Chapter CXLI…

Chapter CXLI

TEXAS OR DISUNION: VIOLENT DEMONSTRATIONS IN THE SOUTH: SOUTHERN CONVENTION PROPOSED.

The secret intrigue for the annexation of Texas was framed with a double aspect--one looking to the presidential election, the other to the separation of the Southern States; and as soon as the rejection of the treaty was foreseen, and the nominating convention had acted (Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Tyler standing no chance), the disunion aspect manifested itself over many of the Southern States--beginning of course with South Carolina. Before the end of May a great meeting took place (with the muster of a regiment) at Ashley, in the Barnwell district of that State, to combine the slave States in a convention to unite the Southern States to Texas, if Texas should not be received into the Union; and to invite the President to convene Congress to arrange the terms of the dissolution of the Union if the rejection of the annexation should be persevered in. At this meeting all the speeches and resolves turned upon the original idea in the Gilmer letter--that of British alliance with Texas--the abolition of slavery in Texas in consequence of that alliance, and a San Domingo insurrection of slaves in the Southern States; and the conjunction of the South and Texas in a new republic was presented as the only means of averting these dire calamities. With this view, and as giving the initiative to the movement, these resolutions were adopted:

"First: To call upon our delegations in Congress, if in session, or our senators, if they be at the seat of government, to wait on the Texian Minister, and remonstrate with him against any negotiation with other powers, until the Southern States shall have had a reasonable time to decide upon their course.

"Second: That object secured, a convention of the people of each State should be promptly called, to deliberate and decide, upon the action to be taken by the slave States on the question of annexation; and to appoint delegates to a convention of the slave States, with instructions to carry into effect the behests of the people.

"Third: That a convention of the slave States by delegations from each, appointed as aforesaid, should be called, to meet at some central position, to take into consideration the question of annexing Texas to the Union, if the Union will accept it; or, if the Union will not accept it, then of annexing Texas to the Southern States!

"Fourth: That the President of the United States be requested by the general convention of the slave States, to call Congress together immediately; when, the final issue shall be made up, and the alternative distinctly presented to the free States, either to admit Texas into the Union, or to proceed peaceably and calmly to arrange the terms of a dissolution of the Union!"

About the same time another large meeting was held at Beaufort, in the same State, in which it was

"Resolved, That if the Senate of the United States--under the drill of party leaders--should reject the treaty of annexation, we appeal to the citizens of Texas, and urge them not to yield to a just resentment, and turn their eyes to other alliances, but to believe that they have the warm advocacy of a large portion of the American public, who are resolved, that sooner or later, the pledge in the treaty of 1803 shall be redeemed, and Texas be incorporated into our Union. But if--on the other hand--we are not permitted to bring Texas into our Union peacefully and legitimately, as now we may, then we solemnly announce to the world--that we will dissolve this Union, sooner than abandon Texas.

"Resolved, That the chair, at his leisure, appoint a committee of vigilance and correspondence, to consist of twenty-one, to aid in carrying forward the cause of Texas annexation."

In the Williamsburg District in the same State another large meeting resolved:

"That in the opinion of this meeting, the honor and integrity of our Union require the immediate annexation of Texas; and we hold it to be better and more to the interest of the Southern and Southwestern portions of this confederacy 'to be out of the Union with Texas than in it without her.'

"That we cordially approve of the recommendation of a Southern convention composed of delegates from the Southern and Southwestern portions of this confederacy, to deliberate together, and adopt such measures as may best promote the great object of annexation; provided such annexation is not previously brought about by joint resolution of Congress, either at its present or an extra session."

Responsive resolutions were adopted in several States, and the 4th day of July furnished an occasion for the display of sentiments in the form of toasts, which showed both the depth of the feeling on this subject, and its diffusion, more or less, through all the Southern States. "Texas, or Disunion," was a common toast, and a Southern convention generally called for. Richmond, Virginia, was one of the places indicated for its meeting, by a meeting in the State of Alabama. Mr. Ritchie, the editor of the Enquirer, repulsed the idea, on the part of the Democracy, of holding the meeting there, saying, "There is not a democrat in Virginia who will encourage any plot to dissolve the Union." The Richmond Whig, on the part of the whigs, equally repulsed it. Nashville, in the State of Tennessee, was proposed in the resolves of many of the public meetings, and the assembling of the convention at that place--the home of General Jackson--was still more formally and energetically repulsed. A meeting of the citizens of the town was called, which protested against "the desecration of the soil of Tennessee by having any convention held there to hatch treason against the Union," and convoked a general meeting for the purpose of bringing out a full expression of public opinion on the subject. The meeting took place accordingly, and was most numerously and respectably attended, and adopted resolutions worthy of the State, worthy of the home of General Jackson, honorable to every individual engaged in it; and so ample as to stand for an authentic history of that attempt to dissolve the Union. The following were the resolves, presented by Dr. John Shelby:

"Whereas, at several public meetings recently held in the South, resolutions have been adopted urging with more or less directness the assembling of a convention of States friendly to the immediate annexation of Texas, at Nashville, some time in August next; and whereas it is apparent from the resolutions themselves and the speeches of some of its prime movers in those meetings, and the comments of public journals friendly to them, that the convention they propose to hold in this city was contemplated as a means towards an end--that end being to present deliberately and formally the issue, 'annexation of Texas or dissolution of this Union.'

"And whereas, further, it is manifested by all the indications given from the most reliable sources of intelligence, that there is a party of men in another quarter of this nation who--in declaring that 'the only true issue before the South should be Texas or disunion,' and in proposing the line of operation indicated by the South Carolinian, their organ published at Columbia, South Carolina, in the following words,

"That the President of the United States be requested by the general convention of the slave States to call Congress together immediately, when the final issue shall be made up, and the alternative distinctly presented to the free States, either to admit Texas into the Union, or to proceed peaceably and calmly to arrange the terms of a dissolution of the Union'--are influenced by sentiments and opinions directly at issue with the solemn obligation of the citizens of every State to our national Union--sentiments and opinions which, if not repressed and condemned, may lead to the destruction of our tranquillity and happiness, and to the reign of anarchy and confusion. Therefore, we, the citizens of Davidson County, in the State of Tennessee, feel ourselves called upon by these demonstrations to express, in a clear, decided, and unequivocal manner, our deliberate sentiments in regard to them. And upon the momentous question here involved, we are happy to believe there is no material division of sentiment among the people of this State.

"The citizens here assembled are Tennesseans; they are Americans. They glory in being citizens of this great confederate republic; and, whether friendly or opposed to the immediate annexation of Texas, they join with decision, firmness, and zeal in avowing their attachment to our glorious, and, we trust, impregnable Union, and in condemning every attempt to bring its preservation into issue, or its value into calculation.

"Under these impressions, and with these feelings, regarding with deep and solemn interest the circumstances under which this new issue may be ere long sprung upon us, and actuated by a sense of the high responsibility to his country imposed on every American citizen, in the language of the immortal Washington, 'to frown upon the first dawnings of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts,' we hereby adopt and make known, as expressing our deliberate sentiments, the following resolutions:

"Resolved, That while we never have interfered, and never will interfere with the arrangements of any of the parties divided on the general political questions of the day, and while we absolutely repel the charge of designing any such interference as totally unfounded and unjustifiable, yet when we see men of any party and any quarter of this nation announcing as their motto, 'Texas or Disunion,' and singling out the city of Nashville as a place of general gathering, in order to give formality and solemnity to the presentation of that issue, we feel it to be not only our sacred right, but our solemn duty to protest, as we now do protest, against the desecration of the soil of Tennessee, by any act of men holding within its borders a convention for any such object.

"Resolved, That when our fellow-citizens of any State come hither as Americans, loyal to our glorious Union, they will be received and welcomed by us with all the kindness and hospitality which should characterize the intercourse of a band of brothers, whatever may be our differences on political subjects; but when they avow their willingness to break up the Union rather than fail to accomplish a favorite object, we feel bound to tell them this is no fit place to concert their plans.

"Resolved, That we entertain for the people of South Carolina, and the other quarters in which this cry of 'Texas or Disunion' has been raised, feelings of fraternal regard and affection; that we sincerely lament the exhibition by any portion of them of disloyalty to the Union, or a disposition to urge its dissolution with a view to annexation with Texas, if not otherwise obtained; and that we hope a returning sense of what is due to themselves, to the other States of the Union, to the American people, and to the cause of American liberty, will prevent them from persevering in urging the issue they have proposed."

The energy with which this proposed convention was repulsed from Nashville and Richmond, and the general revolt against it in most of the States, brought the movement to a stand, paralyzed its leaders, and suppressed the disunion scheme for the time being--only to lie in wait for future occasions. But it was not before the people only that this scheme for a Southern convention with a view to the secession of the slave States, was matter of discussion: it was the subject of debate in the Senate. Mr. McDuffie mentioned it, and in a way to draw a reply from Mr. Benton--an extract from which has been given in a previous chapter, and which, besides some information on its immediate subject, and besides foreseeing the failure of that attempt to get up a disunion convention, also told that the design of the secessionists was to extend the new Southern republic to the Californias: and this was told two years before the declaration of the war by which California was acquired.

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Chapter CXLII

REJECTION OF THE ANNEXATION TREATY: PROPOSAL OF MR. BENTON'S PLAN.

The treaty was supported by all the power of the administration; but in vain. It was doomed to defeat, ignominious and entire, and was rejected by a vote of two to one against it, when it would have required a vote of two to one to have ratified it. The yeas were:

Messrs. Atchison, Bagby, Breese, Buchanan, Colquitt, Fulton, Haywood, Henderson, Huger, Lewis, McDuffie, Semple, Sevier, Sturgeon, Walker, Woodbury.--16.

The nays were:

Messrs. Allen, Archer, Atherton, Barrow, Bates, Bayard, Benton, Berrien, Choate, Clayton, Crittenden, Dayton, Evans, Fairfield, Foster, Francis, Huntington, Jarnagin, Johnson, Mangum, Merrick, Miller, Morehead, Niles, Pearce, Phelps, Porter, Rives, Simmons, Tallmadge, Tappan, Upham, White, Woodbridge, Wright.--35.

This vote was infinitely honorable to the Senate, and a severe rebuke upon those who had the hardihood to plot the annexation of Texas as an intrigue for the presidency, and to be consummated at the expense of war with Mexico, insults to Great Britain, breach of our own constitution, and the disgrace and shame of committing an outrage upon a feeble neighboring power. But the annexation was desirable in itself, and had been the unceasing effort of statesmen from the time the province had been retroceded to Spain. The treaty was a wrong and criminal way of doing a right thing. That obstacle removed, and the public mind roused and attracted to the subject, disinterested men who had no object but the public good, took charge of the subject, and initiated measures to effect the annexation in an honorable and constitutional manner. With this view Mr. Benton brought into the Senate a bill authorizing and advising the President to open negotiations with Mexico and Texas for the adjustment of boundaries between them, and the annexation of the latter to the United States. In support of his bill, he said:

"The return of Texas to our Union, and all the dismembered territory of 1819 along with it, is as certain as that the Red River and the Arkansas rise within our natural limits, and flow into the Mississippi. I wish to get it back, and to get it with peace and honor--at all events without unjust war, unconstitutionally made, on weak and groundless pretexts. I wish it to come back without sacrificing our trade even with Mexico, so valuable to us on account of the large returns of specie which it gave us, especially before the commencement of the Texian revolution, the events of which have alienated Mexican feeling from us, and reduced our specie imports from eleven millions of dollars per annum to one million and a half. I wish it to come back in a way to give as little dissatisfaction to any part of the Union as possible; and I believe it is very practicable to get it back without a shock to any part. The difficulty now is in the aspect which has been put upon it as a sectional, political, and slave question; as a movement of the South against the North, and of the slaveholding States for political supremacy. This is as unfounded in the true nature of the question, as it is unwise and unfortunate in the design which prompted it. The question is more Western than Southern, and as much free as slave. The territory to be recovered extends to the latitude of 38° in its north-east corner, and to latitude 42° in its north-west corner. One-half of it will lie in the region not adapted to slave labor; and, of course when regained, will be formed into non-slaveholding States. So far as slavery is concerned, then, the question is neutralized: it is as much free as slave; and it is greatly to be regretted--regretted by all the friends of the Union--that a different aspect has been given to it. I am southern by my birth--southern in my affections, interests, and connections--and shall abide the fate of the South in every thing in which she has right upon her side. I am a slaveholder, and shall take the fate of other slaveholders in every aggression upon that species of property, and in every attempt to excite a San Domingo insurrection among us. I have my eyes wide open to that danger, and fixed on the laboratories of insurrection, both in Europe and America; but I must see a real case of danger before I take the alarm. I am against the cry of wolf, when there is no wolf. I will resist the intrusive efforts of those whom it does not concern, to abolish slavery among us; but I shall not engage in schemes for its extension into regions where it was never known--into the valley of the Rio del Norte, for example, and along a river of two thousand miles in extent, where a slave's face was never seen."

The whole body of the people, South and West, a majority of those in the Middle States, and respectable portions of the Northern States, were in favor of getting back Texas; and upon this large mass the intriguers operated, having their feelings in their favor, and exciting them by fears of abolition designs from Great Britain, and the fear of losing Texas for ever, if not then obtained. Mr. Benton deemed it just to discriminate this honest mass from the intriguers who worked only in their own interest, and at any cost of war and dishonor, and even disunion to our own country. Thus:

"A large movement is now going on for the annexation of Texas; and I, who have viewed this movement from the beginning, believe that I have analyzed it with a just and discriminating eye. The great mass of it is disinterested, patriotic, reasonable, and moderate, and wishes to get back our lost territory, as soon as it can be done with peace and honor. This large mass is passive, and had just as lief have Texas next year as this year. A small part of this movement is interested, and is the active part, and is unreasonable, and violent, and must have Texas during the present presidential election, or never. For the former part--the great mass--I feel great respect, and wish to give them reasons for my conduct: to the latter part it would be lost labor in me to offer reasons. Political and interested parties have no ears; they listen only to themselves, and run their course upon their own calculations. All that I shall say is, that the present movement, prostituted as it evidently is, to selfish and sectional purposes, is injurious to the cause of annexation, and must end in delaying its consummation. But it will be delay only. Annexation is the natural and inevitable order of events, and will come! and when it comes, be it sooner or later, it will be for the national reasons stated in Mr. Van Buren's instructions of 1829, and in the rational manner indicated in his letter of 1844. It will come, because the country to be received is geographically appurtenant to our country, and politically, commercially, and socially connected with our people, and with our institutions: and it will come, not in the shape of a secret treaty between two Presidents, but as a legislative as well as an executive measure--as the act of two nations (the United States and Texas) and with the consent of Mexico, if she is wise, or without her consent, upon the lapse of her rights."

The wantonness of getting up a quarrel with Great Britain on this subject, was thus exposed:

"Our administration, and especially the negotiator of this treaty, has been endeavoring to pick a quarrel with England, and upon the slave question. Senators have observed this, and have remarked upon the improvidence of seeking a quarrel with a great power on a weak point, and in which we should be in the wrong, and have the sympathies of the world against us, and see divided opinions at home; and doing this when we have several great questions of real difficulty with that power, in any war growing out of which we should have right on our side, good wishes from other nations, and unity among ourselves. Senators have remarked this, and set it down to the account of a great improvidence. I look upon it, for my part, as a designed conclusion, and as calculated to promote an ulterior scheme. The disunion of these States is still desired by many, and the slave question is viewed as the instrument to effect it; and in that point of view, the multiplication of quarrels about slavery, both at home and abroad, becomes a natural part of the disunion policy. Hence the attempt to pick a quarrel with Great Britain for imputed anti-slavery designs in Texas, and among ourselves, and all the miserable correspondence to which that imputation has given birth; and that by persons who, two years ago, were emulating Great Britain in denunciation of the slave trade, and forming a naval and diplomatic alliance with her for closing the markets of the world against the introduction of slaves. Since then the disunion scheme is revived; and this accounts for the change of policy, and for the search after a quarrel upon a weak point, which many thought so improvident."

The closing sentences of this paragraph refer to the article in the Ashburton treaty which stipulated for a joint British and American squadron to guard the coast of Africa from slave-trading vessels: a stipulation which Mr. Calhoun and his friends supported, and which showed him at that time to be against the propagation of slavery, either in the United States or elsewhere. He had then rejoined the democratic party, and expected to be taken up as the successor to Mr. Van Buren; and, in that prospect of becoming President of the whole Union, had suspended his design for a separation, and for a new republic South, and was conciliating instead of irritating the free States; and in which scheme of conciliation he went so far as to give up all claim for reclamation for slaves liberated by the British authorities in their passage from one port of the United States to another, and even relinquished all opposition to the practice. The danger of an alliance offensive and defensive between Great Britain and Texas was still insisted upon by the President, and an attempt made upon the public sensibilities to alarm the country into immediate annexation as the means of avoiding that danger. The folly of such an apprehension was shown by the interest which Great Britain had in the commerce and friendship of Mexico, compared to which that of Texas was nothing:

"The President expresses his continued belief in a declaration previously made to the Senate, that an alliance, offensive and defensive, is to be formed between Texas and Great Britain, if the treaty is rejected. Well, the treaty is rejected! and the formidable alliance is not heard of, and never will be. It happens to take two to make a bargain; and the President would seem to have left out both parties when he expressed his belief, amounting almost to certainty, 'that instructions have already been given by the Texian government to propose to the government of Great Britain forthwith, on the failure (of the treaty) to enter into a treaty of commerce, and an alliance offensive and defensive. Alliance offensive and defensive, between Great Britain and Texas! a true exemplification of that famous alliance between the giant and the dwarf, of which we all read at the age of seven years. But let us see. First, Texas is to apply for this honor: and I, who know the people of Texas, and know them to be American and republican, instead of British and monarchical, know full well that they will apply for no such dependent alliance; and, if they did, would show themselves but little friendly to our country or its institutions. Next, Great Britain is to enter into this alliance; and how stands the account of profit and loss with her in such a contract for common cause against the friends and foes of each other? An alliance offensive and defensive, is a bargain to fight each other's enemies--each in proportion to its strength. In such a contract with Texas, Great Britain might receive a contingent of one Texian soldier for her Afghanistan and Asiatic wars: on the other hand she would lose the friendship of Mexico, and the twenty millions of silver dollars which the government or the merchants of Great Britain now annually draw from Mexico. Such would be the effect of the alliance offensive and defensive which our President so fully believes in--amounting, as he says his belief does, to an almost entire certainty. Incredible and absurd! The Mexican annual supply of silver dollars is worth more to Great Britain than all the Texases in the world. Besides the mercantile supply, the government itself is deeply interested in this trade of silver dollars. Instead of drawing gold from London to pay her vast establishments by sea and land throughout the NEW WORLD, and in some parts of the Old--instead of thus depleting herself of her bullion at home, she finds the silver for these payments in the Mexican mines. A commissary of purchases at $6,000 per annum, and a deputy at $4,000, are incessantly employed in these purchases and shipments of silver; and if interrupted, the Bank of England would pay the forfeit. Does any one suppose that Great Britain, for the sake of the Texian alliance, and the profit upon her small trade, would make an enemy of Mexico? would give up twenty millions annually of silver, deprive herself of her fountain of supply, and subject her bank to the drains which the foreign service of her armies and navies would require? The supposition is incredible: and I say no more to this scare-crow alliance, in which the President so fully believes."

The magnitude and importance of our young and growing trade with Mexico--the certainty that her carrying trade would fall into our hands, as her want of ports and ship timber would for ever prevent her from having any marine--were presented as a reason why we should cultivate peace with her.

"The legal state between the United States and Mexico is that of war; and the legal consequence is the abrogation of all treaties between the two powers, and the cessation of all commercial intercourse. This is a trifle in the eyes of the President; not sufficient to impede for an instant his intrigue for the presidency, and the ulterior scheme for the dissolution of the Union. But how is it in the eyes of the country? Is it a trifle in the eyes of those whose eyes are large enough to behold the extent of the Mexican commerce, and whose hearts are patriotic enough to lament its loss? Look at that commerce! The richest stream which the world beholds: for, of exports, silver is its staple article; of imports, it takes something of every thing, changed, to be sure, into the form of fine goods and groceries: of navigation, it requires a constant foreign supply; for Mexico neither has, nor can have, a marine, either commercial or military. The want of ports and timber deny her a marine now and for ever. This country, exporting what we want--(hard money)--taking something of all our exports--using our own ships to fetch and carry--lying at our door--with many inland streams of trade besides the great maritime stream of commerce--pouring the perennial product of her innumerable mines into our paper-money country, and helping us to be able to bear its depredations: this country, whose trade was so important to us under every aspect, is treated as a nullity by the American President, or rather, is treated with systematic outrage; and even the treaty which secures us her trade is disparagingly acknowledged with the contemptuous prefix of mere!--a mere commercial treaty. So styles it the appeal message. Now let us look to this commerce with our nearest neighbor, depreciated and repudiated by our President: let us see its origin, progress, and present state. Before the independence of Mexico, that empire of mines had no foreign trade: the mother country monopolized the whole. It was the Spanish Hesperides, guarded with more than the fabulous dragon's care. Mexican Independence was declared at Iguala, in the year 1821. In that year its trade with the United States began, humbly to be sure, but with a rapid and an immense development. In 1821, our exports to Mexico were about $100,000; our imports about the double of that small sum. In the year 1835, the year before the Texian revolution, our exports to the same country (and that independent of Honduras, Campeachy, and the Mosquito shore) amounted to $1,500,639; and that of direct trade, without counting exportations from other countries. Our imports were, for the same year, in merchandise, $5,614,819; of which the whole, except about $200,000 worth, was carried in American vessels. Our specie imports, for the same year, were $8,343,181. This was the state of our Mexican trade (and that without counting the inland branches of it), the year of the commencement of the Texian revolution--an event which I then viewed, as my speeches prove, under many aspects! And, with every sympathy alive in favor of the Texians, and with the full view of their return to our Union after a successful revolt, I still wished to conciliate this natural event with the great object of preserving our peaceful relations, and with them our commercial, political, social, and moral position in regard to Mexico, the second power of the New World after ourselves, and the first of the Spanish branch of the great American family."

