BANCROFT 
 LIBRARY 
 
 o- 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
LETTER 
 
 
 HON. HENRY CLAY, 
 
 ANNEXATION OF TEXAS TO THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 BY WILLIAM E. CHANNING 
 
 . 
 BOSTON: 
 
 JAMES MUNROE AND COMPANY. 
 1837. 
 
Cambridge Press: 
 Metcalf, Torry, and Ballou. 
 
LETTER. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, 
 
 I TRUST, that you wijl excuse the liberty which I take 
 in thus publicly addressing you. If you could look into 
 my heart, I am sure you would not condemn rne. You 
 would discover the motives of this act, in my respect for 
 your eminent powers, and in my confidence that you are 
 disposed to use them for the honor and happiness of your 
 country. Were you less distinguished, or less worthy of 
 distinction, I should not trouble you with this letter. I 
 write you, because I am persuaded, that your great influ- 
 ence, if exerted in promoting just views on the subject of 
 this communication, would accomplish a good, to which, 
 perhaps, no other man in the country is equal. I am bound 
 in frankness, to add another reason for addressing you. 
 I hope that your name, prefixed to this letter, may secure 
 to it an access to some, perhaps to many, who would turn 
 away, were its thoughts presented in a more general form. 
 Perhaps by this aid, it may scale the barrier, which now 
 excludes from the South a certain class of the writings of 
 the North. I am sure your hospitality would welcome me 
 to Kentucky ; and your well known generosity, I believe, 
 will consent that I should use your name, to gain a hearing 
 in that and the neighboring states. 
 
 It is with great reluctance that I enter on the topic of 
 this letter. My tastes and habits incline me to very differ- 
 
ent objects of thought and exertion. I had hoped, that I 
 should never again feel myself called to take part in the 
 agitations and exciting discussions of the day, especially in 
 those of a political character. I desire nothing so much 
 as to devote what remains of life, to the study and exposi- 
 tion of great principles and universal truths. But the sub- 
 ject of Texas weighs heavily on my mind, and I cannot 
 shake it off. To me, it is more than a political question. 
 It belongs eminently to morals and religion. I have hoped, 
 that the attention of the public would be called to it by 
 some more powerful voice. I have postponed writing, 
 until the national legislature is about to commence the 
 important session, in which, it is thought, this subject may 
 be decided. But no one speaks, and therefore I cannot be 
 silent. Should Texas be annexed to our country, I feel 
 that I could not forgive myself, if, with my deep, solemn 
 impressions, I should do nothing to avert the evil. I can- 
 not easily believe, that this disastrous measure is to be 
 adopted, especially at the present moment. The annexa- 
 tion of Texas under existing circumstances, would be more 
 than rashness ; it would be madness. That opposition to it 
 must exist at the South, as well as at the North, I cannot 
 doubt. Still, there is a general impression, that great efforts 
 will be made to accomplish this object at the approaching 
 session of Congress, and that nothing but strenuous resis- 
 tance can prevent their success. I must write, therefore, as 
 if the danger were real and imminent; and if any should 
 think that I am betrayed into undue earnestness by a false 
 alarm, they will remember that there are circumstances, 
 in which excess of vigilance is a virtue. 
 
 In the course of this discussion, I shall be forced to 
 speak on one topic, which can hardly be treated so as to 
 give no offence. I am satisfied that in this, as in all cases, 
 it is best, safest, as well as most right and honorable, to 
 
speak freely and plainly. Nothing is to be gained by cau- 
 tion, circumlocution, plausible softenings of language, and 
 other arts, which, in destroying confidence, defeat their 
 own end. In discussions of an irritating nature, the true 
 way of doing good is, to purify ourselves from all unwor- 
 thy motives, to cherish disinterested sentiments and un- 
 affected good-will towards those from whom we differ, and 
 then to leave the mind to utter itself naturally and sponta- 
 neously. How far I have prepared myself for my work, 
 by this self-purification, it becomes not me to say ; but 
 this I may say, that I am not conscious of the slightest 
 asperity of feeling towards any party or any individual. 
 I have no private interests to serve, no private passions 
 to gratify. The strength of my conviction may be ex- 
 pressed in strong, perhaps unguarded language ; but this 
 want of caution is the result of the consciousness, that I 
 have no purpose or feeling which I need conceal. 
 
 I shall, in one respect, depart from the freedom of a 
 letter. I shall arrange my thoughts under distinct heads, 
 and I shall do this, because I wish to put my reader in 
 full possession of my views. I wish to use no vague decla- 
 mation, to spread no vague alarm, but to bring out as 
 clearly as possible the precise points of objection to the 
 measure I oppose.* 
 
 * It may be well to state the principal authorities on which I rely 
 for the statements in this letter. I am most indebted perhaps to an 
 article on Mexico and Texas, in the July number of the North Ameri- 
 can Review for the year 1836. This article, as I understood at the 
 time, was written by an enlightened and respected citizen of the 
 South. The quotations in the first head of this letter, without a margi- 
 nal reference, are taken from this tract, with a few unimportant excep- 
 tions. I have also made use of a pamphlet, bearing the title of the 
 " War in Texas," written by Mr. Benjamin Lundy, a man of unim- 
 peachable character, and who professes to have given particular atten- 
 tion to the subject. With his reasonings and opinions, I have nothing 
 1* 
 
6 
 
 I. We have a strong argument against annexing Texas 
 to the United States, in the Criminality of the revolt which 
 threatens to sever that country from Mexico. On this 
 point our citizens need light. The Texan insurrection is 
 seriously regarded by many among us as a struggle of the 
 oppressed for freedom. The Texan revolution is thought 
 to resemble our own. Our own is contaminated by being 
 brought into such relationship, and we owe to our fathers 
 and ourselves a disclaimer of affinity with this new repub- 
 lic. The Texan revolt, if regarded in its causes and its 
 means of success, is criminal ; arid we ought in no way to 
 become partakers in its guilt. You, I doubt not, are famil- 
 iar with its history ; but for the benefit of some, into whose 
 hands this letter may fall, I will give the leading facts. 
 
 The first grant of land in Texas to our citizens, was 
 made under the Royal Government ; and in accepting it, 
 the obligation was expressly incurred, of submission to the 
 civil and religious despotism which then crushed the coun- 
 try. It was understood, that the settlers were to adopt the 
 Catholic faith, and to conform in all other respects to the 
 institutions of Mexico. Under the revolutionary govern- 
 ments, which succeeded the fall of the Spanish power, the 
 
 to do ; but his statement of facts has been represented to me as worthy 
 of full credit. I have also consulted a " History of Texas, by David 
 B. Edwards." I know not that this has furnished me any thing- of im- 
 portance. But, by its undesigned coincidence, it corroborates the pre- 
 ceding articles. My chief reliance, however, is not on books, but on 
 the notoriety of the facts here given, which may be considered as a 
 testimony borne to them by the whole people. This is a singularly 
 unexceptionable testimony in the present case ; because it is well 
 known, that the advocates of the Texan revolt have had possession, to 
 a great degree, of the press of this country, and unfavorable accounts 
 could riot have obtained general currency, without a foundation in truth. 
 Let me add, that by " the North," I understand in this letter all the 
 free states, and by " the South," all the slaveholding states, except 
 where the terms are plainly restricted by the connexion. 
 
original grant was confirmed, and new ones made, on con- 
 dition of subjection to the laws of the land. The terms 
 were very liberal, except that adherence to the Catholic 
 religion was required as the condition of settlement. 
 These facts will help us to understand the reasonable- 
 ness of some of the complaints, under which the colonists 
 seek to shelter their revolt. 
 
 Mexico, on declaring her independence on the mother 
 country, established a republican government, and was 
 unfortunately betrayed by her admiration of this country 
 into the adoption of a Federal system, for which no foun- 
 dation had been laid in her previous history. From this 
 cause, added to her inexperience in self-government, and 
 to the want of intelligence among the mass of her popula- 
 tion, her institutions have yielded very imperfectly the 
 fruits of freedom. The country has been rent by factions, 
 the capital convulsed by revolutions, and the chief office of 
 the state been secured by the military to popular chief- 
 tains. The emigrants from this country to Texas, went 
 with open eyes, with full knowledge of the unsettled state 
 of affairs, into this region of misrule and agitation. Happily 
 their distance, from the seat of government prevented their 
 being drawn into the whirlpool of civil contests, which 
 threatened at times the destruction of the metropolis. 
 Whilst the city of Mexico was pillaged or laid under mar- 
 tial law, Texas found security in her remoteness; and, had 
 her colonists proved loyal citizens, this security might have 
 been undisturbed. 
 
 Complaints of one another, soon sprung up between the 
 General Government and Texas. Mexico complained of 
 the gross infraction of her laws, and Texas of the violence 
 of the means by which it was attempted to enforce them. 
 That both parties had ground of reproach, we cannot 
 doubt ; nor is it easy to strike the balance between them, 
 
8 
 
 or to say where the chief blame lies. The presumption is 
 strong, that the fault began with the colonists. We of this 
 country, receiving our accounts of the controversy from 
 Texans, are in danger of being warped in our judgments. 
 But we have for our guidance, our knowledge of human 
 nature, which helps us to construe the testimony of inter- 
 ested witnesses, and which, in the present case, cannot 
 easily deceive us. If we consider the distance of Texas 
 from the seat of government, her scattered population, her 
 vicinity to a slave country, the general character of the 
 first settlers in a wilderness, and the difficulty of subjecting 
 them to regular 'tribunals ; can we doubt for a moment, 
 that Mexico had cause for the complaints, which she urged, 
 of the gross infractions and evasions of her laws in Texas, 
 especially of the laws relating to revenue, and to the ex- 
 clusion of slaves? On the other hand, if we consider the 
 circumstances of Mexico, can we doubt, that the military 
 force sent by her to Texas, and needed there to enforce 
 the laws, abused its power more or less? That lawless 
 men should be put down by lawless means, especially in a 
 country swept by the spirit of revolution, is an effect too 
 common and natural to excite wonder. The wonder is that 
 Texas escaped with so little injury. Whether she would 
 have suffered at all, had she submitted in good faith to the 
 laws which she had pledged herself to obey, may be fairly 
 questioned. I ask you, Sir, whether it is not your delib- 
 erate conviction, that Mexico, from the beginning of her 
 connexion with the colonists, has been more sinned against 
 than sinning. But allowing that the violent means, used 
 by Mexico for enforcing her authority, were less provoked 
 than we believe them to have been ; did not the Texans 
 enter the country with a full knowledge of its condition ? 
 Did they not become citizens of a state, just escaped from 
 a grinding despotism, just entered into the school of free- 
 
9 
 
 dom, which had been inured for ages to abuses of mili- 
 tary power, and whose short republican history had been 
 made up of civil agitation ? In swearing allegiance to 
 such a state, did they not consent to take their chance of 
 the evils, through which it must have been expected to 
 pass in its way to firm and free institutions ? Was there, 
 or could there be in so unsettled a society, that deliberate, 
 settled, inflexible purpose of spoiling the colonists of their 
 rights, which alone absolves a violation of allegiance from 
 the guilt of treason. 
 
 Some of the grounds, on which the Texans justify their 
 conflict for independence, are so glaringly deficient in 
 truth and reason, that it is hard to avoid suspicion of 
 every defence set up for their revolt. They complain of 
 being denied the right of worshipping God according to 
 the dictates of their consciences; and this they do, though 
 they entered the country and swore allegiance to its gov- 
 ernment, with full knowledge that the Catholic religion was 
 the religion of the State and alone tolerated by the con- 
 stitution. What increases the hollowness and criminality 
 of the pretence, is, that notwithstanding the provision of 
 the constitution, protestant sects had held their meetings 
 undisturbed in Texas, and no persecution had ever taken 
 place on account of difference of creed. 
 
 Another grievance by which they justify their revolt is, 
 that the trial by jury had been withheld; and this complaint 
 they have the courage to make, although they were fully 
 aware, before becoming the adopted citizens of the country, 
 that this mode of trial was utterly unknown to its jurispru- 
 dence, and though, in the constitution of the State of Coa- 
 huila and Texas, the following article had been introduced. 
 " One of the principal subjects for the attention of Con- 
 gress [State Legislature] shall be to establish in criminal 
 cases the trial by jury, extending it gradually, and even 
 
10 
 
 adopting it in civil cases, in proportion as the advantages 
 of this precious institution may be practically developed." 
 
 One of the greatest grievances in the eyes of Texas was 
 the change of the Mexican government from a Federal to 
 a Central or Consolidated form. But this change, however 
 violently brought about, was ratified by the national Con- 
 gress according to the rules prescribed by the constitution, 
 and was sanctioned by the Mexican people. The decree 
 of Congress, introducing this " reform " of the national 
 institutions, declares the system of government "republi- 
 can, popular, and representative," and provides all the 
 organs by which such a government is characterized. 
 What also deserves our consideration in estimating this 
 measure is, that the whole history of Mexico has proved 
 the necessity of substituting a Central for a Federal gov- 
 ernment. Liberty and order can be reconciled and pre- 
 served in that country by no process but by the introduc- 
 tion of more simple and efficient institutions. And yet the 
 Texans, a handful of strangers, raised the standard of re- 
 volt, because the government was changed by a nation of 
 nine millions without their consent. 
 
