What, Sir, is the brief history of this measure? Secretly and stealthily concocted originally by a President not of the people's choice, by an accidental occupant of the Executive chair; devised by him for his own ambitious ends, and upon his own individual responsibility;- let me rather say irrespon sibility, (for the history of the last twelve or fifteen years has proved that our Republican President is the most irresponsible officer known to the civilized world, and may dọ with impunity what would cost many a king his crown, neck and all,) — rejected emphatically by the Senate, to whom, as a legitimate branch of the treaty-making power, it was submitted; it has now been introduced into this House, after a single hour's deliberation in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and is about to be pressed to a decision with as little ceremony as an act to pay an annual salary, or to establish a new post route! Why, Sir, if it were a mere question of foreign relations, if it concerned no interest, affected no right, touched no prerogative of our own American people, a course like this would be extraordinary enough; but, reaching as this measure does to the very sum of our own domestic affairs, influencing, as it will, the whole destiny of our country as long as our country may survive it, such a mode of proceeding is calculated to excite alarm in the breast of every reflecting patriot.

Mr. Chairman, there are many distinct views to be taken of this transaction, either of which would more than exhaust the little time allowed us under the hour rule. There is the Executive view of it; displaying as much of assumption and usurpation, in all its civil and all its military developments, as has ever signalized an equal period in the history of the most despotic ruler in Christendom. There is the Diplomatic view of it; exhibiting a correspondence which, I venture to say, has made more than are willing to acknowledge it, blush, and cover their faces in shame, at such a degradation of our national character before the world. I am glad to find that even the Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs has not been quite able to suppress an intimation of disgust for some of the State papers and diplomatic correspondence of the case.

There is the Texan view of the question, too. Sir, I have

never cherished any particular sympathy for the people of Texas. I have heretofore been rather inclined to agree with Governor McDuffie in the views presented in an admirable message of his to the Legislature of South Carolina in December, 1836; in which he not only expressed the opinion that "if we should admit Texas into our Union while Mexico is still waging war against that Province, with a view to reestablish her supremacy over it, we should, by the very act itself, make ourselves a party to the war," and that we could not "take this step without incurring this heavy responsibility, until Mexico herself shall recognize the independence of her revolted Province;" but in which he said also, "I am utterly at a loss to perceive what title either of the parties to this controversy can have to the sympa. thies of the American people. If it be alleged that the insur gents of Texas are emigrants from the United States, it is obvious to reply that, by their voluntary expatriation, under what ever circumstances of adventure, of speculation, of honor, or of infamy, they have forfeited all claim to our paternal regard. If it be true that they have left a land of freedom for a land of despotism, they have done it with their eyes open, and deserve their destiny." Perhaps this language is a little too severe, but I am clearly of opinion that men who have deserted their own country for a foreign soil, are not preeminently entitled to our freshest and most cordial sympathies.

I confess, however, that recent circumstances have created something of reaction in my mind in regard to the people of Texas. I cannot help feeling some sympathy with that people under the precise circumstances in which they are now placed; betrayed, as they have been, into so humiliating a pos ture, by false pretences and false promises. Where has been the fulfilment of that promise which a President of the United States, speaking through his Secretary of State, dared to hold out to them a year ago: "Measures have been taken to ascer tain the opinions and views of Senators upon the subject, and it is found that a clear constitutional majority of two thirds are in favor of the measure!" Sir, may we not begin to entertain a hope that the people of Texas will awake to some respect for themselves under the treatment they have received, and will

no longer suffer themselves to be duped and trifled with either by Presidents or Congresses? If they would summon up something of a just national pride, repel all further overtures to annexation, expose all the arts and intrigues by which they have been seduced, and resolve to maintain their stand as an independent nation against Mexico and against the world, the "God speed" of all good men would go with them. There seems to be some probability of such a movement. The Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs has warned us of the danger of delay. "There is nothing to be dreaded," says he, "but delay. Delay is imminently dangerous." And why is delay dangerous? Because, says he, "there must be in Texas a great deal of personal selfish opposition to annexation. Many eminent men may oppose it." What a confession is this! So we are not only to get the start of the sober second thought of our own American people upon this question, but of the people of Texas, too! We are to take a snap judgment on the willingness of both nations to enter upon this fatal marriage!

But I turn to even graver views of the subject. When the measure was originally reported from the Committee of which I have the honor to be a member, I denounced it off-hand as unconstitutional in substance and unconstitutional in form; as in violation of the law of nations, and of the good faith of our own country; as calculated to involve us in an unjust and dishonorable war; and as eminently objectionable from its relations to the subject of domestic slavery. The honorable member from Alabama (Mr. Payne) has been pleased to denominate this my manifesto, and has done me the undeserved honor of considering me the spokesman of my party in pronouncing it. I spoke for nobody but myself then, and am authorized to speak for nobody but myself now. But I repeat the expressions deliberately this morning, and shall take them as my text in what remains of my hour.

And first, Mr. Chairman, I am one of those who deny the authority of this government to annex a foreign nation to our Union, by any process whatever, short of the general consent of the people; certainly by any mode less formal than that required.

for an amendment of the Constitution. Gentlemen tell us that this point was settled by the purchase of Louisiana and Florida. No, no, Sir, it was not settled by either of those cases. What said Mr. Van Buren in 1837? What said Mr. Forsyth, expressing, as he undoubtedly did, the result of the deliberations. of Mr. Van Buren's entire Cabinet? His official reply to Mr. Memucan Hunt has been often quoted, but cannot be too often held up before the eyes of the people:

"The question of the annexation of a foreign independent State to the United States has never before been presented to this government. Since the adoption of their Constitution, two large additions have been made to the domain originally claimed by the United States."

"The circumstance, however, of their being colonial possessions of France and Spain, and therefore dependent on the metropolitan governments, renders those transactions materially different from that which would be presented by the question of the annexation of Texas. The latter is a State, with an independent government, acknowledged as such by the United States, and claiming a territory beyond, though bordering on, the region ceded by France in the treaty of the 30th of April, 1803. Whether the Constitution of the United States contemplated the annexation of such a State. and, if so, in what manner that object is to be effected, are questions, in the opinion of the President, it would be inexpedient, under existing circumstances, to agitate."

Here is no pretence of the right to annex, and much less to reannex, Texas under the Louisiana or Florida precedents. Here is not a word about Texas having been sacrificed by ¡the Florida treaty. The Texan territory is declared to be "beyond, though bordering on, the region ceded by France in the treaty of the 30th of April, 1803." The Louisiana and Florida precedents are declared to be " materially different" from the ques tion of the annexation of Texas. And the point is expressly proposed, as one for doubt, to say the least, whether the Constitution ever contemplated the annexation of such a State.

But who are the persons who declare so impatiently, that the constitutional power of Congress to annex Texas has been settled by precedent? They are those who deny the authority of precedent upon every other question but this. They are those by whom the idea is utterly rejected and derided, that the signatures of Washington and Madison to the charters of a National Bank, and the existence of such an institution for forty years, are to be considered as settling the constitutionality of its incor

poration; and who are hailing the reëstablishment of the SubTreasury system as a return to the Constitution, as a restoration of the government, under the auspices of Jackson and Tyler, to that state of original purity from which it was corruptly perverted by Washington and Madison! Cicero tells us of some occasion on which the Roman augurs could not look each other in the face without laughing; and it would be even more impossible, I should imagine, for those initiated in the mysteries of either General Jackson's or Mr. Tyler's adininistrations, to preserve their gravity at such an idea as this. But who, again, are those who maintain so stoutly the binding obligation of precedent on this occasion? They are those, in part, who are just ready to make a new attempt at nullifying a protective tariff, although the preamble of the first Revenue Law upon the statute book declares, that the encouragement of domestic industry was one of its principal objects, and although every President of the United States, from Washington to Jackson inclusive, has put his name to bills or messages distinctly recognizing the same principle!

Sir, I am no despiser of precedents. For the deliberate decisions of our early Congresses and Cabinets upon questions of constitutional intention and interpretation, I entertain the most deferential respect. But for the Louisiana precedent, even if it were not "materially different" from the question before us, I profess to entertain no respect whatever. If it be a precedent for any thing, it is a precedent for the successful violation of the Constitution, and not for its just interpretation and execution. It is of that school of political morality which declares that "where there is a will, there is a way." It belongs to the Hoyle principle of action-" where you are in doubt, take the trick." say this in no spirit of disrespect to Mr. Jefferson.

I

Everybody knows that Mr. Jefferson himself admitted that, in the acquisition of Louisiana, he had done "an act beyond the Constitution," and that he repeatedly besought his friends to procure the adoption of an amendment to the Constitution to ratify the act. His views were such as no unprejudiced mind can resist. "When I consider (said he) that the limits of the United States are precisely fixed by the treaty of 1783, that the