Chapter CXXX…

Chapter CXXX

DEATH OF SENATOR PORTER, OF LOUISIANA: EULOGIUM OF MR. BENTON.

MR BENTON. I rise to second the motion which has been made to render the last honors of this chamber to our deceased brother senator, whose death has been so feelingly announced; and in doing so, I comply with an obligation of friendship, as well as conform to the usage of the Senate. I am the oldest personal friend which the illustrious deceased could have upon this floor, and amongst the oldest which he could have in the United States. It is now, sir, more than the period of a generation--more than the third of a century--since the then emigrant Irish boy, Alexander Porter, and myself, met on the banks of the Cumberland River, at Nashville, in the State of Tennessee; when commenced a friendship which death only dissolved on his part. We belonged to a circle of young lawyers and students at law, who had the world before them, and nothing but their exertions to depend upon. First a clerk in his uncle's store, then a student at law, and always a lover of books, the young Porter was one of that circle, and it was the custom of all that belonged to it to spend their leisure hours in the delightful occupation of reading. History, poetry, elocution, biography, the ennobling speeches of the living and the dead, were our social recreation; and the youngest member of the circle was one of our favorite readers. He read well, because he comprehended clearly, felt strongly, remarked beautifully upon striking passages, and gave a new charm to the whole with his rich, mellifluous Irish accent. It was then that I became acquainted with Ireland and her children, read the ample story of her wrongs, learnt the long list of her martyred patriots' names, sympathized in their fate, and imbibed the feelings for a noble and oppressed people which the extinction of my own life can alone extinguish.

Time and events dispersed that circle. The young Porter, his law license signed, went to the Lower Mississippi; I to the Upper. And, years afterwards, we met on this floor, senators from different parts of that vast Louisiana which was not even a part of the American Union at the time that he and I were born. We met here in the session of 1833-'34--high party times, and on opposite sides of the great party line; but we met as we had parted years before. We met as friends; and, though often our part to reply to each other in the ardent debate, yet never did we do it with other feelings than those with which we were wont to discuss our subjects of recreation on the banks of the Cumberland.

I mention these circumstances, Mr. President, because, while they are honorable to the deceased, they are also justificatory to myself for appearing as the second to the motion which has been made. A personal friendship of almost forty years gives me a right to appear as a friend to the deceased on this occasion, and to perform the office which the rules and the usage of the Senate permit, and which so many other senators would so cordially and so faithfully perform.

In performing this office, I have, literally, but little less to do but to second the motion of the senator from Louisiana (Mr. Barrow). The mover has done ample justice to his great subject. He also had the advantage of long acquaintance and intimate personal friendship with the deceased. He also knew him on the banks of the Cumberland, though too young to belong to the circle of young lawyers and law students, of which the junior member--the young Alexander Porter--was the chief ornament and delight. But he knew him--long and intimately--and has given evidence of that knowledge in the just, the feeling, the cordial, and impressive eulogium which he has just delivered on the life and character of his deceased friend and colleague. He has presented to you the matured man, as developed in his ripe and meridian age: he has presented to you the finished scholar--the eminent lawyer--the profound judge--the distinguished senator--the firm patriot--the constant friend--the honorable man--the brilliant converser--the social, cheerful, witty companion. He has presented to you the ripe fruit, of which I saw the early blossom, and of which I felt the assurance more than thirty years ago, that it would ripen into the golden fruit which we have all beheld.

Mr. President, this is no vain or empty ceremonial in which the Senate is now engaged. Honors to the illustrious dead go beyond the discharge of a debt of justice to them, and the rendition of consolation to their friends: they become lessons and examples for the living. The story of their humble beginning and noble conclusion, is an example to be followed, and an excitement to be felt. And where shall we find an example more worthy of imitation, or more full of encouragement, than in the life and character of Alexander Porter?--a lad of tender age--an orphan with a widowed mother and younger children--the father martyred in the cause of freedom--an exile before he was ten years old--an ocean to be crossed, and a strange land to be seen, and a wilderness of a thousand miles to be penetrated before he could find a resting-place for the sole of his foot: then education to be acquired, support to be earned, and even citizenship to be gained, before he could make his own talents available to his support: conquering all these difficulties by his own exertions, and the aid of an affectionate uncle--(I will name him, for the benefactor of youth deserves to be named, and named with honor in the highest places)--with no other aid but that of an uncle's kindness, Mr. Alexander Porter, sen., merchant of Nashville, also an emigrant from Ireland, and full of the generous qualities which belong to the children of that soil: this lad, an exile and an orphan from the Old World, thus starting in the New World, with every thing to gain before it could be enjoyed, soon attained every earthly object, either brilliant or substantial, for which we live and struggle in this life--honors, fortune, friends; the highest professional and political distinction; long a supreme judge in his adopted State; twice a senator in the Congress of the United States--wearing all his honors fresh and glowing to the last moment of his life--and the announcement of his death followed by the adjournment of the two Houses of the American Congress! What a noble and crowning conclusion to a beginning so humble, and so apparently hopeless! Honors to such a life--the honors which we now pay to the memory of Senator Porter--are not mere offerings to the dead, or mere consolations to the feelings of surviving friends and relations; they go further, and become incentives and inducements to the ingenuous youth of the present and succeeding generations, encouraging their hopes, and firing their spirits with a generous emulation.

Nor do the benefits of these honors stop with individuals, nor even with masses, or generations of men. They are not confined to persons, but rise to institutions--to the noble republican institutions under which such things can be! Republican government itself--that government which holds man together in the proud state of equality and liberty--this government is benefited by the exhibition of the examples such as we now celebrate, and by the rendition of the honors such as we now pay. Our deceased brother senator has honored and benefited our free republican institutions by the manner in which he has advanced himself under them; and we make manifest that benefit by the honors which we pay him. He has given a practical illustration of the working of our free, and equal, and elective form of government; and our honors proclaim the nature of that working. What is done in this chamber is not done in a corner, but on a lofty eminence, seen of all people. Europe, as well as America, will see how our form of government has worked in the person of an orphan exiled boy, seeking refuge in the land which gives to virtue and talent all that they will ever ask--the free use of their own exertions for their own advancement.

Our deceased brother was not an American citizen by accident of birth; he became so by the choice of his own will, and by the operation of our laws. The events of his life, and the business of this day, shows this title to citizenship to be as valid in our America as it was in the great republic of antiquity. I borrow the thought, not the language of Cicero, in his pleading for the poet Archias, when I place the citizen who becomes so by law and choice on an equal footing with the citizen who becomes so by chance. And, in the instance before us, we may say that our adopted citizen has repaid us for the liberality of our laws; that he has added to the stock of our national character by the contributions which he has brought to it in the purity of his private life, the eminence of his public services, the ardor of his patriotism, and the elegant productions of his mind.

And here let me say--and I say it with pride and satisfaction--our deceased brother senator loved and admired his adopted country, with a love and admiration increasing with his age, and with his better knowledge of the countries of the Old World. A few years ago, and after he had obtained great honor and fortune in this country, he returned on a visit to his native land, and to the continent of Europe. It was an occasion of honest exultation for the orphan emigrant boy to return to the land of his fathers, rich in the goods of this life, and clothed with the honors of the American Senate. But the visit was a melancholy one to him. His soul sickened at the state of his fellow man in the Old World (I had it from his own lips), and he returned from that visit with stronger feelings than ever in favor of his adopted country. New honor awaited him here--that of a second election to the American Senate. But of this he was not permitted to taste; and the proceedings of this day announce his second brief elevation to this body, and his departure from it through the gloomy portals of death, and the radiant temple of enduring fame.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

CXXXI. NAVAL ACADEMY, AND NAVAL POLICY OF THE UNITED STATES

By scraps of laws, regulations, and departmental instructions, a Naval Academy has grown up, and a naval policy become established for the United States, without the legislative wisdom of the country having passed upon that policy, and contrary to its previous policy, and against its interest and welfare. A Naval Academy, with 250 pupils, and annually coming off in scores, makes perpetual demand for ships and commissions; and these must be furnished, whether required by the public service or not; and thus the idea of a limited navy, or of a naval peace establishment, is extinguished; and a perpetual war establishment in time of peace is growing up upon our hands. Prone to imitate every thing that was English, there was a party among us from the beginning which wished to make the Union, like Great Britain, a great naval power, without considering that England was an island, with foreign possessions; which made a navy a necessity of her position and her policy, while we were a continent, without foreign possessions, to whom a navy would be an expensive and idle encumbrance; without considering that England is often by her policy required to be aggressive, the United States never; without considering that England is a part of the European system, and subject to wars (to her always maritime) in which she has no interest, while the United States, in the isolation of their geographical position, and the independence of their policy, can have no wars but her own; and those defensive. On the other hand, there was a large party, and dominant after the presidential election of 1800, which saw great evil in emulating Great Britain as a naval power, and made head against that emulation in all the modes of acting on the public mind: speeches and votes in Congress, essays, legislative declarations. The most authoritative, and best considered declaration of the principles of this party, was made some fifty years ago, in the General Assembly of Virginia, in the era of her greatest men; and when the minds of these men, themselves fathers of the State, was most profoundly turned to the nature, policy, and working of our government. All have heard of the Virginia resolutions of 1798-'99, to restrain the unconstitutional and unwise action of the federal government: there were certain other cotemporaneous resolutions from the same source in relation to a navy, of which but little has been known; and which, for forty years, and now, are of more practical importance than the former. In the session of her legislature, 1799-1800, in their "Instructions to Senators," that General Assembly said:

"With respect to the navy, it may be proper to remind you, that whatever may be the proposed object of its establishment, or whatever may be the prospect of temporary advantages resulting therefrom, it is demonstrated by the experience of all nations, which have ventured far into naval policy, that such prospect is ultimately delusive; and that a navy has ever, in practice, been known more as an instrument of power, a source of expense, and an occasion of collisions and of wars with other nations, than as an instrument of defence, of economy, or of protection to commerce. Nor is there any nation, in the judgment of this General Assembly, to whose circumstances these remarks are more applicable than to the United States."

Such was the voice of the great men of Virginia, some fifty years ago--the voice of reason and judgment then; and more just, judicious, and applicable, now, than then. Since that time the electro-magnetic telegraph, and the steam-car, have been invented--realizing for defensive war, the idea of the whole art of war, as conceived and expressed by the greatest of generals--DIFFUSION FOR SUBSISTENCE: CONCENTRATION FOR ACTION. That was the language of the Great Emperor: and none but himself could have so conceived and expressed that idea. And now the ordinary commander can practise that whole art of war, and without ever having read a book upon war. He would know what to have done, and the country would do it. Play the telegraph at the approach of an invader, and summon the volunteer citizens to meet him at the water's edge. They would be found at home, diffused for subsistence: they would concentrate for action, and at the rate of 500 miles a day, or more if need be. In two days they would come from the Mississippi to the Atlantic. It would be the mere business of the accumulation of masses upon a given point, augmenting continually, and attacking incessantly. Grand tactics, and the "nineteen manoeuvres," would be unheard of: plain and direct killing would be the only work. No amount of invading force could sustain itself a fortnight on any part of our coast. If hundreds of thousands were not enough to cut them up, millions would come--arms, munitions, provisions, arriving at the same time. With this defence--cheap, ready, omnipotent--who, outside of an insane hospital, would think of building and keeping up eternal fleets to meet the invader and fight him at sea? The idea would be senseless, if practicable; but it would be impracticable. There will never be another naval action fought for the command of the seas. There has been none such fought since the French and British fleets met off Ouessant, in 1793. That is the last instance of a naval action fought upon consent: all the rest have been mere catching and whipping: and there will never be another. Fleets must approach equality before they can fight; and with her five hundred men-of-war on hand, Great Britain is too far ahead to be overtaken by any nation, even if any one was senseless enough to incur her debt and taxes for the purpose. Look at Russia: building ships from the time of Peter the Great; and the first day they were wanted, all useless and a burden! only to be saved by the strongest fortifications in the world, filled with the strongest armies of the world! and all burnt, or sunk, that could not be so protected. Great Britain is compelled by the necessities of her position, to keep up great fleets: the only way to make head against them is to avoid swelling their numbers with the fleets of other nations--avoid the Trafalgars, Aboukirs, Copenhagens, St. Vincents--and prey upon her with cruisers and privateers. It is the profound observation of Alison, the English historian of the wars of the French revolution that the American cruisers did the British more mischief in their two years' war of 1812, than all the fleets of France did during their twenty years' war. What a blessing to our country, if American statesmen could only learn that one little sentence in Alison.

The war of 1812 taught American statesmen a great lesson; but they read it backwards, and understood it the reverse of its teaching. It taught the efficacy of cruising--the inefficacy of fleets. American cruisers, and privateers, did immense mischief to British commerce and shipping: British fleets did no mischief to America. Their cruisers did some mischief--their fleets none. And that is the way to read the lesson taught by the naval operations of the war of 1812. Cruisers, to be built when they are needed for use: not fleets to rot down in peace, while waiting for war. Yet, for forty years we have been building great ships--frigates equal to ships of the line: liners, nearly double the old size--120 guns instead of seventy-fours. Eleven of these great liners have been built, merely to rot! at enormous cost in the building, and great continual cost to delay the rotting; which, nevertheless, goes on with the regularity and certainty of time. A judicious administrative economy would have them all broken up (to say nothing of others), and the serviceable parts all preserved, to be built into smaller vessels when there shall be need for them. It is forty years since this system of building vessels for which there was no use, took its commencement, and the cry for more is greater now than it was in the beginning; and must continue. A history of each ship built in that time--what the building cost? what the repairs? what the alterations? what the equipment? what the crew? and how many shot she fired at an enemy? would be a history which ought to be instructive; for it would show an incredible amount of money as effectually wasted as if it had been thrown into the sea. Great as this building and rotting has been for forty years past, it must continue to become greater. The Naval Academy is a fruitful mother, bearing 250 embryo officers in her womb at a time, and all the time; and most of them powerfully connected: and they must have ships and commissions, when they leave the mother's breast. They are the children of the country, and must be provided for--they and their children after them. This academy commits the government to a great navy, as the Military Academy commits it to a great army. It is no longer the wants of the country, but of the eleves of the institution which must be provided for; and routine officers are to take all the places. Officers are now to be made in schools, whether they have any vocation for the profession or not; and slender is the chance of the government to get one that would ever have gained a commission by his own exertions. This writer was not a senator for thirty years, and the channel of incessant applications for cadet and midshipman places, without knowing the motives on which such applications were made; and these motives may be found in three classes. First, and most honorable would be the case of a father, who would say--"I have a son, a bright boy, that I have been educating for a profession, but his soul is on fire for the army, or navy, and I have yielded to his wishes, though against my own, and believe if he gets the place, that he will not dishonor his country's flag." One of the next class would say--"I have a son, and he is not a bright boy (meaning that he is a booby), and cannot take a profession, but he would do very well in the army or navy." Of the third class, an unhappy father would say--"I have a son, a smart boy, but wild (meaning he was vicious), and I want to get him in the army or navy, where he could be disciplined." These, and the hereditary class (those whose fathers and grandfathers have been in the service) are the descriptions of applicants for these appointments; so that, it may be seen, the chances are three or four to one against getting a suitable subject for an officer; and of those who are suitable, many resign soon after they have got educated at public expense, and go into civil life. Routine officers are, therefore, what may be expected from these schools--officers whom nature has not licensed, and who keep out of the service those whom she has. The finest naval officers that the world ever saw, were bred in the merchant service; and of that England, Holland, France, Genoa, and Venice, are proofs; and none more so than our own country. The world never saw a larger proportion of able commanders than our little navy of the Revolution, and of the Algerine and Tripolitan wars, and the war of 1812, produced. They all came (but few exceptions) from the merchant service; and showed an ability and zeal which no school-house officers will ever equal.

Great Britain keeps up squadrons in time of peace, and which is a necessity of her insular position, and of her remote possessions: we must have squadrons also, though no use for them abroad, and infinitely better to remain in our own ports, and spend the millions at home which are now spent abroad. There is not a sea in which our commerce is subject to any danger of a kind which a man-of-war would prevent, or punish, in which a cruiser would not be sufficient. All our squadrons are anomalies, and the squadron system should be broken up. The Home should never have existed, and owes its origin to the least commendable period of our existence; the same of the African, conceived at the same time, put upon us by treaty, under the insidious clause that we could get rid of it in five years, and which has already continued near three times five; and which timidity and conservatism will combine to perpetuate--that timidity which is the child of temporization, and sees danger in every change. As for the Mediterranean, the Brazil, the Pacific, the East India squadron, they are mere British imitations without a reason for the copy, and a pretext for saying the ships are at sea. The fact is, they are in comfortable stations, doing nothing, and had far better be at home, and in ordinary. One hundred and forty court-martials, many dismissions without courts, and two hundred eliminations at a single dash, proclaim the fact that our navy is idle! and that this idleness gives rise to dissipation, to dissensions, to insubordination, to quarrels, to accusations, to court-martials. The body of naval officers are as good as any other citizens, but idleness is a destroyer which no body of men can stand. We have no use for a navy, and never shall have; yet we continue building ships and breeding officers--the ships to rot--the officers to become "the cankers of a calm world and a long peace."

The Virginia resolves of 1799-1800 on the subject of a navy, contain the right doctrine for the United States, even if the state of the world had remained what it was--even if the telegraph and the steam-car had not introduced a new era in the art of defensive war. It is the most expensive and inefficient of all modes of warfare. Its cost is enormous: its results nothing. A naval victory decides nothing but which shall have the other's ships.

In the twenty years of the wars of the French revolution, Great Britain whipped all the inimical fleets she could catch. She got all their ships; and nothing but their ships. Not one of her naval victories had the least effect upon the fate of the wars: land battles alone decided the fate of countries, and commanded the issues of peace or war. Concluding no war, they are one of the fruitful sources of beginning wars. Only employed (by those who possess them) at long intervals, they must be kept up the whole time. Enormously expensive, the expense is eternal. Armies can be disbanded--navies must be kept up. Long lists of officers must be receiving pay when doing nothing. Pensions are inseparable from the system. Going to sea in time of peace is nothing but visiting foreign countries at the expense of the government. The annual expense of our navy now (all the heads of expense incident to the establishment included) is some fifteen millions of dollars: the number of men employed, is some 10,000--being at a cost of $1,500 a man, and they nothing to do. The whole number of guns afloat is some 2,000--which is at the rate of some $9,000 a gun; and they nothing in the world to shoot at. The expense of a navy is enormous. The protection of commerce is a phrase incessantly repeated, and of no application. Commerce wants no protection from men-of-war except against piratical nations; and they are fewer now than they were fifty years ago; and some cruisers were then sufficient. The Mediterranean, which was then the great seat of piracy, is now as free from it as the Chesapeake Bay is. We have no naval policy--no system adapted by the legislative wisdom--no peace establishment--no understood principle of action in relation to a navy. All goes by fits and starts. A rumor of war is started: more ships are demanded: a combined interest supports the demand--officers, contractors, politicians. The war does not come, but the ships are built, and rot: and so on in a circle without end.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

CXXXII. THE HOME SQUADRON: ITS INUTILITY AND EXPENSE

Early in the session of '43-'44, Mr. Hale, of New Hampshire, brought into the House a resolution of inquiry into the origin, use, and expense of the home squadron: to which Mr. Hamlin, of Maine, proposed the further inquiry to know what service that squadron had performed since it had been created. In support of his proposition, Mr. Hale said:

"He believed they were indebted to this administration for the home squadron. The whole sixteen vessels which composed that squadron were said to be necessary to protect the coasting trade; and though the portion of the country from which he came was deeply concerned in the coasting trade, yet he himself was convinced that many of those vessels might be dispensed with. If this information were laid before the House, they would have something tangible on which to lay their hands, in the way of retrenchment and reform. He wanted this information for the purpose of pointing out to the House where an enormous expense might be cut down, without endangering any of the interests of the country. Gentlemen had talked about being prepared with a sufficient navy to meet and contend with the naval power of Great Britain; but had they any idea of the outlay which was required to support such a navy? The expense of the navy of Great Britain amounted to between eighty and a hundred millions of dollars annually. We were not in want of such a great naval establishment to make ourselves respected at home or abroad. General Jackson alone had produced an impression upon one of the oldest nations of Europe, which it would be impossible for this administration to do with the assistance of all the navies in the world."

Mr. Jared Ingersoll was in favor of retrenchment and economy, but thought the process ought to begin in the civil and diplomatic department--in the Congress itself, and in the expenses it allowed for multiplied missions abroad and incessant changes in the incumbents. With respect to abuses in the naval expenditures, he said:--

"He had no knowledge of his own on this subject; but he had learned from a distinguished officer of the navy, that in the navy-yards, in the equipment of ships, by the waste and extravagance caused by allowing officers to rebuild ships when they pleased, and the loss on the provisions of ships just returned from sea, which have been taken or thrown away, the greatest abuses have been practised, which have assisted in swelling up the naval expenditures to their present enormous amount."