 I have spoken of the Texans as a handful of people. 
 At the breaking out of the insurrection they were about 
 twenty thousand, including women and children. They 
 were of course wholly unable to achieve or maintain na- 
 tional independence ; so that one condition, which is re- 
 quired to authorize revolution, namely the ability to sustain 
 a government, to perform the duties of sovereignty, they 
 could riot pretend to fulfil. Twenty thousand men, women 
 and children, raising the standard of war and proposing to 
 dismember a mighty empire ! It is very possible that there 
 are suburbs of London, containing an equal number of 
 discontented people, who suffer under and have reason to 
 complain of municipal or national injustice. And may 
 
11 
 
 these fly to arms, set up for a nation, and strive to break 
 the unity of the British dominions? It should also be 
 remembered, that the Texans were not only a drop of the 
 bucket compared with the Mexican population, but that 
 they were a decided minority in the particular state to 
 which they belonged, so that their revolt may be compared 
 to the rising of a county in Massachusetts or Virginia for 
 the purpose of establishing a separate sovereignty, on the 
 ground of some real or imagined violation of right on the 
 part of the Federal or the State government. Still more, 
 this little knot of Texans were far from being unanimous 
 as to the revolt. The older and wealthier inhabitants 
 favored peace. " There were great differences of opinion 
 among the colonists, and even violent party dissensions. 
 Many who were in the quiet enjoyment of their property 
 were opposed to all these hostile movements. The first 
 public declaration of independence was adopted, not by 
 persons assuming to act in a representative capacity, but 
 by about ninety individuals, all, except two, Americans, if 
 we may judge by their names, acting for themselves and 
 recommending a similar course to their fellow-citizens. 
 That declaration furnishes proofs of the dissensions and 
 jealousies of which we have spoken. It proves another 
 fact, that the ancient population of the province was fa- 
 vorable to the new views of the government of Mexico." . 
 In some letters written by Col. S. T. Austin, the founder 
 of the colony, in the year 1834, whilst imprisoned in Mexico 
 on the charge of encouraging revolutionary movements in 
 Texas, we have some remarkable passages, showing the 
 aversion of the sounder part of the population to violent 
 measures. " I* wish my friends and all Texas to adopt and 
 firmly adhere to the motto and rule I have stated in this 
 letter. The rule is, to discountenance in the most une- 
 quivocal and efficient manner all persons who are in the 
 
12 
 
 habit of speaking or writing in violent or disrespectful 
 terms of the Mexican people or authorities. I have been 
 led into so much difficulty, and Texas has been so much 
 jeopardized in its true and permanent interests, by inflam- 
 matory men, political fanatics, political adventurers, would- 
 be-great men, vain talkers, and visionary fools, that I begin 
 to lose all confidence except for those who seek their 
 living between the plough handles ; and alas for them ! 
 they are too often sacrificed before they know it. Tol- 
 erate no more violent measures and you will prosper, and 
 obtain from the government all that reasonable men ought 
 to ask for."* It is very plain that of this diminutive colony 
 the more reasonable men, had they not been overborne by 
 the more violent, would have^averted the civil war. Such 
 was the number which set up for a nation ! 
 
 I have no disposition to deny that Texas had grievances 
 to justify complaint. In proof of this I need no documents. 
 That she was not always wisely governed, that her rights 
 were not always respected, who can doubt 1 What else 
 could be expected ? Mexico is not wise. Mexico is not 
 skilled in the science of human rights. Her civilization is 
 very imperfect, as we and the Texans have always known ; 
 and a good government is one of the slowest fruits of 
 civilization. In truth a good government exists nowhere. 
 The errors and vices of rulers entail evils on every state. 
 Especially in an extensive community, some districts will 
 always suffer from unwise, partial, unjust legislation. If 
 every town or county may start up into a sovereign state, 
 whenever it is wronged, society will be given up to per- 
 petual convulsion, and history be one bloody record of re- 
 volt. The rio-ht of insurrection is to be exercised most 
 
 O 
 
 rarely, fearfully, reluctantly, and only in cases of fixed, 
 
 History of Texas, p. 210. Austin's Correspondence. 
 
13 
 
 pronounced, persevering oppression, from which no relief 
 can be found but in force. Nothing is easier than for any 
 and every people to draw up a list of wrongs ; nothing 
 more ruinous, than to rebel because every claim is not 
 treated with respect. The United States did not throw off 
 the British yoke, because every human right, which could 
 be demonstrated by moral science, was not granted them ; 
 but because they were denied the rights which their fathers 
 had enjoyed, and which had been secured to the rest of the 
 empire. They began with pleading precedent. They took 
 their first stand on the British constitution. They claimed 
 the rights of Englishmen. They set up the case of peculiar 
 oppression; and did not appeal to arms, until they had 
 sought redress for years by patient and respectful remon- 
 strance; until they had exhausted every means of con- 
 ciliation which wisdom could devise or a just self-respect 
 would allow. Such was the code of national morality to 
 which our fathers bowed ; and in so doing they acknowl- 
 edged the sacredness of allegiance, and manifested their 
 deep conviction of the fearful responsibility of subverting 
 a government and of rupturing national ties. A province, 
 in estimating its grievances, should have respect to the 
 general condition of the country to which it belongs. A 
 colony, emigrating from a highly civilized country, has no 
 right to expect in a less favored state the privileges it has 
 left behind. The Texans must have been insane, if, on 
 entering Mexico, they looked for an administration as 
 faultless as that under which they had lived. They might 
 with equal reason have planted themselves in Russia, and 
 then have unfurled the banner of independence near the 
 throne of the Czar, because denied the immunities of their 
 native land. s 
 
 Having thus considered the grievances of the Texans, I 
 now proceed to consider the real and great causes of the 
 2 
 
14 
 
 revolt. These are matters of notoriety so as to need no 
 minute exposition. The first great cause was the un- 
 bounded, unprincipled spirit of land speculation, which so 
 tempting a prize as Texas easily kindled in multitudes in 
 the United States, where this mode of gambling is too 
 common a vice. Large grants of land in Texas were 
 originally made to individuals, chiefly citizens of our 
 country, who, in many cases, transferred their claims to 
 joint-stock companies in some of our cities. A quotation 
 will illustrate the nature of these grants and the frauds and 
 speculations to which they gave birth, " The nominal 
 grantee is called the emprcsario. He is considered by 
 the terms of the contract, merely as a trustee of the gov- 
 ernment, having no title himself to the land within the 
 limits of his future colony, except upon condition of 
 settling a number of families [within a given time]. The 
 settlers themselves receive a title for each family for a 
 league square, upon the express condition of settlement and 
 cultivation, and the payment of certain very moderate 
 charges within a limited period. It is believed, that these 
 conditions were by the colonization laws of Mexico the 
 basis of all the land titles in Texas, together with the 
 further condition, that all right and title should be forfeited, 
 if the grantee [or new settler] should abandon the country, 
 or sell his land before having cultivated it. An inspection 
 of the various maps of Texas will show how numerous 
 have been these privileges conceded to various empresarios. 
 The face of the province from Neuces to Red River and 
 from the gulf to the mountains is nearly covered by them. 
 It became at last a matter of greedy speculation ; and it is 
 a notorious fact, that many of the empresarios, forgetting 
 the contingent character of their own rights to the soil, 
 and the conditions upon which their future colonists were 
 to receive allotments of land, proceeded at once to make 
 
15 
 
 out scrip, which has been sold in the United States to an 
 incalculable amount. In addition to this, we are informed 
 on the best authority, that the manufacture of land titles, 
 having no foundation whatever, has been carried on as a 
 regular business. That frauds of these different kinds 
 have been practised on the cupidity and credulity of the 
 people of the United States, is beyond doubt. Had the 
 close of the present campaign been what its opening 
 seemed to portend, and the colonies been broken up, it 
 would be impossible to calculate the losses which would be 
 sustained by those who have never seen the land which they 
 have bought. It is not hazarding too much to say, that 
 millions have been expended in the Southern and South- 
 western States." 
 
 Texas indeed has been regarded as a prey for land 
 speculators within its own borders and in the United States. 
 To show the scale on which this kind of plunder has been 
 carried on, it may be stated, that the Legislature of Coahuila 
 and Texas, in open violation of the laws of Mexico, were 
 induced " by a company of land speculators, never dis- 
 tinctly known, to grant them, in consideration of twenty 
 thousand dollars, the extent of four hundred square leagues 
 of the public land.* This transaction was disavowed, and 
 the grant annulled, by the Mexican government, and led 
 to the dispersion of the legislature, and the imprisonment 
 of the governor, Viesca. And yet this unauthorized, and 
 perhaps corrupt grant of public lands formed the basis of 
 new speculation and frauds. A new scrip was formed ; 
 and according to the best information we have been able to 
 obtain, four hundred leagues became, in the hands of 
 speculators, as many thousands. The extent of these 
 frauds is yet to be ascertained ; for such is the blindness of 
 
 * Another account says, 411 leagues for thirty thousand dollars. 
 
16 
 
 cupidity, that any thing which looks fair on paper, passes 
 without scrutiny, for a land title in Texas." The indigna- 
 tion excited in the Mexican government by this enormous 
 grant, and the attempt to seize the legislators who perpe- 
 trated it, were among the immediate excitements to the 
 revolt. In consequence of these lawless proceedings, great 
 numbers in this country and Texas have nominal titles to 
 land, which can only be substantiated by setting aside the 
 authority of the General Congress of Mexico, and are of 
 consequence directly and strongly interested in severing 
 this province from the Mexican confederacy. Texan inde- 
 pendence can alone legalize the mighty frauds of the land 
 speculator. Texas must be wrested from the country to 
 which she owes allegiance, that her soil may pass into the 
 hands of cheating and cheated foreigners. We have here 
 one explanation of the zeal, with which the Texan cause 
 was embraced in the United States. From this country 
 the great impulse has been given to the Texan revolution ; 
 and a principal motive has been> the unappeasable hunger 
 for Texan land. An interest in that soil, whether real or 
 fictitious, has been spread over our country. Thus " the 
 general zeal for freedom " which has stirred and armed so 
 many of our citizens to fight for Texas, turns out to be a 
 passion for unrighteous spoil. 
 
 I proceed to another cause of the revolt, and this was 
 the resolution to throw Texas open to slaveholders and 
 slaves. Mexico, at the moment of throwing off the Spanish 
 yoke, gave a noble testimony of her loyalty to free prin- 
 ciples, by decreeing, " that no person thereafter should be 
 born a slave or introduced as such into the Mexican States; 
 that all slaves then held, should receive stipulated wages, 
 and be subject to no punishment but on trial and judgment 
 by the magistrate." The subsequent acts of the govern- 
 ment carried out fully these constitutional provisions. It 
 
17 
 
 is matter of deep grief and humiliation, that the emigrants 
 from this country, whilst boasting of superior civilization, 
 refused to second this honorable policy, intended to set 
 limits to one of the greatest social evils. Slaves were 
 brought into Texas with their masters from the neighboring 
 States of this country. One mode of evading the laws was, 
 to introduce slaves under formal indentures for long 
 periods, in some cases it is said for ninety-nine years. By 
 a decree of the State Legislature of Coahuila and Texas, 
 all indentures for a longer period than ten years were an- 
 nulled, and provision was made for the freedom of children 
 born during this apprenticeship. This settled, invincible 
 purpose of Mexico to exclude slavery from her limits 
 created as strong a purpose to annihilate her authority in 
 Texas. By this prohibition, Texas was virtually shut 
 against emigration from the Southern and Western portions 
 of this country ; and it is well known that the eyes of the 
 South and West had for some time been turned to this 
 province, as a new market for slaves, as a new field for 
 slave labor, and as a vast accession of political power to 
 the slaveholding States. That such views were prevalent, 
 we know ; for, nefarious as they are, they found their way 
 into the public prints. The project of dismembering a 
 neighboring republic, that slaveholders and slaves might 
 overspread a region which had been consecrated to a free 
 population, was discussed in newspapers as coolly as if it 
 were a matter of obvious right and unquestionable humanity. 
 A powerful interest was thus created for severing from 
 Mexico her distant province. We have here a powerful 
 incitement to the Texan revolt, and another explanation of 
 the eagerness, with which men and money were thrown 
 from the United States into that region to carry on the war 
 of revolution. 
 
 a* 
 
18 
 
 I proceed to another circumstance, which helped to de- 
 termine or at least to hasten the insurrection; and that was 
 the disappointment of the Texans in their efforts to obtain 
 for themselves an organization as a separate state. Texas 
 and Coahuila had hitherto formed a single State. But the 
 colonists, being a minority in the joint legislature, found 
 themselves thwarted in their plans. Impatient of this re- 
 straint, and probably suffering at times from a union which 
 gave the superiority to others, they prepared for themselves 
 a constitution, by which they were to be erected into a 
 separate State, neglecting in their haste the forms prescribed 
 by the Mexican law. This instrument they forwarded to 
 the capital for the sanction of the General Congress, by 
 whom it was immediately rejected. Its informality was a 
 sufficient reason for its finding no better reception ; but 
 the omission of all provision to secure the country against 
 slavery was a more serious obstacle to its ratification. The 
 irritation of the Texans was great. Once invested with 
 the powers of a State, they would not have found it difficult, 
 in their remoteness from the capital and in the unsettled 
 state of the nation, to manage their affairs in their own 
 way. A virtual independence might have been secured, 
 and the laws of Mexico evaded with impunity. Their ex- 
 asperation was increased by the imprisonment of the agent 
 who had carried the instrument to Mexico, and who had 
 advised them, in an intercepted letter, to take matters into 
 their own hands, or to organize a State Government without 
 authority from the National Congress. Thus denied the 
 privilege of a separate State, and threatened with new at- 
 tempts on the part of the General Government to enforce 
 the laws, they felt that the critical moment had arrived ; 
 and, looking abroad for help, resolved to take the chances 
 of a conflict with the crippled power of Mexico* 
 
19 
 
 Such were the chief excitements to the revolt. Un- 
 doubtedly, the Texans were instigated by the idea of 
 wrongs, as well as by mercenary hopes. But had they 
 yielded true obedience to the country of which they had, 
 with their own free will, become a part; had they submitted 
 to the laws relating to the revenue, to the sale of lands, 
 and to slavery ; the wrongs of which they complained might 
 never have been experienced, or might never have been 
 construed into a plea for insurrection. The great motives 
 to revolt on which I have insisted are so notorious, that it 
 is wonderful that any among us could be cheated into sym- 
 pathy with the Texan cause, as the cause of freedom. 
 Slavery and fraud lay at its very foundation. It is notori- 
 ous, that land speculators, slaveholders, and selfish adven- 
 turers were among the foremost to proclaim and engage in 
 the crusade for " Texan liberties." From the hands of 
 these we are invited to receive a province, torn from a 
 country to which we have given pledges of amity and 
 peace. In these remarks, I do not of course intend to say 
 that every invader of Texas was carried thither by selfish 
 motives. Some, I doubt not, were impelled by a generous 
 interest in what bore the name of liberty; and more by 
 that natural sympathy which incites a man to take part 
 with his countrymen against a stranger, without stopping 
 to ask whether they are right or wrong. But the motives, 
 which rallied the great efficient majority round the standard 
 of Texas, were such as have been exposed, and should 
 awaken any sentiment but respect. 
 
