
ly there is a moral feeling in the breast of every man, which
leads him to distinguish between actions done under wholly
different circumstances. Mexico declared herself indepen-
dent of Spain. The struggle was between Mexicans and
Spaniards, and the United States did not interfere to decide
it. On the other hand, the citizens of the United States went
into Texas ostensibly as settlers, and they declared Texas
independent of Mexico. Can it be said that the United
States did not create as well as decide the struggle ? Can it be

said that the governmenc was not during the whole time anx-

.

iously betraying its interest in the result, by perpetual solicita-
tion of Mexico to cede the country as it was, whether in a state
of insurrection or not ? Does not the law forbid individuals to
take advantage of their own wrong ? And is it not the wrong
of our citizens, transplanted for a short time to another soil,
which has enabled us to treat with them for that soil, against
the consent and to the injury of Mexico ? So long as Spain
was unable to recover any territory from the Mexicans, it
could be matter of no offence who purchased the soil of the
new owners. But the Mexicans certainly have a right to be
offended, if the government with whom it is at peace, first
succeeds in tearing off a part of their country, by instigating
resistance to their authority on the part of its citizens import-
ed for the purpose, and then, after a few years have passed
just sufficient to save appearances, it takes through the agency
of those citizens that country very quietly within its own ju-
risdiction, as the legitimate offspring of this treachery.

The Mexicans may be a feeble people, wanting in the en-
ergy which is characteristic of the United States, but they are
not wanting in discernment. They long since penetrated the
ambitious designs of their powerful neighbor, and they have
not been without industry in watching and exposing its action

18

to the eyes of the civilized world. From the day of the ac-
cession of General Jackson to the Presidency, to the last of
his second term, no effort was left untried by him, by which he
could hope to acquire Texas. In the summer of 1829, Mr.
Anthony Butler, the person who was to be employed by him
as his negotiator, came to Washington, and had long confer-
ences with him, and with Mr. Van Buren, that he might
be the more fully master of all the designs of the administra-
tion. In 1830, General Jackson's own affidavit on record in
the Court at Washington proves that he became fully aware
of General Houston's schemes, but that instead of communi-
cating his information to the government with which we were
at peace, and which was most deeply affected by them, he
confined himself to a letter of inquiry, addressed, not to the
Governor, but to the Secretary of the Territory of Arkansas,
and calculated rather to invite a contradiction of the designs
charged, than to elicit any facts. It should be recollected,
that this was at just about the same time that the singular
article already quoted, intimating, as from a source entitled
to " the highest credit," that Texas might "throw off the
yoke of allegiance to Mexico"' —appeared in the columns of
the State Gazette of this very Arkansas Territory. And not
satisfied with the ordinary forms of official intercourse, Gen-
eral Jackson himself, notwithstanding the position he occupied
which seems to require no little delicacy in the management
of the foreign relations, kept up a constant interchange of
private and confidential letters with Mr. Butler, the perpet-
ually recurring burden of which, if we are to judge by the re-
plies of that gentleman, was Texas, Texas.

Mr. Tyler has been much blamed for carrying on a secret
negotiation with Texas. We have no disposition to volun-
teer any palliation of his measures ; but, we ask, what censure
should 'his conduct bear in this instance, in comparison with
that of his more distinguished predecessor ? He has, to be sure
tried to betray the Union, by a sudden stroke of policy, into a
measure which he knew a large part of it held in great detest-
ation, and deemed subversive of the Constitution. But Gen-
eral Jackson continued secretly at work during eight long
years, coaxing, threatening, proposing treaties never to be
executed, harping upon private claims, bad as well as good,
for the sake of obtaining a denial of them that would make
cause of quarrel, endeavoring to raise the most frivolous
doubts, in order to unsettle the clear boundary of the Sabine,
and only stopping short at the deliberate proposal by Mr.
Butler, of carrying every thing by downright bribery and cor-
ruption.

19

These facts are all substantiated even by the partial evi-
dence (made so it should be observed, through the suppress-
ions of the administration of Mr. Van Buren) which has been
furnished in answer to a call of the House of Representatives
at Washington. Yet they have never excited the public at-
tention in a degree at all to correspond to the importance of
the disclosures which they make. Most of the people believe
very sincerely that this alarm about Texas is a most vision-
ary fear — that no one has ever been in earnest in pressing the
point, and that it is rather to be regarded as a device of vio-
lent abolitionists to injure the character of our public men than
as having any foundation in truth and their own conduct. Lit-
tle are they aware that the whole force of the administration
under a most energetic President is proved by papers which
defy contradiction to have been secretly exerted to bring about
a cession of this territory voluntarily by Mexico, at the same
time that it was instigating revolutionary movements on the
part of persons leagued in the conspiracy within the limits of
that territory itself, persons who left the United States for the
purpose, in order to bring about by the use of force, the
same result.

The negotiation with Mexico finally failed. Mr. Butler
could not succeed in effecting as much as he had promised to
do and as a consequence he was obliged to retire from the
scene. But it was not until after he had spent months in the
territory of Texas itself and months more in Washington which
were employed in arranging the details of the last act of trea-
chery to a friendly nation. A final proposition was made to
the government of Mexico to take all of the territory east of
the Rio del Norte, up to the thirty-seventh parallel of latitude,
and from thence west to the Pacific Ocean. This would have
included a great part of upper California, New Mexico and
Santa Fe — and for this immense territory the sum of six mil-
lions of dollars was offered. And upon the rejection of this
proposal Mr. Butler retired from his mission only for the pur-
pose of ultimately taking up the thread of operations in Tex-
as itself, and organizing more effectively by means of secret
societies the other part of the plan which had been agreed
upon.

We have already remarked, that there are many ways in
America to arrive at the same result. If one fails, another
will be tried. The truth of this is visible enough throughout
all the proceedings about Texas. General Samuel Houston
the gentleman who had devised this scheme at Washington,
about which President Jackson thought it proper to send
all the way to the Secretary of State of the Territory of

20

Arkansas to inquire, had not been idle during the time that
these negotiations were going on. He became a settler in
Texas, very soon worked himself up into a discontented
citizen, and finally became the head of an insurrectionary
force. The quarrel came to an issue not long after Mr. But-
ler had surrendered all hope from negotiation. And when
it seemed by no means unlikely, that General Santa Anna,
who was advancing with a military force from Mexico,
would be able to stifle the revolt at once, the government
at Washington, and General Jackson, by a subsequent let-
ter, under his own signature, authorised and directed Gen-
eral Gaines to advance into the territory of Texas, and re-
main there, under the pretence that the boundary was still
unsettled and that the presence of a United States force was
necessary to secure it against Indian hostility.

It appears that from the period of the recall of Mr. Butler
from Mexico, and the breaking out of the struggle in Texas,
which events were nearly cotemporaneous, the policy of the
administration took a new turn. It was no longer necessary
for the government of the United States to coax Mexico to
a voluntary cession of a territory which was now in a state of
hopeful rebellion. The more advisable course seemed to be
to give as much aid and countenance to the insurrection as
was consistent with our professedly neutral position, not
merely by securing the presence of the United States troops
in the theatre of the war, but also by trying to pick a quarrel
with Mexico on a new and separate account of our own.
Whilst on the one hand General Jackson announced by a
message to Congress, on the 22d December, that under all
the circumstances attending the contest in Texas, it was un-
advisable at that time to acknowledge the independence of
that country ; on the other hand he equally announced, six
weeks afterwards, that no peaceful adjustment of certain mat-
ters in controversy between the United States and Mexico
could be expected, that was not sustained by war measures,
and the granting of authority to make reprisals upon her com-
merce. The decisive battle of San Jacinto had been fought,
and General Santa Anna who had been made prisoner to the
Texans, was sent to Washington to experience the double
satisfaction of a war threat from the United States on one
side, and of a sense of his personal danger from his victors on
the other, if he did not use all his influence to bring abouUhe
grand desideratum, the annexation of Texas to the United
States. He appears to have been willing to concede all that
was required of him under this state of duresse. The conse-
quence was immediately perceptible. Notwithstanding and

21

in spite of the message of the 22d of December, dissuading
the acknowledgment of Texan Independence for many
strong reasons therein given, an amendment was suddenly en-
grafted upon the annual appropriation bill, in one of its last
stages in the House of Representatives, three or four days
prior to the third of March, 1837, which amendment provid-
ed for the pay of a diplomatic agent to the republic of Texas,
as soon as the President should receive satisfactory evidence
that Texas was an independent power. The Senate con-
sented. Almost, perhaps quite in the selfsame hour that the
President signed the appropriation bill, he also obtained such
evidence of the independence of Texas as to induce him
forthwith, and before the expiration of the remaining minutes
of his power as President, to nominate the diplomatic agent
provided for in the bill. This was one of his very last offi-
cial acts. If his policy had not been successful in acquiring
to the United States this territory, he at any rate had the
consolation to reflect that he had wrested it from Mexico, in
payment for her obstinacy, in refusing to sell it when she was
required so to do.

After such an act as this, who is there that ought to won-
der at the attempt of Mr. Tyler, to steal a march upon the
country with a treaty ? Yet the lapse of less than seven
years has had the effect of so far sinking the old proceeding
into oblivion throughout the Northern States, that people ac-
tually seem to regard this new one as something entirely un-
precedented. Nothing wakes them up but the clap of thun-
der which comes after the lightning has done all the damage
possible. The two great parties are so afraid of doing or
saying any thing which shall appear in the least to justify the
organization of the third or abolition party, that they have
united in striving to forget as far as possible that there are any
questions at all which must grow out of the existence of slavery.
Had they met those questions as they ought in the outset, it
is not too much to say that there would not now have been
any third party worth considering. It is not the mere mo-
mentary outbreak against a measure upon the eve of accom-
plishment, preceded by a cold and studied incredulity of its
existence until it becomes evident beyond the possibility of
contradiction, that will ever go far to counteract a systematic
policy managed by persons occupying stations of power un-
der the general government, or that will satisfy the just clamor
of an irritated community after the time shall have passed
when action might have been properly directed.