Mr. Adams differed from Mr. Ingersoll in the scheme of beginning retrenchment on the civil list, and presented the army and the navy as the two great objects of wasteful expenditure, and the points at which reform ought to begin, and especially with retrenching this home squadron, for which he had voted in 1841, but now condemned. He said:

"The gentleman gave the House, undoubtedly, a great deal of instruction as to the manner in which it should carry out retrenchment and reform, and finally elect a President; but his remarks did not happen to apply to the motion of the gentleman from New Hampshire; for he led them away from that motion, and told them, in substance, that it was not the nine million of dollars asked for by the Secretary of the Navy--and he did not know how much asked for the army--that was to be retrenched. Oh, no! The army and the navy were not the great expenses of this nation; it was not by curtailing the military and naval expenditures that economy was to be obtained; but by beginning with the two Houses of Congress. And what was the comparison, to come to dollars and cents, between the expenses of that House and the Navy Department? Why, the gentleman, with all his exaggerating eloquence, had made the executive, legislative, and judicial powers of the country, to cost at least two millions of dollars; while the estimates for the navy were nine millions, to enable our ships to go abroad and display the stripes and stars. And for what purpose was it necessary to have this home squadron? Was the great maritime power of the earth in such a position towards us as to authorize us to expect a hostile British squadron on our coasts? No; he believed not. Then what was this nine millions of dollars wanted for? There was a statement, two years ago, in the report of the Secretary of the Navy, in which they were told that our present navy, in comparison with that of Great Britain, was only as one to eight--that is, that the British navy was eight times as large as ours. Now, in that year eight millions of dollars was asked for for the navy; the report of the present year asks for nine millions. This report contained the principle that we must go on to increase our navy until it is at least one-half as large as that of Great Britain; and what, then, was the proportion of additional expense we must incur to arrive at that result? Why, four times eight are thirty-two; so that it will take an annual expenditure of thirty-two millions to give us a navy half as large as that of Great Britain. If, however, gentlemen were to go on in this way, $32,000,000--nay, $50,000,000 would not be enough to pay the expense of their navy. He expressed his approval of the resolution of the gentleman from New Hampshire, and his gratification that it had come from such a quarter--a quarter which was so deeply interested in having a due protection for their mercantile navy and their coasting trade, by the establishment of a home squadron. At the time the home squadron was first proposed, he was, himself, in favor of it, and it was adopted with but very little opposition; and the reason was, because the House did not understand it at that time. It looked to a war with Great Britain. It looked more particularly to a war with Great Britain (the honorable gentleman was understood to say), provided she took the island of Cuba. He saw no necessity for a large navy, unless it was to insult other nations, by taking possession of their territory in time of peace. What was the good, he asked, of a navy which cost the country $9,000,000 a year, compared with what was done there in the legislative department of the nation? He expressed his ardent hope that the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Cave Johnson], and the gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. McKay]--now the chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means--would persevere in the same spirit that marked their conduct during the last Congress, and still advocate reductions in the army and the navy."

Mr. Hale replied to the several gentlemen who, without offering a word in favor of the utility of this domestic squadron, were endeavoring to keep it up; and who, without denying the great abuse and extravagance in the naval disbursements, were endeavoring to prevent their correction by starting smaller game--and that smaller game not to be pursued, and bagged, but merely started to prevent the pursuit of the great monster which was ravaging the fields. Thus:--

"He believed that the greatest abuses existed in every department of the government, and that the extravagances of all required correction. Look at the army of 8,000 men only, kept up at an expense to the nation of $1,000 for each man. Was not this a crying abuse that ought to be corrected? Why, if the proposition had succeeded to increase the army to 20,000 men, the expenditure at this rate would have been twenty millions annually. If any gentleman knew of the existence of abuses, let him bring them to the notice of the House, and he would vote not only for the proper inquiry into them, but to apply the remedy. In regard to this home squadron, he begged leave to disclaim any of the suspicions entertained by the gentleman from Massachusetts. In offering his resolution he had no reference to Cuba, or any thing else suggested by the gentleman. He wanted the House and the country to look at it as the Secretary of the Navy presented it to their view. As to the pretence that it was intended for the protection of the coasting trade, it was a most idle one. He wished the gentlemen from Maine (the State most largely interested in that trade) to say whether they needed any such protection. He would answer for them, and say that they did not. He himself lived among those who were extensively engaged in the coasting trade, and part of his property was invested in it. He could, therefore, speak with some knowledge on the subject; and he hesitated not to say, that the idea of keeping up this squadron for its protection was a most preposterous and idle one. Sir, said he, the navy has been the pet child of the nation, and, like all other pet children, has run away with the whole patrimonial estate. If it were found that the best interest of the country required the maintenance of the home squadron, then he would go for it; but if it were found to be utterly useless, as he believed, then he was decidedly against it. But he would give this further notice; that he did not mean to stop here; that when the appropriations should come up, he intended to propose to limit those appropriations to a sum sufficient only to support the squadron stationed in the Mediterranean. It was entirely useless for this country to endeavor to contend with monarchies in keeping up the pageantry of a naval establishment."

The proposed inquiry produced no result, only ending in demonstrating what was well known to the older members, namely, the difficulty, and almost impossibility of introducing any reform, or economy into the administration of any department of the government unless the Executive takes the lead. And of this truth a striking instance occurred at this session and upon this subject. The executive government, that is to say, the President and his Secretary of the Navy had made a lawless expenditure of about $700,000 during the recess of Congress; and Congress under a moral duress, was compelled to adopt that expenditure as its own, and make it good. When the clause in the naval appropriation bill for covering this item, was under consideration, Mr. Ezra Dean, of Ohio, stood up and said:

"It was nothing less than a bill making appropriations to the amount of $750,000 which had been expended by the department in virtue of its own will and pleasure, and without the sanction of any law whatever; and the House was called on to approve this proceeding. He had supposed that any department which took upon itself the power of expending the public money, without authority of law, would have been subjected to the severest rebuke of Congress. He had supposed that this would have been a reform Congress, and that all the abuses of this administration would be ferreted out and corrected; but in this he had been grievously disappointed. He had endeavored to get the consent of the House to take up the navy retrenchment bill, which would correct all these abuses, but he had been mistaken; and so far from being able to get the bill before the House, he had been unable even to get the yeas and nays on the question of taking it up. There was great reason for this. This Navy Department had been for the last two years the great vortex which had swallowed up two-thirds of the revenues of the government. In 1840, a law was passed that no money should be expended for the building of ships without the express sanction of Congress; and yet, in defiance of this law, the Navy Department had gone on to build an iron steamship at Pittsburg, and six sloops-of-war; and he was told that part of the appropriations in this bill were to complete these vessels. Mr. D. then spoke of the utter uselessness of these steamships on the western waters, and referred to the number of ships that were now rotting for want of use, both on the stocks and laid up in ordinary; and particularly referred to the magnificent ship Delaware, which had just returned from a cruise, and was dismantled, and laid up to rot at Norfolk, while the department was clamorous for building more ships. There were not only more ships now built and building than could be used, but there were three times as many officers as could be employed. There were 96 commanders, with salaries of $3,500 a-year, while there was only employment for 38 of them; and there were 68 captains, while there was only employment for but 18. He then referred to the number of officers waiting orders, and on leave of absence, and said that the country would be astonished to learn, that for such officers, the country was now paying $283,700 a year; and that, by referring to the records of the Navy Department, it would be found that for the last twenty years, more than half of the officers of the navy were drawing their pay and emoluments while at home, on leave of absence, or waiting orders. Mr. D. spoke of many other abuses in the navy, which he said required correction, and expressed his great regret that he had not been able to get the House to act on his navy retrenchment bill."

Mr. McKay, of North Carolina, who was the chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, whose duty it became to present this item in the appropriation bill, fully admitted its illegality and wastefulness; but plead the necessity of providing for its payment, as the money had been earned by work and labor done on the faith of the government, and to withhold payment would be a wrong to laborers, and no punishment to the officers who had occasioned the illegal expenditure. A high officer had done this wrong. He was ready to join in a vote of censure upon him: but to repudiate the debt, and leave laboring people without pay for their work and materials was what he could not do. And thus ended the session with sanctioning an abuse of $700,000 in one item in the navy, which session had opened with a manly attempt to correct some of its extravagances. And thus have ended all similar attempts since. A powerful combined interest pushes forward an augmented navy, without regard to any object but their own interest in it. First, the politicians who raise a clamor of war at the return of each presidential canvass, and a cry for ships to carry it on. Next, the naval officers, who are always in favor of more ships to give more commands. And, thirdly, the contractors who are to build these ships, and get rich upon their contracts. These three parties combine to build ships, and Congress becomes a helpless instrument in their hands. The friends of economy, and of a wise national policy, which prefers cruisers and privateers to ships of the line, may deliver their complaints in vain. Ship building, and ship rotting, goes on unchecked, and even with accelerated speed; and must continue to so go on until the enormity of the abuse produces a revulsion which, in curing the abuse may nearly kill the navy itself.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

CXXXIII. PROFESSOR MORSE: HIS ELECTRO-MAGNETIC TELEGRAPH

Communication of intelligence by concerted signals is as old as the human race, and by all, except the white race, remains where it was six thousand years ago. The smokes raised on successive hills to give warning of the approach of strangers, or enemies, were found to be the same by Frémont in his western explorations which were described by Herodotus as used for the same purpose by the barbarian nations of his time: the white race alone has made advances upon that rude and imperfect mode of communication, and brought the art to a marvellous perfection, but only after the intervention of thousands of years. It was not until the siege of Vienna by the Turks, that the very limited intelligence between the besieged in a city and their friends outside, was established by the telegraph: and it was not until the breaking out of the French revolution that that mode of intelligence was applied to the centre and to the circumference of a country: and at that point it was stationary for fifty years. It was reserved for our own day, and our own country to make the improvement which annihilates distance, which disregards weather and darkness, and which rivals the tongue and the pen in the precision and infinitude of its messages. Dr. Franklin first broached the idea of using electricity for communicating intelligence: Professor Morse gave practical application to his idea. This gentleman was a portrait painter by profession, and had been to Europe to perfect himself in his art. Returning in the autumn of 1832, and while making the voyage, the recent discoveries and experiments in electro-magnetism, and the affinity of electricity to magnetism, or rather their probable identity, became a subject of casual conversation between himself and a few of the passengers. It had recently been discovered that an electric spark could be obtained from a magnet, and this discovery had introduced a new branch of science, to wit: magneto-electricity. Dr. Franklin's experiments on the velocity of electricity, exceeding that of light, and exceeding 180,000 miles in a moment, the feasibility of making electricity the means of telegraphic intercourse, that is to say of writing at a distance, struck him with great force, and became the absorbing subject of his meditations. The idea of telegraphing by electricity was new to him. Fortunately he did not know that some eminent philosophers had before conceived the same idea, but without inventing a plan by which the thought could be realized. Knowing nothing of their ideas, he was not embarrassed or impeded by the false lights of their mistakes. As the idea was original with him, so was his plan. All previous modes of telegraphing had been by evanescent signs: the distinctive feature of Morse's plan was the self-recording property of the apparatus, with its ordinarily inseparable characteristic of audible clicks, answering the purposes of speech; for, in impressing the characters, the sounds emitted by the machinery gave notice of each that was struck, as well understood by the practised ear as the recorded language was by the eye. In this he became the inventor of a new art--the art of telegraphic recording, or imprinting characters telegraphically.

Mr. Morse then had his invention complete in his head, and his labor then begun to construct the machinery and types to reduce it to practice, in which having succeeded to the entire satisfaction of a limited number of observers in the years 1836 and '37, he laid it before Congress in the year 1838, made an exhibit of its working before a committee, and received a favorable report. Much time was then lost in vain efforts to procure patents in England and France, and returning to Congress in 1842, an appropriation of $30,000 was asked for to enable the inventor to test his discovery on a line of forty miles, between Washington and Baltimore. The appropriation was granted--the preparations completed by the spring of 1844, and messages exchanged instantaneously between the two points. The line was soon extended to New York, and since so multiplied, that the Morse electro-magnetic telegraph now works over 80,000 miles in America and 50,000 in Europe. It is one of the marvellous results of science, putting people who are thousands of miles apart in instant communication with the accuracy of a face to face conversation. Its wonderful advantages are felt in social, political, commercial and military communications, and, in conjunction with the steam car, is destined to work a total revolution in the art of defensive warfare. It puts an end to defensive war on the ocean, to the necessity of fortifications, except to delay for a few days the bombardment of a city. The approach of invaders upon any point, telegraphed through the country, brings down in the flying cars myriads of citizen soldiers, arms in hand and provisions in abundance, to overwhelm with numbers any possible invading force. It will dispense with fleets and standing armies, and all the vast, cumbrous, and expensive machinery of a modern army. Far from dreading an invasion, the telegraph and the car may defy and dare it--may invite any number of foreign troops to land--and assure the whole of them of death or captivity, from myriads of volunteers launched upon them hourly from the first moment of landing until the last invader is a corpse or a prisoner.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

CXXXIV. FREMONT'S SECOND EXPEDITION

"The government deserves credit for the zeal with which it has pursued geographical discovery." Such is the remark which a leading paper made upon the discoveries of Frémont, on his return from his second expedition to the Great West; and such is the remark which all writers will make upon all his discoveries who write history from public documents and outside views. With all such writers the expeditions of Frémont will be credited to the zeal of the government for the promotion of science; as if the government under which he acted had conceived and planned these expeditions, as Mr. Jefferson did that of Lewis and Clark, and then selected this young officer to carry into effect the instructions delivered to him. How far such history would be true in relation to the first expedition, which terminated in the Rocky Mountains, has been seen in the account which has been given of the origin of that undertaking, and which leaves the government innocent of its conception; and, therefore, not entitled to the credit of its authorship, but only to the merit of permitting it. In the second, and greater expedition, from which great political as well as scientific results have flowed, their merit is still less; for, while equally innocent of its conception, they were not equally passive to its performance--countermanding the expedition after it had begun; and lavishing censure upon the adventurous young explorer for his manner of undertaking it. The fact was, that his first expedition barely finished, Mr. Frémont sought and obtained orders for a second one, and was on the frontier of Missouri with his command when orders arrived at St. Louis to stop him, on the ground that he had made a military equipment which the peaceful nature of his geographical pursuit did not require! as if Indians did not kill and rob scientific men as well as others if not in a condition to defend themselves. The particular point of complaint was that he had taken a small mountain howitzer, in addition to his rifles: and which, he was informed, was charged to him, although it had been furnished upon a regular requisition on the commandant of the Arsenal at St. Louis, approved by the commander of the military department (Colonel, afterwards General Kearney). Mr. Frémont had left St. Louis, and was at the frontier, Mrs. Frémont being requested to examine the letters that came after him, and forward those which he ought to receive. She read the countermanding orders, and detained them! and Frémont knew nothing of their existence until after he had returned from one of the most marvellous and eventful expeditions of modern times--one to which the United States are indebted (among other things) for the present ownership of California, instead of seeing it a British possession. The writer of this View, who was then in St. Louis, approved of the course which his daughter had taken (for she had stopped the orders before he knew of it); and he wrote a letter to the department condemning the recall, repulsing the reprimand which had been lavished upon Frémont, and demanding a court-martial for him when he should return. The Secretary at War was then Mr. James Madison Porter, of Pennsylvania; the chief of the Topographical corps the same as now (Colonel Aberts), himself an office man, surrounded by West Point officers, to whose pursuit of easy service Frémont's adventurous expeditions was a reproach; and in conformity to whose opinions the secretary seemed to have acted. On Frémont's return, upwards of a year afterwards, Mr. William Wilkins, of Pennsylvania, was Secretary at War, and received the young explorer with all honor and friendship, and obtained for him the brevet of captain from President Tyler. And such is the inside view of this piece of history--very different from what documentary evidence would make it.

To complete his survey across the continent, on the line of travel between the State of Missouri and the tide-water region of the Columbia, was Frémont's object in this expedition; and it was all that he had obtained orders for doing; but only a small part, and to his mind, an insignificant part, of what he proposed doing. People had been to the mouth of the Columbia before, and his ambition was not limited to making tracks where others had made them before him. There was a vast region beyond the Rocky Mountains--the whole western slope of our continent--of which but little was known; and of that little, nothing with the accuracy of science. All that vast region, more than seven hundred miles square--equal to a great kingdom in Europe--was an unknown land--a sealed book, which he longed to open, and to read. Leaving the frontier of Missouri in May, 1843, and often diverging from his route for the sake of expanding his field of observation, he had arrived in the tide-water region of Columbia in the month of November; and had then completed the whole service which his orders embraced. He might then have returned upon his tracks, or been brought home by sea, or hunted the most pleasant path for getting back; and if he had been a routine officer, satisfied with fulfilling an order, he would have done so. Not so the young explorer who held his diploma from Nature, and not from the United States' Military Academy. He was at Fort Vancouver, guest of the hospitable Dr. McLaughlin, Governor of the British Hudson Bay Fur Company; and obtained from him all possible information upon his intended line of return--faithfully given, but which proved to be disastrously erroneous in its leading and governing feature. A southeast route to cross the great unknown region diagonally through its heart (making a line from the Lower Columbia to the Upper Colorado of the Gulf of California), was his line of return: twenty-five men (the same who had come with him from the United States) and a hundred horses, were his equipment; and the commencement of winter the time of starting--all with out a guide, relying upon their guns for support; and, in the last resort, upon their horses--such as should give out! for one that could carry a man, or a pack, could not be spared for food.

All the maps up to that time had shown this region traversed from east to west--from the base of the Rocky Mountains to the Bay of San Francisco--by a great river called the Buena Ventura: which may be translated, the Good Chance. Governor McLaughlin believed in the existence of this river, and made out a conjectural manuscript map to show its place and course. Frémont believed in it, and his plan was to reach it before the dead of winter, and then hybernate upon it. As a great river, he knew that it must have some rich bottoms; covered with wood and grass, where the wild animals would collect and shelter, when the snows and freezing winds drove them from the plains: and with these animals to live on, and grass for the horses, and wood for fires, he expected to avoid suffering, if not to enjoy comfort, during his solitary sojourn in that remote and profound wilderness. He proceeded--soon encountered deep snows which impeded progress upon the high lands--descended into a low country to the left (afterwards known to be the Great Basin, from which no water issues to any sea)--skirted an enormous chain of mountain on the right, luminous with glittering white snow--saw strange Indians, who mostly fled--found a desert--no Buena Ventura: and death from cold and famine staring him in the face. The failure to find the river, or tidings of it, and the possibility of its existence seeming to be forbid by the structure of the country, and hybernation in the inhospitable desert being impossible, and the question being that of life and death, some new plan of conduct became indispensable. His celestial observations told him that he was in the latitude of the Bay of San Francisco, and only seventy miles from it. But what miles! up and down that snowy mountain which the Indians told him no men could cross in the winter--which would have snow upon it as deep as the trees, and places where people would slip off, and fall half a mile at a time;--a fate which actually befell a mule, packed with the precious burden of botanical specimens, collected along a travel of two thousand miles. No reward could induce an Indian to become a guide in the perilous adventure of crossing this mountain. All recoiled and fled from the adventure. It was attempted without a guide--in the dead of winter--accomplished in forty days--the men and surviving horses--a woful procession, crawling along one by one: skeleton men leading skeleton horses--and arriving at Suter's Settlement in the beautiful valley of the Sacramento; and where a genial warmth, and budding flowers, and trees in foliage, and grassy ground, and flowing streams, and comfortable food, made a fairy contrast with the famine and freezing they had encountered, and the lofty Sierra Nevada which they had climbed. Here he rested and recruited; and from this point, and by way of Monterey, the first tidings were heard of the party since leaving Fort Vancouver.

Another long progress to the south, skirting the western base of the Sierra Nevada, made him acquainted with the noble valley of the San Joaquin, counterpart to that of the Sacramento; when crossing through a gap and turning to the left, he skirted the Great Basin; and, by many deviations from the right line home, levied incessant contributions to science from expanded lands, not described before. In this eventful exploration all the great features of the western slope of our continent were brought to light--the Great Salt Lake, the Utah Lake, the Little Salt Lake; at all which places, then desert, the Mormons now are; the Sierra Nevada, then solitary in the snow, now crowded with Americans, digging gold from its flanks; the beautiful valleys of the Sacramento and San Joaquin, then alive with wild horses, elk, deer, and wild fowls, now smiling with American cultivation; the Great Basin itself, and its contents; the Three Parks; the approximation of the great rivers which, rising together in the central region of the Rocky Mountains, go off east and west, towards the rising and the setting sun:--all these, and other strange features of a new region, more Asiatic than American, were brought to light, and revealed to public view in the results of this exploration. Eleven months he was never out of sight of snow; and sometimes, freezing with cold, would look down upon a sunny valley, warm with genial heat;--sometimes panting with the summer's heat, would look up at the eternal snows which crowned the neighboring mountain. But it was not then that California was secured to the Union--to the greatest power of the New World--to which it of right belonged: but it was the first step towards the acquisition, and the one that led to it. That second expedition led to a third, just in time to snatch the golden California from the hands of the British, ready to clutch it. But of this hereafter. Frémont's second expedition was now over. He had left the United States a fugitive from his government, and returned with a name that went over Europe and America, and with discoveries bearing fruit which the civilized world is now enjoying.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

Chapter CXXXV

TEXAS ANNEXATION: SECRET ORIGIN; BOLD INTRIGUE FOR THE PRESIDENCY.