 Having considered the motives of the revolution, I 
 proceed to inquire, how was it accomplished ? The 
 answer to this question will show more fully the criminality 
 of the enterprise. The Texans, we have seen, were a few 
 thousands, as unfit for sovereignty as one of our towns; 
 and, if left to themselves, must have utterly despaired 
 
20 
 
 of achieving independence. They looked abroad ; and 
 to whom did they look ? To any foreign state ? To the 
 government under which they had formerly lived? No; 
 their whole reliance was placed on selfish individuals in a 
 neighboring republic at peace with Mexico. They looked 
 wholly to private individuals, to citizens of this country, to 
 such among us, as, defying the laws of the land, and 
 hungry for sudden gain, should be lured by the scent of 
 this mighty prey, and should be ready to stain their hands 
 with blood for spoil. They held out a country as a prize 
 to the reckless, lawless, daring, avaricious, and trusted to 
 the excitements of intoxicated imagination and insatiable 
 cupidity, to supply them with partners in their scheme of 
 violence. 
 
 By whom has Texas been conquered 1 By the colonists 1 
 By the hands which raised the standard of revolt? By 
 foreign governments espousing their cause? No; it has 
 been conquered by your and my countrymen, by citizens 
 of the United States, in violation of our laws and of the 
 laws of nations. We, we have filled the ranks which have 
 wrested Texas from Mexico. In the army of eight hundred 
 men who won the victory which scattered the Mexican 
 force, and made its chief a prisoner, " not more than fifty 
 were citizens of Texas having grievances of their own to 
 seek relief from, on that field." The Texans in this war- 
 fare are little more than a name, a cover, under which 
 selfish adventurers from another country have prosecuted 
 their work of plunder.. 
 
 Some crimes, by their magnitude, have a touch of the 
 sublime ; and to this dignity the seizure of Texas by our 
 citizens is entitled. Modern times furnish no example of 
 individual rapine on so grand a scale. It is nothing less 
 than the robbery of a realm. The pirate seizes a ship. 
 The colonists and their coadjutors can satisfy themselves 
 
21 
 
 with nothing short of an empire. They have left their 
 Anglo Saxon ancestors behind them. Those barbarians 
 conformed to the maxims of their age, to the rude code of 
 nations in time of thickest heathen darkness. They in- 
 vaded England under their sovereigns, and with the sanction 
 of the gloomy religion of the North. But it is in a civil- 
 ized age, and amidst refinements of manners ; it is amidst 
 the lights of science arid the teachings of Christianity, 
 amidst expositions of the law of nations and enforcements 
 of the law of universal love, amidst institutions of religion, 
 learning, and humanity, that the robbery of Texas has 
 found its instruments. It is from a free, well-ordered, 
 enlightened Christian country, that hordes have gone 
 forth in open day, to perpetrate this mighty wrong. 
 
 Let me now ask, are the United States prepared to re- 
 ceive from these hands the gift of Texas 1 In annexing it 
 to this country, shall we not appropriate to ourselves the 
 fruits of a rapine which we ought to have suppressed? We 
 certainly should shrink from a proposition to receive a 
 piratical state into our confederacy. And of whom does 
 Texas consist? Very much of our own citizens, who have 
 won a country by waging war against a foreign nation, to 
 which we owed protection against such assaults. Does it 
 consist with national honor, with national virtue, to receive 
 to our embrace men who have prospered by crimes which 
 we were bound to reprobate and repress? 
 
 Had this country resisted with its whole power the law- 
 lessness" of its citizens ; had these, notwithstanding such 
 opposition, succeeded in extorting from Mexico a recogni- 
 tion of independence ; and were their sovereignty acknow- 
 ledged by other nations, we should stand acquitted, in the 
 sight of the civilized world, of participating in their crime, 
 were considerations of policy to determine us to admit 
 them into our Union. Unhappily the United States have 
 
22 
 
 not discharged the obligation of a neutral State. They 
 have suffered, by a culpable negligence, the violation of the 
 Mexican territory by their citizens ; and if now, in the 
 midst of the conflict, whilst Mexico yet threatens to enforce 
 her claims, they should proceed to incorporate Texas 
 with themselves, they would involve themselves, before all 
 nations, in the whole infamy of the revolt. The United 
 States have not been just to Mexico. Our citizens did not 
 steal singly, silently, in disguise into that land. Their 
 purpose of dismembering Mexico, and attaching her distant 
 province to this country, was not wrapt in mystery. It was 
 proclaimed in our public prints. Expeditions were openly 
 fitted out within our borders for the Texan war. Troops 
 were organized, equipped, and marched for the scene of 
 action. Advertisements for volunteers to be enrolled and 
 conducted to Texas at the expense of that territory, were 
 inserted in our newspapers. The government, indeed, 
 issued its proclamation, forbidding these hostile prepara- 
 tions ; but this was a dead letter. Military companies, with 
 officers and standards, in defiance of proclamations, and in 
 the face of day, directed their steps to the revolted prov- 
 ince. We had, indeed, an army near the frontiers of 
 Mexico. Did it turn' back these invaders of a land with 
 which we were at peace ? On the contrary, did not its 
 presence give confidence to the revolters? After this, 
 what construction of our conduct shall we force on the 
 world, if we proceed, especially at this moment, to receive 
 into our Union the territory, which, through our neglect, 
 has fallen a prey to lawless invasion ? Are we willing to 
 take our place among robber-states ? As a people, have 
 we no self-respect? Have we no reverence for national 
 morality 1 Have we no feeling of responsibility to other 
 nations, and to Him by whom the fates of nations are dis- 
 posed ? 
 
23 
 
 II. Having unfolded the argument against the annexa- 
 tion of Texas from the criminality of the revolt, I proceed 
 to a second very solemn consideration, namely, that by this 
 act our country will enter on a career of encroachment, 
 war, and crime, and will merit and incur the punishment 
 and woe of aggravated wrong doing. The seizure of Texas 
 will not stand alone. It will darken our future history. It 
 will be linked by an iron necessity to long continued deeds 
 of rapine and blood. Ages may not see the catastrophe of 
 the tragedy, the first scene of which we are so ready to 
 enact. It is strange that nations should be so much more 
 rash than individuals ; and this, in the face of experience, 
 which has been teaching from the beginning of society, 
 that, of all precipitate and criminal deeds, those perpetrated 
 by nations are the most fruitful of misery. 
 
 Did this country know itself, or were it disposed to profit 
 by self-knowledge, it would feel the necessity of laying an 
 immediate curb on its passion for extended territory. It 
 would not trust itself to new acquisitions. It would shrink 
 from the temptation to conquest. We are a restless people, 
 prone to encroachment, impatient of the ordinary laws of 
 progress, less anxious to consolidate and perfect, than to 
 extend our institutions, more ambitious of spreading our- 
 selves over a wide space, than of diffusing beauty and fruit- 
 fulness over a narrower field. We boast of our rapid 
 growth, forgetting that, throughout nature, noble growths 
 are slow. Our people throw themselves beyond the bounds 
 of civilization, and expose themselves to relapses into a 
 semi-barbarous state, under the impulse of wild imagina- 
 tion, and for the name of great possessions. Perhaps 
 there is no people on earth, on whom the ties of local 
 attachment sit so loosely. Even the wandering tribes of 
 Scythia are bound to one spot, the graves of their fathers ; 
 but the homes and graves of our fathers detain us feebly. 
 
24 
 
 The known and familiar is often abandoned for the distant 
 and untrodden ; and sometimes the untrodden is not the 
 less eagerly desired because belonging to others. We owe 
 this spirit in a measure, to our descent from men, who left 
 the old world for the new, the seats of ancient cultivation 
 for a wilderness, and who advanced by driving before them 
 the old occupants of the soil. To this spirit we have 
 sacrificed justice and humanity, arid, through its ascen- 
 dancy, the records of this young nation are stained with 
 atrocities, at which communities grown grey in corruption 
 might blush. 
 
 It is full time, that we should lay on ourselves serious, 
 resolute restraint. Possessed of a domain, vast enough for 
 the growth of ages, it is time for us to stop in the career 
 of acquisition and conquest. Already endangered by our 
 greatness, we cannot advance without imminent peril to our 
 institutions, union, prosperity, virtue, and peace. Our 
 former additions of territory have been justified by the 
 necessity of obtaining outlets for the population of the 
 South and the West. No such pretext exists for the occu- 
 pation of Texas. We cannot seize upon or join to our- 
 selves that territory, without manifesting and strengthening 
 the purpose of setting no limits to our empire. We give 
 ourselves an impulse, which will and must precipitate 
 us into new invasions of our neighbors' soil. Is it by 
 pressing forward in this course that we are to learn self- 
 restraint ? Is cupidity to be appeased by gratification? 
 Is it by unrighteous grasping, that an impatient people will 
 be instructed how to hem themselves within the rigid 
 bounds of justice 1 
 
 Texas is a country conquered by our citizens ; and 
 the annexation of it to our Union will be the beginning of 
 conquests, which, unless arrested and beaten back by a 
 just and kind Providence, will stop only at the Isthmus of 
 
25 
 
 Darien. Henceforth, we must cease to cry peace, peace. 
 Our Eagle will whet, not gorge its appetite on its first 
 victim ; and will snuff a more tempting quarry, more 
 allurino- blood, in every new region which opens southward. 
 To annex Texas, is to declare perpetual war with Mexico. 
 That word, Mexico, associated in men's minds with 
 boundless wealth, has already awakened rapacity. Already 
 it has been proclaimed, that the Anglo Saxon race is 
 destined to the sway of this magnificent realm, that the 
 rude form of society, which Spain established there, is to 
 yield *and vanish before a higher civilization. Without 
 this exposure of plans of rapine and subjugation, the re- 
 sult, as far as our will can determine it, is plain. Texas is 
 the first step to Mexico. The moment we plant our author- 
 ity on Texas, the boundaries of those two countries will 
 become nominal, will be little more than lines on the sand 
 of the seashore. In the fact, that portions of the Southern 
 and Western States are already threatened with devasta- 
 tion, through the impatience of multitudes to precipitate 
 themselves into the Texan land of promise, we have a 
 pledge and earnest of the flood which will pour itself still 
 farther south, when Texas shall be but partially overrun. 
 
 Can Mexico look without alarm on the approaches of 
 this ever growing tide ? Is she prepared to be a passive 
 prey ? to shrink and surrender without a struggle? Is she 
 not strong in her hatred, if not in her fortresses or skill? 
 Strong enough to make war a dear and bloody game ? 
 Can she not bring to bear on us a force, more formidable 
 than fleets, the force of privateers, that is, of legalized pirates, 
 which, issuing from her ports, will scour the seas, prey on 
 our commerce, and add to spoliation, cruelty and murder ? 
 
 Even were the dispositions of our government most 
 pacific and opposed to encroachment, the annexation of 
 Texas would almost certainly embroil us with Mexico. 
 3 
 
26 
 
 This territory would be overrun by adventurers; and the 
 most unprincipled of these, the proscribed, the disgraced, 
 the outcasts of society, would, of course, keep always in 
 advance of the better population. These would represent 
 our republic on the borders of the Mexican States. The 
 history of the connexion of such men with the Indians, 
 forewarns us of the outrages, which would attend their 
 contact with the border inhabitants of our southern neigh- 
 bor. Texas, from its remoteness from the seat of govern- 
 ment, would be feebly restrained by the authorities of the 
 nation to which it would belong. Its whole early history 
 would be a lesson of scorn for Mexico, an education for 
 invasion of her soil. Its legislature would find in its posi- 
 tion some color for stretching to the utmost the doctrine 
 of state-sovereignty. It would not hear unmoved the cries 
 for protection and vengeance, which would break from the 
 frontier, from the very men whose lawlessness would pro- 
 voke the cruelties so indignantly denounced ; nor would it 
 sift very anxiously the question, on which side the wrong 
 began. To the wisdom, moderation,, and tender mercies 
 of the back-settlers and law-givers of Texas, the peace of 
 this country would be committed. 
 
