Showing posts with label James K Polk. Show all posts
Showing posts with label James K Polk. Show all posts

Saturday, January 6, 2024

Jefferson Davis’ Remarks on the Bill Making Alterations in the Pay Department of the Army, May 30, 1846.

Mr. JEFFERSON DAVIS said there were two positions taken in relation to the bill which he thought incorrect: first, that it became necessary from the war existing with Mexico; second, that it was designed to relieve the paymasters from oppressive duty. By referring to the report of the Paymaster General, which accompanied the President's Message at the commencement of this session of Congress, it will be found, that before this war commenced, and in reference to the then condition of the army, an increase of the paymasters was desired; and in the close of his report a convincing statement was made for the necessity of an Assistant Paymaster General—not, as has been assumed, to reside here, but to superintend payments in the military district of the Southwest; and this was enforced by the fact that he was then compelled to station a senior paymaster at headquarters of the army in Texas to discharge the duties of assistant to the Paymaster General. Sir, it is not to relieve the paymasters from fatigue, but to insure prompt and regular payments to the troops, that this increase was asked. If the number of paymasters be half of those required to make payments to the army at the regular periods, which is every two months, it follows that the payments will be delayed, and occur every four or every six months. The hardship would fall entirely on the troops to be paid, not on the disbursing officers who pay them. And as to the amount of service which the paymasters can be required to perform without destroying the efficiency of the department, I think gentlemen should allow the Paymaster General to be a better judge than ourselves. But to aid us in a conclusion, he has given the fact, that to pay at all the posts and arsenals as often as the law requires, would require travelling to exceed 100,000 miles per annum. This referred entirely to the state of things as they existed prior to a war with Mexico.

The second section of the bill changes the tenure, which is now an anomaly in the service, either land or naval. Quartermasters, commissaries, officers of the engineer department engaged in the construction of works, are charged with disbursements which cannot be so closely supervised as those of the pay department. It is the same case with pursers in the navy, yet all these hold their offices during the pleasure of the President; which, by practice, is considered equal to during good behavior.

This bill seeks to place paymasters on the same footing with other disbursing officers of the army; and I see no reason why they should be made an exception to the rule. Their attendance upon a marching army requires that their commissions should not expire during a campaign, as much as that a purser's commission should not expire on a voyage; and the tenure of their office should be fixed in reference to this, perhaps the most important, portion of their duties. The proposed change of tenure could not impair their efficiency or weaken their responsibility under ordinary circumstances, whilst it would adapt them to the extraordinary condition of war. The liability of all disbursing officers of the army to be removed by the President is constant; it is expected to follow immediately on a failure quarterly to account for funds placed in their hands, and with the amendments to require new bonds every four years, the present bill seems very free from well-founded objections.

The gentleman from South Carolina has so ably covered the whole ground that it is unnecessary to go further into it.

Mr. D. referred to remarks made yesterday by Mr. JOHNSON, of Tennessee, which were particularly directed against himself. He said, among those to whom he had been long known no explanation could be necessary; but here, having been misunderstood, it seemed to be called for.

Once for all, then, he would say, that if he knew himself, he was incapable of wantonly wounding the feelings, or of making invidious reflections upon the origin or occupation of any man. He had, two days since, in a reply to the gentleman from Ohio, endeavored to correct this misunderstanding; it seemed, however, he had not succeeded. That gentleman [Mr. SAWYER] had, on a previous occasion, expressed his want of confidence in those officers of our army who had been cadets, and said, for the defence of the country we must look to the farmers and mechanics.

Mr. D. said, in answering that position he had referred to the service lately rendered by our army on the Rio Grande had pointed out the results of skill and military science, and asked if such achievements could have been expected from men who had not the advantage of a military education.

He named two of the trades of civil life, not because they were less useful or honorable than others, not that either one or the other could disqualify a man from acquiring the other. On a former occasion, and for a similar purpose, he had made an extended allusion to many trades and professions, to all he had not thought it necessary again to refer. His opinion, in all its bearings, was no more than this, that war, like other knowledge, must be acquired. A military education did not qualify for the civil pursuits of life, nor did preparation for any of the civil pursuits, in itself, qualify for the duties of a soldier.

Was it necessary for him to say that a citizen might acquire the knowledge of arms, might become a distinguished soldier? Surely no one can deny it. He referred to the commander-in-chief of our army in terms of high commendation as a scientific soldier; said he had once been a lawyer, but had ceased to be so, and his military fame since he had become a soldier had almost swallowed up the remembrance of his earlier profession.

SOURCE: Dunbar Rowland, Editor, Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist: His Letters, Papers and Speeches, Volume 1, p. 50-2

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

Sunday, September 24, 2023

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

Tuesday, September 5, 2023

Remarks of Jefferson Davis on the Bill to Raise Two Regiments of Riflemen delivered in the House of Representatives, March 27, 1846.

Mr. JEFFERSON DAVIS said he did not intend to enter into a wide discussion with reference to the tariff, to Oregon, to Texas, or to the improvement of the rivers and harbors of the country. The House had under consideration a proposition to raise two regiments of riflemen. The only questions to be determined were: first, the necessity of the increase; and, second, the mode in which it should be made. There were two great propositions imbodying different modes: one to increase the army by increasing the number of regiments; the other, to add to the rank and file of the existing regiments. Our organization under a peace establishment is designed only to be the skeleton of an army; we organize our regiments not so much with a view to their present efficiency as on the arising of an emergency which shall require them to enable us to fill them up and render us the greatest service. We who were literally the rifle people of the world, who were emphatically skilled in the use of the rifle, were now falling behind France, England, and other nations, who were paying attention to it, and now actually had no rifle regiment. For this reason, if there were no other, he would vote to raise a rifle regiment to perfect our organization, and add the wanting bone to the skeleton of our army.

Another reason in behalf of this bill was, that it was recommended by the President of the United States. [Mr. D. read that part of the Message recommending the establishment of stockade forts on the route to Oregon, &c.] It did not depend upon the notice, upon future emigration, but was necessary to protect the emigration now passing to Oregon. He pointed out the dangers from the attacks of nomadic hostile Indians, to which the traveller across the prairies is exposed, the necessity of mounted riflemen for their protection, and the superiority in very many respects of mounted to unmounted riflemen for this service. He agreed with the gentleman from Kentucky, [Mr. BOYD,] who, in his amendment, proposed to make it discretionary with the President whenever, in his opinion, the public interests shall require, to mount such portions of these regiments as he may deem necessary. He (Mr. D.) hoped that at least half of them would be mounted; for it was perfectly idle to send infantry to guard emigrants against Indians who live on horseback, who rob all companies not sufficiently strong to resist them, and fly with their booty as on the wings of the wind.