In the winter of 1842-'3, nearly two years before the presidential election, there appeared in a Baltimore newspaper an elaborately composed letter on the annexation of Texas, written by Mr. Gilmer, a member of Congress from Virginia, urging the immediate annexation, as necessary to forestall the designs of Great Britain upon that young country. These designs, it was alleged, aimed at a political and military domination on our south-western border, with a view to abolition and hostile movements against us; and the practical part of the letter was an earnest appeal to the American people to annex the Texas republic immediately, as the only means of preventing such great calamities. This letter was a clap of thunder in a clear sky. There was nothing in the political horizon to announce or portend it. Great Britain had given no symptom of any disposition to war upon us, or to excite insurrection among our slaves. Texas and Mexico were at war, and to annex the country was to adopt the war: far from hastening annexation, an event desirable in itself when it could be honestly done, a premature and ill-judged attempt, upon groundless pretexts, could only clog and delay it. There was nothing in the position of Mr. Gilmer to make him a prime mover in the annexation scheme; and there was much in his connections with Mr. Calhoun to make him the reflector of that gentleman's opinions. The letter itself was a counterpart of the movement made by Mr. Calhoun in the Senate, in 1836, to bring the Texas question into the presidential election of that year; its arguments were the amplification of the seminal ideas then presented by that gentleman: and it was his known habit to operate through others. Mr. Gilmer was a close political friend, and known as a promulgator of his doctrines--having been the first to advocate nullification in Virginia.

Putting all these circumstances together, I believed, the moment I saw it, that I discerned the finger of Mr. Calhoun in that letter, and that an enterprise of some kind was on foot for the next presidential election--though still so far off. I therefore put an eye on the movement, and by observing the progress of the letter, the papers in which it was republished, their comments, the encomiums which it received, and the public meetings in which it was commended, I became satisfied that there was no mistake in referring its origin to that gentleman; and became convinced that this movement was the resumption of the premature and abortive attempt of 1836. In the course of the summer of 1843, it had been taken up generally in the circle of Mr. Calhoun's friends, and with the zeal and pertinacity which betrayed the spirit of a presidential canvass. Coincident with these symptoms, and indicative of a determined movement on the Texas question, was a pregnant circumstance in the executive branch of the government. Mr. Webster, who had been prevailed upon to remain in Mr. Tyler's cabinet when all his colleagues of 1841 left their places, now resigned his place, also--induced, as it was well known, by the altered deportment of the President towards him; and was succeeded first by Mr. Legare, of South Carolina, and, on his early death, by Mr. Upshur, of Virginia.

Mr. Webster was inflexibly opposed to the Texas annexation, and also to the presidential elevation of Mr. Calhoun; the two gentlemen, his successors, were both favorable to annexation, and one (Mr. Upshur) extremely so to Mr. Calhoun; so that, here were two steps taken in the suspected direction--an obstacle removed and a facility substituted. This change in the head of the State Department, upon whatever motive produced, was indispensable to the success of the Texas movement, and could only have been made for some great cause never yet explained, seeing the service which Mr. Webster did Mr. Tyler in remaining with him when the other ministers withdrew. Another sign appeared in the conduct of the President himself. He was undergoing another change. Long a democrat, and successful in getting office at that, he had become a whig, and with still greater success. Democracy had carried him to the Senate; whiggism elevated him to the vice-presidency; and, with the help of an accident, to the presidency. He was now settling back, as shown in a previous chapter, towards his original party, but that wing of it which had gone off with Mr. Calhoun in the nullification war--a natural line of retrogression on his part, as he had travelled it in his transit from the democratic to the whig camp. The papers in his interest became rampant for Texas; and in the course of the autumn, the rumor became current and steady that negotiations were in progress for the annexation, and that success was certain.

Arriving at Washington at the commencement of the session of 1843-'44, and descending the steps of the Capitol in a throng of members on the evening of the first day's sitting, I was accosted by Mr. Aaron V. Brown, a representative from Tennessee, with expressions of great gratification at meeting with me so soon; and who immediately showed the cause of his gratification to be the opportunity it afforded him to speak to me on the subject of the Texas annexation. He spoke of it as an impending and probable event--complimented me on my early opposition to the relinquishment of that country, and my subsequent efforts to get it back, and did me the honor to say that, as such original enemy to its loss and early advocate of its recovery, I was a proper person to take a prominent part in now getting it back. All this was very civil and quite reasonable, and, at another time and under other circumstances, would have been entirely agreeable to me; but preoccupied as my mind was with the idea of an intrigue for the presidency, and a land and scrip speculation which I saw mixing itself up with it, and feeling as if I was to be made an instrument in these schemes, I took fire at his words, and answered abruptly and hotly: That it was, on the part of some, an intrigue for the presidency and a plot to dissolve the Union--on the part of others, a Texas scrip and land speculation; and that I was against it.

This answer went into the newspapers, and was much noticed at the time, and immediately set up a high wall between me and the annexation party. I had no thought at the time that Mr. Brown had been moved by anybody to sound me, and presently regretted the warmth with which I had replied to him--especially as no part of what I said was intended to apply to him. The occurrence gave rise to some sharp words at one another afterwards, which, so far as they were sharp on my part, I have since condemned, and do not now repeat.

Some three months afterwards there appeared in the Richmond Enquirer a letter from General Jackson to Mr. Brown, in answer to one from Mr. Brown to the general, covering a copy of Mr. Gilmer's Texas letter, and asking the favor of his (the general's) opinion upon it: which he promptly and decidedly gave, and fully in favor of its object. Here was a revelation and a coincidence which struck me, and put my mind to thinking, and opened up a new vein of exploration, into which I went to work, and worked on until I obtained the secret history of the famous "Jackson Texas letter" (as it came to be called), and which played so large a part in the Texas annexation question, and in the presidential election of 1844; and which drew so much applause upon the general from many who had so lately and so bitterly condemned him. This history I now propose to give, confining the narrative to the intrigue for the presidential nomination, leaving the history of the attempted annexation (treaty of 1844) for a separate chapter, or rather chapters; for it was an enterprise of many aspects, according to the taste of different actors--presidential, disunion, speculation.

The outline of this history--that of the letter--is brief and authentic; and, although well covered up at the time, was known to too many to remain covered up long. It was partly made known to me at the time, and fully since. It runs thus:

Mr. Calhoun, in 1841-'2, had resumed his design (intermitted in 1840) to stand for the presidency, and determined to make the annexation of Texas--immediate annexation--the controlling issue in the election. The death of President Harrison in 1841, and the retreat of his whig ministers, and the accession of his friends to power in the person of Mr. Tyler (then settling back to his old love), and in the persons of some of his cabinet, opened up to his view the prospect of a successful enterprise in that direction; and he fully embraced it, and without discouragement from the similar budding hopes of Mr. Tyler himself, which it was known would be without fruit, except what Mr. Calhoun would gather--the ascendant of his genius assuring him the mastery when he should choose to assume it. His real competitors (foreseen to be Mr. Van Buren and Mr. Clay) were sure to be against it--immediate annexation--and they would have a heavy current to encounter, all the South and West being for the annexation, and a strong interest, also, in other parts of the Union. There was a basis to build upon in the honest feelings of the people, and inflammatory arguments to excite them; and if the opinion of General Jackson could be obtained in its favor, the election of the annexation candidate was deemed certain.

With this view the Gilmer letter was composed and published, and sent to him--and was admirably conceived for his purpose. It took the veteran patriot on the side of his strong feelings--love of country and the Union--distrust of Great Britain--and a southern susceptibility to the dangers of a servile insurrection. It carried him back to the theatre of his glory--the Lower Mississippi--and awakened his apprehensions for the safety of that most vulnerable point of our frontier. Justly and truly, but with a refinement of artifice in this case, it presented annexation as a strengthening plaster to the Union, while really intended to sectionalize it, and to effect disunion if the annexation failed. This idea of strengthening the Union had, and in itself deserved to have, an invincible charm for the veteran patriot. Besides, the recovery of Texas was in the line of his policy, pursued by him as a favorite object during his administration; and this desire to get back that country, patriotic in itself, was entirely compatible with his acquiescence in its relinquishment as a temporary sacrifice in 1819; an acquiescence induced by the "domestic" reason communicated to him by Mr. Monroe.

The great point in sending the Gilmer letter to him, with its portents of danger from British designs, was to obtain from him the expression of an opinion in favor of "immediate" annexation. No other opinion would do any good. A future annexation, no matter how soon after 1844, would carry the question beyond the presidential election, and would fall in with the known opinions of Mr. Van Buren and Mr. Clay, and most other American statesmen, the common sentiment being for annexation, when it could be honestly accomplished. Such annexation would make no issue at all. It would throw Texas out of the canvass. Immediate was, therefore, the game; and to bring General Jackson to that point was the object. To do that, the danger of British occupation was presented as being so imminent as to admit of no delay, and so disastrous in its consequences as to preclude all consideration of present objections. It was a bold conception, and of critical execution. Jackson was one of the last men in the world to be tampered with--one of the last to be used against a friend or for a foe--the very last to be willing to see Mr. Calhoun President--and the very first in favor of Mr. Van Buren. To turn him against his nature and his feelings in all these particulars was a perilous enterprise: but it was attempted--and accomplished.

It has already been shown that the letter of Mr. Gilmer was skilfully composed for its purpose: all the accessories of its publication and transmission to General Jackson were equally skilfully contrived. It was addressed to a friend in Maryland, which was in the opposite direction from the locus of its origin. It was drawn out upon the call of a friend: that is the technical way of getting a private letter before the public. It was published in Baltimore--a city where its writer did not live. The name of the friend in Maryland who drew it out, was concealed; and that was necessary to the success of the scheme, as the name of this suspected friend (Mr. Duff Green) would have fastened its origin on Mr. Calhoun. And thus the accessories of the publication were complete, and left the mind without suspicion that the letter had germinated in a warm southern latitude. It was then ready to start on its mission to General Jackson; but how to get it there, without exciting suspicion, was the question. Certainly Mr. Gilmer would have been the natural agent for the transmission of his own letter; but he stood too close to Mr. Calhoun--was too much his friend and intimate--to make that a safe adventure. A medium was wanted, which would be a conductor of the letter and a non-conductor of suspicion; and it was found in the person of Mr. Aaron V. Brown. But he was the friend of Mr. Van Buren, and it was necessary to approach him through a medium also, and one was found in one of Mr. Gilmer's colleagues--believed to be Mr. Hopkins, of the House, who came from near the Tennessee line; and through him the letter reached Mr. Brown.

And thus, conceived by one, written by another, published by a third, and transmitted through two successive mediums, the missive went upon its destination, and arrived safely in the hands of General Jackson. It had a complete success. He answered it promptly, warmly, decidedly, affirmatively. So fully did it put him up to the point of "immediate" annexation, that his impatience outstripped expectation. He counselled haste--considered the present the accepted time--and urged the seizure of the "golden opportunity" which, if lost now, might never return. The answer was dated at the Hermitage, March 12th, 1843, and was received at Washington as soon as the mail could fetch it. Of course it came to Mr. Brown, to whom it belonged, and to whom it was addressed; but I did not hear of it in his hands. My first information of it was in the hands of Mr. Gilmer, in the hall of the House, immediately after its arrival--he, crossing the hall with the letter in his hand, greatly elated, and showing it to a confidential friend, with many expressions of now confident triumph over Mr. Van Buren. The friend was permitted to read the letter, but with the understanding that nothing was to be said about it at that time.

Mr. Gilmer then explained to his friend the purpose for which this letter had been written and sent to General Jackson, and the use that was intended to be made of his answer (if favorable to the design of the authors), which use was this: It was to be produced in the nominating convention, to overthrow Mr. Van Buren, and give Mr. Calhoun the nomination, both of whom were to be interrogated beforehand; and as it was well known what the answers would be--Calhoun for and Van Buren against immediate annexation--and Jackson's answer coinciding with Calhoun's, would turn the scale in his favor, "and blow Van Buren sky high."

This was the plan, and this the state of the game, at the end of February, 1843; but a great deal remained to be done to perfect the scheme. The sentiment of the democratic party was nearly unanimous for Mr. Van Buren, and time was wanted to undermine that sentiment. Public opinion was not yet ripe for immediate annexation, and time was wanted to cultivate that opinion. There was no evidence of any British domination or abolition plot in Texas, and time was wanted to import one from London. All these operations required time--more of it than intervened before the customary period for the meeting of the convention. That period had been the month of December preceding the year of the election, and Baltimore the place for these assemblages since Congress presidential caucuses had been broken down--that near position to Washington being chosen for the convenient attendance of that part of the members of Congress who charged themselves with these elections. If December remained the period for the meeting, there would be no time for the large operations which required to be performed; for, to get the delegates there in time, they must be elected beforehand, during the summer--so that the working season of the intriguers would be reduced to a few months, when upwards of a year was required. To gain that time was the first object, and a squad of members, some in the interest of Mr. Calhoun, some professing friendship to Mr. Van Buren, but secretly hostile to him, sat privately in the Capitol, almost nightly, corresponding with all parts of the country, to get the convention postponed. All sorts of patriotic motives were assigned for this desired postponement, as that it would be more convenient for the delegates to attend--nearer to the time of election--more time for public opinion to mature; and most favorable to deliberate decision. But another device was fallen upon to obtain delay, the secret of which was not put into the letters, nor confided to the body of the nightly committee. It had so happened that the opposite party--the whigs--since the rout of the Congress presidential caucuses, had also taken the same time and place for their conventions--December, and Baltimore--and doubtless for the same reason, that of the more convenient attending of the President-making members of Congress; and this led to an intrigue with the whigs, the knowledge of which was confined to a very few. It was believed that the democratic convention could be the more readily put off if the whigs would do the like--and do it first.

There was a committee within the committee--a little nest of head managers--who undertook this collusive arrangement with the whigs. They proposed it to them, professing to act in the interest of Mr. Calhoun, though in fact against him, as well as against Mr. Van Buren. The whigs readily agreed to this proposal, because, being themselves then unanimous for Mr. Clay, it made no difference at what time he should be nominated; and believing they could more easily defeat Mr. Calhoun than Mr. Van Buren, they preferred him for an antagonist. They therefore agreed to the delay, and both conventions were put off (and the whigs first, to enable the democrats to plead it) from December, 1843, to May, 1844. Time for operating having now been gained, the night squad in the Capitol redoubled their activity to work upon the people. Letter writers and newspapers were secured. Good, easy members, were plied with specious reasons--slippery ones were directly approached. Visitors from the States were beset and indoctrinated. Men were picked out to operate on the selfish, and the calculating; and myriads of letters were sent to the States, to editors, and politicians. All these agents worked to a pattern, the primary object being to undo public sentiment in favor of Mr. Van Buren, and to manufacture one, ostensibly in favor of Mr. Calhoun, but in reality without being for him--they being for any one of four (Mr. Cass, Mr. Buchanan, Colonel Johnson, Mr. Tyler), in preference to either of them. They were for neither, and the only difference was that Mr. Calhoun believed they were for him: Mr. Van Buren knew they were against him. They professed friendship for him; and that was necessary to enable them to undermine him. The stress of the argument against him was that he could not be elected, and the effort was to make good that assertion. Now, or never, was the word with respect to Texas. Some of the squad sympathized with the speculators in Texas land and scrip; and to these Mr. Calhoun was no more palatable than Mr. Van Buren. They were both above plunder. Some wanted office, and knew that neither of these gentlemen would give it to them. They had a difficult as well as tortuous part to play. Professing democracy, they colluded with whigs. Professing friendship to Mr. Van Buren, they co-operated with Mr. Calhoun's friends to defeat him. Co-operating with Mr. Calhoun's friends, they were against his election. They were for any body in preference to either, and especially for men of easy temperaments, whose principles were not entrenched behind strong wills. To undo public sentiment in favor of Mr. Van Buren was their labor; to get unpledged and uninstructed delegates into convention, and to get those released who had been appointed under instructions, was the consummation of their policy. A convention untrammelled by instructions, independent of the people, and open to the machinations of a few politicians, was what was wanted. The efforts to accomplish these purposes were prodigious, and constituted the absorbing night and day work of the members engaged in it. After all, they had but indifferent success--more with politicians and editors than with the people. Mr. Van Buren was almost universally preferred. Delegates were generally instructed to support his nomination. Even in the Southern States, in direct question between himself and Mr. Calhoun, he was preferred--as in Alabama and Mississippi. No delegates were released from their instructions by any competent authority, and only a few in any, by clusters of local politicians, convenient to the machinations of the committee in the Capitol--as at Shockoe Hill, Richmond, Virginia, where Mr. Ritchie, editor of the Enquirer (whose proclivity to be deceived in a crisis was generally equivalent in its effects to positive treachery), led the way--himself impelled by others.

The labors of the committee, though intended to be secret, and confined to a small circle, and chiefly carried on in the night, were subject to be discovered; and were so; and the discovery led to some public denunciations. The two senators from Ohio, Messrs. William Allen, and Tappan, and ten of the representatives from that State, published a card in the Globe newspaper, denouncing it as a conspiracy to defeat the will of the people. The whole delegation from South Carolina (Messrs. McDuffie and Huger, senators, and the seven representatives), fearing that they might be suspected on account of their friendship for Mr. Calhoun, published a card denying all connection with the committee; an unnecessary precaution, as their characters were above that suspicion. Many other members published cards, denying their participation in these meetings; and some, admitting the participation, denied the intrigue, and truly, as it concerned themselves; for all the disreputable part was kept secret from them--especially the collusion with the whigs, and all the mysteries of the Gilmer letter. Many of them were sincere friends of Mr. Van Buren, but deceived and cheated themselves, while made the instrument of deceiving and cheating others. It was probably one of the most elaborate pieces of political cheatery that has ever been performed in a free country, and well worthy to be studied by all who would wish to extend their knowledge of the manner in which presidential elections may be managed, and who would wish to see the purity of elections preserved and vindicated.

About this time came an occurrence well calculated to make a pause, if any thing could make a pause, in the working of political ambition. The explosion of the great gun on board the Princeton steamer took place, killing, among others, two of Mr. Tyler's cabinet (Mr. Upshur and Mr. Gilmer), both deeply engaged in the Texas project--barely failing to kill Mr. Tyler, who was called back in the critical moment, and who had embraced the Texas scheme with more than vicarious zeal; and also barely failing to kill the writer of this View, who was standing at the breech of the gun, closely observing its working, as well as that of the Texas game, and who fell among the killed and stunned, fortunately to rise again. Commodore Kennon, Mr. Virgil Maxcy, Mr. Gardiner, of New York, father-in-law (that was to be) of the President, were also killed; a dozen seamen were wounded, and Commodore Stockton burnt and scorched as he stood at the side of the gun. Such an occurrence was well calculated to impress upon the survivors the truth of the divine admonition: "What shadows we are--what shadows we pursue." But it had no effect upon the pursuit of the presidential shadow. Instantly Mr. Calhoun was invited to take Mr. Upshur's place in the Department of State, and took it with an alacrity, and with a patronizing declaration, which showed his zeal for the Texas movement, and as good as avowed its paternity. He declared he took the place for the Texas negotiation alone, and would quit it as soon as that negotiation should be finished. In brief, the negotiation, instead of pausing in the presence of so awful a catastrophe, seemed to derive new life from it, and to go forward with accelerated impetuosity. Mr. Calhoun put his eager activity into it: politicians became more vehement--newspapers more clamorous: the interested classes (land and scrip speculators) swarmed at Washington; and Mr. Tyler embraced the scheme with a fervor which induced the suspicion that he had adopted the game for his own, and intended to stand a cast of the presidential die upon it.

The machinations of the committee, though greatly successful with individuals, and with the politicians with whom they could communicate, did not reach the masses, who remained firm to Mr. Van Buren; and it became necessary to fall upon some new means of acting upon them. This led to a different use of the Jackson Texas letter from what had been intended. It was intended to have been kept in the background, a secret in the hands of its possessors, until the meeting of the convention--then suddenly produced to turn the scale between Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Van Buren; and this design had been adhered to for about the space of a year, and the letter kept close: it was then recurred to as a means of rousing the masses.

Jackson's name was potential with the people, and it was deemed indispensable to bring it to bear upon them. The publication of the letter was resolved upon, and the Globe newspaper selected for the purpose, and Mr. Aaron V. Brown to have it done. All this was judicious and regular. The Globe had been the organ of General Jackson, and was therefore the most proper paper to bring his sentiments before the public. It was the advocate of Mr. Van Buren's election, and therefore would prevent the suspicion of sinistrous design upon him. Mr. Brown was the legal owner of the letter, and a professing friend of Mr. Van Buren, and, therefore, the proper person to carry it for publication.