 Have we counted the cost of establishing and making 
 perpetual these hostile relations with Mexico? Will wars, 
 begun in rapacity, carried on so far from the centre of the 
 confederation, and, of consequence, little checked or con- 
 trolled by Congress, add strength to our institutions, or 
 cement our union, or exert a healthy moral influence on 
 rulers or people? What limits can be set to the atrocities 
 of such conflicts? What limits to the treasures, which 
 must be lavished on such distant borders? What limits to 
 the patronage and power, which such distant expeditions 
 must accumulate in the hands of the Executive ? Are the 
 blood and hard-earned wealth of the older states to be 
 
27 
 
 poured out like watSr, to protect and revenge a new 
 people, whose character and condition will plunge them 
 into perpetual wrongs ? 
 
 Is the time never to come, when the neighborhood of a 
 more powerful and civilized people, will prove a blessing 
 instead of a curse to an inferior community ? It was my 
 hope, when the Spanish colonies of this continent sepa- 
 rated themselves from the mother country, and, in admira- 
 tion of the United States, adopted republican institutions, 
 that they were to find in us, friends to their freedom, 
 helpers to their civilization. If ever a people, were placed 
 by Providence in a condition to do good to a neighboring 
 state, we of this country sustained such a relation to Mex- 
 ico. That nation, inferior in science, arts, agriculture, and 
 legislation, looked to us with a generous trust. She opened 
 her ports and territories to our farmers, mechanics, and 
 merchants. We might have conquered her by the only 
 honorable arms, by the force of superior intelligence, in- 
 dustry, and morality. We might silently have poured in 
 upon her our improvements ; and by the infusion of our 
 population have assimilated her to ourselves. Justice, good- 
 will, and profitable intercourse might have cemented a 
 lasting friendship. And what is now the case ? A deadly 
 hatred burns in Mexico towards this country. No stronger 
 national sentiment now binds her scattered provinces to- 
 gether, than dread and detestation of Republican America. 
 She is ready to attach herself to Europe for defence from 
 the United States. All the moral power, which we might 
 have gained over Mexico, we have thrown away; and 
 suspicion, dread, and abhorrence, have supplanted respect 
 and trust. 
 
 I am aware that these remarks are met by a vicious rea- 
 soning, which discredits a people among whom it finds 
 favor. It is sometimes said, that nations are swayed by 
 
28 
 
 laws, as unfailing as those which govern matter ; that they 
 have their destinies ; that their character and position carry 
 them forward irresistibly to their goal ; that the stationary 
 Turk must sink under the progressive civilization of 
 Russia, as inevitably as the crumbling edifice falls to the 
 earth ; that, by a like necessity, the Indians have melted 
 before the white man, and the mixed, degraded race of 
 Mexico must melt before the Anglo Saxon. Away with 
 this vile sophistry. There is no necessity for crime. 
 There is no fate to justify rapacious nations, any more 
 than to justify gamblers and robbers, in plunder. We 
 boast of the progress of society, and this progress consists 
 in the substitution of reason and moral principle for the 
 sway of brute force. It is true, that more civilized must 
 always exert a great power over less civilized commu- 
 nities in their neighborhood. But it may and should be a 
 power to enlighten and improve, not to crush and destroy. 
 We talk of accomplishing our destiny. So did the late con- 
 queror of Europe ; and destiny consigned him to a lonely 
 rock in the ocean, the prey of an ambition which destroyed 
 no peace but his own. 
 
 Hitherto, I have spoken of the annexation of Texas as 
 embroiling us with Mexico ; but it will not stop here. It 
 will bring us into collision witji other states. It will, almost 
 of necessity, involve us in hostility with European powers. 
 Such are now the connexions of nations, that Europe must 
 look with jealousy on a country, whose ambition, seconded 
 by vast resources, will seem to place within her grasp the 
 empire of the new world. And not only general considera- 
 tions of this nature, but the particular relation of certain 
 foreign states to this continent, must tend to destroy the 
 peace now happily subsisting between us and the kingdoms 
 of Europe. England, in particular, must watch us with 
 suspicion, and cannot but resist our appropriation of Texas 
 
29 
 
 to ourselves. She has at once a moral and political inter- 
 est in this question, which demands, and will justify inter- 
 ference. 
 
 First, England has a moral interest in this question. 
 The annexation of Texas is sought by us for the very pur- 
 pose of extending slavery, and thus will necessarily give 
 new life and extension to the slave trade. A new and vast 
 market for slaves cannot, of course, be opened, without 
 inviting and obtaining a supply from abroad, as well as 
 from this country. The most solemn treaties, and ships 
 of war lining the African coast, do not, and cannot sup- 
 press this infernal traffic, as long as the slaver, freighted 
 with stolen, chained, and wretched captives, can obtain a 
 price proportioned to the peril of the undertaking. Now 
 England has long made it a part of her foreign policy, to 
 suppress the slave trade ; and, of late, a strong public feel- 
 ing impels the government to resist, as far as may be, the 
 extension of slavery. Can we expect her to be a passive 
 spectator of a measure, by which her struggles for years in 
 the cause of humanity, and some of her strongest national 
 feelings are to be withstood? 
 
 England is a privileged nation. On one part of her his- 
 tory, she can look with unmixed self-respect. With the 
 exception of the promulgation of Christianity, I know not 
 a moral effort so glorious, as the long, painful, victorious 
 struggle of her philanthropists against that concentration 
 of all horrors, cruelties, and crimes, the slave trade. Next 
 to this, her recent emancipation act is the most signal ex- 
 pression, afforded by our times, of the progress of civiliza- 
 tion and a purer Christianity. Other nations have won 
 imperishable honors by heroic struggles for their own 
 rights. But there was wanting the example of a nation 
 espousing, with disinterestedness, and amidst great obsta- 
 cles, the rights of others, the rights of those who had no 
 3* 
 
30 
 
 claim but that of a common humanity, the rights of the 
 most fallen of the race. Great Britain, loaded with an 
 unprecedented debt and with a grinding taxation, con- 
 tracted a new debt of a hundred million dollars, to give 
 freedom, not to Englishmen, but to the degraded African. 
 This was not an act of policy, riot a work of statesmen. 
 Parliament but registered the edict of the people. The 
 English nation, with one heart and one voice, under a 
 strong Christian impulse, and without distinction of rank, 
 sex, party, or religious names, decreed freedom to the slave. 
 I know not, that history records a national act so disinter- 
 ested, so sublime. In the progress of ages, England's 
 naval triumphs will shrink into a more and more narrow 
 space in the records of our race. This moral triumph will 
 fill a broader, brighter page. Is not England, representing 
 as she does in this case the civilized world, authorized, 
 and even bound to remonstrate in the name of humanity 
 and religion, against a measure, by which the great work, 
 for which she has so long toiled, is to be indefinitely 
 postponed. 
 
 But England has a political as well as moral interest in 
 this question. By the annexation of Texas we shall ap- 
 proach her liberated colonies ; we shall build up a power 
 in her neighborhood, to which no limits can be prescribed. 
 By adding Texas to our acquisition of Florida, we shall 
 do much toward girdling the Gulf of Mexico ; and I" 
 doubt not, that some of our politicians will feel, as if our 
 mastery in that sea were sure. The .West Indian Archi- 
 pelago, in which the European is regarded as an intruder, 
 will, of course, be embraced in our ever-growing scheme of 
 empire. In truth, collision with the West Indies will be the 
 most certain effect of the extension of our power in that 
 quarter. The example, which they exhibit, of African free- 
 dom, of the elevation of the colored race to the rights of men, 
 
31 
 
 is of all influences most menacing to slavery at the South. 
 It must grow continually more perilous. These islands, un- 
 less interfered with from abroad, seem destined to be nurse- 
 ries of civilization and freedom to the African race. The 
 white race must melt more and more before the colored, if 
 both are left to free competition. The Europeans, unnerved 
 by the climate, and forming but a handful of the popula- 
 tion, cannot stand before the African, who revels in the 
 heat of the tropics, and is to develope under it all his ener- 
 gies. Will a slaveholding people, spreading along the 
 shores of the Mexican Gulf, cultivate friendly sentiments 
 towards communities, whose whole history will be a bitter 
 reproach to their institutions, a witness against their 
 wrongs, and whose ardent sympathies will be enlisted in 
 the cause of the slave? Cruel, ferocious conflicts must 
 growfrom this neighborhood of hostile principles, of com- 
 munities regarding one another with unextinguis-hable 
 hatred. All the islands of the Archipelago will have cause 
 to dread our power ; but none so much as the emancipated. 
 Is it not more than possible, that wars, having for an object 
 the subjugation of the colored race, the destruction of this 
 tempting example of freedom, should spring from the pro- 
 posed extension of our dominion along the Mexican Gulf? 
 Can England view our encroachments without alarm ? I 
 know it is thought, that, staggering, as she does, under her 
 enormous debt, she will be slow to engage in war. But 
 other nations of Europe have islands in the same neighbor- 
 hood, to induce them to make common cause with her. 
 Other nations look with jealousy on our peculiar institu- 
 tions and our growing maritime power. Other nations 
 are unwilling, that we should engross or control the whole 
 commerce of the Mexican Gulf. We ought to remem- 
 ber, that this jealousy is sanctioned by our own example. 
 It is understood, that, at one period of the internal disor- 
 
32 
 
 ders of Spain, which rendered all her foreign possessions 
 insecure, we sought from France and Great Britain assur- 
 ances that they, would not possess themselves of Cuba. 
 Still more, after the revolt of her colonies from Spain, and 
 after our recognition of their independence, it was 
 announced to the nations of Europe, in the mes- 
 sage of the president, that we should regard" as hos- 
 tile, any interference, on their part, with these new 
 governments, " for the purpose of oppressing them, or 
 controlling their destiny in any other way." I, of course, 
 have no communication with foreign cabinets; but I can- 
 not doubt that Great Britain has remonstrated against 
 the annexation of Texas to this country. An English 
 minister would be unworthy of his office, who should 
 see another state greedily swallowing up territories in the 
 neighborhood of British colonies, and not strive, by all just 
 means, to avert the danger. I have just referred to the 
 warning given by us to the powers of Europe, to abstain 
 from appropriating to themselves the colonies torn from 
 Spain. How will Europe interpret our act, if we now seize 
 Texas and take this stride towards Mexico ? Will she not 
 suspect, that we purposed to drive away the older vultures, 
 in order to keep the victim to ourselves ; that, conscious of 
 growing power, we foresaw, in the exclusion of foreign states, 
 the sure extension of our own dominion over the new world? 
 Can we expect those powers, with such an example before 
 them, to heed our warning? Will they look patiently on, 
 and see the young vulture feasting on the nearest prey, and 
 fleshing itself for the spoils which their own near posses- 
 sions will soon present ? Will it be strange, if hunger for 
 a share of the plunder, as well as the principle of self de- 
 fence, should make this continent the object of their 
 policy to an extent we have never dreamed ? 
 
33 
 
 It is of great and manifest importance, that we should 
 use every just means to separate this continent from the 
 politics of Europe, that we should prevent, as far as pos- 
 sible, all connexion, except commercial, between the old and 
 the new world, that we should give to foreign states no 
 occasion or pretext for insinuating themselves into our 
 affairs. For this end, we should maintain towards our sister 
 republics a more liberal policy than was ever adopted by 
 nation towards nation. We should strive to appease their 
 internal divisions, and to reconcile them to each other. We 
 should even make sacrifices to build up their strength. 
 Weak and divided, they cannot but lean on foreign sup- 
 port. No pains should be spared to prevent or allay the 
 jealousies, which the great superiority of this country is 
 suited to awaken. By an opposite policy we shall favor 
 foreign interference. By encroaching on Mexico, we shall 
 throw her into the arms of European States, shall compel 
 her to seek defence in transatlantic alliance. How plain is 
 it, that alliance with Mexico will be hostility to the United 
 States, that her defenders will repay themselves by making 
 her subservient to their views, that they will thus strike 
 root in her soil, monopolize her trade and control her re- 
 sources. And with what face can we resist the aggressions 
 of others on our neighbor, if we give an example of aggres- 
 sion ? Still more, if by our advances we put the colonies 
 of England in new peril, with what face can we oppose her 
 occupation of Cuba? Suppose her, with that magnificent 
 Island in her hands, to command the Mexican Gulf and 
 the mouths of the Mississippi. Will the Western States 
 find compensation for this formidable neighborhood, in 
 the privilege of flooding Texas with slaves? 
 