Political and social considerations, and a regard for the character of republican government, were also urged as solid reasons for effecting the annexation of Texas without an outbreak or collision with Mexico:

"Mr. President, I have presented you considerations, founded in the relations of commerce and good neighborhood, for preserving not merely peace, but good-will with Mexico. We are the first--she the second power of the New World. We stand at the head of the Anglo-Saxon--she at the head of the South-European race--but we all come from the same branch of the human family--the white branch--which, taking its rise in the Caucasian Mountains, and circling Europe by the north and by the south, sent their vanguards to people the two Americas--to redeem them from the savage and the heathen, and to bring them within the pale of the European systems. The independence of these vanguards from their metropolitan ancestors, was in the natural order of human events; and the precedence of the Anglo-Saxon branch in this assertion of a natural right, was the privilege and prerogative of their descent and education. The descendants of the English became independent first; those of the Spaniards followed; and, from the first dawn of their national existences, were greeted with applause, and saluted with the affection of brothers. They, on their part, showed a deference and an affection for us fraternal and affecting. Though speaking a different language, professing a different religion, bred in a different system of laws and of government, and guarded from all communication with us for centuries, yet they instantly took us for their model, framed their constitutions upon ours, and spread the great elements of old English liberty--elections, legislatures, juries, habeas corpus, face-to-face trials, no arrests but on special warrants!--spread all these essentials of liberty from the ancient capital of Montezuma to the end of the South American continent. This was honorable to us, and we felt it; it was beneficial to them, and we wished to cement the friendship they had proffered, and to perpetuate among them the institutions they had adopted. Conciliation, arising from justice and fairness, was our only instrument of persuasion; and it was used by all, and with perfect effect. Every administration--all the people--followed the same course; and, until this day--until the present administration--there has not been one to insult or to injure a new State of the South. Now it is done. Systematic insult has been practised; spoliation of two thousand miles of incontestable territory, over and above Texas, has been attempted; outrage to the perpetration of clandestine war, and lying in wait to attack the innocent by land and water, has been committed: and on whom? The second power of the New World after ourselves--the head of the Spanish branch--and the people in whose treatment at our hands the rest may read their own. Descended from the proud and brave Castilian--as proud and as brave now as in the time of Charles the Fifth, when Spain gave law to nations, and threatened Europe with universal domination--these young nations are not to be outraged with impunity. Broken and dispersed, the Spanish family has lost much of its power, but nothing of its pride, its courage, its chivalry, and its sensitiveness to insult.

"The head of the powers of the New World--deferred to as a model by all--the position of the United States was grand, and its vocation noble. It was called to the high task of uniting the American nations in the bonds of brotherhood, and in the social and political systems which cherish and sustain liberty. They are all republics, and she the elder sister; and it was her business to preserve harmony, friendship, and concord in a family of republics, occupying the whole extent of the New World. Every interest connected with the welfare of the human race required this duty at our hands. Liberty, religion, commerce, science, the liberal and the useful arts, all required it; and, until now, we had acted up to the grandeur of our position, and the nobleness of our vocation. A sad descent is now made; but the decision of the Senate arrests the plunge, and gives time to the nation to recover its place, and its character, and again to appear as the elder sister, the friendly head, and the model power of the cordon of republics which stretch from the north to the south, throughout the two Americas. The day will come when the rejection of this treaty will stand, uncontestedly, amongst the wisest and most patriotic acts of the American Senate.

"The bill which I have offered, Mr. President, is the true way to obtain Texas. It conciliates every interest at home and abroad, and makes sure of the accomplishment of its object. Offence to Mexico, and consequent loss of her trade and friendship, is provided against. If deaf to reason, the annexation would eventually come without her consent, but not without having conciliated her feelings by showing her a proper respect. The treaty only provided difficulties--difficulties at home and abroad--war and loss of trade with Mexico--slavery controversies, and dissolution of the Union at home. When the time came for admitting new States under the treaty, had it been ratified, then came the tug of war. The correspondence presented it wholly as a slave question. As such it would be canvassed at the elections; and here numerical strength was against us. If the new States were not admitted with slaves, they would not come in at all. Then Southern States might say they would stand out with them: and then came the crisis! So obviously did the treaty mode of acquisition, and the correspondence, lead to this result, that it may be assumed to have been their object; and thus a near period arranged for the dissolution of our Union. Happily, these dire consequences are averted, for the present; and the bill I have brought in provides the way of obviating them for ever, and, at the same time, making sure of the annexation."

This bill, by referring the question of annexation to the legislative and executive authorities combined, gave the right turn to the public mind, and led to the measure which was adopted by Congress at the ensuing session, and marred by Mr. Tyler's assuming to execute it in the expiring moments of his administration, when, forestalling his successor, he rejected the clause for peaceful negotiations, and rushed forward the part of the act which, taken alone, involved war with Mexico.

During the whole continuance of these debates in the Senate, the lobbies of the chamber were crowded with speculators in Texas scrip and lands, and with holders of Mexican claims, all working for the ratification of the treaty, which would bring with it an increase of value to their property, and war with Mexico, to be followed by a treaty providing for their demands. They also infested the Department of State, the presidential mansion, all the public places, and kept the newspapers in their interest filled with abuse and false accusations against the senators who stood between themselves and their prey. They were countenanced by the politicians whose objects were purely political in getting Texas, as well as by those who were in sympathy or complicity with their schemes. Persons employed by the government were known to be in the ranks of these speculators; and, to uncover them to the public, Mr. Benton submitted this resolution:

"Resolved, That the Committee on Foreign Affairs be instructed to inquire whether any provisions are necessary in providing for the annexation of Texas, to protect the United States from speculating operations in Texas lands or scrip, and whether any persons employed by the government are connected with such speculations."

The resolve was not adopted, as it was well foreseen would be the case, there being always in every public body, a large infusion of gentle tempered men, averse to any strong measure, and who usually cast the balance between contending parties. The motion, however, had the effect of fixing public attention the more earnestly upon these operators; and its fate did not prevent the mover from offering other resolves of a kindred character. It had been well known that Mr. Calhoun's letter of slave statistics to Mr. Pakenham, as a cause for making the treaty of annexation, had been written after the treaty had been concluded and signed by the negotiators; and this fact was clearly deducible from the whole proceeding, as well as otherwise known to some. There was enough to satisfy close observers; but the mass want the proof, or an offer to prove; and for their benefit, Mr. Benton moved:

"Also, that said committee be instructed to inquire whether the Texas treaty was commenced or agreed upon before the receipt of Lord Aberdeen's despatch of December 26, 1843, to Mr. Pakenham, communicated to our government in February, 1844."

This motion shared the fate of the former; but did not prevent a similar movement on another point. It will be remembered that this sudden commencement in the summer of 1843, was motived exclusively upon the communication of a British abolition plot in Texas, contained in a private letter from a citizen of Maryland in London, an "extract" from which had been sent to the Senate to justify the "self-defence" measures in the immediate annexation of Texas. The writer of that letter had been ascertained, and it lent no credit to the information conveyed. It had also been ascertained that he had been paid, and largely, out of the public Treasury, for that voyage to London--which authorized the belief that he had been sent for what had been found. An extract of the letter only had been sent to the Senate: a view of the whole was desired by the Senate in such an important case--and was asked for--but not obtained. Mr. Upshur was dead, and the President, in his answer, had supposed it had been taken away among his private papers--a very violent supposition after the letter had been made the foundation for a most important public proceeding. Even if so carried, it should have been pursued, and reclaimed, and made an archive in the Department: and this, not having been done by the President, was proposed to be done by the Senate; and this motion submitted:

"Also, that it be instructed to obtain, if possible, the 'private letter' from London, quoted in Mr. Upshur's first despatch on the Texas negotiation, and supposed by the President to have been carried away among his private papers; and to ascertain the name of the writer of said letter."

To facilitate all these inquiries an additional resolve proposed to clothe the committee with authority to send for persons and papers--to take testimony under oath--and to extend their inquiries into all subjects which should connect themselves with selfish, or criminal motives for the acquisition of Texas. And all these inquiries, though repulsed in the Senate, had their effect upon the public mind, already well imbued with suspicions and beliefs of sinister proceedings, marked with an exaggerated demonstration of zeal for the public good.

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Chapter CXLIII

OREGON TERRITORY: CONVENTIONS OF 1818 AND 1828: JOINT OCCUPATION: ATTEMPTED NOTICE TO TERMINATE IT.

These conventions provided for the joint occupation of the countries respectively claimed by Great Britain and the United States on the north-west coast of America--that of 1818 limiting the joint occupancy to ten years--that of 1828 extending it indefinitely until either of the two powers should give notice to the other of a desire to terminate it. Such agreements are often made when it is found difficult to agree upon the duration of any particular privilege, or duty. They are seductive to the negotiators because they postpone an inconvenient question: they are consolatory to each party, because each says to itself it can get rid of the obligation when it pleases--a consolation always delusive to one of the parties: for the one that has the advantage always resists the notice, and long baffles it, and often through menaces to consider it as an unfriendly proceeding. On the other hand, the party to whom it is disadvantageous often sees danger in change; and if the notice is to be given in a legislative body, there will always be a large per centum of easy temperaments who are desirous of avoiding questions, putting off difficulties, and suffering the evils they have in preference of flying to those they know not: and in this way these temporary agreements, to be terminated on the notice of either party, generally continue longer than either party dreamed of when they were made. So it was with this Oregon joint occupancy. The first was for ten years: not being able to agree upon ten years more, the usual delusive resource was fallen upon: and, under the second joint occupation had already continued in operation fourteen years. Western members of Congress now took up the subject, and moved the Senate to advise the government to give the notice. Mr. Semple, senator from Illinois, proposed the motion: it was debated many days--resisted by many speakers: and finally defeated. It was first resisted as discourteous to Great Britain--then as offensive to her--then as cause of war on her side--finally, as actual war on our side--and even as a conspiracy to make war. This latter accusation was so seriously urged as to call out a serious answer from one of the senators friendly to the notice, not so much in exculpation of himself, as that of a friend at whom the imputation was levelled. In this sense, Mr. Breese, of Illinois, stood up, and said:

"His friend on the left (Mr. Benton) was accused of being at the head of a conspiracy, having no other object than the involving us in a war with Great Britain; and it was said with equal truth that his lever for moving the different elements was the northern boundary question. What foundation was there for so grave an accusation? None other than that he had fearlessly, from the beginning, resisted every encroachment, come from what quarter it might. He had stemmed the tide of British influence, if any such there was--he had rendered great and imperishable services to the West, and the West was grateful to him--he had watched her interests from the cradle; and now, when arrived at maturity, and able to take care of herself, he boldly stood forth her advocate. If devotion to his country, then, made him a conspirator, he was indeed guilty."

Upon all this talk of war the commercial interest became seriously alarmed, and looked upon the delivery of the notice as the signal for a disastrous depression in our foreign trade. In a word, the general uneasiness became so great that there was no chance for doing what we had a right to do, what the safety of our territory required us to do, and without the right to do which the convention of 1828 could not have been concluded. The motion for the notice was defeated by a vote of 28 against 18. The yeas were:

"YEAS--Messrs. Allen, Atchison, Atherton, Bagby, Benton, Breese, Buchanan, Colquitt, Fairfield, Fulton, Hannegan, King, Semple, Sevier, Sturgeon, Walker, Woodbury, and Wright--18."

"NAYS--Messrs. Archer, Barrow, Bates, Bayard, Berrien, Choate, Clayton, Crittenden, Dayton, Evans, Foster, Haywood, Huger, Huntington, Jarnagin, Johnson, McDuffie, Mangum, Merrick, Miller, Morehead, Phelps, Rives, Simmons, Tallmadge, Upham, White, and Woodbridge--28."

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CXLIV. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

Mr. James Knox Polk, and Mr. George Mifflin Dallas, had been nominated, as shown, for President and Vice-President by the democratic convention: Mr. Calhoun had declined to suffer his name to go before that election for reasons which he published, and an attempt to get up a separate convention for him, entirely failed: Mr. Tyler, who had a separate convention, and received its unanimous nomination, and thankfully accepted it, soon withdrew, and without having had a vice-presidential candidate on his ticket. On the whig side, Mr. Clay and Mr. Theodore Frelinghuysen were the candidates, and the canvass was conducted without those appeals to "hard cider, log-cabins, and coon-skins" which had been so freely used by the whig party during the last canvass, and which were so little complimentary to the popular intelligence. The democratic candidates were elected--and by a large electoral vote--170 to 105. The States which voted the democratic ticket, were: Maine, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Indiana, Illinois, Alabama, Missouri, Arkansas, Michigan. Those which voted the opposite ticket, were: Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio. The popular vote was, for the democratic candidate, 1,536,196: for the opposite ticket, 1,297,912. This was a large increase upon the popular vote of 1840--large as that vote was, and Mr. Clay, though defeated, receiving 22,000 votes more than General Harrison did--affording good evidence that he would have been elected if he had been the candidate at that time. The issue in the election was mainly the party one of whig and democrat, modified by the tariff and Texas questions--Mr. Clay being considered the best representative of the former interest, Mr. Polk of the latter.

The difference in the electoral vote was large--65: in the popular vote, not so considerable: and in some of the States (and in enough of them to have reversed the issue), the difference in favor of Mr. Polk quite small, and dependent upon causes independent of himself and his cause. Of these it is sufficient to mention New York. There the popular vote was about five hundred thousand: the difference in favor of Mr. Polk, about five thousand: and that difference was solely owing to the association of Mr. Silas Wright, with the canvass. Refusing the nomination for the vice-presidency, and seeing a person nominated for the presidency by a long intrigue at the expense of his friend, Mr. Van Buren, he suffered himself to be persuaded to quit the Senate, which he liked, to become the democratic candidate for governor of New York--a place to which he was absolutely averse. The two canvasses went on together, and were in fact one; and the name and popularity of Mr. Wright brought to the presidential ticket more than enough votes to make the majority that gave the electoral vote of the State to Mr. Polk, but without being able to bring it up to his own vote for governor; which was still five thousand more. It was a great sacrifice of feeling and of wishes on his part to quit the Senate to stand this election--a sacrifice purely for the good of the cause, and which became a sacrifice, in a more material sense for himself and his friends. The electoral vote of New York was 36, which, going all together, and being taken from one side and added to the other, would have made a difference of 72--being seven more than enough to have elected Mr. Clay. Mr. Polk was also aided by the withdrawal of Mr. Tyler, and by receiving the South Carolina vote; both of which contingencies depended upon causes independent of his cause, and of his own merits: but of this in another place. I write to show how things were done, more than what was done; and to save, if possible, the working of the government in the hands of the people whose interests and safety depend upon its purity, not upon its corruptions.

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Chapter CXLV

AMENDMENT OF THE CONSTITUTION: ELECTION OF PRESIDENT AND VICE-PRESIDENT: MR. BENTON'S PLAN.

Mr. Benton asked the leave for which he had given notice on Wednesday, to bring in a joint resolution for the amendment of the Constitution of the United States in relation to the election of President and Vice-President, and prefaced his motion with an exposition of the principle and details of the amendment which he proposed to offer. This exposition, referring to a speech which he had made in the year 1824, and reproducing it for the present occasion, can only be analyzed in this brief notice.

Mr. B. said he found himself in a position to commence most of his speeches with "twenty years ago!"--a commencement rather equivocal, and liable to different interpretations in the minds of different persons; for, while he might suppose himself to be displaying sagacity and foresight, in finding a medicine for the cure of the present disorders of the state in the remedies of prevention which he had proposed long since, yet others might understand him in a different character, and consider him as belonging to the category of those who, in that long time, had learned nothing, and had forgot nothing. So it might be now; for he was endeavoring to revive a proposition which he had made exactly twenty years before, and for the revival of which he deemed the present time eminently propitious. The body politic was now sick; and the patient, in his agony, might take the medicine as a cure, which he refused, when well, to take as a prevention.

Mr. B. then proceeded to state the object and principle of his amendment, which was, to dispense with all intermediate bodies in the election of President and Vice-President, and to keep the election wholly in the hands of the people; and to do this by giving them a direct vote for the man of their choice, and holding a second election between the two highest, in the event of a failure in the first election to give a majority to any one. This was to do away with the machinery of all intermediate bodies to guide, control, or defeat the popular choice; whether a Congress caucus, or a national convention, to dictate the selection of candidates; or a body of electors to receive and deliver their votes; or a House of Representatives to sanction or frustrate their choice.

Mr. B. spoke warmly and decidedly in favor of the principle of his proposition, assuming it as a fundamental truth to which there was no exception, that liberty would be ruined by providing any kind of substitute for popular election! asserting that all elections would degenerate into fraud and violence, if any intermediate body was established between the voters and the object of their choice, and placed in a condition to be able to control, betray, or defeat that choice. This fundamental truth he supported upon arguments, drawn from the philosophy of government, and the nature of man, and illustrated by examples taken from the history of all elective governments which had ever existed. He showed that it was the law of the few to disregard the will of the many, when they got power into their hands; and that liberty had been destroyed wherever intermediate bodies obtained the direction of the popular will. He quoted a vast number of governments, both ancient and modern, as illustrations of this truth; and referred to the period of direct voting in Greece and in Rome, as the grand and glorious periods of popular government, when the unfettered will of the people annually brought forward the men of their own choice to administer their own affairs, and when those people went on advancing from year to year, and produced every thing great in arts and in arms--in public and in private life--which then exalted them to the skies, and still makes them fixed stars in the firmament of nations. He believed in the capacity of the people for self-government, but they must have fair play--fair play at the elections, on which all depended; and for that purpose should be free from the control of any intermediate, irresponsible body of men.

At present (he said), the will of the people was liable to be frustrated in the election of their chief officers (and that at no less than three different stages of the canvass), by the intervention of small bodies of men between themselves and the object of their choice. First, at the beginning of the process, in the nomination or selection of candidates. A Congress caucus formerly, and a national convention now govern and control that nomination; and never fail, when they choose, to find pretexts for substituting their own will for that of the people. Then a body of electors, to receive and hold the electoral votes, and who, it cannot be doubted, will soon be expert enough to find reasons for a similar substitution. Then the House of Representatives may come in at the conclusion, to do as they have done heretofore, and set the will of the people at absolute defiance. The remedy for all this is the direct vote, and a second election between the two highest, if the first one failed. This would operate fairly and rightfully. No matter how many candidates then appeared in the field. If any one obtained a majority of the whole number of votes, the popular principle was satisfied; the majority had prevailed, and acquiescence was the part of the minority. If no one obtained the majority, then the first election answered the purpose of a nomination--a real nomination by the people; and a second election between the two highest would give effect to the real will of the people.

Mr. B. then exposed the details of his proposed amendment, as contained in the joint resolution which he intended to offer. The plan of election contained in that resolution, was the work of eminent men--of Mr. Macon, Mr. Van Buren, Mr. Hugh L. White, Mr. Findlay, of Pennsylvania, Mr. Dickerson, of New Jersey, Mr. Holmes, Mr. Hayne, and Mr. R. M. Johnson, and was received with great favor by the Senate and the country at the time it was reported. Subsequent experience should make it still more acceptable, and entitle its details to a careful and indulgent consideration from the people, whose rights and welfare it is intended to preserve and promote.

The detail of the plan is to divide the States into districts; the people to vote direct in each district for the candidate they prefer; the candidate having the highest vote for President to receive the vote of the district for such office, and to count one. If any candidate receives the majority of the whole number of districts, such person to be elected; if no one receives such majority, the election to be held over again between the two highest. To afford time for these double elections, when they become necessary, the first one is proposed to be held in the month of August--at a time to which many of the State elections now conform, and to which all may be made to conform--and to be held on the same days throughout the Union. To receive the returns of such elections, the Congress is required to be in session, on the years of such elections, in the month of October; and if a second election becomes necessary, it will be held in December. Two days are proposed for the first election, because most of the State elections continue two days: one day alone is allowed for the second election, it being a brief issue between two candidates. To provide for the possibility of remote and most improbable contingencies, that of an equality of votes between the two candidates--a thing which cannot occur where the whole number of votes is odd, and is utterly improbable when they are even--and to keep the election from the House of Representatives, while preserving the principle which should prevail in elections by the House of Representatives, it is provided that the candidate, in the case of such equality, having the majority of votes in the majority of the States, shall be the person elected President. To provide against the possibility of another almost impossible contingency (that of more than two candidates having the highest, and, of course, the same number of votes in the first election, by an equality of votes between several), the proposed amendment is so worded as to let all--that is, all having the two highest number of votes--go before the people at the second election.