He denied the correctness of the position of Mr. RATHBUN, that this bill was intended for raising troops to transport our men, women, and children to a territory over which we dared not assert our rights; and said that the President had recommended mounted riflemen to protect the emigration which is now going on; we needed it before emigration commenced, and emigration has only increased its necessity. He urged the importance of this measure, and the advantages and facilities which would be extended to emigrants to Oregon, by the erection of a line of stockade forts on their route. In further reply to Mr. R., he vindicated the qualifications of western men for this particular kind of service, acknowledging that they would be loth to submit to military punishment, but assigning their habitual subordination to the laws of the country, and their patriotic and gallant devotion to its interests, as the means by which they would avoid subjecting themselves to it. In the course of his remarks, he adverted to the necessity of the Military Academy in reference to the attacks from time to time made upon it, maintaining the unquestionable necessity of a military education to prepare a man for command in the army; which education, he said, was only to be obtained at a military academy, or piece by piece to be picked up, at the hazard of loss of property and life, by the officer, after he was commissioned and under heavy pay. Mr. D. also touched briefly upon one or two other points.

SOURCE: Dunbar Rowland, Editor, Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist: His Letters, Papers and Speeches, Volume 1, p. 39-40

Thursday, July 13, 2023

Speech of Congressman Jefferson Davis, February 6, 1846

Speech of Jefferson Davis delivered in the House Feb. 6, 1846, on the Oregon question.

Mr. JEFFERSON DAVIS addressed the committee during the hour. He knew not (he said) whether he more regretted the time at which this discussion has been introduced, or the manner in which it has been conducted. We were engaged in delicate and highly important negotiations with Mexico, the end of which we had hoped would be an adjustment of our boundary on terms the vast advantage of which it would be difficult to estimate. If, sir, (said Mr. D.,) by this exciting discussion we shall hereafter find that we have lost the key to the commerce of the Pacific, none who hears me will live long enough to cease from his regrets for the injury our country has sustained. Again, sir; a long peace has served to extend the bonds of commerce throughout the civilized world, drawing nations from remote quarters of the globe into friendly alliance and that mutual dependence which promised a lasting peace and unshackled commerce. In the East, there appeared a rainbow which promised that the waters of national jealousy and proscription were about to recede from the face of the earth, and the spirit of free trade to move over the face thereof. But this, sir, is a hope not so universally cherished in this House as I could desire. We have even been told that one of the advantages to result from war will be emancipation from the manufacturers of Manchester and Birmingham.

I hope, sir, the day is far distant when measures of peace or war will be prompted by sectional or class interests. War, sir, is a dread alternative, and should be the last resort; but when demanded for the maintenance of the honor of the country, or for the security and protection of our citizens against outrage by other Governments, I trust we shall not sit here for weeks to discuss the propriety, to dwell upon the losses, or paint the horrors of war.

Mr. Chairman, it has been asserted that the people demand action, and we must advance. Whilst, sir, I admit the propriety of looking to and reflecting public opinion, especially upon a question which is viewed as deciding between peace or war, I cannot respond to the opinion, nor consent to govern my conduct by the idea, that the public man who attempts to stem the current of a war excitement must be borne down, sacrificed on the altar of public indignation. Sir, may the day never come when there will be so little of public virtue and patriotic devotion among the representatives of the people, that any demagogue who chooses to make violent and unfounded appeals to raise a war clamor in the country will be allowed, unopposed, to mislead the people as to the true questions at issue, and to rule their representatives through their love of place and political timidity.

Mr. Chairman, I have been struck with surprise, only exceeded by mortification, at the freedom with which disgrace and dishonor have been mingled with the name of our country. Upon one side, to give notice, and involve the country in a war, is disgrace; upon the other side, not to give notice, to rest in our present position, is dishonor. And my colleague [MR. THOMPSON] says "notice" is the only way to avoid war; that to extend our laws over our people in Oregon is war—a war of disgrace. Sir, whence comes this decision, this new light upon the Oregon question? The leaders in the Oregon movement, in other times, held different views. And, sir, the discussions upon Oregon, at former periods, would certainly not suffer by a comparison with ours; nor, sir, did the commissioners who negotiated the convention of joint occupancy, either English or American, so understand it.

Mr. Gallatin has recently called public attention to the fact, that in 1827, our plenipotentiary refused to agree to any express provision that, in extending the convention of 1818, neither party should exercise any exclusive sovereignty over the territory. The probability that it might become necessary for the United States to establish a territorial or some sort of government over their own citizens was explicitly avowed. Sir, by discovery, exploration, and possession, we claimed exclusive sovereignty over the valley of the Columbia, and our exclusive possession as against England was admitted by the restoration of our posts in Oregon—the formal, actual surrender of Astoria. The convention for joint right to trade in Oregon did not destroy our exclusive possession of a part, nor limit the rights or powers we might exercise within their former bounds; and that this is the British construction, is sufficiently apparent by the assertion of rights as derived from the Nootka convention over the same territory.

Nothing can be more demonstrable than the unfitness of joint-occupation rights to an agricultural people. It was not designed so to operate, but was designed for a country in the hands of hunters, trappers, and Indian traders.

The Hudson Bay Company, so often represented as colonizing Oregon, has interests directly opposed to agricultural settlements. The fur-trappers have been (if my information is correct) aided in establishing themselves on the south side of Oregon. Fur-trading companies usually require their discharged hands to leave the country, and resist, instead of promoting, colonization of necessity destructive to their trade. The Puget Sound Company is agricultural, and its settlements are in violation of our convention with England; and the notice required is to forbid such infraction of the treaty. That no right to plant colonies can be deduced from the conventions of 1818 and 1827 is too plain to admit of argument. The claim, if any, must be drawn from the convention between England and Spain, called the Nootka convention. If that convention be still in force, it must be because it was the declaration of rights, not the grant of advantages; and thus, for the sake of argument, I will consider it.

That Spain had the exclusive right of occupation on the northwest coast of America, as far as her discoveries extended, was not denied; but the question was, Had she, without having occupied the country, an exclusive sovereignty over it? Denying this pretension of Spain, Great Britain demanded indemnification for the seizure of British vessels at Nootka sound by the Spanish authorities. This led to the agreement upon which Great Britain has built her claim to territory in the Oregon country. Before entering upon the consideration of the terms of the convention itself, I will refer to the events that led to it.

Long before the voyage of Meares, the port of Nootka sound was known to the Spanish navigators. It was the usual resort of the trading vessels in the north Pacific. Meares, in 1788, visited it, and built a vessel there. For the use of his men, he erected a hut on the shore, by permission of the Indian king, and threw some defences around it, enclosing (according to Vancouver) about an acre of land. Meares, in return for the kindness of the Indian, (Maquinna,) gave him a pair of pistols. In his narrative, he gives a detailed account of the transaction, but does not call it a purchase; that was an after-thought, and first figured in his memorial. Sir, if there had been nothing beyond the narrative of Meares, the temporary character of his location would be fully established. There it appears that when about to sail, leaving a part of his men behind him, he bribed the Indian king, by offering him the reversion of the hut and chattels on shore, to permit his men to remain in peace, and complete the building of the vessel they had commenced.

