Showing posts with label Zachary Taylor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Zachary Taylor. Show all posts

Saturday, March 16, 2024

Congressman Horace Mann, September 6, 1850

SEPT. 6.

I had no letter from you last night, nor eke this morning. I am so sure that you never fail, that I always convict the railroads or postmasters, and condemn them.

I had a sad day yesterday. The day before, Mr. Boyd's amendment, giving a Territorial Government to New Mexico, not only without a proviso against slavery, but with an express provision, that, when States are erected, they may be slave States if they wish, was voted down; but yesterday that vote was reconsidered. Then Massachusetts members went for it, although our Legislature, the last of last April, expressed the most decided opinions to the contrary, and although, before this new Administration, in which Mr. Webster takes so conspicuous a part, the whole North, with the exception of a part of the cities, was against it. Mr. E—— has voted steadily and uniformly for slavery. It is getting to be a fixed law, in my mind, to have no faith in men who make money their god. It is amazing into what forms the human mind may be shaped. Here are twenty, perhaps thirty, men from the North in this House, who, before Gen. Taylor's death, would have sworn, like St. Paul, not to eat nor drink until they had voted the proviso, who now, in the face of the world, turn about, defy the instructions of their States, take back their own declarations a thousand times uttered, and vote against it. It is amazing; it is heart-sickening. What shall be done? I know no other way but through the cause in which I have so long worked. May God save our children from being, in their day, the cause of such comments by others!

P.S. It is two o'clock, and the infernal bill has just passed. Dough, if not infinite in quantity, is infinitely soft. The North is again disgracefully beaten, most disgracefully.

SOURCE: Mary Tyler Peabody Mann, Life of Horace Mann, p. 322

Congressman Horace Mann, September 8, 1850

SEPT. 8, 1850.

Texas has not a particle of rightful claim to all the north-western region this bill contends for; but she has passed a law claiming it, and threatens to make war upon the Union if her claim is not allowed. An extra session of her legislature is now in being. Her governor recommends that she should raise and equipmen to march to Santa Fé, and subdue the people there to her control (who are Mexicans, and who hate her); and the legislature is now preparing means to carry, or rather to seem to carry, their threats into execution. Our great Presidency-seekers, Webster, Cass, Clay, &c., wish to succumb to her claims. They cannot afford to offend any party at the South, because they want the votes of the South. The South wants Texas to have all this territory, because Texas is one of the most atrocious proslavery States in the Union; and, if any part of the territory is set off to New Mexico, they say it may eventually be free. Those who think their party will gain something by yielding to this false claim of Texas go for it with their leaders. Texas would not relinquish an inch of it but for money: therefore it is proposed to give her ten millions of dollars to buy her off. It is the most outrageous piece of swindling ever practised. In reality, we give her, by this boundary, a hundred thousand more square miles than she owns, and ten millions of dollars besides. President Taylor meant to maintain the rights of the country; and, if he had lived, we should have tried strength with the miserable braggarts of Texas: but, since his death, the whole policy of the Administration is changed, and with that, owing to their power and patronage, Congress is demoralized, and the bill has passed, and the Territories have governments without any prohibition of slavery. California is admitted as a free State; and that is all the compensation we have.

I am sick at heart, and disgusted at the wickedness of men.

SOURCE: Mary Tyler Peabody Mann, Life of Horace Mann, p. 322-3

Wednesday, March 6, 2024

Colonel Jefferson Davis to the Editor of the Washington Union, January 6, 1847

(From Washington Union, Feb. 11, 1847.)

Victoria, Tamaulipas, Mexico.
January 6, 1847.

Dear Sir: After much speculation and no little misrepresentation about the capitulation of Monterey, I perceive by our recent newspapers, that a discussion has arisen as to who is responsible for that transaction. As one of the commissioners who were entrusted by General Taylor with the arrangements of the terms upon which the city of Monterey and its fortifications should be delivered to our forces, I have had frequent occasion to recur to the course then adopted, and the considerations which led to it. My judgment after the fact has fully sustained my decisions at the date of the occurrence; and feeling myself responsible for the instrument as we prepared and presented it to our commanding general, I have the satisfaction, after all subsequent events, to believe that the terms we offered were expedient, and honorable, and wise. A distinguished gentleman with whom I acted on that commission, Governor Henderson, says, in a recently published letter, "I did not at the time, nor do I still like the terms, but acted as one of the commissioners, together with Geenral Worth and Colonel Davis, to carry out General Taylor's instructions. We ought and could have made them surrender at discretion," &c., &c.

From each position taken in the above paragraph I dissent. The instructions given by General Taylor only presented his object, and fixed a limit to the powers of his commissioners; hence, when points were raised which exceeded our discretion, they were referred to the commander; but minor points were acted on, and finally submitted as a part of our negotiation. We fixed the time within which the Mexican forces should retire from Monterey. We agreed upon the time we would wait for the decision of the respective governments, which I recollect was less by thirty-four days than the Mexican commissioners asked—the period adopted being that which, according to our estimate, was required to bring up the rear of our army with the ordnance and supplies necessary for further operations.

I did not then, nor do I now, believe we could have made the enemy surrender at discretion. Had I entertained the opinion it would have been given to the commission, and to the commanding general, and would have precluded me from signing an agreement which permitted the garrison to retire with the honors of war. It is demonstrable, from the position and known prowess of the two armies, that we could drive the enemy from the town; but the town was untenable whilst the main fort (called the new citadel) remained in the hands of the enemy. Being without siege artillery or entrenching tools, we could only hope to carry this fort by storm, after a heavy loss from our army; which, isolated in a hostile country, now numbered less than half the forces of the enemy. When all this had been achieved, what more would we have gained than by the capitulation?

General Taylor's force was too small to invest the town. It was, therefore, always in the power of the enemy to retreat, bearing his light arms. Our army-poorly provided, and with very insufficient transportation—could not have overtaken, if they had pursued the flying enemy. Hence the conclusion that, as it was not in our power to capture the main body of the Mexican Army, it is unreasonable to suppose their general would have surrendered at discretion. The moral effect of retiring under the capitulation was certainly greater than if the enemy had retreated without our consent. By this course we secured the large supply of ammunition he had collected in Monterey—which, had the assault been continued, must have been exploded by our shells, as it was principally stored in "the Cathedral," which, being supposed to be filled with troops, was the especial aim of our pieces The destruction which this explosion would have produced must have involved the advance of both divisions of our troops; and I commend this to the contemplation of those whose arguments have been drawn from facts learned since the commissioners closed their negotiations. With these introductory remarks, I send a copy of a manuscript in my possession, which was prepared to meet such necessity as now exists for an explanation of the views which governed the commissioners in arranging the terms of capitulation, to justify the commanding general, should misrepresentation and calumny attempt to tarnish his well-earned reputation, and, for all time to come, to fix the truth of the transaction. Please publish this in your paper, and believe me your friend, etc.,

JEFFERSON DAVIS.

SOURCE: Dunbar Rowland, Editor, Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist: His Letters, Papers and Speeches, Volume 1, p. 63-5

Friday, January 19, 2024

Daniel Webster to Francis Haven, July 23, 1850

Washington, July 25, 1850—Friday, twelve o'clock.

MY DEAR SIR,—I thank you for all the good wishes and kind expressions in your letter, and hope my transfer to this position may be in some measure useful to the country.

If we could only get the measure now pending in the Senate passed into a law, we should have a glorious prospect before us indeed. But you see how decided is the hostility of the Massachusetts members. With their consent, it would become a law in a week. If it fail, we must try something else.

An eminent Northern Senator came to me last night to know what he could do to insure the passage of this bill. He was ready to do any thing but to vote for it. Half a dozen others are in exactly the same condition. They became committed to a favorite measure of the late President before his death. All that holds them to it now, is the notion of consistency. I was not without hopes last night that the bill would pass the Senate.

Yours truly,
DANIEL WEBSTER.

SOURCE: Fletcher Webster, Editor, The Private Correspondence of Daniel Webster, Vol. 2, p. 379-80

Daniel Webster to Franklin Haven, September 12, 1850

(PRIVATE.)
Washington, September 12, 1850.

MY DEAR SIR,—I use the confidential hand of another to write you a short letter, my eyes holding out only to perform a small part of the duty expected from them every day. I am in the midst of my periodical catarrh, or "hay fever," or whatever you please to call it, but which you know all about. I read nothing, and hardly write any thing but signatures. The disease is depressing and discouraging. I know that there is no remedy for it, and that it must have its course. It produces loss of appetite and great prostration of strength, but since the event of last week terminated, I have some little time for rest, and shutting myself up very much, I keep as quiet as I can.

My dear Sir, I think the country has had a providential escape from very considerable dangers. I was not aware of the whole extent of the embarrassment likely to arise till I came here, last December, and had opportunities of conversation with General Taylor, and the gentlemen of his administration. General Taylor was an honest and truly patriotic man; but he had quite enough of that quality, which, when a man is right, we call firmness, and when he is wrong, we denominate obstinacy. What has been called the President's plan, was simply this; to wit, to admit California under her free constitution, and to let the territories alone altogether, until they could come in as States. This policy, as it was thought, would avoid all discussion and all voting on the question of the Wilmot proviso. All that matter it was supposed, might be thus postponed, and the slavery question staved off. The objection to this plan, was the same as that to poor King Lear's idea of shoeing a company of horse in felt, and stealing upon his enemies. It was flatly impossible; that's all. But the purpose was settled and decided. General Taylor told me, in the last conversation I had with him, that he preferred that California should not come in at all, rather than that she should come in bringing the territories on her back. And if he had lived, it might have been doubtful whether any general settlement would have been made. He was a soldier, and had a little fancy, I am afraid, to see how easily any military movement by Texas could have been put down. His motto was, "vi et armis!" He had a soldier's foresight, and saw quite clearly what would be the result if Texan militia should march into New Mexico, and there be met by troops of the regular army of the United States. But that he had a statesman's foresight, and foresaw what consequences might happen in the existing state of men's opinions and feelings, if blood should be shed in a contest between the United States and one of the southern States, is more than I am ready to affirm. Yet long before his death, and in the face of that observation which he made to me, as already stated, I made up my mind to risk myself on a proposition for a general pacification. I resolved to push my skiff from the shore alone, considering that, in that case, if she foundered, there would be but one life lost. Our friend Harvey happened to be here, and with him and Mr. Edward Curtis, I held a little council the evening before the speech. What followed is known. Most persons here thought it impossible that I should maintain myself, and stand by what I declared. They wished, and hoped, and prayed, but fear prevailed. When I went to Boston soon afterwards, and was kindly received, and intimated that I should take no march backward, they felt a little encouraged. But truly it was not till Mr. Eliot's election that there was any confident assurance here that I was not a dead man. It would be of little consequence, my dear Sir, if I could only say that Boston saved me, but I can say with all sincerity, and with the fullest conviction of its truth, that Boston saved the country. From the commencement of the government, no such consequences have attended any single election, as those that flowed from Mr. Eliot's election. That election was a clear and convincing proof, that there was breaking out a new fountain of brilliant light in the East, and men imbibed hopes in which they had never before indulged. At this moment it is true that Mr. Eliot is the greatest lion that exhibits himself on Pennsylvania avenue. He is considered the personation of Boston; ever intelligent, ever patriotic, ever glorious Boston; and whatever prejudices may have existed in the minds of honorable southern men, against our good city, they are now all sunk and lost forever in their admiration of her nationality of spirit.