And now that we can look back upon the history of this
business, we think that one thing will be most particularly

22

striking to our observation. And that is, the change of re-
lation which the United States bears to the territory of Texas
at the present time from that which they bore in 1825, when
the negotiations commenced. For then it was a simple pro-
ceeding unclouded by any suspicion of sinister design. Even
the blight of domestic slavery had not in any great degree
fallen upon the land. But now we know the fact that slavery
was introduced by the immigrants from these States in oppo-
sition to the law of Mexico. That it constituted the turn-
ing point in the revolution of the Texans, and that it is the
cause in behalf of which the whole power of our government
has been exerted directly or indirectly as well in the negotia-
tion that has taken place as in the subsequent operations of
the settlers themselves. What is it then that the United
States are called upon to sanction by now acquiring Texas ?
Is it not the entire process by which we have converted a
free into a Slave State, and extended the influence of the
domestic institution at the cost of every principle of fair
dealing and of right. And is this not a wholly new feature
since the year 1825 which completely alters the nature of
the transaction, and converts an honest and open offer to
purchase into a sharper's contrivance to acquire property in
an underhand way, for an unjustifiable purpose ?

There was very much such a burst of popular feeling in 1837
as has lately taken place against the measure. The Legisla-
tures of Ohio. Massachusetts and Rhode Island passed resolu-
tions which had then some effect in checking its prosecution.
Yet had General Jackson remained at the head of the govern-
ment, we have very little doubt that it would have been exe-
cuted. But the policy of his wary successor was too cautious
to make him willing to risk beginning his administration with a
war and a completely disordered state of the finances at the
same time. On the 4th of August, 1837, Mr. Memucan Hunt,
specially appointed by Texas for the purpose, opened a nego-
tiation with the Secretary of State, Mr. Forsyth, by proposing
"to unite the two people under one and the same government."
The first condition prescribed by his government was "the
free and unmolested authority over their slave population."
This, it will be recollected, was about one month before
the time at which the Congress of the United States had
been called to meet by proclamation of Mr. Van Buren, on
account of the suspension of specie payments by the banks
throughout the Union. It was quite enough for the adminis-
tration to be obliged to face an active and powerful opposition
on the subject of the currency, without adding the plentiful
materials to be gathered from the prospect of a war with a

neighboring power. Mexico had protested against the recog-
nition of Texan Independence, carried through, as it had
been, in the manner already described ; but she had also of-
fered to remove all reasonable grounds of complaint on the
score upon which General Jackson had endeavored to press
the two countries into war — the claims for indemnity to pri-
vate citizens. No other pretext, therefore, remained to save
the United States from the odium of incurring the war to jus-
tify its own wrong done in Texas. Mr. Van Buren did not
feel himself seated firmly enough to encounter the fury of
such a tempest as this would excite. He directed Mr.
Forsyth to decline the offer of the Texan government, made
through Mr. Hunt. And in his refusal he distinctly assigned
as the reason, that the Mexican government might consider
such an act as tantamount to a declaration of war. Even
Mr. Senator Walker, in his pamphlet, is obliged to confess,
which he does with singular disinterestedness, considering
that he is and has been the " Magnus Apollo" of the Tex-
ans, that "in 1837, within a few weeks or months succeed-
ing our recognition of the independence of Texas, and be-
fore her recognition by any foreign powers, it (that is the an-
nexation by treaty) might have subjected us to unjust impu-
tations, and therefore it might have been deemed inexpedient
under suck a time and under such circumstances.'''' The
italic letters belong to Mr. Walker, and not to us, and we
agree with him in every thing affirmed or implied in the sen-
tence, excepting in the statement that the "imputations" to
which we should have subjected ourselves would have been
"unjust."

What Mr. Van Buren would have done under other cir-
cumstances, or what he will do if he should again get into
power, we shall not undertake to pronounce. We judge no
man excepting by his acts, and under the same rule, we are
willing to give him all the credit which his conduct in this in-
stance deserves. At the same time, judging him by all of his
acts taken together, we must confess that we have no confi-
dence in his discovering any obstacles to this treaty of annex-
ation which the people do not themselves most distinctly fur-

.,,...* J

nish to his vision.

Let us now return to Mr. Senator Walker, who appears to
think that the difficulties in the way of reannexation, as he is al-
ways pleased to call it, which existed in 1837, are now re-
moved. "But now," he says in his pamphlet, " when seven
years have elapsed since our recognition of the independence
of Texas ; and she has been recognised for many years as an
independent power by the great nations of Europe, and her

24

sovereignty fully established, and fully acknowledged, there can
be no objection to such a treaty at this period." From all
which we can only gather that this gentleman thinks Mexico
is now barred of her claim by a sort of statute of limitations
interpolated into the law of nations like that which runs against
the recovery of small debts with us. But with all due defer-
ence to the gentleman, it is not exactly what we think in this
case, that should be our guide, but what the world will think
and justly think, too. Does the delay of seven years alter in
any respect the nature of one of those peculiar " circum-
stances'" to which Mr. Walker so significantly alludes as mak-
ing the act inexpedient in 1837 ? Does it in the least mod-
ify the objections of Mexico to the measure ? We have the
best reason to know that it does not. For the Mexican gov-
ernment and the Mexican Minister, General Almonte, more
keen-sighted than most of our news-mongers in Washington,
appear to have got a scent of the negotiation proposed by
Mr. Tyler as early as in August last.

On the 23d of that month, Mr. de Boccanegra, the For-
eign Secretary of Mexico, addressed a note to Mr. Waddy
Thompson, the Minister of the United States, in which he
in quite a spirit of foresight, alluded to the fact that a " propo-
sition would be submitted to the deliberation of the Congress
of the United States" at the present session, " to incorporate
with them, the so-called republic of Texas," and he went on
further to request Mr. Thompson to announce to his govern-
ment that Mexico would consider the adoption of such an act
equivalent to a declaration of war, "leaving" as he says, "to
the civilized world to determine with regard to the justice of
the cause of the Mexican nation in a struggle which it has
been so far from provoking." Not content with this notice,
General Almonte, the Mexican Minister at Washington,
wrote on the third of November a letter to the Secretary of
State, Mr. Upshur, in which he says that this annexation,
" if carried into effect, cannot be considered by Mexico in
any other aspect than as a direct aggression." " He more-
over declares, by express order of his government, that on
sanction being given by the Executive of the Union to the
incorporation of Texas into the United States, he will con-
sider his mission ended ; seeing that, as the Secretary of
State will have learned, the Mexican government is resolved
to declare war so soon as it receives information of such an
act." This is surely plain spoken enough. Mr. Upshur, to
be sure, took the matter up in a very high strain, and affect-
ing to consider his country insulted by an imputation which if
not merited would scarcely have required notice, he evaded

answering the material question entirely. But there is reason
to believe that this letter was not without its effect in bring-
ing about a modification of the course of the President, so far
as to make that a secret and clandestine transaction, which
was designed to have been announced in his message to Con-
gress, at the commencement of the session.

Another of Mr. Walker's reasons why the case is not now
the same that it was in 1837, is, that the independence of
Texas "is now recognized by the great nations of Europe,
and her sovereignty fully established and fully acknowledg-
ed," which it was not at that time. The argument, then,
is something of this sort : — Texas was not quite assured of
her independence in 1837, and therefore, considering her pe-
culiar circumstances, it was not advisable for us to take her
under our protection at that time, when she most needed it.
But now that she is well established, independent, and has the
support of foreign nations, is just the moment for her to
cease to be so, for the sake of joining us. Surely, if Texas
be now able to go on alone, countenanced as she is by the
great powers of Kurope, there are many reasons why the
United States should join to sustain her in that policy instead
of tempting her to adopting an opposite one. One of the
strongest is, that it would be the means of completely avoid-
ing the imputation of any such motives or unworthy designs
as Mr. Upshur immediately perceived in General Almonte's
letter ; probably because his own conscience was the moni-
tor that made him watch for them there. There will not
be any question hereafter made of the disinterestedness of
the United Stales, if time shall show that they have in no
way gained what seems a benefit to themselves by the seces-
sion of Texas from Mexico. Surely, if we consider many
portions of the policy of the government as it has been at-
tempted very faintly to delineate it in these papers, the good
faith of the country stands in great need of some such ultimate
justification as this in the eyes of the world. Surely, nothing
would at this moment go farther to save our history from one
of its most unfortunate pages than a determination now made
to be friendly to Texas, exactly as we are friendly to every
other nation of the globe.

Unfortunately, however, for him the end of Mr. Walker's
pamphlet contradicts the beginning. This country of Texas,
whose independence " is now so fully recognized by the
great nations of Europe, and her sovereignty so fully estab-
lished" on the seventh page turns out on the nineteenth and
twentieth pages to be " a power too feeble to guard her rights
as a neutral power." " The flag of England will soon float

26

over it as a British province, carved out of the dismembered
valley of the West." " But even if not a dependency or a
colony, England, as she always heretofore has done in the
case of neutrals, would seize upon her soil, her coast, her
harbors, her rivers, and our and her Indians, in her invasion
of the valley of the West ; and the only certain measure of
defence and protection is the re-annexation of Texas." Such
is the statement of the condition of Texas, when it suits Mr.
Walker to consider her as not so well established, nor her in-
dependence so fully recognized. Her condition is, then, not
yet much changed from what it was in 1837. If this be
granted, then have the Mexicans reasonable ground for hope
that they may yet get back their territory, provided that we
do not commit a hostile act by taking possession of it our-
selves, in the name and on the application of the insurgents.
In which case, we clearly break our treaty with a power with
which we are at peace, for the sake of an acquisition of ter-
ritory ; or in other words, the " circumstances" which Mr.
Walker speaks of as forbidding the act in 1837, remain in
statu quo in 1844. In our humble opinion, there is no get-
ting away from this dilemma. Either Texas can maintain
her independence or she cannot. If she can, then would it
be perfectly safe, and very creditable to the Union, to sus-
tain her independent attitude. If she cannot, then Mexico
has a right to complain of our hostility if we take from her the
chance of recovering her territory.