To show the character of Meares, the purpose of his voyages in the north Pacific, and the country along which Great Britain claimed the right to trade, I will refer to the work of an Englishman, contemporary with Meares, and one of the most enterprising of the navigators of the north Pacific. It is "Dixon's Voyage around the World." Thus it appears that Meares was a furtrader, and of poor character for his calling; and more important still, it appears that the coast, from Cook's river to King George's sound, was the extent of the region in which British cruisers traded. This, taken in connexion with the 5th article of the Nootka convention, serves to fix the latitude in which joint settlement would be permitted.

The message of the King of Great Britain, communicating the transaction at Nootka, refers only to the seizure of vessels; not a word about lands of which British subjects had been dispossessed.

And when the proposition to vote an address of thanks to his Majesty for the conduct and successful termination of the negotiation, neither in the House of Lords or Commons did any one claim an acquisition of territory; and to the bitter irony and severe assaults of Mr. Fox upon the position in which the territorial pretensions of England had been left, his great rival, Mr. Pitt, then minister, made no reply, but pressed the commercial advantages gained by England.

The only link remaining to be supplied, and which completes the claim of construction, is the examination and final action of Quadra and Vancouver, when sent as commissioners to carry out the first article of the convention.

If, then, no tracts of land could be found which had been purchased by Meares; if no buildings of which he had been dispossessed, and the Spanish flag was never struck to that of Great Britain, Spain still maintaining her settlement at Nootka; the parallel north of which the joint right of settlement exists must be drawn through the northern extremity of Quadra and Vancouver's island; the established rule of nations being, that settlement on an island is held to extend to the whole of the island.

Oregon territory, then, is divided into a portion where we have possession above the treaty, and over which we can exercise all the rights not inconsistent with the trade permitted to England; another portion, in which, admitting the Nootka convention to be still in force, we have, with England, a joint right of trade and settlement; this being limited to the south by a line down through the head of the Quadra and Vancouver island. Between these portions, if there be any territory, it is in the condition of a joint right in England and the United States to occupy for fur trade, and the agricultural settlements are in violation of the spirit of the treaty.

Whenever the joint right by convention ceases, we must at once assert our exclusive right, or thenceforward possession matures into right on the part of Great Britain. During the continuance of the convention the title remains unimpaired; we are in possession; can establish over the undisputed part of the territory whatever regulations may be necessary to promote good order, and encourage emigration of agriculturists. Between England and the United States, the party having bread in Oregon must triumph.

No army can be sustained there for any considerable time by either country if the food must be transported from abroad to support it.

Never had man better right to cry "save me from my friends" than the President of the United States on this occasion. His positive recommendation has been made subordinate to his suggestion. He has urged to extend protection to our citizens in Oregon, but advised that notice be given to terminate the treaty of joint occupancy for reasons given. All this has been reversed, and the positive, unqualified declaration of a perfect title to the whole of Oregon up to 54° 40' comes strangely from those who claim to support an Administration that has offered nearly the same compromise line which had been time and again proposed by his predecessors. Sir, for the honor of my country, I hope that we have not been for thirty years negotiating when there was no conflicting claim; and for past as for the present Executive, I utterly deny that they have ever proposed to cede away a part of the territory, when our title was complete, to appease the voracious demands of England. It was a difficult and doubtful question; it was the adjustment of an undefined boundary. If the President should find himself compelled to close this question in twelve months, without any appropriation, without any preparation, he will be constrained to choose between compromise or war measures with the country unprepared. This will be the result of our action; and if he should effect a treaty by such a boundary as will not compromise the honor of the country, I for one-much, sir, as I wish to retain the whole territory—will give my full support as heretofore, and prepare for my share of whatever responsibility attaches. Sir, why has the South been assailed in this discussion? Has it been with the hope of sowing dissension between us and our western friends? Thus far, I think it has failed. Why the frequent reference to the conduct of the South on the Texas question? Sir, those who have made reflections on the South, as having sustained Texas annexation from sectional views, have been of those who opposed that great measure, and are most eager for this. The suspicion is but natural in them. But, sir, let me tell them that this doctrine of the political balance between different portions of the Union is no southern doctrine. We, sir, advocated the annexation of Texas from high national considerations; it was not a mere southern question; it lay coterminous to the Western States, and extended as far north as 42d degree of latitude; nor, sir, do we wish to divide the territory of Oregon; we would preserve it all for the extension of our Union. We would not arrest the onward progress of our pioneers. We would not, as has been done in this debate, ask why our citizens have left the repose of civil government and gone to Oregon? We find in it but that energy which has heretofore been characteristic of our people, and which has developed much that has illustrated our history. It is the onward progress of our people towards the Pacific, which alone can arrest their westward march; and on the banks of which, to use the idea of our lamented Linn, the pioneer will sit down to weep that there are no more forests to subdue. Sir, the gentleman from Missouri has, in claiming credit to different States for services in time past, wandered round Mississippi, and passed over it unnoticed. I wish not to eulogize my State, but, thus drawn to my notice, let me tell him that at Pensacola, at Bowyer, in the Creek campaigns, and on the field to which he specially alluded, (New Orleans,) the people of Mississippi have performed services that give earnest for the future, and relieve her sons of the necessity of offering pledges for her. It was Mississippi dragoons, led by her gallant Hinds, that received from the commanding general the high commendation of having been the admiration of one army and the wonder of the other.

It is as the representative of a high-spirited and patriotic people that I am called on to resist this war clamor. My constituents need no such excitements to prepare their hearts for all that patriotism demands. Whenever the honor of the country demands redress, whenever its territory is invaded, if then it shall be sought to intimidate by the fiery cross of St. George—if then we are threatened with the unfolding of English banners, if we resent or resist—from the gulf shore to the banks of that great river—throughout the length and breadth, Mississippi will come. And whether the question be one of northern or southern, of eastern or western aggression, we will not stop to count the cost, but act as becomes the descendants of those who, in the war of the Revolution, engaged in unequal strife to aid our brethren of the North in redressing their injuries.

Sir, we are the exposed portion of the Union, and nothing has been done by this Government adequate to our protection. Yet, sir, in the language of our patriotic Governor on a recent occasion, if "war comes, though it bring blight and desolation, yet we are ready for the crisis." We despise malign predictions, such as the member from Ohio who spoke early in these debates, made, and turn to such sentiments as those of another member from that State, the gentleman near me. In these was recognised the feelings of our western brethren, who, we doubt not, whenever the demand shall exist, will give proof of such valor as on former occasions they have shown; and if our plains should be invaded, they will come down to the foe like a stream from the rock.

Sir, when ignorance and fanatic hatred assail our domestic institutions, we try to forgive them for the sake of the righteous among the wicked—our natural allies, the Democracy of the North. We turn from present hostility to former friendship from recent defection, to the time when Massachusetts and Virginia, the stronger brothers of our family, stood foremost and united to defend our common rights. From sire to son has descended the love of our Union in our hearts, as in our history are mingled the names of Concord and Camden, of Yorktown and Saratoga, of Moultrie and Plattsburg, of Chippewa and Erie, of Bowyer and Guilford, and New Orleans and Bunker Hill. Grouped together, they form a monument to the common glory of our common country. And where is the southern man who would wish that monument were less by one of the northern names that constitute the mass? Who, standing on the ground made sacred by the blood of Warren, could allow sectional feeling to curb his enthusiasm as he looked upon that obelisk which rises a monument to freedom's and his country's triumph, and stands a type of the time, the men, and the event that it commemorates, built of material that mocks the waves of time, without niche or moulding for parasite or creeping thing to rest on, and pointing like a finger to the sky to raise man's thought to philanthropic and noble deeds.