 Thus, wars with Europe and Mexico are to be entailed 
 on us by the annexation of Texas. And is war the policy 
 by which this country is to flourish ? Was it for inter- 
 minable conflicts that we formed our Union? Is it blood, 
 
34 
 
 shed for plunder, which is to consolidate our institutions ? 
 Is it by collision with the greatest maritime power, that 
 our commerce is to gain strength? Is it by arming against 
 ourselves the moral sentiments of the world, that we are to 
 build up national honor ? Must we of the North buckle 
 on our armor, to fight the battles of slavery ; to fight for a 
 possession, which our moral principles and just jealousy 
 forbid us to incorporate with our confederacy? In attach- 
 ing Texas to ourselves, we provoke hostilities, and at the 
 same time expose new points of attack to our foes. Vul- 
 nerable at so many points, we shall need a vast military 
 force. Great armies will require great revenues, and raise 
 up great chieftains. Are we tired of freedom, that we are 
 prepared to place it under such guardians ? Is the republic 
 bent on dying by its own hands? Does not every man 
 feel, that, with war for our habit, our institutions can- 
 not be preserved? If ever a country were bound to 
 peace, it is this. Peace is our great interest. In peace 
 our resources are to be developed, the true interpre- 
 tation of the constitution to be established, and the inter- 
 fering claims of liberty and order to be adjusted. In peace 
 we are to discharge our great debt to the human race, and 
 to diffuse freedom by manifesting its fruits. A country has 
 no right to adopt a policy, however gainful, which, as it 
 may foresee, will determine it to a career of war. A na- 
 tion, like an individual, is bound to seek even by sacrifices 
 a position, which will favor peace, justice, and the exercise 
 of a beneficent influence on the world. A nation, provok- 
 ing war by cupidity, by encroachment, and above all by 
 efforts to propagate the curse of slavery, is alike false to 
 itself, to God, and to the human race. 
 
 III. I proceed now to a consideration of what is to me 
 the strongest argument against annexing Texas to the 
 United States. This measure will extend and perpetuate 
 
35 
 
 slavery. I have necessarily glanced at this topic in the 
 preceding pages; but it deserves to be brought out dis- 
 tinctly. I shall speak calmly, but I must speak earnestly; 
 and I feel and rejoice to feel, that, however you may differ 
 from some of my views, yet we do not differ as to the great 
 principle on which all my remarks and remonstrances are 
 founded. Slavery seems to you as to me an evil and a 
 wrong. Your language on this subject has given me a 
 satisfaction, for which I owe you thanks ; and if in what I 
 am now to say, I may use expressions which you may think 
 too strong, I am sure your candor will recognise in them 
 the signs of deep conviction, and will acquit me of all de- 
 sire to irritate or give pain. 
 
 The annexation of Texas, I have said, will extend and 
 perpetuate slavery. It is fitted and still more intended to 
 do so. On this point there can be no doubt. As far back 
 as the year 1829, the annexation of Texas was agitated in 
 the Southern and Western States ; and it was urged on the 
 ground of the strength and extension it would give to the 
 slaveholding interest. In a series of essays ascribed to a 
 gentleman, now a senator in Congress, it was maintained, 
 that five or six slaveholding states would by this measure 
 be added to the Union ; and he even intimated that as 
 many as nine states as large as Kentucky might be formed 
 within the limits of Texas. In Virginia, about the same 
 time, calculations were made as to the increased value 
 which would thus be given to slaves, and it was even said, 
 that this acquisition would raise the price fifty per cent. 
 Of late the language on this subject is most explicit. The 
 great argument for annexing Texas is, that it will strengthen 
 "the peculiar institutions " of the South, and open a new 
 and vast field for slavery. 
 
 By this act, slavery will be spread over regions to which 
 it is now impossible to set limits. Texas, I repeat it, is. 
 
36 
 
 but the first step of aggressions. I trust, indeed, that Provi- 
 dence will beat back and humble our cupidity and ambi- 
 tion. But one guilty success is often suffered to be 
 crowned, as men call it, with greater ; in order that a more 
 awful retribution may at length vindicate the justice of 
 God, and the rights of the oppressed. Texas, smitten with 
 slavery, will spread the infection beyond herself. We know 
 that the tropical regions have been found most propitious 
 to this pestilence; nor can we promise ourselves, that its 
 expulsion from them for a season forbids its return. By 
 annexing Texas, we may send this scourge to a distance, 
 which, if now revealed, would appal us, and through these 
 vast regions every cry of the injured will invoke wrath 
 on our heads. 
 
 By this act, slavery will be perpetuated in the old states 
 as well as spread over new. It is well known, that the soil 
 of some of the old states has become exhausted by slave 
 cultivation. Their neighborhood to communities, which 
 are flourishing under free labor, forces on them perpetual 
 arguments for adopting this better system. They now ad- 
 here to slavery, not on account of the wealth which it 
 extracts from the soil^ but because it furnishes men and 
 women to ,be sold in newly settled arid more southern dis- 
 tricts. It is by slave breeding and slave selling that these 
 states subsist. Take away from them a foreign market, 
 and slavery would die. Of consequence, by opening a new 
 market, it is prolonged and invigorated. By annexing 
 Texas, we shall not only create it where it does not exist, 
 but breathe new life into it, where its end seemed to be 
 near. States, which might and ought to throw it off, will 
 make the multiplication of slaves their great aim and chief 
 resource. 
 
 Nor is the worst told. As I have before intimated, and 
 it cannot be too often repeated, we shall not only quicken 
 
37 
 
 the domestic slave trade ; we shall give a new impulse to 
 the foreign. This indeed we^have pronounced in our laws 
 to be felony ; but we make our laws cobwebs, when we 
 offer to rapacious men strong motives for their violation. 
 Open a market for slaves in an unsettled country, with a 
 sweep of sea-coast, and at such a distance from the seat of 
 government that laws may be evaded with impunity, and how 
 can you exclude slaves from Africa? It is well known that 
 cargoes have been landed in Louisiana. What is to drive 
 them from Texas? In incorporating this region with the 
 Union to make it a slave country, we send the kidnapper 
 to prowl through the jungles, and to dart, like a beast of 
 prey, on the defenceless villages of Africa. We chain the 
 helpless despairing victims ; crowd them into the fetid, 
 pestilential slave ship ; expose them to the unutterable 
 cruelties of the middle passage, and, if they survive it, 
 crush them with perpetual bondage. 
 
 I now ask, whether as a people, we are prepared to seize 
 on a neighboring territory for the end of extending slavery? 
 I ask, wh*ether, as a people, we can stand forth in the sight 
 of God, in the sight of the nations, and adopt this atrocious 
 policy ? Sooner perish ! Sooner be our name blotted out 
 from the record of nations ! 
 
 This is no place for entering into the argument against 
 slavery. I have elsewhere given my views of it. In truth, 
 no argument is needed. The evil of slavery speaks for 
 itself. It is one of those primary, intuitive truths, which 
 need only a fair exhibition to be immediately received. 
 To state, is to condemn this institution. The choice which 
 every freeman makes of death for his child and for every 
 thing he loves, in preference to slavery, shows what it is. 
 The single consideration, that, by slavery, one human being 
 is placed powerless and defenceless in the hands of another, 
 to be driven to whatever labor that other may impose, to 
 4 
 
38 
 
 suffer whatever punishment he may inflict, to live as his 
 tool, the instrument of his j>leasure, this is all that is 
 needed, to satisfy such as know the human heart and its 
 unfitness for irresponsible power, that, of all conditions, 
 slavery is the most hostile to the dignity, self-respect, im- 
 provement, rights, and happiness of human beings. Is it 
 within the bounds of credibility, that a people, boasting of 
 freedom, of civilization, of Christianity, should syste- 
 matically strive to spread this calamity over the earth ? 
 
 To perpetuate and extend slavery is not now, in a moral 
 point of view, what it once was. We cannot shelter our- 
 selves under the errors and usages of our times. We do 
 not belong to the dark ages, or to heathenism. We have 
 not grown up under the prejudices of a blinding, crushing 
 tyranny. We live under free institutions and under the 
 broad light of Christianity. Every principle of our govern- 
 ment and religion condemns slavery. The spirit of our age 
 condemns it. The decree of the civilized world has gone 
 out against it. England has abolished it. France and 
 Denmark meditate its abolition. The chain is falling from 
 the serf in Russia. In the whole circuit of civilized na- 
 tions, with the single exception of the United States, 
 not a voice is lifted up in defence of slavery. All 
 the great names in legislation and religion are against it. 
 The most enduring reputations of our times have been won 
 by resisting it. Recal the great men of this and the last 
 generation, and be they philosophers, philanthropists, poets, 
 economists, statesmen, jurists, all swell the reprobation of 
 slavery. The leaders of opposing religious sects, Wesley, 
 the patriarch of Methodism, Edwards and Hopkins, 
 pillars of Calvinism, join as brothers in one solemn testi- 
 mony against slavery. And is this an age in which a free 
 and Christian people shall deliberately resolve to extend 
 and perpetuate the evil 1 In so doing, we cut ourselves off 
 
39 
 
 from the communion of the nations. We sink below the 
 civilization of our age. We invite the scorn, indignation, 
 and abhorrence of the world. 
 
 Let it not be said, that this opposition of our times to 
 slavery is an accident, a temporary gust of opinion, an 
 eddy in the current of human thought, a fashion to pass 
 away with the present actors on the stage. He, who so 
 says, must have read history with a superficial eye, and is 
 strangely blind to the deepest and most powerful influences 
 which are moulding society. Christianity has done more 
 than all things to determine the character and direction of 
 our present civilization ; and who can question or overlook 
 the tendency and design of this religion ? Christianity has 
 no plainer purpose, than to unite all men as brethren, to 
 make man unutterably dear to man, to pour contempt on 
 outward distinctions, to raise the fallen, to league all in 
 efforts for the elevation of all. Under its influence, 
 the differences of nations and rank are softening. To 
 the establishment of a fraternal relation among men, the 
 science, literature, commerce, education of the Chris- 
 tian world are tending. Who cannot see this mighty 
 movement of Providence ? Who is so blind as to call it a 
 temporary impulse ? Who so daring, so impious, as to 
 strive to arrest it ? 
 
 What is the tendency of all governments in the Christian 
 world ? To secure more and more to every man his rights, 
 be his condition what it may. Even in despotisms, where 
 political rights are denied, private rights are held more and 
 more sacred. The absolute monarch is more and more 
 anxious to improve the laws of the state, and to extend 
 their protection and restraints over all classes and indi- 
 viduals without distinction. Equality before the law, is the 
 maxim of the civilized world. To place the rights of a 
 large part of the community beyond the protection of law, 
 
40 
 
 to place half a people under private, irresponsible power, 
 is to oppose one of the most characteristic and glorious 
 tendencies of modern times. Who has the courage to set 
 down this reverence for private rights among the fashions 
 and caprices of the day ? Is it not founded in everlasting 
 truth ? and dare we, in the face of it, extend and perpetuate 
 an institution, the grand feature of which is, that it tram- 
 ples private rights in the dust ? 
 
 Whoever studies modern history with any care, must 
 discern in it a steady growing movement towards one most 
 interesting result, I mean, towards the elevation of the 
 laboring class of society. This is not a recent, accidental 
 turn of human affairs. We can trace its beo-innino- in the 
 
 O C? 
 
 feudal times, and its slow advances in subsequent periods, 
 until it has become the master movement of our age. Is 
 it not plain, that those who toil with their hands, and 
 whose productive industry is the spring of all wealth, are 
 rising from the condition of beasts of burden, to which 
 they were once reduced ; to the consciousness, intelligence, 
 self-respect, and proper happiness of men? Is it not the 
 strong tendency of our times to diffuse among the many 
 the improvements once confined to the few ? He who over- 
 looks this has no comprehension of the great work of 
 Providence, or of the most signal feature of his times ; and 
 is this an age for efforts to extend and perpetuate an insti- 
 tution, the very object of which is to keep down the laborer, 
 and to make him a machine for another's gratification ? 
 
 I know it has been said in reply to such views, that, do 
 what we will with the laborer, call him what we will, he is 
 and must be in reality, a slave. The doctrine has been 
 published at the South, that nature has made two 
 classes, the rich and the poor, the employer and the em- 
 ployed, the capitalist and the operative, and that the class 
 who work, are to all intents, slaves to those in whose service 
 
41 
 
 they are engaged. In a report on the mail, recently offered 
 to the Senate of the United States, an effort was made to 
 establish resemblances between slavery and the condition of 
 free laborers, for the obvious purpose of showing, that the 
 shades of difference between them are not very strong. 
 Is it possible that such reasonings escaped from a man, 
 who has trod the soil of New England, and was edu- 
 cated at one -of her colleges ? Whom did he meet at 
 that college? The sons of her laborers, young men, 
 whose hands had been hardened at the plough. Does 
 he not know, that the families of laborers have fur- 
 nished every department in life among us with illustrious 
 men, have furnished our heroes in war, our statesmen in 
 council, our orators in the pulpit and at the bar, our mer- 
 chants whose enterprises embrace the whole earth? What! 
 the laborer of the free state a slave, and to be ranked with 
 the despised negro, whom the lash drives to toil, and whose 
 dearest rights are at the mercy of irresponsible power ! If 
 there be a firm independent spirit on earth, it is to be found 
 in the man, who tills the fields of the free states, and mois- 
 tens them with the sweat of his brow. I recently heard of 
 a visitor from the South, compassionating the operatives of 
 our manufactories, as in a worse condition than the slave. 
 What carries the young woman to the manufactory ? Not 
 generally the want of a comfortable home; but sometimes 
 the desire of supplying herself with a wardrobe, which 
 ought to satisfy the affluent, and oftener ihe desire of fur- 
 nishing in more than decent style the home, where she is to 
 sustain the nearest relations, and perform the most sacred 
 duties of life. Generally speaking, each of these young 
 women has her plan of life, her hopes, her bright dreams, 
 her spring of action in her own free-will, and amidst toil 
 she contrives to find seasons for intellectual and religious 
 culture. It is common in New England for the sons of 
 ^ ,- v oq* ei li 
 
42 
 
 farmers to repair to the large towns, and there to establish 
 themselves as domestics in families, a condition which the 
 South will be peculiarly disposed to identify with slavery. 
 But what brings these young men to the city ? The hope of 
 earning in a shorter time a sum, with which to purchase a 
 farm at home or in the West, perhaps to become traders ; 
 and in these vocations they not unfrequently rise to consid- 
 eration, and to what, in their places of residence, is called 
 wealth. I have in my thoughts an individual distinguished 
 alike by vigor and elevation of mind, who began life by hiring 
 himself as a laborer to a farmer, and then entered a family as 
 a domestic ; and now he is the honored associate of the most 
 enlightened men, and devotes himself to the highest subjects 
 of human thought. It is true, that much remains to be done 
 for the laboring class in the most favored regions ; but the in- 
 telligence already spread through this class, is an earnest of 
 a brighter day, of the most glorious revolution in history, of 
 the elevation of the mass of men to the dignity of human 
 beings. 
 
