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APPENDIX B.

525 the "whole of Oregon"; and the resolution seems directed more pointedly to space than time. Texas and Oregon were united in the resolution; and, had there been a third question involving our territorial extension, I doubt not it would have been united with the other two. The addition of territory to our Union is part of the Democratic faith, and properly was placed in the declaration of our policy at that time. To determine whether that practicable period has arrived is now the question; and those who cordially agree upon the principle of territorial enlargement have differed, and may continue still to differ, on that question. Sir, though it is demonstrable that haste may diminish but can not increase our chances to secure the whole of Oregon, yet, because Southern men have urged the wisdom of delay, we have had injurious comparisons instituted between our conduct on Texas annexation and Oregon occupation. Is there such equality between the cases that the same policy must apply to each? Texas was peopled, the time was present when it must be acquired, or the influences active to defeat our annexation purpose would probably succeed, and the country be lost to us for ever. Oregon is, with a small exception, still a wilderness; our claim to ultimate sovereignty can not be weakened during the continuance of the Oregon convention. That ill-starred partnership has robbed us of the advantages which an early occupation would have given to our people in the fur-trade of the country, and we are now rapidly advancing to a position from which we can command the entire Territory. In Texas annexation we were prompted by other and higher considerations than mere interest. Texas had been a member of our family: in her infancy had been driven from the paternal roof, surrendered to the government of harsh, inquisitorial Spain; but, true to her lineage, preserved the faith of opposition to monarchical oppression. She now returned, and asked to be admitted to the hearth of the homestead. She pointed to the band of noble sons who stood around her and said: "Here is the remnant of my family; the rest I gave a sacrifice at the altar of our fathers' God-the God of Liberty." One, two, three, of the elder sisters strove hard to close the door upon her; but the generous sympathy, the justice of the family, threw it wide open, and welcomed her return. Such was the case of Texas; is there a parallel in Oregon?

But who are those that arraign the South, imputing to us motives of sectional aggrandizement? Generally, the same who resisted Texas annexation, and now most eagerly press on the immediate occupation of the whole of Oregon. The source is worthy the suspicion. These were the men whose constitutional scruples resisted the admission of a country gratuitously offered to us, but who now look forward to gaining Canada by conquest. These, the same who claim a weight to balance Texas, while they attack others as governed by sectional considerations.

Sir, this doctrine of a political balance between different sections of our Union is not of Southern growth. We advocated the annexation of Texas

as a "great national measure"; we saw in it the extension of the principles intrusted to our care; and, if in the progress of the question it assumed a sectional hue, the coloring came from the opposition that it met—an opposition based, not upon a showing of the injury it would bring to them, but upon the supposition that benefits would be obtained by us.

Why is it that Texas is referred to, and treated as a Southern measure merely, though its northern latitude is 42°? And why has the West so often been reminded of its services upon Texas annexation? Is it to divide the South and West? If so, let those who seek this object cease from their travail, for their end can never be obtained. A common agricultural interest unites us in a common policy, and the hand that sows seeds of dissension between us will find, if they spring from the ground, that the foot of fraternal intercourse will tread them back to earth.

The streams that rise in the West flow on and are accumulated into the rivers of the South; they bear the products of one to the other, and bind the interests of the whole indissolubly together. The wishes of the one wake the sympathies of the other. On Texas annexation the voice of Mississippi found an echo in the West, and Mississippi reëchoes the call of the West on the question of Oregon. Though this Government has done nothing adequate to the defense of Mississippi, though by war she has much to lose and nothing to gain, yet she is willing to encounter it, if necessary to maintain our rights in Oregon. Her Legislature has recently so resolved, and her Governor, in a late message, says, "If war comes, to us it will bring blight and desolation, yet we are ready for the crisis." Sir, could there be a higher obligation on the representative of such a people than to restrain excitement-than to oppose a policy that threatens an unnecessary war? . . .