SOURCE: Dunbar Rowland, Editor, Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist: His Letters, Papers and Speeches, Volume 1, p. 29-35

Monday, May 29, 2023

Congressman Amos Tuck’s Speech on the Reference of the President James K. Polk’s Message, January 19, 1848

[Delivered in the House of Representatives of the United States, January 19, 1848.]

MR. CHAIRMAN: With the convictions I entertain in regard to the importance of the questions now pending before the country, and the present critical condition of the nation, I am glad that the several attempts which have been made to stop discussion on the President's message have not yet been successful. I believe that more time may be profitably spent in examining into the policy of the Executive, the purposes which he has in view, the means by which it is proposed to accomplish those purposes, and the consequences of success. Let the designs, measures, and general policy of the Administration receive thorough examination, be laid open to the view of this House and the people, and then receive the condemnation or approval of the nation.

The gentleman from Indiana, (Mr. ROBINSON,) at the close of his defence of the President on yesterday, requested that the debate might now be closed. I consider this demand unreasonable, and especially when made by a gentleman who had said all in his power on one side, and taken up one-eighth of the whole time spent in the discussion. I will remind the gentleman, also, that though his defence was as able as any honest man deserved, yet he had entirely omitted to explain some things which we all desire to understand. I hope the debate will not close till the people are put in possession of the facts or explanations, by which the patriotism and foresight of the President can be vindicated, in granting leave to Santa Anna and his suit to pass our blockading squadron and enter Mexico. We have now been at war a long time, have spent a hundred millions of dollars, and sacrificed many thousands of our citizens, in attempting to overcome a force organized principally by this same Santa Anna, and the thirty or forty talented Mexicans who with him passed our lines by direction of the President. This is an astounding fact—too incredible to be believed had it not been confessed; and, upon those who profess to believe in the wisdom and patriotism of the Administration, we make an express demand for explanation.

The President, in a late message, accused a large portion of his fellow-citizens of "giving aid and comfort to the enemy." This accusation was greedily seized by the rivals for executive favor; and we can now hear no speech in this Hall, or elsewhere, from the war party, nor read any of their newspapers, without encountering numberless repetitions of the same charge. There is a maxim, supposed to be of universal application, that those who are most ready to impeach the motives of others, are most liable to act from corrupt motives themselves. Let the people decide where the charge of "giving aid and comfort to the enemy" rightfully belongs. I shall make no accusation against the President, but I shall remind him that his permission to Santa Anna and his suit to pass "the American lines," resembles another pass I have read about in history, given to one John Anderson, and signed by one Benedict Arnold.

It was said yesterday that the delay of this discussion gives aid and comfort to the enemy. Congress have already appropriated a million of dollars to supply the wants of the army, and can we not now take breath and deliberate? Is it required that we daily appropriate a million of the people's money, under the penalty of being accused of treason if we hesitate to yield to such exorbitant demands? I hope not. For one I am resolved, before contributing to involve the present generation in a heavy debt, and to draw a mortgage upon our posterity—before plunging into a course that will sacrifice many of our citizens, endanger our liberties, and incur fearful responsibilities before Heaven, to examine thoroughly the character of the unnatural war now raging between the two North American republics.

In submitting my views, to the extent permitted by my limited time, I shall begin by considering the remote causes of the war. I would not trouble the committee, by calling their attention to some events which are now history, and probably familiar to most of those whom I have the honor to address, did I not believe that it is important to recur to the past in order to form a correct judgment of the character of the struggle in which the nation is engaged.

The annexation of Texas to this Union was the remote cause of the Mexican war; that object was sought and accomplished by our Government, for the purpose of the protection and extension of slavery. And the same considerations and motives now constitute so material a portion of the designs of our Government in prosecuting our conquests, that without those motives the war would cease immediately.

I need not tell you, sir, that the subject of American slavery now attracts the attention of the whole country. In proceeding with my remarks, I shall be obliged to speak freely of this institution. Those who have created this necessity have no reason to complain. Southern gentlemen have thrust this matter upon us, and made it impossible to examine the causes and objects of the war, without also considering the subject of slavery. I will, however, state, that the anti-slavery spirit of the country, which now seems so terrific to many, is entirely defensive; it is an excitement created wholly by the encroachments which have been made upon freedom and the free States. So far as I understand it, it does not contemplate any thing of which the friends of constitutional liberty, and of immunities according to law, need have any apprehensions.

In laying before the Committee some proof of the motives and purposes of annexation, I seem to myself to be supporting a foregone conclusion. I cannot realize that the objects and motives which led to that measure can be a matter of doubt, when the archives of our Government contain the published announcement of those purposes, as set forth in the official negotiations preparatory to the same. But, knowing that many yet deny the designs of that measure, and believing that at the present crisis the truth should in this place be well understood, I invite your attention to a few considerations.

The old province or department of Texas was settled principally by emigrants from the United States, who went there with their slaves while Mexico was subject to Spain, and during the early days of her attempt to adopt the model of our Government. The men who achieved the Mexican independence were not insensible to the inconsistency of claiming liberty for themselves and denying it to others. In 1829, the President of that republic issued a decree abolishing slavery in all the Mexican dominions. This decree was obeyed in all the provinces except Texas, where it was set at defiance. This was the first stage of hostile relations, between the settlers in Texas (who were principally from the Southern States) and the authorities at Mexico. It was an explicit issue between freedom and slavery. There were difficulties at the seat of the central Government which delayed the contest that must eventually be decided.

In the mean time a new impulse was given to emigration from the Southern States; volunteer adventurers rallied for Texas, and the rebel "Patriots," receiving new hope, declared their independence. A conflict approached, and the battle of San Jacinto decided in favor of the Texans.

But the end was not yet; a state of war existed, and the Texans, constantly fearing an invasion by Santa Anna, and encouraged by the sympathy of a few of our own citizens, sent Gen. Hunt to this city in 1837, with a proposition of annexation. He made a written application to our Government, which was promptly considered, and as promptly answered, in accordance with the unanimous opinion of Mr. Van Buren and his cabinet. An extract from the reply of Mr. Forsyth, Secretary of State, to Gen. Hunt, dated August 25, 1837, is so explicit on interesting questions of national law, now very little regarded, and besides is in such dignified contrast to all other state papers that have issued from our Government on the subject of Texas, that I will read it to the committee; asking them, in the mean time, to consider what would have now been the happy state of his country, and our well-founded title to the respect of the world, had the policy of Mr. Forsyth not been abandoned by his successors. It is as follows:

"So long as Texas shall remain at war, while the United States are at peace with her adversary, the proposition of the Texan Minister Plenipotentiary necessarily involves the question of war with that adversary. The United States are bound to Mexico by a treaty of amity and commerce, which will be scrupulously observed on their part, so long as it can be reasonably hoped that Mexico will perform her duties and respect our rights under it. The United States might justly be suspected of a disregard of the friendly purposes of the compact, if the overture of Gen. Hunt were to be even reserved for future consideration, as this would imply a disposition on our part to espouse the quarrel of Texas with Mexico; a disposition wholly at variance with the spirit of the treaty, with the uniform policy, and the obvious welfare of the United States."