He did so; but the editor, Mr. Blair, seeing no good that it could do Mr. Van Buren, but, on the contrary, harm, and being sincerely his friend, declined to publish it; and, after examination, delivered it back to Mr. Brown. Shortly thereafter, to wit, on the 22d of March, 1844, it appeared in the Richmond Enquirer, post-dated, that is to say, the date of 1843 changed into 1844--whether by design or accident is not known; but the post-date gave the letter a fresher appearance, and a more vigorous application to the Texas question. The fact that this letter had got back to Mr. Brown, after having been given up to Mr. Gilmer, proved that the letter travelled in a circle while kept secret, and went from hand to hand among the initiated, as needed for use.

The time had now come for the interrogation of the candidates, and it was done with all the tact which the delicate function required. The choice of the interrogator was the first point. He must be a friend, ostensible if not real, to the party interrogated. If real, he must himself be deceived, and made to believe that he was performing a kindly service; if not, he must still have the appearance. And for Mr. Van Buren's benefit a suitable performer was found in the person of Mr. Hamett, a representative in Congress from Mississippi, whose letter was a model for the occasion, and, in fact has been pretty well followed since. It abounded in professions of friendship to Mr. Van Buren--approached him for his own good--sought his opinion from the best of motives; and urged a categorical reply, for or against, immediate annexation. The sagacious Mr. Van Buren was no dupe of this contrivance, but took counsel from what was due to himself; and answered with candor, decorum and dignity. He was against immediate annexation, because it was war with Mexico, but for it when it could be done peaceably and honorably: and he was able to present a very fair record, having been in favor of getting back the country (in a way to avoid difficulties with Mexico) when Secretary of State, under President Jackson. His letter was sent to a small circle of friends at Washington before it was delivered to its address; but to be delivered immediately; which was done, and soon went into the papers.

Mr. Calhoun had superseded the necessity of interrogation in his letter of acceptance of the State Department: he was a hot annexationist, although there was an ugly record to be exhibited against him. In his almost thirty years of public life he had never touched Texas, except for his own purposes. In 1819, as one of Mr. Monroe's cabinet, he had concurred in giving it away, in order to conciliate the anti-slavery interest in the Northeast by curtailing slave territory in the Southwest. In 1836 he moved her immature annexation, in order to bring the question into the presidential election of that year, to the prejudice of Mr. Van Buren; and urged instant action, because delay was dangerous. Having joined Mr. Van Buren after his election, and expecting to become his successor, he dropped the annexation for which he had been so impatient, and let the election of 1840 pass by without bringing it into the canvass; and now revived it for the overthrow of Mr. Van Buren, and for the excitement of a sectional controversy, by placing the annexation on strong sectional grounds. And now, at the approach of the election in 1844, after years of silence, he becomes the head advocate of annexation; and with all this forbidding record against him, by help of General Jackson's letter, and the general sentiment in favor of annexation, and the fictitious alarm of British abolition and hostile designs, he was able to appear as a champion of Texas annexation, baffling the old and consistent friends of the measure with the new form which had been given to the question. Mr. Clay was of this class. Of all the public men he was able to present the best and fairest Texas record. He was opposed to the loss of the province in 1819, and offered resolutions in the House of Representatives, supported by an ardent speech, in which he condemned the treaty which gave it away. As Secretary of State, under Mr. Adams, he had advised the recovery of the province, and opened negotiations to that effect, and wrote the instructions under which Mr. Poinsett, the United States minister, made the attempt. As a western man, he was the natural champion of a great western interest--pre-eminently western, while also national. He was interrogated according to the programme, and answered with firmness that, although an ancient and steadfast friend to the recovery of the country, he was opposed to immediate annexation, as adopting the war with Mexico, and making that war by treaty, when the war-making power belonged to Congress. There were several other democratic candidates, the whole of whom were interrogated, and answered promptly in favor of immediate annexation--some of them improving their letters, as advised, before publication. Mr. Tyler, also, now appeared above the horizon as a presidential candidate, and needed no interrogatories to bring out his declaration for immediate annexation, although he had voted against Mr. Clay's resolution condemning the sacrifice of the province. In a word, the Texas hobby was multitudinously mounted, and violently ridden, and most violently by those who had been most indifferent to it before. Mr. Clay and Mr. Calhoun were the only candidates that answered like statesmen, and they were both distanced.

The time was approaching for the convention to meet, and, consequently, for the conclusion of the treaty of annexation, which was to be a touchstone in it. It was signed the 12th of April, and was to have been sent to the Senate immediately, but was delayed by a circumstance which created alarm--made a balk--and required a new turn to be taken. Mr. Van Buren had not yet answered the interrogatories put to him through Mr. Hamett, or rather his answer had not yet been published. Uneasiness began to be felt, lest, like so many others, he should fall into the current, and answer in a way that would enable him to swim with it. To relieve this uncertainty, Mr. Blair was applied to by Mr. Robert J. Walker to write to him, and get his answer. This was a very proper channel to apply through. Mr. Blair, as the fast friend of Mr. Van Buren, had the privilege to solicit him. Mr. Calhoun, as the political adversary of Mr. Van Buren, could not ask Mr. Blair to do it. Mr. Walker stood in a relation to be ready for the work all round; as a professing friend of Mr. Van Buren, though co-operating with Mr. Calhoun and all the rest against him, he could speak with Mr. Blair on a point which seemed to be for Mr. Van Buren's benefit. As co-operating with Mr. Calhoun, he could help him against an adversary, though intending to give him the go-by in the end. As being in all the Texas mysteries, he was a natural person to ferret out information on every side. He it was, then, to whose part it fell to hasten the desired answer from Mr. Van Buren, and through the instrumentality of Mr. Blair. Mr. Blair wrote as solicited, not seeing any trap in it; but had received no answer up to the time that the treaty was to go to the Senate. Ardent for Texas, and believing in the danger of delay, he wrote and published in the Globe a glowing article in favor of immediate annexation. That article was a poser and a dumbfounder to the confederates. It threw the treaty all aback. Considering Mr. Blair's friendship for Mr. Van Buren, and their confidential relations, it was concluded that this article could not have been published without his consent--that it spoke his sentiments--and was in fact his answer to the letter which had been sent to him. Here was an ugly balk. It seemed as if the long intrigue had miscarried--as if the plot was going to work out the contrary way, and elevate the man it was intended to put down. In this unexpected conjuncture a new turn became indispensable--and was promptly taken.

Mention has been made in the forepart of this chapter, of the necessity which was felt to obtain something from London to bolster up the accusation of that formidable abolition plot which Great Britain was hatching in Texas, and on the alleged existence of which the whole argument for immediate annexation reposed. The desired testimony had been got, and oracularly given to the public, as being derived from a "private letter from a citizen of Maryland, then in London." The name of this Maryland citizen was not given, but his respectability and reliability were fully vouched; and the testimony passed for true. It was to the point in charging upon the British government, with names and circumstances, all that had been alleged; and adding that her abolition machinations were then in full progress. This went back to London, immediately transmitted there by the British minister at Washington, Sir Richard Pakenham; and being known to be false, and felt to be scandalous, drew from the British Secretary of State (Lord Aberdeen) an indignant, prompt, and peremptory contradiction. This contradiction was given in a despatch, dated December 26th, 1843. It was communicated by Sir Richard Pakenham to Mr. Upshur, the United States Secretary of State, on the 26th day of February, 1844--a few days before the lamentable death of that gentleman by the bursting of the Princeton gun. This despatch, having no object but to contradict an unfounded imputation, required no answer--and received none. It lay in the Department of State unacknowledged until after the treaty had been signed, and until the day of the appearance of that redoubtable article in the Globe, which had been supposed to be Mr. Van Buren's answer to the problem of immediate annexation. Then it was taken up, and, on the 18th day of April, was elaborately answered by Mr. Calhoun in a despatch to the British minister--not to argue the point of the truth of the Maryland citizen's private letter--but to argue quite off upon a new text. It so happened that Lord Aberdeen--after the fullest contradiction of the imputed design, and the strongest assurances of non-interference with any slavery policy either of the United States or of Texas--did not stop there; but, like many able men who are not fully aware of the virtue of stopping when they are done, went on to add something more, of no necessary connection or practical application to the subject--a mere general abstract declaration on the subject of slavery; on which Mr. Calhoun took position, and erected a superstructure of alarm which did more to embarrass the opponents of the treaty and to inflame the country, than all other matters put together. This cause for this new alarm was found in the superfluous declaration, "That Great Britain desires, and is constantly exerting herself to procure the general abolition of slavery throughout the world." This general declaration, although preceded and followed by reiterated assurances of non-interference with slavery in the United States, and no desire for any dominant influence in Texas, were seized upon as an open avowal of a design to abolish slavery every where. These assurances were all disregarded. Our secretary established himself upon the naked declaration, stripped of all qualifications and denials. He saw in them the means of making to a northern man (Mr. Van Buren) just as perilous the support as the opposition of immediate annexation. So, making the declaration of Lord Aberdeen the text of a most elaborate reply, he took up the opposite ground (support and propagation of slavery), arguing it generally in relation to the world, and specially in relation to the United States and Texas; and placing the annexation so fully upon that ground, that all its supporters must be committed to it. Here was a new turn, induced by Mr. Blair's article in the Globe, and by which the support of the treaty would be as obnoxious in the North as opposition to it would be in the South.

It must have been a strange despatch for a British minister to receive--an argument in favor of slavery propagandism--supported by comparative statements taken from the United States census, between the numbers of deaf, dumb, blind, idiotic, insane, criminal, and paupers among the free and the slave negroes--showing a large disproportion against the free negroes; and thence deducing a conclusion in favor of slavery. It was a strange diplomatic despatch, and incomprehensible except with a knowledge of the circumstances in which it was written. It must have been complete mystification to Lord Aberdeen; but it was not written for him, though addressed to him, and was sent to those for whom it was intended long before he saw it. The use that was made of it showed for whom it was written. Two days after its date, and before it had commenced its maritime voyage to London, it was in the American Senate--sent in with the treaty, with the negotiation of which it had no connection, being written a week after its signature, and after the time that the treaty would have been sent in had it not been for the appearance of the article (supposed to speak Mr. Van Buren's sentiments) in the Globe. It was no embarrassment to Mr. Van Buren, whose letter in answer to the interrogatories had been written, and was soon after published. It was an embarrassment to others. It made the annexation a sectional and a slavery question, and insured the rejection of the treaty. It disgusted northern senators; and that was one of the objects with which it had been written. For the whole annexation business had been conducted with a double aspect--one looking to the presidency, the other to disunion; and the latter the alternative, to the furtherance of which the rejection of the treaty by northern votes was an auxiliary step.

And while the whole negotiation bore that for one of its aspects from the beginning, this ex post facto despatch, written after the treaty was signed, and given to the American public before it got to the British Secretary of State, became the distinct revelation of what had been before dimly shadowed forth. All hope of the presidency from the Texas intrigue had now failed--the alternative aspect had become the absolute one; and a separate republic, consisting of Texas and some Southern States, had become the object. Neither the exposure of this object nor the history of the attempted annexation belong to this chapter. A separate chapter is required for each. And this incident of the Maryland citizen's private letter from London, Lord Aberdeen's contradiction, and the strange despatch of Mr. Calhoun to him, are only mentioned here as links in the chain of the presidential intrigue; and will be dismissed with the remark that the Maryland citizen was afterwards found out, and was discovered to be a citizen better known as an inhabitant of Washington than of Maryland; and that the private letter was intended to be for public use and paid for out of the contingent fund of the State Department; and the writer, a person whose name was the synonym of subserviency to Mr. Calhoun; namely, Mr. Duff Green. All this was afterwards brought out under a call from the United States Senate, moved by the writer of this View, who had been put upon the track by some really private information: and when the Presidential Message was read in the Senate, disclosing all these facts, he used an expression taken from a Spanish proverb which had some currency at the time: "At last the devil is pulled from under the blanket."

The time was approaching for the meeting of the democratic presidential convention, postponed by collusion with the whigs (the managers in each party), from the month of December to the month of May--the 27th day of it. It was now May, and every sign was not only auspicious to Mr. Van Buren, but ominous to his opponents. The delegates almost universally remained under instructions to support him. General Jackson, seeing how his letter to Mr. Brown had been used, though ignorant of the artifice by which it had been got from him, and justly indignant at finding himself used for a foe and against a friend, and especially when he deemed that foe dangerous to the Union--wrote a second Texas letter, addressed to the public, in which, while still adhering to his immediate annexation opinions, also adhered to Mr. Van Buren as his candidate for the presidency; and this second letter was a wet blanket upon the fires of the first one. The friends of Mr. Calhoun, seeing that he would have no chance in the Baltimore convention, had started a project to hold a third one in New York; a project which expired as soon as it got to the air; and in connection with which Mr. Cass deemed it necessary to make an authoritative contradiction of a statement made by Mr. Duff Green, who undertook to convince him, in spite of his denials, that he had agreed to it. In proportion as Mr. Calhoun was disappearing from this presidential canvass, Mr. Tyler was appearing in it; and eventually became fully developed as a candidate, intrusively on the democratic side; but his friends, seeing no chance for him in the democratic national convention, he got up an individual or collateral one for himself--to meet at the same time and place; but of this hereafter. This chapter belongs to the intrigue against Mr. Van Buren.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

Chapter CXXXVI

DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION FOR THE NOMINATION OF PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES.

The Convention met--a motley assemblage, called democratic--many self-appointed, or appointed upon management or solicitation--many alternative substitutes--many members of Congress, in violation of the principle which condemned the Congress presidential caucuses in 1824--some nullifiers; and an immense outside concourse. Texas land and scrip speculators were largely in it, and more largely on the outside. A considerable number were in favor of no particular candidate, but in pursuit of office for themselves--inflexible against any one from whom they thought they would not get it, and ready to go for any one from whom they thought they could. Almost all were under instructions for Mr. Van Buren, and could not have been appointed where such instructions were given, except in the belief that they would be obeyed. The business of undoing instructions had been attended with but poor success--in no instance having been done by the instructing body, or its equivalent. Two hundred and sixty-six delegates were present--South Carolina absent; and it was immediately seen that after all the packing and intriguing, the majority was still for Mr. Van Buren. It was seen that he would be nominated on the first ballot, if the majority was to govern. To prevent that, a movement was necessary, and was made. In the morning of the first day, before the verification of the authority of the delegates--before organization--before prayers--and with only a temporary chairman--a motion was made to adopt the two-thirds rule, that is to say, the rule which required a concurrence of two-thirds to effect a nomination. That rule had been used in the two previous nominating conventions--not to thwart a majority, but to strengthen it; the argument being that the result would be the same, the convention being nearly unanimous; that the two-thirds would be cumulative, and give more weight to the nomination. The precedent was claimed, though the reason had failed; and the effect might now be to defeat the majority instead of adding to its voice.

Men of reflection and foresight objected to this rule when previously used, as being in violation of a fundamental principle--opening the door for the minority to rule--encouraging intrigue and combination--and leading to corrupt practices whenever there should be a design to defeat the popular will. These objections were urged in 1832 and in 1836, and answered by the reply that the rule was only adopted by each convention for itself, and made no odds in the result: and now they were answered with "precedents." A strenuous contest took place over the adoption of this rule--all seeing that the fate of the nomination depended upon it. Mr. Romulus M. Saunders of North Carolina, was its mover. Messrs. Robert J. Walker, and Hopkins of Virginia, its most active supporters: and precedent the stress of their argument. Messrs. Morton of Massachusetts, Clifford of Maine, Dickinson and Butler of New York, Medary of Ohio, and Alexander Kayser of Missouri, were its principal opponents: their arguments were those of principle, and the inapplicability of precedents founded on cases where the two-thirds vote did not defeat, but strengthened the majority. Mr. Morton of Massachusetts, spoke the democratic sentiment when he said:

"He was in the habit of advancing his opinions in strong and plain language, and he hoped that no exception would be taken to any thing that he might say. He thought the majority principle was the true one of the democratic party. The views which had been advanced on the other side of the question were mainly based upon precedent. He did not think that they properly applied here. We were in danger of relying too much upon precedent--let us go upon principle. He had endeavored, when at school, to understand the true principles of republicanism. He well recollected the nominations of Jefferson and others, and the majority principle had always ruled. In fact it was recognized in all the different ramifications of society. The State, county and township conventions were all governed by this rule."

Mr. Benjamin F. Butler, of New York, enforced the majority principle as the one which lay at the foundation of our government--which prevailed at the adoption of every clause in the Declaration of Independence--every clause in the constitution--all the legislation, and all the elections, both State and federal; and he totally denied the applicability of the precedents cited. He then went on to expose the tricks of a caucus within a caucus--a sub and secret caucus--plotting and combining to betray their instructions through the instrumentality and under the cover of the two-thirds rule. Thus:

"He made allusion to certain caucusing and contriving, by which it was hoped to avert the well-ascertained disposition of the majority of the democracy. He had been appointed a delegate to the convention, and accepted his credentials, as did his colleagues, with instructions to support and do all in their power to secure the nomination of a certain person (V.B.). By consenting to the adoption of the two-thirds rule, he, with them, would prove unfaithful to their trust and their honor. He knew well that in voting by simple majority, the friend he was pledged to support would receive ten to fifteen majority, and, consequently, the nomination. If two-thirds should be required to make a choice, that friend must inevitably be defeated, and that defeat caused by the action of States which could not be claimed as democratic."

This last remark of Mr. Butler should sink deep into the mind of every friend to the elective system. These conventions admitted delegations from anti-democratic States--States which could not give a democratic vote in the election, and yet could control the nomination. This is one of the most unfair features in the convention system.

The rule was adopted, and by the help of delegates instructed to vote for Mr. Van Buren, and who took that method of betraying their trust while affecting to fulfil it. The body then organized and the balloting commenced, all the States present except South Carolina, who stood off, although she had come into it at the preceding convention, and cast her vote for Mr. Van Buren. Two hundred and sixty-six electoral votes were represented, of which 134 would be the majority, and 177 the two-thirds. Mr. Van Buren received 151 on the first ballot, gradually decreasing at each successive vote until the seventh, when it stood at 99; probably about the true number that remained faithful to their constituents and their pledges. Of those who fell off it was seen that they chiefly consisted of those professing friends who had supported the two-thirds rule, and who now got an excuse for their intended desertion and premeditated violation of instructions in being able to allege the impossibility of electing the man to whom they were pledged.

At this stage of the voting, a member from Ohio (Mr. Miller) moved a resolve, that Mr. Van Buren, having received a majority of the votes on the first ballot, was duly nominated, and should be so declared. This motion was an unexpected step, and put delegates under the necessity of voting direct on the majority principle, which lies at the foundation of all popular elections, and at the foundation of the presidential election itself, as prescribed by the constitution. That instrument only requires a majority of the electoral votes to make an election of President; this intriguing rule requires him to get two-thirds before he is competent to receive that majority. The motion raised a storm. It gave rise to a violent, disorderly, furious and tumultuary discussion--a faint idea of which may be formed from some brief extracts from the speeches:

Mr. Brewster, of Pennsylvania.--"They (the delegation from this State) had then been solemnly instructed to vote for Martin Van Buren first, and to remain firm to that vote as long as there was any hope of his success. He had been asked by gentlemen of the convention why the delegation of Pennsylvania were so divided in their vote. He would answer that it was because some gentlemen of the delegation did not think proper to abide by the solemn instructions given them, but rather chose to violate those instructions. Pennsylvania had come there to vote for Martin Van Buren, and she would not desert him until New York had abandoned him. The delegation had entered into a solemn pledge to do so; and he warned gentlemen that if they persisted in violating that pledge, they would be held to a strict account by their constituency, before whom, on their return home, they would have to hang their heads with shame. Sorry would he be to see them return, after having violated their pledge."

Mr. Hickman, of Pennsylvania.--"He charged that the delegation from the 'Keystone State' had violated the solemn pledge taken before they were entitled to seats on the floor. He asserted on the floor of this convention, and would assert it every where, that the delegation from Pennsylvania came to the convention instructed to vote for, and to use every means to obtain the nomination of Martin Van Buren for President, and Richard M. Johnson for Vice President; and yet a portion of the delegation, among whom was his colleague who had just preceded him, had voted against the very proposition upon which the fate of Martin Van Buren hung. He continued his remarks in favor of the inviolability of instructions and in rebuke of those of the Pennsylvania delegation, who had voted for the two-thirds rule, knowing, as they did, that it would defeat Mr. Van Buren's nomination."

Mr. Bredon, of Pennsylvania.--"He had voted against the two-thirds rule. He had been instructed, he said, and he believed had fulfilled those instructions, although he differed from some of his colleagues. His opinion was, that they were bound by instructions only so long as they were likely to be available, and then every member was at liberty to consult his own judgment. He had stood by Mr. Van Buren, and would continue to do so until the New York and Ohio delegates flew the track."