Such are the details for the election of President: they are the same for that of Vice-President, with the single exception that, when the first election should have been effective for the election of President, and not so for Vice-President, then, to save the trouble of a second election for the secondary office only, the present provision of the constitution should prevail, and the Senate choose between the two highest.

Having made this exposition of the principle and of the details of the plan he proposed, Mr. B. went on to speak at large in favor of its efficacy and practicability in preserving the rights of the people, maintaining the purity of elections, preventing intrigue, fraud, and treachery, either in guiding or defeating the choice of the people and securing to our free institutions a chance for a prolonged and virtuous existence.

Mr. B. said he had never attended a nominating caucus or convention, and never intended to attend one. He had seen the last Congress caucus in 1824, and never wished to see another, or hear of another; he had seen the national convention of 1844, and never wished to see another. He should support the nominations of the last convention; but hoped to see such conventions rendered unnecessary, before the recurrence of another presidential election.

Mr. B. after an extended argument, concluded with an appeal to the Senate to favor his proposition, and send it to the country. His only object at present was to lay it before the country: the session was too far advanced to expect action upon it. There were two modes to amend the constitution--one by Congress proposing, and two-thirds of the State legislatures adopting, the amendment; the other by a national convention called by Congress for the purpose. Mr. B. began with the first mode: he might end with the second.

Disclaiming every thing temporary or invidious in this attempt to amend the constitution in an important point--referring to his labors twenty years ago for the elucidation of his motives--despising all pursuit after office, high or low--detesting all circumvention, intrigue, and management--anxious to restore our elections to their pristine purity and dignity--and believing the whole body of the people to be the only safe and pure authority for the selection as well as election of the first officers of the republic,--he confidently submitted his proposition to the Senate and the people, and asked for it the indulgent consideration which was due to the gravity and the magnitude of the subject.

Mr. B. then offered his amendment, which was unanimously received, and ordered to be printed.

The following is the copy of this important proposition:

"Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, two-thirds of both Houses concurring, That the following amendment to the constitution of the United States be proposed to the legislatures of the several States, which, when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the States, shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the constitution:

"That, hereafter, the President and Vice-President of the United States shall be chosen by the people of the respective States, in the manner following: Each State shall be divided, by the legislature thereof, into districts, equal in number to the whole number of senators and representatives to which such State may be entitled in the Congress of the United States; the said districts to be composed of contiguous territory, and to contain, as nearly as may be, an equal number of persons, entitled to be represented under the constitution, and to be laid off, for the first time, immediately after the ratification of this amendment, and afterwards, at the session of the legislature next ensuing the apportionment of representatives by the Congress of the United States; that, on the first Thursday in August, in the year 1848, and on the same day every fourth year thereafter, the citizens of each State who possess the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislatures, shall meet within their respective districts, and vote for a President and Vice-President of the United States, one of whom at least shall not be an inhabitant of the same State with themselves; and the person receiving the greatest number of votes for President, and the one receiving the greatest number of votes for Vice-President in each district, shall be holden to have received one vote; which fact shall be immediately certified by the governor of the State, to each of the senators in Congress from such State, and to the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives. The Congress of the United States shall be in session on the second Monday in October, in the year 1848, and on the same day on every fourth year thereafter; and the President of the Senate, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, shall open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be counted. The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be President, if such number be equal to a majority of the whole number of votes given; but if no person have such majority, then a second election shall be held on the first Thursday in the month of December then next ensuing, between the persons having the two highest numbers for the office of President; which second election shall be conducted, the result certified, and the votes counted, in the same manner as in the first; and the person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be President. But, if two or more persons shall have received the greatest, and an equal number of votes, at the second election, then the person who shall have received the greatest number of votes in the greatest number of States, shall be President. The person having the greatest number of votes for Vice-President, at the first election, shall be Vice-President, if such number be equal to a majority of the whole number of votes given: and, if no person have such majority, then a second election shall take place between the persons having the two highest numbers on the same day that the second election is held for President; and the person having the highest number of votes for Vice-President, shall be Vice-President. But if there should happen to be an equality of votes between the persons so voted for at the second election, then the person having the greatest number of votes in the greatest number of States, shall be Vice-President. But when a second election shall be necessary in the case of Vice-President, and not necessary in the case of President, then the Senate shall choose a Vice-President from the persons having the two highest numbers in the first election, as is now prescribed in the constitution."

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Chapter CXLVI

THE PRESIDENT AND THE SENATE: WANT OF CONCORD: NUMEROUS REJECTIONS OF NOMINATIONS.

Mr. Tyler was without a party. The party which elected him repudiated him: the democratic party refused to receive him. His only resource was to form a Tyler party, at which he made but little progress. The few who joined him from the other parties were, most of them, importunate for office; and whether successful or not in getting through the Senate (for all seemed to get nominations), they lost the moral force which could aid him. The incessant rejection of these nominations, and the pertinacity with which they were renewed, presents a scene of presidential and senatorial oppugnation which had no parallel up to that time, and of which there has been no example since. Nominations and rejections flew backwards and forwards as in a game of shuttlecock--the same nomination, in several instances, being three times rejected in the same day (as it appears on the journal), but within the same hour, as recollected by actors in the scene. Thus: on the 3d day of March, 1843, Mr. Caleb Cushing having been nominated to the Senate for Secretary of the Treasury, was rejected by a vote of 27 nays to 19 yeas. The nays were: Messrs. Allen, Archer, Bagby, Barrow, Bayard, Benton, Berrien, Thomas Clayton, Conrad, Crafts, Crittenden, Graham, Henderson, Huntingdon, Kerr, Linn, Mangum, Merrick, Miller, Morehead, Phelps, Porter, Simmons, Smith of Indiana, Sprague, Tappan, White. This vote was taken after dark in the night of the last day of the session. The President, who according to the custom on such occasions, attended in an ante-chamber appropriated to the Vice-President, immediately sent back Mr. Cushing's name, re-nominated for the same office. He was immediately rejected again by the same 27 nays, and with a diminution of nine who had voted for him. Incontinently the private secretary of Mr. Tyler returned with another re-nomination of the same citizen for the same office; which was immediately rejected by a vote of 29 to 2. The two senators who voted for him on this last trial were, Messrs. Robert J. Walker and Cuthbert. The 19 who voted for the nomination on the first trial were: Messrs. Bates, Buchanan, Calhoun, Choate, Cuthbert, Evans, Fulton, King, McDuffie, McRoberts, Sevier, Sturgeon, Tallmadge, Walker, Wilcox, Williams, Woodbury, Wright. The message containing this second re-nomination was written in such haste and flurry that half the name of the nominee was left out. "I nominate Cushing as Secretary of the Treasury, in place of Walter Forward, resigned," was the whole message; but the Senate acted upon it as it was, without sending the message back for rectification, as the rule always has been in the case of clerical mistakes. These re-nominations by Mr. Tyler were the more notable because, as chairman of the committee which had the duty of reporting upon the nomination of the United States Bank directors in the time of the "war," as it was called of the government upon the bank, he had made the report against President Jackson on the re-nomination of the four government directors (Messrs. Gilpin, Sullivan, Wager and McEldery), who had been rejected for reporting to the President, at his request, the illegal and corrupt proceedings of the bank (such as were more fully established by a committee of the stockholders); and also voted against the whole four re-nominations.

The same night Mr. Henry A. Wise underwent three rejections on a nomination, and two re-nominations as minister plenipotentiary and envoy extraordinary to France. The first rejection was by a vote of 24 to 12--the second, 26 to 8--the third, 29 to 2. The two yeas in this case were the same as on the third rejection of Mr. Cushing. The yeas and nays in the first vote were, yeas: Messrs. Archer, Buchanan, Calhoun, Choate, Cuthbert, Evans, Fulton, King, McDuffie, Sturgeon, Tallmadge, Walker. The nays: Messrs. Bagby, Barrow, Benton, Berrien, Clayton (Thomas), Conrad, Crafts, Crittenden, Dayton, Graham, Henderson, Huntingdon, John Leeds Kerr, Mangum, Merrick, Miller, Phelps, Porter, Simmons, Smith of Indiana, Sprague, Tappan, White, Woodbridge. Mr. Wise had been nominated in the place of Lewis Cass, Esq., resigned.

At the ensuing session a rapid succession of rejections of nominations took place. Mr. George H. Proffit, of Indiana, late of the House of Representatives, was nominated minister plenipotentiary and envoy extraordinary to the Emperor of Brazil. He had been commissioned in the vacation, and had sailed upon his destination, drawing the usual outfit and quarter's salary, leaving the principal part behind, bet upon the presidential election. He was not received by the Emperor of Brazil, and was rejected by the Senate. Only eight members voted for his confirmation--Messrs. Breese, Colquitt, Fulton, Hannegan, King, Semple, Sevier, Walker. He had been nominated in the place of William Hunter, Esq., ex-senator from Rhode Island, recalled--a gentleman of education, reading, talent, and finished manners; and eminently fit for his place. It was difficult to see in Mr. Proffit, intended to supersede him, any cause for his appointment except his adhesion to Mr. Tyler.

Mr. David Henshaw, of Massachusetts, had been commissioned Secretary of the Navy in the recess, in place of Mr. Upshur, appointed Secretary of State. He was rejected--only eight senators voting for his nomination: they were: Messrs. Colquitt, Fulton, Haywood, King, Semple, Sevier, Walker, Woodbury. The same fate attended Mr. James M. Porter, of Pennsylvania, appointed in the recess Secretary at War, in the place of Mr. John C. Spencer, resigned. No more than three senators voted for his confirmation--Messrs. Haywood, Porter of Michigan, and Tallmadge. Mr. John C. Spencer himself, nominated an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, in the place of Smith Thompson, Esq., deceased, was also rejected--26 to 21 votes. The negatives were: Messrs. Allen, Archer, Atchison, Barrow, Bates, Bayard, Benton, Berrien, Choate, Clayton, Crittenden, Dayton, Evans, Foster, Haywood, Henderson, Huntingdon, Jarnagin, Mangum, Merrick, Miller, Morehead, Pearce, Simmons, Tappan, Woodbridge.--Mr. Isaac Hill, of New Hampshire, was another subject of senatorial rejection. He was nominated for the place of the chief of the bureau of provisions and clothing of the Navy Department, to fill a vacancy occasioned by the death of Charles W. Goldsborough, Esq., and rejected by a vote of 25 to 11. The negatives were: Messrs. Allen, Archer, Atchison, Bagby, Barrow, Bates, Bayard, Benton, Berrien, Breese, Clayton (Thomas), Crittenden, Dayton, Evans, Foster, Huntingdon, Jarnagin, Mangum, Merrick, Morehead, Pearce, Sturgeon, Tappan, Walker, White.--Mr. Cushing was nominated at the same session for minister plenipotentiary and envoy extraordinary to China, the proceedings on which have not been made public.

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CXLVII. MR. TYLER'S LAST MESSAGE TO CONGRESS

Texas was the prominent topic of this message, and presented in a way to have the effect, whatever may have been the intent, of inflaming and exasperating, instead of soothing and conciliating Mexico. Mr. Calhoun was now the Secretary of State, and was now officially what he had been all along actually, the master spirit in all that related to Texas annexation. Of the interests concerned in the late attempted negotiation, one large interest, both active and powerful, was for war with Mexico--not for the sake of the war, but of the treaty of peace which would follow it, and by which their Texas scrip and Texas land, now worth but little, would become of great value. Neither Mr. Tyler nor Mr. Calhoun were among these speculators, but their most active supporters were; and these supporters gave the spirit in which the Texas movement was conducted; and in this spirit the message, in all that related to the point, was conceived. The imperious notification given at the last session to cease the war, was repeated with equal arrogance, and with an intimation that the United States would come to the aid of Texas, if it went on. Thus:

"In my last annual message, I felt it to be my duty to make known to Congress, in terms both plain and emphatic, my opinion in regard to the war which has so long existed between Mexico and Texas; and which, since the battle of San Jacinto, has consisted altogether of predatory incursions, attended by circumstances revolting to humanity. I repeat now, what I then said, that, after eight years of feeble and ineffectual efforts to recover Texas, it was time that the war should have ceased."

This was not the language for one nation to hold towards another, nor would such have been held towards Mexico, except from her inability to help herself, and our desire to get a chance to make a treaty of acquisitions with her. The message goes on to say, "Mexico has no right to jeopard the peace of the world, by urging any longer a useless and fruitless contest." Very imperious language that, but entirely unfounded in the facts. Hostilities had ceased between Mexico and Texas upon an armistice under the guarantee of the great powers, and peace with Mexico was immediate and certain when Mr. Tyler's government effected the breach and termination of the armistice by the Texas negotiations, and by lending detachments of the army and navy to President Houston, to assist in the protection of Texas. This interposition, and by the lawless and clandestine loan of troops and ships, to procure a rupture of the armistice, and prevent the peace which Mexico and Texas were on the point of making, was one of the most revolting circumstances in all this Texas intrigue. Thus presenting a defiant aspect to Mexico, the President recommended the admission of Texas into the Union upon an act of Congress, to be passed for that purpose, and under the clause in the constitution which authorizes Congress to admit new States. Thus, a great constitutional point was gained by those who had opposed and defeated the annexation treaty. By that mode of annexation the treaty-making power--the President and Senate--made the acquisition: by the mode now recommended the legislative authority was to do it.

The remainder of the message presents nothing to be noted, except the congratulations of the President upon the restoration of the federal currency to what he called a sound state, but which was, in fact, a solid state--for it had become gold and silver; and his equal felicitations upon the equalization of the exchanges (which had never been unequal between those who had money to exchange), saying that exchange was now only the difference of the expense of transporting gold. That had been the case always with those who had gold; and what had been called inequalities of exchange before, was nothing but the different degrees of the depreciation of different bank notes. But what the President did not note, but which all others observed, was the obvious fact, that this restoration and equalization were attained without any of the remedies which he had been prescribing for four years! without any of those Fiscal Institutes--Fiscal Corporations--Fiscal Agents--or Fiscal Exchequers, which he had been prescribing for four years. It was the effect of the gold bill, and of the Independent Treasury, and the cessation of all attempts to make a national currency of paper money.

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CXLVIII. LEGISLATIVE ADMISSION OF TEXAS INTO THE UNION AS A STATE

A joint resolution was early brought into the House of Representatives for the admission of Texas as a State of the Union. It was in these words:

"That Congress doth consent that the territory properly included within, and rightfully belonging to the republic of Texas, may be erected into a new State, to be called the State of Texas, with a republican form of government, to be adopted by the people of said republic, by deputies in convention assembled, with the consent of the existing government, in order that the same may be admitted as one of the States of this Union. And, that the foregoing consent of Congress is given upon the following conditions, and with the following guarantees:

"First. Said State to be formed, subject to the adjustment by this government of all questions of boundary that may arise with other governments; and the constitution thereof, with the proper evidence of its adoption by the people of said republic of Texas, shall be transmitted to the President of the United States, to be laid before Congress for its final action, on or before the 1st day of January, 1846.

"Second. Said State, when admitted into the Union, after ceding to the United States all public edifices, fortifications, barracks, ports and harbors, navy and navy-yards, docks, magazines, arms, armaments, and all other property and means pertaining to the public defence belonging to said republic of Texas, shall retain all the public funds, debts, taxes, and dues of every kind which may belong to, or be due and owing said republic; and shall also retain all the vacant and unappropriated lands lying within its limits, to be applied to the payment of the debts and liabilities of said republic of Texas; and the residue of said lands, after discharging said debts and liabilities, to be disposed of as said State may direct; but in no event are said debts and liabilities to become a charge upon the government of the United States.

"Third. New States, of convenient size, not exceeding four in number, in addition to said State of Texas, and having sufficient population, may hereafter by the consent of said State, be formed out of the territory thereof, which shall be entitled to admission under the provisions of the federal constitution. And such States as may be formed out of that portion of said territory lying south of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes north latitude, commonly known as the Missouri compromise line, shall be admitted into the Union, with or without slavery, as the people of each State asking admission may desire; and in such State or States as shall be formed out of said territory north of said Missouri compromise line, slavery or involuntary servitude (except for crime) shall be prohibited."

To understand the third, and last clause of this resolve, it must be recollected that the boundaries of Texas, by the treaty of 1819, which retroceded that province to Spain, were extended north across the Red River, and entirely to the Arkansas River; and following that river up to the 37th, the 38th, and eventually to the 42d degree of north latitude; so that all this part of the territory lying north of 36 degrees 30 minutes, came within the terms of the Missouri compromise line prohibiting slavery north of that line. Here then was an anomaly--slave territory, and free territory within the same State; and it became the duty of Congress to provide for each accordingly: and it was done. The territory lying south of that compromise line might become free or slave States as the inhabitants should decide: the States to be formed out of the territory north of it were to be bound by the compromise: and lest any question should arise on that point in consequence of Texas having been under a foreign dominion since the line was established, it was expressly re-enacted by this clause of the resolution, and in the precise words of the Missouri compromise act. Thus framed, and made clear in its provisions in respect to slavery, the resolutions, after ample discussion, were passed through the House by a good majority--120 to 97. The affirmatives were

"Archibald H. Arrington, John B. Ashe, Archibald Atkinson, Thomas H. Bayly, James E. Belser, Benjamin A. Bidlack, Edward J. Black, James Black, James A. Black, Julius W. Blackwell, Gustavus M. Bower, James B. Bowlin, Linn Boyd, Richard Brodhead, Aaron V. Brown, Milton Brown, William J. Brown, Edmund Burke, Armistead Burt, George Alfred Caldwell, John Campbell, Shepherd Carey, Reuben Chapman, Augustus A. Chapman, Absalom H. Chappell, Duncan L. Clinch, James G. Clinton, Howell Cobb, Walter Coles, Edward Cross, Alvan Cullom, John R. J. Daniel, John W. Davis, John B. Dawson, Ezra Dean, James Dellet, Stephen A. Douglass, George C. Dromgool, Alexander Duncan, Chesselden Ellis, Isaac G. Farlee, Orlando B. Ficklin, Henry D. Foster, Richard French, George Fuller, William H. Hammett, Hugh A. Haralson, Samuel Hays, Thomas J. Henley, Isaac E. Holmes, Joseph P. Hoge, George W. Hopkins, George S. Houston, Edmund W. Hubard, William S. Hubbell, James M. Hughes, Charles J. Ingersoll, John Jameson, Cave Johnson, Andrew Johnson, George W. Jones. Andrew Kennedy, Littleton Kirkpatrick, Alcée Labranche, Moses G. Leonard, William Lucas, John H. Lumpkin, Lucius Lyon, William C. McCauslen, William B. Maclay, John A. McClernand, Felix G. McConnel, Joseph J. McDowell, James J. McKay, James Mathews, Joseph Morris, Isaac E. Morse, Henry C. Murphy, Willoughby Newton, Moses Norris, jr., Robert Dale Owen, William Parmenter, William W. Payne, John Pettit, Joseph H. Peyton, Emery D. Potter, Zadock Pratt, David S. Reid, James H. Relfe, R. Barnwell Rhett, John Ritter, Robert W. Roberts, Jeremiah Russell, Romulus M. Saunders, William T. Senter, Thomas H. Seymour, Samuel Simons, Richard F. Simpson, John Slidell, John T. Smith, Thomas Smith, Robert Smith, Lewis Steenrod, Alexander H. Stephens, John Stewart, William H. Styles, James W. Stone, Alfred P. Stone, Selah B. Strong, George Sykes, William Taylor, Jacob Thomson, John W. Tibbatts, Tilghman M. Tucker, John B. Weller, John Wentworth, Joseph A. Woodward, Joseph A. Wright, William L. Yancey, Jacob S. Yost."

Members from the slave and free States voted for these resolutions, and thereby asserted the right of Congress to legislate upon slavery in territories, and to prohibit or prevent it as they pleased, and also exercised the right each way--forbidding it one side of a line, and leaving it optional with the State on the other--and not only acknowledging the validity of the Missouri compromise line, but enforcing it by a new enactment; and without this enactment every one saw that the slavery institution would come to the Arkansas River in latitude 37, and 38, and even 42. The vote was, therefore, an abolition of the institution legally existing between these two lines, and done in the formal and sacred manner of a compact with a foreign State, as a condition of its admission into the Union. One hundred and twenty members of the House of Representatives voted in favor of these resolutions, and thereby both asserted, and exercised the power of Congress to legislate upon slavery in territories, and to abolish it therein when it pleased: of the 97 voting against the resolution, not one did so from any objection to that power. The resolutions came down from the Department of State, and corresponded with the recommendation in the President's message.

Sent to the Senate for its concurrence, this joint resolution found a leading friend in the person of Mr. Buchanan, who was delighted with every part of it, and especially the re-enactment of the Missouri compromise line in the part where it might otherwise have been invalidated by the Texian laws and constitution, and which thus extinguished for ever the slavery question in the United States. In this sense he said:

"He was pleased with it, again, because it settled the question of slavery. These resolutions went to re-establish the Missouri compromise, by fixing a line within which slavery was to be in future confined. That controversy had nearly shaken this Union to its centre in an earlier and better period of our history; but this compromise, should it be now re-established, would prevent the recurrence of similar dangers hereafter. Should this question be now left open for one or two years, the country could be involved in nothing but one perpetual struggle. We should witness a feverish excitement in the public mind; parties would divide on the dangerous and exciting question of abolition; and the irritation might reach such an extreme as to endanger the existence of the Union itself. But close it now, and it would be closed for ever.

"Mr. B. said he anticipated no time when the country would ever desire to stretch its limits beyond the Rio del Norte; and, such being the case, ought any friend of the Union to desire to see this question left open any longer? Was it desirable again to have the Missouri question brought home to the people to goad them to fury? That question between the two great interests in our country had been well discussed and well decided; and from that moment Mr. B. had set down his foot on the solid ground then established, and there he would let the question stand for ever. Who could complain of the terms of that compromise?

"It was then settled that north of 36° 30' slavery should be for ever prohibited. The same line was fixed upon in the resolutions recently received from the House of Representatives, now before us. The bill from the House for the establishment of a territorial government in Oregon excluded slavery altogether from that vast country. How vain were the fears entertained in some quarters of the country that the slaveholding States would ever be able to control the Union! While, on the other hand, the fears entertained in the south and south-west as to the ultimate success of the abolitionists, were not less unfounded and vain. South of the compromise line of 36° 30' the States within the limits of Texas applying to come into the Union were left to decide for themselves whether they would permit slavery within their limits or not. And under this free permission, he believed, with Mr. Clay (in his letter on the subject of annexation), that if Texas should be divided into five States, two only of them would be slaveholding, and three free States. The descendants of torrid Africa delighted in the meridian rays of a burning sun; they basked and rejoiced in a degree of heat which enervated and would destroy the white man. The lowlands of Texas, therefore, where they raised cotton, tobacco, and rice, and indigo, was the natural region for the slave. But north of San Antonio, where the soil and climate were adapted to the culture of wheat, rye, corn, and cattle, the climate was exactly adapted to the white man of the North; there he could labor for himself without risk or injury. It was, therefore, to be expected that three out of the five new Texian States would be free States--certainly they would be so, if they but willed it. Mr. B. was willing to leave that question to themselves, as they applied for admission into the Union. He had no apprehensions of the result. With that feature in the bill, as it came from the House, he was perfectly content; and, whatever bill might ultimately pass, he trusted this would be made a condition in it."

It was in the last days of his senatorial service that Mr. Buchanan crowned his long devotion to the Missouri compromise by celebrating its re-enactment where it had been abrogated, taking a stand upon it as the solid ground on which the Union rested, and invoking a perpetuity of duration for it.

This resolution, thus adopted by the House, would make the admission a legislative act, but in the opinion of many members of the Senate that was only a step in the right direction: another in their opinion required to be taken: and that was to combine the treaty-making power with it--the Congress taking the initiative in the question, and the President and Senate finishing it by treaty, as done in the case of Louisiana and Florida. With this view Mr. Benton had brought in a bill for commissioners to treat for annexation, and so worded as to authorize negotiations with Mexico at the same time, and get her acquiescence to the alienation in the settlement of boundaries with her. His bill was in these terms:

"That a State, to be formed out of the present republic of Texas, with suitable extent and boundaries, and with two representatives in Congress until the next apportionment of representation, shall be admitted into the Union by virtue of this act, on an equal footing with the existing States, as soon as the terms and conditions of such admission, and the cession of the remaining Texian territory to the United States shall be agreed upon by the government of Texas and the United States.

"SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That the sum of one hundred thousand dollars be, and the same is hereby appropriated, to defray the expenses of missions and negotiations to agree upon the terms of said admission and cession, either by treaty, to be submitted to the Senate, or by articles to be submitted to the two Houses of Congress, as the President may direct."

In support of this bill, Mr. Benton said:

"It was a copy, substantially, of the bill which he had previously offered, with the omission of all the terms and conditions which that bill contained. He had been induced to omit all these conditions because of the difficulty of agreeing upon them, and because it was now clear that whatever bill was passed upon the subject of Texas, the execution of it must devolve upon the new President, who had been just elected by the people with a view to this object. He had confidence in Mr. Polk, and was willing to trust the question of terms and conditions to his untrammelled discretion, certain that he would do the best that he could for the success of the object, the harmony of the Union, and the peace and honor of the country.

"The occasion is an extraordinary one, and requires an extraordinary mission. The voluntary union of two independent nations is a rare occurrence, and is worthy to be attended by every circumstance which lends it dignity, promotes its success, and makes it satisfactory. When England and Scotland were united, at the commencement of the last century, no less than thirty-one commissioners were employed to agree upon the terms; and the terms they agreed upon received the sanction of the Parliaments of the two kingdoms, and completed a union which had been in vain attempted for one hundred years. Extraordinary missions, nationally constituted, have several times been resorted to in our own country, and always with public approbation, whether successful or not. The first Mr. Adams sent Marshall, Gerry, and Pinckney to the French directory in 1798: Mr. Jefferson sent Ellsworth, Davie, and Murray to the French consular government of 1800: Mr. Madison sent Adams, Bayard, Gallatin, Clay, and Russell to Ghent in 1814. All these missions, and others which might be named, were nationally constituted--composed of eminent citizens taken from each political party, and from different sections of the Union; and, of course, all favorable to the object for which they were employed. An occasion has occurred which, in my opinion, requires a mission similarly constituted--as numerous as the missions to Paris or to Ghent--and composed of citizens from both political parties, and from the non-slaveholding as well as the slaveholding States. Such a commission could hardly fail to be successful, not merely in agreeing upon the terms of the union, but in agreeing upon terms which would be satisfactory to the people and the governments of the two countries. And here, to avoid misapprehension and the appearance of disrespect where the contrary is felt, I would say that the gentleman now in Texas as the chargé of the United States, is, in my opinion, eminently fit and proper to be one of the envoys extraordinary and ministers plenipotentiary which my bill contemplates.

"In withdrawing from my bill the terms and conditions which had been proposed as a basis of negotiation, I do not withdraw them from the consideration of those who may direct the negotiation. I expect them to be considered, and, as far as judged proper, to be acted on. The compromise principle between slave and non-slaveholding territory is sanctioned by the vote of the House of Representatives, and by the general voice of the country. In withdrawing it from the bill, I do not withdraw it from the consideration of the President: I only leave him free and untrammelled to do the best he can for the harmony of the Union on a delicate and embarrassing point.

"The assent of Mexico to the annexation is judged to be unnecessary, but no one judges her assent to a new boundary line to be unnecessary: no one judges it unnecessary to preserve her commerce and good will; and, therefore, every consideration of self-interest and national policy requires a fair effort to be made to settle this boundary and to preserve this trade and friendship; and I shall consider all this as remaining just as fully in the mind of the President as if submitted to him in a bill.

"The bill which I now offer is the same which I have presented heretofore, divested of its conditions, and committing the subject to the discretion of the President to accomplish the object in the best way that he can, and either negotiate a treaty to be submitted to the Senate, or to agree upon articles of union to be submitted to the two Houses of Congress. I deem this the best way of proceeding under every aspect. It is the safest way; for it will settle all questions beforehand, and leave no nest-eggs to hatch future disputes. It is the most speedy way; for commissioners conferring face to face will come to conclusions much sooner than two deliberative bodies sitting in two different countries, at near two thousand miles apart, and interchanging categorical propositions in the shape of law. It is the most satisfactory way; for whatever such a commission should agree upon, would stand the best chance to be satisfactory to all parts of the Union. It is the most respectful way to Texas, and the mode for which she has shown a decided preference. She has twice sent envoys extraordinary and ministers plenipotentiary here to treat with us; and the actual President, Mr. Jones, has authentically declared his willingness to engage in further negotiations. Ministers sent to confer and agree--to consult and to harmonize--is much more respectful than the transmission, by mail or messenger, of an inflexible proposition, in the shape of law, to be accepted or rejected in the precise words in which we send it. In every point of view, the mode which I propose seems to me to be the best; and as its execution will devolve upon a President just elected by the people with a view to this subject, I have no hesitation in trusting it to him, armed with full power, and untrammelled with terms and conditions."

It was soon ascertained in the Senate, that the joint resolution from the House could not pass--that unless combined with negotiation, it would be rejected. Mr. Walker, of Mississippi, then proposed to join the two together--the bill of Mr. Benton and the resolution from the House--with a clause referring it to the discretion of the President to act under them as he deemed best. It being then the end of the session, and the new President arrived so as to be ready to act immediately; and it being fully believed that the execution of the bill was to be left to him, the conjunction was favored by the author of the bill, and his friends; and the proposal of Mr. Walker was agreed to. The bill was added as an amendment, and then the whole was passed--although by a close vote--27 to 25. The yeas were: Messrs. Allen, Ashley, Atchison, Atherton, Bagby, Benton, Breese, Buchanan, Colquitt, Dickinson, Dix, Fairfield, Hannegan, Haywood, Henderson, Huger, Johnson, Lewis, McDuffie, Merrick, Niles, Semple, Sevier, Sturgeon, Tappan, Walker, Woodbury,--27. The nays were: Messrs. Archer, Barrow, Bates, Bayard, Berrien, Choate, Clayton, Crittenden, Dayton, Evans, Foster, Francis, Huntington, Jarnagin, Mangum, Miller, Morehead, Pearce, Phelps, Porter, Rives, Simmons, Upham, White, Woodbridge--25. The resolve of the House was thus passed in the Senate, and the validity of the Missouri compromise was asserted, and its re-enactment effected in the Senate, as well as in the House. But the amendment required the bill to go back to the House for its concurrence in that particular, which was found to increase the favor of the measure--an addition of thirty-six being added to the affirmative vote. Carried to Mr. Tyler for his approval, or disapproval, it was immediately approved by him, with the hearty concurrence of his Secretary of State (Mr. Calhoun), who even claimed the passage of the measure as a triumph of his own. And so the executive government, in the persons of the President and his cabinet, added their sanction to the validity of the Missouri compromise line, and the full power of Congress which it exercised, to permit or abolish slavery in territories. This was the month of March, 1845--so that a quarter of a century after the establishment of that compromise line, the dogmas of "squatter sovereignty"--"no power in Congress to legislate upon slavery in the territories"--and "the extension of slavery to the territories by the self-expansion of the constitution," had not been invented. The discovery of these dogmas was reserved for a later period, and a more heated state of the public mind.

The bill providing for the admission of Texas had undergone all its formalities, and became a law on Saturday, the first day of March; the second was Sunday, and a dies non. Congress met on Monday for the last day of its existence; and great was the astonishment of members to hear that the actual President had assumed the execution of the act providing for the admission of Texas--had adopted the legislative clause--and sent it off by a special messenger for the adoption of Texas. It was then seen that some senators had been cheated out of their votes, and that the passage of the act through the Senate had been procured by a fraud. At least five of the senators who voted affirmatively would have voted against the resolutions of the House, if Mr. Benton's bill had not been added, and if it had not been believed that the execution of the act would be left to the new President, and that he would adopt Mr. Benton's. The possibility of a contrary course had been considered, and, as it was believed, fully guarded against. Several senators and some citizens conversed with Mr. Polk, then in the city, and received his assurance that he would act on Mr. Benton's proposition, and in carrying it into effect would nominate for the negotiation a national commission, composed of safe and able men of both parties, such as Mr. Benton had suggested. Among those who thus conversed with Mr. Polk were two (senator Tappan, of Ohio, and Francis P. Blair, Esq., of Washington City), who published the result of their conversations, and the importance of which requires to be stated in their own words: which is here done. Mr. Tappan, writing to the editors of the New York Evening Post, says:

"When the joint resolution declaring the terms on which Congress will admit Texas into the Union as a State, was before the Senate, it was soon found that a number of the democratic members who were favorable to the admission of Texas, would vote against that resolution. I was one of them. In this stage of the matter it was proposed, that instead of rejecting the House resolution, we should amend it by adding, as an alternative proposition, the substance of Mr. Benton's bill to obtain Texas by negotiation. Mr. Polk was in the city; it was understood that he was very anxious that Congress should act on the subject before he came into office; it was also understood that the proposition to amend the House resolution originated with Mr. Polk. It had been suggested, that, if we did so amend the resolution, Mr. Calhoun would send off the House resolution to Texas, and so endeavor to forestall the action of Mr. Polk; but Mr. McDuffie, his friend, having met this suggestion by the declaration that he would not have the 'audacity' to do such a thing, it was no more thought of. One difficulty remained, and that was the danger of putting it into the power of Mr. Polk to submit the House resolution to Texas. We understood, indeed, that he intended to submit the Senate proposition to that government; but, without being satisfied that he would do this, I would not vote for the resolution, and it was well ascertained that, without my vote, it could not pass. Mr. Haywood, who had voted with me, and was opposed to the House resolution, undertook to converse with Mr. Polk on the subject, and did so. He afterwards told me that he was authorized by Mr. Polk to say to myself and other senators, that, if we could pass the resolution with the amendment proposed to be made, he would not use the House resolution, but would submit the Senate amendment as the sole proposition to Texas. Upon this assurance I voted for the amendment moved by Mr. Walker, containing the substance of Mr. Benton's bill, and voted for the resolution as it now stands on the statute book."

Mr. Francis P. Blair, in a letter addressed to Mr. Tappan, and conversing with Mr. Polk at a different time, gives his statement to the same effect:

"When the resolution passed by the House of Representatives for the annexation of Texas reached the Senate, it was ascertained that it would fail in that body. Benton, Bagby, Dix, Haywood, and as I understood, you also, were opposed to this naked proposition of annexation, which necessarily brought with it the war in which Texas was engaged with Mexico. All had determined to adhere to the bill submitted by Col. Benton, for the appointment of a commission to arrange the terms of annexation with Texas, and to make the attempt to render its accession to our Union as palatable as possible to Mexico before its consummation. It was hoped that this point might be effected by giving (as has been done in the late treaty of peace) a pecuniary consideration, fully equivalent in value for the territory desired by the United States, and to which Texas could justly assert any title. The Senate had been polled, and it was ascertained that any two of the democratic senators who were opposed to Brown's resolution, which had passed the House, could defeat it--the whole whig party preferring annexation by negotiation, upon Col. Benton's plan, to that of Brown. While the question was thus pending, I met Mr. Brown (late Governor of Tennessee, then a member or the House), who suggested that the resolution of the House, and the bill of Col. Benton, preferred by the Senate, might be blended, making the latter an alternative, and leaving the President elect (who alone would have time to consummate the measure), to act under one or the other at his discretion. I told Mr. Brown that I did not believe that the democratic senators opposed to the resolution of the House, and who had its fate in their hands, would consent to this arrangement, unless they were satisfied in advance by Mr. Polk that the commission and negotiation contemplated in Col. Benton's plan would be tried, before that of direct legislative annexation was resorted to. He desired me to see Colonel Benton and the friends of his proposition, submit the suggestions he had made, and then confer with Mr. Polk to know whether he would meet their views. I complied; and after several interviews with Messrs. Haywood, Dix, Benton, and others (Mr. Allen, of Ohio, using his influence in the same direction), finding that the two plans could be coupled and carried, if it were understood that the pacific project was first to be tried, I consulted the President elect on the subject. In the conference I had with him, he gave me full assurance that he would appoint a commission, as contemplated in the bill prepared by Col. Benton, if passed in conjunction with the House resolution as an alternative. In the course of my conversation with Mr. Polk, I told him that the friends of this plan were solicitous that the commission should be filled by distinguished men of both parties, and that Colonel Benton had mentioned to me the names of Crittenden and Wright, as of the class from which it should be formed. Mr. Polk responded, by declaring with an emphasis, 'that the first men of the country should fill the commission.' I communicated the result of this interview to Messrs. Benton, Dix, Haywood, &c. The two last met, on appointment, to adapt the phraseology of Benton's bill, to suit as an alternative for the resolution of the House, and it was passed, after a very general understanding of the course which the measure was to take. Both Messrs. Dix and Haywood told me they had interviews with Mr. Polk on the subject of the communication I had reported to them from him, and they were confirmed by his immediate assurance in pursuing the course which they had resolved on in consequence of my representation of his purpose in regard to the point on which their action depended. After the law was passed, and Mr. Polk inaugurated, he applied to Gen. Dix (as I am informed by the latter), to urge the Senate to act upon one of the suspended cabinet appointments, saying that he wished his administration organized immediately, as he intended the instant recall of the messenger understood to have been despatched by Mr. Tyler, and to revoke his orders given in the last moments of his power, to thwart the design of Congress in affording him (Mr. Polk) the means of instituting a negotiation, with a view of bringing Texas peaceably into the Union."

All this was perfectly satisfactory with respect to the President elect; but there might be some danger from the actual President, or rather, from Mr. Calhoun, his Secretary of State, and who had over Mr. Tyler that ascendant which it is the prerogative of genius to exercise over inferior minds. This danger was suggested in debate in open Senate. It was repulsed as an impossible infamy. Such a cheat upon senators and such an encroachment upon the rights of the new President, were accounted among the impossibilities: and Mr. McDuffie, a close and generous friend of Mr. Calhoun, speaking for the administration, and replying to the suggestion that they might seize upon the act, and execute it without regard to the Senate's amendment, not only denied it for them, but repulsed it in terms which implied criminality if they did. He said they would not have the "audacity" to do it. Mr. McDuffie was an honorable man, standing close to Mr. Calhoun; and although he did not assume to speak by authority, yet his indignant repulse of the suggestion was entirely satisfactory, and left the misgiving senators released from apprehension on account of Mr. Tyler's possible conduct. Mr. Robert J. Walker also, who had moved the conjunction of the two measures, and who was confidential both with the coming in and going out President, assisted in allaying apprehension in the reason he gave for opposing an amendment offered by Mr. Ephraim H. Foster, of Tennessee, which, looking to the President's adoption of the negotiating clause, required that he should make a certain "stipulation" in relation to slavery, and another in relation to the public debt. Mr. Walker objected to this proposition, saying it was already in the bill, "and if the President proceeded properly in the negotiation he would act upon it." This seemed to be authoritative that negotiation was to be the mode, and consequently that Mr. Benton's plan was to be adopted. Thus quieted in their apprehensions, five senators voted for the act of admission, who would not otherwise have done so; and any two of whom voting against it would have defeated it. Mr. Polk did not despatch a messenger to recall Mr. Tyler's envoy; and that omission was the only point of complaint against him. Mr. McDuffie stood exempt from all blame, known to be an honorable man speaking from a generous impulsion.

Thus was Texas incorporated into the Union--by a deception, and by deluding five senators out of their votes. It was not a barren fraud, but one prolific of evil, and pregnant with bloody fruit. It established, so far as the United States was concerned, the state of war with Mexico: it only wanted the acceptance of Texas to make war the complete legal condition of the two countries: and that temptation to Texas was too great to be resisted. She desired annexation any way: and the government of the United States having broken up the armistice, and thwarted the peace prospects, and brought upon her the danger of a new invasion, she leaped at the chance of throwing the burden of the war on the United States. The legislative proposition sent by Mr. Tyler was accepted: Texas became incorporated with the United States: by that incorporation the state of war--the status belli--was established between the United States and Mexico: and it only became a question of time and chance, when hostilities were to begin. Mr. Calhoun, though the master spirit over Mr. Tyler, and the active power in sending off the proposition to Texas, was not in favor of war, and still believed, as he did when he made the treaty, that the weakness of Mexico, and a douceur of ten millions in money, would make her submit: but there was another interest all along working with him, and now to supersede him in influence, which was for war, not as an object, but as a means--as a means of getting a treaty providing for claims and indemnities, and territorial acquisitions. This interest, long his adjunct, now became independent of him, and pushed for the war; but it was his conduct that enabled this party to act; and this point became one of earnest debate between himself and Mr. Benton the year afterwards; in which he was charged as being the real author of the war; and in which Mr. Benton's speech being entirely historical, becomes a condensed view of the whole Texas annexation question; and as such is presented in the next chapter.

ADMINISTRATION OF JAMES K. POLK.

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Chapter CXLIX

THE WAR WITH MEXICO: ITS CAUSE: CHARGED ON THE CONDUCT OF MR. CALHOUN: MR. BENTON'S SPEECH.

Mr. BENTON: The senator from South Carolina (Mr. Calhoun) has boldly made the issue as to the authorship of this war, and as boldly thrown the blame of it upon the present administration. On the contrary, I believe himself to be the author of it, and will give a part of my reasons for believing so. In saying this, I do not consider the march to the Rio Grande to have been the cause of the war, any more than I consider the British march upon Concord and Lexington to have been the cause of the American Revolution, or the crossing of the Rubicon by Cæsar to have been the cause of the civil war in Rome. In all these cases, I consider the causes of war as pre-existing, and the marches as only the effect of these causes. I consider the march upon the Rio Grande as being unfortunate, and certainly should have advised against it if I had been consulted, and that without the least fear of diminishing my influence in the settlement of the Oregon question--a fear which the senator from South Carolina says prevented him from interposing to prevent the war which he foresaw. My opinion of Mr. Polk--and experience in that very Oregon case has confirmed it--did not authorize me to conjecture that any one would lose influence with him by giving him honest opinions; so I would have advised against the march to the Rio Grande if I had been consulted. Nor do I see how any opinion adverse to the President's was to have the effect of lessening his influence in the settlement of the Oregon question. That question was settled by us, not by the President. Half the democratic senators went contrary to the President's opinion, and none of them lost influence with him on that account; and so I can see no possible connection between the facts of the case and the senator's reason for not interfering to save his country from the war which, he says, he saw. His reason to me is unintelligible, incomprehensible, unconnectable with the facts of the case. But the march on the Rio Grande was not the cause of the war; but the causes of this event, like the causes of our own revolutionary war, were in progress long before hostilities broke out. The causes of this Mexican war were long anterior to this march; and, in fact, every circumstance of war then existed, except the actual collision of arms. Diplomatic intercourse had ceased; commerce was destroyed; fleets and armies confronted each other; treaties were declared to be broken; the contingency had occurred in which Mexico had denounced the existence of war; the incorporation of Texas, with a Mexican war on her hands, had produced, in legal contemplation, the status belli between the two countries: and all this had occurred before the march upon the Rio Grande, and before the commencement of this administration, and had produced a state of things which it was impossible to continue, and which could only receive their solution from arms or negotiation. The march to the Rio Grande brought on the collision of arms; but, so far from being the cause of the war, it was itself the effect of these causes. The senator from South Carolina is the author of those causes, and therefore the author of the war; and this I propose to show, at present, by evidence drawn from himself--from his public official acts--leaving all the evidence derived from other sources, from private and unofficial acts, for future production, if deemed necessary.

The senator from South Carolina, in his effort to throw the blame of the war upon the President, goes no further back in his search for causes than to this march upon the Rio Grande: upon the same principle, if he wrote a history of the American Revolution, he would begin at the march upon Lexington and Concord, leaving out of view the ten years' work of Lord North's administration which caused that march to be made. No, the march upon the Rio Grande was not the cause of the war: had it not been for pre-existing causes, the arrival of the American army on the Mexican frontier would have been saluted with military courtesy, according to the usage of all civilized nations, and with none so much as with the Spaniards. Complimentary visits, dinners, and fandangos, balls--not cannon balls--would have been the salutation. The causes of the war are long anterior; and I begin with the beginning, and show the senator from South Carolina an actor from the first. In doing this, I am acting in defence of the country, for the President represents the country. The senator from South Carolina charges the war upon the President: the whole opposition follow him: the bill under discussion is forgotten: crimination of the President is now the object: and in that crimination, the country is injured by being made to appear the aggressor in the war. This is my justification for defending the President, and showing the truth that the senator, in his manner of acquiring Texas, is the true cause of the war.

The cession of Texas to Spain in 1819 is the beginning point in the chain of causes which have led to this war; for unless the country had been ceded away, there could have been no quarrel with any power in getting it back. For a long time the negotiator of that treaty of cession (Mr. J. Q. Adams) bore all the blame of the loss of Texas; and his motives for giving it away were set down to hostility to the South and West, and a desire to clip the wings of the slaveholding States. At last the truth of history has vindicated itself, and has shown who was the true author of that mischief to the South and West. Mr. Adams has made a public declaration, which no one controverts, that that cession was made in conformity to the decision of Mr. Monroe's cabinet, a majority of which was slaveholding, and among them the present senator from South Carolina, and now the only survivor of that majority. He does not contradict the statement of Mr. Adams: he, therefore, stands admitted the co-author of that mischief to the South and West which the cession of Texas involved, and to escape from which it became necessary, in the opinion of the senator from South Carolina, to get back Texas at the expense of war with Mexico. This conduct of the senator in giving away Texas when we had her, and then making war to get her back, is an enigma which he has never yet condescended to explain, and which, until explained, leaves him in a state of self-contradiction, which, whether it impairs his own confidence in himself or not, must have the effect of destroying the confidence of others in him, and wholly disqualifies him for the office of champion of the slaveholding States. It was the heaviest blow they had ever received, and put an end, in conjunction with the Missouri compromise, and the permanent location of the Indians west of the Mississippi, to their future growth or extension as slave States beyond the Mississippi. The compromise, which was then in full progress, and established at the next session of Congress, cut off the slave States from all territory north and west of Missouri, and south of thirty-six and a half degrees of north latitude: the treaty of 1819 ceded nearly all south of that degree, comprehending not only all Texas, but a large part of the valley of the Mississippi on the Red River and the Arkansas, to a foreign power, and brought a non-slaveholding empire to the confines of Louisiana and Arkansas: the permanent appropriation of the rest of the territory for the abode of civilized Indians swept the little slaveholding territory west of Arkansas and lying between the compromise line and the cession line; and left the slave States without one inch of ground for their future growth. Nothing was left. Even the then territory of Arkansas was encroached upon. A breadth of forty miles wide, and three hundred long was cut off from her, and given to the Cherokees; and there was not as much slave territory left west of the Mississippi as a dove could have rested the sole of her foot upon. It was not merely a curtailment, but a total extinction of slaveholding territory; and done at a time when the Missouri controversy was raging, and every effort made by Northern abolitionists to stop the growth of slave States.[8]

[8] At the presidential election of 1824, the Northern States voted pretty much in a body for Mr. Calhoun, as Vice-President, giving him near the same vote which they gave Mr. Adams for President. Thus:

For Mr. Adams. For Mr. Calhoun.

New Hampshire, 8 7 Massachusetts, 15 15 Rhode Island, 4 3 Vermont, 7 7 New York, 26 29

I come now to the direct proofs of the senator's authorship of the war; and begin with the year 1836, and with the month of May of that year, and with the 27th day of that month, and with the first rumors of the victory of San Jacinto. The Congress of the United States was then in session: the senator from South Carolina was then a member of this body; and, without even waiting for the official confirmation of that great event, he proposed at once the immediate recognition of the independence of Texas, and her immediate admission into this Union. He put the two propositions together--recognition and admission: and allowed us no further time for the double vote than the few days which were to intervene before the official intelligence of the victory should arrive. Here are some extracts from his speech on that occasion, and which verify what I say, and show that he was then ready to plunge the country into the Texian war with Mexico, without the slightest regard to its treaties, its commerce, its duties, or its character.

(The extracts.)

Here, then, is the proof of the fact that, ten years ago, and without a word of explanation with Mexico, or any request from Texas--without the least notice to the American people, or time for deliberation among ourselves, or any regard to existing commerce--he was for plunging us into instant war with Mexico. I say, instant war; for Mexico and Texas were then in open war; and to incorporate Texas, was to incorporate the war at the same time. All this the senator was then for, immediately after his own gratuitous cession of Texas, and long before the invention of the London abolition plot came so opportunely to his aid. Promptness and unanimity were then his watchwords. Immediate action--action before Congress adjourned--was his demand. No delay. Delays were dangerous. We must vote, and vote unanimously, and promptly. I well remember the senator's look and attitude on that occasion--the fixedness of his look, and the magisteriality of his attitude. It was such as he often favors us with, especially when he is in a "crisis," and brings forward something which ought to be instantly and unanimously rejected--as when he brought in his string of abstractions on Thursday last. So it was in 1836--prompt and unanimous action, and a look to put down opposition. But the Senate was not looked down in 1836. They promptly and unanimously refused the senator's motion! and the crisis and the danger--good-natured souls!--immediately postponed themselves until wanted for another occasion.

The peace of the country was then saved; but it was a respite only; and the speech of the senator from South Carolina, brief as it was, becomes momentous as foreshadowing every thing that has subsequently taken place in relation to the admission of Texas. In this brief speech we have the shadows of all future movements, coming in procession--in advance of the events. In the significant intimation, qualified with the if----"the Texians prudently managed their affairs, they (the Senate) might soon be called upon to decide the question of admission." In that pregnant and qualified intimation, there was a visible doubt that the Texians might not be prudent enough to manage their own affairs, and might require help; and also a visible feeling of that paternal guardianship which afterward assumed the management of their affairs for them. In the admonitions to unanimity, there was that denunciation of any difference of opinion which afterwards displayed itself in the ferocious hunting down of all who opposed the Texas treaty. In the reference to southern slavery, and annoyance to slave property from Texas, we have the germ of the "self-defence" letter, and the first glimpse of the abolition plot of John Andrews, Ashbel Smith, Lord Aberdeen--I beg pardon of Lord Aberdeen for naming him in such a connection--and the World's Convention, with which Mexico, Texas, and the United States were mystified and bamboozled in April, 1844. And, in the interests of the manufacturing and navigating States of the north and east, as connected with Texas admission, we have the text of all the communications to the agent, Murphy, and of all the letters and speeches to which the Texas question, seven years afterwards, gave rise. We have all these subsequent events here shadowed forth. And now, the wonder is, why all these things were not foreseen a little while before, when Texas was being ceded to a non-slaveholding empire? and why, after being so imminent and deadly in May, 1836, all these dangers suddenly went to sleep, and never waked up again until 1844? These are wonders; but let us not anticipate questions, and let us proceed with the narrative.

The Congress of 1836 would not admit Texas. The senator from South Carolina became patient: the Texas question went to sleep; and for seven good years it made no disturbance. It then woke up, and with a suddenness and violence proportioned to its long repose. Mr. Tyler was then President: the senator from South Carolina was potent under his administration, and soon became his Secretary of State. All the springs of intrigue and diplomacy were immediately set in motion to resuscitate the Texas question, and to re-invest it with all the dangers and alarms which it had worn in 1836. Passing over all the dangers of annoyance from Texas as possibly non-slaveholding, foreseen by the senator in 1836, and not foreseen by him in 1819, with all the need for guardianship then foreshadowed, and all the arguments then suggested: all these immediately developed themselves, and intriguing agents traversed earth and sea, from Washington to Texas, and from London to Mexico:--passing over all this, as belonging to a class of evidence, not now to be used, I come at once to the letter of the 17th of January, from the Texian minister to Mr. Upshur, the American Secretary of State; and the answer to that letter by Mr. CALHOUN, of April 11th of the same year. They are both vital in this case; and the first is in these words:

(The letter.)

This letter reveals the true state of the Texian question in January, 1844, and the conduct of all parties in relation to it. It presents Texas and Mexico, weary of the war, reposing under an armistice, and treating for peace; Great Britain and France acting the noble part of mediators, and endeavoring to make peace: our own government secretly intriguing for annexation, acting the wicked part of mischief-makers, and trying to renew the war; and the issue of its machinations to be unsuccessful unless the United States should be involved in the renewed hostilities. That was the question; and the letter openly puts it to the American Secretary of State. The answer to that question, in my opinion, should have been, that the President of the United States did not know of the armistice and the peace negotiations at the time that he proposed to Texas to do an act which would be a perfidious violation of those sacred engagements, and bring upon herself the scourge of renewed invasion and the stigma of perfidy--that he would not have made such a proposal for the whole round world, if he had known of the armistice and the peace negotiations--that he wished success to the peace-makers, both for the sake of Mexico and Texas, and because Texas could then come into the Union without the least interruption to our friendly, commercial, and social relations with our sister republic of Mexico; and that, as to secretly lending the army and navy of the United States to Texas to fight Mexico while we were at peace with her, it would be a crime against God, and man, and our own constitution, for which heads might be brought to the block, if presidents and their secretaries, like constitutional kings and ministers, should be held capitally responsible for capital crimes. This, in my opinion, should have been the answer.

Mr. Nelson refused to lend the army and navy, because to do so was to violate our own constitution. This is very constitutional and proper language: and if it had not been reversed, there would have been no war with Mexico. But it was reversed. Soon after it was written, the present senator from South Carolina took the chair of the Department of State. Mr. Pinckney Henderson, whom Mr. Murphy mentions as coming on with full powers, on the faith of the pledge he had given, arrived also, and found that pledge entirely cancelled by Mr. Tyler's answer through Mr. Nelson; and he utterly refused to treat. The new secretary was in a strait; for time was short, and Texas must be had; and Messrs. Henderson and Van Zandt would not even begin to treat without a renewal of the pledge given by Mr. Murphy. That had been cancelled in writing, and the cancellation had gone to Texas, and had been made on high constitutional ground. The new secretary was profuse of verbal assurances, and even permitted the ministers to take down his words in writing, and read them over to him, as was shown by the senator from Texas (General Houston) when he spoke on this subject on Thursday last. But verbal assurances, or memoranda of conversations, would not do. The instructions under which the ministers acted required the pledge to be in writing, and properly signed. The then President, present senator from Texas, who had been a lawyer in Tennessee before he went to Texas, seemed to look upon it as a case under the statute of frauds and perjuries--a sixth case added to the five enumerated in that statute--in which the promise is not valid, unless reduced to writing, and signed by the person to be charged therewith, or by some other person duly authorized by him to sign for him. The firmness of the Texian ministers, under the instructions of President Houston, prevailed; and at last, and after long delay, the secretary wrote, and signed the pledge which Murphy had given, and in all the amplitude of his original promise.

The promise was clear and explicit to lend the army and navy to the President of Texas, to fight the Mexicans while they were at peace with us. That was the point--at peace with us. Mr. Calhoun's assumpsit was clear and explicit to that point; for the cases in which they were to fight were to be before the ratification of the treaty by the Senate, and consequently before Texas should be in our Union, and could be constitutionally defended as a part of it. And, that no circumstance of contradiction or folly should be wanting to crown this plot of crime and imbecility, it so happened that on the same day that our new secretary here was giving his written assumpsit to lend the army and navy to fight Mexico while we were at peace with her, the agent Murphy was communicating to the Texian government, in Texas, the refusal of Mr. Tyler, through Mr. Nelson, to do so, because of its unconstitutionality.

In conformity with the secretary's letter of April 11th, detachments of the army and navy were immediately sent to the frontiers of Texas, and to the coast of Mexico. The senator from South Carolina, in his colloquy with the senator from Texas (General Houston), on Thursday last, seemed anxious to have it understood that these land and naval forces were not to repel invasions, but only to report them to our government, for its report to Congress. The paper read by the senator from Texas, consisting of our secretary's words, taken down in his presence, and read over to him for his correction by the Texian ministers, establishes the contrary, and shows that the repulse of the invasion was in the mean time to be made. And in fact, any other course would have been a fraud upon the promise. For, if the invasion had to be made known at Washington, and the sense of Congress taken on the question of repelling it, certainly, in the mean time, the mischief would have been done--the invasion would have been made; and, therefore, to be consistent with himself, the President in the mean time was bound to repel the invasion, without waiting to hear what Congress would say about it. And this is what he himself tells us in his two messages to the Senate, of the 15th and 31st of May, doubtless written by his Secretary of State, and both avowing and justifying his intention to fight Mexico, in case of invasion, while the treaty of annexation was depending, without awaiting the action of Congress.

(The message.)

Here are the avowals of the fact, and the reasons for it--that honor required us to fight for Texas, if we intrigued her into a war. I admit that would be a good reason between individuals, and in a case where a big bully should involve a little fellow in the fight again after he had got himself parted; but not so between nations, and under our constitution. The engagement to fight Mexico for Texas, while we were at peace with Mexico, was to make war with Mexico!--a piece of business which belonged to the Congress, and which should have been referred to them! and which, on the contrary, was concealed from them, though in session, and present! and the fact only found out after the troops had marched, and then by dint of calls from the Senate.

The proof is complete that the loan of the land and naval forces was to fight Mexico while we were at peace with her! and this becomes a great turning point in the history of this war. Without this pledge given by our Secretary of State--without his reversal of Mr. Tyler's first decision--there could have been no war! Texas and Mexico would have made peace, and then annexation would have followed of itself. The victor of San Jacinto, who had gone forth and recovered by the sword, and erected into a new republic the beautiful domain given away by our secretary in 1819, was at the head of the Texas government, and was successfully and honorably conducting his country to peace and acknowledged independence. If let alone, he would have accomplished his object; for he had already surmounted the great difficulty of the first step--the armistice and the commencement of peace negotiations; and under the powerful mediation of Great Britain and France, the establishment of peace was certain. A heavenly benediction rests upon the labors of the peacemaker; and what is blessed of God must succeed. At all events, it does not lie in the mouth of any man--and least of all, in the mouth of the mischief-maker--to say that the peaceful mediation would not have succeeded. It was the part of all men to have aided, and wished, and hoped for success; and had it not been for our secretary's letter of April 11th, authentic facts warrant the assertion that Texas and Mexico would have made peace in the spring of 1844. Then Texas would have come into this Union as naturally, and as easily, and with as little offence to any body, as Eve went into Adam's bosom in the garden of Eden. There would have been no more need for intriguing politicians to get her in, by plots and tricks, than there was for some old hag of a match-making beldame, with her arts and allurements, her philters and her potions, to get Eve into Adam's bosom. And thus, the breaking up of the peace negotiations becomes the great turning point of the problem of the Mexican war.

The pledge of the 11th of April being signed, the treaty was signed, and being communicated to the Senate, it was rejected: and the great reason for the rejection was that the ratification of the treaty would have been WAR with Mexico! an act which the President and Senate together, no more than President Tyler and his Secretary of State together, had the power to make.

The treaty of annexation was signed, and in signing it the secretary knew that he had made war with Mexico. No less than three formal notices were on file in the Department of State, in which the Mexican government solemnly declared that it would consider annexation as equivalent to a declaration of war; and it was in allusion to these notices that the Secretary of State, in his notification to Mexico of the signature of the treaty, said it had been signed IN FULL VIEW OF ALL POSSIBLE CONSEQUENCES! meaning war as the consequence! At the same time, he suited the action to the word; he sent off detachments of the army and navy, and placed them under the command of President Houston, and made him the judge of the emergencies and exigencies in which they were to fight. This authority to the President of Texas was continued in full force until after the rejection of the treaty, and then only modified by placing the American diplomatic agent in Texas between President Houston and the naval and military commanders, and making him the medium of communication between a foreign President and our forces; but the forces themselves were not withdrawn. They remained on the Texian and Mexican frontier, waiting for the exigencies and emergencies in which they were to fight. During all that time a foreign President was commander-in-chief of a large detachment of the army and navy of the United States. Without a law of Congress--without a nomination from the President and confirmation by the Senate--without citizenship--without the knowledge of the American people--he was president-general of our land and sea forces, made so by the senator from South Carolina, with authority to fight them against Mexico with whom we were at peace--an office and authority rather above that of lieutenant-general!--and we are indebted to the forbearance and prudence of President Houston for not incurring the war in 1844, which fell upon us in 1846. This is a point--this secret and lawless appointment of this president-general to make war upon Mexico, while we were at peace with her--on which I should like to hear a constitutional argument from the senator from South Carolina, showing it to be constitutional and proper, and that of the proposed lieutenant-general unconstitutional and improper; and upon which he has erected himself into the foreman of the grand-jury of the whole American people, and pronounced a unanimous verdict for them before he had time to hear from the ten-thousandth part of them.

The treaty was rejected by the Senate; but so apprehensive was the senator of immediate war, that, besides keeping the detachments of the army and navy at their posts, a messenger was despatched with a deprecatory letter to Mexico, and the offer of a large sum of money (ten millions of dollars) to purchase peace from her, by inducing her to treat for a boundary which would leave Texas within our limits. This was report: and I would not mention it, if the senator was not present to contradict it, if not correct. Report at the time said from five to ten millions of dollars: from one of Mr. Shannon's letters, we may set it down at ten millions. Be it either sum, it will show that the senator was then secretly willing to pay an immense sum to pacify Mexico, although he now declares that he does not know how he will vote in relation to the three millions responsibly asked by Mr. Polk.

The secretary knew that he had made war with Mexico--that in accepting the gage three times laid down, he had joined an issue which that compound of Celtic and Roman blood, called Spanish, would redeem. I knew it, and said it on this floor, in secret session--for I did not then choose to say it in public--that if there was but one man of that blood in all Mexico, and he no bigger than General Tom Thumb, he would fight. Senators will recollect it. [Mr. Mangum nodded assent.]