This letter, sir, was written by a Democrat who had some regard for the old landmarks of republicanism-by one who paid some attention to the forms of law, the spirit of the Constitution, the sanctity of treaties, and the opinions of the world. The warnings of Washington against intervention—the opinion of Jefferson, that the Constitution had made no provision for incorporating a foreign nation into the Union—had not then been forgotten. Such was the doctrine of the Van Buren democracy, approved by the unanimous voice of the country. It was the doctrine of the Democracy till the date of the Baltimore Convention, when it was reversed, and the whole party made to turn about; not only without reason, but against reason; against the deepest convictions of the conscience and understanding of the whole party. If the time shall ever come when common sense, common law, or common honesty, shall direct the authorities of this nation, this doctrine will again be recognised and practised; and the annexation of Texas, as perpetrated by the united energies of John Tyler and James K. Polk, will be acknowledged to have been in violation of our "treaty of amity and commerce," an espousal of the quarrel of Texas, and an act of war against Mexico.

What were the pressing objects of national interest, not to say necessity, which could force our democratic Government to abandon its integrity, after this public confession of our relations and duties, to a distracted sister republic? What motives have led us to a line of policy that humbles every American heart, robs of national pride every intelligent citizen, and threatens, with imminent danger, our most sacred privileges? The answer is found in the archives of this Capitol, and may be read by all. It was not to "extend the area of freedom," but to enlarge the borders of slavery; it was to build up and establish—to render permanent and perpetual an institution repugnant alike to every principle of freedom, every sentiment of republicanism, every feeling of humanity—an institution which casts a dark shade over our country's history, and which, if cherished, will ultimately number us with the republics which are now no more.

When John Tyler had made the treaty of annexation in 1844, and laid the same before the Senate for approval, that body called upon him to produce the correspondence in regard to that measure, showing the motives which had induced him to enter into it. The information was given under an injunction of secrecy, afterwards removed, and is contained in Senate document No. 341, of the first session of the 28th Congress. In that document is contained an explicit, unequivocal, and often repeated declaration of the only objects of our Government designed to be accomplished by the treaty. These reasons, stated by those who were authorized to speak for the nation, are now of record; and, without any contradictory proof whatever, announce to the world, and will announce to posterity, the true motives which led the United States to that disastrous act. I will give a few extracts, as specimens of the whole correspondence; averring to the committee that the character is the same throughout, and that the one object of continuing and extending slavery in Texas, and protecting it in the United States, is boldly avowed, and made the foundation of every step in the progress of the negotiation. The letter which first announces the incipient scheme, and spreads out the apprehensions of the Tyler Cabinet, on account of the prospects in Texas, was written by Mr. Upshur, Secretary of State under Mr. Tyler, to Mr. Murphy, our chargé at Texas, and bears date August 8th, 1843. The letter is long, and the Secretary begins by informing Mr. Murphy that a plan for the abolition of slavery in Texas had been made known to this Government; that it was understood the same was to be accomplished by the purchase of all the slaves; and that a company in England were to furnish a portion or the whole of the necessary funds. After urging Mr. Murphy to inquire immediately into the designs of Texas in regard to slavery, and its prospects in that country, he recurs to the rumored plan of abolition, and says:

“A movement of this sort cannot be contemplated by us in silence.”

Again, he says:

“It cannot be permitted to succeed, without the most strenuous efforts on our part to arrest a calamity so serious to every part of the country.”

Becoming more particular in stating the causes of alarm, and in order to impress more deeply the importance of the subject, he further says:

“The establishment, in the very midst of our slaveholding States, of an independent government, forbidding the existence of slavery, and by a people born, for the most part, among us, reared up in our habits, and speaking our language, could not fail to produce the most unhappy effects upon both parties. If Texas were in that condition, her territory would afford a ready refuge for the fugitive slaves of Louisiana and Arkansas, and would hold out to them an encouragement to run away, which no municipal regulations of those States could possibly counteract.”

The whole letter is of the same character with the parts I have read, and I will not trouble the committee with reading any more of it. The communication had the desired effect upon the gentleman to whom it was directed, and immediately aroused all the energy of his peculiar patriotism. He adopts all Mr. Upshur's opinions, entertains all his anxieties, and promptly replies under date of Sept. 25th, 1843. He compliments the talent of the Secretary, after the manner of a politician, when writing to his superior in office, and speaking of the designs of England says:

“England is anxious to get rid of the constitution of Texas, because it secures in the most nervous and clear language the rights of the master to his slave, and it also prohibits the introduction of slaves into Texas from any other nation or quarter than the United States."

Again:

"The constitution of Texas secures to the master the perpetual right to his slave, and prohibits the introduction of slaves into Texas from any other quarter than the United States.”

Again:

"If the United States preserves and secures to Texas the possession of her constitution and present form of Government, then we have gained all that we can desire, and also all that Texas asks or wishes."

Again:

“Seeing that this surrender of sovereignty by Texas to Mexico at once liberates all the slaves in Texas, and that England thereby gains all she wants, and more than she ever expected, can the Government of the United States longer doubt what to do?"

Three days after, he again writes to Mr. Upshur, and, echoing the sentiments of the latter, remarks:

"The States in which slavery exists would have good reason to apprehend the worst consequences from the establishment of a foreign non-slaveholding State upon their immediate borders."

Telling the Secretary of "the eloquent manner in which he has pourtrayed those evils," his zeal overflows in the following language:

"I feel a whirlwind of emotion in my bosom which I will not attempt to describe. Let the Government of the United States take some immediate quick step on this subject. You have in this correspondence enough to justify immediate and prompt action.

 

"Pardon me if I am solicitous on this subject. I feel the deep interest at stake. Our whole Southern interests are involved in this negotiation, and with it the interests of the Union itself. The great blow to our civil institutions is to be struck here, and it will be a fatal blow if not timely arrested."

This pretence of enthusiasm, exhibited in the cause of slavery by an obscure pensioner on the Tyler administration, should have been treated with contempt; and his impudent recommendation to our Government to "take some immediate quick step," ought to have received a severe rebuke. Instead of this, we find the whole cabinet caught the contagion, and exerted the whole power of their station and patronage to second the views of this obscure adventurer, residing in Texas. In a subsequent letter, Mr. Murphy writes to the Government on the subject of annexation, and says, that without it "slavery cannot exist ten years in Texas, and probably not half that time." There is any amount of similar proof in the book I hold in my hand, and I might take up all my time in reading the evidence at length. But I need not do this; I have before me democratic proof that the objects of the "Texan iniquity” were not only such as I have represented them to be, but that those objects were understood, exposed, and condemned by the Democratic party in the Northern States, up to the time of the Baltimore Convention.