 It is the great mission of this country, to forward this 
 revolution, and never was a sublimer work committed to a 
 nation. Our mission is to elevate society through all its 
 conditions, to secure to every human being the means of 
 progress, to substitute the government of equal laws for that 
 of irresponsible individuals, to prove that, under popular in- 
 stitutions, the people may be carried forward, that the multi- 
 tude who toil are capable of enjoying the noblest blessings 
 of the social state. The prejudice, that labor is a degrada- 
 tion, one of the worst prejudices handed down from barba- 
 rous ages, is to receive here, a practical refutation. The 
 power of liberty to raise up the whole people, this is the 
 great Idea, on which our institutions rest, and which is to 
 be wrought out in our history. Shall a nation having such 
 a mission abjure it, and even fight against the progress which 
 it is specially called to promote. 
 
43 
 
 The annexation of Texas, if it should be accomplished, 
 would do much to determine the future history and charac- 
 ter of this country. It is one of those measures, which call 
 a nation to pause, reflect, look -forward, because their force 
 is not soon exhausted. Many acts of government, intensely 
 exciting at the moment, are yet of little importance, because 
 their influence is too transient to leave a trace on history. 
 A bad administration may impoverish a people at home, or 
 cripple its energies abroad, for a year or more. But such 
 wounds heal soon. A young people soon recruits its powers, 
 and starts forward with increased impulse, after the momen- 
 tary suspension of its activity. The chief interest of a 
 people lies in measures, which, making, perhaps, little noise, 
 go far to fix its character, to determine its policy and fate 
 for ages, to decide its rank among nations. A fearful respon- 
 sibility rests on those who originate or control these pregnant 
 acts. The destiny of millions is in their hands. The 
 execration of millions may fall on their heads. Long after 
 present excitements shall have passed away, long after 
 they and their generation shall have vanished from the 
 earth, the fruits of their agency will be reaped. Such a 
 measure is that of which I now write. It will commit us to 
 a degrading policy, the issues of which lie beyond human 
 foresight. In opening to ourselves vast regions, through 
 which we may spread slavery, and in spreading it for this, 
 among other ends, that the slaveholding states may bear rule 
 in the national councils, we make slavery the predominant 
 interest of the state. We make it the basis of power, the 
 spring or guide of public measures, the object for which the 
 revenues, strength, and wealth of the country, are to be ex- 
 hausted. Slavery will be branded on our front, as the great 
 Idea, the prominent feature of the country. We shall re- 
 nounce our high calling as a people, and accomplish the 
 lowest destiny to which a nation can be bound. 
 
44 
 
 And are we prepared for this degradation ? Are we pre- 
 pared to couple with the name of our country the infamy 
 of deliberately spreading slavery ? and especially of spread- 
 ing it through regions from- which the wise and humane 
 legislation of a neighboring republic had excluded it? We 
 call Mexico a semi-barbarious people ; and yet we talk of 
 planting slavery where Mexico would not suffer it to live. 
 What American will not blush to lift his head in Europe, 
 if this disgrace shall be fastened on his country 1 Let other 
 calamities, if God so will, come on us. Let us be steeped 
 in poverty. Let pestilence stalk through our land. Let famine 
 thin our population. Let the world join hands against our 
 free institutions, and deluge our shores with blood. All this 
 can be endured. A few years of industry and peace will 
 recruit our wasted numbers, and spread fruitfulness over our 
 desolated fields. But a nation devoting itself to the work of 
 spreading and perpetuating slavery, stamps itself with a 
 guilt and shame, which generations may not be able to 
 efface. The plea on which we have rested, that slavery was 
 not our choice, but a sad necessity bequeathed us by our 
 fathers, will avail us no longer. The whole guilt will be 
 assumed by ourselves. 
 
 It is very lamentable, that among the distinguished men 
 of the South, any should be found so wanting to their own 
 fame, as to become advocates of slavery. That vulgar 
 politicians, who look only at the interests of the day and the 
 chances of the next election, should swell the madness of 
 the passions, by which they hope to rise, is a thing of course. 
 But that men, who might leave honorable and enduring 
 record of themselves in their country's history, who might 
 associate their names with their country's progress, and who 
 are solemnly bound by their high gifts to direct and purify 
 public sentiment, that such men should lend their great 
 powers to the extension of slavery, is among the dark symp- 
 
45 
 
 toms of the times. Can such men be satisfied with the sym- 
 pathies and shouts of the little circle around them, and of the 
 passing moment? Have they nothing of that prophetic in- 
 stinct, by which truly great men read the future ? Can 
 they learn nothing from the sentence now passed on men, 
 who, fifty years ago, defended the slave trade 1 We have to 
 rejoice, Sir, that you, amidst the excitements of the time, 
 have always given your testimony against slavery. You have 
 adhered to the doctrine, which the great men of the South 
 of the last generation asserted, that it is a great evil. We 
 shall not forget this among the good services, which you 
 have rendered to your country. 
 
 I have expressed my fears, that by the annexation of 
 Texas, slavery is to be continued and extended. But I 
 wish not to be understood, as having the slightest doubt 
 as to the approaching fall of the institution. It may be 
 prolonged to our reproach and greater ultimate suffering. 
 But fall it will and must. This, Sir, you know, and I doubt 
 not, rejoice to know. The advocates of slavery must not 
 imagine, that to carry a vote is to sustain their cause. 
 With all their power, they cannot withstand the provi- 
 dence of God, the principles of human nature, the desti- 
 nies of the race. To succeed, they must roll back time 
 to the dark ages, must send back Luther to the cell of his 
 monastery, must extinguish the growing light of Christianity 
 and moral science, must blot out the declaration of Ameri- 
 can Independence. The fall of slavery is as sure as the 
 descent of your own Ohio. Moral laws are as irresistible 
 as physical. In the most enlightened countries of Europe, 
 a man would forfeit his place in society, by vindicating 
 slavery. The slaveholder must not imagine, that he has 
 nothing to do but fight with a few societies. These, of 
 themselves, are nothing. He should not waste on them 
 one fear. They are strong, only as representing the spirit of 
 
46 
 
 the Christian and civilized world. His battle is with the 
 laws of human nature and the irresistible tendencies of 
 human affairs. These are not to be withstood by artful 
 strokes of policy, or by daring crimes. The world is against 
 him, and the world's Maker. Every day the sympathies of 
 the world are forsaking him. Can he hope to sustain 
 slavery against the moral feeling, the solemn sentence of the 
 human race 1 
 
 The South, cut off by its "peculiar institutions" from 
 close connexion with other communities, comprehends little 
 the progress of the civilized world. The spirit, which is 
 spreading through other communities, finds no organ within 
 its borders, and the strength of this is therefore little under- 
 stood. Hence, it looks on anti-slavery movements in any 
 part of the country, as an accident, which a little force can 
 put down. It might as well think of imprisoning the winds. 
 The South is ignorant of what it most needs to know. A 
 very intelligent gentleman from that quarter, told me not 
 long ago, that he could not learn at home the working of 
 Emancipation in the West Indies, so that an experiment of 
 infinite interest to the slaveholder is going on at his door, 
 and he knows little more of it than if it were occurring in 
 another planet. Of course, there are exceptions. There 
 are at the South philosophical observers of the progress of 
 human affairs. But in such a state of society, it is hard to 
 realize the truth on this subject. Were it known, the pro- 
 ject of building a power on the diffusion of slavery, would 
 seem to be an act of madness, as truly as of crime. 
 
 I suppose, that I shall be charged with unfriendly feelings 
 towards the South. All such I disclaim. Strange as it may 
 seem, if I have partialities, they are rather for the South. 
 I spent a part of my early life in that region, when manners 
 probably retained more of their primitive character, than 
 they now do; and to a young man, unaccustomed to life and 
 
47 
 
 its perils, there was something singularly captivating in the 
 unbounded hospitality, the impulsive generosity, the careless- 
 ness of the future, the frank, open manners, the buoyant 
 spirit and courage, which marked the people; and though 
 I have since learned to interpret more wisely what I then 
 saw, still the impressions which I then received, and the 
 friendships formed at a yet earlier age with the youth of the 
 South, have always given me a leaning towards that part of 
 the country. I am unconscious of local prejudices. My 
 interest in the South strengthens my desire to avert the 
 annexation of Texas to the Union. That act, I feel, will 
 fix an indelible stain on the South. It will conflict with the 
 generous elements of character, which I take pleasure in 
 recollecting there. The South will cease to be what it was. 
 In the period to which I have referred, slavery was acknow- 
 ledged there, to be a great evil. I heard it spoken of freely, 
 with abhorrence. The moral sentiment of the community 
 on this point was not corrupt. The principles of Mr. Jeffer- 
 son in relation to it found a wide response. The doctrine, 
 that slavery is a good, if spread by the seizure of Texas, 
 will work a moral revolution, the most disastrous which can 
 befal the South. It will paralyze every effort for escape 
 from this enormous evil. A deadly sophistry will weigh on 
 men's consciences and hearts, until terrible convulsions, 
 God's just judgments, will hasten the deliverance 
 which human justice and benevolence were bound to ac- 
 complish. 
 
 IV. I now proceed to another important argument against 
 the annexation of Texas to our country, the argument 
 drawn from the bearings of the measure on our National 
 Union. Next to liberty, union is our great political interest, 
 and this cannot but be loosened, it may be dissolved, by 
 the proposed extention of our territory. I will not say 
 
48 
 
 that every extension must be pernicious, that our gov- 
 ernment cannot hold together even our present confed- 
 eracy, that the central heart cannot send its influences 
 to the remote states which are to spring up within our 
 present borders. Old theories must be cautiously applied to 
 the institutions of this country. If the Federal government 
 will abstain from minute legislation, and rigidly confine 
 itself within constitutional bounds, it may be a bond of 
 union to more extensive communities than were ever com- 
 prehended under one sway. Undoubtedly there is peril in 
 extending ourselves, and yet the chief benefit of the Union, 
 which is the preservation of peaceful relations among neigh- 
 boring states, is so vast, that some risk should be taken to 
 secure it in the greatest possible degree. The objection 
 to the annexation of Texas, drawn from the un wield iness it 
 would give to the country, though very serious, is not deci- 
 sive. A far more serious objection is, that it is to be annexed 
 to us for the avowed purpose of multiplying slaveholding 
 states, and thus giving political power. This cannot, ought 
 not to be borne. It will justify, it will at length demand 
 the separation of the states. 
 
 We maintain that this policy is altogether without reason 
 on the part of the South. The South has exerted, and can- 
 not help exerting a disproportionate share of influence on 
 the confederacy. The slaveholding states have already ad- 
 vantages for cooperation and for swaying the country, which 
 the others do not possess. The free states have no great 
 common interest, like slavery, to bojd them together. They 
 differ in character, feelings, and pursuits. They agree but 
 on one point and that a negative one, the absence of slavery, 
 and this distinction, as is well known, makes no lively im- 
 pression, on the consciousness, and in no degree counteracts 
 the influences which divide them from one another. To 
 this may be added the well known fact, that in the free 
 
49 
 
 states, the subject of politics is of secondary importance, 
 whilst at the South it is paramount. At the North every 
 man must toil for subsistence, and amidst the feverish com- 
 petitions and anxieties of the eager and universal competition 
 for gain, political power is sought with little comparative 
 avidity. In some districts, it is hard to find fit representa- 
 tives for Congress, so backward are superior men to forego 
 the emoluments of their vocation, the prospects of inde- 
 pendence, for the uncertainties of public life. At the North, 
 too, a vast amount of energy is absorbed in associations of a 
 religious, philanthropic, literary character. The apathy of 
 the free states in regard "to Texas, an apathy from which 
 they are just beginning to be roused, is a striking proof of 
 their almost incredible indifference to political power. Per- 
 haps no parallel to it can be found in the history of con- 
 federations. What a contrast does the South form with the 
 divided and slumbering North ! There, one strong, broad 
 distinction exists, of which all the members of the commu- 
 nity have a perpetual consciousness; there, a peculiar ele- 
 ment is found, which spreads its influence through the mass, 
 and impresses itself on the whole constitution of society. 
 Slavery is not a superficial distinction. Nothing decides the 
 character of a people more than the form and determination 
 of labor. Hence we find a unity at the South unknown at 
 the North. At the South, too, the proprietors, released from 
 the necessity of labor, and having little of the machinery of 
 associations to engage their attention, devote themselves to 
 politics with a concentration of zeal, which a Northern man 
 can only comprehend by residing on the spot. Hence the 
 South has professional politicians, a character hardly known 
 in the free states. The result is plain. The South has 
 generally ruled the country. It must always have an undue 
 power. United, as the North cannot be, it can always link 
 with itself some discontented portion at the North, which it 
 5 
 
60 
 
 can liberally reward by the patronage which the possession 
 of the government confers. That the constitutional rights 
 of the South should be prejudiced by the North, is one of 
 those moral impossibilities, against which it is folly to ask 
 security. 
 