I now come to the last act in this tragedy of errors--the alternative resolutions adopted by Congress in the last days of the session of 1844-'45, and in the last moments of Mr. Tyler's administration. A resolve, single and absolute, for the admission of Texas as a State of this Union, had been made by the House of Representatives; it came to this body; and an alternative resolution was added, subject to the choice of the President, authorizing negotiations for the admission, and appropriating one hundred thousand dollars to defray the expenses of these negotiations. A senator from North Carolina, not now a member of this body, but who I have the pleasure to see sitting near me (Mr. Haywood), knows all about that alternative resolution; and his country owes him good thanks for his labors about it. It was considered by every body, that the choice between these resolutions belonged to the new President, who had been elected with a special view to the admission of Texas, and who was already in the city, awaiting the morning of the 4th of March to enter upon the execution of his duties; and upon whose administration all the evils of a mistake in the choice of these resolutions were to fall. We all expected the question to be left open to the new President; and so strong was that expectation, and so strong the feeling against the decency or propriety of interference on the part of the expiring administration, to snatch this choice out of the hands of Mr. Polk, that, on a mere suggestion of the possibility of such a proceeding, in a debate on this floor, a senator standing in the relation personally, and politically, and locally to feel for the honor of the then Secretary of State, declared they would not have the audacity to do it. Audacity was his word: and that was the declaration of a gentleman of honor and patriotism, no longer a member of this body, but who has the respect and best wishes of all who ever knew him. I speak of Mr. McDuffie, and quote his words as heard at the time, and as since printed and published by others. Mr. McDuffie was mistaken! They did have the audacity! They did do it, or rather, HE did it (looking at Mr. Calhoun); for it is incontestable that Mr. Tyler was nothing, in any thing that related to the Texas question, from the time of the arrival of his last Secretary of State. His last act, in relation to Texas, was the answer which Mr. Nelson gave for him through the agent, Murphy, denying his right to lend our forces to the President of Texas to fight the Mexicans while we were at peace with them: the reversal of that answer by his new secretary was the extinction of his power over the Texas question. He, the then Secretary of State, the present senator from South Carolina, to whom I address myself, did it. On Sunday, the second day of March--that day which preceded the last day of his authority--and on that day, sacred to peace--the council sat that acted on the resolutions--and in the darkness of a night howling with the storm, and battling with the elements, as if Heaven warred upon the audacious act (for well do I remember it), the fatal messenger was sent off which carried the selected resolution to Texas. The exit of the secretary from office, and the start of the messenger from Washington, were coetaneous--twin acts--which come together, and will be remembered together. The act was then done: Texas was admitted: all the consequences of admission were incurred--and especially that consequence which Mr. de Bocanegra had denounced, and which our secretary had accepted--WAR. The state of war was established--the status belli was created--and that by the operation of our own constitution, as well as by the final declaration of Mexico: for Texas then being admitted into the Union, the war with her extended to the whole Union; and the duty of protecting her, devolved upon the President of the United States. The selection of the absolute resolution exhausted our action: the alternative resolution for negotiation was defunct: the only mode of admission was the absolute one, and it made war. The war was made to Mr. Polk's hands: his administration came into existence with the war upon its hands, and under the constitutional duty to protect Texas at the expense of war with Mexico: and to that point, all events rapidly tended. The Mexican minister, General Almonte, who had returned to Washington city after the rejection of the treaty of annexation, demanded his passports, and left the United States. The land forces which had been advanced to the Sabine, were further advanced to Corpus Christi; the Mexican troops moved towards the Rio Grande: the fleet which remained at Vera Cruz, continued there: commerce died out: the citizens of each country left the other, as far as they could: angry denunciations filled the press of each country: and when a minister was sent from the United States, his reception was refused. The state of war existed legally: all the circumstances of war, except the single circumstance of bloodshed, existed at the accession of Mr. Polk; and the two countries, Mexico and the United States, stood in a relation to each other impossible to be continued. The march upon the Rio Grande brought on the conflict--made the collision of arms--but not the war. The war was prepared, organized, established by the Secretary of State, before he left the department. It was his legacy to the democracy, and to the Polk administration--his last gift to them, in the moment of taking a long farewell. And now he sets up for a man of peace, and throws all the blame of war upon Mr. Polk, to whom he bequeathed it.

Cicero says that Antony, flying from Rome to the camp of Cæsar in Cisalpine Gaul, was the cause of the civil war which followed--as much so as Helen was of the Trojan war. Ut Helena Trojanis, sic iste huic reipublica causa belli--causa pestis atque exitii fuit. He says that that flight put an end to all chance of accommodation; closed the door to all conciliation; broke up the plans of all peaceable men; and by inducing Cæsar to break up his camp in Gaul, and march across the Rubicon, lit up the flames of civil war in Italy. In like manner, I say that the flight of the winged messenger from this capital on the Sunday night before the 3d of March, despatched by the then Secretary of State, in the expiring moment of his power, and bearing his fatal choice to the capital of Texas, was the direct cause of the war with Mexico in which we are now engaged. Like the flight of Antony, it broke up the plans of all peaceable men, slammed the door upon negotiations, put an end to all chance for accommodation, broke up the camp on the Sabine, sent the troops towards Mexico, and lit up the war. Like Antony and Helen, he made the war; unlike Antony, he does not stand to it; but, copying rather the conduct of the paramour of Helen, he flies from the conflict he has provoked! and, worse than Paris, he endeavors to draw along with him, in his own unhappy flight, the whole American host. Paris fled alone at the sight of Menelaus: the senator from South Carolina urges us all to fly at the sight of Santa Anna. And, it may be, that worse than Paris again, he may refuse to return to the field. Paris went back under the keen reproach of Hector, and tried to fight:

"For thee the soldier bleeds, the matron mourns, And wasteful war in all its fury burns."

Stung with this just and keen rebuke--this vivid picture of the ruin he had made--Paris returned to the field, and tried to fight: and now, it remains to be seen whether the senator from South Carolina can do the same, on the view of the ruin which he has made: and, if not, whether he cannot, at least, cease to obstruct the arms of others--cease to labor to involve the whole army in his own unmanly retreat.

Upon the evidence now given, drawn from his public official acts alone, he stands the undisputed author and architect of that calamity. History will so write him down. Inexorable HISTORY, with her pen of iron and tablets of brass, will so write him down: and two thousand years hence, and three thousand years hence, the boy at his lesson shall learn it in the book, that as Helen was the cause of the Trojan, and Antony the cause of the Roman civil war, and Lord North made the war of the Revolution, just so certainly is JOHN C. CALHOUN the author of the present war between the United States and Mexico.

He now sets up for the character of pacificator--with what justice, let the further fact proclaim which I now expose. Three hundred newspapers, in the summer of 1844, in the pay of the administration and Department of State, spoke the sentiments of the Department of State, and pursued as traitors to the United States all who were for the peaceable annexation of Texas by settling the boundary line of Texas with Mexico simultaneously with the annexation. Here is the instruction under which the three hundred acted:

"As the conductor of the official journal here, he has requested me to answer it (your letter), which request I comply with readily. With regard to the course of your paper, you can take the tone of the administration from the * * * *. I think, however, and would recommend that you would confine yourself to attacks upon Benton, showing that he has allied himself with the whigs on the Texas question. Quote Jackson's letter on Texas, where he denounces all those as traitors to the country who oppose the treaty. Apply it to Benton. Proclaim that Benton, by attacking Mr. Tyler and his friends, and driving them from the party, is aiding the election of Mr. Clay; and charge him with doing this to defeat Mr. Polk, and insure himself the succession in 1848; and claim that full justice be done to the acts and motives of John Tyler by the leaders. Harp upon these strings. Do not propose the union; 'it is the business of the democrats to do this, and arrange it to our perfect satisfaction.' I quote here from our leading friend at the South. Such is the course which I recommend, and which you can pursue or not, according to your real attachment to the administration. Look out for my leader of to-morrow as an indicator, and regard this letter as of the most strict and inviolate confidence of character."

I make no comment on this letter, nor read the other parts of it: a time will come for that. It is an original, and will keep, and will prove itself. I merely read a paragraph now, to show with what justice the person who was in the Department of State when these three hundred newspapers in its pay were thus attacking the men of peace, now sets up for the character of pacificator!

Mr. CALHOUN. Does he intend to say that I ever wrote such a letter?

Mr. BENTON. I read it. I say nothing.

Mr. CALHOUN. I never wrote such a letter as that!

Mr. BENTON. I have not said so.

Mr. CALHOUN. I take this occasion to say that I never exercised the slightest influence over that paper. I never had the slightest connection with it. I never was a subscriber to it, and I very rarely read it.

Mr. BENTON. It was the work of one of the organs of the administration, not John Jones, not the Madisonian; and the instruction was followed by three hundred newspapers in the pay of the Department of State.

I have now finished what I proposed to say, at this time, in relation to the authorship of this war. I confine myself to the official words and acts of the senator, and rely upon them to show that he, and not Mr. Polk, is the author of this calamity. But, while thus presenting him as the author of the war, I do not believe that war was his object, but only an incident to his object; and that all his conduct in relation to the admission of Texas refers itself to the periods of our presidential elections, and to some connection with those elections, and explains his activity and inactivity on those occasions. Thus, in May, 1836, when he was in such hot and violent haste for immediate admission, the election of that year was impending, and Mr. Van Buren the democratic candidate; and if the Texas question could then have been brought up, he might have been shoved aside just as easily as he was afterwards, in 1844. This may explain his activity in 1836. In 1840, the senator from South Carolina was a sort of a supporter of Mr. Van Buren, and might have thought that one good turn deserves another; and so nothing was said about Texas at that election--dangerous as was the least delay four years before; and this may explain the inactivity of 1840. The election of 1844 was coming on, and the senator from South Carolina was on the turf himself; and then the Texas question, with all its dangers and alarms, which had so accommodatingly postponed themselves for seven good years, suddenly woke up; and with an activity and vigor proportioned to its long repose. Instant admission, at all hazards, and at the expense of renewing hostilities between Mexico and Texas, and involving the United States in them, became indispensable--necessary to our own salvation--a clear case of self-defence; and then commenced all those machinations which ended in the overthrow of Mr. Van Buren and Mr. Clay for the presidency, and in producing the present war with Mexico; but without making the senator President. And this may explain his activity in 1844. Now, another presidential election is approaching; and if there is any truth in the rule which interprets certain gentlemen's declarations by their contraries, he will be a candidate again: and this may explain the reasons of the production of that string of resolutions which the senator laid upon the table last week; and upon which he has required us to vote instantly, as he did in the sudden Texas movement of 1836, and with the same magisterial look and attitude. The Texas slave question has gone by--the Florida slave question has gone by--there is no chance for it now in any of its old haunts: hence the necessity for a new theatre of agitation, even if we have to go as far as California for it, and before we have got California. And thus, all the senator's conduct in relation to Texas, though involving his country in war, may have had no other object than to govern a presidential election.

Our northern friends have exceeded my hopes and expectations in getting themselves and the Union safe through the Texas and Florida slave questions, and are entitled to a little repose. So far from that, they are now to be plunged into a California slave question, long before it could arise of itself, if ever. The string of resolutions laid on the table by the senator from South Carolina is to raise a new slave question on the borders of the Pacific Ocean, which, upon his own principles, cannot soon occur, if ever. He will not take the country by conquest--only by treaty--and that treaty to be got by sitting out the Mexicans on a line of occupation. At the same time, he shows that he knows that Spanish blood is good at that game, and shows that they sat it out, and fought it out, for 800 years, against the Moors occupying half their country. By-the-by, it was only 700; but that is enough; one hundred years is no object in such a matter. The Spaniards held out 700 years against the Moors, holding half their country, and 300 against the Visigoths, occupying the half of the other half; and, what is more material, whipped them both out at the end of the time. This is a poor chance for California on the senator's principles. His five regiments would be whipped out in a fraction of the time; but no matter; men contend more violently for nothing than for something, and if he can get up a California slave question now, it will answer all the purposes of a reality, even if the question should never arise in point of fact.

The Senator from South Carolina has been wrong in all this business, from beginning to ending--wrong in 1819, in giving away Texas--wrong in 1836, in his sudden and hot haste to get her back--wrong in all his machinations for bringing on the Texas question of 1844--wrong in breaking up the armistice and peace negotiations between Mexico and Texas--wrong in secretly sending the army and navy to fight Mexico while we were at peace with her--wrong in secretly appointing the President of Texas president-general of the army and navy of the United States, with leave to fight them against a power with whom we were at peace--wrong in writing to Mexico that he took Texas in view of all possible consequences, meaning war--wrong in secretly offering Mexico, at the same time, ten millions of dollars to hush up the war which he had created--wrong now in refusing Mr. Polk three millions to aid in getting out of the war which he made--wrong in throwing the blame of this war of his own making upon the shoulders of Mr. Polk--wrong in his retreat and occupation line of policy--wrong in expelling old Father Ritchie from the Senate, who worked so hard for him during the Texas annexation--and more wrong now than ever, in that string of resolutions which he has laid upon the table, and in which, as Sylla saw in the young Cæsar many Mariuses, so do I see in them many nullifications.

In a picture of so many and such dreadful errors, it is hard to specify the worst, or to dwell upon any one to the exclusion of the rest; but there is one feature in this picture of enormities which seems entitled to that distinction: I allude to the pledge upon which the armistice and the peace negotiations between Mexico and Texas were broken up in 1844, and those two countries put back into a state of war, and ourselves involved in the contest. The story is briefly told, and admits of no dispute. The letter of 17th of January is the accusing record, from which there is no escape. Its awful words cannot be read now without freezing up the blood: "It is known to you that an armistice exists between Mexico and Texas, and that negotiations for peace are now going on under the mediation of two powerful sovereigns, mutually friendly. If we yield to your solicitation to be annexed to the United States, under these circumstances, we shall draw upon ourselves a fresh invasion from Mexico, incur the imputation of bad faith, and lose the friendship and respect of the two great mediating powers. Now, will you, in the event of our acceding to your request, step between us and Mexico and take the war off our hands?" This was the letter, and the terrible question with which it concluded. Mr. Upshur, to whom it was addressed, gave it no answer. In the forty days that his life was spared, he gave it no answer. Mr. Nelson, his temporary successor, gave it an answer; and, speaking for the President of the United States, positively refused to take annexation on the awful terms proposed. This answer was sent to Texas, and put an end to all negotiation for annexation. The senator from South Carolina came into the Department of State, procured the reversal of the President's decision, and gave the pledge to the whole extent that Texas asked it. Without, in the least denying the knowledge of the armistice, and the negotiations for peace, and all the terrible consequences which were to result from their breach, he accepts the whole, and gives the fatal pledge which his predecessors had refused: and follows it up by sending our troops and ships to fight a people with whom we were at peace--the whole veiled by the mantle of secrecy, and pretexted by motives as unfounded as they were absurd. Now, what says morality and Christianity to this conduct? Certainly, if two individuals were engaged in strife, and two others should part them, and put them under an agreement to submit to an amicable settlement: and while the settlement was going on, another man, lying behind a hedge, should secretly instigate one of the parties to break off the agreement and renew the strife, and promise to take the fight off his hands if he did: what would morality and Christianity say to this? Surely the malediction of all good men would fall upon the man who had interfered to renew the strife. And if this would be the voice of all good men in the case of mere individuals, what would it be when the strife was between nations, and when the renewal of it was to involve a third nation in the contest, and such a war as we now have with our sister republic of Mexico? This is the feature which stands out in the awful picture: this is the question which now presents itself to the moral sense of the civilized world, in judging the conduct of the senator from South Carolina in writing that letter of the 11th of April, 1844, aggravated by now throwing upon another the blame of a war for which he then contracted.

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CL. MR. POLK'S INAUGURAL ADDRESS, AND CABINET

This was the longest address of the kind which had yet been delivered, and although condemned by its nature to declarations of general principles, there were some topics on which it dwelt with more particularity. The blessings of the Union, and the necessity of its preservation were largely enforced, and not without point, considering recent manifestations. Our title to the Oregon Territory was asserted as clear and indisputable, and the determination avowed to protect our settlers there. The sentiments were good, but the necessity or propriety of avowing them so positively, was quite questionable, seeing that this title was then a subject of negotiation with Great Britain, upon the harmony of which a declaration so positive might have an ill effect: and in fact did. The return voice from London was equally positive on the other side; and the inevitability of war became the immediate cry. The passage by Congress of the Texas annexation resolution was dwelt upon with great exultation, and the measure considered as consummated from the real disposition of Texas for the measure, and her great desire to get a partner in the war with Mexico, which would take its expenses and burdens off her hands.

The cabinet ministers were nominated and confirmed the same day--the Senate, as always, being convened on the 4th day of March for that purpose: James Buchanan, of Pennsylvania, Secretary of State; Robert J. Walker, of Mississippi, Secretary of the Treasury; William L. Marcy, of New York, Secretary at War; George Bancroft, of Massachusetts, Secretary of the Navy; Cave Johnson, of Tennessee, Postmaster-general; John Y. Mason, of Virginia, Attorney-general. The last was the only one retained of the late cabinet. Mr. Calhoun expected to be, and desired it, to prosecute, as he said, the Oregon negotiations, which he had commenced; and also to continue a certain diplomatic correspondence with France, on the subject of slavery, which he opened through Wm. R. King--greatly to the puzzle of the King, Louis Phillippe, and his ministers. In place of the State Department he was offered the mission to London, which he refused; and the same being offered to his friend, Mr. Francis W. Pickens, it was refused by him also: and the word became current, and was justified by the event, that neither Mr. Calhoun, nor any of his friends, would take office under this administration. In other respects, there was some balk and change after the cabinet had been agreed upon--which was done in Tennessee. General William O. Butler, the particular friend of General Jackson, had been brought on to receive the place of Secretary at War. He came in company with the President elect, at his special request, from Louisville, Kentucky, and was not spared to stop at his own house to get his wardrobe, though in sight of it: he was thrown out by the effect of a circuitous arrangement of which Mr. Polk was the dupe, and himself the victim. In the original cast of the cabinet, Mr. Silas Wright, the Governor elect of New York, and to whom Mr. Polk was indebted for his election, was to be Secretary of the Treasury. It was offered to him. He refused it, as he did all office: it was then intended for Mr. Azariah Flagg, the able and incorruptible comptroller of New York, the friend of Wright and Van Buren. He was superseded by the same intrigue which displaced General Butler. Mr. Robert J. Walker had been intended for Attorney-general: he brought an influence to bear upon Mr. Polk, which carried him into the Treasury. That displaced Mr. Flagg. But New York was not a State to be left out of the cabinet, and no place could be made for her except in the War Department; and Mr. Van Buren and Governor Wright were notified accordingly, with the intimation that the place belonged to one of their friends; and to name him. They did so upon the instant, and named Mr. Benjamin F. Butler; and, beginning to be a little suspicious, and to guard against all danger of losing, or delaying the name on the road, a special messenger was despatched to Washington, to travel day and night, and go straight to the President, and deposit the name in his hands. The messenger did so--and was informed that he was fifteen minutes too late! that the place had been assigned to Mr. Wm. L. Marcy. And that was the beginning of the material damage (not in Kossuth's sense of the word), which Mr. Polk's administration did to Mr. Van Buren, Governor Wright, and their friends.

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Chapter CLI

MR. BLAIR AND THE GLOBE SUPERSEDED AS THE ADMINISTRATION ORGAN: MR. THOMAS RITCHIE AND THE DAILY UNION SUBSTITUTED.

It was in the month of August, 1844, that a leading citizen of South Carolina, and a close friend of Mr. Calhoun--one who had been at the Baltimore presidential convention, but not in it--arrived at Mr. Polk's residence in Tennessee, had interviews with him, and made known the condition on which the vote of South Carolina for him might be dependent. That condition was to discontinue Mr. Blair as the organ of the administration if he should be elected. The electoral vote of the State being in the hands of the General Assembly, and not in the people, was disposable by the politicians, and had been habitually disposed of by them--and even twice thrown away in the space of a few years. Mr. Polk was certain of the vote of the State if he agreed to the required condition: and he did so. Mr. Blair was agreed to be given up. That was propitiation to Mr. Calhoun, to whom Mr. Blair was obnoxious on account of his inexorable opposition to nullification, and its author. Mr. Blair was also obnoxious to Mr. Tyler because of his determined opposition both to him, and to his administration. The Globe newspaper was a spear in his side, and would continue to be so; and to get it out had been one of the anxieties and labors of his presidential life. He had exhausted all the schemes to quiet, or to gain it, without success. A printing job of twenty thousand dollars had been at one time given to his office, with the evident design to soften him: to avoid that suspicion he struck the harder; and the job was taken away when partly executed. It now became the interest of Mr. Polk to assist Mr. Tyler in silencing, or punishing that paper; and it was done. Mr. Tyler had accepted the nomination of his convention for the presidency, and was in the field with an array of electoral candidates struggling for it. He stood no chance to obtain a single electoral vote: but Mr. Polk was in no condition to be able to lose any part of the popular vote. Mr. Tyler, now fully repudiated by the whigs, and carrying democratic colors, and with the power and patronage of the federal government in his hands, would take off some votes--enough in a closely contested State to turn the scale in favor of Mr. Clay. Hence it became essential to get Mr. Tyler out of the way of Mr. Polk; and to do that, the condition was, to get Mr. Blair out of the way of Mr. Tyler. Mr. Polk was anxious for this. A friend of his, who afterwards became a member of his cabinet, wrote to him in July, that the main obstacle to Mr. Tyler's withdrawal was the course of the Globe towards him and his friends. Another of those most interested in the result urged Mr. Polk to devise some mode of inducing Mr. Tyler to withdraw, and General Jackson was requested "to ascertain the motives which actuated the course of the Globe towards Mr. Tyler and his friends." These facts appear in a letter from Mr. Polk to General Jackson, in which he says to him: "The main object in the way of Mr. Tyler's withdrawal, is the course of the Globe towards himself and his friends." These communications took place in the month before the South Carolina gentleman visited Tennessee. Mr. Polk's letter to General Jackson is dated the 23d of July. In about as short time after that visit as information could come from Tennessee to Washington, Mr. Tyler publicly withdrew his presidential pretensions! and his official paper, the Madisonian, and his supporters, passed over to Mr. Polk. The inference is irresistible, that the consideration of receiving the vote of South Carolina, and of getting Mr. Tyler out of the way of Mr. Polk, was the agreement to displace Mr. Blair as government editor if he should be elected.

And now we come to another fact, in this connection, as the phrase is, about which also there is no dispute; and that fact is this: on the fourth day of November, 1844, being after Mr. Tyler had joined Mr. Polk, and when the near approach of the presidential election authorized reliable calculations to be made on its result, the sum of $50,000, by an order from the Treasury in Washington, was taken from a respectable bank in Philadelphia, where it was safe and convenient for public use, and transferred to a village bank in the interior of Pennsylvania, where there was no public use for it, and where its safety was questionable. This appears from the records of the Treasury. Authentic letters written in December following from the person who had control of this village bank (Simon Cameron, Esq., a senator in Congress), went to a gentleman in Tennessee, informing him that $50,000 was in his hands for the purpose of establishing a new government organ in Washington City, proposing to him to be its editor, and urging him to come on to Washington for the purpose. These letters were sent to Andrew Jackson Donelson, Esq., connection and ex-private Secretary of President Jackson, who immediately refused the proffered editorship, and turned over the letters to General Jackson. His (Jackson's) generous and high blood boiled with indignation at what seemed to be a sacrifice of Mr. Blair for some political consideration; for the letters were so written as to imply a cognizance on the part of Mr. Polk, and of two persons who were to be members of his cabinet; and that cognizance was strengthened by a fact unknown to General Jackson, namely, that Mr. Polk himself, in due season, proposed to Mr. Blair to yield to Mr. Donelson as actual editor--himself writing sub rosa; which Mr. Blair utterly refused. It was a contrivance of Mr. Polk to get rid of Mr. Blair in compliance with his engagement to Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Tyler, without breaking with Mr. Blair and his friends; but he had to deal with a man, and with men, who would have no such hugger-mugger work; and to whom an open breach was preferable to a simulated friendship: General Jackson wrote to Mr. Blair to apprise him of what was going on, and to assure him of his steadfast friendship, and to let him know that Mr. Ritchie, of the Richmond Enquirer, was the person to take place on the refusal of Andrew Jackson Donelson, and to foretell mischiefs to Mr. Polk and his party if he fell into these schemes, of which Mr. Robert J. Walker was believed to be the chief contriver, and others of the cabinet passive instruments. On the 14th of December, 1844, he (General Jackson) wrote to Mr. Blair:

"But there is another project on foot as void of good sense and benefit to the democratic cause as the other, but not as wicked, proceeding from weak and inexperienced minds. It is this: to bring about a partnership between you and Mr. Ritchie, you to continue proprietor, and Ritchie the editor. This, to me, is a most extraordinary conception coming from any well-informed mind or experienced politician. It is true, Mr. Ritchie is an experienced editor, but sometimes goes off at half cock before he sees the whole ground, and does the party great injury before he sees his error, and then has great difficulty to get back into the right track again. Witness his course on my removal of the deposits, and how much injury he did us before he got into the right track again. Another faux pas he made when he went off with Rives and the conservatives, and advocated for the safe keeping of the public revenue special deposits in the State banks, as if where the directory were corrupt there could be any more security in special deposits in corrupt banks than in general deposits, and it was some time before this great absurdity could be beat out of his mind.

"These are visionary measures of what I call weak politicians who suggest them, but who wish to become great by foolish changes. Polk, I believe, will stick by you faithfully; should he not, he is lost; but I have no fears but that he will, and being informed confidentially of this movement, may have it in his power to put it all down. There will be great intrigue going on at Washington this winter."--(Dec. 14, 1844.)

"I fear there are some of our democratic friends who are trying to bring about a partnership of which I wrote you, which shows a want of confidence, or something worse. Be on your guard--no partnership; you have the confidence of the great body of the democrats, and I have no confidence in shifting politicians."--(December, 21.)

"Another plan is to get Mr. Ritchie interested as editor of the Globe--all of which I gave you an intimation of, and which I thought had been put down. But that any leading Democrat here had any thought of becoming interested in the Madisonian, to make it the organ of the administration, was such a thing as I could not believe; as common sense at once pointed out, as a consequence that it would divide the democracy, and destroy Polk's administration. Why, it would blow him up. The moment I heard it, I adopted such measures as I trust have put an end to it, as I know nothing could be so injurious to Polk and his administration. The pretext for this movement will be the Globe's support of Mr. Wright. Let me know if there is any truth in this rumor. I guarded Colonel Polk against any abandonment of the Globe. If true, it would place Colonel Polk in the shoes of Mr. Tyler."--(February 28, 1845.)

"I have written a long, candid, and friendly letter to Mr. Polk, bringing to his view the dilemma into which he has got by some bad advice, and which his good sense ought to have prevented. I have assured him of your uniform declarations to me of your firm support, and of the destruction of the democratic party if he takes any one but you as the executive organ, until you do something to violate that confidence which the democracy reposes in you. I ask in emphatic terms, what cause can he assign for not continuing your paper, the organ that was mine and Mr. Van Buren's, whose administration he, Polk, and you hand to hand supported, and those great fundamental principles you and he have continued to support, and have told him frankly that you will never degrade yourself or your paper by submitting to the terms proposed. I am very sick, exhausted by writing to Polk, and will write you again soon. I can only add, that, although my letter to Mr. Polk is both friendly and frank, I have done justice to you, and I hope he will say at once to you, go on with my organ as you have been the organ of Jackson and Van Buren. Should he not, I have told him his fate--a divided democracy, and all the political cliques looking to the succession, will annoy and crush him--the fairest prospects of successful administration by folly and jealousy lost. I would wish you to inform me which of the heads of the Departments, if any, are hostile to you. If Polk does not look well to his course, the divisions in New York and Pennsylvania will destroy him."--(April 4, 1845.)

I wrote you and the President, on the 4th instant, and was in hopes that my views would open his eyes to his own interests and union of the democratic party. But from the letters before me, I suppose my letter to the President will not prevent that evil to him and the democratic party that I have used my voice to prevent. I am too unwell to write much to-day. I have read your letter with care and much interest. I know you would never degrade yourself by dividing the editorial chair with any one for any cause. I well know that you never can or will abandon your democratic principles. You cannot, under existing circumstances, do any thing to save your character and democratic principles, and your high standing with all classes of the democracy, but by selling out your paper. When you sell, have good security for the consideration money. Ritchie is greatly involved, if not finally broke; and you know Cameron, who boasts that he has $50,000 to invest in a newspaper. Under all existing circumstances, I say to you, sell, and when you do, I look to a split in the democratic ranks; which I will sorely regret, and which might have been so easily avoided."--(April 7.)

"I have been quite sick for several days. My mind, since ever I heard of the attitude the President had assumed with you as editor of the Globe,--which was the most unexpected thing I ever met with,--my mind has been troubled, and it was not only unexpected by me, but has shown less good common sense, by the President, than any act of his life, and calculated to divide instead of uniting the democracy; which appears to be his reason for urging this useless and foolish measure at the very threshold of his administration, and when every thing appeared to augur well for, to him, a prosperous administration. The President, here, before he set out for Washington, must have been listening to the secret counsels of some political cliques, such as Calhoun or Tyler cliques (for there are such here); or after he reached Washington, some of the secret friends of some of the aspirants must have gotten hold of his ear, and spoiled his common sense, or he never would have made such a movement, so uncalled for, and well calculated to sever the democracy by calling down upon himself suspicions, by the act of secretly favoring some of the political cliques who are looking to the succession for some favorite. I wrote him a long letter on the 4th, telling him there was but one safe course to pursue--review his course, send for you, and direct you and the Globe to proceed as the organ of his administration, give you all his confidence, and all would be well, and end well. This is the substance; and I had a hope the receipt of this letter, and some others written by mutual friends, would have restored all things to harmony and confidence again. I rested on this hope until the 7th, when I received yours of the 30th, and two confidential letters from the President, directed to be laid before me, from which it would seem that the purchase of the Globe, and to get clear of you, its editor, is the great absorbing question before the President. Well, who is to be the purchaser? Mr. Ritchie and Major A. J. Donelson its editors. Query as to the latter. The above question I have asked the President. Is that renegade politician, Cameron, who boasts of his $50,000 to set up a new paper, to be one of them? Or is Knox Walker to be the purchaser? Who is to purchase? and where is the money to come from? Is Dr. M. Gwinn, the satellite of Calhoun, the great friend of Robert J. Walker? a perfect bankrupt in property. I would like to know what portion of the cabinet are supporting and advising the President to this course, where nothing but injury can result to him in the end, and division in his cabinet, arising from jealousy. What political clique is to be benefited? My dear friend, let me know all about the cabinet, and their movements on this subject. How loathsome it is to me to see an old friend laid aside, principles of justice and friendship forgotten, and all for the sake of policy--and the great democratic party divided or endangered for policy--I cannot reflect upon it with any calmness; every point of it, upon scrutiny, turns to harm and disunion, and not one beneficial result can be expected from it. I will be anxious to know the result. If harmony is restored, and the Globe the organ, I will rejoice; if sold to whom, and for what. Have, if you sell, the purchase money well secured. This may be the last letter I may be able to write you; but live or die, I am your friend (and never deserted one from policy), and leave my papers and reputation in your keeping."--(April 9.)

From these letters it will be seen that General Jackson, after going through an agony of indignation and amazement at the idea of shoving Mr. Blair from his editorial chair and placing Mr. Ritchie in it (and which would have been greater if he had known the arrangement for the South Carolina vote and the withdrawal of Mr. Tyler), advised Mr. Blair to sell his Globe establishment, cautioning him to get good security; for, knowing nothing of the money taken from the Treasury, and well knowing the insolvency of all who were ostensible payers, he did not at all confide in their promises to make payment. Mr. Blair and his partner, Mr. John C. Rives, were of the same mind. Other friends whom they consulted (Governor Wright and Colonel Benton) were of the same opinion; and the Globe was promptly sold to Mr. Ritchie, and in a way to imply rather an abandonment of it than a sale--the materials of the office being offered at valuation, and the "name and good will" of the paper left out of the transaction. The materials were valued at $35,000, and the metamorphosed paper took the name of the "Daily Union;" and, in fact, some change of name was necessary, as the new paper was the reverse of the old one.--In all these schemes, from first to last, to get rid of Mr. Blair, the design was to retain Mr. Rives, not as any part editor (for which he was far more fit than either himself or the public knew), but for his extraordinary business qualities, and to manage the machinery and fiscals of the establishment. Accustomed to trafficking and trading politicians, and fortune being sure to the government editor, it was not suspicioned by those who conducted the intrigue that Mr. Rives would refuse to be saved at the expense of his partner. He scorned it! and the two went out together.--The letters from General Jackson show his appreciation of the services of the Globe to the country and the democratic party during the eight eventful years of his presidency: Mr. Van Buren, on learning what was going on, wrote to Mr. Rives to show his opinion of the same services during the four years of his arduous administration; and that letter also belongs to the history of the extinction of the Globe newspaper--that paper which, for twelve years, had fought the battle of the country, and of the democracy, in the spirit of Jackson: that is to say, victoriously and honorably. This letter was written to Mr. Rives, who, in spite of his modest estimate of himself, was classed by General Jackson, Mr. Van Buren, and all their friends, among the wisest, purest, and safest of the party.

"The Globe has run its career at too critical a period in our political history--has borne the democratic flag too steadily in the face of assaults upon popular sovereignty, more violent and powerful than any which had ever preceded them in this or any other country, not to have made impressions upon our history and our institutions, which are destined to be remembered when those who witnessed its discontinuance shall be no more. The manner in which it demeaned itself through those perilous periods, and the repeated triumphs which crowned its labors, will when the passions of the day have spent their force, be matters of just exultation to you and to your children. None have had better opportunities to witness, nor more interest in observing your course, than General Jackson and myself; and I am very sure that I could not, if I were to attempt it, express myself more strongly in favor of the constancy, fidelity, and ability with which it was conducted, than he would sanction with his whole heart. He would, I have no doubt, readily admit that it would have been exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, for his administration to have sustained itself in its contest with a money power (a term as well understood as that of democrat, and much better than that of whig at the present day), if the corruptions which were in those days spread broadcast through the length and breadth of the land, had been able to subvert the integrity of the Globe; and I am very certain that the one over which I had the honor to preside, could never, in such an event, have succeeded in obtaining the institution of an independent treasury, without the establishment of which, the advantages to be derived from the overthrow of the Bank of the United States will very soon prove to be wholly illusory. The Bank of the United States first, and afterwards those of the States, succeeded in obtaining majorities in both branches of the national legislature favorable to their views; but they could never move the Globe from the course which has since been so extensively sanctioned by the democracy of the nation. You gave to the country (and when I say you, I desire to be understood as alluding to Mr. Blair and yourself) at those momentous periods, the invaluable advantages of a press at the seat of the general government, not only devoted, root and branch, to the support of democratic principles, but independent in fact and in feeling, as well of bank influences as of corrupting pecuniary influences of any description. The vital importance of such an establishment to the success of our cause is incapable of exaggeration. Experience will show, if an opportunity is ever afforded to test the opinion, that, without it, the principles of our party can never be upheld in their purity in the administration of the federal government. Administrations professedly their supporters may be formed, but they will prove to be but whited sepulchres, appearing beautiful outward, but within full of dead men's bones, and all uncleanness--Administrations which, instead of directing their best efforts to advance the welfare and promote the happiness of the toiling millions, will be ever ready to lend a favorable ear to the advancement of the selfish few."

The Globe was sold, and was paid for, and how? becomes a question of public concern to answer; for it was paid for out of public money--those same $50,000 which were removed to the village bank in the interior of Pennsylvania by a Treasury order on the fourth day of November, 1844. Three annual instalments made the payment, and the Treasury did not reclaim the money for these three years; and, though travelling through tortuous channels, the sharpsighted Mr. Rives traced the money back to its starting point from that deposit. Besides, Mr. Cameron admitted before a committee of Congress, that he had furnished money for the payments--an admission which the obliging committee, on request, left out of their report. Mr. Robert J. Walker was Secretary of the Treasury during these three years, and the conviction was absolute, among the close observers of the course of things, that he was the prime contriver and zealous manager of the arrangements which displaced Mr. Blair and installed Mr. Ritchie.

In the opinions which he expressed of the consequences of that change of editors, General Jackson was prophetic. The new paper brought division and distraction into the party--filled it with dissensions, which eventually induced the withdrawal of Mr. Ritchie; but not until he had produced the mischiefs which abler men cannot repair.

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Chapter CLII

TWENTY-NINTH CONGRESS: LIST OF MEMBERS: FIRST SESSION: ORGANIZATION OF THE HOUSE.

Senators.

MAINE.--George Evans, John Fairfield.

NEW HAMPSHIRE.--Benjamin W. Jenness, Charles G. Atherton.

VERMONT.--William Upham, Samuel S. Phelps.

MASSACHUSETTS.--Daniel Webster, John Davis.

RHODE ISLAND.--James F. Simmons, Albert C. Green.

CONNECTICUT.--John M. Niles, Jabez W. Huntington.

NEW YORK.--John A. Dix, Daniel S. Dickinson.

NEW JERSEY.--Jacob W. Miller, John L. Dayton.

PENNSYLVANIA.--Simon Cameron, Daniel Sturgeon.

DELAWARE.--Thomas Clayton, John M. Clayton.

MARYLAND.--James A. Pearce, Reverdy Johnson.

VIRGINIA.--William S. Archer, Isaac S. Pennybacker.

NORTH CAROLINA.--Willie P. Mangum, William H. Haywood, jr.

SOUTH CAROLINA.--John C. Calhoun, George McDuffie.

GEORGIA.--John McP. Berrien, Walter T. Colquitt.

ALABAMA.--Dixon H. Lewis, Arthur P. Bagby.

MISSISSIPPI.--Joseph W. Chalmers, Jesse Speight.

LOUISIANA.--Alexander Barrow, Henry Johnson.

TENNESSEE.--Spencer Jarnagin, Hopkins L. Turney.

KENTUCKY.--James T. Morehead, John J. Crittenden.

OHIO.--William Allen, Thomas Corwin.

INDIANA.--Ed. A. Hannegan, Jesse D. Bright.

ILLINOIS.--James Semple, Sidney Breese.

MISSOURI.--David R. Atchison, Thomas H. Benton.

ARKANSAS.--Chester Ashley, Ambrose H. Sevier.

MICHIGAN.--William Woodbridge, Lewis Cass.

FLORIDA.--David Levy, James D. Westcott.

In this list will be seen the names of several new senators, not members of the body before, and whose senatorial exertions soon made them eminent;--Dix and Dickinson of New York, Reverdy Johnson of Maryland, Jesse D. Bright of Indiana, Lewis Cass of Michigan; and to these were soon to be added two others from the newly incorporated State of Texas, Messrs. General Sam Houston and Thomas F. Rusk, Esq., and of whom, and their State, it may be said they present a remarkable instance of mutual confidence and concord, neither having been changed to this day (1856).

House of Representatives.

MAINE.--John F. Scammon, Robert P. Dunlap, Luther Severance, John D. McCrate, Cullen Sawtelle, Hannibal Hamlin, Hezekiah Williams.

NEW HAMPSHIRE.--Moses Norris, jr., Mace Moulton, James H. Johnson.

VERMONT.--Solomon Foot, Jacob Collamer, George P. Marsh, Paul Dillingham, jr.

MASSACHUSETTS.--Robert C. Winthrop, Daniel P. King, Amos Abbot, Benjamin Thompson, Charles Hudson, George Ashmun, Julius Rockwell, John Quincy Adams, Joseph Grinnell.

RHODE ISLAND.--Henry Y. Cranston, Lemuel H. Arnold.

CONNECTICUT.--James Dixon, Samuel D. Hubbard, John A. Rockwell, Truman Smith.

NEW YORK.--John W. Lawrence, Henry I. Seaman, William S. Miller, William B. Maclay, Thomas M. Woodruff, William W. Campbell, Joseph H. Anderson, William W. Woodworth, Archibald C. Niven, Samuel Gordon, John F. Collin, Richard P. Herrick, Bradford R. Wood, Erastus D. Culver, Joseph Russell, Hugh White, Charles S. Benton, Preston King, Orville Hungerford, Timothy Jenkins, Charles Goodyear, Stephen Strong, William J. Hough, Horace Wheaton, George Rathbun, Samuel S. Ellsworth, John De Mott, Elias B. Holmes, Charles H. Carcoll, Martin Grover, Abner Lewis, William A. Mosely, Albert Smith, Washington Hunt.

NEW JERSEY.--James G. Hampton, George Sykes, John Runk, John Edsall, William Wright.

PENNSYLVANIA.--Lewis C. Levin, Joseph R. Ingersoll, John H. Campbell, Charles J. Ingersoll, Jacob S. Yost, Jacob Erdman, Abraham R. McIlvaine, John Strohm, John Ritter, Richard Brodhead, jr., Owen D. Leib, David Wilmot, James Pollock, Alexander Ramsay, Moses McLean, James Black, James Blanchard, Andrew Stewart, Henry D. Foster, John H. Ewing, Cornelius Darragh, William S. Garvin, James Thompson, Joseph Buffington.

DELAWARE.--John W. Houston.

MARYLAND.--John G. Chapman, Thomas Perry, Thomas W. Ligon, William F. Giles, Albert Constable, Edward Long.

VIRGINIA.--Archibald Atkinson, George C. Dromgoole, William M. Treadway, Edward W. Hubard, Shelton F. Leake, James A. Seddon, Thomas H. Bayly, Robert M. T. Hunter, John S. Pendleton, Henry Redinger, William Taylor, Augustus A. Chapman, George W. Hopkins, Joseph Johnson, William G. Brown.

NORTH CAROLINA.--James Graham, Daniel M. Barringer, David S. Reid, Alfred Dockery, James C. Dobbin, James J. McKay, John R. J. Daniels, Henry S. Clarke, Asa Biggs.

SOUTH CAROLINA.--James A. Black, Richard F. Simpson, Joseph A. Woodward, A. D. Sims, Armistead Burt, Isaac E. Holmes, R. Barnwell Rhett.

GEORGIA.--Thomas Butler King, Seaborn Jones, Hugh A. Haralson, John H. Lumpkin, Howell Cobb, Alex. H. Stephens, Robt. Toombs.

ALABAMA.--Samuel D. Dargin, Henry W. Hilliard, William L. Yancey, Winter W. Payne, George S. Houston, Reuben Chapman, Felix G. McConnell.

MISSISSIPPI.--Jacob Thompson, Stephen Adams, Robert N. Roberts, Jefferson Davis.

LOUISIANA.--John Slidell, Bannon G. Thibodeaux, J. H. Harmonson, Isaac E. Morse.

OHIO.--James J. Faran, F. A. Cunningham, Robert C. Schenck, Joseph Vance, William Sawyer, Henry St. John, Joseph J. McDowell, Allen G. Thurman, Augustus L. Perrill, Columbus Delano, Jacob Brinkerhoff, Samuel F. Vinton, Isaac Parish, Alexander Harper, Joseph Morris, John D. Cummins, George Fries, D. A. Starkweather, Daniel R. Tilden, Joshua R. Giddings, Joseph M. Root.

KENTUCKY.--Linn Boyd, John H. McHenry, Henry Grider, Joshua F. Bell, Bryan R. Young, John P. Martin, William P. Thomasson, Garrett Davis, Andrew Trumbo, John W. Tibbatts.

TENNESSEE.--Andrew Johnson, William M. Cocke, John Crozier, Alvan Cullom, George W. Jones, Barclay Martin, Meridith, P. Gentry, Lorenzo B. Chase, Frederick P. Stanton, Milton Brown.

INDIANA.--Robert Dale Owen, Thomas J. Henley, Thomas Smith, Caleb B. Smith, William W. Wick, John W. Davis, Edward W. McGaughey, John Petit, Charles W. Cathcart, Andrew Kennedy.

ILLINOIS.--Robert Smith, John A. McClernand, Orlando B. Ficklin, John Wentworth, Stephen A. Douglass, Joseph P. Hoge, Edward D. Baker.

MISSOURI.--James B. Bowlin, James H. Relf, Sterling Price, John S. Phelps, Leonard H. Simms.

ARKANSAS.--Archibald Yell.

MICHIGAN.--Robert McClelland, John S. Chapman, James B. Hunt.

The delegates from territories were:

FLORIDA.--Edward C. Cabell.

IOWA.--Augustus C. Dodge.

WISCONSIN.--Morgan L. Martin.

The election of Speaker was readily effected, there being a large majority on the democratic side. Mr. John W. Davis, of Indiana, being presented as the democratic candidate, received 120 votes; Mr. Samuel F. Vinton, of Ohio, received the whig vote, 72. Mr. Benjamin B. French, of New Hampshire, was appointed clerk (without the formality of an election), by a resolve of the House, adopted by a general vote. He was of course democratic. The House being organized, a motion was made by Mr. Hamlin, of Maine, to except the hour rule (as it was called) from the rules to be adopted for the government of the House--which was lost, 62 to 143.

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CLIII. MR. POLK'S FIRST ANNUAL MESSAGE TO CONGRESS

The leading topic in the message was, naturally, the incorporation of Texas, then accomplished, and the consequent dissatisfaction of Mexico--a dissatisfaction manifested every way short of actual hostilities, and reason to believe they were intended. On our side, strong detachments of the army and navy had been despatched to Texas and the Gulf of Mexico, to be ready for whatever might happen. The Mexican minister, General Almonte, had left the United States: an American minister sent to Mexico had been refused to be received, and had returned home. All this was the natural result of the status belli between the United States and Mexico which the incorporation of Texas had established; and, that there were not actual hostilities was only owing to the weakness of one of the parties. These things were thus stated by the President:

"Since that time Mexico has, until recently, occupied an attitude of hostility towards the United States--has been marshalling and organizing armies, issuing proclamations, and avowing the intention to make war on the United States, either by an open declaration, or by invading Texas. Both the Congress and convention of the people of Texas invited this government to send an army into that territory, to protect and defend them against the menaced attack. The moment the terms of annexation, offered by the United States, were accepted by Texas, the latter became so far a part of our own country, as to make it our duty to afford such protection and defence. I therefore deemed it proper, as a precautionary measure, to order a strong squadron to the coast of Mexico, and to concentrate an efficient military force on the western frontier of Texas. Our army was ordered to take position in the country between the Nueces and the Del Norte, and to repel any invasion of the Texian territory which might be attempted by the Mexican forces. Our squadron in the Gulf was ordered to co-operate with the army. But though our army and navy were placed in a position to defend our own, and the rights of Texas, they were ordered to commit no act of hostility against Mexico, unless she declared war, or was herself the aggressor by striking the first blow. The result has been, that Mexico has made no aggressive movement, and our military and naval commanders have executed their orders with such discretion, that the peace of the two republics has not been disturbed."

Thus the armed forces of the two countries were brought into presence, and the legal state of war existing between them was brought to the point of actual war. Of this the President complained, assuming that Texas and the United States had a right to unite, which was true as to the right; but asserting that Mexico had no right to oppose it, which was a wrong assumption. For, in taking Texas into the Union, she was taken with her circumstances, one of which was a state of war with Mexico. Denying her right to take offence at what had been done, the message went on to enumerate causes of complaint against her, and for many years back, and to make out cause of war against her on account of injuries done by her to our citizens. In this sense the message said:

"But though Mexico cannot complain of the United States on account of the annexation of Texas, it is to be regretted that serious causes of misunderstanding between the two countries continue to exist, growing out of unredressed injuries inflicted by the Mexican authorities and people on the persons and property of citizens of the United States, through a long series of years. Mexico has admitted these injuries, but has neglected and refused to repair them. Such was the character of the wrongs, and such the insults repeatedly offered to American citizens and the American flag by Mexico, in palpable violation of the laws of nations and the treaty between the two countries of the 5th April, 1831, that they have been repeatedly brought to the notice of Congress by my predecessors. As early as the 8th February, 1837, the President of the United States declared, in a message to Congress, that 'the length of time since some of the injuries have been committed, the repeated and unavailing application for redress, the wanton character of some of the outrages upon the persons and property of our citizens, upon the officers and flag of the United States, independent of recent insults to this government and people by the late extraordinary Mexican minister, would justify, in the eyes of all nations, immediate war.' He did not, however, recommend an immediate resort to this extreme measure, which he declared 'should not be used by just and generous nations, confiding in their strength, for injuries committed, if it can be honorably avoided;' but, in a spirit of forbearance, proposed that another demand be made on Mexico for that redress which had been so long and unjustly withheld. In these views, committees of the two Houses of Congress, in reports made in their respective bodies, concurred. Since these proceedings more than eight years have elapsed, during which, in addition to the wrongs then complained of, others of an aggravated character have been committed on the persons and property of our citizens. A special agent was sent to Mexico in the summer of 1838, with full authority to make another and final demand for redress. The demand was made; the Mexican government promised to repair the wrongs of which we complained; and after much delay, a treaty of indemnity with that view was concluded between the two powers on the 11th of April, 1839, and was duly ratified by both governments."

This treaty of indemnity, the message went on to show, had never yet been complied with, and its non-fulfilment, added to the other causes of complaint, the President considered as just cause for declaring war against her--saying:

"In the mean time, our citizens, who suffered great losses, and some of whom have been reduced from affluence to bankruptcy, are without remedy, unless their rights be enforced by their government. Such a continued and unprovoked series of wrongs could never have been tolerated by the United States, had they been committed by one of the principal nations of Europe. Mexico was, however, a neighboring sister republic, which, following our example, had achieved her independence, and for whose success and prosperity, all our sympathies were early enlisted. The United States were the first to recognize her independence, and to receive her into the family of nations, and have ever been desirous of cultivating with her a good understanding. We have, therefore, borne the repeated wrongs she has committed, with great patience, in the hope that a returning sense of justice would ultimately guide her councils, and that we might, if possible, honorably avoid any hostile collision with her."

Torn by domestic dissension, in a state of revolution at home, and ready to be crushed by the power of the United States, the Mexican government had temporized, and after dismissing one United States minister, had consented to receive another, who was then on his way to the City of Mexico. Of this mission, and the consequences of its failure, the President thus expressed himself:

"The minister appointed has set out on his mission, and is probably by this time near the Mexican capital. He has been instructed to bring the negotiation with which he is charged to a conclusion at the earliest practicable period; which, it is expected, will be in time to enable me to communicate the result to Congress during the present session. Until that result is known, I forbear to recommend to Congress such ulterior measures of redress for the wrongs and injuries we have so long borne, as it would have been proper to make had no such negotiation been instituted."

From this communication it was clear that a recommendation of a declaration of war was only deferred for the issue of this mission, which failing to be favorable, would immediately call forth the deferred recommendation. The Oregon question was next in importance to that of Texas and Mexico, and like it seemed to be tending to a warlike solution. The negotiations between the two governments, which had commenced under Mr. Tyler's administration, and continued for some months under his own, had come to a dead stand. The government of the United States had revoked its proposition to make the parallel of 49 degrees the dividing line between the two countries, and asserted the unquestionable title of the United States to the whole, up to the Russian boundary in 54 degrees 40 minutes; and the message recommended Congress to authorize the notice which was to terminate the joint occupancy, to extend our laws to the territory, to encourage its population and settlement; and cast upon Great Britain the responsibility of any belligerent solution of the difficulty which might arise. Thus, the issue of peace or war with Great Britain was thrown into the hands of Congress.

The finances, and the public debt, required a notice, which was briefly and satisfactorily given. The receipts into the Treasury for the past year had been $29,770,000: the payments from it $29,968,000; and the balance in the Treasury at the end of the year five millions--leaving a balance of $7,658,000 on hand. The nature of these balances, always equal to about one-fourth of the revenue even where the receipts and expenditures are even, or the latter even in some excess, has been explained in the first volume of this View, as resulting from the nature of great government transactions and payments, large part of which necessarily go into the beginning of the succeeding year, when they would be met by the accruing revenue, even if there was nothing in the Treasury; so that, in fact, the government may be carried on upon an income about one-fourth less than the expenditure. This is a paradox--a seeming absurdity, but true, which every annual statement of the Treasury will prove; and which the legislative, as well as the executive government, should understand. The sentiments in relation to the public debt (of which there would have been none had it not been for the distribution of the land revenue, and the surplus fund, among the States, and the absurd plunges in the descent of the duties on imports in the last two years of the compromise act of 1833), were just and wise, such as had been always held by the democratic school, and which cannot be too often repeated. They were these:

"The amount of the public debt remaining unpaid on the first of October last, was seventeen millions, seventy-five thousand, four hundred and forty-five dollars and fifty-two cents. Further payments of the public debt would have been made, in anticipation of the period of its reimbursement under the authority conferred upon the Secretary of the Treasury, by the acts of July twenty-first, 1841, and of April fifteenth, and of March third, 1843, had not the unsettled state of our relations with Mexico menaced hostile collision with that power. In view of such a contingency, it was deemed prudent to retain in the Treasury an amount unusually large for ordinary purposes. A few years ago, our whole national debt growing out of the revolution and the war of 1812 with Great Britain, was extinguished, and we presented to the world the rare and noble spectacle of a great and growing people who had fully discharged every obligation. Since that time the existing debt has been contracted; and small as it is, in comparison with the similar burdens of most other nations, it should be extinguished at the earliest practicable period. Should the state of the country permit, and especially if our foreign relations interpose no obstacle, it is contemplated to apply all the moneys in the Treasury as they accrue beyond what is required for the appropriations by Congress, to its liquidation. I cherish the hope of soon being able to congratulate the country on its recovering once more the lofty position which it so recently occupied. Our country, which exhibits to the world the benefits of self-government, in developing all the sources of national prosperity, owes to mankind the permanent example of a nation free from the blighting influence of a public debt."

The revision of the tariff was recommended, with a view to revenue as the object, with protection to home industry as the incident.

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CLIV. DEATH OF JOHN FORSYTH

Like Mr. Crawford, he was a Virginian by birth Georgian by citizenship, republican in politics, and eminent in his day. He ran the career of federal honors--a member of the House and of the Senate, and a front rank debater in each: minister in Spain, and Secretary of State under Presidents Jackson and Van Buren; successor to Crawford in his State, and the federal councils; and the fast political and personal friend of that eminent citizen in all the trials and fortunes of his life. A member of the House when Mr. Crawford, restrained by his office, and disabled by his calamity, was unable to do any thing for himself, and assailed by the impersonation of the execrable A. B. plot, it devolved upon him to stand up for his friend; and nobly did he do it. The examination through which he led the accuser exterminated him in public opinion--showed every accusation to be false and malicious; detected the master spirit which lay behind the ostensible assailants, and greatly exalted the character of Mr. Crawford.

Mr. Forsyth was a fine specimen of that kind of speaking which constitutes a debater, and which, in fact, is the effective speaking in legislative assemblies. He combined the requisites for keen debate--a ready, copious, and easy elocution; ample knowledge of the subject; argument and wit; great power to point a sarcasm, and to sting courteously; perfect self-possession, and a quickness and clearness of perception to take advantage of every misstep of his adversary. He served in trying times, during the great contests with the Bank of the United States, with the heresy of nullification, and the dawning commencement of the slavery agitation. In social life he was a high exemplification of refined and courteous manners, of polite conversation, and of affability, decorum and dignity.

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CLV. ADMISSION OF FLORIDA AND IOWA

At this time were admitted into the Union, and by a single bill, two States, which seem to have but few things in common to put them together--one the oldest, the other the newest territory--one in the extreme northwest of the Union, the other in the extreme southeast--one the land of evergreens and perpetual flowers, the other the climate of long and rigorous winter--one maintaining, the other repulsing slavery. It would seem strange that two territories so different in age, so distant from each other, so antagonistic in natural features and political institutions, should ripen into States at the same time, and come into the Union by a single act; but these antagonisms--that is, the antagonistic provisions on the subject of slavery--made the conjunction, and gave to the two young States an inseparable admission. It happened that the slave and free States had long before become equal in number, and a feeling of jealousy, or a calculation of policy operated to keep them so; and for that purpose to admit one of each character at the same time. Thus balancing and neutralizing each other, the bill for their admission was passed without a struggle, and furnished but little beyond the yeas and nays--these latter a scant minority in either House--to show the disposition of members. In the Senate the negatives were 9 to 36 yeas: in the House 48 to 144. Numerically the free and the slave States were thus kept even: in political power a vast inequality was going on--the increase of population being so much greater in the northern than in the southern region.

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CLVI. OREGON TREATY: NEGOTIATIONS COMMENCED, AND BROKEN OFF

This was a pretermitted subject in the general negotiations which led to the Ashburton treaty: it was now taken up as a question for separate settlement. The British government moved in it, Mr. Henry S. Fox, the British minister in Washington, being instructed to propose the negotiation. This was done in November, 1842, and Mr. Webster, then Secretary of State under Mr. Tyler, immediately replied, accepting the proposal, and declaring it to be the desire of his government to have this territorial question immediately settled. But the movement stopped there. Nothing further took place between Mr. Webster and Fox, and the question slumbered till 1844, when Mr. (since Sir) Richard Pakenham, arrived in the United States as British minister, and renewed the proposition for opening the negotiation to Mr. Upshur, then Secretary of State. This was February 24th, 1844. Mr. Upshur replied promptly, that is to say, on the 26th of the same month, accepting the proposal, and naming an early day for receiving Mr. Pakenham to begin the negotiation. Before that day came he had perished in the disastrous explosion of the great gun on board the Princeton man-of-war. The subject again slumbered six months, and at the end of that time, July 22d, was again brought to the notice of the American government by a note from the British minister to Mr. Calhoun, successor to Mr. Upshur in the Department of State. Referring to the note received from Mr. Upshur the day before his death, he said:

"The lamented death of Mr. Upshur, which occurred within a few days after the date of that note, the interval which took place between that event and the appointment of a successor, and the urgency and importance of various matters which offered themselves to your attention immediately after your accession to office, sufficiently explain why it has not hitherto been in the power of your government, sir, to attend to the important matters to which I refer. But, the session of Congress having been brought to a close, and the present being the season of the year when the least possible business is usually transacted, it occurs to me that you may now feel at leisure to proceed to the consideration of that subject. At all events it becomes my duty to recall it to your recollection, and to repeat the earnest desire of her majesty's government, that a question, on which so much interest is felt in both countries, should be disposed of at the earliest moment consistent with the convenience of the government of the United States."

Mr. Calhoun answered the 22d of August declaring his readiness to begin the negotiation and fixing the next day for taking up the subject. It was taken up accordingly, and conducted in the approved and safe way of conducting such negotiations, that is to say, a protocol of every conference signed by the two negotiators before they separated, and the propositions submitted by each always reduced to writing. This was the proper and satisfactory mode of proceeding, the neglect and total omission of which had constituted so just and so loud a complaint against the manner in which Mr. Webster and Lord Ashburton had conducted their conferences. Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Pakenham met seven times, exchanged arguments and propositions, and came to a balk, which suspended their labors. Mr. Calhoun, rejecting the usual arts of diplomacy, which holds in reserve the ultimate and true offer while putting forward fictitious ones for experiment, went at once to his ultimatum, and proposed the continuation of the parallel of the 49th degree of north latitude, which, after the acquisition of Louisiana, had been adopted by Great Britain and the United States as the dividing line between their possessions, from the Lake of the Woods (fixed as a land-mark under the treaty of Utrecht), to the summit of the Rocky Mountains--the United States insisting at the same time to continue that line to the Pacific Ocean under the terms of the same treaty. Mr. Pakenham declined this proposition in the part that carried the line to the ocean, but offered to continue it from the summit of the mountains, to the Columbia River, a distance of some three hundred miles; and then follow the river to the ocean. This was refused by Mr. Calhoun; and the ultimatum having been delivered on one hand, and no instructions being possessed on the other to yield any thing, the negotiations, after continuing through the month of September, came to a stand. At the end of four months (January 1845) Mr. Pakenham, by the direction of his government, proposed to leave the question to arbitration, which was declined by the American secretary, and very properly; for, while arbitrament is the commendable mode of settling minor questions, and especially those which arise from the construction of existing treaties, yet the boundaries of a country are of too much gravity to be so submitted.

Mr. Calhoun showed a manly spirit in proposing the line of 49, as the dominant party in the United States, and the one to which he belonged, were then in a high state of exultation for the boundary of 54 degrees 40 minutes, and the presidential canvass, on the democratic side, was raging upon that cry. The Baltimore presidential convention had followed a pernicious practice, of recent invention, in laying down a platform of principles on which the canvass was to be conducted, and 54-40 for the northern boundary of Oregon, had been made a canon of political faith, from which there was to be no departure except upon the penalty of political damnation. Mr. Calhoun had braved this penalty, and in doing so had acted up to his public and responsible duty.

The new President, Mr. Polk, elected under that cry, came into office on the 4th of March, and acting upon it, put into his inaugural address a declaration that our title to the whole of Oregon (meaning up to 54-40), was clear and indisputable; and a further declaration that he meant to maintain that title. It was certainly an unusual thing--perhaps unprecedented in diplomacy--that, while negotiations were depending (which was still the case in this instance, for the last note of Mr. Calhoun in January, declining the arbitration, gave as a reason for it that he expected the question to be settled by negotiation), one of the parties should authoritatively declare its right to the whole matter in dispute, and show itself ready to maintain it by arms. The declaration in the inaugural had its natural effect in Great Britain. It roused the British spirit as high as that of the American. Their excited voice came thundering back, to be received with indignation by the great democracy; and war--"inevitable war"--was the cry through the land. The new administration felt itself to be in a dilemma. To stand upon 54-40 was to have war in reality: to recede from it, might be to incur the penalty laid down in the Baltimore platform. Mr. Buchanan, the new Secretary of State, did me the honor to consult me. I answered him promptly and frankly, that I held 49 to be the right line, and that, if the administration made a treaty upon that line, I should support it. This was early in April. The secretary seemed to expect some further proposition from the British government; but none came. The rebuff in the inaugural address had been too public, and too violent, to admit that government to take the initiative again. It said nothing: the war cry continued to rage: and at the end of four months our government found itself under the necessity to take the initiative, and recommence negotiations as the means of avoiding war. Accordingly, on the 22d of July, Mr. Buchanan (the direction of the President being always understood) addressed a note to Mr. Pakenham, resuming the negotiation at the point at which it had been left by Mr. Calhoun; and, conforming to the offer that he had made, and because he had made it, again proposed the line of 49 to the ocean. The British minister again refused that line, and inviting a "fairer" proposition. In the mean time the offer of 49 got wind. The democracy was in commotion. A storm was got up (foremost in raising which was the new administration organ, Mr. Ritchie's Daily Union), before which the administration quailed--recoiled--and withdrew its offer of 49. There was a dead pause in the negotiation again; and so the affair remained at the meeting of Congress, which came together under the loud cry of war, in which Mr. Cass was the leader, but followed by the body of the democracy, and backed and cheered on by the democratic press--some hundreds of papers. Of course the Oregon question occupied a place, and a prominent one, in the President's message--(which has been noticed)--and, on communicating the failure of the negotiation to Congress, he recommended strong measures for the security and assertion of our title. The delivery of the notice which was to abrogate the joint occupation of the country by the citizens of the two powers, was one of these recommendations, and the debate upon that question brought out the full expression of the opinions of Congress upon the whole subject, and took the management of the questions into the hands of the Senate and House of Representatives.

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