I ask the self-complacent Democracy, who are so free with their charges of treason, and Mexican federalism, to listen to the following passages from the three newspapers in New Hampshire, which are the mouth-pieces of the unchangeable Democracy, and which are now the pillars of support in the Granite State, to this slavery propagating administration.

The Nashua Gazette, of date Nov. 16th, 1843, contains the following editorial:

"The evils that will be entailed upon the North by the admission of Texas into the Union are incalculable, great, vast—beyond all human calculation.

 

"The object and design throughout is black as ink—as bitter as hell. No other reason on earth can be assigned for this southern movement than a determination to perpetuate that accursed institution, which, as a matter of compromise, was acceded to by the North at the time of the adoption of the Articles of Confederation. If the South persist in forcing Texas upon us, the result is evident to all. The consequences are multifarious, to say nothing of their ruin. May Providence avert this calamity, and save our Republic from disunion, misery, and destruction."

The Portsmouth (N. H.) Mercury, in the fall of 1843, says:

"It is a matter of deep regret that our Southern friends intend to agitate, in the next Congress, the question of the annexation of Texas to our Union. It is understood that this is a favorite project with Mr. Calhoun. But as its accomplishment might prove fatal to our free institutions, it will be a solemn duty of the Northern Democracy to oppose it."

The New Hampshire Patriot, May, 1844, has the following:

"Slavery and the defence of slavery form the controlling considerations urged in favor of the treaty [of annexation] by those who have been engaged in its negotiation. To these doctrines we can never subscribe, and whenever they are offensively urged upon the free States, they deserve to be pointedly rebuked."

I lay the above extracts before the Southern branch of the Democracy, hoping that they will understand the true character of their Northern allies. The same men who, uttered the above sentiments as matters of principle from which they could never swerve, in less than three months denied, utterly reprobated, the faith they had professed; and have ever since employed their time in abusing the men who would not sacrifice their principles at the same time. The Democratic leaders of New Hampshire at the present time are the men who have made this somerset in their confession of faith; who cry out "moral cowards," "enemies of their country," and "Mexican Federalists," while they know in their hearts that they are the most arrant moral cowards alive, and that there is no principle in any creed which they would not sacrifice for a reward. They have been called Northern men with Southern principles, but this is an imputation on the South to which I will not subscribe. They are Northern men with no principles at all. Had they been men of Southern principles, or of any principle whatever, they would not have made such an humiliating exhibition. I will not say that these men would not rather be right than wrong; indeed I think they would have chosen to follow the Van Buren democracy, which they expected would prevail. But the virtue which they possess is not at all adapted to a state of temptation. When the Baltimore Convention sacrificed Mr. Van Buren, and adopted an unknown candidate, and a new creed of faith; and when Mr. Ritchie published the significant fact that "they who did not go for annexation need expect nothing from the new administration," the trial was too strong for them. They hailed the new nomination as "the very best that could be made;" and, in respect to Texas, fulfilled to the letter the prophecy of the eccentric statesman of Roanoke, when, in 1820, he addressed just such a class of men on the floor of this House.

Turning to the representatives who had betrayed the North in the Missouri compromise, Mr. Randolph, pointing to each one separately, said, "you Northern dough-faces! we have bought you once, and when we want you we will buy you again, dog-cheap."

But, sir, I am happy to say that this class of politicians is small in the North, and is daily becoming less. The people, though confiding too long in their leaders, are beginning to understand them, and cast them off. The people may be deceived, but cannot be corrupted.

I will now call the attention of the committee to a new and most important construction of the Constitution, which was first announced in this Texan correspondence, and which may well challenge the attention of the country, both at the North and South. We have seen the purpose for which annexation was sought, and at the first view we are surprised at the official conduct of those who figured in the scheme, and, on examining the correspondence, we discover occasion for serious alarm. We see a construction of the national compact, which declares it to be the function and solemn duty of the General Government to protect and support the institution of slavery.

In the same letter, last quoted from Mr. Upshur, he says:

“Although those non-slaveholding States are as much opposed to the institution, [slavery] as England herself, yet the Constitution of the United States lays them under obligations in regard to it which, if duly respected, would secure the rights of the slaveholder."

Mr. Calhoun, as Secretary of State, takes the same ground. In a letter to Mr. Packenham, dated April 18, 1844, he vindicates the Texan treaty, and, after giving his views of the effect upon the United States of abolishing slavery in Texas, says, in reference to this last object:

"It is felt to be the imperious duty of the Federal Government, the common representative and protector of the States of this Union, to adopt in self-defence the most effectual measures to defeat it,"

Now, sir, before this Government makes any further progress, before we take one more step in our onward march, the people of the United States demand to know if this construction of our national compact is well founded? This point must be settled. It has heretofore been proclaimed by legislative resolutions, reaffirmed by numerous public meetings at the South, that the General Government had nothing to do with slavery. But annexation has destroyed old landmarks, reversed old principles, and introduced a new policy and a new code of morals into the country, which we are anxious to understand. If we live under a Constitution that compels us to support and defend slavery, we want to know it, and we want to know it now. We are at a crisis in the Government when it is important to understand our rights, and also to understand our duties. For, let me inform gentlemen, that this new doctrine will bring with it responsibilities and solemn duties, as well as heavy and disagreeable burdens. If the General Government have a jurisdiction over the subject of slavery to support and defend it, they have also a jurisdiction and a duty to limit, control, and restrain it. Let gentlemen consider the course they are taking, and understand the consequences of this new doctrine. If they take a construction liberal for the purposes of slavery, they must take one liberal also for the purpose of liberty; but they can not have a construction free as regards slavery, but strict as regards liberty.

We discard this novel construction, and pronounce it an infraction and an outrage upon the rights of the free States. The Constitution neither requires nor authorizes the General Government to wield its powers in defence of slavery. Such a representation of the nature of the compact between the States of this Union, made by our Secretary of State to the representative of the English nation, was a slander upon our country, and an indignity upon the memory of our fathers. Their lives, characters, and circumstances, as well as the letter and spirit of the Constitution, prove that they formed no agreement to sustain oppression. When they assembled to form a Constitution, those from the North came with undisguised abhorrence of slavery, which their habits, principles, and religious education taught them to be morally wrong. They were not the men to compromise their principles by involving themselves in guilt. They were crowned with laurels from the revolutionary conflict, and had just written with their blood the truth, that "all men are born free and equal;" and that "the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," is "inalienable." They had no belief that the natural rights of a colored man were different from those of the white man: their sentiment was—

"We know no crime in color'd skin,

Nor think the God above

Could fix the brand of slave upon

The children of his love."

Such was the sentiment of the men of the North, who had periled their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, in defence of the principles of universal liberty, and of the doctrine that liberty is the gift of God, and not of any government or potentate. With such sentiments they went to the work of forming a constitution. They believed that when the child first breathed, he was furnished with a charter from God, which secured to him life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This sentiment had been their inspiring faith during every stage of the Revolution, and it never entered into their hearts to sacrifice it for any earthly consideration whatever.