Mr. Frazer, of Pennsylvania, "replied to the remarks of his colleagues, and amidst much and constantly increasing confusion, explained his motives for having deserted Mr. Van Buren. On the last ballot he had voted for James K. Polk, and would do so on the next, despite the threat that had been thrown out, that those who had not voted for Mr. Van Buren would be ashamed to show their faces before their constituents. He threw back the imputation with indignation. He denied that he had violated his pledge; that he had voted for Mr. Van Buren on three ballots, but finding that Mr. Van Buren was not the choice of the convention, he had voted for Mr. Buchanan. Finding that Mr. Buchanan could not succeed, he had cast his vote for James K. Polk, the bosom friend of General Jackson, and a pure, whole-hogged democrat, the known enemy of banks, distribution, &c. He had carried out his instructions as he understood them, and others would do the same."

Mr. Young, of New York, "said it had been intimated that New York desired pertinaciously to force a candidate upon the convention. This he denied. Mr. Van Buren had been recommended by sixteen States to this convention for their suffrages before New York had spoken on the subject, and when she did speak it was with a unanimous voice, and, if an expression of opinion on the part of these people could now be had, it would be found that they had not changed. (As Mr. Y proceeded the noise and confusion increased.) It was true, he said, that a firebrand had been thrown into their camp by the 'Mongrel administration at Washington,' and this was the motive seized upon as a pretext for a change on the part of some gentlemen. That firebrand was the abominable Texas question, but that question, like a fever, would wear itself out or kill the patient. It was one that should have no effect; and some of those who were now laboring to get up an excitement on a subject foreign to the political contest before them, would be surprised, six months hence, that they had permitted their equanimity to be disturbed by it. Nero had fiddled while Rome was burning, and he believed that this question had been put in agitation for the especial purpose of advancing the aspiring ambition of a man, who, he doubted not, like Nero, 'was probably fiddling while Rome was falling.'"

The crimination and recrimination in the Pennsylvania delegation, arose from division among the delegates: in some other delegations the disregard of instructions was unanimous, and there was no one to censure another, as in Mississippi. The Pennsylvania delegation, may be said to have decided the nomination. They were instructed to vote for Mr. Van Buren, and did so, but they divided on the two-thirds rule, and gave a majority of their votes for it, that is to say, 13 votes; but as 13 was not a majority of 26, one delegate was got to stand aside: and then the vote stood 13 to 12. The Virginia delegation, headed by the most respectable William H. Roane (with a few exceptions), remained faithful--disregarding the attempt to release them at Shockoe Hill, and voting steadily for Mr. Van Buren, as well on all the ballotings as on the two-thirds question--which was the real one. Some members of the Capitol nocturnal committee were in the convention, and among its most active managers--and the most zealous against Mr. Van Buren. In that profusion of letters with which they covered the country to undermine him, they placed the objection on the ground of the impossibility of electing him: now it was seen that the impossibility was on the other side--that it was impossible to defeat him, except by betraying trusts, violating instructions, combining the odds and ends of all factions; and then getting a rule adopted by which a minority was to govern.

The motion of Mr. Miller was not voted upon. It was summarily disposed of, without the responsibility of a direct vote. The enemies of Mr. Van Buren having secured the presiding officer at the start, all motions were decided against them; and after a long session of storm and rage, intermitted during the night for sleep and intrigue, and resumed in the morning, an eighth ballot was taken: and without hope for Mr. Van Buren. As his vote went down, that for Messrs. Cass, Buchanan, and R. M. Johnson rose; but without ever carrying either of them to a majority, much less two-thirds. Seeing the combination against him, the friends of Mr. Van Buren withdrew his name, and the party was then without a candidate known to the people. Having killed off the one chosen by the people, the convention remained masters of the field, and ready to supply one of its own. The intrigue, commenced in 1842, in the Gilmer letter, had succeeded one-half. It had put down one man, but another was to be put up; and there were enough of Mr. Van Buren's friends to defeat that part of the scheme. They determined to render their country that service, and therefore withdrew Mr. Van Buren, that they might go in a body for a new man. Among the candidates for the vice-presidency was Mr. James K. Polk, of Tennessee. His interest as a vice-presidential candidate lay with Mr. Van Buren, and they had been much associated in the minds of each other's friends. It was an easy step for them to support for the first office, on the loss of their first choice, the citizen whom they intended for the second. Without public announcements, he was slightly developed as a presidential candidate on the eighth ballot; on the ninth he was unanimously nominated, all the president-makers who had been voting for others--for Cass, Buchanan, Johnson--taking the current the instant they saw which way it was going, in order that they might claim the merit of conducting it. "You bring but seven captives to my tent, but thousands of you took them," was the sarcastic remark of a king of antiquity at seeing the multitude that came to claim honors and rewards for taking a few prisoners. Mr. Polk might have made the same exclamation in relation to the multitude that assumed to have nominated him. Their name was legion: for, besides the unanimous convention, there was a host of outside operators, each of whom claimed the merit of having governed the vote of some delegate. Never was such a multitude seen claiming the merit, and demanding the reward, for having done what had been done before they heard of it.

The nomination was a surprise and a marvel to the country. No voice in favor of it had been heard; no visible sign in the political horizon had announced it. Two small symptoms--small in themselves and equivocal in their import, and which would never have been remembered except for the event--doubtfully foreshadowed it. One was a paragraph in a Nashville newspaper, hypothetically suggesting that Mr. Polk should be taken up if Mr. Van Buren should be abandoned; the other, the ominous circumstance that the Tennessee State nominating convention made a recommendation (Mr. Polk) for the second office, and none for the first; and Tennessee being considered a Van Buren State, this omission was significant, seeming to leave open the door for his ejection, and for the admission of some other person. And so the delegates from that State seemed to understand it, voting steadily against him, until he was withdrawn.

The ostensible objection to the last against Mr. Van Buren, was his opposition to immediate annexation. The shallowness of that objection was immediately shown in the unanimous nomination of his bosom friend, Mr. Silas Wright, identified with him in all that related to the Texas negotiation, for Vice-President. He was nominated upon the proposition of Mr. Robert J. Walker--a main-spring in all the movements against Mr. Van Buren, whose most indefatigable opponents sympathized with the Texas scrip and land speculators. Mr. Wright instantly declined the nomination; and Mr. George M. Dallas, of Pennsylvania, was taken in his place.

The Calhoun New York convention expired in the conception. It never met. The Tyler Baltimore convention was carried the length of an actual meeting, and went through the forms of a nomination, without the distraction of a rival candidate. It met the same day and place with the democratic convention, as if to officiate with it, and to be ready to offer a pis aller, but to no purpose. It made its own nomination--received an elaborate letter of thanks and acceptance from Mr. Tyler, who took it quite seriously; and two months afterwards joined the democracy for Polk and Dallas, against Clay and Frelinghuysen--his old whig friends. He had co-operated in all the schemes against Mr. Van Buren, in the hope of being taken up in his place; and there was an interest, calling itself democratic, which was willing to oblige him. But all the sound heart of the democracy recoiled from the idea of touching a man who, after having been raised high by the democracy, had gone over to the whigs, to be raised still higher, and now came back to the democracy to obtain the highest office they could give.

And here ends the history of this long intrigue--one of the most elaborate, complex and daring, ever practised in an intelligent country; and with too much success in putting down some, and just disappointment in putting up others: for no one of those who engaged in this intrigue ever reached the office for which they strived. My opinion of it was expressed, warmly but sincerely, from the first moment it was broached to me on the steps of the Capitol, when accosted by Mr. Brown, down to the rejection of the treaty in the Senate, and the defeat of Mr. Van Buren in the convention. Of this latter event, the author of this View thus wrote in a public letter to Missouri:

"Neither Mr. Polk nor Mr. Dallas has any thing to do with the intrigue which has nullified the choice of the people, and the rights of the people, and the principles of our government, in the person of Mr. Van Buren; and neither of them should be injured or prejudiced by it. Those who hatched that intrigue, have become its victims. They who dug a pit for the innocent have fallen into it; and there let them lie, for the present, while all hands attend to the election, and give us our full majority of ten thousand in Missouri. For the rest, the time will come; and people now, as twenty years ago (when their choice was nullified in the person of General Jackson), will teach the Congress intriguers to attend to law-making and let President-making and un-making alone in future. The Texas treaty, which consummated this intrigue, was nothing but the final act in a long conspiracy, in which the sacrifice of Mr. Van Buren had been previously agreed upon; and the nomination of Mr. Wright for Vice-President proves it; for his opinions and those of Mr. Van Buren, on the Texas question, were identical, and if fatal to one should have been fatal to the other. Besides, Mr. Van Buren was right, and whenever Texas is admitted, it will have to be done in the way pointed out by him. Having mentioned Mr. Wright, I will say that recent events have made him known to the public, as he has long been to his friends, the Cato of America, and a star of the first magnitude in our political firmament."

And now, why tell these things which may be quoted to the prejudice of democratic institutions? I answer: To prevent that prejudice! and to prevent the repetition of such practices. Democracy is not to be prejudiced by it, for it was the work of politicians; and as far as depended upon the people, they rebuked it. The intrigue did not succeed in elevating any of its authors to the presidency; and the annexation treaty, the fruit of so much machination, was rejected by the Senate; and the annexation afterwards effected by the legislative concurrence of the two powers. From the first inception, with the Gilmer letter, down to the Baltimore conclusion in the convention, the intrigue was carried on; and was only successful in the convention by the help of the rule which made the minority its master. That convention is an era in our political history, to be looked back upon as the starting point in a course of usurpation which has taken the choice of President out of the hands of the people, and vested it in the hands of a self-constituted and irresponsible assemblage. The wrong to Mr. Van Buren was personal and temporary, and died with the occasion, and constitutes no part of the object in writing this chapter: the wrong to the people, and the injury to republican institutions, and to our frame of government, was deep and abiding, and calls for the grave and correctional judgment of history. It was the first instance in which a body of men, unknown to the laws and the constitution, and many of them (as being members of Congress, or holding offices of honor or profit) constitutionally disqualified to serve even as electors, assumed to treat the American presidency as their private property, to be disposed at their own will and pleasure; and, it may be added, for their own profit: for many of them demanded, and received reward. It was the first instance of such a disposal of the presidency--for these nominations are the election, so far as the party is concerned; but not the last. It has become the rule since, and has been improved upon. These assemblages now perpetuate themselves, through a committee of their own, ramified into each State, sitting permanently from four years to four years; and working incessantly to govern the election that is to come, after having governed the one that is past. The man they choose must always be a character of no force, that they may rule him: and they rule always for their own advantage--"constituting a power behind the throne greater than the throne." The reader of English history is familiar with the term, "cabal," and its origin--taking its spelling from the initial letters of the names of the five combined intriguing ministers of Charles II.--and taking its meaning from the conduct and characters of these five ministers. What that meaning was, one of the five wrote to another for his better instruction, not suspecting that the indefatigable curiosity of a subsequent generation would ever ferret out the little missive. Thus: "The principal spring of our actions was to have the government in our own hands; that our principal views were the conservation of this power--great employments to ourselves--and great opportunities of rewarding those who have helped to raise us, and of harming those who stood in opposition to us." Such was the government which the "cabal" gave England; and such is the one which the convention system gives us: and until this system is abolished, and the people resume their rights, the elective principle of our government is suppressed: and the people have no more control over the selection of the man who is to be their President, than the subjects of kings have over the birth of the child who is to be their ruler.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

Chapter CXXXVII

PRESIDENTIAL: DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION: MR. CALHOUN'S REFUSAL TO SUBMIT HIS NAME TO IT: HIS REASONS.

Before the meeting of this convention Mr. Calhoun, in a public address to his political friends, made known his determination not to suffer his name to go before that assemblage as a candidate for the presidency, and stated his reasons for that determination. Many of those reasons were of a nature to rise above personal considerations--to look deep into the nature and working of our government--and to show objections to the convention system (as practised), which have grown stronger with time. His first objection was as to the mode of choosing delegates, and the manner of their giving in their votes--he contending for district elections, and the delegates to vote individually, and condemning all other modes of electing and voting:

"I hold, then, that the convention should be so constituted, as to utter fully and clearly the voice of the people, and not that of political managers, or office holders and office seekers, and for that purpose, I hold it indispensable that the delegates should be appointed directly by the people, or to use the language of General Jackson, should be 'fresh from the people.' I also hold, that the only possible mode to effect this, is for the people to choose the delegates by districts, and that they should vote per capita. Every other mode of appointing would be controlled by political machinery, and place the appointments in the hands of the few, who work it."

This was written ten years ago: there have been three of these conventions since that time by each political party: and each have verified the character here given of them. Veteran office holders, and undaunted office seekers, collusively or furtively appointed, have had the control of these nominations--the office holders all being forbid by the constitution to be even electors, and the office seekers forbid by shame and honor (if amenable to such sensations), to take part in nominating a President from whom they would demand pay for their vote. Mr. Calhoun continues:

"I object, then, to the proposed convention, because it will not be constituted in conformity with the fundamental articles of the republican creed. The delegates to it will be appointed from some of the States, not by the people in districts, but, as has been stated, by State conventions en masse, composed of delegates appointed in all cases, as far as I am informed, by county or district conventions, and in some cases, if not misinformed, these again composed of delegates appointed by still smaller divisions, or a few interested individuals. Instead then of being directly, or fresh from the people, the delegates to the Baltimore convention will be the delegates of delegates; and of course removed, in all cases, at least three, if not four degrees from the people. At each successive remove, the voice of the people will become less full and distinct, until, at last, it will be so faint and imperfect, as not to be audible. To drop metaphor, I hold it impossible to form a scheme more perfectly calculated to annihilate the control of the people over the presidential election, and vest it in those who make politics a trade, and who live or expect to live on the government."

Mr. Calhoun proceeds to take a view of the working of the constitution in a fair election by the people and by the States, and considered the plan adopted as a compromise between the large and the small States. In the popular election through electors, the large States had the advantage, as presenting masses of population which would govern the choice: in the election by States in the House of Representatives, the small States had the advantage, as the whole voted equally. This, then, was considered a compromise. The large States making the election when they were united: when not united, making the nomination of three (five as the constitution first stood), out of which the States chose one. This was a compromise; and all compromises should be kept when founded in the structure of the government, and made by its founders. Total defeat of the will of the people, and total frustration of the intent of the constitution, both in the electoral nomination and the House choice of a President, was seen in the exercise of this power over presidential nominations by Congress caucuses, before their corruption required a resort to conventions, intended to be the absolute reflex of the popular will. Of this Mr. Calhoun says:

"The danger was early foreseen, and to avoid it, some of the wisest and most experienced statesmen of former days so strongly objected to congressional caucuses to nominate candidates for the presidency, that they never could be induced to attend them; among these it will be sufficient to name Mr. Macon and Mr. Lowndes. Others, believing that this provision of the constitution was too refined for practice, were solicitous to amend it, but without impairing the influence of the smaller States in the election. Among these, I rank myself. With that object, resolutions were introduced, in 1828, in the Senate by Colonel Benton, and in the House by Mr. McDuffie, providing for districting the State, and for referring the election back to the people, in case there should be no choice, to elect one from the two highest candidates. The principle which governed in the amendment proposed, was to give a fair compensation to the smaller States for the surrender of their advantage in the eventual choice, by the House, and at the same time to make the mode of electing the President more strictly in conformity with the principles of our popular institutions, and to be less liable to corruption, than the existing. They (the resolutions of McDuffie and Benton) received the general support of the party, but were objected to by a few, as not being a full equivalent to the smaller States."

The Congress presidential caucuses were put down by the will of the people, and in both parties at the same time. They were put down for not conforming to the will of the people, for incompatibility between the legislative and the elective functions, for being in office at the same time, for following their own will, instead of representing that of their constituents. Mr. Calhoun concurred in putting them down, but preferred them a hundred times over to the intriguing, juggling, corrupt and packed machinery into which the conventions had so rapidly degenerated.

"And here let me add, that as objectionable as I think a congressional caucus for nominating a President, it is, in my opinion, far less so than a convention constituted as is proposed. The former had indeed many things to recommend it. Its members consisting of senators and representatives, were the immediate organs of the State legislatures, or the people; were responsible to them, respectively, and were for the most part, of higher character, standing, and talents. They voted per capita, and what is very important, they represented fairly the relative strength of the party in their respective States. In all these important particulars, it was all that could be desired for a nominating body, and formed a striking contrast to the proposed convention; and yet, it could not be borne by the people in the then purer days of the republic. I, acting with General Jackson and most of the leaders of the party at that time, contributed to put it down, because we believed it to be liable to be acted on and influenced by the patronage of the government--an objection far more applicable to a convention constituted as the one proposed, than to a congressional caucus. Far however was it from my intention, in aiding to put that down, to substitute in its place what I regard as a hundred times more objectionable in every point of view. Indeed, if there must be an intermediate body between the people and the election, unknown to the constitution, it may be well questioned whether a better than the old plan of a congressional caucus can be devised."

Mr. Calhoun considered the convention system, degenerated to the point it was in 1844, to have been a hundred times more objectionable than the Congress caucuses which had been repudiated by the people: measured by the same scale, and they are a thousand times worse at present--having succeeded to every objection that was made against the Congress caucuses, and superadded a multitude of others going directly to scandalous corruption, open intrigue, direct bargain and sale, and flagrant disregard of the popular will. One respect in which they had degenerated from the Congress caucus was in admitting a State to give its full vote in nominating a President, which could either give no vote at all, or a divided one, to the nominated candidate. In the Congress caucus that anomaly could not happen. The members of the party only voted: and if there were no members of a party from a State, there was no vote from that State in the caucus: if a divided representation, then a vote according to the division. This was fair, and prevented a nomination being made by those who could do nothing in the election. This objection to the convention system, and a grievous one it is as practised, he sets forth in a clear and forcible point of view. He says:

"I have laid down the principle, on which I rest the objection in question, with the limitation, that the relative weight of the States should be maintained, making due allowance for their relative party strength. The propriety of the limitation is so apparent, that but a few words, in illustration, will be required. The convention is a party convention, and professedly intended to take the sense of the party, which cannot be done fairly, if States having but little party strength, are put on equality with those which have much. If that were done, the result might be, that a small portion of the party from States the least sound, politically, and which could give but little support in Congress, might select the candidate, and make the President, against a great majority of the soundest, and on which the President and his administration would have to rely for support. All this is clearly too unfair and improper to be denied. There may be a great difficulty in applying a remedy in a convention, but I do not feel myself called upon to say how it can be done, or by what standard the relative party strength of the respective States should be determined; perhaps the best would be their relative strength in Congress at the time. In laying down the principle, I added the limitation for the sake of accuracy, and to show how imperfectly the party must be represented, when it is overlooked. I see no provision in the proposed convention to meet it."

The objection is clearly and irresistibly shown: the remedy is not so clear. The Congress representation for the time being is suggested for the rule of the convention: it is not always the true rule. A safer one is, the general character of the State--its general party vote--and its probable present party strength. Even that rule may not attain exact precision; but, between a rule which may admit of a slight error, and no rule at all to keep out notorious unfounded votes--votes representing no constituency, unable to choose an elector, having no existence when the election comes on, yet potential at the nomination, and perhaps governing it: between these two extremes there is no room for hesitation, or choice: the adoption of some rule which would exclude notoriously impotent votes, becomes essential to the rights and safety of the party, and is peremptorily demanded by the principle of popular representation. The danger of centralizing the nomination--(which, so far as the party is concerned, is the election)--in the hands of a few States, by the present convention mode of nomination, is next shown by Mr. Calhoun.

"But, in order to realize how the convention will operate, it will be necessary to view the combined effects of the objections which I have made. Thus viewed, it will be found, that a convention so constituted, tends irresistibly to centralization--centralization of the control over the presidential election in the hands of a few of the central, large States, at first, and finally, in political managers, office-holders, and office-seekers; or to express it differently, in that portion of the community, who live, or expect to live on the government, in contradistinction to the great mass, who expect to live on their own means or their honest industry; and who maintain the government; and politically speaking, emphatically the people. That such would be the case, may be inferred from the fact, that it would afford the means to some six or seven States lying contiguous and not far from the centre of the Union, to control the nomination, and through that the election, by concentrating their united votes in the convention. Give them the power of doing so, and it would not long lie dormant. What may be done by combination, where the temptation is so great, will be sure ere long to be done. To combine and conquer, is not less true as a maxim, where power is concerned, than 'divide and conquer.' Nothing is better established, than that the desire for power can bring together and unite the most discordant materials."

After showing the danger of centralizing the nomination in the hands of a few great contiguous States, Mr. Calhoun goes on to show the danger of a still more fatal and corrupt centralization--that of throwing the nomination into the meshes of a train-band of office-holders and office-seekers--professional President-makers, who live by the trade, having no object but their own reward, preferring a weak to a strong man because they can manage him easiest: and accomplishing their purposes by corrupt combinations, fraudulent contrivances, and direct bribery. Of these train-bands, Mr. Calhoun says:

"But the tendency to centralization will not stop there. The appointment of delegates en masse by State convention, would tend at the same time, and even with great force, to neutralize the control in the hands of the few, who make politics a trade. The farther the convention is removed from the people, the more certainly the control over it will be placed in the hands of the interested few, and when removed three or four degrees, as has been shown it will be, where the appointment is by State conventions, the power of the people will cease, and the seekers of Executive favor will become supreme. At that stage, an active, trained and combined corps will be formed in the party, whose whole time and attention will be directed to politics. Into their hands the appointments of delegates in all the stages will fall, and they will take special care that none but themselves or their humble and obedient dependents shall be appointed. The central and State conventions will be filled by the most experienced and cunning, and after nominating the President, they will take good care to divide the patronage and offices, both of the general and State governments, among themselves and their dependents. But why say will? Is it not already the case? Have there not been many instances of State conventions being filled by office holders and office seekers, who, after making the nomination, have divided the offices in the State among themselves and their partisans, and joined in recommending to the candidate whom they have just nominated to appoint them to the offices to which they have been respectively allotted? If such be the case in the infancy of the system, it must end, if such conventions should become the established usage, in the President nominating his successor. When it comes to that, it will not be long before the sword will take the place of the constitution."

And it has come to that. Mr. Tyler set the example in 1844--immediately after this address of Mr. Calhoun was written--and had a presidential convention of his own, composed of office holders and office seekers. Since then the example has been pretty well followed; and now any President that pleases may nominate his successor by having the convention filled with the mercenaries in office, or trying to get in. The evil has now reached a pass that must be corrected, or the elective franchise abandoned. Conventions must be reformed--that is to say, purged of office holders and office seekers--purged of impotent votes--purged of all delegates forbid by the constitution to be electors--purged of intrigue, corruption and jugglery--and brought to reflect the will of the people; or, they must suffer the fate of the Congress caucuses, and be put down. Far better--a thousand times better--to let the constitution work its course; as many candidates offer for President as please; and if no one gets a majority of the whole, then the House of Representatives to choose one from the three highest on the list. In that event, the people would be the nominating body: they would present the three, out of which their representatives would be obliged to take one. This would be a nomination by the People, and an election by the States.

One other objection to these degenerate conventions Mr. Calhoun did not mention, but it became since he made his address a prominent one, and an abuse in itself, which insures success to the train-band mercenaries whose profligate practices he so well describes. This is the two-thirds rule, as it is called; the rule that requires a vote of two-thirds of the convention to make a nomination. This puts it in the power of the minority to govern the majority, and enables a few veteran intriguers to manage as they please. And when it is remembered that many are allowed--even the delegates of whole States--to vote in the convention, which can give no vote to the party at the election, it might actually happen that the whole nomination might be contrived and made by straw-delegates, whose constituency could not give a single electoral vote.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

Chapter CXXXVIII

ANNEXATION OF TEXAS: SECRET NEGOTIATION PRESIDENTIAL INTRIGUE: SCHEMES OF SPECULATION AND DISUNION.

The President's annual message at the commencement of the session 1843-'44, contained an elaborated paragraph on the subject of Texas and Mexico, which, to those not in the secret, was a complete mystification: to others, and especially to those who had been observant of signs, it foreshadowed a design to interfere in the war between those parties, and to take Texas under the protection of the Union, and to make her cause our own. A scheme of annexation was visible in the studied picture presented of homogeniality between that country and the United States, geographically and otherwise; and which homogeniality was now sufficient to risk a war with Great Britain and Mexico (for the message squinted at war with both), to get Texas back, although it had not been sufficient when the country was ceded to Spain to prevent Mr. Tyler from sanctioning the cession--as he did as a member of the House in 1820 in voting against Mr. Clay's resolution, disapproving and condemning that cession. This enigmatical paragraph was, in fact, intended to break the way for the production of a treaty of annexation, covertly conceived and carried on with all the features of an intrigue, and in flagrant violation of the principles and usages of the government. Acquisitions of territory had previously been made by legislation, and by treaty, as in the case of Louisiana in 1803, and of Florida in 1819; but these treaties were founded upon legislative acts--upon the consent of Congress previously obtained--and in which the treaty-making power was but the instrument of the legislative will. This previous consent and authorization of Congress had not been obtained--on the contrary, had been eschewed and ignored by the secrecy with which the negotiation had been conducted; and was intended to be kept secret until the treaty was concluded, and then to force its adoption for the purpose of increasing the area of slave territory, or to make its rejection a cause for the secession of the Southern States; and in either event, and in all cases, to make the question of annexation a controlling one in the nomination of presidential candidates, and also in the election itself.

The complication of this vast scheme, leading to a consummation so direful as foreign war and domestic disunion, and having its root in personal ambition, and in scrip and land speculation, and spoliation claims--the way it was carried on, and the way it was defeated--altogether present one of the most instructive lessons which the working of our government exhibits; and the more so as the two prominent actors in the scheme had reversed their positions since Texas had been retroceded to Spain. Mr. Calhoun was then in favor of curtailing the area of slave territory, and as a member of Mr. Monroe's cabinet, counselled the establishment of the Missouri compromise line, which abolished slavery in all the upper half of the great province of Louisiana; and, as a member of the same cabinet, counselled the retrocession of Texas to Spain, which extinguished all the slave territory south of the compromise line. Mr. Calhoun was then against slavery extension, and so much in favor of extinguishing slave territory as to be a favorite in the free States, and beat Mr. Adams himself in those States in the presidential election of 1824--receiving more of their votes for Vice-President than Mr. Adams did for President. After the failure in 1833 to unite the slave States against the free ones on the Tariff agitation, he took up the slavery agitation--pursuing it during his life, and leaving it at his death as a legacy to the disciples in his political school. Mr. Tyler was a follower in these amputations and extinction of slave territory in 1819-'20: he was now a follower in the slavery agitation to get back the province which was then given away, or to make it the means of a presidential election, or of Southern dismemberment. This scheme had been going on for two years before it appeared above the political horizon; and the right understanding of the Texas annexation movement in 1844, requires the hidden scheme to be uncovered from its source, and laid open through its long and crooked course: which will be the subject of the next chapter, as shown at the time in a speech from Senator Benton.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

Chapter CXXXIX

TEXAS ANNEXATION TREATY: FIRST SPEECH OF MR. BENTON AGAINST IT: EXTRACTS.

MR. BENTON. The President, upon our call, sends us a map and a memoir from the Topographical bureau to show the Senate the boundaries of the country he proposes to annex. This memoir is explicit in presenting the Rio Grande del Norte in its whole extent as a boundary of the republic of Texas, and that in conformity to the law of the Texian Congress establishing its boundaries. The boundaries on the map conform to those in the memoir: each takes for the western limit the Rio Grande from head to mouth; and a law of the Texian Congress is copied into the margin of the map, to show the legal, and the actual, boundaries at the same time. From all this it results that the treaty before us, besides the incorporation of Texas proper, also incorporates into our Union the left bank of the Rio Grande, in its whole extent from its head spring in the Sierra Verde (Green Mountain), near the South Pass in the Rocky Mountains, to its mouth in the Gulf of Mexico, four degrees south of New Orleans, in latitude 26°. It is a "grand and solitary river," almost without affluents or tributaries. Its source is in the region of eternal snow; its outlet in the clime of eternal flowers. Its direct course is 1,200 miles; its actual run about 2,000. This immense river, second on our continent to the Mississippi only, and but little inferior to it in length, is proposed to be added in the whole extent of its left bank to the American Union! and that by virtue of a treaty for the re-annexation of Texas! Now, the real Texas which we acquired by the treaty of 1803, and flung away by the treaty of 1819, never approached the Rio Grande except near its mouth! while the whole upper part was settled by the Spaniards, and great part of it in the year 1694--just one hundred years before La Salle first saw Texas!--all this upper part was then formed into provinces, on both sides of the river, and has remained under Spanish, or Mexican authority ever since. These former provinces of the Mexican viceroyalty, now departments of the Mexican republic, lying on both sides of the Rio Grande from its head to its mouth, we now propose to incorporate, so far as they lie on the left bank of the river, into our Union, by virtue of a treaty of re-annexation with Texas. Let us pause and look at our new and important proposed acquisitions in this quarter. First: there is the department, formerly the province of New Mexico, lying on both sides of the river from its head spring to near the Paso del Norte--that is to say, half down the river. This department is studded with towns and villages--is populated--well cultivated--and covered with flocks and herds. On its left bank (for I only speak of the part which we propose to re-annex) is, first, the frontier village Taos, 3,000 souls, and where the custom-house is kept at which the Missouri caravans enter their goods. Then comes Santa Fé, the capital, 4,000 souls--then Albuquerque, 6,000 souls--then some scores of other towns and villages--all more or less populated, and surrounded by flocks and fields. Then come the departments of Chihuahua, Coahuila, and Tamaulipas, without settlements on the left bank of the river, but occupying the right bank, and commanding the left. All this--being parts of four Mexican departments--now under Mexican governors and governments--is permanently reannexed to this Union, if this treaty is ratified; and is actually reannexed from the moment of the signature of the treaty, according to the President's last message, to remain so until the acquisition is rejected by rejecting the treaty! The one-half of the department of New Mexico, with its capital, becomes a territory of the United States: an angle of Chihuahua, at the Paso del Norte, famous for its wine, also becomes ours: a part of the department of Coahuila, not populated on the left bank, which we take, but commanded from the right bank by Mexican authorities: the same of Tamaulipas, the ancient Nuevo San Tander (New St. Andrew), and which covers both sides of the river from its mouth for some hundred miles up, and all the left bank of which is in the power and possession of Mexico. These, in addition to the old Texas; these parts of four States--these towns and villages--these people and territory--these flocks and herds--this slice of the republic of Mexico, two thousand miles long, and some hundred broad--all this our President has cut off from its mother empire, and presents to us, and declares it is ours till the Senate rejects it! He calls it Texas! and the cutting off he calls re-annexation! Humboldt calls it New Mexico, Chihuahua, Coahuila, and Nuevo San Tander (now Tamaulipas); and the civilized world may qualify this re-annexation by the application of some odious and terrible epithet. Demosthenes advised the people of Athens not to take, but to re-take a certain city; and in that re laid the virtue which saved the act from the character of spoliation and robbery. Will it be equally potent with us? and will the re, prefixed to the annexation, legitimate the seizure of two thousand miles of a neighbor's dominion, with whom we have treaties of peace, and friendship, and commerce? Will it legitimate this seizure, made by virtue of a treaty with Texas, when no Texian force--witness the disastrous expeditions to Mier and to Santa Fé--have been seen near it without being killed or taken, to the last man?

The treaty, in all that relates to the boundary of the Rio Grande, is an act of unparalleled outrage on Mexico. It is the seizure of two thousand miles of her territory without a word of explanation with her, and by virtue of a treaty with Texas, to which she is no party. Our Secretary of State (Mr. Calhoun) in his letter to the United States chargé in Mexico, and seven days after the treaty was signed, and after the Mexican minister had withdrawn from our seat of government, shows full well that he was conscious of the enormity of this outrage; knew it was war; and proffered volunteer apologies to avert the consequences which he knew he had provoked.

The President, in his special message of Wednesday last, informs us that we have acquired a title to the ceded territories by his signature to the treaty, wanting only the action of the Senate to perfect it; and that, in the mean time, he will protect it from invasion, and for that purpose has detached all the disposable portions of the army and navy to the scene of action. This is a caper about equal to the mad freaks with which the unfortunate emperor Paul, of Russia, was accustomed to astonish Europe about forty years ago. By this declaration the thirty thousand Mexicans in the left half of the valley of the Rio del Norte are our citizens, and standing, in the language of the President's message, in a hostile attitude towards us, and subject to be repelled as invaders. Taos, the seat of the custom-house, where our caravans enter their goods, is ours: Santa Fé, the capital of New Mexico, is ours: Governor Armijo is our governor, and subject to be tried for treason if he does not submit to us: twenty Mexican towns and villages are ours; and their peaceful inhabitants, cultivating their fields and tending their flocks, are suddenly converted, by a stroke of the President's pen, into American citizens, or American rebels. This is too bad: and, instead of making themselves party to its enormities, as the President invites them to do, I think rather that it is the duty of the Senate to wash its hands of all this part of the transaction by a special disapprobation. The Senate is the constitutional adviser of the President, and has the right, if not the duty, to give him advice when the occasion requires it. I therefore propose, as an additional resolution, appliable to the Rio del Norte boundary only--the one which I will read and send to the Secretary's table--stamping as a spoliation this seizure of Mexican territory--and on which, at the proper time, I shall ask the vote of the Senate.

I now proceed a step further, and rise a step higher, Mr. President, in unveiling the designs and developing the conduct of our administration in this hot and secret pursuit after Texas. It is my business now to show that war with Mexico is a design and an object with it from the beginning, and that the treaty-making power was to be used for that purpose. I know the responsibility of a senator--I mean his responsibility to the moral sense of his country and the world--in attributing so grave a culpability to this administration. I know the whole extent of this responsibility, and shall therefore be careful to proceed upon safe and solid ground. I shall say nothing but upon proof--upon the proof furnished by the President himself--and ask for my opinions no credence beyond the strict letter of these proofs. For this purpose I have recourse to the messages and correspondence which the President has sent us, and begin with the message of the 22d of April--the one which communicated the treaty to the Senate. That message, after a strange and ominous declaration that no sinister means have been used--no intrigue set on foot--to procure the consent of Texas to the annexation, goes on to show exactly the contrary, and to betray the President's design to protect Texas by receiving her into our Union and adopting her war with Mexico.

I proceed to another piece of evidence to the same effect--namely, the letter of the present Secretary of State to Mr. Benjamin Green, our chargé at Mexico, under date of the 19th of April past. The letter has been already referred to, and will be only read now in the sentence which declares that the treaty has been made in the full view of war! for that alone can be the meaning of this sentence:

"It has taken the step (to wit, the step of making the treaty) in full view of all possible consequences, but not without a desire and a hope that a full and fair disclosure of the causes which induced it to do so, would prevent the disturbance of the harmony subsisting between the two countries, which the United States is anxious to preserve."

This is part of the despatch which communicates to Mexico the fact of the conclusion of the treaty of annexation--that treaty, the conclusion of which the formal and reiterated declarations of the Mexican government informed our administration, during its negotiation, would be war. I will quote one of these declarations, the last one made by General Almonte, the Mexican minister, and in reply to the letter of our Secretary who considered the previous declarations as threats. General Almonte disclaims the idea of a threat--repeats his asseveration that it is a notice only, and that in a case in which it was the right and the duty of Mexico to give the notice which would apprise us of the consequences of carrying the treaty of annexation to a conclusion.

After receiving this notification from the Mexican minister, the letter of our present Secretary, of the 19th instant, just quoted, directing our chargé to inform the Mexican government of the conclusion of the treaty of annexation, must be considered as an official notification to Mexico that the war has begun! and so indeed it has! and as much to our astonishment as to that of the Mexicans! Who among us can ever forget the sensations produced in this chamber, on Wednesday last, when the marching and the sailing orders were read! and still more, when the message was read which had set the army and navy in motion!

These orders and the message, after having been read in this chamber, were sent to the printer, and have not yet returned: I can only refer to them as I heard them read, and from a brief extract which I took of the message; and must refer to others to do them justice. From all that I could hear, the war is begun; and begun by orders issued by the President before the treaty was communicated to the Senate! We are informed of a squadron, and an army of "observation," sent to the Mexican ports, and Mexican frontier, with orders to watch, remonstrate, and report; and to communicate with President Houston! Now, what is an army of observation, but an army in the field for war? It is an army whose name is known, and whose character is defined, and which is incident to war alone. It is to watch the ENEMY! and can never be made to watch a FRIEND! Friends cannot be watched by armed men, either individually or nationally, without open enmity. Let an armed man take a position before your door, show himself to your family, watch your movements, and remonstrate with you, and report upon you, if he judged your movements equivocal: let him do this, and what is it but an act of hostility and of outrage which every feeling of the heart, and every law of God and man, require you to resent and repulse? This would be the case with the mere individual; still more with nations, and when squadrons and armies are the watchers and remonstrants. Let Great Britain send an army and navy to lie in wait upon our frontiers, and before our cities, and then see what a cry of war would be raised in our country. The same of Mexico. She must feel herself outraged and attacked; she must feel our treaties broken; all our citizens within her dominions alien enemies; their commerce to be instantly ruined, and themselves expelled from the country. This must be our condition, unless the Senate (or Congress) saves the country. We are at war with Mexico now; and the message which covers the marching and sailing orders is still more extraordinary than they. The message assumes the republic of Texas to be part of the American Union by the mere signature of the treaty, and to remain so until the treaty is rejected, if rejected at all; and, in the mean time, the President is to use the army and the navy to protect the acquired country from invasion, like any part of the existing Union, and to treat as hostile all adverse possessors or intruders. According to this, besides what may happen at Vera Cruz, Tampico, Matamoros, and other ports, and besides what may happen on the frontiers of Texas proper, the Mexican population in New Mexico, and Governor Armijo, or in his absence the governor ad interim, Don Mariano Chaves, may find themselves pursued as rebels and traitors to the United States.

The war with Mexico, and its unconstitutionality, is fully shown: its injustice remains to be exhibited, and that is an easy task. What is done in violation of treaties, in violation of neutrality, in violation of an armistice, must be unjust. All this occurs in this case, and a great deal more. Mexico is our neighbor. We are at peace with her. Social, commercial, and diplomatic relations subsist between us, and the interest of the two nations requires these relations to continue. We want a country which was once ours, but which, by treaty, we have acknowledged to be hers. That country has revolted. Thus far it has made good its revolt, and not a doubt rests upon my mind that she will make it good for ever. But the contest is not over. An armistice, duly proclaimed, and not revoked, strictly observed by each in not firing a gun, though inoperative thus far in the appointment of commissioners to treat for peace: this armistice, only determinable upon notice, suspends the war. Two thousand miles of Texian frontier is held in the hands of Mexico, and all attempts to conquer that frontier have signally failed: witness the disastrous expeditions to Mier and to Santa Fé. We acknowledge the right--the moral and political right--of Mexico to resubjugate this province, if she can. We declare our neutrality: we profess friendship: we proclaim our respect for Mexico. In the midst of all this, we make a treaty with Texas for transferring herself to the United States, and that without saying a word to Mexico, while receiving notice from her that such transfer would be war. Mexico is treated as a nullity; and the province she is endeavoring to reconquer is suddenly, by the magic of a treaty signature, changed into United States domain. We want the country; but instead of applying to Mexico, and obtaining her consent to the purchase, or waiting a few months for the events which would supersede the necessity of Mexican consent--instead of this plain and direct course, a secret negotiation was entered into with Texas, in total contempt of the acknowledged rights of Mexico, and without saying a word to her until all was over. Then a messenger is despatched in furious haste to this same Mexico, the bearer of volunteer apologies, of deprecatory excuses, and of an offer of ten millions of dollars for Mexican acquiescence in what Texas has done. Forty days are allowed for the return of the messenger; and the question is, will he bring back the consent? That question is answered in the Mexican official notice of war, if the treaty of annexation was made! and it is answered in the fact of not applying to her for her consent before the treaty was made. The wrong to Mexico is confessed in the fact of sending this messenger, and in the terms of the letter of which he was the bearer. That letter of Mr. Secretary Calhoun, of the 19th of April, to Mr. Benjamin Green, the United States chargé in Mexico, is the most unfortunate in the annals of human diplomacy! By the fairest implications, it admits insult and injury to Mexico, and violation of her territorial boundaries! it admits that we should have had her previous consent--should have had her concurrence--that we have injured her as little as possible--and that we did all this in full view of all possible consequences! that is to say, in full view of war! in plain English, that we have wronged her, and will fight her for it. As an excuse for all this, the imaginary designs of a third power, which designs are four times solemnly disavowed, are brought forward as a justification of our conduct; and an incomprehensible terror of immediate destruction is alleged as the cause of not applying to her for her "previous consent" during the eight months that the negotiation continued, and during the whole of which time we had a minister in Mexico, and Mexico had a minister in Washington. This letter is surely the most unfortunate in the history of human diplomacy. It admits the wrong, and tenders war. It is a confession throughout, by the fairest implication, of injustice to Mexico. It is a confession that her "concurrence" and "her previous consent" were necessary.

It is now my purpose, Mr. President, to show that all this movement, which is involving such great and serious consequences, and drawing upon us the eyes of the civilized world, is bottomed upon a weak and groundless pretext, discreditable to our government, and insulting and injurious to Great Britain. We want Texas--that is to say, the Texas of La Salle; and we want it for great national reasons, obvious as day, and permanent as nature. We want it because it is geographically appurtenant to our division of North America, essential to our political, commercial, and social system, and because it would be detrimental and injurious to us to have it fall into the hands or to sink under the domination of any foreign power. For these reasons, I was against sacrificing the country when it was thrown away--and thrown away by those who are now so suddenly possessed of a fury to get it back. For these reasons, I am for getting it back whenever it can be done with peace and honor, or even at the price of just war against any intrusive European power: but I am against all disguise and artifice--against all pretexts--and especially against weak and groundless pretexts, discreditable to ourselves, offensive to others, too thin and shallow not to be seen through by every beholder, and merely invented to cover unworthy purposes. I am against the inventions which have been brought forward to justify the secret concoction of this treaty, and its sudden explosion upon us, like a ripened plot, and a charged bomb, forty days before the conventional nomination of a presidential candidate. In looking into this pretext, I shall be governed by the evidence alone which I find upon the face of the papers, regretting that the resolution which I have laid upon the table for the examination of persons at the bar of the Senate, has not yet been adopted. That resolution is in these words:

"Resolved, That the AUTHOR of the 'private letter' from London, in the summer of 1843 (believed to be Mr. Duff Green), addressed to the American Secretary of State (Mr. Upshur), and giving him the first intelligence of the (imputed) British anti-slavery designs upon Texas, and the contents of which 'private letter' were made the basis of the Secretary's leading despatch of the 8th of August following, to our chargé in Texas, for procuring the annexation of Texas to the United States, be SUMMONED to appear at the bar of the Senate, to answer on oath to all questions in relation to the contents of said 'private letter,' and of any others in relation to the same subject: and also to answer all questions, so far as he shall be able, in relation to the origin and objects of the treaty for the annexation of Texas, and of all the designs, influences, and interests which led to the formation thereof.

"Resolved, also, That the Senate will examine at its bar, or through a committee, such other persons as shall be deemed proper in relation to their knowledge of any, or all, of the foregoing points of inquiry."

I hope, Mr. President, this resolution will be adopted. It is due to the gravity of the occasion that we should have facts and good evidence before us. We are engaged in a transaction which concerns the peace and the honor of the country; and extracts from private letters, and letters themselves, with or without name, and, it may be, from mistaken or interested persons, are not the evidence on which we should proceed. Dr. Franklin was examined at the bar of the British House of Commons before the American war, and I see no reason why those who wish to inform the Senate, and others from whom the Senate could obtain information, should not be examined at our bar, or at that of the House, before the Senate or Congress engages in the Mexican war. It would be a curious incident in the Texas drama if it should turn out to be a fact that the whole annexation scheme was organized before the reason for it was discovered in London! and if, from the beginning, the abolition plot was to be burst upon us, under a sudden and overwhelming sense of national destruction, exactly forty days before the national convention at Baltimore! I know nothing about these secrets; but, being called upon to act, and to give a vote which may be big with momentous consequences, I have a right to know the truth; and shall continue to ask for it, until fully obtained, or finally denied. I know not what the proof will be, if the examination is had. I pretend to no private knowledge; but I have my impressions; and if they are erroneous, let them be effaced--if correct, let them be confirmed.

In the absence of the evidence which this responsible and satisfactory examination might furnish, I limit myself to the information which appears upon the face of the papers--imperfect, defective, disjointed, and fixed up for the occasion, as those papers evidently are. And here I must remark upon the absence of all the customary information which sheds light upon the origin, progress, and conclusion of treaties. No minutes of conferences--no protocols--no propositions, or counter-propositions--no inside view of the nascent and progressive negotiation. To supply all this omission, the Senate is driven to the tedious process of calling on the President, day by day, for some new piece of information; and the endless necessity for these calls--the manner in which they are answered--and the often delay in getting any answer at all--become new reasons for the adoption of my resolution, and for the examination of persons at the bar of the Senate.

The first piece of testimony I shall use in making good the position I have assumed, is the letter of Mr. Upshur, our Secretary of State, to Mr. Murphy, our chargé in Texas dated the 8th day of August, in the year 1843. It is the first one, so far as we are permitted to see, that begins the business of the Texas annexation; and has all the appearance of beginning it in the middle, so far as the United States are concerned, and upon grounds previously well considered: for this letter of the 8th of August, 1843, contains every reason on which the whole annexation movement has been defended, or justified. And, here, I must repeat what I have already said: in quoting these letters of the secretaries, I use the name of the writer to discriminate the writer, but not to impute it to him. The President is the author: the secretary only his head clerk, writing by his command, and having no authority to write any thing but as he commands. This important letter, the basis of all Texian "immediate" annexation, opens thus:

"SIR: A private letter from a citizen of Maryland, then in London, contains the following passage:

"'I learn from a source entitled to the fullest confidence, that there is now here a Mr. Andrews, deputed by the abolitionists of Texas to negotiate with the British government. That he has seen Lord Aberdeen, and submitted his project for the abolition of slavery in Texas, which is, that there shall be organized a company in England, who shall advance a sum sufficient to pay for the slaves now in Texas, and receive in payment Texas lands; that the sum thus advanced shall be paid over as an indemnity for the abolition of slavery; and I am authorized by the Texian minister to say to you, that Lord Aberdeen has agreed that the British government will guarantee the payment of the interest on this loan, upon condition that the Texian government will abolish slavery.'

"The writer professes to feel entire confidence in the accuracy of this information. He is a man of great intelligence, and well versed in public affairs. Hence I have every reason to confide in the correctness of his conclusions."

The name of the writer is not given, but he is believed to be Mr. Duff Green--a name which suggests a vicarious relation to our Secretary of State--which is a synonym for intrigue--and a voucher for finding in London whatever he was sent to bring back--who is the putative recipient of the Gilmer letter to a friend in Maryland, destined for General Jackson--and whose complicity with this Texas plot is a fixed fact. Truly this "inhabitant of Maryland," who lived in Washington, and whose existence was as ubiquitous as his rôle was vicarious, was a very indispensable agent in all this Texas plot.

The letter then goes on, through a dozen elaborate paragraphs, to give every reason for the annexation of Texas, founded on the apprehension of British views there and the consequent danger to the slave property of the South, and other injuries to the United States, which have been so incontinently reproduced, and so tenaciously adhered to ever since.

Thus commenced the plan for the immediate annexation of Texas to the United States, as the only means of saving that country from British domination, and from the anti-slavery schemes attributed to her by Mr. Duff Green. Unfortunately, it was not deemed necessary to inquire into the truth of this gentleman's information; and it was not until four months afterwards, and until after the most extraordinary efforts to secure annexation had been made by our government, that it was discovered that the information given by Mr. Green was entirely mistaken and unfounded! The British minister (the Earl of Aberdeen) and the Texian chargé in London (Mr. Ashbel Smith), both of whom were referred to by Mr. Green, being informed in the month of November of the use which had been made of their names, availed themselves of the first opportunity to contradict the whole story to our minister, Mr. Everett. This minister immediately communicated these important contradictions to his own government, and we find them in the official correspondence transmitted to us by Mr. Everett, under dates of the 3d and 16th of November, 1843. I quote first from that of the 3d of November:

(Here was read Mr. Everett's account of his first conversation with the Earl of Aberdeen on this subject.)

I quote copiously, and with pleasure, Mr. President, from this report of Lord Aberdeen's conversation with Mr. Everett; it is frank and friendly, equally honorable to the minister as a man and a statesman, and worthy of the noble spirit of the great William Pitt. Nothing could dissipate more completely, and extinguish more utterly, the insidious designs imputed to Great Britain; nothing could be more satisfactory and complete; nothing more was wanting to acquit the British government of all the alarming designs imputed to her. It was enough; but the Earl of Aberdeen, in the fulness of his desire to leave the American government no ground for suspicion or complaint on this head, voluntarily returned to the topic a few days afterwards; and, on the 6th of November, again disclaims in the strongest terms the offensive designs imputed to his government. Mr. Everett thus relates, in his letter of the 16th of November, the substance of these renewed declarations:

(Here the letter giving an account of the second interview was read.)

Thus, twice, in three days, the British minister fully, formally, and in the broadest manner contradicted the whole story upon the faith of which our President had commenced (so far as the papers show the commencement of it) his immediate annexation project, as the only means of counteracting the dangerous designs of Great Britain! But this was not all. There was another witness in London who had been referred to by Mr. Duff Green; and it remained for this witness to confirm or contradict his story. This was the Texian chargé (Mr. Ashbel Smith): and the same letter from Mr. Everett, of the 16th of November, brought his contradiction in unequivocal terms. Mr. Everett thus recites it:

(The passage was read.)

Such was the statement of Mr. Ashbel Smith! and the story of Mr. Duff Green, which had been made the basis of the whole scheme for immediate annexation, being now contradicted by two witnesses--the two which he himself had named--it might have been expected that some halt or pause would have taken place, to give an opportunity for consideration and reflection, and for consulting the American people, and endeavoring to procure the consent of Mexico. This might have been expected: but not so the fact. On the contrary, the immediate annexation was pressed more warmly than ever, and the administration papers became more clamorous and incessant in their accusations of Great Britain. Seeing this, and being anxious (to use his own words) to put a stop to these misrepresentations, and to correct the errors of the American government, the Earl of Aberdeen, in a formal despatch to Mr. Pakenham, the new British minister at Washington, took the trouble of a third contradiction, and a most formal and impressive one, to all the evil designs in relation to Texas, and, through Texas, upon the United States, which were thus perseveringly attributed to his government. This paper, destined to become a great landmark in this controversy, from the frankness and fulness of its disavowals, and from the manner in which detached phrases, picked out of it, have been used by our Secretary of State [Mr. CALHOUN] since the treaty was signed, to justify its signature, deserves to be read in full, and to be made a corner-stone in the debate on this subject. I therefore, quote it in full, and shall read it at length in the body of my speech. This is it:

(The whole letter read.)

This was intended to stop the misrepresentations which were circulated, and to correct the errors of the government in relation to Great Britain and Texas. It was a reiteration, and that for the third time, and voluntarily, of denial of all the alarming designs attributed to Great Britain, and by means of which a Texas agitation was getting up in the United States. Besides the full declaration made to our federal government, as head of the Union, a special assurance was given to the slaveholding States, to quiet their apprehensions, the truth and sufficiency of which must be admitted by every person who cannot furnish proof to the contrary. I read this special assurance a second time, that its importance may be more distinctly and deeply felt by every senator:

"And the governments of the slaveholding States may be assured, that, although we shall not desist from those open and honest efforts which we have constantly made for procuring the abolition of slavery throughout the world, we shall neither openly nor secretly resort to any measures which can tend to disturb their internal tranquillity, or thereby to affect the prosperity of the American Union."

It was on the 26th day of February that this noble despatch was communicated to the (then) American Secretary of State. That gentleman lost his life by an awful catastrophe on the 28th, and it seems to be understood, and admitted all around, that the treaty of annexation was agreed upon, and virtually concluded before his death. Nothing, then, in Lord Aberdeen's declaration, could have had any effect upon its formation or conclusion. Yet, six days after the actual signature of the treaty by the present Secretary of State--namely, on the 18th day of April--this identical despatch of Lord Aberdeen is seized upon, in a letter to Mr. Pakenham, to justify the formation of the treaty, and to prove the necessity for the immediate annexation of Texas to the United States, as a measure of self-defence, and as the only means of saving our Union! Listen to the two or three first paragraphs of that letter: it is the long one filled with those negro statistics of which Mr. Pakenham declines the controversy. The secretary says:

(Here the paragraphs were read, and the Senate heard with as much amazement as Mr. Pakenham could have done, that comparative statement of the lame, blind, halt, idiotic, pauper and jail tenants of the free and the slave blacks, which the letter to the British minister contained, with a view to prove that slavery was their best condition.)

It is evident, Mr. President, that the treaty was commenced, carried on, formed, and agreed upon, so far as the documents show its origin, in virtue of the information given in the private letter of Mr. Duff Green, contradicted as that was by the Texian and British ministers, to whom it referred. It is evident from all the papers that this was the case. The attempt to find in Lord Aberdeen's letter a subsequent pretext for what had previously been done, is evidently an afterthought, put to paper, for the first time, just six days after the treaty had been signed! The treaty was signed on the 12th of April: the afterthought was committed to paper, in the form of a letter to Mr. Pakenham, on the 18th! and on the 19th the treaty was sent to the Senate! having been delayed seven days to admit of drawing up, and sending in along with it, this ex post facto discovery of reasons to justify it. The letter of Mr. Calhoun was sent in with the treaty: the reply of Mr. Pakenham to it, though brief and prompt, being written on the same day (the 19th of April), was not received by the Senate until ten days thereafter--to wit: on the 29th of April; and when received, it turns out to be a fourth disavowal, in the most clear and unequivocal terms, of this new discovery of the old designs imputed to Great Britain, and which had been three times disavowed before. Here is the letter of Mr. Pakenham, giving this fourth contradiction to the old story, and appealing to the judgment of the civilized world for its opinion on the whole transaction. I read an extract from this letter; the last one, it is presumed, that Mr. Pakenham can write till he hears from his government, to which he had immediately transmitted Mr. Calhoun's ex post facto letter of the 18th.

(It was read.)

Now what will the civilized world, to whose good opinion we must all look: what will Christendom, now so averse to war, and pretexted war: what will the laws of reason and honor, so just in their application to the conduct of nations and individuals: what will this civilized world, this Christian world, these just laws--what will they all say that our government ought to have done, under this accumulation of peremptory denials of all the causes which we had undertaken to find in the conduct of Great Britain for our "immediate" annexation of Texas, and war with Mexico? Surely these tribunals will say: First, That the disavowals should have been received as sufficient; or Secondly, They should be disproved, if not admitted to be true; or Thirdly, That reasonable time should be allowed for looking further into their truth.

One of these things should have been done: our President does neither. He concludes the treaty--retains it a week--sends it to the Senate--and his Secretary of State obtains a promise from the chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations [Mr. ARCHER] to delay all action upon it--not to take it up for forty days--the exact time that would cover the sitting of the Baltimore democratic convention for the nomination of presidential candidates! This promise was obtained under the assurance that a special messenger had been despatched to Mexico for her consent to the treaty; and the forty days was the time claimed for the execution of his errand, and at the end of which he was expected to return with the required consent. Bad luck again! This despatch of the messenger, and delay for his return, and the reasons he was understood to be able to have offered for the consent of Mexico, were felt by all as an admission that the consent of Mexico must be obtained, cost what millions it might. This admission was fatal! and it became necessary to take another tack, and do it away! This was attempted in a subsequent message of the President, admitting, to be sure, that the messenger was sent, and sent to operate upon Mexico in relation to the treaty; but taking a fine distinction between obtaining her consent to it, and preventing her from being angry at it! This message will receive justice at the hands of others; I only heard it as read, and cannot quote it in its own words. But the substance of it was, that the messenger was sent to prevent Mexico from going to war with us on account of the treaty! as if there was any difference between getting her to consent to the treaty, and getting her not to dissent! But, here again, more bad luck. Besides the declarations of the chairman of Foreign Relations, showing what this messenger was sent for, there is a copy of the letter furnished to us of which he was the bearer, and which shows that the "concurrence" of Mexico was wanted, and that apologies are offered for not obtaining her "previous consent." But, of this hereafter. I go on with the current of events. The treaty was sent in, and forty days' silence upon it was demanded of the Senate. Now why send it in, if the Senate was not to touch it for forty days? Why not retain it in the Department of State until the lapse of these forty days, when the answer from Mexico would have been received, and a fifth disavowal arrived from Great Britain! if, indeed, it is possible for her to reiterate a disavowal already four times made, and not received? Why not retain the treaty during these forty days of required silence upon it in the Senate, and when that precious time might have been turned to such valuable account in interchanging friendly explanations with Great Britain and Mexico? Why not keep the treaty in the Secretary of State's office, as well as in the Secretary of the Senate's office, during these forty days? Precisely because the Baltimore convention was to sit in thirty-eight days from that time! and forty days would give time for the "Texas bomb" to burst and scatter its fragments all over the Union, blowing up candidates for the presidency, blowing up the tongue-tied Senate itself for not ratifying the treaty, and furnishing a new Texas candidate, anointed with gunpowder, for the presidential chair. This was the reason, and as obvious as if written at the head of every public document. In the mean time, all these movements give fresh reason for an examination of persons at the bar of the Senate. The determination of the President to conclude the treaty, before the Earl of Aberdeen's despatch was known to him--that is to say, before the 26th of February, 1844: the true nature of the messenger's errand to Mexico, and many other points, now involved in obscurity, may be cleared up in these examinations, to the benefit and well being of the Union. Perhaps it may chance to turn out in proof, that the secretary, who found his reasons for making the treaty and hastening the immediate annexation, had determined upon all that long before he heard of Lord Aberdeen's letter.

But to go on. Instead of admitting, disproving, or taking time to consider the reiterated disavowals of the British government, the messenger to Mexico is charged with our manifesto of war against that government, on account of the imputed designs of Great Britain, and in which they are all assumed to be true! and not only true, but fraught with such sudden, irresistible, and irretrievable ruin to the United States, that there was no time for an instant of delay, nor any way to save the Union from destruction but by the "immediate" annexation of Texas. Here is the letter. It is too important to be abridged; and though referred to several times, will now be read in full. Hear it:

(The letter read.)

This letter was addressed to Mr. Benjamin Green, the son of Mr. Duff Green; so that the beginning and the ending of this "immediate" annexation scheme, so far as the invention of the pretext, and the inculpation of Great Britain is concerned, is in the hands of father and son--a couple, of whom it may be said, in the language of Gil Blas, "These two make a pair." The letter itself is one of the most unfortunate that the annals of diplomacy ever exhibited. It admits the wrong to Mexico, and offers to fight her for that wrong; and not for any thing that she has done to the United States, but because of some supposed operation of Great Britain upon Texas. Was there ever such a comedy of errors, or, it may be, tragedy of crimes! Let us analyze this important letter; let us examine it, paragraph by paragraph.

The first paragraph enjoins the strongest assurances to be given to Mexico of our indisposition to wound the dignity or honor of Mexico in making this treaty, and of our regret if she should consider it otherwise. This admits that we have done something to outrage Mexico, and that we owe her a volunteer apology, to soften her anticipated resentment.

The same paragraph states that we have been driven to this step in self-defence, and to counteract the "policy adopted," and the "efforts made" by Great Britain to abolish slavery in Texas. This is an admission that we have done what may be offensive and injurious to Mexico, not on account of any thing she has done to us, but for what we fear Great Britain may do to Texas. And as for this plea of self-defence, it is an invasion of the homicidal criminal's prerogative, to plead it. All the murders committed in our country, are done in self-defence--a few through insanity. The choice of the defence lies between them, and it is often a nice guess for counsel to say which to take. And so it might have been in this case; and insanity would have been an advantage in the plea, being more honorable, and not more false.

The same paragraph admits that the United States has made this treaty in full view of war with Mexico; for the words "all possible consequences," taken in connection with the remaining words of the sentence, and with General Almonte's notice filed by order of his government at the commencement of this negotiation, can mean nothing else but war! and that to be made by the treaty-making power.

The second paragraph directs the despatch of Lord Aberdeen to be read to the Mexican Secretary of State, to show him our cause of complaint against Great Britain. This despatch is to be read--not delivered, not even a copy of it--to the Mexican minister. He may take notes of it during the reading, but not receive a copy, because it is a document to be sent to the Senate! Surely the Senate would have pardoned a departure from etiquette in a case where war was impending, and where the object was to convince the nation we were going to fight! that we had a right to fight her for fear of something which a third power might do to a fourth. To crown this scene, the reading is to be of a document in the English language, to a minister whose language is Spanish; and who may not know what is read, except through an interpreter.

The third paragraph of this pregnant letter admits that questions are to grow out of this treaty, for the settlement of which a minister will be sent by us to Mexico. This is a most grave admission. It is a confession that we commit such wrong upon Mexico by this treaty, that it will take another treaty to redress it; and that, as the wrong doer, we will volunteer an embassy to atone for our misconduct. Boundary is named as one of these things to be settled, and with reason; for we violate 2,000 miles of Mexican boundary which is to become ours by the ratification of this treaty, and to remain ours till restored to its proper owner by another treaty. Is this right? Is it sound in morals? Is it safe in policy? Would we take 2,000 miles of the Canadas in the same way? I presume not. And why not? why not treat Great Britain and Mexico alike? why not march up to "Fifty-Four Forty" as courageously as we march upon the Rio Grande? Because Great Britain is powerful, and Mexico weak--a reason which may fail in policy as much as in morals. Yes, sir! Boundary will have to be adjusted, and that of the Rio Grande; and until adjusted, we shall be aggressors, by our own admission, on the undisputed Mexican territory on the Rio Grande.

The last paragraph is the most significant of the whole. It is a confession, by the clearest inferences, that our whole conduct to Mexico has been tortuous and wrongful, and that she has "rights," to the settlement of which Mexico must be a party. The great admissions are, the want of the concurrence of Mexico; the want of her previous consent to this treaty; its objectionableness to her; the violation of her boundary; the "rights" of each, and of course the right of Mexico to settle questions of security and interest which are unsettled by the present treaty. The result of the whole is, that the war, in full view of which the treaty was made, was an unjust war upon Mexico.

Thus admitting our wrong in injuring Mexico, in not obtaining her concurrence; in not securing her previous consent; in violating her boundary; in proceeding without her in a case where her rights, security, and interests are concerned; admitting all this, what is the reason given to Mexico for treating her with the contempt of a total neglect in all this affair? And here strange scenes rise up before us. This negotiation began, upon the record, in August last. We had a minister in Mexico with whom we could communicate every twenty days. Mexico had a minister here, with whom we could communicate every hour in the day. Then why not consult Mexico before the treaty? Why not speak to her during these eight months, when in such hot haste to consult her afterwards, and so anxious to stop our action on the treaty till she was heard from, and so ready to volunteer millions to propitiate her wrath, or to conciliate her consent? Why this haste after the treaty, when there was so much time before? It was because the plan required the "bomb" to be kept back till forty days before the Baltimore convention, and then a storm to be excited.

The reason given for this great haste after so long delay, is that the safety of the United States was at stake: that the British would abolish slavery in Texas, and then in the United States, and so destroy the Union. Giving to this imputed design, for the sake of the argument, all the credit due to an uncontradicted scheme, and still it is a preposterous excuse for not obtaining the previous consent of Mexico. It turns upon the idea that this abolition of slavery in Texas is to be sudden, irresistible, irretrievable! and that not a minute was to be lost in averting the impending ruin! But this is not the case. Admitting what is charged--that Great Britain has adopted a policy, and made efforts to abolish slavery in Texas, with a view to its abolition in the United States--yet this is not to be done by force, or magic. The Duke of Wellington is not to land at the head of some 100,000 men to set the slaves free. No gunpowder plot, like that intended by Guy Fawkes, is to blow the slaves out of the country. No magic wand is to be waved over the land, and to convert it into the home of the free. No slips of magic carpet in the Arabian Nights is to be slipped under the feet of the negroes to send them all whizzing, by a wish, ten thousand miles through the air. None of these sudden, irresistible, irretrievable modes of operating is to be followed by Great Britain. She wishes to see slavery abolished in Texas, as elsewhere; but this wish, like all other human wishes, is wholly inoperative without works to back it: and these Great Britain denies. She denies that she will operate by works, only by words where acceptable. But admit it. Admit that she has now done what she never did before--denied her design! admit all this, and you still have to confess that she is a human power and has to work by human means, and in this case to operate upon the minds of people and of nations--upon Mexico, Texas, the United States, and slaves within the boundaries of these two latter countries. She has to work by moral means; that is to say, by operating on the mind and will. All this is a work of time--a work of years--the work of a generation! Slavery is in the constitution of Texas, and in the hearts, customs, and interests of the people; and cannot be got out in many years, if at all. And are we to be told that there was no time to consult Mexico? or, in the vague language of the letter, that circumstances did not permit the consultation, and that without disclosing what these circumstances were? It was last August that the negotiation began. Was there fear that Mexico would liberate Texian slaves if she found out the treaty before it was made? Alas! sir, she refused to have any thing to do with the scheme! Great Britain proposed to her to make emancipation of slaves the condition of acknowledging Texian independence. She utterly refused it; and of this our government was officially informed by the Earl of Aberdeen. No, sir, no! There is no reason in the excuse. I profess to be a man that can understand reason, and could comprehend the force of the circumstances which would show that the danger of delay was so imminent that nothing but immediate annexation could save the United States from destruction. But none such are named, or can be named; and the true reason is, that the Baltimore convention was to sit on the 27th of May.

Great Britain avows all she intends, and that is--a wish--TO SEE--slavery abolished in Texas; and she declares all the means which she means to use, and that is, advice where it is acceptable.

It will be a strange spectacle, in the nineteenth century, to behold the United States at war with Mexico, because Great Britain wishes--TO SEE--the abolition of slavery in Texas.

So far from being a just cause of war, I hold that the expression of such a wish is not even censurable by us, since our naval alliance with Great Britain for the suppression of the slave trade--since our diplomatic alliance with her to close the markets of the world against the slave trade--and since the large effusion of mawkish sentimentality on the subject of slavery, in which our advocates of the aforesaid diplomatic and naval alliance indulged themselves at the time of its negotiation and conclusion. Since that time, I think we have lost the right (if we ever possessed it) of fighting Mexico, because Great Britain says she wishes--TO SEE--slavery abolished in Texas, as elsewhere throughout the world.

The civilized world judges the causes of war, and discriminates between motives and pretexts: the former are respected when true and valid--the latter are always despised and exposed. Every Christian nation owes it to itself, as well as to the family of Christian nations, to examine well its grounds of war, before it begins one, and to hold itself in a condition to justify its act in the eyes of God and man. Not satisfied of either the truth or validity of the cause for our war with Mexico, in the alleged interference of Great Britain in Texian affairs, I feel myself bound to oppose it, and not the less because it is deemed a small war. Our constitution knows no difference between wars. The declaration of all wars is given to Congress--not to the President and Senate--much less to the President alone. Besides, a war is an ungovernable monster, and there is no knowing into what proportions even a small one may expand! especially when the interference of one large power may lead to the interference of another.

Great Britain disavows (and that four times over) all the designs upon Texas attributed to her. She disavows every thing. I believe I am as jealous of the encroaching and domineering spirit of that power, as any reasonable man ought to be; but these disavowals are enough for me. That government is too proud to lie! too wise to criminate its future conduct by admitting the culpability which the disavowal implies. Its fault is on the other side of the account--in its arrogance in avowing, and even overstating, its pretensions. Copenhagen is her style! I repeat it, then, the disavowal of all design to interfere with Texian Independence, or with the existence of slavery in Texas, is enough for me. I shall believe in it until I see it disproved by evidence, or otherwise falsified. Would to God that our administration could get the same disavowal in all the questions of real difference between the two countries! that we could get it in the case of the Oregon--the claim of search--the claim of visitation--the claim of impressment--the practice of liberating our fugitive and criminal slaves--the repetition of the Schlosser invasion of our territory and murder of our citizens--the outrage of the Comet, Encomium, Enterprise, and Hermosa cases!

And here, without regard to the truth or falsehood of this imputed design of British intentions to abolish slavery in Texas, a very awkward circumstance crosses our path in relation to its validity, if true: for, it so happens that we did that very thing ourselves! By the Louisiana treaty of 1803, Texas, and all the country, between the Red River and Arkansas, became ours, and was subject to slavery: by the treaty of 1819, made, as Mr. Adams assures us, by the majority of Mr. Monroe's cabinet, who were Southern men, this Texas, and a hundred thousand square miles of other territory between the Red River and Arkansas, were dismembered from our Union, and added to Mexico, a non-slaveholding empire. By that treaty of 1819, slavery was actually abolished in all that region in which we now only fear, contrary to the evidence, that there is a design to abolish it! and the confines of a non-slaveholding empire were then actually brought to the boundaries of Louisiana, Arkansas, and Missouri! the exact places which we now so greatly fear to expose to the contact of a non-slaveholding dominion. All this I exposed at the time the treaty of 1819 was made, and pointed out as one of the follies or crimes, of that unaccountable treaty; and now recur to it in my place here to absolve Mr. Adams, the negotiator of the treaty of 1819, from the blame which I then cast upon him. His responsible statement on the floor of the House of Representatives has absolved him from that blame, and transferred it to the shoulders of the majority of Mr. Monroe's cabinet. On seeing the report of his speech in the papers, I deemed it right to communicate with Mr. Adams, through a senator from his State, now in my eye, and who hears what I say (looking at Mr. BATES, of Massachusetts), and through him received the confirmation of the reported speech, that he (Mr. Adams) was the last of Mr. Monroe's cabinet to yield our true boundaries in that quarter. [Here Mr. Bates nodded assent.] Southern men deprived us of Texas, and made it non-slaveholding in 1819. Our present Secretary of State was a member of that cabinet, and counselled that treaty: our present President was a member of the House, and sanctioned it in voting against Mr. Clay's condemnatory resolution. They did a great mischief then: they should be cautious not to err again in the manner of getting it back.

I have shown you, Mr. President, that the ratification of this treaty would be war with Mexico--that it would be unjust war, unconstitutionally made--and made upon a weak and groundless pretext. It is not my purpose to show for what object this war is made--why these marching and sailing orders have been given--and why our troops and ships, as squadrons and corps of observation, are now in the Gulf of Mexico, watching Mexican cities; or on the Red River, watching Mexican soldiers. I have not told the reasons for this war, and warlike movements, nor is it necessary to do so. The purpose of the whole is plain and obvious. It is in every body's mouth. It is in the air, and we can see and feel it. Mr. Tyler wants to be President; and, different from the perfumed fop of Shakspeare, to whom the smell of gunpowder was so offensive, he not only wants to smell that compound, but also to smell of it. He wants an odor of the "villanous compound" upon him. He has become infected with the modern notion that gunpowder popularity is the passport to the presidency; and he wants that passport. He wants to play Jackson; but let him have a care. From the sublime to the ridiculous there is but a step; and, in heroic imitations, there is no middle ground. The hero missed, the harlequin appears; and hisses salute the ears which were itching for applause. Jackson was no candidate for the presidency when he acted the real, not the mock hero. He staked himself for his country--did nothing but what was just--and eschewed intrigue. His elevation to the presidency was the act of his fellow-citizens--not the machination of himself.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

Chapter CXL

TEXAS OR DISUNION: SOUTHERN CONVENTION: MR. BENTON'S SPEECH: EXTRACTS.

The senator from South Carolina (Mr. McDuffie) assumes it for certain, that the great meeting projected for Nashville is to take place: and wishes to know who are to be my bedfellows in that great gathering: and I on my part, would wish to know who are to be his! Misery, says the proverb, makes strange bedfellows: and political combinations sometimes make them equally strange. The fertile imagination of Burke has presented us with a view of one of these strange sights; and the South Carolina procession at Nashville (if nothing occurs to balk it) may present another. Burke has exhibited to us the picture of a cluster of old political antagonists (it was after the formation of Lord North's broad bottomed administration, and after the country's good and love of office had smothered old animosities)--all sleeping together in one truckle-bed: to use his own language, all pigging together (that is, lying like pigs, heads and tails, and as many together) in the same truckle-bed: and a queer picture he made of it! But if things go on as projected here, never did misery, or political combination, or the imagination of Burke, present such a medley of bedfellows as will be seen at Nashville. All South Carolina is to be there: of course General Jackson will be there, and will be good and hospitable to all. But let the travellers take care who goes to bed to him. If he should happen to find old tariff disunion, disguised as Texas disunion, lying by his side! then woe to the hapless wight that has sought such a lodging. Preservation of the Federal Union is as strong in the old Roman's heart now as ever: and while, as a Christian, he forgives all that is past (if it were past!), yet, no old tricks under new names. Texas disunion will be to him the same as tariff disunion: and if he detects a Texas disunionist nestling into his bed, I say again, woe to the luckless wight! Sheets and blankets will be no salvation. The tiger will not be toothless--the senator understands the allusion--nor clawless either. Teeth and claws he will have, and sharp use he will make of them! Not only skin and fur, but blood and bowels may fly, and double-quick time scampering may clear that bed! I shall not be there: even if the scheme goes on (which I doubt after this day's occurrences); if it should go on, and any thing should induce me to go so far out of my line, it would be to have a view of the senator from South Carolina, and the friends for whom he speaks, and their new bedfellows, or fellows in bed, as the case may be, all pigging together in one truckle-bed at Nashville.

But I advise the contrivers to give up this scheme. Polk and Texas are strong, and can carry a great deal, but not every thing. The oriental story informs us that it was the last ounce which broke the camel's back? What if a mountain had been put first on the poor animal's back? Nullification is a mountain! Disunion is a mountain! and what could Polk and Texas do with two mountains on their backs? And here, Mr. President, I must speak out. The time has come for those to speak out who neither fear nor count consequences when their country is in danger. Nullification and disunion are revived, and revived under circumstances which menace more danger than ever, since coupled with a popular question which gives to the plotters the honest sympathies of the patriotic millions. I have often intimated it before, but now proclaim it. Disunion is at the bottom of this long-concealed Texas machination. Intrigue and speculation co-operate; but disunion is at the bottom, and I denounce it to the American people. Under the pretext of getting Texas into the Union, the scheme is to get the South out of it. A separate confederacy, stretching from the Atlantic to the Californias (and hence the secret of the Rio Grande del Norte frontier), is the cherished vision of disappointed ambition; and for this consummation every circumstance has been carefully and artfully contrived. A secret and intriguing negotiation, concealed from Congress and the people: an abolition quarrel picked with Great Britain to father an abolition quarrel at home: a slavery correspondence to outrage the North: war with Mexico: the clandestine concentration of troops and ships in the southwest: the secret compact with the President of Texas, and the subjection of American forces to his command: the flagrant seizure of the purse and the sword: the contradictory and preposterous reasons on which the detected military and naval movement was defended--all these announce the prepared catastrophe; and the inside view of the treaty betrays its design. The whole annexed country is to be admitted as one territory, with a treaty-promise to be admitted as States, when we all know that Congress alone can admit new States, and that the treaty-promise, without a law of Congress to back it, is void. The whole to be slave States (and with the boundary to the Rio Grande there may be a great many); and the correspondence, which is the key to the treaty, and shows the design of its framers, wholly directed to the extension of slavery and the exasperation of the North. What else could be done to get up Missouri controversies and make sure of the non-admission of these States? Then the plot is consummated: and Texas without the Union, sooner than the Union without Texas (already the premonitory chorus of so many resolves), receives its practical application in the secession of the South, and its adhesion to the rejected Texas. Even without waiting for the non-admission of the States, so carefully provided for in the treaty and correspondence, secession and confederation with the foreign Texas is already the scheme of the subaltern disunionists. The subalterns, charged too high by their chiefs, are ready for this; but the more cunning chiefs, want Texas in as a territory--in by treaty--the supreme law of the land--with a void promise for admission as States. Then non-admission can be called a breach of the treaty. Texas can be assumed to be a part of the Union; and secession and conjunction with her becomes the rightful remedy. This is the design, and I denounce it; and blind is he who, occupying a position at this capitol, does not behold it!

I mention secession as the more cunning method of dissolving the Union. It is disunion, and the more dangerous because less palpable. Nullification begat it, and if allowed there is an end to the Union. For a few States to secede, without other alliances, would only put the rest to the trouble of bringing them back; but with Texas and California to retire upon, the Union would have to go. Many persons would secede on the non-admission of Texian States who abhor disunion now. To avoid all these dangers, and to make sure of Texas, pass my bill! which gives the promise of Congress for the admission of the new States--neutralizes the slave question--avoids Missouri controversies--pacifies Mexico--and harmonizes the Union.

The senator from South Carolina complains that I have been arrogant and overbearing in this debate, and dictatorial to those who were opposed to me. So far as this reproach is founded, I have to regret it, and to ask pardon of the Senate and of its members. I may be in some fault. I have, indeed, been laboring under deep feeling; and while much was kept down, something may have escaped. I marked the commencement of this Texas movement long before it was visible to the public eye; and always felt it to be dangerous, because it gave to the plotters the honest sympathies of the millions. I saw men who never cared a straw about Texas--one of whom gave it away--another of whom voted against saving it--and all of whom were silent and indifferent while the true friends of the sacrificed country were laboring to get it back: I saw these men lay their plot in the winter of 1842-'43, and told every person with whom I talked every step they were to take in it. All that has taken place, I foretold: all that is intended, I foresee. The intrigue for the presidency was the first act in the drama; the dissolution of the Union the second. And I, who hate intrigue, and love the Union, can only speak of intriguers and disunionists with warmth and indignation. The oldest advocate for the recovery of Texas, I must be allowed to speak in just terms of the criminal politicians who prostituted the question of its recovery to their own base purposes, and delayed its success by degrading and disgracing it. A western man, and coming from a State more than any other interested in the recovery of this country so unaccountably thrown away by the treaty of 1819, I must be allowed to feel indignant at seeing Atlantic politicians seizing upon it, and making it a sectional question, for the purposes of ambition and disunion. I have spoken warmly of these plotters and intriguers; but I have not permitted their conduct to alter my own, or to relax my zeal for the recovery of the sacrificed country. I have helped to reject the disunion treaty; and that obstacle being removed, I have brought in the bill which will insure the recovery of Texas (with peace, and honor, and with the Union) as soon as the exasperation has subsided which the outrageous conduct of this administration has excited in every Mexican breast. No earthly power but Mexico has a right to say a word. Civil treatment and consultation beforehand would have conciliated her; but the seizure of two thousand miles of her undisputed territory, an insulting correspondence, breach of the armistice, secret negotiations with Texas, and sending troops and ships to waylay and attack her, have excited feelings of resentment which must be allayed before any thing can be done.

The senator from South Carolina compares the rejected treaty to the slain Cæsar, and gives it a ghost, which is to meet me at some future day, as the spectre met Brutus at Philippi. I accept the comparison, and thank the senator for it. It is both classic and just; for as Cæsar was slain for the good of his country, so has been this treaty; and as the spectre appeared at Philippi on the side of the ambitious Antony and the hypocrite Octavius, and against the patriot Brutus, so would the ghost of this poor treaty, when it comes to meet me, appear on the side of the President and his secretary, and against the man who was struggling to save his country from their lawless designs. But here the comparison must stop; for I can promise the ghost and his backers that if the fight goes against me at this new Philippi, with which I am threatened, and the enemies of the American Union triumph over me as the enemies of Roman liberty triumphed over Brutus and Cassius, I shall not fall upon my sword, as Brutus did, though Cassius be killed, and run it through my own body; but I shall save it, and save myself for another day, and for another use--for the day when the battle of the disunion of these States is to be fought--not with words, but with iron--and for the hearts of the traitors who appear in arms against their country.

The comparison is just. Cæsar was rightfully killed for conspiring against his country; but it was not he that destroyed the liberties of Rome. That work was done by the profligate politicians, without him, and before his time; and his death did not restore the republic. There were no more elections. Rotten politicians had destroyed them; and the nephew of Cæsar, as heir to his uncle, succeeded to the empire on the principle of hereditary succession.

And here, Mr. President, History appears in her grand and instructive character, as Philosophy teaching by example: and let us not be senseless to her warning voice. Superficial readers believe it was the military men who destroyed the Roman republic. No such thing! It was the politicians who did it! factious, corrupt, intriguing, politicians! destroying public virtue in their mad pursuit after office! destroying their rivals by crime! deceiving and debauching the people for votes! and bringing elections into contempt by the frauds and violence with which they were conducted. From the time of the Gracchi there were no elections that could bear the name. Confederate and rotten politicians bought and sold the consulship. Intrigue, and the dagger, disposed of rivals. Fraud, violence, bribes, terror, and the plunder of the public treasury, commanded votes. The people had no choice: and long before the time of Cæsar nothing remained of republican government, but the name, and the abuse. Read Plutarch. In the life of Cæsar, and not three pages before the crossing of the Rubicon, he paints the ruined state of the elections--shows that all elective government was gone--that the hereditary form had become a necessary relief from the contests of the corrupt--and that in choosing between Pompey and Cæsar, many preferred Pompey, not because they thought him republican, but because they thought he would make the milder king. Even arms were but a small part of Cæsar's reliance when he crossed the Rubicon. Gold, still more than the sword, was his dependence: and he sent forward the accumulated treasures of plundered Gaul, to be poured into the laps of rotten politicians. There was no longer a popular government; and in taking all power to himself, he only took advantage of the state of things which profligate politicians had produced. In this he was culpable, and paid the forfeit with his life; but in contemplating his fate, let us never forget that the politicians had undermined and destroyed the republic, before he came to seize and to master it.

It was the same in our day. We have seen the conqueror of Egypt and Italy overturn the Directory, usurp all power, and receive the sanction of the people. And why? Because the government was rotten, and elections had become a farce. The elections of forty-eight departments, at one time, in the year 1798, were annulled, to give the Directory a majority in the legislative councils. All sorts of fraud and violence were committed at the elections. The people had no confidence in them, and submitted to Bonaparte.

All elective governments have failed in this manner; and, in process of time, must fail here, unless elections can be taken out of the hands of the politicians, and restored to the full control of the people. The plan which I have submitted this day, for dispensing with intermediate bodies, and holding a second election for President when the first fails, is designed to accomplish this great purpose; and will do much good if adopted. Never have politicians, in so young a country, shown such a thirst for office--such disregard of the popular will, such readiness to deceive and betray the people. The Texas treaty (for I must confine myself to the case before us) is an intrigue for the presidency, and a contrivance to get the Southern States out of the Union, instead of getting Texian States into it; and is among the most unscrupulous intrigues which any country every beheld. But we know how to discriminate. We know how to separate the wrong from the right. Texas, which the intriguers prostrated to their ambitious purposes (caring nothing about it, as their past lives show), will be rescued from their designs, and restored to this Union as naturally, and as easily, as the ripened pear falls to the earth. Those who prepared the result at the Baltimore convention, in which the will of the people was overthrown, will be consigned to oblivion; while the nominees of the convention will be accepted and sustained: and as for the plotters of disunion and secession, they will be found out and will receive their reward; and I, for one, shall be ready to meet them at Philippi, sword in hand, whenever they bring their parricidal scheme to the test of arms.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us