But I must stop here. There is much else that I could say, and may say hereafter, of the importance of the crisis through which we have passed. I am not yet free from the excitement it has produced. I am like one who has been sea-sick, and has gone to bed. My bed rolls and tosses by the billows of that sea, over which I have passed.

My dear Sir, this is for your own eye. You are much younger than I am, and hereafter possibly you may recur to this hastily dictated letter not without interest. If you think it worth reading, you may show it to T. B. Curtis, Mills, Fearing, and Harvey, &c. It is but half an hour's gossip, when I can do nothing but talk, and dictate to a confidential clerk.

Yours, always truly,
DAN'L WEBSTER.

SOURCE: Fletcher Webster, Editor, The Private Correspondence of Daniel Webster, Vol. 2, p. 386-8

Saturday, January 6, 2024

Jefferson Davis’ Remarks on the Resolution of Thanks to General Zachary Taylor, May 28, 1846

Mr. JEFFERSON DAVIS said, as a friend to the army, he rejoiced at the evidence now afforded of a disposition in this House to deal justly, to feel generously towards those to whom the honor of our flag has been intrusted. Too often and too long had we listened to harsh and invidious reflections upon our gallant little army, and the accomplished officers who command it. A partial opportunity had been offered to exhibit their soldierly qualities in their true light, and he trusted these aspersions were hushed-hushed now forever. As an American, whose heart promptly responds to all which illustrates our national character, and adds new glory to our national name, he rejoiced with exceeding joy at the recent triumph of our arms. Yet it is no more than he expected from the gallant soldiers who hold our post upon the Rio Grande-no more than, when occasion offers, they will achieve again. It was the triumph of American courage, professional skill, and that patriotic pride which blooms in the breast of our educated soldier, and which droops not under the withering scoff of political revilers.

These men will feel, deeply feel, the expression of your gratitude. It will nerve their hearts in the hour of future conflict, to know that their country acknowledges and honors their devotion. It will shed a solace on the dying moment of those who fall, to be assured their country mourns the loss. This is the meed for which the soldier bleeds and dies. This he will remember long after the paltry pittance of one month's extra pay has been forgotten.

Beyond this expression of the nation's thanks, he liked the principle of the proposition offered by the gentleman from South Carolina. We have a pension system providing for the disabled soldier, but he seeks well and wisely to extend it to all who may be wounded, however slightly. It is a reward offered to those who seek for danger, who first and foremost plunge into the fight. It has been this incentive, extended so as to cover all feats of gallantry, that has so often crowned the British arms with victory, and caused their prowess to be recognised in every quarter of the globe. It was the sure and high reward of gallantry, the confident reliance upon their nation's gratitude, which led Napoleon's armies over Europe, conquering and to conquer; and it was these influences which, in an earlier time, rendered the Roman arms invincible, and brought their eagle back victorious from every land on which it gazed. Sir, let not that prevent us from parsimony, (for he did not deem it economy,) adopting a system which in war will add so much to the efficiency of troops. Instead of seeking to fill the ranks of your army by increased pay, let the soldier feel that a liberal pension will relieve him from the fear of want in the event of disability, provide for his family in the event of death, and that he wins his way to gratitude and the reward of his countrymen by perilling all for honor in the field.

The achievement which we now propose to honor is one which richly deserves it. Seldom, sir, in the annals of military history has there been one in which desperate daring and military skill were more happily combined. The enemy selected his own ground, and united to the advantage of a strong position a numerical majority of three to one. Driven from his first position by an attack in which it is hard to say whether professional skill or manly courage is to be more admired, he retired and posted his artillery on a narrow defile, to sweep the ground over which our troops were compelled to pass. There, posted in strength three times greater than our own, they waited the approach of our gallant little army.

General Taylor knew the danger and destitution of the band he left to hold his camp opposite Matamoras, and he paused for no regular approaches, but opened his field artillery, and dashed with sword and bayonet on the foe. A single charge left him master of their battery, and the number of slain attests the skill and discipline of his army. Mr. D. referred to a gentleman who, a short time since, upon this floor, expressed extreme distrust in our army, and poured out the vials of his denunciation upon the graduates of the Military Academy. He hoped now the gentleman will withdraw those denunciations; that now he will learn the value of military science; that he will see in the location, the construction, the defence of the bastioned field-work opposite Matamoras the utility, the necessity of a military education. Let him compare the few men who held that with the army that assailed it; let him mark the comparative safety with which they stood within that temporary work; let him consider why the guns along its ramparts were preserved, whilst they silenced the batteries of the enemy; why that intrenchment stands unharmed by Mexican shot, whilst its guns have crumbled the stone walls in Matamoras to the ground, and then say whether he believes a blacksmith or a tailor could have secured the same results. He trusted the gentleman would be convinced that arms, like every occupation, requires to be studied before it can be understood; and from these things, to which he had called his attention, he will learn the power and advantage of military science. He would make but one other allusion to the remarks of the gentleman he had noticed, who said nine-tenths of the graduates of the Military Academy abandoned the service of the United States. If he would take the trouble to examine the records upon this point, he doubted not he would be surprised at the extent of his mistake. There he would learn that a majority of all the graduates are still in service; and if he would push his inquiry a little further, he would find that a large majority of the commissioned officers who bled in the actions of the 8th and 9th were graduates of that academy.

He would not enter into a discussion on the military at this time. His pride, his gratification arose from the success of our arms. Much was due to the courage which Americans have displayed on many battle-fields in former times; but this courage, characteristic of our people, and pervading all sections and all classes, could never have availed so much had it not been combined with military science. And the occasion seemed suited to enforce this lesson on the minds of those who have been accustomed, in season and out of season, to rail at the scientific attainments of our officers.

The influence of military skill—the advantage of discipline in the troops—the power derived from the science of war, increases with the increased size of the contending armies. With two thousand we had beaten six thousand; with twenty thousand we would far more easily beat sixty thousand, because the General must be an educated soldier who wields large bodies of men, and the troops, to act efficiently, must be disciplined and commanded by able officers. He but said what he had long thought and often said, when he expressed his confidence in the ability of our officers to meet those of any service—favorably to compare, in all that constitutes the soldier, with any army in the world; and as the field widened for the exhibition, so would their merits shine more brightly still.

With many of the officers now serving on the Rio Grande he had enjoyed a personal acquaintance, and hesitated not to say that all which skill and courage and patriotism could perform, might be expected from them. He had forborne to speak of the General commanding on the Rio Grande on any former occasion; but he would now say to those who had expressed distrust, that the world held not a soldier better qualified for the service he was engaged in than General Taylor. Trained from his youth to arms, having spent the greater portion of his life on our frontier, his experience peculiarly fits him for the command he holds. Such as his conduct was in Fort Harrison, on the Upper Mississippi, in Florida, and on the Rio Grande, will it be wherever he meets the enemy of his country.

Those soldiers to whom so many have applied deprecatory epithets, upon whom it has been so often said no reliance could be placed, they, too, will be found in every emergency renewing such feats as have recently graced our arms, bearing the American flag to honorable triumphs, or falling beneath its folds as devotees to our common cause to die a soldier's death.

He rejoiced that the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. BLACK] had shown himself so ready to pay this tribute to our army. He hoped not a voice would be raised in opposition to it; that nothing but the stern regret which is prompted by remembrance of those who bravely fought and nobly died will break the joy, the pride, the patriotic gratulation with which we hail this triumph of our brethren on the Rio Grande.

SOURCE: Dunbar Rowland, Editor, Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist: His Letters, Papers and Speeches, Volume 1, p. 46-9

Jefferson Davis to the People of Mississippi, July 13, 1846

(From Vicksburg Sentinel, July 21, 1846.)

Fellow Citizens: I address you to explain the cause of my present absence from the seat of the federal government.

Those of our fellow-citizens who, in answer to a call of the President, had volunteered to serve the U. S. in the existing war with Mexico, have elected me for their Colonel, and the Governor has furnished to me a commission, in accordance with that election. Having received a military education and served a number of years in the line of the army, I felt that my services were due to the country, and believed my experience might be available in promoting the comfort, the safety and efficiency of the Mississippi Regiment in the campaign on which they were about to enter. Such considerations, united to the desire common to our people to engage in the military service of the country, decided me unhesitatingly to accept the command which was offered. The regiment was organized and waiting to be mustered into service preparatory to a departure for the army of operation. Under such circumstances, I could not delay until the close of the Congressional session, though then so proximate that it must occur before a successor could be chosen and reach the city of Washington.

It was my good fortune to see in none of the measures likely to be acted on at this session such hazard as would render a single vote important, except the bill to regulate anew the duties upon imports. The vote on this was to occur very soon (in two days) after the receipt of my commission as Colonel, and I have the satisfaction to announce to you that it passed the House the evening before I left Washington; and I entertain no doubt of its passing through the Senate and becoming the law of the land. An analysis of the votes upon this bill will show that its main support was derived from the agricultural and exporting States. To these in a pecuniary view it was the measure of highest importance. But whilst I rejoice in it for such considerations, because tending to advance the great staple interest of our State, and thus to promote the prosperity of all industry among us, I am not less gratified at it as a measure of political reform. In adopting the ad valorem rule and restricting its operation to the revenue limit, the great principle of taxing in proportion to the benefits conferred is more nearly approximated, and the power to lay duties is directed to the purpose of raising money, for which alone it was conferred in the constitution of our confederacy. Thus it was exercised by the fathers of our Republic in the first tariff enacted under the federal constitution; when for the benefit it would confer upon American producers and manufacturers they chose to raise revenue by imposts rather than direct taxation. Since then, as in the bill of 1842, (to be substituted by that lately passed through the House of Representatives,) the collection of revenue has been the subordinate; the benefit to particular classes, the main object of duties. And the extent to which this was pursued was concealed by specific duties and minima valuations-rendering the law unintelligible on its face, and in many cases wholly prohibitory in its operation-destroying revenue but leaving taxation. A tariff "for protection" must discriminate against the necessaries of life to favor manufactures in a rude or "infant" state; a tariff for revenue may, and generally would, impose its highest duties upon luxuries, for reasons so just and equalizing in their practical effects, that one could have no inducement to conceal the policy or shrink from its avowal.

Commercial changes and the wants or superfluities of the treasury must require occasional modifications in the rates of duties upon imports; but a salutary check is held by the people so long as all modifications are made by changing the rate per cent. on enumerated articles, by which it is seen at once what tax is imposed upon consumption, and whether or not the limit of revenue is passed.