The South had also fought bravely in defence of the same declaration of rights. A disinterested patriotism, a self-sacrificing devotion, had characterized her statesmen and her heroes, and endeared them to the whole country. But they were connnected with slavery, unfortunately thought it necessary to their prosperity, and wished to have the institution preserved to them under the national compact. With the difficulties and dangers attending this difference of opinion the convention labored for many days without any progress. At length, however, it was arranged to the acquiescence of both parties. It was agreed to leave the subject just where it remained under the confederation, that is, with the States where it existed. To make this still plainer, article tenth of the amendments was adopted, by which it was declared that the powers not expressly delegated were "reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." Such was the foundation on which the compact was based; and, in the first sentence, it is by them most appropriately declared, that "we ordain and establish this Constitution to secure the blessings of liberty."

This doctrine has been held by the Supreme Court, in sundry cases settling the point, that slavery is an institution sustained only by the positive law of the district where it exists; that beyond those limits the law which makes one man the property of another has no prescriptive, inferential, or other existence; that the alleged slave, having passed into a free State, may rightfully defend himself; and if he have the physical force to resist his masters, may maintain his freedom there, or go to a place of refuge. It cannot be denied, sir, that the people of the free States hold the blessings of personal liberty as sacredly as the Southern States do the privileges of slavery. The construction of the Constitution promulgated by the authors of the Texan plot, and acted upon by this Administration, is abominable, and must be repudiated. The encroachments upon our rights from the early days of the Goverment have been quite insupportable, but by this new construction all past trespasses are legalized, and it is henceforth proclaimed "a solemn duty" of the General Government to sustain slavery! Sir, this will never be tolerated The free States delegated no more power to the Federal Government to involve them in slavery, than the slave States did to involve them in its abolition. If Virginia claims the right to sustain slavery, New Hampshire claims the right to be exempt from it. The people of the free States claim, a right to be exempt from the sin, the shame, the expenses, and the retributions of this fearful wrong. To shed one drop of our blood, or to pay one cent of our money, for its aid, comfort, protection, or support, is an exaction to which we never can submit. This exemption is our legal, constitutional right, and being sustained by the literature, the moral sentiment, and the religious convictions of every civilized and christian nation, we shall not recede. We shall stand firm and immovable—

“——— constant as the Northern Star,

Of whose true, fixed, and resting quality

There is no fellow in the firmament.”

We say to the South, take to yourselves the full measure of good and evil. connected with this subject. We can have nothing to do with it; we can neither touch nor handle, cherish nor protect it. We leave it where our fathers left it; and though we regard it as the sum of all evils, we shall yet overstep no law in our desire to see it exterminated.

“We ask not ye shall snap the links

That bind you to your dreadful slaves;

Hug, if you will, a corpse that stinks,

And bear it with you to your graves:

But that you may go, coupled thus,

You never shall make slaves of us.”

Are gentlemen surprised at the anti-slavery excitement in this country? If there were no excitement, it would be proof that the spirit of liberty is dead. There not only is excitement, but that excitement will continue and increase, till the free States, under the guaranties of the Constitution, can enjoy exemption from slavery. I cannot promise quiet to the slave States even then; never, till they get rid of their peculiar institution, which is derogatory to man, and in violation of the laws of God. The compensations of Providence are inevitable, and the South cannot escape reaping the fruits of their institutions.

I have said that the anti-slavery spirit of the country is wholly defensive. This assertion cannot be doubted by any who are acquainted with the history of our Government, and particularly if the history, purposes, and consequences of the annexation of Texas be at all considered.

It has been represented by the public press, and in numerous speeches made in Congress, and elsewhere, that the distracting element in the Republic is the fanatical spirit of Northern and Western abolitionists. Most especially have they been made to bear the blame of introducing fanaticism and disunion into the halls of Congress, of disturbing the compromises of the Constitution, and by petitions, remonstrances, and memorials, endangering the perpetuity of our free institutions.

But, sir, no greater error, no more unfounded belief, could be impressed on the public mind. I grant that it is fanaticism that disturbs the harmony of the Government, and has shaken the whole fabric from centre to circumference; but then it is the fanaticism of the propagandists of slavery, the one idea-ism of those men who believe it to be their mission on earth to propagate bondage.

This is the element which has disturbed the nation, discarded well settled principles of policy and law, violated treaties, provoked the indignation of civilized nations, robbed us of our national pride, broken down the Constitution, and involved us in an aggressive, unnecessary, and wicked war. This is the fanaticism which has thrust upon the nation delicate and exciting questions, and demanded of the people to embrace, to honor, and support the peculiar institution. Had Northern men with Northern principles entered the slave States with banners, and proclaimed liberty to the captive and freedom to the bound, they would not have more palpably violated the compromises of the Constitution, than has the slave spirit perpetrated in every period of our history. Let the millions paid by free people to support and extend slavery, to recover runaway slaves, to prevent emancipation, to carry on pro-slavery wars, rebuke the charge and brand with falsehood the assertion that abolitionism, or any thing but the fell spirit of slavery, has introduced discord and danger into the councils of the nation. Let us expose this hypocritical cry against agitation and fanaticism by men who, by their annexations, wars, conquests, and aggressions, are picking our pockets, gagging our mouths, and at the same time raising a hue and cry against us, because we will not stand still and quietly be robbed.

I come now to consider the immediate cause of the war, which was the order of the President to march our army from Corpus Christi, and occupy the country up to the east bank of the Rio Grande, and to inquire whether that order was necessary or justifiable. The supporters of the President say that the Rio Grande was the western boundary of Texas, and therefore we had a right to take possession up to that line. I deny both the premises and the conclusion of this answer. That river was not the boundary of Texas, and if it had been we had no right forcibly to occupy that line, while Mexico was in possession of a portion of the territory claiming it as her own. If, as has been said, Texas were an independent nation at the time of annexation, her territory and her boundaries were limited by her actual possession. She had no title but that of the sword, and gained from Mexico only what she had forcibly seized and held. All the country which was occupied by Texan citizens, and all that from which the Mexicans had been expelled, might be claimed as having been gained by the revolution; but any new conquests or acquisitions could not be vindicated, except by treaty, or by new hostilities, and another war. Had, then, the Texans seized the country to the Rio Grande? There is no pretence of it. The great desert lying between the valley of that river and the valley of the Nueces had never been crossed by Texans. Brazos Santiago, and Santa Fe, lie between these rivers, and in the territory seized by our army. At both of these cities Mexico had custom-houses, where our merchants had for years paid duties to the Mexican government. And we had at the same time a consul, with a commission under the sign manual of the President of the United States, residing at Santa Fe, in an acknowledged foreign country. At the session of Congress at which annexation was effected, a law was passed in regard to drawbacks, in which Santa Fe is expressly named as a city belonging to the Mexican Republic. The inhabitants all spoke the Mexican language, and, according to General Taylor's account, abandoned their houses on the approach of our army. No Texan forces, or Texan inhabitants, had occupied any land within a hundred miles of Matamoras. In one of the despatches of the President to General Taylor, prior to hostilities, he says:

"Mexico has some military establishments on the east side of the Rio Grande, which are, and for some time have been, in the actual occupancy of her troops."