 We cannot consent, that the South should extend its 
 already disproportionate power by an indefinite extension of 
 territory, because we maintain, that its dispositions towards 
 us give us no pledge, that its power will be well used. It is 
 unhappily too well known, that it wants friendly feelings 
 towards the North. Divided from us by an institution, which 
 gives it a peculiar character, which lays it open to reproach, 
 and which will never suffer it to rival our prosperity, it cannot 
 look on us with favor. It magnifies our faults. It is blind 
 to our virtues. At the North, no unfriendly disposition pre- 
 vails towards the South. We are too busy and too pros- 
 perous for hatred. We complain, that our good will is not 
 reciprocated. We complain, that our commerce and manu- 
 factures have sometimes found little mercy at the hands of 
 the South. Still more we feel, though we are slow to com- 
 plain of it, that in Congress, the common ground of the 
 confederacy, we have had to encounter a tone and bearing, 
 which it has required the colder temperament of the North 
 to endure. We cannot consent to take a lower place than 
 We now hold. We cannot consent, that our confede- 
 racy should spread over the wilds of Mexico to give us more 
 powerful masters. The old balance of the country is unfavor- 
 able enough. We cannot consent, that a new weight 
 should be thrown in, which may fix the political inferiority of 
 ourselves and our posterity. I give you, Sir, the feelings of 
 the North. In part they may be prejudices. Jealousies, 
 often groundless, are the necessary fruits of confederations. 
 On that account, measures must not be adopted, disturbing 
 violently, unnaturally, unexpectedly, the old distributions of 
 power, and directly aimed at that result. 
 
51 
 
 In other ways the annexation of Texas is to endanger the 
 Union. It will give new violence and passion to the agita- 
 tion of the question of slavery. It is well known, that a 
 majority at the North have discouraged the discussion of 
 this topic, on the ground, that slavery was imposed on the 
 South by necessity, that its continuance was not of choice, 
 and that the states, in which it subsists, if left to themselves, 
 would find a remedy in their own way. Let slavery be sys- 
 tematically proposed as the policy of these states, let it bind 
 them together in efforts to establish political power, and a new 
 feeling will burst forth through the whole North. It will be 
 a concentration of moral, religious, political, and patriotic 
 feelings. The fire, now smothered, will blaze out, and of 
 consequence, new jealousies and exasperations will be 
 kindled at the South. Strange that the South should think 
 of securing its "peculiar institutions" by violent means. 
 Its violence necessarily increases the evils it would suppress. 
 For example, by denying the right of petition to those who 
 sought the abolition of slavery within the immediate juris- 
 diction of the United States, it has awakened a spirit, which 
 will overwhelm Congress with petitions, till this right be 
 restored. The annexation of Texas would be a measure 
 of the same injurious character, and would stir up an open 
 uncompromising hostility to slavery, of which we have seen 
 no example, and which would produce a reaction very 
 dangerous to union. 
 
 The annexation of Texas will give rise to constitutional 
 questions and conflicts, which cannot be adjusted. It is 
 well known, that the additions to our territory of Louisiana 
 and Florida were acceded to by the North, though very 
 reluctantly, on account of their obvious utility. But it has 
 been seriously doubted, whether the powers given by the 
 constitution were not in both cases transcended. " At the 
 time Louisiana was acquired, Mr. Jefferson himself was 
 
52 
 
 deliberately of opinion, that the treaty-making authority 
 under the constitution of the United States, was incompe- 
 tent to make such an acquisition from a foreign power, 
 and annex it to the Union, and that an amendment of the 
 constitution would be necessary to sanction it. In a letter 
 to Governor Lincoln he even furnishes the formula of a pro- 
 posed amendment, for the purpose of admitting Louisiana 
 into the Union ; but adds, that the less that is said about 
 the constitutional difficulty, the better. Very little was 
 said about it, and there was a general and tacit acquies- 
 cence, in consequence of the great and incalculable advan- 
 tages expected from the acquisition in a national point of 
 view. The purchase of Texas under existing circumstan- 
 ces, might present a very different question." * 
 
 It is true, that, as a general rule, the right to purchase 
 territory is incident to sovereignty. But the sovereignty of 
 our national government is a limited one. The constitu- 
 tion was a compromise among independent states, and it is 
 well known that geographical relations and local interests 
 were among the essential conditions on which the com- 
 promise was made. We are willing, for the sake of uni- 
 versally acknowledged public interests, that additions of 
 territory should be made to our country. But can it be 
 admitted, that the constitution gives .power to the President 
 and Senate to add a vast realm to the United States, for the 
 very purpose of disturbing the balance between different 
 sections, or of securing ascendancy to certain parts of the 
 confederacy ? Was not the constitution founded on condi- 
 tions or considerations, which are even more authoritative 
 than its particular provisions, and the violation of which, 
 must be death to our Union 1 Besides, a new question is to 
 be opened by the admission of Texas. We shall not pur- 
 
 * North American Review, July, 1836. 
 
53 
 
 chase a territory as in the case of Louisiana, but shall 
 admit an independent community, invested with sovereignty, 
 into tb-6 confederation ; and can the treaty-making power 
 do this? Can it receive foreign nations, however vast, to 
 the Union? Does not the question carry its own answer? 
 By the assumption of such a right, would not the old com- 
 pact be at once considered as dissolved? 
 
 To me it seems not only the right, but the duty of the 
 free states, in case of the annexation of Texas, to say to 
 the slaveholding states, "-We regard this act as the dissolu- 
 tion of the Union. The essential conditions of the national 
 compact are violated. To you we will faithfully adhere, 
 but will not join ourselves to this new and iniquitous acqui- 
 sition. We will not become partners in your wars with 
 Mexico and Europe, in your schemes of spreading and 
 perpetuating slavery, in your hopes of conquest, in your 
 unrighteous spoils." No one prizes the Union more than 
 myself, as the means of peace. But with Texas, we shall 
 have no peace. Texas, brought into the confederacy, will 
 bring with it domestic and foreign strife. It will change 
 our relations to other countries, and to one another. A 
 pacific division in the first instance seems to me to threaten 
 less contention, than a lingering, feverish dissolution of the 
 Union, such as must be expected under this fatal innova- 
 tion. 
 
 I am but one of a nation of fifteen millions, and as such, 
 may seem too insignificant to protest against a public meas- 
 ure. But in this country, every man, even the obscurest, 
 participates in the sovereignty, and is responsible for public 
 acts, unless by some mode of opposition, proportioned to his 
 sense of the evil, he absolves himself from the guilt. For 
 one then, I say, that earnestly as I deprecate the separation 
 of these states, and though this event would disappoint most 
 cherished hopes for my country, still I can submit to it more 
 5* 
 
54 
 
 readily, than to the reception of Texas into the confederacy. 
 I shrink from that contamination. I shrink from an act, 
 which is to pledge us as a people to robbery and war, to the 
 work of upholding and extending slavery, without limitation 
 or end. I do not desire to share the responsibility, or to live 
 under the laws of a government, adopting such a policy, and 
 swayed by such a spirit, as would be expressed by the incor- 
 poration of Texas with our country. 
 
 In truth, if the South is bent on incorporating Texas 
 with itself, as a new prop to slavery, it would do well to 
 insist on the division of the states. It would, in so doing, 
 consult best its own safety. It should studiously keep itself 
 from communion with the free part of the country. It 
 should suffer no rail-road from that section to cross its 
 borders. It should block up intercourse \\ith us, by sea 
 and land. Still more, it should abjure connexion with the 
 whole civilized world ; for from every country it would be 
 invaded by an influence hostile to slavery. It should borrow 
 the code of the Dictator of Paraguay, and seal itself hermeti- 
 cally against the infectious books, opinions, and visits of for- 
 eigners. Its pride, as well as safety should teach it this insu- 
 lation ; for having once taken the ground, that slavery is 
 a good, to be spread and made perpetual, it does by that act 
 forfeit the rank which it covets among civilized and improving 
 communities. It cannot be recognised as an equal by other 
 states. On this point the decree of the world has gone 
 forth, and no protests or clamors can drown the deep solemn 
 voice of humanity, gathering strength with every new gen- 
 eration. A community, acknowledging the evils of slavery, 
 and continuing it only because the first law of nature, self- 
 preservation, seems to require gradual processes of change, 
 may retain the respect of those who deem their fears un- 
 founded. But a community, wedding itself to slavery in- 
 separably, with choice and affection, and with the pur- 
 
55 
 
 pose of spreading the plague far and wide, must become 
 a byword among the nations ; and the friend of humanity 
 will shake off the dust of his feet against it, in testimony 
 of his reprobation. 
 
 V. I proceed now to the last head of this communication. 
 I observe that the xause of Liberty, of free institutions, a 
 cause more sacred than Union, forbids the annexation of 
 Texas. It is plain from the whole preceding discussion, 
 that this measure will exert a disastrous influence on the 
 moral sentiments and principles of this country, by sanc- 
 tioning plunder, by inflaming cupidity, by encouraging law- 
 less speculation, by bringing into the confederacy a com- 
 munity whose whole history and circumstances are adverse 
 to moral order and wholesome restraint, by violating national 
 faith, by proposing immoral and inhuman ends, by placing 
 us as a people in opposition to the efforts of philanthropy, 
 and the advancing movements of the civilized world. It 
 will spread a moral corruption, already too rife among us, 
 and in so doing, it will shake the foundations of freedom 
 at home, and bring reproach on it abroad. It will be 
 treachery to the great cause which has been confided to this 
 above all nations. 
 
 The dependence of freedom on morals is an old subject, 
 and I have no thought of enlarging on the general truth. 
 I wish only to say, that it is one which needs to be brought 
 home to us at the present moment, and that it cannot be 
 trifled with but to our great peril. There are symptoms 
 of corruption amongst us, which show us that we cannot 
 enter on a new career of crime without peculiar hazard. 
 I cannot do justice to this topic without speaking freely of 
 our country, as freely as I should of any other ; and unhap- 
 pily, we are so accustomed, as a people, to receive incense, 
 to be soothed by flattery, and to account reputation as a 
 
56 
 
 more important interest than morality, that my freedom may 
 be construed into a kind of disloyalty. But it would be 
 wrong to make concessions to this dangerous weakness. I 
 believe that morality is the first interest of a people, and 
 that this requires self-knowledge in nations, as truly as in 
 individuals. He who helps a community to comprehend 
 itself, and to apply to itself a higher rule of action, is the 
 truest patriot, and contributes most to its enduring fame. 
 
 I have said, that we shall expose our freedom to great 
 peril by entering a new career of crime. We are corrupt 
 enough already. In one respect, our institutions have dis- 
 appointed us all. They have not wrought out for us that 
 elevation of character, which is the most precious, and in 
 truth, the only substantial blessing of liberty. Our progress 
 in prosperity has indeed been the wonder of the world ; but 
 this prosperity has done much to counteract the ennobling 
 influence of free institutions. The peculiar circumstances 
 of the country and of our times, have poured in upon us a 
 torrent of wealth; and human nature has not been strong 
 enough for the assault of such severe temptation. Prosper- 
 ity has become dearer than freedom. Government is re- 
 garded more as a means of enriching the country, than of 
 securing private rights. We have become wedded to gain, 
 as our chief good. That under the predominance of this 
 degrading passion, the higher virtues, the moral indepen- 
 dence, the simplicity of manners, the stern uprightness, 
 the self-reverence, the respect for man as man, which are 
 the ornaments and safe-guards of a republic, should wither, 
 and give place to selfish calculation and indulgence, to show 
 and extravagance, to anxious, envious, discontented strivings, 
 to wild adventure, and to the gambling spirit of speculation, 
 will surprise no one who has studied human nature. The 
 invasion of Texas by our citizens, is a mournful comment on 
 our national morality. Whether without some fiery trial, some 
 
57 
 
 signal prostration of our prosperity, we can rise to the force 
 and self-denial of freemen, is a question not easily solved. 
 
