into the Union under the form of law, if not by authority of the Constitution. And although I am ready, at any moment, to gratify the people of Texas, who, according to the declaration of one of their representatives here [Mr. Pillsbury], would rather be out of the Union than in it-and in this I believe I have the sentiment of the nation with me-I concede that, so long as she remains a state of the Union, she is entitled to equal protection and immunities with the other states. But, I ask, what evidence have we that it was the intention of the Mexican government to invade the soil of Texas?

"The President, in his message, says: On the 18th of April, 1846, General Paredes addressed a letter to the commander on the frontier,' directing him to take the initiative against the enemy.' But this was more than a month after General Taylor had, by order of the President, broken up his camp at Corpus Christi and marched into the disputed territory. The order to the commander was, that the troops which thus act as enemies be ordered to be repelled. From this day begins our defensive war; and every point of our territory attacked or invaded shall be defended.' This, instead of proving a purpose of invasion in Mexico, is all purely defensive. There was, then, no danger of invasion from Mexico, had the President suffered the army to remain within the borders of Texas, and negotiated with her upon terms which she contended her honor required, and which might have been acceded to without any sacrifice of honor on our part. She demanded that the immediate cause of difficulty between the two governments-the Texas Question-should be arranged by a special commission, before her acknowledgment of amicable relations (which had been interrupted by the annexation of Texas) by the reception of a resident minister. Surely that magnanimity which should always characterize the deportment of the strong toward the weak, of the offender to the offended, should have prompted the President to have yielded this point to the wounded pride of Mexico; and in accepting the challenge of peace proposed by this government, to have given her the choice of arms. But, like a bullying tyrant, he persisted in his arrogant demands, and chose the more summary argument of the sword, fancying it, probably, the more popular, if not the most economical method of settling a dispute with poor and imbecile Mexico.

"Texas demanded the boundary of the Del Norte to prevent the escape of her slaves, and her demand must be answered. It was the preservation of this peculiar institution' which led to the annexation of Texas; it was this which required its extension to the Del Norte; and it is this which is passing your army into the heart of Mexico, seizing upon province after province, for the purpose of extending its area.

"Well, Mr. Chairman, if hostilities might have been averted in the first place, and were provoked by an act of aggression on our part, what evidence have we, what fears have we, that the invasion of our territory would result from a cessation of hostilities, and the withdrawal of our troops within our own territory? Sir, there are none. No one is mad enough to suppose that the country is, or could be, in any danger from Mexico. She is poor and powerless for offensive war. And however united her people may be in the defense of their homes and their firesides, and however able she may be to maintain a resolute and protracted defensive war, she has neither the ability nor the heart to engage in a war of invasion. She contested successfully for long years the power of Spain upon her own soil; and by that indomitable spirit of resistance, which has been denominated by a learned senator [Mr. Cass] 'the characteristic obstinacy of the Castilian race,' succeeded in throwing off the Spanish yoke, but was repulsed, and her army, with its chosen leader, captured by a handful of Texans whenever she stepped beyond the smoke of her own fires...

"In warring for the subjugation of Texas, she would be contending for a mere abstraction-a something which she could not enjoy. If she had it, she could not hold it: a people different in race, in religion, in every thing which goes to make up the national character. It is as absurd to suppose that Texas could again become or remain a province of Mexico, as that the Mexican provinces could, with safety to our institutions, become states of this Union. But even should Mexico be mad enough to attempt an invasion of our territory, still there is no necessity for increased means of defense on our part. The regular army, with one fourth of its present strength, could successfully defend the whole Texan frontier. Indeed, the honorable member from the Western District [Mr. Pillsbury] tells us that Texas can defend herself against any force that Mexico can

She did it when

bring against her; and I believe she could. she was much younger and weaker, and why should she not do it now?

"If, then, the prosecution of this war is not necessary for the defense of the country, what is its object? Sir, it is CONQUEST -it is THE ACQUISITION OF TERRITORY. This is the stimulant which has excited the maw of the President to gulp in province after province, and yearn for a continent. This spirit it was which prompted him to congratulate' us, upon our assembling here, upon the success which has attended our military and naval operations.' 'In less than seven months,' continues he, 'we have acquired military possession of the Mexican provinces of New Mexico, New Leon, Coahuila, Tamaulipas, and the Californias, a territory larger in extent than that embraced in the original thirteen states of the Union.' And yet he proceeds to say, 'The war has not been waged with a view to conquest!' and thus defines its object: But, having been commenced by Mexico, it has been carried into the enemy's country, and will be vigorously prosecuted there, with a view to obtain an honorable peace, and thereby secure ample indemnity for the expenses of the war, as well as to our much-injured citizens, who hold large pecuniary demands against Mexico.' Now, Mr. Chairman, leaving out that threadbare assertion, having been commenced by Mexico,' which the followers of the President may learn to repeat, but can never believe, what, I ask, is it but a war for the acquisition of territory-a war for conquest?