With this evidence, and these admissions, I say that the Rio Grande was not the western boundary of Texas; and if the President understood his own acts, he himself knew that such was not the boundary.

But, supposing our title by annexation to have been good to the Rio Grande, yet, as the Mexicans claimed the valley of that river, and were in possession of it, the President could not expel them from the disputed territory without committing an act of war. The recollections of Oregon, and the northeastern boundary, are too fresh to allow this law to be questioned, unless one rule is to be applied to England and another to Mexico.

I confidently assert, then, that the allegation of the President that "Mexico has passed the boundary of the United States, has invaded our territory, and shed American blood on American soil, "is untrue; and that the preamble to an act of the last Congress, which states that "war exists by the act of Mexico," is justly denominated "the lying preamble."

The President ordered our army to take forcible possession of territory which, if not Mexican, was in dispute, and in the occupancy of Mexican subjects. This was an act of war.

He caused our army, before hostilities commenced, to blockade the mouth of the Rio Grande, through which the Mexican forces at Matamoras received their supplies, and thus commenced starving their army while stationed on their own ground. This was an act of war.

Weeks before hostilities commenced, he caused a battery to be built on this side of the river, opposite to Matamoras, supplied it with cannon pointing into the heart of the city, and manned it with a force capable at any moment of hurling destruction upon the Mexicans. This was an act of war.

Finally, he consummated war by measures which led to an attack by Capt. Thornton, an officer of our army, upon a party of Mexicans who resisted, and sixteen men were killed and wounded. This was the first blood that was spilt, and was war by the act of the President of the United States.

To such conclusions am I inevitably brought by examining this subject. I am forced, also, to observe that the order of the President which involved these disastrous consequences was made while Congress was in session, to which body the Constitution gives the war-making power. The barriers of the Constitution have availed nothing for the purposes of peace or freedom, since the blood-thirsty appetite for conquest and slavery propagation seized upon the nation.

Entertaining the views I have expressed of the immediate causes of the war, I lately voted for the amendment offered to a resolution by the gentleman from Massachusetts, (Mr. ASHMUN,) stating that the war was "unnecessarily and unconstitutionally commenced by the President." This has been taken up in the newspapers and pronounced to be "treasonable." I, then, have sinned deeply, for I confess and aver that I never gave a vote more cordially, and have seldom enjoyed more satisfaction than in the success of that amendment, and the indication which it wafted on the wings of the wind to my constituents and the country. In common with millions of patriotic citizens, I thank the gentleman for that timely amendment. It was most appropriately offered by one of the "immortal fourteen," who refused to vote in the 29th Congress for "the lying preamble.”

This is not only an "unnecessary and unconstitutional" war, in its commencement, and therefore wicked, but the controlling motives of its present prosecution are identical with those which led to annexation. This is proved by the fact that, when the Wilmot Proviso, in the last Congress, was attached to a bill of supplies, the personal advisers of the President immediately exerted all their influence to defeat the bill. Why was this the case, unless there was a determination to make slavery co-extensive with our southwestern border? This is apparent, also, from a clause in a late letter from the Chairman of Military Affairs of the Senate, (Gov. CASS,) which he has published in order to show his recantation of faith in the Wilmot Proviso.

The third reason he gives for abandoning the provision that slavery be prohibited in any territory to be acquired from Mexico, is in the following language:

"3. Because I believe in the general conviction, that should such proposition succeed, it would lead to an immediate withholding of the supplies, and thus to a dishonorable termination of the war. I think no dispassionate observer at the seat of Government can doubt this result."

I ask why such a proposition would result in "withholding supplies," unless those supplies are wanted for the purpose, chiefly, of acquiring new slave territory? Gentlemen may affect to scorn the idea that slavery can make progress into Mexico. But, sir, the design of the war is to get as much of that country as possible, and then to admit it by States into the Union as fast as slavery obtains over it a predominant influence. However much or little be obtained, mark the fact, no part of it will ever be admitted, unless with a constitution recognising slavery.

This is a war conceived in sin, and brought forth in iniquity; and, in its objects and progress, is more characteristic of the 19th century before, than the 19th century after Christ. The people are heart-sick of it, and demand that it cease. They see that we have abandoned the mission on which our nation gloriously embarked; and, forgetting the political precepts of our fathers, and the moral admonitions of our holy religion, we are precipitating a sorrowful failure of the great republican experiment.

I regret that my time will not allow me to examine the array of fearful apprehensions that our circumstances unavoidably bring before me. Look at the plains of Mexico, covered with the slain thousands of our own citizens, and the slain tens of thousands of our sister republic—look at the multitudes in mourning throughout the land-and tell me, whether we are not treasuring up for ourselves "wrath against the day of wrath!" There are other evils besides sacrifice of life. War reverses the order of society; it raises those who should be low, and depresses those who should be high; it exalts without merit, and casts down without fault. Military renown has been the affliction of the nation for 25 years. Hero worship has been the order of the day, and opinions have had less currency on account of their correctness, than on account of their origin. The multiplication of slaves, the multiplication of military heroes, (scarcely less calamitous,) a standing army, a Mexican pro-consulate, an intolerable executive patronage, (now almost too much for liberty,) and the eventual dissolution of our present Government, with the inevitable retributions of Him who rules in Heaven and on earth, are seen in the distance. Let us pause before it is too late.

I avow my position in regard to supplies, which is, to grant them only for the purpose of bringing the army home by the shortest route. Being found in a wrong, let us restore the nation status ante bellum. We have spoken our sentiments about the necessity of the war, let us not take a course which will oblige us to say it too;

"We know the right, and we approve

We know the wrong, and yet the wrong pursue.”

Let the same vote that declared the war unnecessary and unconstitutional, starve it to death by withholding supplies.

On the subject of the acquisition of territory, it is my belief that, whatever we may acquire, will not make us any the richer, more powerful, or happy, And, I understand, that what we now have south of 36° 30’, produces more annual cost than revenue to the Government. But, as those who talk about our "destiny" are determined to have territory, I go by all means for the re-enactment of the ordinance of 1787; otherwise, for the Wilmot Proviso.

I know what denunciations are hurled against those who express the sentiments I have avowed. But I cannot regard them; my convictions are deep, and my course is plain. I trust I shall never betray myself, or my country, by giving "aid and comfort" to a war which I believe is wrong, dishonorable, and dangerous. Burke, Barre, and Chatham stood by their country in the time of our revolution, and gave advice, remonstrance, and solemn warning, which, if followed, would have saved to England her colonies. In the belief that even the humblest member of this House has the opportunity to imitate their glorious example, I shall denounce the Mexican war, expose the reckless ambition of its authors, and, to the extent of my ability, warn the people against its consequences. If this be treason, my revilers may make the most of it.

SOURCE: Amos Tuck, Speech of Mr. Tuck, of New Hampshire, on the Reference of the President's Message, Delivered in the House of Representatives of the U S., January 19, 1848. p. 3-15