I trust we shall never again witness the spectacle, so revolting to every idea of self government, of a law in which, by specific duties and minima valuations, the purpose and effect is as absolutely concealed as in the edicts of the ancient tyrant, which were written in a hand so small and hung so high as to be illegible to those upon whom they were to operate.

During this session, as your Representative, I have acted upon all measures as seemed to me best to accord with the principles upon which I was elected, and most likely to correspond with the wishes and interests of the people of Mississippi. Thus my support was given to the law for the separation of the fiscal affairs of the general government from all connection with banks. The bill passed by the House of Representatives will, it is confidently expected, pass the Senate of the United States probably with an amendment extending the time at which it is to go into full effect. This is supposed to be necessary to prevent an injurious revulsion in the trade of the country, consequent upon the sudden contraction of the discounts of those banks, which have extended their accomodations upon the government deposits. Evils however positive, cannot always be immediately abated; and in this extension of the time it is only designed to make a temporary concession of policy, that by an easy, gradual change the prosperity of trade may be secured and monetary derangement be avoided. These two, the "tariff" and "Independent Treasury," are the measures which seem to me most deeply to involve the interests of Mississippi. Without mountain slopes, and mountain streams to furnish water power; without coal mines permanently to supply large amounts of cheap fuel at any locality, we cannot expect, in competition with those who enjoy either or both of these advantages, ever to become a manufacturing people. We must continue to rely, as at present, almost entirely upon our exports; and it requires no argument, under such circumstances, to maintain the position that the interest of our State will be most advanced by freeing commerce from all unnecessary burthens, and by measuring the value of our purchases by the standard used in our sales-the currency of the world.

By the active exertion of our Senator Speight, a bill was passed through the Senate, granting to the State of Mississippi alternate sections of land to aid in the construction of the proposed Mississippi and Alabama rail road. It is scarcely to be hoped that the House will act upon this measure at the present session, but placed upon the calendar of unfinished business, I think it will become a law at the next session of this Congress. I have also hoped that at the same session, a law would be passed to enable the Postmaster General to make contracts for a long term of years with rail roads under construction, by which the government would be secured from the exorbitant charges monopolies have it in their power to impose, and such certainty conferred upon the value of rail road stock as would greatly aid in the completion of an entire chain of railways from the Mississippi at Vicksburg to the Atlantic, and to the metropolis of our Union—a chain like a system of nerves to couple our remote members of the body politic to the centre of the Union, and rapidly to transmit sensation from one to the other; or like great sinews, uniting into concentrated action the power of the right hand and the left-the valley of the Mississippi and the coast of the Atlantic—when ever the necessities of one or the other shall require the action of both.

Much has been done during the past winter to adjust suspended and conflicting claims to land purchased from the U. S., and it is to be hoped that the action of this Congress will relieve our people from the uncertainty and harassing delays under which so many of them have labored for years past.

The bill to graduate and reduce the price of the public lands, will no doubt become a law; and we may expect from it an important increase to our population and State wealth; such as has been the result in the northern portion of our State, where under the Chickasaw treaty, a graduation system has been in operation, it is to be supposed, will be the result of a similar graduation in those districts where the public land has remained long unsold. The coast survey, now in progress along the Gulf of Mexico, cannot fail to have an important influence upon that portion of our State which borders on the Gulf, by giving correct charts of the channels and points of entrance safe for coasting vessels. Beyond this, I anticipate that the survey will establish as a fact that the best point west of Cape Florida for a navy yard to repair or construct vessels of the largest class, is the Harbor of Ship Island; and further, that it will lead to the speedy establishment of the necessary lights along the Coast and upon its adjacent Islands. The difficulty of obtaining appropriations for these has heretofore been greatly increased by the want of official information. The Legislature of our State memorialized Congress upon the propriety of re-opening the Pass Manchac. I was fully impressed with the propriety of the claim. Under more favorable circumstances, an appropriation for the purpose might have been obtained; and I yet hope that we shall get a survey and report for the contemplated work, in time for action at the next session of this Congress.

Since I took a seat as your Representative in Congress, the country has been disturbed; its political elements agitated and thrown into confusion; its peace with England seriously endangered by a question of boundary in what is known as the Oregon Territory. We have now satisfactory reason to believe that this question is amicably adjusted. The exact terms of the agreement have not transpired; but in general language it may be stated as settled on the basis of the 49th parallel of north latitude, with a temporary permission to the Hudson's Bay Company to navigate the Columbia River. That there should have been a desire among our people generally to hold the whole Territory was but natural, and this not merely from a wish to extend our territory, but also from a more creditable desire to reserve as far as we might, the North American Continent for republican institutions. As few will contend that this desire would have justified our Government in waging a war for territorial acquisition, the question was narrowed down to this: how far our rights clearly defined, and how shall we best secure what is clearly our own, and upon what terms shall we compromise for what is disputable? There were some who claimed for the parallel of 54° 40′ N. L. a talismanic merit-that it was the line to which patriotism required us to go, and short of which it was treasonable to stop. This opinion could only rest on the supposition that by purchase from Spain we acquired a perfect title. But this was to assume too much. The assumption carried with it the element of its own destruction. The Spanish claim extended as far as the 61st degree. If the boundary had been well defined, and the title perfect, then there was no power in our Government to surrender any part of it, and the Convention with Russia is void. But if, as must be generally admitted, the line of 54° 40′ was a compromise with Russia growing out of the fact that our title was imperfect and the boundary unsettled, then was 54° 40′ merely a line of expediency, as any other parallel would have been-good only as against Russia, and subject on the same principle to further adjustment with the other claimant in that territory.

The history of our past negotiations with Great Britain in relation to that territory gave little foundation for the expectation that we could get amicably, the whole country we have now secured south of the 49th parallel of latitude; and if the information I have derived from the officers who have explored different portions of that country be correct, a few years will satisfy our people that we have obtained nearly all which would have been valuable to us-a territory extending further north than the most northern point ever occupied by any portion of our people, and if the term "Oregon Territory" was properly applicable to the valley of the Columbia, or Oregon River, a territory far more valuable than could be claimed in the valley drained by that stream and all its tributaries.

In the south we had another question of boundary unsettled; and though all proper efforts were made to adjust it amicably, they proved abortive. The minister sent to Mexico under a previous understanding that diplomatic relations should be renewed, and invested with full powers to treat of all questions in dispute, was rejected, without even being allowed to present his credentials. It could not be permitted to our rival claimant thus to decide the question, and though the insult would have justified an immediate declaration of war, in spirit of forbearance, the administration refrained from recommending this measure, and merely moved forward our troops to take possession of the entire territory claimed as our own, when there was no longer a prospect of adjustment by negotiation. This led to such hostilities as rendered it necessary to recognize the existence of war. Our government made the declaration in the mode provided by the constitution; and proceeded steadily to supply the means for a vigorous prosecution of the war into which we have been so unexpectedly drawn. In this connection it is worthy of remark that before a declaration was made on our part, the President of Mexico had made a similar declaration, and the appointments of the Mexican army which crossed the Rio Grande to attack the forces of General Taylor clearly show that it had advanced on that frontier for the purpose of invading the State of Texas.

The zeal shown in every quarter of the Union to engage in the service of our common country—the masses who have voluntarily come forward in numbers far exceeding the necessities of the occasion-attest the military strength of our Republic, and furnish just cause for patriotic pride and gratulation. I regret the disappointment felt by so many of my fellow-citizens of Mississippi at not being called into service; and I have not failed to present the case fully to the Executive of the U. S. Your patriotic anxiety is well appreciated; nor is the propriety of your conduct in waiting until regularly called for, forgotten; and if the war should continue, as further supplies of troops be required, there is no doubt but that our State will be among the first looked to for new levies.

There are several subjects connected with the local interests of Mississippi upon which it would have been agreeable to me to have said something, but the great length to which this letter is already extended, induces me with a few remarks bearing more particularly upon myself, to terminate it.

Unless the government of Mexico shall very soon take such steps as to give full assurance of a speedy peace, so that I may resume my duties as your Representative at the beginning of the next session of Congress, my resignation will be offered at an early day, that full time may be allowed to select a successor. Grateful to the people for their confidence and honor bestowed upon me, I have labored as their representative industriously. Elected on avowed and established principles, the cardinal points to guide my course were always before me. How well that course has accorded with your wishes; how far it is improved by your judgment, it is not for me to anticipate; but I confidently rely on your generous allowance to give credit to my motives, and for the rest, as becomes a representative, I will cheerfully submit to your decision.

JEFF'N DAVIS.
        Steamer Star Spangled Banner,
Mississippi River, July 13, 1846.

SOURCE: Dunbar Rowland, Editor, Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist: His Letters, Papers and Speeches, Volume 1, p. 52-8

Tuesday, October 24, 2023

John J. Crittenden to Robert Jefferson Breckinridge, April 21, 1851

WASHINGTON, April 21, 1851.

SIR, Your letter of the 12th inst. was received yesterday, and read with painful surprise. It is marked with such a spirit of rebuke and irritation that I hardly know how I ought to understand or reply to it. You have almost made me feel that any explanation under such circumstances would be derogatory. But, sir, suppressing all these feelings, and preferring in this instance to err, if at all, on the side of forbearance, I have concluded to address you a calm reply and explanation of the subject that has so much irritated and excited you.

Know, then, that I did receive the letter you addressed to me last winter requesting my assistance in procuring for your son the appointment of cadet in the Military Academy at West Point.

All such appointments, except ten, are so regulated by law that they must be made, one from each congressional district, on the nomination and recommendation of the representative of that district.

There was no vacancy in your district, and, of course, the only hope for your son was to obtain for him one of the ten extraordinary appointments at the disposal of the President. The power of conferring these is understood to have been given to the President for the benefit of the sons of officers of the army and navy, and especially of those whose fathers had perished in the service of their country; and although these appointments have not, in practice, been always confined to this description of persons, their claims have been generally favored and preferred. The number of such applicants has been greatly increased by the Mexican war, and their competitors from civil life are still more numerous.

From this general statement may be inferred the uncertainty and difficulty of procuring one of these appointments.

In the winter of 1849 and '50 I had, at the instance of my old friend, Gabriel Lewis, of Kentucky, very earnestly recommended a grandson of his to General Taylor for one of these appointments. He did not get it, and it was then determined by his family, with my advice and my promise to give what assistance I could, to renew or continue his application for another year, and I had, accordingly, again recommended him for one of the appointments that were to be made this spring.

Such was the condition of things and such my situation and engagement when your first letter was received. Notwithstanding all the difficulties in the way, I was not without the hope of serving you, for the sole reason, perhaps, that I wished to do so, and wished to obtain the appointment for your son. To learn something of the prospect of success, I conversed several times with the Secretary of War on the subject. He could only tell me that no selections would be made, that the subject would not be considered till the time had arrived for making the appointments, and that the number of applicants was very great, amounting to hundreds,—I think he said fifteen hundred.