We have now gone through with the most material part of
the history of our relations with Texas and Mexico, and we
confidently challenge any impartial person to review it, and
then deny that there is a broad difference observable between
the early and late policy of the government on this subject.
The administration of Mr. Adams sought to acquire the land,
free from any and every incumbrance with which it is now
loaded, in a fair, open, and honorable manner. That of his
successor stimulated the people of the United States to go
and take possession of it under the cloak of amity, and then,
by every artifice, endeavored to wrest from the hands of a
nation, with which we professed to be at peace, the territory
which they obstinately refused to cede of their own accord.
One of the most striking features of this new policy, was the
establishment of the institution of domestic slavery, directly in
the face of the Mexican authority. This was the common
bond designed to keep the insurgents steady to the interests
of the United States. It is the bond which now holds them
to the policy of annexation. The rumor about their seeking
the protection of Great Britain, is only designed to catch such

27

simpletons in the Free States as are predisposed to believe
any thing that may be told them. They seek the protection of
a power, which knocks the manacles oft' from every slave with-
in the scope of its influence! Tlieij voluntarily seek to sacri-
fice a property in man, to defend and sustain which, they un-
dertook the insurrection against the Mexican power ! The
idea is amusi.ig, to those who have watched with attention the
desperation with which the same men, when citizens of the
United States, and their friends, have always contended for
that property. Sooner than that this should take place, the
whole of the company immigrating into Texas, would vacate
the lands of that territory, and return to these favored regions,
where slavery and the constitution are said to flourish togeth-
er and where it is treason to doubt the propriety of continuing
special privileges, which have the eft'ect of encouraging the
increase of the slave population. When will the free citizens,
who love our institutions, cease to be led blindfold into the
snares which are so unblushingly prepared for them ?

When Mr. Walker, acting in concurrence with General
Jackson, succeeded in obtaining the recognition, by the Unit-
ed States, of the independence of Texas, in the manner
which has been already explained, he probably congratulated
himself upon the measure, considering it as one step nearer to
the great object of his wishes. He did not then foresee
the rise of a new objection to it, growing out of the very
change thus effected in the relation of that country to ours.
He did not perceive that the admission of Texas as an inde-
pendent foreign State was an unprecedented act of power in
the general government not sanctioned by the examples either
of Louisiana or the Florida treaties.

This objection is now very gravely urged in many quarters,
and, we must confess, we see no way to remove it, consist-
ently with the slightest respect to the Constitution, which the
members of Congress are all sworn to support. Although
the acquisition of territory under the treaties referred to was
a very questionable proceeding, when judged by the naked
provisions of the constitution, still, as the people sanctioned
the act by their silence, we shall not now undertake, so far as
that goes, to review the decision. What Mr. Jefferson, the
person under whose administration the cession of Louisiana
took place, thought of the matter, is very well known. In
his letter to Wilson Carey Nicholas, he says — " But when I
consider that the limits of the United States are precisely fix-
ed by the treaty of 1783, that the constitution expressly de-
clares itself to be made for the United States, I cannot help
believing the intention was not to permit Congress to admit

28

into the Union new States, which should be formed out" (that
is, beyond the limits) "of the territory for which, and under
whose authority alone, they were then acting. I do not be-
lieve it was meant that they might receive England, Ireland,
Holland, &c., into it, which would be the case on your con-
struction. When an instrument admits two constructions—
the one safe, the other dangerous — the one precise, the other
indefinite — I prefer that which is safe and precise. I had
rather ask an enlargement of power from the nation, where it
is found necessary, than to assume it by a construction which
would make our powers boundless. Our peculiar security is
is in the possession of a written constitution. Let us not
make it a blank paper by construction."

This is strong reasoning, but we have long been aware of
the fact, that much as the citizens of the Southern States
profess to revere the memory of Mr. Jefferson, and to follow
his doctrines, they seldom respect them in practice, further
than as they happen to coincide with the immediate policy
which they have in view. Doubtful as Mr. Jefferson was of
his power, the cession of Louisiana, nevertheless, took place.
It was, however, but the cession of a territory by a govern-
ment of the old, to one in the new world ; it did not involve
the question whether one government itself could cede itself,
or another accept of such a cession. The United States as-
sumed the territorial rights, subject to no existing political
conditions, on the part of the small number of people who
occupied the lands. They agreed to incorporate them into
the Union whenever they should become numerous enough to
organize a State ; but in the interval they assumed to them-
selves the unlimited right of regulating the government, and
parcelling out for sale the unoccupied lands. The population
that has been since admitted into the Union, was thus, in a
great degree, drawn from the original States, by the induce-
ments presented in the new lands, and the prospect of a con-
tinuance in the enjoyment of all the privileges of citizenship.
It had never voluntarily expatriated itself. It had never un-
dertaken, by virtue of such expatriation, to exercise indepen-
dent powers of government unknown to our laws, nor had it
ever ceased to be amenable to our authority.

The case of Texas is of a very different kind. Texas
claims to be an independent sovereignty ; the United States
admit that she is one. She applies to be admitted to the
Union ; she does not propose to cede territory merely. She
proposes to come in at once, and to exercise such rights of
citizenship as she shall beforehand insist upon securing to her-
self, by conditions to be agreed upon. The United States,

29

on the other hand, must assume new liabilities, and acknowl-
edge a new set of authorities. They must acknowledge the
validity of an act done by officers of another party, to a treaty
which either makes them of equal authority with their own, or
which, at one blow, destroys all the authority which they
possess to do the act. There can be no medium. In this
connexion it has been rather humorously asked by some, who
would be the President of the country, after a treaty had been
made joining Texas and the United States, supposing that
such an act were constitutional. Would it be John Tyler,
or Samuel Houston, either, or both together ? The question,
odd as it may appear, contains the gist of the whole matter.
Can a government by a treaty consent to annihilate itself ?
Then where is the binding force of the treaty, after it is
made ? But, if it does not annihilate itself, it enters into the
treaty on equal terms with the government with which it
treats ? In this instance, Texas would treat as a State, not
with the separate States, as such, but with the United States.
She is able then to assume a position, and to dictate terms
towards us, such as no other of the States since the Decla-
ration of Independence could have done. It is not necessary
that such a treaty should compel her to recognise the consti-
tution. Her position in the Union would then be secured by
that treaty, whilst that of the other States would rest upon
the constitution. If, then, the people of Texas were to take
it into their heads to violate the conditions of the constitution,
whilst they adhere to their treaty, what would be the mode
of redress ? Or, on the other hand, if they broke the treaty,
who would conduct the negotiations that must follow, and when
would a resort to war be justifiable ?

But the authorities of Texas may consent for the purpose
of gaining an admission to resort to a new expedient to avoid
the force of this objection. They may consent to disfran-
chise themselves, and to become simply a territory of the
United States. Indeed it has been intimated that such has
been the shape in which the treaty has placed the subject,
let one moment's consideration will serve to show that this
is only an evasion, and does not remove the difficulty. \Ve
have acknowledged Texas as an independent State. Is it
competent for us at any moment, by virtue of a treaty to de-
ny our words and to declare in the very act to which she is a
parly that she is no State at all ? If a territory, she either
has a government or she has not. If she has, then our objec-
tion is not removed. If she has not, and is without a govern-
ment, why has not Mexico all the rights to rule over her which
she once had, and which she never has renounced. A confes-

30

sion that she must receive a form of government from a
neighboring State surely makes our wrong the greater in sub-
stituting ourselves as the sovereign in lieu of the rightful one.
How can a government cede a territory by a treaty without
possessing the powers to carry that treaty into execution ?
But this very treaty denies to the government such powers be-
cause it annihilates it at the very moment that it should begin
to exercise them. Such an anomaly was never before heard
of in political history. We can recollect examples of States
acquired by conquest, and by negotiation, but \ve do not re-
member one which resolved itself by its own act into its orig-
inal element, the territory upon which it is founded.

Let us put the case in still another light. If the govern-
ment of the United States can treat with Texas respecting a
union of the two countries, in any shape whatever it may
please to put it, it is equally able to treat with any other na-
tion under the sun. Supposing, then, that in the heat of a
revolution like that of France, before the period of its wild
excesses, the national assembly of that or any other Euro-
pean people should send over ambassadors to the United
States, to treat respecting a union of the two countries. Sup-
posing that a President should be found ready to negotiate with
them, and a Legislature, one or both branches, prepared to
sanction a treaty thus made. Supposing that one of the
conditions should be the transfer of the seat of government of
the two countries to some common centre, somewhere on an
island, if such could be found, situated half-way between
them. Supposing that John Tyler, like Samuel Houston,
should consent to have his power annihilated, and a French
President over the two countries set over his head. Would
it then be pretended by any human being that either the Pre-
sident or Congress would have been exercising powers grant-
ed under the constitution ? Yet it would be difficult to deny
that each of these powers is in the constitution, if it be once
granted that Texas can be admitted by treaty. It may be
objected to us, that we are putting an extreme case. But in
this instance an extreme case is only necessary to show, in a
still more glaring light, the character of a constitutional doc-
trine. If the President and Congress can treat with a for-
eign power in such a manner as to disturb all the existing re-
lations between the States, by the introduction of that for-
eign power into the government without the consent of the
people of those States, then, as Mr. Jeiferson most truly
observes, in another passage of the letter already quoted,
" We have no constitution." Any thing and every thing
may be done, which the caprice, or the ambition, or the

31

spirit of intrigue of a few men in Washington may prompt
them to do, under the form of a solemn treaty.

It is, then, obvious that there is a broad line of distinction
marked out, between the cession by a government of an in-
dependent State of a part of its territory not having a govern-
ment, to the United States, by a treaty, and the formation of
a new social compact between the people living under two
distinct forms of government, by the force of such an in-
strument. In the former class may be ranked the Louisiana
and Florida treaties, and the late treaty of Washington,
of which Mr. Walker tries to make use as a precedent.
Under the latter class must be ranked every project of a
treaty like the one proposed to be made with Texas. Whilst
it may be a fair question whether treaties of the former kind
may not be made, so long as they only have the effect of en-
larging the territory of the Union, it seems to us that not the
shadow of a doubt can be thrown upon our position respecting
the latter. A treaty of this kind seems to us at war with
every theory of republicanism which has been ever acknowl-
edged in America. It is imposing upon the people of the
States new conditions, without their consent or privity. It
is, in point of fact, a revolution. After such an event, the
constitution of the United States no longer can be regarded
as the rule of action, but the President, by virtue of his pat-
ronage and the treaty-making power, becomes a more abso-
lute sovereign than half of die monarchs of Europe,

So obvious and palpable is the stretch of power which this
doctrine of annexing a foreign country, by the mere force of a
treaty, assumes for the general government, that it is wonder-
ful it should ever have found a single advocate among those
who have always professed a wish to restrain its tendencies
to consolidation by all possible means. They who object to
duties for the protection of home manufactures, or to a na-
tional bank, from constitutional scruples, and yet concede
this great power, do indeed strain at a gnat and swallow a
camel. Yet, if we inquire into the reason which prompts to
such very opposite views of the powers of the general gov-
ernment in the same men, we must come back to the ground
of the Massachusetts resolutions. Whatever road we may
take in public affairs, whatever question we may propose, they
all terminate in the same point. The maintenance of the
property representation is the pole star by which the course
of the ship of state is steered. Is it necessary to deny the
existence of a power in the constitution ? It is, because it is
feared that an unequal benefit may be derived from its use by
the Free States. Is it necessary, on the contrary, to strain

32

that instrument beyond all reasonable limits ? It is, because
the benefit is all to accrue to the small number who wish to
hold a perpetuity of property in man, and through that the
control which they have acquired over the affairs of the
Union.

These are solemn truths. They are not told for the sake
of exciting discontent at our existing institutions, but for the
sake of rousing the people, as far as possible, to maintain
them inviolate. Is it possible, that this great republic should
suffer itself long to be led by such blind guides, as the advo-
cates of slavery, or their allies among the political managers
of the Free States ? We cannot yet believe that it is. Let
slavery remain a local matter within the limits of those States
in which it is established, and we know of nothing to create
cause of uneasiness. But when it threatens to raise its fear-
ful head over the whole land, when it bends the policy of the
government to subserve its own selfish purposes, when it un-
dertakes completely to alter the relations between the States,
established by their frame of government, and to overawe the
spirit of liberty, then is the time to cry aloud, and spare not.
There must be some favorable change in a few years, or else
the great objects for which the constitution was adopted, will
disappear from sight, and it will cease to be the pride and the
boast of all intelligent Americans.

Mr. Walker, whose pamphlet is understood to be the text-
book of the friends of the annexation of Texas, maintains that
there are three ways of arriving at his object in a constitu-
tional manner. The first is by virtue of the treaty-making
power. This has already been considered. The second is,
by force of the first clause of the third section of the fourth
article, which is in these words :—

New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union ; but no
new S1,ate shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other
State, nor any State be formed by the junction of two or more States, or
parts of State's, without the consent of the Legislatures of the States, as
well as of the Congress.

Mr. Walker maintains that this is an unlimited grant of pow-
er to the Congress. Hence that a simple act of the Legisla-
ture, passed by a bare majority in each branch, is all that is ne-
cessary to admit a foreign Slate, no matter what, — Mexico,
Russia, or even the Celestial Empire, on the other side of the
globe, into the Union.

This construction, coming, as it does, from a gentleman
who could not see in the same instrument from which he de-
rives this power, a sufficient authority to incorporate a nation-

33

al bank, is certainly calculated to amaze reasonable observers
of political affairs. There are persons, even in the free
States, who cannot perceive the inconsistency involved in
supporting these two propositions, under any single theory
that has ever yet been maintained of our federal system.
Neither are they immediately aware of the singular use now
for the first time made of a provision of the constitution, ori-
ginally incorporated into it for a very different purpose.
One of the modes by which the gentlemen who represent
property in man succeed in pushing their system into opera-
tion is, through the bold manner in which they advance their
propositions. We have heard persons doubt whether a
good answer could be made to this, at the same time that
they had no belief whatever in its soundness. Such things
make us fear sometimes that the spirit of our institutions has
already evaporated under the scorching influences of slavery,
and nothing is left to us but the residuum of forms. Let us
look at the subject calmly for a moment, and see whether
there is one atom of foundation for any of these judgements.
The provision of the constitution is, that " new States may
be admitted by Congress into this Union." Does Mr.
Walker mean, under this clause, to insist that old States shall
also be included ? A State, according to the best authori-
ties, is defined to be a Republic or Commonwealth. In or-
der to the full comprehension of the phrase "New States,"
we must therefore infer that some other communities were in-
tended than those in which the forms of government had been
long established. This inference is proved to be perfectly
just, by the very next sentence, which makes certain restric-
tions to the power already granted in that preceding, all of
which have reference to the fact that the States proposed to
be admitted are new, that is, just constituted. " But no new
State," it says, "shall Reformed or erected within the juris-
diction of any other State, nor any State be formed by the
junction of two or more States or parts of States without
the consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned, as
well as of the Congress." It is, then, to the formation or erec-
tion of new States that the whole paragraph applies — to the
creation of new social communities, and not to the recogni-
tion of old ones. It was designed to provide for the incor-
poration of those societies which were to rise up in the for-
ests of the West, on the territories originally comprised with-
in the charters of certain colonies, but ceded by them to the
United States before the adoption of the constitution, and not
for the indefinite recognition of every foreign government at
the mere will of the Congress, whenever it should please

34

such a government to be called one of the United States.
The words of the article can bear no other construction with-
out positive violence to their meaning. The spirit of the
whole instrument is still more adverse to Mr. Walker's idea,
for it breathes throughout a government of limited powers for
the perpetuation of the blessings of liberty to the people who
adopted it and to their posterity. But what limit can be set
to the powers granted to the Congress, if it once be granted
that the act of a bare majority can at any time introduce new
elements into the social system, the character of which the
people of the States can as little regulate as they can foresee ?
Luckily, on this point, we are not left without the means
of knowing what was the intent of the framers of the consti-
tution in adopting the article in question. We find from Mr.
Madison's report of the debates had in the convention, that
the view we have taken of it is the correct one. The arti-
cle was originally designed to meet the contingency that was
foreseen as likely to happen of the formation of new States
within the limits of the territory of the Union. Among the
propositions brought forward by Mr. Edmund Randolph at
the outset, which propositions are well known to have em-
braced the principles ultimately incorporated into the consti-
tution, the tenth runs in the following words : —

Resolved, That provision ought to be made for the admission of States
lawfully arising within the limits of the United Stutes, whether from a vol-
untary junction of government and territory, or otherwise, with the con-
sent of a number of voices in the National Legislature less than the
whole.

It will be seen at once what the intention was in introduc-
ing this proposition at all. It was not to enlarge the system
by the incorporation into it of foreign States, but to open a
way for the preservation of the existing territorial rights of
the Union, without the necessity of including them within the
limits of the existing States. This would have been incon-
venient, by reviving the difficult questions that had once
been settled by the voluntary act of the States, claiming the
territories at the westward, which had been induced to sur-
render their claims for the common good. The States to
be admitted were only those which might lawfully arise within
the limits of the United States. There is no ambiguity in
this language, whatever. Accordingly, we find that in this
very language the tenth proposition of Mr. Randolph was on
the 5th of June, 1787, adopted by the convention, and made
the basis of the article upon the subject. In this form, it,
together with the rest of the propositions that had been
agreed to, was referred to the committee of detail, appointed

35

on the 24th of July, with powers to report a constitution in
form. At the same time, however, the independent proposi-
tions that had then been offered hy Mr. Charles Pinckney
and Mr. Patterson, were referred to the same committee,
probably with a view to give that committee full powers to
make such modifications in the language of the new instru-
ment as might appear advisable and best, after a full compar-
ison of all the plans with each other. It must be noted, that
Mr. Pinckney's article 14th, runs in the following words : —

The Legislature shall have power to admit new States into the Union,
on the same terms with the original States; provided two-thirds of the
members present in both Houses agree.

Mr. Patterson's was still more concise.

Resolved, That provision be made for the admission of new States into
the Union.

Now, by a comparison of these two propositions with that
of Mr. Randolph, it will immediately be perceived that the
former intends to provide for the same contingency with the
latter, and that the difference is only in the shorter form of
expressing the same idea. Mr. Randolph proposed, that
"provision ought to be made for the admission of States law-
fully arising within the limits of the United States." The
other two gentlemen describe the same communities as "new
States," and cut off the circumlocution. Had not this been
their motive, how much easier would it have been to have
said other States, or foreign States, as Mr. Sherman actually
did in a proposition we shall presently notice. This would
indeed have expressed the idea now advanced by Mr. Walk-
er, but it was not the one which they intended to express.
They were looking to the Western Territory with as single
an eye as Mr. Randolph.

We have stated these facts, to show how the word "new"
came to be incorporated into the present article of the consti-
tution. This and the provision requiring a two-thirds vote
were borrowed by the committee of detail, from the propo-
sitions of Messrs. Pinckney and Patterson, in order fully to
carry out the idea presented by Mr. Randolph. The seven-
teenth article, as reported by them on the sixth of August, is
in the following words : —

New States lawfully constituted or established within the limits of the
United States may be admitted, by the Legislature, into this govern-
ment; but to such admission the consent of two thirds of the members
present in each house shall be necessary. If a new State shall arise
within the limits of any of the present Stateo, the consent of the Legisla-
tures of such States shall be also necessary to its admission. If the ad-
mission be consented to, the new State shall be admitted on the same
terms with the original States. But the Legislature may make condi-
tions with the new States, concerning the public debt which shall then
be subsisting.

36

It will be perceived that this form of the article only made
still more striking the intention of the framers of the constitu-
tion to limit its application to communities which might there-
after be formed within the limits of the Union. In this view
il is, that the incorporation into it of the word "new," which
was not in Mr. Randolph's original proposition, is of great
consequence. We now come to consider the reasons why
this proposition, as reported by the committee of detail, was
subsequently modified into the shape in which it now stands.
We think it can be made evident that the change was not de-
signed to favor any projects of enlargement of the Union, to
say the least of it. It appears that on the 29th of August,
when the article came before the convention for consid-
eration, Mr. Gouverneur Morris objected to it in its new
shape, because it made the admission of the Western States
upon equal terms with the original States, imperative, with
a single exception, relative to the public debt then subsisting.
"He did not wish to throw power into the hands of the
Western country." These are his words, as reported by
Mr. Madison. Hence it is to be inferred, that he wished to
retain, in the hands of the Congress, the ability to make con-
ditions of admission even to those new communities about to
be formed within the limits of the Union ; the very principle
contended for, by the Northern States, it should be observed,
at the time of the admission of Missouri. Not being satis-
fied with the article as it stood, he proposed the following as
a substitute : —

JVezo States may be admitted by the Legislature into the Union ; but
no new States shall be erected within the limits of any of the present
States, without the consent of the Legislature of such State, as well as
of the general Legislature.

And this substitute being nearly the same thing with the
article, as it actually stands, was adopted, six States voting
in favor, and five against it.

The position of Vermont, a territory at that time neither
in nor out of the Union, and seeking to be admitted without
the necessity of securing the consent of New York, appears
to have had a great effect upon the form in which this arti-
cle was ultimately adopted. Luckily, her situation has given
us a strong proof of a cumulative character how much im-
portance the framers of the constitution attached to the word
"new," as joined to "States," in the connexion of this ar-
ticle. Mr. Sherman moved the following substitute, which
distinctly covers the ground assumed by Mr. Walker, in his
pamphlet : —

The Legislature shall have power to admit other States into the Union ;
and new States to be formed by the division or junction of States now
in the Union, with the consent of the Legislature of such States.

37

This substitute adopts the word "other" instead of the
word "new," and, still more significantly, it opposes it to the
word " new" that follows, as applied to the creation of States
to be formed by dividing or uniting existing States. It can,
therefore, hardly be doubted, that this was considered as test-
ing the sense of the convention upon the article as it stands.
The substitute was designed to include a power of admitting
other States, whether old or new. The article, as it stands,
confined itself to future communities about to be formed in
the forests of the West. How much force is then due to the
decision of the convention which rejected the substitute, six
States voting in the negative, to five in the affirmative, and
then adopted the article as proposed by Mr. Morris, eight
States voting in favor, and three against it !

We are conscious how very dry all merely constitutional
questions are to the great mass of readers. We have, there-
fore, endeavored to condense this history much more than is
altogether to the advantage of the argument. So conclusive,
however, does the view of it which we have taken seem to us
.that we are willing to let it go even in its present shape, with-
out any further amplification. We trust, that after this the
public will no longer listen to any pretence of power to be
derived under this article, at least, for the annexation of a
foreign State to the Union. If the act is to be done at all, it
is surely not to be done by men sworn to support the consti-
tution, in the face of a distinct declaration of its sense, by
those who were engaged in its construction.

The last of the three modes by which Mr. Walker thinks
that the annexation may be effected, is through the act of any
one of the States of the Union, with the sanction of Con-
gress. He derives this remarkable power not from any
direct authority given in the constitution, but by implication
from that clause of the tenth section of the first article, which
forbids any State from entering into any agreement or com-
pact with another State, or with a foreign power, without
having the consent of Congress thereto. But if this consent
can be obtained, he thinks the power to make such a com-
pact remains in the States unaffected by the prohibition, and
that under cover of these words "• compact or agreement,"
any one of them may, at its pleasure, merge into itself, or be
merged into any foreign State.

This is, to say the least of it, a new view of the constitution
of the United States. So far as the annexation of Texas is
concerned, we regard it as presenting the least dangerous
mode of effecting it which has yet been suggested ; and could

38

we for a moment be brought to assent to the validity of the
reasoning by which it is pressed, we are not sure that we
should be afraid of running the risk of its happening by this
means. But, were the scheme practicable, — were the State
of Louisiana or of Arkansas willing to sink its present organ-
ization, for the purpose of embracing Texas within its limits,
no one knows better than Mr. Walker, that the main object
of the whole undertaking would thereby be defeated. The
purpose of annexing Texas, is to create out of it several new
States, each of which shall have the benefit of the rule of
federal representation, as well in the Senate as in the House
of Representatives. And through this division into States,
the object is to gain just so many more electoral votes for
President and Vice-President, with which to defend the rep-
resentation of property in man, as there would be new mem-
bers of the Senate thus obtained. Now, were Texas incor-
porated into Louisiana or Arkansas, no more Senators could
be made than now exist ; and the struggle against Wisconsin
and Iowa, and all the rest of the Western Territory would
remain to be made as now. The Senate is, after all, the
stronghold of property representation in this government, be-
cause there, the inequality between the increase of the free
and the slave States does not operate to restore the balance
in favor of the former, as it does in the popular branch, and
in the electoral colleges. Nothing can shake that power in
the Senate, if it be once fortified by the addition of Texas as
a territory. But its union with one of the existing States
would not strengthen it in that body materially. We cannot,
therefore, avoid the conviction, that this third mode of annex-
ing Texas to the Union is not intended to be seriously re-
commended, and that it has rather been thrown out as a pos-
sibility, in case of the failure of the other two, than with any
serious belief that it could be made acceptable, either to the
State which would be swallowed up in the operation, or to
the interest ostensibly to be promoted by it.

But, even were it otherwise — were the whole of the party
in favor of annexation to press it as a proper measure, we
must maintain that the scheme is directly and palpably at war
with existing provisions of the constitution, which absolutely
forbid every attempt of the kind. Mr. Walker, in his zeal
for annexation, appears to have looked only at the last clause
of the tenth section, under which he derives his power, and
to have neglected the first. Yet, what are the words of the
first ? Are they not these ?

" No State shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or con-
federation."

39

The prohibition is absolute. No State can even set on
foot a negotiation with Texas, without at once violating her
obligations to the Union. Indeed, how could it be other-
wise ? What power of control would there be in the gov-
ernment of the United States over the foreign relations of the
country, if this clause were not in the constitution? The
provision which follows forbidding the States to enter into any
compact or agreement with another State or with a foreign
power, without the consent of Congress, manifestly has refer-
ence to certain cases of extreme necessity ; it by no means
conflicts with the clause which we have quoted. This may
easily be seen by noting the context, much of which has ref-
erence only to a state of war. " No State," it says, " shall
without the consent of Congress, lay any duty of tonnage,
keep troops or ships of war in time of peace, enter into any
agreement or compact with another State or a foreign pow-
er, or engage in war unless actually invaded or in such immi-
nent danger as will not admit of delay." Some of these
powers may not be exercised at all excepting by consent of
Congress, and others may be exercised upon certain contin-
gencies of war, without that consent, but they are all of a
character which cannot and ought not to be resorted to ex-
cepting in cases in which it is clear that the States must
do so for some very strong and peculiar reason. This
seems to be the cause of the difference of the language used
in this and in the first clause of the same section already
quoted. " No State shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or
confederation" whatever, upon any terms, with or without
the consent of Congress — but it may, with such consent, enter
into " a compact or agreement" with another State or a for-
eign power, that is, some arrangement justified by extreme
necessity, either for mutual defence or for protection, mak-
ing it an exception to the general rule of action, temporary
in its nature, and having no sort of reference to plans of
enlargement or of dominion in time of peace, like that which
Mr. Walker has attempted to introduce under the words.

But apparently aware that none of the three modes thus
suggested are free from the difficulties which we have endea-
vored to point out, this gentleman is ready, with a new and
more general position, to meet the contingency of his fail-
ure to prove them constitutional. He maintains, though it
must be confessed, in language somewhat ambiguous, the ex-
istence of a reserved right in any State, to extend her terri-
tory as far as she pleases, without regard to the constitution.
As we desire not to misrepresent him on so delicate a point,
we will copy his own words.

40

" But," he says, " if it be otherwise, and the constitution only applies
to territories then attached to the Union, and delegates no power for
the acquisition of any other territory, nor prohibits the exercise of the
pte-existincr power of each State, to extend her boundaries, then there
would remain in each State the reserved right of extension, beyond the
control of Congress. I have not asserted the existence of such a right in
a State ; but if the clauses quoted, do net confer the authority on Con-
gress, and the re-annexation is refused on that ground, then the annex-
ing power, as a right to enlarge their boundaries, would result to any
one of the States, and with the consent of Texas, could be exercised.
Perceiving, then, what power results to the States, from the denial of the
power of annexation by Congress, let us agitate no such question in ad-
vance of a denial of its own authority by Congress, but discuss the ques-
tion on its merits alone/'

It is quite well for Mr. Walker, that he does not assert
the existence of the right here spoken of — and that, for the
very good reason, that no such right can, by any possibility,
be made to consist with the maintenance of the relative po-
sition of the States, under the constitution. If a right to
enlarge her boundaries, can result to one of the States,
by the annexing power, it does equally to all. Rhode Island
and Delaware have far more reasonable ground for the exer-
cise of it, than either Louisiana or Arkansas. The only
question for consideration then would be, where the land
should be found, to which to apply this annexing power. It
cannot be found within the territory of the Union, because
that is regarded as common property of all the States.
Neither can it be found without that territory, because the
consent of the owners must then be obtained, these owners
being foreign States. This can only be done by negotiation
and treaty. And the constitution expressly declares, as we
have already shown, that "No State shall enter into any
treaty." The original object of this provision is well under-
stood. If it had not existed, the poor Indians would have
been stripped of all their lands, by the States, long before
the United States did it for them. The tenth section of the
first article contains an enumeration of the powers denied to
the States, and the treaty-making power is one of them.
Can any thing in language be plainer ? And yet there is an
indistinct intimation in this passage, by Mr. Walker, of a
reserved right, which looks so much to us like a threat, that
"if we cannot do this thing one way, we will another — if we
cannot do it constitutionally, we will do it whether or no,"
that it needs explanation. Now we have never for a moment
doubted, that there was a disposition in some quarters, to vi-
olate the constitution, rather than to fail of securing Texas
— but we scarcely expected to find a Senator of the Unit-
ed States even hint at such a thing. We hope we have
misconceived his meaning in this instance. But if we have

41

not, and this doctrine i.s to be acted on, what is the con-
stitution worth? Is every barrier to be broken down which
prevents the unlimited exercise of power by those who will
perpetuate their own privileges, at the expense of those ot
the nation ? Are there to be no rights secured, excepting
those of unequal representation ?

But if Mr. Walker and his friends turn round upon us and
ask us whether, under no circumstances whatever, we would
consent to the junction of Texas with the United States,
and whether some attention is not due to the argument drawn
from the too great proximity of the Sabine to the city of New
Orleans, we are perfectly ready to answer these questions.
The only legitimate method of deciding the matter is, by an
appeal to the people of the United States, who agreed to the
constitution as it is. Let Mr. Walker, propose an amend-
ment to that constitution which shall cover this question ;
let that amendment be approved by the requisite number,
two-thirds of both Houses of Congress, and ratified by the
Legislatures of three-fourths of the several States, and then
Texas may become a part of the United States. We will
venture to go even a step further to meet him — we will our-
selves advocate the annexation of Texas in the manner
here described, provided only that the same amendment
which shall authorize it be made to include the substance
of the Massachusetts resolutions. Not that we desire to
be understood as favoring the further acquisition of terri-
tory to the Union, in any shape, or that we wave any of the
objections we have made to the admission of Texas. But
we should be willing to put up with something in the way
of evil for the sake of securing a greater good. And holding
as we do the most sincere and deliberate conviction, that the
compromise of the constitution which concedes the right of
representation of property in man has been, is, and will be, if
continued, fatal to all the good objects for which that consti-
tution was originally formed and that it is degrading the United
States from the high place in the scale of nations and in the
eyes of mankind which it ought to fill, we would not for our
own part hesitate to make a small sacrifice which should re-
move from that instrument the greatest spot upon its beauty.
Let Texas and the Massachusetts resolutions then go out to-
gether, and let them take their fate together, for weal or woe,
in the ratifying bodies, as provided by the constitution. This
is the only lawful mode of arriving at a good result. Every
other that has been proposed, in connexion with Texas is
equivalent to a dissolution of the existing social compact,—
because it entirely subverts the original relations subsisting

6

42

between the people of the several States ; it subjects them
to the influence of new parties to the compact, introduced
without their consent, and against their will ; it arrogates for
the executive and legislative departments of the government
a dangerous power, never intended to be granted to them ;
and finally, it perpetuates the privileges conceded to a few,
at the expense of those advantages which the preamble to
the constitution declares it was its purpose to secure to all.

But there are persons to be found in the free States, inde-
pendently of the office-holders, who now, chameleon-like,
always take the color of their master, and of the speculators
who hold Texas scrip or Texas lots, who affect to regret the
alternative which they present to our rejection of Texas,
namely, that Texas will then fall to England. There are
others who consider this rejection as equivalent to the loss of
a great market for our manufactures. Mr. Walker has struck
both of these chords with some effect, in his pamphlet. He
has not been sparing of appeals to the national pride, as well
as to the individual purse. And in every community of free
persons, some will be found to respond to the one call, and
many to the other. All we beg of them in this case is, not
to suffer themselves to become dupes. Surely, this new-
born zeal in favor of domestic manufactures is somewhat sur-
prising, coming as it does from men who have uniformly,
heretofore, shown the most steadfast hostility to their protec-
tion. Surely this enmity to England is rather singular in a
party which has shown a determination, for years back, to
make this country tributary to her in every deparment of in-
dustry, except the raising of cotton. The only practical ef-
fect of the annexation of Texas would be, to give additional
strength to those who are now seeking to destroy the tariff,
and to renew our ancient state of dependence on Great Brit-
ain for our manufactures. For if we look back to the his-
tory of the past, do we not see that the interest which has
most steadily and pertinaciously resisted the principle of pro-
tection to home manufactures, has been the cotton planting
interest ? And what is there in Texas but cotton planting ?
Who is it that complains that cotton pays all the revenues of
the government ? Is it not South Carolina ? Who is it
that even now makes the destruction of the present tariff a
condition of adherence to the democratic party ? Is it not
Mr. John C. Calhoun ? And do not South Carolina and
Mr. John C. Calhoun now seek for sympathy and coopera-
tion in the annexation of Texas ? Let no one, then, be so
simple as to believe that the manufacturers of the country will
be aided by strengthening the hands of their bitterest enemies.

43

With respect to the other pretence, that Texas, if rejected
by the United States, will become a dependency of Great
Britain, we shall be ready to believe that just as soon as we
see the people of Texas emancipate their slaves, and not be-
fore. And we think this about as probable, as that the same
thing will be done by the people of Alabama or Mississippi.
As long as cotton planting is profitable, just so long will there
be a demand for slaves ; and as long as there is a demand for
slaves, just so long will the people of Texas stick to slavery.
Great Britain neither can nor will interfere with her any more
than she does with us. She may seek to make favorable
treaties with her ; but what is to prevent our doing likewise ?
If Texas is to be a market for manufactured goods, why not
for ours as well as for the British ? New-Orleans is a great
deal nearer to it than Liverpool. And our people may be
trusted to make full use of every fair advantage they can ob-
tain. Our manufactures now go to Mexico. Why should
not they go to a State much less likely to interpose useless
and vexatious restraints to trade ?

In truth, the independence of Texas is, of all things, that
which it is most for the interest of the Union to sustain. If
our government ever had done such a thing, it might almost
be advisable for it to enter into negotiation with Mexico
and Great Britain, mutually to guarantee that independence.
In this manner, she might be made a barrier between the tur-
bulent part of our boundary population on the Southwest and
the Mexicans. Even the slave-owners of the South would
find it for their advantage to have a State on their border
which would deter, by its legislation, their slaves from flight.
For were Texas to be joined to the Union, we are willing to
believe that Mr. Walker's conjecture would be just, as to
the tendency of the colored population, by escape, to diffuse
itself over the neighboring free territory of Mexico ; but I
greatly doubt whether he or his friends would then look upon
the operation with the same degree of complacency which he
now affects. If that idea was thrown out as a bait to the
friends of negro emancipation, to favor annexation, we very
much doubt whether it has caught a single one, even of the
simplest of them.

But the subject has so grown under our hands that we find
ourselves compelled from fear of fatiguing those who may do
us the favor to examine our views, to abandon the intention
of pursuing Mr. Walker through all his arguments in Aivor of
annexation. We are the more ready to do this, because wre
find the few that remain unnoticed, are not likely to carry
much weight in their minds. The dangers which this gen-

44

tleman predicts to follow to the free States from the aboli-
tion of slavery, in "making their vessels rot at the wharves
for want of exchangeable products to carry, and the grass to
grow in the streets of their cities," probably for the same
reason, make a fine paragraph for declamation, but they only
betray the utter ignorance of the wriier, of the resources of
freemen. Really, one would be led to imagine, from his
tone, that the world would be undone if there were no cotton
in Charleston, Mobile, Natchez and New Orleans. All this is
a bugbear, much of the same species with the raw head and
bloody bones stories which used to be told previous to the
emancipation of the slaves in the English West Indies.
Whatever may be the danger of emancipation to the slave
States, Mr. Walker may rest assured that the free States ap-
prehend no serious consequence to them, other than those
which might follow the obligations which the constitution im-
poses, of protecting their brethen against insurrection at
home. Moreover, they would be somewhat at a loss to
understand how this argument against emancipation, is to be
made to reconcile them to the dangers of an indefinite exten-
sion of the evils of slavery over a large additional territory,
and a consequent increase of those hazards of insurrection,
which would call for the interference of the federal govern-
ment, partially at their expense. If Mr. Walker thinks that
slavery is much better than freedom to the black, then let
him prove it to be a measure of wisdom and philanthropy to
reestablish it all over the Union. This may suit that gen-
tleman's moral and social theories, but it will meet few sup-
porters among the free.

So, too, with his elaborate argument drawn from the cen-
sus of 1840, to prove how badly freedom suits the black.
According to Mr. Walker, it has a peculiar tendency to make
him insane, and he thereupon endeavors to show how great a
proportion of free blacks become mad, as contrasted with the
whites. If this position be true the corollary necessarily fol-
lows, that if these blacks had been slaves, they would have
been in their right mind. It is their freedom that hath made
them mad. This argument, as coming from despotic gov-
ernments, and applied to the excesses of democracy, as ex-
emplified in the French revolution, is not a new one ; but
when it comes from the Senator from Mississippi, one of the
chief lights of modern democracy, in 1844, in the United
States, it is calculated to raise a smile of surprise. The true
line between sanity and insanity is among the problems of
medical science. We will not ask the Senator how far wre may
be justified in considering the white people of his State sane,

45

in their reasoning on tlie subject of the moral obligation of a
Slate to fulfil its contracts, for we seek to revive no unpleasant
recollections. Let us rather proceed at once to deny the ac-
curacy of his statistics. It is notorious that the census ol
1840 contains most ridiculous errors, upon which this theory
of the insanity of the free black is founded. Mr. Severance
of Maine has shown, in a late speech in Congress, ho\v in six
towns in his State nineteen insane blacks were returned,
whilst at the same time the sum of all the colored people in
those same towns was only one, and he was probably sane.
This will serve as an example of the whole foundation of Mr.
Walker's argument. And such is the sophistry which re-
spectable men are not ashamed to use, when they are com-
pelled to defend slavery against the doctrines of the Declara-
tion of Independence. It may answer for the meridian of
Carroll County, Kentucky, to which place Mr. Walker's
letter was originally addressed, but it will not stand the test
of a moment's scrutiny in the free States particularly when it
is pressed as a justification of the annexation of Texas.