 There are other alarming views. A spirit of law- 
 lessness pervades the community, which, if not repressed, 
 threatens the dissolution of our present forms of soci- 
 ety. Even in the old states, mobs are taking the gov- 
 ernment into their hands, and a profligate newspaper 
 finds little difficulty in stirring up multitudes to violence. 
 When we look at the parts of the country nearest Texas, 
 we see the arm of the law paralyzed by the passions of the 
 individual. Men take under their own protection the rights 
 which it is the very office of government to secure. The 
 citizen, wearing arms as means of defence, carries with him 
 perpetual proofs of the weakness of the authorities under 
 which he lives. The substitution of self-constituted tribu- 
 nals for the regular course of justice, and the infliction of 
 immediate punishment in the moment of popular frenzy, are 
 symptoms of a people half reclaimed from barbarism. I 
 know not, that any civilized country on earth has exhibited, 
 during the last year, a spectacle so atrocious, as the burn- 
 ing of a colored man by a slow fire, in the neighborhood of 
 St. Louis ; and this infernal sacrifice was offered not by a 
 few fiends selected from the whole country, hut by a 
 crowd gathered from a single spot. Add to all this, the 
 invasions of the rights of speech and of the press by law- 
 less force, the extent and toleration of which oblige us to 
 believe, that a considerable portion of our citizens have no 
 comprehension of the first principles of liberty. 
 
 It is an undeniable fact, that, in consequence of these 
 and other symptoms, the confidence of many reflecting men 
 in our free institutions, is very much impaired. Some 
 despair. That main pillar of public liberty, mutual trust 
 among citizens, is shaken. That we must seek security 
 for property and life in a stronger government, is a spread- 
 
58 
 
 ing conviction. Men, who in public talk of the stability 
 of our institutions, whisper their doubts (perhaps their 
 scorn) in private. So common are these apprehensions, 
 that the knowledge of them has reached Europe. Not long 
 ago, I received a letter from an enlightened and fervent friend 
 of liberty, in Great Britain, beseeching me to inform him, how 
 far he was to rely on the representations of one of his country- 
 men just returned from the United States, who had reported 
 to him, that, in the most respectable society, he had again 
 and again been told, that the experiment of freedom here 
 was a failure, and that faith in our institutions was gone. 
 That the traveller misinterpreted in a measure what he 
 heard, we shall all acknowledge. But is the old enthusiasm 
 of liberty unchilled among us? Is the old jealousy of power 
 as keen and uncompromising ? Do not parties more unscru- 
 pulously encroach on the constitution and on the rights of 
 minorities ? In one respect we must all admit a change. 
 When you and I grew up, what a deep interest pervaded 
 this country in the success of free institutions abroad ! 
 With what throbbing hearts did we follow the struggles of 
 the oppressed ! How many among us were ready to lay 
 down their lives for the cause of liberty on the earth ! And 
 now who cares for free institutions abroad ? How seldom 
 does the topic pass men's lips ! Multitudes, discouraged by 
 the licentiousness at home, doubt the value of popular insti- 
 tutions, especially in less enlightened countries ; whilst 
 greater numbers, locked up in gain, can spare no thought 
 on the struggles of liberty, and, provided they can drive a 
 prosperous trade with foreign nations, care little whether 
 they are bond or free. 
 
 I may be thought inclined to draw a dark picture of our 
 moral condition. But at home I am set down among those 
 who hope against hope ; and I have never ceased to con- 
 demn as a crime the despondence of those, who, lamenting 
 
59 
 
 the corruptions of the times, do not lift a finger to withstand 
 it. I am far, very far from despair. I have no fears but such 
 as belong to a friend of freedom. Among dark omens I see 
 favorable influences, remedial processes, counteracting agen- 
 cies. I well know that the vicious part of our system makes 
 more noise and show than the sound. I know that the proph- 
 ets of ruin to our institutions are to be found most frequently 
 in the party out of power, and that many dark auguries must 
 be set down to the account of disappointment and irritation. 
 I am sure too, that imminent peril would wake up the spirit 
 of our fathers, in many who slumber in these days of ease and 
 security. It is also true that, with all our defects, there is a 
 wider diffusion of intelligence, moral restraint, and self- 
 respect among us, than through any other community. Still 
 I am compelled to acknowledge an extent of corruption 
 among us, which menaces freedom and our dearest interests: 
 and a policy, which will give new and enduring impulse to 
 corruption, which will multiply indefinitely public and private 
 crime, ought to be reprobated as the sorest calamity we can 
 incur. Freedom is fighting her battles in the world with 
 sufficient odds against her. Let us not give new chances to 
 her foes. 
 
 That the cause of republicanism is suffering abroad 
 through the defects and crimes of our countrymen, is as 
 true, as that it is regarded with increased skepticism among 
 ourselves. Abroad, republicanism is identified with the 
 United States, and it is certain that the American name has 
 not risen of late in the world. It so happens, that, whilst 
 writing, I have received a newspaper from England, in which 
 Lynch law is as familiarly associated with our country, as if 
 it were one of our establishments. We are quoted as monu- 
 ments of the degrading tendencies of popular institutions. 
 When I visited England fifteen years ago, republican senti- 
 ments were freely expressed to me. I should probably hear 
 
60 
 
 none now. Men's minds seem to be returning to severer 
 principles of government; and this country is responsible 
 for a part of this change. It is believed abroad, that 
 property is less secure among us, order less stable, law less 
 revered, social ties more easily broken, religion less enforced, 
 life held less sacred, than in other countries. Undoubtedly 
 the prejudices of foreign nations, the interests of foreign gov- 
 ernments, have led to gross exaggeration of evils here. The 
 least civilized parts of the country are made to represent the 
 whole, and occasional atrocities are construed into habits. 
 But who does not feel, that we have given cause of reproach? 
 and shall we fix this reproach, and exasperate it into indigna- 
 tion and hatred, by adopting a policy against which the moral 
 sentiments of the Christian world revolt 1 Shall we make 
 the name of republic " a stench in the nostrils " of all 
 nations, by employing our power to build up and spread 
 slavery, by resisting the efforts of other countries for its 
 abolition, by falling behind monarchies in reverence for the 
 rights of men ? 
 
 When we look forward to the probable growth of this 
 country ; when we think of the millions of human beings 
 who are to spread over our present territory ; of the career 
 of improvement and glory opened to this new people ; of the 
 impulses which free institutions, if prosperous, may be ex- 
 pected to give to philosophy, religion, science, literature, 
 and arts ; of the vast field in which the experiment is to be 
 made of what the unfettered powers of man may achieve ; 
 of the bright page of history which our fathers have filled, 
 and of the advantages under which their toils and virtues 
 have placed us for carrying on their work ; when we think 
 of all this, can we help for a moment surrendering ourselves 
 to bright visions of our country's glory, before which all 
 the glories of the past are to fade away 1 Is it presumption 
 to say, that, if just to ourselves and all nations, we shall .be 
 
61 
 
 Felt through this whole continent, that we shall spread our 
 language, institutions, and civilization through a wider space 
 than any nation has yet rilled with a like beneficent influ- 
 ence? And are we prepared to barter these hopes, this sub- 
 lime moral empire, for conquests by force? Are we pre- 
 pared to sink to the level of unprincipled nations, to con- 
 tent ourselves with a vulgar, guilty greatness, to adopt in 
 our youth maxims and ends which must brand our future 
 with sordidness, oppression, and shame? This country can- 
 not without peculiar infamy run the common race of 
 national rapacity. Our origin, institutions, and position are 
 peculiar, and all favor an upright, honorable course. We 
 have not the apologies of nations hemmed in by narrow 
 bounds or threatened by the overshadowing power of ambi- 
 tious neighbors. If we surrender ourselves to a selfish 
 policy, we shall sin nlmost without temptation, and forfeit 
 opportunities of greatness vouchsafed to no other people, for 
 a prize below contempt. 
 
 I have alluded to the want of wisdom with which we are 
 accustomed to speak of our destiny as a people. We are 
 destined (that is the word) to overspread North America ; 
 and, intoxicated with the idea, it matters little to us how we 
 accomplish our fate. To spread, to supplant others, to cover 
 a boundless space, this seems our ambition, no matter what 
 influence we spread with us. Why cannot we rise to noble 
 conceptions of our destiny ? Why do we not feel, that our 
 work as a nation is, to carry freedom, religion, science, and 
 a nobler form of human nature over this continent ; and why 
 do we not remember, that to diffuse these blessings we must 
 first cherish them in our own borders ; and that whatever 
 deeply and permanently corrupts us will make our spreading 
 influence a curse, not a blessing, to this new world ? It is a 
 common idea in Europe, that we are destined to spread an 
 inferior civilization over North America ; that our slavery 
 6 
 
62 
 
 and our absorption in gain and outward interests mark us 
 out, as fated to fall behind the old world in the higher im- 
 provements of human nature, in the philosophy, the refine- 
 ments, the enthusiasm of literature and the arts which throw 
 a lustre round older countries. I am not prophet enough to 
 read our fate. I believe, indeed, that we are to make our 
 futurity for ourselves. I believe, that a nation's destiny lies 
 in its character, in the principles which govern its policy 
 and bear rule in the hearts of its citizens. I take my stand 
 on God's moral and eternal law. A nation renouncing and 
 defying this cannot be free, cannot be great. 
 
 Religious men in this community, and they are many, are 
 peculiarly bound to read the future history of their country, 
 not in the flattering promises of politicians, but in the warn- 
 ings of conscience and in the declaration of God's word. 
 They know and should make it known, that nations cannot 
 consolidate free institutions and secure a lasting prosperity 
 by crime. They know, that retribution awaits communities 
 as well as individuals ; and they should tremble amidst their 
 hopes, when, with this solemn truth on their minds, they look 
 round on their country. Let them consider the clearness 
 with which God's will is now made known, and the signal 
 blessings of his Providence poured out on this people, with a 
 profusion accorded to no other under heaven ; and then let 
 them consider our ingratitude for his boundless gifts, our 
 abuse of his beneficence to sensual and selfish gratifica- 
 tion, our unmeasured, unrighteous love of gain, our 
 unprincipled party-spirit, and our faithless and cruel 
 wrongs toward the Indian race ; and can they help fear- 
 ing, that the cup of wrath is filling for this people? Men, 
 buried in themselves and in outward interests, atheists in 
 heart and life, may scoff at the doctrine of national retribu- 
 tion, because they do not see God's hand stretched out to 
 destroy guilty communities. But does not all history teach, 
 
63 
 
 that the unlicensed passions of a guilty people are more 
 terrible ministers of punishment than miraculous inflictions? 
 To chastise and destroy, God needs not interfere by super- 
 natural judgments. In every community, there, are elements 
 of discord, revolution, and ruin, pent up in the human soul, 
 which need only to be quickened and set free by a new 
 order of events, to shake and convulse the whole social fab- 
 ric. Never were the causes of disastrous change in human 
 affairs more active than at the present moment. Society 
 heaves and trembles from the struggle of opposing principles, 
 as the earth quakes through the force of central fires. This 
 is not the time for presumption, for defying Heaven by 
 new crimes, for giving a new range to cupidity and ambi- 
 tion. Men who fear God must fear for their country, in 
 this " day of provocation," and they will be false to their 
 country, if they look on passively, and see without remon- 
 strance the consummation of a great national crime which 
 cannot fail to bring down awful retribution. 
 
 1 am aware that there are those, who, on reading these pages, 
 will smile at my simplicity in urging moral and religious mo- 
 tives, disinterested considerations, lofty aims, on a politician. 
 The common notion is, that the course of a man embarked in 
 public life will be shaped by the bearings of passing events 
 on his immediate popularity ; that virtue and freedom, how- 
 ever they may round his periods in the senate, have little 
 influence on his vote. But I do not believe, that public life 
 is necessarily degrading, or that a statesman is incapable of 
 looking above himself. Public life appeals to the noblest, as 
 well as basest principles of human nature. It holds up for 
 pursuit enduring fame, as well as the notoriety of the pass- 
 ing hour. By giving opportunities of acting on the vast 
 and permanent interests of a nation, it often creates a deep 
 sense of responsibility, and a generous self-oblivion. I have 
 too much faith in human nature to distrust the influence of 
 
64 
 
 great truths and high motives on any class of men, especially 
 on men of commanding intelligence. There is a congeni- 
 ality between vast powers of thought and dignity of pur- 
 pose. None are so capable of sacrificing themselves as 
 those who have most to sacrifice, who, in offering themselves, 
 make the greatest offerings to humanity. With this convic- 
 tion, I am not discouraged by the anticipated smiles and 
 scoffs of those, who will think that in insisting on national 
 purity as the essential condition of freedom and greatness, I 
 have "preached" to the winds. To you, Sir, rectitude is 
 not an empty name, nor will a measure, fraught with lasting 
 corruption and shame to your countrv, seem to you any thing 
 but a fearful calamity. 
 
 I have now finished the task which I have felt myself 
 bound to undertake. That I have escaped all error, I can- 
 not hope. That I may have fallen into occasional exaggera- 
 tion, I ought perhaps to fear from the earnestness with which 
 I have written. But of the essential truth of the views here 
 communicated, I cannot doubt. It is exceedingly to be re- 
 gretted, that the subject of this letter has as yet drawn 
 little attention at the North. The unprecedented pecuniary 
 difficulties, pressing now on the country, have absorbed the 
 public mind. And yet these difficulties, should they be 
 aggravated and continued far beyond what is most dreaded, 
 would be a light national evil, compared with the annexation 
 of Texas to the Union. I trust the people will not slumber 
 on the edge of this precipice, till it shall be too late to reflect 
 and provide for safety. