space has been annihilated, rivers leaped, and mountain elevations been subdued. The most remote communities have been narrowed into neighborhoods, and Boston and Charleston, by continuous railways, have, as to time, been brought nearer to the capitol at Washington than are many of the contiguous counties of Maryland and Virginia. These roads, then, extending with our population-following in close succession the emigrant's track to the West, making him feel that he has not separated from his kindred and friends-will prove the surest guarantees of that Union which a common origin, common sympathies, and common institutions gave rise to, and fidelity to which can alone perpetuate. All of which is respectfully submitted by your obedient servant, JAMES GADSDEN, of South Carolina, CORRESPONDENCE In relation to the Annexation of Texas. PRELIMINARY REMARKS. [It may be of some interest to the general reader to accompany the publication of the following papers with a brief statement of the principal facts and circumstances connected with them, which occurred previous to the execution of the treaty. Texas, in 1836, threw off the Mexican yoke, and by the deci sive battle of San Jacinto established her independence. In the same year she adopted her constitution, and by an almost unani mous vote of her people, declared her wish to be incorporated inte our Union. The parties and leading politicians of this country were, however, too much absorbed in the Presidential election to pay any attention to the subject, though more than once brought to the notice of the Executive and Legislative Departments of the Government. In 1837, a formal proposition to the same effect was made by Texas, but, for reasons not more elevated or patriotic, it was declined. The same result attended a similar effort of the friends of Texas in 1840, when the Presidential election again interposed impediments. Sill earnest in her desire to attain an object so essential to the prosperity and peace of the two countries, Texas, again, in 1842, proposed to open negotiations; but owing, doubtless, to the political complexion of the Cabinet, her advances were coldly repelled, and she was driven to seek for sympathy and protection in other quarters. Entangling alliances with foreign Governments of a different political structure, she did not willingly seek; but she was compelled, by the unwise conduct of our own, combined with a sense of weakness, physical and financial, to look to them, although they might involve future calamity, as the only means of averting present and imminent danger. The British Government, it was believed, stood ready to throw its protecting shield over her, on certain conditions which, though well understood now, were then matters of inference. Urged, probably, by consid erations connected with this subject, the President (Mr. Tyler), ever zealous in the cause of Texas, felt the necessity of reorganizing his cabinet; and, in the following year, Mr. Upshur was called to occupy the place of Mr. Webster, as Secretary of State. To his zeal, vigilance, industry and profound statesmanship, cordially sustained as he was by the Executive, the country is, in no small degree, indebted for the renewal of the negotiation, and the final consummation of a measure so important to both countries. In June, 1843, the World's Convention, as it was called, a body which obtained an infamous notoriety at the time, as well on account of the material of which it was composed, as of its mad and mischievous schemes, assembled in London. One of its principal objects, perhaps the only one which interested the American, or (to speak more properly) the New England delegation, was to urge on the British Government the importance of securing the abolition of slavery in Texas, as the most effectual means of in volving their own country in a civil and servile war; and, finally, of dissolving the Union. To this end, they waited in a body on Lord Aberdeen, the principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and proposed that the British Government should either make a loan, based on the security of the public lands of Texas, or at least guarantee the payment of interest on such a loan, to be devoted exclusively to the abolition of slavery within its limits. Some doubt still rests on the immediate result of this proposal; for, although in his interview, at a subsequent date, with the Minister of the United States, Mr. Everett (who, it would seem, was strangely ignorant of this and other previous movements connected with the subject, or, not less strangely, unimpressed with their importance), Lord Aberdeen states that "he gave them no countenance whatever," yet, he admits, at the same time, "he informed them that, by every proper means of influence" (terms of very vague and unsettled signification), he would encourage the abolition of slavery; and that he had recommended the Mexican Government to interest itself in the matter." In what mode, he does not state; and the only reasonable inference that can be drawn from the language is, that the acknowledgment, on the part of Mexico, of the independence of Texas-a power formally recognized as independent by his own Government,-should depend, in some measure at least, on the abolition of slavery within its limits,-a condition which he had not directly assumed the responsibility of imposing when the acknowledgment of Texan independence was pending before his Government. Without minutely inquiring into the theory of political morals, we might well ask whether the usurer's practice of speculating on the necessities of his victim be recognized as lawful in the code of British diplomacy; whether this indirect exercise of power over a feeble and friendly State, seeking aid and protection, be in itself, or because indirect, one of the " proper means of influence," and gives a moral sanction to the end contemplated? To the United States, the power most deeply interested,—it was quite immaterial whether a loan of money,—or a guarantee of interest on a loan,-or the exercise of influence over Mexico, should be selected as the " proper means" to involve them, through Texas, in the greatest conceivable calamity. Mr. Everett, however, does not, from the correspondence, seem to have questioned either the ethics or objects of the Secretary. But there was about the same time another interview between Lord Aberdeen and a general committee of the Convention, at which Mr. Smith, the Texan Chargé d'Affaires was present, and who stated to Mr. Everett that, during the conversation, his lordship "assured the committee that the British Government would employ all legitimate means in their power to attain so great and desirable an object; and that one of the members of the committee afterwards "informed him that, in their interview with Lord Aberdeen, his lordship made observations which warranted them in saying that the British Government would guarantee, if necessary," (i. e., if the effort through Mexico should fail?) "the interest of a loan which should be raised and applied to the abolition of slavery in Texas; but not of a Texan loan for any other purpose whatever." Yet, notwithstanding these facts, Lord Aberdeen, in reply to a note of Mr. Smith addressed to him on the subject, says that he (Mr. S.) "does the British Government no more than justice, in forbearing to impute to them any design to interfere with the internal concerns of Texas in reference to slavery!" Again; at a subsequent date, " in a long interview with Lord. Aberdeen, at his request," Mr. Everett informs us that, in allusion to the interest felt on the subject in the United States, Lord Aberdeen replied, "that he felt the delicacy and importance of the subject, repeated the allusion made in the former interview to the state of public sentiment in England,—and said that, while it could not be expected of her Majesty's Government to hold a language, or pursue a policy at variance with the opinions which they shared in common with the whole country, yet he should certainly think it right not to give any just cause of complaint to the United States. As far as Texas was directly concerned, they had, as he had already informed me, made no proposition to her whatever. They had connected the subject of the abolition of slavery in Texas, with a recommendation to Mexico to acknowledge her independence." Such were the objects,-such, in part, the means of effecting them, and such the justification, on the part of the British Government, for interfering with the domestic institutions of a friendly and feeble power;;-institutions which, from their very nature and the contiguity of the two countries, were inseparably and (had her diplomacy prevailed) fatally connected with the peace, safety, and prosperity of the United States. And yet it does not appear from the published correspondence, that either the justice, propriety, or sufficiency of these were, in any manner, called in question by Mr. Everett, not even when they had produced the most profound sensation throughout the Union. Indeed, it would seem that he was entirely ignorant of these diplomatic manœuvres and machinations, or that he deemed them of too little moment to be made the subject of a communication. The first intimation received by the Government, in regard to them, was derived from a private source, and through the agency, we believe, of Mr. Calhoun. The next was through the columns of a London paper, containing a report of a conversation between Lords Brougham and Aberdeen, which occurred in the House of Lords on the 18th of August, 1843, and which, as the reader may not have the paper in his possession, we venture to extract. It is in the following words : : "TEXAS.-In the House of Lords, on Friday, the 18th August, Lord Brougham introduced the subject of Texas and Texan slavery in the following manner: "Lord Brougham said that, seeing his noble friend at the head of the Foreign Department in his place, he wished to obtain some information from him relative to a State of great interest at the present time, namely, Texas. That country was in a state of independence, de facto, but its independence had never been acknowledged by Mexico, the State from which it was torn by the events of the revolution. He was aware that its independence had been so far acknowledged by this country that we had a treaty with it. "The importance of Texas could not be underrated. It was a country of the greatest capabilities, and was in extent fully as large as France. It possessed a soil of the finest and most fertile character, and it was capable of producing nearly all tropical produce, and its climate was of a most healthy character. It had access to the Gulf of Mexico, through the river Mississippi, with which it communicated by means of the Red River. The population of the country was said to exceed 240,000, but he had been assured by a gentleman who came from that country, and who was a member of the same profession as himself, that the whole population, free and slaves, white and colored, did not exceed 100,000; but he was grieved to learn that not less than one fourth of the population, or 25,000 persons, were in a state of slavery. This point led him to the foundation of the question which he wished to put to his noble friend. There was very little or no slave trade carried on with Texas from Africa, directly; but a large number of slaves were constantly being sent overland to that country. Although the major part of the land in Texas was well adapted for white labor, and therefore for free cultivation, still the people of that country, by some strange infatuation, or by some inordinate love of immediate gain, preferred slave labor to free |