Mr. Chairman, why have such repeated calls been made upon the South to rally to the rescue? When, where, or how, has she been laggard or deserter?

In 1776 the rights of man were violated in the outrages upon the Northern colonies, and the South united in a war for their defense. In 1812 the flag of our Union was insulted, our sailors' rights invaded; and, though the interests infringed were mainly Northern, war was declared, and the opposition to its vigorous prosecution came not from the South. We entered it for the common cause, and for the common cause we freely met its sacrifices. If, sir, we have not been the "war party in peace," neither have we been the "peace party in war," and I will leave the past to answer for the future.

If we have not sought the acquisition of provinces by conquest, neither have we desired to exclude from our Union such as, drawn by the magnet of free institutions, have peacefully sought for admission. From sire to son has descended our federative creed, opposed to the idea of sectional conflict for private advantage, and favoring the wider expanse of our

APPENDIX B.

527 Union. If envy and jealousy and sectional strife are eating like rust into the bonds our fathers expected to bind us, they come from causes which our Southern atmosphere has never furnished. As we have shared in the toils, so we have gloried in the triumphs, of our country. In our hearts, as in our history, are mingled the names of Concord, and Camden, and Saratoga, and Lexington, and Plattsburg, and Chippewa, and Erie, and Moultrie, and New Orleans, and Yorktown, and Bunker Hill. Grouped together, they form a record of the triumphs of our cause, a monument of the common glory of our Union. What Southern man would wish it less by one of the Northern names of which it is composed? Or where is he who, gazing on the obelisk that rises from the ground made sacred by the blood of Warren, would feel his patriot's pride suppressed by local jealousy? Type of the men, the event, the purpose, it commemorates, that column rises, stern, even severe in its simplicity; neither niche nor molding for parasite or creeping thing to rest on; composed of material that defies the waves of time, and pointing like a finger to the source of noblest thought. Beacon of freedom, it guides the present generation to retrace the fountain of our years and stand beside its source; to contemplate the scene where Massachusetts and Virginia, as stronger brothers of the family, stood foremost to defend our common rights; and remembrance of the petty jarrings of to-day are buried in the nobler friendship of an earlier time.

Yes, sir, and when ignorance, led by fanatic hate, and armed by all uncharitableness, assails a domestic institution of the South, I try to forgive, for the sake of the righteous among the wicked-our natural allies, the Democracy of the North. Thus, sir, I leave to silent contempt the malign predictions of the member from Ohio, who spoke in the early stage of this discussion, while it pleases me to remember the manly and patriotic sentiments of the gentleman who sits near me [Mr. MCDOWELL], and who represents another portion of that State. In him I recognize the feelings of our Western brethren; his were the sentiments that accord with their acts in the past, and which, with a few ignoble exceptions, I doubt not they will emulate, if again the necessity should exist. Yes, sir, if ever they hear that the invader's foot has been pressed upon our soil, they will descend to the plain like an avalanche, rushing to bury the foe.

In conclusion, I will say that, free from any forebodings of evil, above the influence of taunts, beyond the reach of treasonable threats, and confiding securely in the wisdom and patriotism of the Executive, I shrink from the assertion of no right, and will consent to no restrictions on the discretion of the treaty-making power of our Government.

APPENDIX C.

SPEECHES, AND EXTRACTS FROM SPEECHES, OF THE AUTHOR IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES DURING THE FIRST SESSION OF THE THIRTY-FIRST CONGRESS, 1849-1850.

SPEECH of the author delivered in the Senate of the United States, on the resolutions of compromise proposed by Mr. Clay, January 29, 1850.