"But the President admits-his friends here avow it-it was declared by the official mouth-piece of the President in the Senate, the chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, a few days ago, that territory is to be acquired by this war. The amount of it is, the President will not invade Mexico for the purpose of seizing upon her provinces, but he will prosecute a war of invasion for a paltry claim which Mexico had agreed to pay, and had in part paid, and then hold her territory as an indemnity for the expense of the war.

"Now it matters not whether conquest be the object or the incident of the war. It is equally wrong if the war be in itself aggressive and unjust. That it is aggressive has been already shown. Indeed, it is evident that the President himself so considers it, from his long and labored apology for its commence

ment. The recovery of claims was an after-thought a miserable pretext for a known wrong, which can neither be justified by any principle of justice, humanity, or economy. His rigmarole of wrongs, magnified and distorted, perpetrated by Mexico upon our citizens and flag, were, he says, 'ample cause of war.' Why, the offense against the national honor, and the injury done our citizens, were all wiped out by the treaties of 1839 and 1842. It was then reduced to a simple matter of dollars and cents; and it is upon this that the President now bases this destructive and expensive war. Really its financial are little bet ter than its moral features.

"I repeat, sir, this war is a war of conquest-a war for the acquisition of territory, and nothing else. With the adminis tration and its supporters in the South, it is a war for the exten sion of slavery. It is part and parcel of the Texas project, and for the same ends.* With the democracy of the North it is equally a war for the acquisition of territory, but with the exclusion of slavery; if, indeed, they be sincere in that, which I very much doubt. Some, I believe, are.

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"Now, I ask, is there a Democrat upon this floor who will vote another man or another dollar for the prosecution of this war, if territory can not be acquired by it? No, not one.

Well, sir, I am opposed to the acquisition of another inch of slave territory. And I will here repeat what has already been declared by several gentlemen of both parties during this debate, that, with the people of the North, this is no longer an open question. It is a fact, and a fixed fact. Not another foot of slave territory will ever, with their consent, be added to this Union. We are not disposed to quarrel with our brethren of the South about slavery in the states where it now exists, and which no power in this government can reach; but, believing it to be an evil, moral and political, we demand that the power of the government shall not be applied to its extension.

"But, sir, I am opposed to the acquisition of any territory, and especially by conquest. I deny that there is any power in

From the Charleston (South Carolina) Courier.

'Every battle fought in Mexico, and every dollar spent there, but insures the acquisition of territory which must widen the field of Southern enterprise and power in future; and the final result will be, to readjust the balance of power by the confederacy so as to give us control over the operations of government in all lime to come."

this government, expressed or implied, to acquire territory in that way. It is contrary to the very spirit and object of the compact, which is but a union of sovereign states for purposes of mutual protection and defense. I believe we have territory enough-and particularly such territory as those conquered provinces of Mexico, which have not an acre in a hundred, or in five hundred, that any North American would have as a gift. But the mere acquisition of territory is not the worst feature of conquest. You propose bringing into this Union numerous provinces inhabited by a considerable population' (in the language of the President), regardless of their will; thus subverting that great principle of Republican liberty, which accords to the people the right of choosing their own government. Free and mu-, nificent as ours may be, it is only so because it is voluntarily assumed. Throw your political system around a people without their consent, and you perpetrate the darkest deed of despotism-you deny them the freedom of choice.

"I know that our system of government is expansive in its nature; but there is nothing known to the art of man which may not be destroyed by over-tension. It will expand as fast and as far as your people expand, and are ready for its protecting mantle. But when you propose spreading it by a single stroke over a whole series of provinces, if not an entire republic, peopled with a race different from our own in language, habits, and religion, without their consent, you give it a tenuity which the first rude blast will destroy.

"But I am opposed to this war upon other and higher grounds. Much as I should deprecate the extension of slavery over territory now free, and a system of wild expansion which subverts the principles and threatens the very existence of the Union, still more do I deprecate its dark and damning crime-its useless and horrible sacrifice of human life, and the train of misery and woe which it brings to the bosom of many a widow and orphan thus cruelly deprived of a husband and a father. Time, in its eventful progress, might free the slave of his shackles, and build up governments upon the scattered ruins of this republic, but it can never restore life to the dead, or heal the heart of the bereaved. The memory of the dead and the tear of the afflicted will endure with life, monuments of the fruits of this unholy

war.