Let us, then, pass over all this stuff, as not worthy of the
paper it would cost to refute it, and come at once to the great
question that agitates all minds.

WHAT OUGHT NOW TO BE DONE ?

It must be admitted that public opinion, in the free States,
has not settled down into any definite channel on this subject.
We approach the consideration of it with great diffidence ;
not that we do not see a way by which the consummation of
this project might be prevented, but that we fear the state of
feeling in the country is not sufficiently concentrated to secure
its adoption. Yet the late election in the city of New York
clearly shows what can be done when the people have made
up their minds to reform an existing evil. We will only ap-
ply the principle there involved on a larger scale, and then
leave the decision of this great question to those in whose
hands it legitimately belongs.

Bui first, it may be as well to state the whole extent of the
evil which we have to apprehend, and which we desire to
avoid. The annexation of Texas is, in itself, an evil ; but it
is by no means the whole of it. Everyone in the community
knows, that it is carried on at this time, in the face of hostile
declarations made by Mexico, a country with which we are
at peace. If Texas be, then, a part of "the settled policy
of the government," as Mr Holmes says, so must also be a
war with Mexico, which is to follow it. Neither is this quite
all. At the same time that these hostilities are provoked, a
spirit is manifesting itself in both Houses of Congress, calcu-

46

lated to excite America against Great Britain. This has os-
tensibly for its basis, the question between the two countries
about the boundary of the Oregon Territory, but it is strictly
connected with the movement to gain Texas, and has for its
real purpose the protection of slavery against the effect of
public opinion in England, and the other States of Christen-
dom. Here, then, is the backward step of liberty in the new
hemisphere. Here, then, is the check to further progress,
administered by the haughty spirit engendered out of slavery,
and determined to maintain its special privileges at every haz-
ard. The settled policy of the United States is to be defi-
ance of the world. The black flag is to go up to the mast
head,, whilst we seize Texas with one hand and Oregon with
the other, and proclaim our readiness to strike at the city of
Mexico, hereafter. And the free States are to be crippled
in their commerce and drained of their wealth, to sustain this
new crusade in support of the new democratic principle, now
proclaimed in America, that "all men are not bcrn free and
equal," whilst the slightest complaint or remonstrance is to be
branded as the heresy of men bribed and bought by Mexican
or British gold.

In order to promote mad schemes like these, it was one of
the fancies of the person now called the lamented Upshur,
but whose loss as a politician, to the country, is by no means
to be lamented, whatever may be the share of regret felt for
him as a man ; it was one of the fancies of this gentleman, to
bring up the navy and army of the United States at once to
a war footing, so as to enable the country as soon as possible
to cope with Great Britain. Extravagant appropriations
were recommended in all quarters, by an administration pro-
fessing to follow the Jeffersonian model of economy, and we
were about to have a magnificent government, to give splen-
dor to the accident which was placed at its head. Luckily
for the country, some wisdom and discretion was yet left
in the House of Representatives, which put a stopper upon
these visions of glory for the time, but the system yet remains,
and will probably be still pressed in parts, as opportunity may
offer, now that it is not probable it will ever be accepted as
a whole. But it behoves the people to be on the watch, or
else that armament which was mode the forerunner of events,
will only have changed its place in the order of time, and will
be made necessary as a consequence of them.

But the question recurs — How shall we act most effec-
tively both for the preservation of peace and against the set-
tled policy here marked out ?

There have been suggestions of the expediency of extra-
ordinary popular meetings, State conventions, and one gen-

47

eral convention of delegates from all the Free States. As
expressions of opinion, these would perhaps be useful, but as
guiding a course of action, they might possibly do more
harm than good. The tendency of such assemblages is to
extreme violence, which defeats its own end, and there is no
need of that now. If the people really feel the necessity of ex-
erting themselves, they may do it most effectually by con-
centrating in the regular and customary forms. If, on the
other hand, they do not, it is useless for a part to attempt
declarations of what they feel, which the whole will not by
action sustain. The Free States yet have the control of this
matter in their hands. If they say no, the thing cannot be
done. If, on the other hand, they show themselves willing,
or even lukewarm and indifferent, it will be done. In either
event, the responsibility of sustaining or defeating the valua-
ble purposes of the constitution of the United States rests
with them.

And in considering what dangers are most to be appre-
hended, we have very reluctantly been driven to the conclu-
sion, that the most imminent of them springs from tlte cold
and temporizing policy of Mr. Van Buren, and his organiza-
tion of political management in the Free States. And we
draw this inference not merely from the fact that the opposi-
tion to the twenty-first rule of the House of Representatives,
made so late in the day by his friends, has been basely aban-
doned ; nor yet from the fact that three Legislatures of the
great States of New York, Pennsylvania, and Maine, friendly
to him have distinctly refused to express even an opinion
against the policy of annexing Texas ; nor yet from the fact
that a New Hampshire Senator, of his party, has expressed
himself friendly to that policy ; nor yet from the fact that the
influential press of the democratic party in the free States,
with a few exceptions, is eiiher silent or friendly to it ; nor
yet from the fact that many of ihose who are the most violent
against Great Britain in Congress, about the Oregon Territory,
are among the most active of his party, and are also playing
into the hands of the Texans. We say that we do not draw
our inference from any one of these facts by itself but by put-
ting them all together we deem it irresistible. The principles
of liberty, the hopes of peace, and of an honest administration
are not safely to be trusted in the hands of men who make a
trade of politics — who bargain one thing against another — and
who are finally ready to sell every thing, rather than not to
gain possession of power. Lukewarmness noio, at this critical
moment, in a citizen of the most powerful of the free States,
is symptomatic of treachery hereafter. Let no such men be

48

trusted. We are perfectly convinced that the first great step
to security, will be the defeat of Mr. Van Buren's election to
the Presidency, or of any other democratic candidate for that
office that may be named from the Free States, who is not
unequivocally pledged to resist this Texan policy.

But how can this be done ? A struggling scattering vote
for third persons will not do it. And Mr. Clay will be the can-
didate, in all probability, of the opposing party. We are aware
of the fact that Mr. Clay is not publicly pledged on the subject
—that he is himself a slave-holder, tied to the favored class
by common interests and sympathies, and that he has in for-
mer days favored the acquisition of Texas, when it was an un-
occupied territory, by lawful means. Is it to he supposed
that elevating him will place us in a better situation than if we
sustained the democratic candidate ?

We will frankly admit that there are difficulties all round.
We have not ourselves been among those who have mani-
fested any desire to support Mr. Clay. Probably he himself
would not have thanked us if we had made the offer, and
would now deem his prospect of success better without such
support. But personal considerations weigh not with us a
featber, in estimating the value of the various modes now open
of avoiding the evils by which we are surrounded. In the great
movements of this world, which no one can hope to control
exactly as he would like, the part of wise men is to extract
from much that appears unfavorable, whatever portion is like-
ly, under the circumstances, to yield the greatest amount of
good. We have seen no evidence to convince us that what-
ever may have been Mr. Clay's view of a lawful acquisition
of this territory formerly, he now approves of it after the
conduct of government has so complicated the question.
Nor is it alone the fact that the Legislatures of the two
slaveholding States, Tennessee and Kentucky, friendly to
Mr. Clay, have refused to favor the annexation of Texas at
this time ; nor the fact that his friends, and the newspapers
most warmly enlisted in his cause, are many of them opposed
to it, which induces us to overcome our scruples, in support-
ing him for the sake of defeating Mr. Van Buren. Very for-
tunately for us, there is another test yet remains behind,
which must settle our opinions definitively on one side or the
other, in this matter. A treaty on our part with Texas,
which joins the two countries, without consulting the people
of the United States, and hardly with their knowledge of the
fact that it has been in the process of negotiation, is at this
moment before the Senate for confirmation or rejection.
It is well known that a majority of that body is of the party

49

friendly to the election of Mr. Clay as President. If they
choose to say the word, that treaty will be declared to be
the law of the land, and the outrage will be consummated—
for after the various indications of sentiment to which we
have alluded, we have little faith in the resistance of the dem-
ocratic part of the body. If, on the other hand, they do not
say the word, the treaty falls back upon its authors and con-
trivers— a mere piece of waste paper.

"By those fruits, ye shall Jmoiii him."

If, as appears to us most probable, that treaty should be
rejected, still it may be done on the ground, not of the un-
constitutional character of the act itself, but because the peo-
ple of the United States have not had any opportunity to ex-
press an opinion, in favor of, or against it. Such might, by
possibility, be the reasoning of Mr. Clay himself. We know
nothing of his opinions, and only assume these to be his, be-
cause it is putting the most unfavorable view of them that we
may be called upon to meet. Although we should more
highly value that opposition to Texas, which should spring
from convictions as strong as our own of the utter unconsti-
tutionality of the proposed act of union, we ought not to suffer
ourselves to underrate the advantages which may be derived,
even from the ground which is thus presented to us. So
long as the people of the Free States are not bargained away
like cattle ; so long as their voice is to be respected by those
in power, in guiding the policy of the government, there is
yet room for hope. The admission of this principle alone,
would be a prognostic of a return to brighter days. There
has been none such acted upon, for a great many years, by
those who have been placed in the administration.