I do not rise to continue the discussion, but, as it has been made an historical question as to what the position of the Senate was twelve years ago, and, as with great regret I see this, the conservative branch of the Government, tending toward that fanaticism which seems to prevail with the majority in the United States, I wish to read from the journals of that date the resolutions then adopted, and to show that they went further than the honorable Senator from Kentucky has, stated. I take it for granted, from the date to which the honorable Senator has alluded, he means the resolutions introduced by the honorable Senator from South Carolina [Mr. CALHOUN], not now in his seat, and to which the Senator from Kentucky proposed certain amendments. Of the resolutions introduced by the Senator from South Carolina, I will read the fifth in the series, that to which the honorable Senator from Kentucky must have alluded. It is in these words: Resolved, That the intermeddling of any State or States, or their citizens, to abolish slavery in the District, or any of the Territories, on the ground, or under the pretext, that it is immoral or sinful, or the passage of any act or measure of Congress with that view, would be a direct and dangerous attack on the institutions of all the slaveholding States."

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Such is the general form of the proposition. It was variously modified, but never, in my opinion, improved. On the 27th, the fifth resolution being again under consideration, Mr. CLAY, of Kentucky, moved to amend the amendment by striking out all after the word "resolved," and insert:

"That the interference, by the citizens of any of the States, with a view to the abolition of slavery in this District, is endangering the rights and security of the people of the District; and that any act or measure of Congress designed to abolish slavery in this District would be a violation of the faith implied in the cessions by the States of Virginia and Maryland; a just cause of alarm to the people of the slaveholding States, and have a direct and inevitable tendency to disturb and endanger the Union.

“And, resolved, That it would be highly inexpedient to abolish slavery within any district of country set apart for the Indian tribes, where it now exists, or in Florida, the only Territory of the United States in which it now exists, because of the serious alarm and just apprehensions which would be

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thereby excited in the States sustaining that domestic institution; because the people of that Territory have not asked it to be done, and, when admitted into the Union, will be exclusively entitled to decide that question for themselves; because it would be in violation of the stipulations of the treaty between the United States and Spain of the 22d of February, 1819; and, also, because it would be in violation of a solemn compromise, made at a memorable and critical period in the history of this country, by which, while slavery was prohibited north, it was admitted south, of the line of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes north latitude."

But this resolution was not finally adopted. Upon the motion of Mr. BUCHANAN to amend said amendment, by striking out the second clause thereof, commencing with the word "resolved," it was determined in the affirmative, and finally the resolution which here follows was substituted in place of the second clause:

"That the interference by the citizens of any of the States, with a view to the abolition of slavery in this District, is endangering the rights and security of the people of the District; and that any act or measure of Congress designed to abolish slavery in this district, would be a violation of the faith implied in the cessions by the States of Virginia and Maryland; a just cause of alarm to the people of the slaveholding States, and have a direct and inevitable tendency to disturb and endanger the Union.”

This was the form in which the resolution was finally adopted, passing by a vote of thirty-six to eight. Here, then, was fully and broadly asserted the danger resulting from the interference in the question of slavery in the District of Columbia, as trenching upon the rights of the slaveholding States. Twelve years only have elapsed, yet this brief period has swept away even the remembrance of principles then deemed sacred and necessary to secure the safety of the Union. Now, an honorable and distinguished Senator, to whom the country has been induced to look for something that would heal the existing dissensions, instead of raising new barriers against encroachment, dashes down those heretofore erected and augments the existing danger. A representative from one of the slaveholding States raises his voice for the first time in disregard of this admitted right. Nor, Mr. President, did he stop here. The boundary of a State, with which we have no more right to interfere than with the boundary of the State of Kentucky, is encroached upon. The United States, sir, as the agent for Texas, had a right to settle the question of boundary between Texas and Mexico. Texas was not annexed as a Territory, but was admitted as a State, and, at the period of her admission, her boundaries were established by her Congress. She, by the terms of annexation, gave to the United States the right to define her boundary by treaty with Mexico; but the United States, in the treaty made with Mexico subsequent to the war with that country, received from Mexico not merely a cession of the territory that was claimed by Texas, but much that lay beyond the asserted limits. Shall

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