I ought, perhaps, to have acknowledged the receipt of your letter and have given you all this information; and most certainly I would have done it if I had had the least apprehension of the grave consequences that have followed the omission. It did not occur to me that any punctiliousness would be exacted in our correspondence.

But, besides all this, and to say nothing of the daily duties of my office, and my almost constant attendance upon the Supreme Court, then in session, I had nothing satisfactory or definite to write. I waited, therefore, willing to avail myself of any circumstance or opportunity that time or chance might bring forth to serve you and to procure an appointment for your son as well as for the grandson of Mr. Lewis. I could find no such opportunity—no opportunity even for urging it with the least hope of success.

The appointments have all been recently made, and, with few exceptions, confined to the sons, I believe, of deceased officers, to the exclusion, for the second time, of the grandson of my friend Lewis, who has been on the list of applicants for two years, with all the recommendation I could give him.

I should have taken some opportunity of writing to you on this subject, even if your late letter had not so unpleasantly anticipated that purpose.

This, sir, is the whole tale. It must speak for itself. I have no other propitiation to offer. I am the injured party. When you become conscious of that, you will know well what atonement ought to be made and how it ought to be made. Till then, sir, self-respect compels me to say that I will be content to abide those unfriendly relations which I understand your letter to imply, if not proclaim.

I can truly say that I have written this "more in sorrow than in anger." I have intended nothing beyond my own defense and vindication, and if I have been betrayed into a word that goes beyond those just limits and implies anything like aggression, let it be stricken out.

J. J. CRITTENDEN.

SOURCE: Ann Mary Butler Crittenden Coleman, Editor, The Life of John J. Crittenden: With Selections from His Correspondence and Speeches, Vol. 1, p. 385-7

Robert Jefferson Breckinridge to John J. Crittenden, May 3, 1851

LEXINGTON, KENTUCKY, May 3, 1851.
Hon. J. J. CRITTENDEN.

DEAR SIR,—I regret very much to perceive by your letter of the 21st ultimo that you considered my letter to you of the 12th April wanting in proper respect to you, and prompted by irritation on my part. I retained no copy of that letter; but, assuredly, I know very little of myself if it contained the evidences of either of those states of mind.

For the first time in my life I had condescended to solicit, from any human authority, anything, either for myself or any member of my immediate family, though many hundreds of times I have done what I could for others. It was particularly distressing to me that I had been seduced into such a position by the extreme kindness of an old personal friend (Mr. Duncan), as I explained in my first letter to you, and, by some ridiculous notion, that the present administration might consider itself any ways connected with that of General Taylor, so as to feel disposed to fulfill any expectations it may have raised.

Unless my memory deceives me, my first letter, making the application, intimated to you that I was not sure it was proper in me to write you such a letter, and asked you to excuse the impropriety, if indeed one existed. Such, I remember well, was the state of my mind, and I think I expressed it. The only notice ever taken of that letter, by you, is the allusion to it in your letter before me. What took place in the mean time may be uttered in a sentence, and need not be repeated here.

Under all the painful, and to me altogether unprecedented, circumstances of a very humiliating position, I thought it due to you to express my regret at having implicated you, in any degree, in such an affair by my letter of application to you; and I thought it due to myself to express to you, under such circumstances, my regret at allowing myself, in a moment of parental weakness, to embark in a matter which, in all its progress and its termination, was especially out of keeping with the whole tenor of my life and feelings. If my letter, to which yours of the 21st April is an answer, expresses more or less than these things, it is expressed unhappily and improperly. If, during the progress of the affair, you had judged it necessary or proper to have treated it differently, or had had it in your power to do so, I should not have been more bound to feel obliged by any other or further service than I am now bound to feel obliged, by such as your letter informs me you were good enough to render me, under circumstances which, it is now obvious, must have been embarrassing to you, and which, if I had known, I would have instantly released you from. But all this, as it appears to me, only the more painfully shows how inconsiderate my first application to you was, and how needless it was for my subsequent expression of regret for having made it to be taken in an offensive sense.

The sole object of this letter is to place the whole affair on the footing which, in my opinion, it really occupies.

Certainly I had no right to ask anything of the sort I did ask at your hands. But assuredly having been weak enough to ask it, and having, in the course of events, had full occasion to perceive that weakness, I had the right without offense to express sincere regret for what I had inconsiderately done,—to the needless annoyance of yourself and others, and to the wounding of my own self-esteem.

Permit me, in conclusion, to say that altogether the most painful part of this affair, to me, is that I should have given offense to a man who, for nearly if not quite thirty years, I have been accustomed to regard with feelings of the greatest esteem, admiration, and confidence, and for whom, at any moment during those thirty years, I would have periled everything but my honor to have served him; such a man will know how to appreciate the workings of a nature perhaps oversensitive and overproud, in the midst of unusual and oppressive circumstances. If not, it is better to forget all than lose our own self-respect.

As to Mr. Fillmore and Mr. Conrad, strange as it may seem to you, I would never, under ordinary circumstances, have asked either of them for any favor whatever. I rather considered myself asking you and Mr. Clay and Judge Underwood and Judge Breck and a few other old friends to whom I brought myself to the point—not without great difficulty—of saying what I did. This may seem very absurd to you; perhaps it is so; it is nevertheless the truth; and most certainly I did not suppose that any administration of which yourself and Mr. Clay and Judge Underwood and Judge Breck were avowed, if not confidential, supporters, would, under the entire circumstances of this case, have it in its power to refuse so paltry a boon; and after seeing the published list of successful applicants, from which alone I learned the fate of my application, I saw still less reason to comprehend such a result. As to yourself, three particulars separated your case from that of the other friends I have named: 1st. I loved you most, and relied most on you. 2d. I the most distrusted the propriety of writing to you, on account of your connection with the cabinet. 3d. From you alone I had no word of notice; and for these two last reasons, the more felt that an explanation was demanded of me as due both to you and myself.

If you have had patience to read this letter, it is needless for me to say more than that I still desire to be considered your friend.

R. J. B.

SOURCE: Ann Mary Butler Crittenden Coleman, Editor, The Life of John J. Crittenden: With Selections from His Correspondence and Speeches, Vol. 1, p. 387-9

Monday, October 23, 2023

Congressman Horace Mann to Samuel Downer, June 28, 1850

WASHINGTON, June 28, 1850.
S. DOWNER, Esq.

DEAR SIR,—The fate of the Compromise Bill is still doubtful in the Senate, though public opinion here is against its success. Nothing but the prowess of Clay could have kept the breath in it to this time.

The news from New Mexico, if confirmed, knocks the bottom all out of the compromise. If they organize a government there, choose a governor and a legislature, appoint judges, &c., it will present a very pretty anomaly for us to be sending governor, judges, &c., to them. But the great point is the presumed proviso in their constitution. With that, the longer the South keeps them out of the Union, the more antislavery they will become.

. . . Well, Downer, it is the greatest godsend in our times that Taylor was elected over Cass. It is the turning-point of the fortunes of all the new Territories. Had Cass been President, they would have all been slave, and a fair chance for Cuba into the bargain. I am not sorry because I did not vote for Taylor; but I am glad others did. I think he has designedly steered the ship so as to avoid slavery. . . .

Best regards to your wife. You know you always have them. Look out for the boy, and make a hero of him.

Ever truly yours,
H. MANN.

SOURCE: Mary Tyler Peabody Mann, Life of Horace Mann, p. 304-5

Congressman Horace Mann, July 9, 1850

WASHINGTON, July 9, 1850.

It is a sad hour. News has just come from the White House that the President is dying. If he dies, it will be a calamity that no man can measure. His being a Southern man, a slaveholder, and a hero, has been like the pressure of a hundred atmospheres upon the South. If he dies, they will feel that their strongest antagonist has been struck from the ranks of their opponents; and I fear there will not be firmness nor force enough in all the North to resist them. The future is indeed appalling.

SOURCE: Mary Tyler Peabody Mann, Life of Horace Mann, p. 307

Congressman Horace Mann, July 12, 1850

July 12. To-day the city is dressed in mourning. No one as yet seems to know what will be the policy of the new President, whether it will be for freedom or for slavery, or whether he will not profess to adopt such a middle course as that slavery will be sure to get the advantage in the end. I look upon the movement in New Mexico that of inserting the prohibition of slavery in their new constitution as even more valuable than I did before. They will be far less likely to recede from this ground, having once adopted it.

SOURCE: Mary Tyler Peabody Mann, Life of Horace Mann, p. 307-8

Thursday, October 12, 2023

Senator Daniel Webster to Edward Curtis, June 16, 1850—6 a.m.

Monday [sic] morning, six o'clock, June 16, 1850.1

MY DEAR SIR,—I received your communication in whole and half sheets, yesterday. The most important part told a story of which I was not aware. I shall be delighted beyond measure, if Dr. Cox shall succeed as well as present appearances lead to expect.

Washington is very still, and very few people in it. There is little doing in my department, and I believe not much in any other. The President goes to Old Point Comfort and Norfolk, about Friday. Some of the gentlemen go with him, and I stay behind. Mr. Corwin sets off for Ohio to-day or to-morrow. I intend to make a desperate effort to leave Washington, as soon as the President returns, and to get to New Hampshire for a day, and Marshfield for another. I am warmly pressed to pass through Concord, before the last day of the month. Things appear to be going on well in Massachusetts.

In regard to my own movements, when hot weather arrives, three things present themselves. First, The talked-of voyage; second, a trip to Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Canada; third, a trial of the Virginia Springs.

In case this was resorted to, Mrs. Webster could go with me, and perhaps you and Mrs. Curtis might join us.

I understand the water has no lime in it; that the mountain air is delicious, and the scenery beautiful, and the living scant and poor. If on trial, this should be found to do no good, I might still go North. I much prefer the voyage, but the drawbacks are, the expense, and the necessity of rushing into high company. Then there is one other consideration, namely, where is it best for me to be, if there is to be a real campaign?

Yours,
D. W.
_______________

1 This letter could either be June 16th, which was a Sunday or June 17th, which was a Monday.

SOURCE: Fletcher Webster, Editor, The Private Correspondence of Daniel Webster, Vol. 2, p. 373-4

Senator Daniel Webster to Franklin Haven, Thursday Morning, July 11, 1850—8:00 a.m.

Washington, July 11, 1850. Thursday morning, eight o'clock.

MY DEAR SIR,—It is not easy to say what will be the extent of the changes in consequence of General Taylor's death, and Mr. Fillmore's accession. It is at this moment supposed that there will be an entirely new Cabinet. Certainly not more than one or two can remain. Who will succeed to the vacant places, I have no means of saying with any certainty. One thing I feel sure of, and that is that they will be sound men. The President is a sensible man, and a conservative Whig, and is not likely to be in favor of any "isms," such as have votaries at the present day.

I believe Mr. Fillmore favors the Compromise, and there is no doubt that recent events have increased the probability of the passage of that measure. Nothing will be done in congress this week. The funeral ceremonies will take all that remains of it.

P. S. Two o'clock.—I am rather confirmed in the expectation of a total change. Beyond this I know little, and nothing which I can communicate. The idea is now general that the Compromise will go through. I have a few words to say on Monday or Tuesday.

Yours truly,
DAN'L WEBSTER.

SOURCE: Fletcher Webster, Editor, The Private Correspondence of Daniel Webster, Vol. 2, p. 376

Senator John C. Calhoun to Thomas G. Clemson, August 24, 1849

Fort Hill 24th Augt 1849

MY DEAR SIR, Politically I have nothing good to write. The appearance is, that Taylor's administration will prove a failure. I fear he is in the hands of the Northern Whigs, exclusively. In the meane time, the alienation between North and South is daily progressing. Benton and Clay are both playing for the North. I enclose in pamphlet form my notice of his1 assault on me. I would have sent it earlier, but only received it in that form, a few days since. It is, as far as I have heard regarded as triumphant. It is said, that he will not be able to sustain himself in Missouri. His colleague, Genl Atchison, says he has no chance to be reelected.

We are all anxious about the fate of Hungary, and the future condition of Europe. Write me in your next fully, what is your impression and the intelligent portion of Europe in reference to both. If Hungary should be able to maintain herself, the condition of Russia will become critical. What is to become of Germany and France?

_______________

1 Benton's. See the letter of June 23, 1849.

SOURCE: J. Franklin Jameson, Editor, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1899, Volume II, Calhoun’s Correspondence: Fourth Annual Report of the Historical Manuscripts Commission, Correspondence of John C. Calhoun, p. 771-2

Sunday, September 24, 2023

Senator John J. Crittenden to Orlando Brown, May 18, 1850

 FRANKFORT, May 18, 1850.

MY DEAR SIR,—Your letter of the 9th inst. was duly received, and, by the telegraph, we already know that all you taught me to expect has come to pass. The Republic has changed hands, and Mr. Hall has succeeded the former editors. It is to be greatly regretted that there should be any motive or cause for such a movement. Not that Mr. Hall is not very competent and worthy, but the regret is that there should have been any disagreement between the retiring editors and the administration. I had hoped that Burnley's mediation might have reconciled all differences, and that our friend Bullitt's known attachment to the President would have made him forego all his objections to the cabinet. The extent of his objections I do not know, nor do I mean to blame him, for I am very certain that he has acted from honest convictions and motives. But I must say, at the same time, that for myself I am not sensible of any objections that require such an opposition to the cabinet. Indeed, I doubt very much whether General Taylor could select another cabinet of more ability, or character, or personal worth. But I do not mean to make comments on the subject. The storm that has just passed by will be followed, I hope, by that calm that usually compensates for its ravages; and I trust that we shall yet see the administration emerging successfully from the difficulties that now surround it.

I shall be delighted to see you at home, but this is overcome by the absolute sadness I feel at your quitting old Zack at such a time, when, perhaps, he most requires the comfort and assistance of your society and counsel. I received Robert's letter yesterday. You may tell him so, and his children and all are well. I have not another word to say about his affairs and solicitations at Washington. Under a first impulse I said and wrote much more than I ought. Hereafter he can only have my good wishes, and must depend on himself. I must not be mixed up with any office-seeking for my own family.

I have written to our friend Mr. Richard Hawes, apprising him of your views and wishes, and inquiring whether he would be willing, in the event of your resignation, to accept your present office. I have not yet received his answer, but I anticipate, from many conversations with him, that he will not accept it. If he will, he is the very man, and the man of my choice. Without much acquaintance with Mr. Alexander McKee, I had formed a kind opinion of him, and supposed, from information, that he was very much a man of business. In a conversation last winter, I mentioned that it was not expected by your friends that you would continue long in office, and suggested to him the vacancy as one that would very well suit him. But little more was then said on the subject, and nothing since has passed between us about it. I am told that he went through the place a few days ago, on his way to the East, but he did not call on me, and I know not his object. I have heard that his thoughts have been turned of late towards California, and an office at Washington may not now be desirable to him; and in the present uncertainty I have no more to say about it. He is not apprised of what I lately wrote to you in his behalf.

I wish that before you leave Washington you would especially take it upon yourself to have something clever done for our friend, Mr. George W. Barbour, a senator in our General Assembly from the Princeton district. You recollect him, I hope. He is a fine-looking, high-spirited, and noble-hearted fellow, a lawyer by profession, and of fair capacity. He is poor, and too modest and proud to seek for office, though he wants it. He is an ardent and thorough Taylor-man. Now, what can be done for such a man? I have undertaken to be his intercessor, and have written in his behalf time and again to Clayton, and perhaps to others, but, so far, have not got even any answer relating to him. A chargé-ship to anywhere in South America would be very acceptable to him; so would a judgeship in any of our territorial governments, or the office of secretary in those governments. Now, this is a wide range; there are many offices in it, and mighty few such clever fellows anywhere as Barbour. The place that that fellow Meeker was slipped into, and ought to be slipped out of, would suit poor Barbour exactly, and he is worthy of it. I have told Barbour that he must be patient, and that I was certain something would, sooner or later, be done for him. It begins to be the "later," and nothing is yet done. The last alternative is to try and get you to make up this business and do something in it.

Your friend,
J. J. CRITTENDEN.
O. BROWN, Esq.

P.S.—I can do nothing more with Clayton in Barbour's case but quarrel with him, and that I don't want to do,—first, because he is a stout fellow and might whip me; secondly, I like the fellow.

J. J. C.

SOURCE: Ann Mary Butler Crittenden Coleman, Editor, The Life of John J. Crittenden: With Selections from His Correspondence and Speeches, Vol. 1, p. 371-2

Senator John J. Crittenden to Orlando Brown, June 7, 1850

FRANKFORT, June 7, 1850.

DEAR ORLANDO,—I returned last Sunday from Indianapolis after a week's absence. Nothing could exceed the kindness and hospitality which attended me throughout the State. The receptions and honors with which they endeavored to distinguish me were almost overwhelming to one so plain as I am and so unaccustomed to such ceremonies and distinctions. I feel that I owe to Indiana and her governor a great debt of gratitude. In that State there is very little political abolition, and, with a strong and patriotic feeling for the Union, there is mingled a particularly fraternal kindness and affection for Kentucky. The prevailing sentiment there is for a compromise and amicable settlement of all the slavery question. The plan suggested in General Taylor's message was spoken of frequently as most acceptable, but I think they would be satisfied with Mr. Clay's bill. In my speech at Indianapolis I spoke of old Zack as the noble old patriot in whom the country might have all confidence, and, without discriminating between the various plans that had been proposed, I expressed my hope and confidence that they would result in some form of amicable adjustment. The occasion required me to avoid, as far as possible, the appearance of partisanship or party politics; but it was due to my heart to give old Zack a good word, and I did it. I felt it a duty, too, to talk right plainly to them about abolition and the mischiefs that its meddlesome and false humanity had brought and was tending to bring upon the country. I went so far as to advise those who, from tenderness of conscience about slavery, could not acquiesce in what our fathers had done, and could not reconcile themselves to the Constitution of the United States and the performance of the duties it enjoined, to quit the country, etc. All this seemed to be well received except, as I learned afterwards, by some half-dozen abolitionists out of a crowd of as many thousand. The convention is in session, and I have scarcely time to steal a moment to write to you.

Well, you have resigned. It makes me glad, and it makes me sorry; glad that you are coming back to us,—sorry, that you are leaving General Taylor. The difficulties that are surrounding him only tend to increase my sympathy and zeal for him, and I retain my confidence that the storm will rage around him in vain, and that his firm and resolute integrity and patriotism will bear him through triumphantly. There is one peril before him that is to be carefully avoided, and that is the peril of having thrown upon his administration the responsibility of defeating the bill of the committee of thirteen or any other measure of compromise. It has appeared to me that the principal questions of the slavery controversy might have been disposed of more quietly and easily on the plan recommended by the President; but the people are anxious for a settlement, and comparatively indifferent as to the exact terms, provided they embrace anything like a compromise; and it seems to me that any concession or sacrifice of opinion as to the mode ought to be made to accomplish the end. It is not necessary to enlarge upon this subject. General Taylor's message is the foundation of all their plans in this, that it avoids the Wilmot proviso; all the rest is the mere finish of the work. My whole heart is bent on the success of General Taylor. I know that he deserves it, and believe he will achieve it. Tell Robert his little girls are gay as birds, and are continually dragging me into the garden to pull strawberries with them. I have taken poor Bob's disappointment quite to heart; but let that go.

Your friend,
J. J. CRITTENDEN.

SOURCE: Ann Mary Butler Crittenden Coleman, Editor, The Life of John J. Crittenden: With Selections from His Correspondence and Speeches, Vol. 1, p. 372-4

Senator John J. Crittenden to Albert T. Burnley, July 19, 1850

July 19, 1850.

DEAR BURNLEY,—I returned from Louisville last evening, where I was suddenly summoned a few days ago to attend the sick and, as was then supposed, dying bed of my son-in-law, Chapman Coleman. I left him much improved, and, as the doctors induced me to hope, out of danger, though still quite ill. This absence delayed the receipt of your telegraphic dispatches, in which you ask me if I will accept the office of Attorney-General, and say that it is important I should answer immediately. A little reflection will show you the difficulty of answering this communication with the telegraphic brevity of a "yes" or "no." Indeed, I find much of the same difficulty in responding to you in any mode. You are upon the spot, and with a nearer and better view of the condition of things. You give me no intimation of your opinions or wishes; nor do you give me to understand that the inquiry was made at the suggestion or by the authority of the President or any other official. I must therefore understand it as more an inquiry of your own, in order, perhaps, to enable you and other friends to press me more effectually for the office. If this be the object and purpose, I could not answer you affirmatively without in substance seeking the office for myself. That I am not willing to do, either in form or substance, directly or indirectly. I would not, for any consideration subject myself to the imputation of endeavoring to force or solicit my way into the cabinet of Mr. Fillmore. There are stations that can be neither agreeably nor usefully occupied except by persons having the personal good will and confidence of the President. My relations with Mr. Fillmore have always been of the most agreeable and amicable character, and I hope they may continue so. It seems to me that if he pleased to desire my acceptance of the office of Attorney-General, the most proper course would be for him to tender it to me; and that the most proper and becoming course for me would be to wait till it was tendered. The tender would then be most honorable to both parties, and certainly most gratefully received by me. I feel that before such an offer it would be indelicate in me to say that I would or would NOT accept. You will appreciate all this without any explanation, and so I shall leave the subject. There is no confidence, Burnley, that I fear to repose in you; and if it should appear to you that there is too much of reserve in this letter to be used towards an old and well-tried friend, I wish you to understand that it is intended to apply to the subject only, and to keep distinct and clear the line of conduct that I sincerely desire to pursue in relation to this matter.

My situation now is not exactly what it was when I declined an invitation to go into the cabinet of General Taylor; and to you, as my friend, my personal friend, I may say that my impression is that I should accept the office if tendered to me; but I will have no agency in seeking or getting it; nor do I wish my friends to place me in any attitude that can be construed into any such seeking; nor do I wish them to give themselves any trouble about the matter. If the offer of the office comes freely and without solicitation, then it comes honorably, and may be taken the more honorably. I think you will now understand me fully, and I have only to add that I am always your friend,

J. J. CRITTENDEN.
To A. T. BURNLEY, Esq.

SOURCE: Ann Mary Butler Crittenden Coleman, Editor, The Life of John J. Crittenden: With Selections from His Correspondence and Speeches, Vol. 1, p. 374-5

Robert Jefferson Breckinridge to John J. Crittenden, November 23, 1850

LEXINGTON, Nov. 23, 1850.

MY DEAR SIR,—More than a year ago our friend Garnett Duncan made application to the President and to the Secretary at War for a cadet's warrant at West Point for my oldest son. He did this spontaneously as an act of personal regard, and perhaps as some expression of his sense of things of other days. I had other friends whose influence might have aided him; but in the same spirit that actuated him, I told him I would do nothing; so that if he succeeded, he should have all the gratitude of the lad and all the pleasure of the good deed. He failed. But the President and the Secretary both promised to put the lad's name on the list, and held out strong hopes, if not a certain assurance, of his appointment a year from that time, to wit, now.

Now, my dear sir, if this appointment can be had, I shall be very glad; my boy will be gratified in the strongest and almost the earliest wish of his heart, and I trust the country may be gainer thereby in the end. The lad is now a little past sixteen years of age; he is a member of the Sophomore class at Danville, and is of robust constitution, fine talents, and earnest, firm, and elevated nature. It is to gratify him in a strong, nay, a vehement, passion that I desire this thing. For myself I never did, never will, solicit anything from any government. The ancestors of this lad, paternal and maternal, have done the State some service. You know all about all I could with propriety say.

If there is any impropriety in my thus addressing you, I pray you to excuse it; if there is none, and this thing can be accomplished, it will be only another proof of your goodness and another ground of the grateful and affectionate friendship of Yours ever,

R. J. B.
Hon. J. J. CRITTENDEN.

SOURCE: Ann Mary Butler Crittenden Coleman, Editor, The Life of John J. Crittenden: With Selections from His Correspondence and Speeches, Vol. 1, p. 384

Congressman Albert G. Brown to His Constituents, May 13, 1850

FELLOW-CITIZENS: I feel impelled, by a strong sense of duty, to address to you this communication. If it shall seem to you more appropriate that I should have delivered the sentiments which follow, in the form of a speech in the House of Representatives, I reply, that the difficulty of obtaining the floor interposes at all times serious obstacles to that mode of address. At this period of excitement, when events of the greatest consequence are pursuing each other in rapid succession, it appears to me neither wise nor safe to risk the doubtful chances of an early opportunity of addressing you through the ordinary medium of a congressional speech.

Events of the utmost magnitude are transpiring at the seat of the national government. In these events you have a deep interest, and I would not leave you a single day in ignorance of my views, or in doubt as to the manner in which I mean to discharge the high and important trusts which your partiality has devolved upon me.

It is well known to you, that the people in California, following the lead of General Riley, an officer of the United States army stationed in that country, took upon themselves, during the last summer, the responsible task of forming a state constitution, and setting up a state government in that territory.

This proceeding has been extensively criticised, and very generally condemned, as altogether anomalous and irregular. It is no part of my present purpose to follow up these criticisms. That the whole proceeding was irregular and in total disregard of the rights of the South, is beyond dispute. That it was basely fraudulent, I have ever believed, and do now believe. That the people in that country were prompted to the course pursued by them, by the secret spies and agents sent out from Washington, I have never doubted for a single moment. That they were induced to insert the "Wilmot proviso," in their so-called state constitution, by assurances held out to them that such a course would facilitate their admission into the Union of these states, I as religiously believe as I do in the existence of an overruling Providence.

Pursuing the idea that there had been illegitimate influences at work to produce particular results in California, I on two several occasions introduced into the House of Representatives resolutions directing a searching inquiry into all the facts. But the dominant power would give no countenance to my object.

I have seen it stated in a letter written in California, and published in the Republic newspaper in this city, "that it was everywhere understood in that country, that the President desired the people of California to settle the slavery question for themselves." I endeavored to bring the public mind to bear on this point, and in a card published in the Republic, I inquired "how it came to be everywhere thus understood?" but no response was ever made to the inquiry. The semi-official declaration, however, quickened my suspicions that some one had spoken as by authority for the President.

Thomas Butler King, Esq., one of the President's agents in California, has repeatedly declared that the California Convention was held under the sanction of President Polk and Secretaries Buchanan and Marcy; and that it was to these functionaries General Riley made allusion when he said to the people in that country that he was acting in compliance with the views of the President, and the Secretaries of War and of State. Mr. Polk is dead, and the two ex-secretaries positively deny the truth of Mr. King's declaration.

If General Riley stated officially to the people of California, on the 3d of June, 1849, the date of his proclamation, that THE President, THE Secretary of War, and THE Secretary of State approved his conduct meaning thereby Mr. Polk, Mr. Buchanan, and Mr. Marcy—it was a fraud upon the people of California. The statement could only have been made with a view to give the highest official sanction to his conduct, and he knew perfectly well that all three of the gentlemen alluded to, were private citizens at the date of his proclamation. When he said THE President, he meant to give the weight of presidential influence to his acts. He meant that the people should understand him as alluding to the man in power, and not to a retired gentleman and private citizen.

Mr. King undertakes to prove that he is right in his declaration, and asserts that the steamer which carried him to California was the first arrival in that country after General Taylor's inauguration, and "that she conveyed the first intelligence that Congress had failed to provide a government for that territory;" and by way of giving point to his declaration in this respect, he asserts that he landed for the first time at San Francisco, on the 4th day of June; that General Riley was then at Monterey, distant about one hundred and fifty miles, and that he (Mr. King) did not see him (Riley), or have any communication with him; and that the proclamation, calling the California Convention, bore date June 3d, 1849. Thus rendering it impossible, as he assumed, that said proclamation could have been based on information received from the present President and his Secretaries, through his (Mr. King's) arrival. Unfortunately for the accuracy of these statements and the legitimacy of the conclusions, General Riley commences his proclamation with the emphatic declaration "that Congress had failed to provide a government for California;" and the inquiry at once arises, how, if Mr. King landed at San Francisco on the 4th of June, 1849, with the first intelligence of this failure on the part of Congress, could General Riley have known and proclaimed the important fact at Monterey, distant one hundred and fifty miles, on the 3d of June of that year? We see at once that it could not be so.

President Polk and his cabinet could not have sent advice to California of this failure on the part of Congress; for it is historically true that the failure occurred in the very last hour of Mr. Polk's administration.

Through some channel General Riley was advised that Congress had failed to provide a government for California, and this after President Taylor came into power. I do not say that Mr. King was this channel, but I do say that from the same medium through which he derived the information that Congress had failed to provide a government, he may, and probably did, receive also the views of the President and his cabinet, and hence he was enabled to speak as he did with positive certainty of the one and of the other.

"You are fully possessed," says the Secretary of State, Mr. Clayton, to Mr. King, in a letter bearing date of April 3, 1849, “You are fully possessed of the President's views, and can with propriety suggest to the people of California the ADOPTION of measures best calculated to give them effect. These measures must, of course, originate solely with themselves." Mr. King, then, was informed that he could with propriety suggest the adoption of measures to carry out the President's views, he having been fully possessed of those views. But these measures must originate with the people! Beautiful! Mr. King is sent to California to suggest to the people the adoption of measures to carry out the President's views, but these measures must ORIGINATE with the people! And more beautiful still, Mr. King comes home, after disburdening himself of the views whereof he was "fully possessed," and gravely tells the country he did not go to California on a political mission, and had nothing to do with the local affairs of that country; and this, too, after he was denounced in the convention as the President's emissary. I suspect Mr. King could tell how it came to be "everywhere understood in California that the President wanted the people to settle the   question for themselves."

I have thought proper to present these facts and deductions, for the purpose of showing you that mine are no idle suspicions. When I say that, in my opinion, a great fraud has been perpetrated, I want you to understand that there is some foundation for my opinion.

The action of Congress, I am free to admit, may have had much to do in fixing the sentiment in the mind of the President and of the Californians, that no territorial government would be allowed which did not contain the Wilmot proviso; and judging from the temper constantly displayed in urging this odious measure at all times and in all seasons, it was, I grant, a rational conclusion that no government asked for or established by the people would be tolerated unless slavery was prohibited; but was this a sufficient reason why the President or his agents, or even the people of California, should trample under foot the rights of the South? We had our rights in that country, and they ought to have been respected; I risk nothing in saying that they would have been, had we been the stronger party. Our fault consisted in our weakness, and for this we were sacrificed.

It is said, I know, that California is not suited to slave labor-that the soil, climate, the very elements themselves, are opposed to it. Slave labor is never more profitably employed than in mining; and you may judge whether slaves could be advantageously introduced into that country, when I inform you, on the authority of the debates of their convention, that an able-bodied negro is worth in California from two to six thousand dollars per annum.

I pass over the studied and systematic resistance which the California. admissionists have constantly and steadily interposed against all investigation, with this single remark—"that the wicked flee when no man pursueth, but the righteous are as bold as a lion."

Immediately after the assembling of the present Congress, it became apparent that the admission of California into the Union as a state was to become the great question of the session; and it was palpable from the beginning, that there was a large majority in favor of it. The President was not slow in taking his position. He brought the subject to the favorable notice of Congress in his annual message, and very soon after, in a special communication, he earnestly recommended it to our favorable consideration. The fearful odds of the President, the Cabinet, and a congressional majority, was arrayed against us; but, nothing daunted, a few of us, relying on the justice of our cause, and placing our trust in the intelligence, virtue, patriotism, and indomitable firmness and courage of our constituents, resolved to resist it.

To lay before you the grounds of that resistance, and to lay bare the sophistry and double-dealing of the friends of this measure, are among the chief aims of this letter.

A large class of those who advocate the immediate introduction of California into the Union, place their advocacy on the ground that the people have a right in all cases to govern themselves, and to regulate their domestic concerns in their own way. It becomes important to understand the meaning of declarations like these, and to ascertain the extent to which such doctrines may be rightfully extended.

I admit the right of self-government; I admit that every people may regulate their domestic affairs in their own way; I freely and fully admit the doctrine that a people finding themselves in a country without laws, may make laws for themselves, and to suit themselves. But in doing this they must take care not to infringe the rights of the owners and proprietors of the soil. If, for example, one hundred or one thousand American citizens should find themselves thrown on an island belonging to Great Britain, uninhabited and without laws, such citizens, from the very necessity of their position, would have a right to make laws for themselves. But in doing this, they would have no right to say to her Majesty's subjects in Scotland, you may come to this island with your property, and to her Irish subjects, you shall not come with your property. They would have no right to set the proprietors at defiance, or to make insulting discriminations between proprietors holding one species of property and those owning another species of property. No such power would be at all necessary to their self-government, and any attempt to exercise it would justly be regarded as an impertinent attempt to assume the supreme power, when in fact they were mere tenants at will.

If the people of California, who had been left, by the unwise and grossly unjust NON-ACTION of Congress, without law and without government, had confined themselves to making their own laws and regulating their own domestic affairs in their own way, I certainly never should have raised my voice against their acts. But when they go further, and assume the right to say what shall be the privileges of the owners and proprietors of the soil-when they take upon themselves to say to the fifteen Northern States, your citizens may come here with their property, and to the fifteen Southern States, your citizens shall not come here with their property, they assume, in my judgment, a power which does not belong to them, and perform an act to which the South, if she would maintain her rights, ought not to submit.

Attempts have been made to draw a parallel between the conduct of our revolutionary fathers, who claimed the right to legislate independent of the British crown, and that of the Californians, who have assumed to set up an independent government of their own. When our fathers set up an independent government, they called it revolution; and if the people in California set up a like government, I know of no reason why their conduct shall not in like manner be denominated revolutionary. Our fathers revolted and took the consequences; California has a right to do the same thing; but that she has any other than a revolutionary right, I utterly deny.

Very distinguished men have assumed the position, that the rights of sovereignty over the territory reside in the people of the territory, even during their territorial existence. Let us test the soundness of this theory by a few practical applications. The expression "the people of a territory" is one of very uncertain signification as to numbers. It may mean one hundred thousand, or it may mean one thousand or one hundred. The question naturally presents itself, when does this right of sovereignty commence? Is it with the first man who reaches the territory? May he prescribe rules and regulations for those who come after him? or must there be a thousand or fifty thousand, or a greater or a less number, before the rights of sovereignty attach?

Perhaps we are told that the sovereignty begins when the people assemble to make laws. Very well; let us put this theory into practical operation. Ten thousand French emigrants have settled, let us suppose, at the base of the Rocky Mountains, without the limits of any organized state or territory of the United States, and they are without government or laws. They make laws for themselves, and you acquiesce; they set up a government for themselves, and you admit their right; they claim the sovereignty over the territory and set up an independent state government, and you admit their power to do so. You expect them to ask admission into the Union, but the new sovereignty says no, we prefer independence, or we prefer to become an integral part of the French republic. What will you do under such circumstances? Can you force her to abandon her acknowledged independence? Can you force her into the Union against her will? What! require a sovereign to pursue your will and not her own? This would indeed be revolution.

If California is in fact, as she is admitted by some to be in theory, an independent sovereignty, I see nothing which is to prevent her remaining out of the Union if she elects to do so. I see nothing which may prevent her, if she chooses, allying herself to any other nation or country. I know of no right by which this government may take from her the independence, the sovereignty which she now possesses, if indeed she be a state without the Union.

The tenure by which we hold our territorial possession is indeed most fragile, if this doctrine of territorial sovereignty can be maintained. We may expend millions of treasure, and pour out rivers of our purest and best blood in the acquisition of territories, only to see them taken possession of, and ourselves turned out, by the first interloper who may chance to plant his foot upon them.

I am always glad of an opportunity to do the fullest justice to a political opponent, and in this spirit I beg leave to say, that, in my judgment, Mr. Clay, in a late speech in the Senate, took the true ground on this subject. He denied that California was a state, or that she could become so out of the Union. He maintained the right of the people to self-government, but denied the validity or binding force of their written constitution, until the state should be admitted into the Union. Will the reader recollect this, as I shall have occasion to use it in another connection.

Let us pause for a moment to consider the honesty and sincerity of purpose with which the lofty pretension has been set up in certain quarters, that the people have a right to regulate, arrange, and mould their institutions to suit themselves. In the early part of last year, the people inhabiting a large portion of our unoccupied possessions in what was then known as New Mexico and California, met in convention and framed a state constitution, giving the name of DESERET to their country. They defined their boundaries, and included within their limits a large extent of Pacific coast. Their constitution was in every element essentially republican. They sent their agent to Washington, with a modest request that the constitution thus formed should be accepted, and the state of Deseret admitted into the Union. How this application was treated we shall presently see. Later in the same year, the people of New Mexico formed a territorial government, and sent their delegate to Washington to present their wishes, and, if permitted, to represent their interests. In the summer of the same year, and several months after the Deseret convention, the Californians held their convention. They extended their boundaries so as to monopolize the whole Pacific coast, in total disregard of the prior action of Deseret. And then, in contempt of the modest example of her two neighbors, she sends, not an agent or a delegate to Washington, with a civil request, but she sends up two senators and two representatives, with a bold demand for instantaneous admission into the Union.

What followed? The President made two earnest appeals to Congress to admit California, and he told us plainly to leave the others to their fate. Not only does he fail to give them a friendly salutation, but he in truth turns from them in scorn. Not a word does he utter in their behalf, or in defence of their independent conduct. Their modesty failed to commend them to his paternal notice.

In Congress, and throughout the country, a general outcry is now heard in favor of California. Everywhere throughout the length and breadth of the land, the cry of California, glorious California, is heard. It comes to us from the east and from the west, from the north and (I am pained to say) in some instances from the south. If any man has dared to interpose the slightest objection to the immediate admission of California—if any one has hesitated about yielding to California all that she so boldly demands, he has been denounced, black-balled, hooted at, and almost driven from society. Meantime no voice has been heard in defence of the rights of New Mexico and Deseret. They, too, assume to settle their own affairs in their own way. Yet no whisper of encouragement and hope greets their modest agent and delegate at Washington. The great national voice is engaged to sing and shout for California. Why has this been so? Why this marked distinction between these several parties? The people, we are told, have a right to act for themselves. California acted for herself, Deseret for herself, and New Mexico for herself; and yet, amid the din and clamor in favor of California, we have lost sight of her more retiring and modest sisters. Why is this? I'll tell you, fellow-citizens. Deseret and New Mexico did not insult the South by excluding slavery. With a becoming modesty they were silent on this subject. California, influenced by unwise counsels, flung defiance in your teeth, scoffed at your rights, and boldly threw herself into the arms of the North. Here is the secret of all this boiling and bubbling in favor of California, and here, too, may be found the end of the great doctrine that the people may settle the slavery question for themselves. If they settle it against the South it is well, and if they do not it is no settlement at all.

Ah! but we are told there is a vast difference between these territories; New Mexico and Utah have but few inhabitants, and California has many thousand—some say one hundred thousand and some say two hundred thousand. I do not understand that because a people are fewer in number, that therefore they have no political rights, whilst a greater number may have every right. But how stands the case in regard to these hundreds of thousands of people in California? We all know that the emigration to that country has been confined to hardy male adults, robust men. In most cases their families and friends have been left in the states, to which, in four cases out of five, they themselves have intended to return. At the elections last summer they voted about twelve thousand, and later in the fall, on the important question of adopting a state constitution, with the ballot box wide open and free for every vote, they polled less than thirteen thousand. I should like to know where the balance of this two hundred thousand were. At least one hundred and fifty thousand of them, I suspect, were never in the country, and the rest regarded the whole thing as a ridiculous farce, with which they had nothing to do. And this is the state and these the people who have excluded slavery, and sent two senators and two representatives to Washington.

You will have no difficulty in determining in your own minds that I am opposed to allowing the people of the territories to settle this question, either for us or against us. It is a matter with which they have no concern. The states are equals and have equal rights, and whatever tends to impair or break down that equality, always has and always shall encounter my stern and inflexible opposition.

My position in reference to congressional action on this subject is easily explained. I am for non-intervention—total, entire, unqualified non-intervention. Leave the people of all the states free to go with their property of whatever kind, to the territories, without let and without hindrance, and I am satisfied. But this I must say, that whenever Congress undertakes to give protection to property in the territories, on the high seas, or anywhere else, there must be no insulting discrimination between slave property and any other species of property. To say that Congress may protect the northern man's goods in California, but that Congress shall not protect the southern man's slaves, is intervention. It is intervening for the worst ends, and in the most insulting

manner.

We have been told, fellow-citizens, that we once said the people of a territory, when they come to make a state constitution, might settle the slave question for themselves, and that we have now abandoned that ground. Not so-I speak for myself. I have always maintained, and I maintain to-day, that the people of a territory, when duly authorized to form a state constitution, may settle this and all other questions for themselves and according to their own inclinations. But was California duly authorized? Where did she get her authority? We have been told that she got it from the Almighty. This is very well if it is so. But it would be more satisfactory to me to know that she got it from the proprietors of the soil, and that her action had been subordinate to the Federal Constitution.

I have no inclination to discuss this point at length. Whenever it can be shown that California has been subjected to the same ordeal through which Mississippi, Arkansas, Florida, and other slaveholding states have been compelled to pass, I will, if in Congress, vote for her admission into the Union, without a why or wherefore, as concerns slavery. But it is asking of me a little too much to expect that I shall vote for her admission, under all the remarkable circumstances attending her application, until she has passed this ordeal.

If it shall be shown that I am getting a fair equivalent for surrendering your rights in California, you may reasonably expect me, in your name, to favor a compromise. The great national mind wants repose, and I for one am ready for any arrangement which may afford a reasonable augury of a happy adjustment of our differences. This brings me to a brief review of Mr. Clay's so called compromise scheme.

The leading bill presented by Mr. Clay from "the Committee of Thirteen" contains three distinct and substantive propositions: First, the admission of California. In this, as in every other scheme of settlement tendered to the South, California, in all her length and breadth, stands first. Secondly, we are offered territorial governments for New Mexico and Utah (Deseret that was), without the Wilmot proviso; and thirdly, we have a proposition to dismember Texas, by cutting off enough of her northern possessions to make four states as large as Mississippi, and for the privilege of doing this we are to pay millions of dollars. The suggestions for filling this blank have varied from five to fifteen millions of dollars.

I have already suggested some reasons why the admission of California, as an independent proposition, ought not, in my judgment, to receive your sanction. I now propose to inquire whether the union of these three measures in one bill makes the whole, as a unit, more worthy of your consideration and support. All the objections to the admission of California stand out in the same force and vigor in Mr. Clay's bill as in all former propositions for her admission. We are asked to make the same sacrifice of feeling and of principle which we have so often and so long protested we would not make—unless indeed it shall be shown that we are getting a fair equivalent for these sacrifices. Mr. Clay has himself told us, in effect, that we were making these sacrifices. He has told us, as I remarked to you in another place, that California was not a state, and could not become so out of the Union. That, in truth, her constitution had no binding force, as a constitution, until the state was admitted into the Union. The constitution of California contains the anti-slavery clause, the "Wilmot proviso." But the constitution is a dead letter, so far as we are concerned. It has no vitality, no binding effect until the state is admitted. Congress admits her, and by the act of admission puts the proviso in force—gives it activity and life. Who, then, but Congress is responsible for the active, operative "proviso"—for that proviso which excludes you from the country? Congress and Congress alone is responsible. You can now understand more fully what I meant, when I signed a letter to his excellency the governor, saying, "that the admission of California was equivalent to the adoption of the Wilmot proviso." The northern people understand this, and to a man they are for her admission.

The question now is, are we offered any adequate consideration for making this sacrifice of feeling and of principle? This is a question worthy of the most serious and critical examination.

By the terms of the resolutions, annexing Texas to the United States, it is expressly provided "that such states as may be formed out of that portion of her territory lying south of the parallel of 36° 30′ north latitude, shall be admitted into the Union with or without slavery, as the people of each state asking admission may desire." And it is as expressly stipulated, that "in such STATE or STATES as may be formed out of said territory lying north of that line slavery shall be prohibited." In pursuance of these resolutions Texas came into the Union. The South consented to this arrangement, and to-day, as at all former periods, I am ready to abide by it.

Examine these resolutions, and what do we find? A clear and distinct recognition of the title of Texas to the country up to 36° 30′, as slave territory, for it is stipulated that the people may determine for themselves, at a proper time, whether slavery shall or shall not exist in all the country below that line. Nay more, the rights of Texas above this line are admitted; for it is expressly provided that in the STATE or states to be formed out of the territory north of 36° 30', slavery shall be prohibited, but not until such state or states ask admission into the Union. We have, then, the clearest possible recognition of the title of Texas up to 36 ½° as slave territory, and to sufficient territory above that line to make one or more states.

Now, what do we hear from the North? That Texas never had any just claim to any part of this territory; that it always did, and does now belong to New Mexico. But, as Texas is a young sister, and one with whom we should not deal harshly, we will give her —— millions of dollars for her imaginary claim. Mr. Benton, in the exuberance of his liberality, offers fifteen millions of dollars; and other gentlemen, less ardent, propose smaller sums. But our present dealing is with Mr. Clay's plan for a compromise.

If the reader has a map, I beg that he will first trace the line of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes, north latitude; and then fix his eye on the north-eastern boundary of Texas at the point where the one-hundredth parallel of longitude crosses the Red River; and, from this point, run a direct line to a point twenty miles above El Paso, on the Rio Grande; and between these two lines, he will have the slave territory which Mr. Clay's compromise proposes to sell out. It will be seen, on comparison, that this territory is nearly twice as large as the state of Mississippi. Whether five or fifteen millions of dollars are given for it, it is needless to say we shall have to pay more than our due proportion of the money.

To me, it is not a pleasant thing to sell out slave territory, and pay for it myself; and I confess that this much of the proposed bargain has not made the admission of California a whit more palatable to me.

I say nothing of Texas above 36° 30'; that country was virtually surrendered to abolition by the terms of the Texas annexation. If Texas thinks proper to give it or sell it to the Free-Soilers, in advance of the time appointed for its surrender, I make no objection. But all the South has a direct political interest in Texas below this line of 36° 30'; and I do not mean to surrender your interest without a fair equivalent.

What is to be the destiny of this territory, if it is thus sold out, and what its institutions? It is to become an integral part of New Mexico, and I risk nothing in saying it will be dedicated to free soil. Its institutions will be anti-slavery. If the character of the country was not to undergo a radical change in this respect, or if this change was not confidently anticipated, we all know that the northern motive for making this purchase would lose its existence. As the country now stands, it is protected by the annexation resolutions against all congressional interference with the question of slavery. Transfer it to New Mexico, and we expose it to the dangerous intermeddling which has so long unhappily afflicted that and all our territorial possessions.

This brings me to the only remaining proposition in Mr. Clay's compromise bill—that to establish territorial governments for New Mexico and Utah, without the "Wilmot proviso." If this were an independent proposition, tendered in good faith, and accepted by the North with a fixed purpose to abide by it, I have no hesitation in saying it would receive my cordial support. I repeat what I have often said, that whilst I shall resist the exclusion of slavery by congressional action, I have no purpose or design to force or fasten it upon any country through the agency of Congress. Whilst I demand that Congress shall not oppose our entrance into the territories with our slaves, I do not ask it to assist us in going there. All I ask is, that we may be treated as equals—that no insulting discrimination shall be drawn between southern and northern people—between southern property and northern property.

How is this proposition regarded by the northern men to whom it is tendered, and by whom it may be accepted? The spirit in which it is accepted is a part of the res gesta; and I therefore press the inquiry, in what light is the proposition regarded ?—in what spirit will it be accepted, if it is accepted at all, by northern men? When we shall have answered this inquiry, it will be seen whether there is leaven enough in this little lump to leaven the whole loaf.

Mr. Webster is positive that we can never introduce slaves into the territory. "The laws of God," he thinks, will for ever forbid it. He, and those who go with him, will not vote for the "proviso," because it is unnecessary. They are opposed, uncompromisingly opposed, to the introduction of slaves into the territories; and they are ready to do anything that may be found necessary to keep them out. It is easy to see what they will do, if we commence introducing our slaves. They will at once say, "the laws of God" having failed us, we must try what virtue there is in the "Wilmot proviso." Mr. Clay and those who follow him are quite certain that "we are already excluded by the laws of Mexico." They, too, are opposed to the introduction of slavery into the territories, and stand ready to see it excluded. The northern men who stand out against the compromise, insist, and will continue to insist, on the Wilmot proviso, as the only certain guarantee that slavery will be permanently excluded. All, all are opposed to our going in with our slaves, and all are ready to employ whatever means may be necessary to keep us out. I assert the fact distinctly and emphatically, that we are told every day that if we attempt to introduce our slaves at any time into New Mexico or Utah, there will be an immediate application of the "Wilmot proviso," to keep us out. Mark you, the proposition is to give territorial governments to New Mexico and Utah. These are but congressional acts, and may be altered, amended, explained, or repealed, at pleasure.

No one here understands that we are entering into a compact, and no northern man votes for this compromise, with the expectation or understanding that we are to take our slaves into the territories. Whatever additional legislation may be found necessary hereafter to effect our perfect exclusion, we are given distinctly to understand will be resorted to. But there is yet another difficulty to be overcome, a more serious obstacle than either "the laws of God," as Mr. Webster understands them, or "the laws of Mexico," as understood by Mr. Clay. In regard to the first, I think Mr. Webster is wholly mistaken, and if he is not, I am willing to submit; and in regard to the second, I take the ground, that when we conquered the Mexican people, we conquered their laws. But Mr. Clay's bill contains a provision as prohibitory as the "proviso" itself. The territorial legislature is denied the right to legislate at all in respect to African slavery. If a master's slave absconds, no law can be passed by which he may recover him. If he is maimed, he can have no damages for the injury. If he is decoyed from his service, or harbored by a vicious neighbor, he is without remedy. A community of slaveholders may desire to make laws adapted to their peculiar wants in this respect, but Congress, by this compromise of Mr. Clay's, denies them the right to do so. They shall not legislate in regard to African slavery. What now becomes of the hypocritical cant about the right of the people to regulate their own affairs in their own way?

With these facts before us, it becomes us to inquire how much we give and how much we take, in voting for Mr. Clay's bill. We admit California, and, being once in, the question is settled so far as she is concerned. We can never get her out by any process short of a dissolution of the Union. We give up a part of pro-slavery Texas, and we give it beyond redemption and for ever. Our part of the bargain is binding. Our follies may rise up and mock us in after times, but we can never escape their effects. This much we give; now what do we take? We get a government for New Mexico and Utah, without the Wilmot proviso, but with a declaration that we are excluded already "by the laws of God and the Mexican nation," or get it with a prohibition against territorial legislation on the subject of slavery, and with a distinct threat constantly hanging over us, that if we attempt to introduce slaves against these prohibitions, the "Wilmot proviso" will be instantly applied for our more effectual exclusion.

Such is the compromise. Such is the proposed bargain. Can you, fellow-citizens, expect me to vote for it? Will you demand of your representative to assist in binding you hand and foot, and turning you over to the tender mercies of the Free-Soilers?

It is said, we can get nothing better than this. But is that any sufficient reason why we should vote for it ourselves? If I am beset with robbers, who are resolved on assassination, must I needs lay violent hands on myself? or if my friend is in extremis, must I strangle him? We can get nothing better, forsooth! In God's name, can we get anything worse? It is said that if we reject this, they will pass the "Wilmot proviso." Let them pass it; it will not be more galling than this. If the proviso fails to challenge our respect, it at least rises above our contempt. If it ever passes, it will be the Act of the American Congress of men learned in the law, and familiar with the abstruse readings of the Constitution. It will be done deliberately, and after full reflection. It will not be done by adventurers on the shores of the Pacific, who seem to know but little of our Constitution or laws, and to care less for our rights.

I have heard it said that it will be dangerous to reject the application of California for admission into the Union. Already she is threatening to set up for herself, and if we reject her, she will withdraw her application and establish herself as an independent republic on the Pacific. Let her try it. We have been told that if the South refuse to submit to the galling insults and outrageous wrongs of the North, the President will call out the naval and military power of the nation, and reduce us to submission. When California asserts her independence, and sets up her republic on the Pacific, we shall see how quick the President will be to use this same military and naval force, in bringing her back to her allegiance. These threats have no terrors for me.

As I could respect the reckless and bold robber who, unmasked, presents his pistol and demands my money or my life, above the petty but expert pickpocket, who looks complaisantly in my face while he steals my purse,—so can I respect the dashing and dare-devil impudence of the Wilmot proviso, which robs the South, and takes the responsibility, above the little, low, cunning, sleight-of-hand scheme, which robs us just as effectually, and leaves us wondering how the trick was performed.

So long as I remain in your service, fellow-citizens, I will represent you faithfully, according to my best judgment. In great emergencies like this, I feel the need of your counsel and support. It would give me pain, if any important vote of mine should fail to meet your approbation. Whilst I shall never follow blindly any man's lead, nor suffer myself to be awed by any general outcry, I confess myself not insensible to the applause of my countrymen. In a great crisis like the present, men must act, responsibility must be taken, and he is not fit to be trusted who stops in the discharge of his high duties to count his personal costs.

I cannot vote for Mr. Clay's compromise bill. With very essential changes and modifications, I might be reconciled to its support. These I have no hope of obtaining, and I therefore expect to vote against it. Like the fatal Missouri compromise, it gives up everything and obtains nothing; and like that and all other compromises with the North, it will be observed, and its provisions maintained, just so long as it suits the views of northern men to observe and maintain them, and then they will be unscrupulously abandoned.

It will give me great pleasure to find myself sustained by my constituents, in the votes I intend to give. My head, my heart, my every thought and impulse admonish me that I am right, and I cannot doubt or hesitate.

Your fellow-citizen,
A. G. BROWN.
WASHINGTON CITY, May 13, 1850.

SOURCE: M. W. Cluskey, Editor, Speeches, Messages, and Other Writings of the Hon. Albert G. Brown, A Senator in Congress from the State of Mississippi, p. 178-90