But in order to make this concession of any avail, it will
be necessary for those citizens of all parties, who value the
perpetuity of our pacific and free system of government more
than the success of individuals in their pursuit of office, to
direct their attention to the choice of men perfectly true to sound
principles in both branches of the federal Legislature. No
President will have it in his power, hereafter, to do the mis-
chief which Mr. Tyler has had an opportunity to do, if the
proper precautions be only taken. It will be wise to put re-
straints on him, in this particular, whoever may be the success-
ful aspirant. This can be done. The only question is, shall
it be done ? We scarcely expect that the ultras of either of
the three parties will be prepared to abandon their standard for
any useful purpose whatever, that may conflict with the pro-
bability of their own ascendency. But the great mass of the

50

moderate and substantial people of the community, who hold
the balance of power between them, are rrot so wedded to
any interest as to be unwilling to listen to reason, and of them
we do expect all that may yet be done to redeem the coun-
try. To this end, it is not absolutely necessary that they
should at once break from the political association with which
they ordinarily act. Let them wait to see who the candi-
dates may be that the opposite parties will put up. If it shall
turn out that they are all not only known to be decidedly op-
posed to the whole policy of annexation and war, but pos-
sess sufficient weight of private character to secure them
from the suspicion of a liability to improper influence here-
after, then it is immaterial for which of them any one may
vote, so far as this question is concerned. The election
of either would secure the great point now at issue. If,
on the other hand, the candidate of only one of the parties is
of the character described, whilst that of the other is either
lukewarm or wavering, or not to be trusted, then is it the
bounden duty of every person interested in the preservation
of our institutions in their purity, to vote for the former, no
matter what may be the standard he is attached to. And
lastly, if the candidate presented by neither party is deserv-
ing of public trust at this crisis, then it becomes highly neces-
sary to do, as has lately been done, for different reasons, in
the city of New York, to rally upon some new individual,
whose character shall at once challenge the confidence of the
voters, without regard to the old forms of organization. In
this manner, and in this only, can the great point be secured,
of possessing a body of men from the Free States, who
will stand together on this great foundation, no matter what
else they may divide about. The moderate men, who will
hold the balance of power in almost every congressional dis-
trict, we might even say in almost every election in the au-
tumn, can secure this great object, if they only will it. But it
will be necessary for them to be on the alert. The elections
will soon become a topic of public interest. In order to se-
cure the right sort of candidates, it will be necessary that the
requisites alluded to be early insisted upon. The field is now
open for useful exertion. If it be not rightly improved, then
will there be an end of all chance of future security. The
evil may now have been postponed, but it will not have been
removed. If the Free States do not strongly will, then the
inference will be drawn that they consent, and many of their
own citizens will be among the first to sacrifice every public
principle to the hope of personal advantage in promoting the
Texas policy.

51

For let it be observed, that this is not a question for the
present moment only. Some of the leading presses of the
North have lately attempted to keep studiously out of view
the subject that is at the bottom of it all. They appear to
think that it is inexpedient to agitate matters which may afl'cct
the position of many Senators from the slave States, upon
whose cooperation, to defeat the treaty now proposed to be
made, we must rely. This argument would do very well, if
the rejection of that treaty could be regarded as a final settle-
ment of the question. But every one knows that it is not.
Every one knows that those Senators do not mean to be un-
derstood as pledging themselves beyond the occasion. Every
one knows that their policy is more affected by their imme-
diate interest in the success of Mr. Clay, which would be en-
tirely destroyed by a contrary course, than by any permanent
dislike to the Texas policy itself. How short-sighted is it,
then to put the argument against it in the North on a false
bottom, merely to please them, and subject ourselves to hav-
ing the objection thrown into our teeth at some future time,
that we had acted hypocritically, in suppressing the true rea-
sons of our opposition, to serve a momentary purpose. This
is the sort of temporising, timeserving policy, which too of-
ten has the effect of weakening the influence of New-England
in the national councils, much more than any extremes in
doctrine which may be advanced. We are accused of trick,
and management, and cunning — underhand ways of gaining
our objects. Would it not be a clear justification of such a
charge, to pretend that the indefinite expansion of slavery is
not the great and leading objection in the minds of all good
men among us, to the acquisition of Texas — provided that
this could be done constitutionally. Would not that reason
present the chief objection to the adoption of an amendment
of the constitution, for the purpose of acquiring it ? How
vain then to imagine, that by a little effort we can hide it from
view. Does any one suppose that if Mr. Clay is chosen
President, he will not be tried by his enemies at the South on
this delicate subject, or that those who now support him will
not be called upon to assume their ground, immediately after
his election ? The present agitation of the project will itself
be construed as furnishing some test of the popular sentiment
in its favor, if that sentiment be not most unequivocally ex-
pressed :rj.;iin<t it. Does any one imagine, that by a little delay
the country will entirely avoid this issue? Would that we
could believe it. But we strain our eyes, and see no such
blessed futurity. The great issue between the principles of
the constitution and slavery, between the rights of the many

52

freemen and the privileges of the few, must be met. The
great problem of human progress is involved in the result.
If there are men among us who feel faint-hearted, or wish to
avert their eyes from the prospect, let them stand aside.
But let them not deceive themselves with a belief, that with a
few hollow phrases and delusive declarations, they can avert
the struggle that is impending. Such efforts may put it off
for a few hours or days, but they can do no more.

How much this struggle will be accelerated, if the treaty
now offered should be finally ratified by the Senate, we im-
agine there is no one so cold as not to comprehend. Indeed,
we have seen it gravely urged in some quarters, as a serious
objection to it, not that its principle is much in its way,
but that it would be giving the abolitionists too great an ad-
vantage among our citizens. Such political morals are loo
common, even in the best of our newspaper press, to excite
the least surprise. The abolitionists would long before this
have made themselves an .impregnable position, if they had
been sufficiently prudent not to connect with real and solid
principles much that is irrelevant and impracticable. Expe-
rience will, in the course of time, make them discreet, and
the violent course of the Southern States, is daily con-
tributing something to strengthen their arguments. The trim-
ming and temporizing system that has marked the career
of the race of politicians during the last twenty years, will
no longer serve the purpose. The state of the country de-
mands decision, and the public questions that are- about
to open before it and divide opinion, are likely to be of
such a kind as to defy the possibility of equivocation. The
only difficulty to be guarded against, by those who are driven
to contend against the increasing evils of slavery, is that
which may arise from their own errors, in choosing unsafe
ground upon which to make the contest. The best and
strongest cause may be injured, if not destroyed, by mistak-
ing the true methods to sustain it.

This brings us to the last topic, which we proposed at the
outset to treat. In the event of the annexation of Texas,
what is it advisable for the free States to do ? Are they to
submit to it, as an irremediable evil, and patiently await the
results which it may bring about, or are they to do as some
have advised — at once take measures to produce a dissolution
of the Union ? In expressing our views upon this subject,
we are conscious that we shall fall in with the notions of no
particular party ; for whilst, on the one hand, we should
deem the time come for an organization throughout the free
States, such as has never yet been made ; on the other, we

53

should not deem it come for immediate dissolution. Not that
we do not consider the bond of the constitution completely
broken by the introduction of a foreign State, arid its obliga-
tion void. We have not a doubt on that point. But so long
as we believe that it is within the power of the free States to
prevent the annexation of Texas, and the war policy, if they
only will it, just so long shall we consider their refusal so to
will, as implying the waiver of the majority, to avail them-
selves of the breach of contract at this time, and their consent
to remain in the Union for the present on unequal terms. Res-
olutions and declamation are but waste of time, if the indomita-
able spirit be not behind them to give force in action. The al-
ternative is, then, to prepare for future events ; to disseminate
the principles involved in the Massachusetts resolutions as
striking at the root of the evil ; in short to make no cessation in
the contest against slavery and the measures which flow from it.
Gloomy though the prospect might be, of fulfilling the great
ends for which the government was constituted, the perpetua-
tion of the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity;
desperate as might seem the prospect of a return to those
days of honor and of peace, when the name of the republic
had not been made a synonyme with rapacity and bad faith ;
yet the duty of good citizens would still remain unchanged, to
watch and to strive for the best. Rashness and despair are
equally unmanly, so long as there is a shadow of faith re-
maining in the dispensations of an overruling Providence
above us.

We have now done with the subject. In treating it, we
are conscious that we have occasionally run counter to the
prejudices and feelings of each of the. three parties which now
agitate the land. We have been too warm to suit those
whigs, who delight in indifference ; too uncompromising to
suit the flexible morality of the democrats ; and too cold to
suit those abolitionists who dwell in abstractions. Such a re-
sult almost inevitably follows any effort to express free
thoughts in a free manner. Yet in all these parties there are
numbers of persons who will not be displeased if such a lib-
erty be taken, and who will examine the argument that may
be advanced, with impartiality, and without reference to its
source. To those persons we have endeavored most re-
spectfully to address ourselves. They generally hold the
scale in political affairs, and although slow in coming to the
formation of opinions, yet when once formed they are tena-
cious in maintaining them. Let the favored classes of the
South beware how, by their violent career, they persist in driv-
ing all these people into the doctrines of political abolitionism.

54

Thus far they have looked on perhaps with too much indif-
ference, at the aggressions committed time after time upon the
principles of liberty, and have given little encouragement to
the efforts of agitators. But a persistence in sacrificing the in-
terests of the whole to the maintenance of an institution not
to he justified either in the eyes of God or man, a resolute
determination to press the country into a position before the
world, at war both with its declared principles and with jus-
tice and right, may try their patience somewhat beyond bear-
ing. And the reaction in public opinion, consequent upon the
outbreak of their indignation, may have effects upon the pol-
icy of the Union and the condition of the slave States, which
would hardly be compensated to the latter by the additional
security they might fancy they had purchased to themselves,
even by success in forcing the annexation of Texas.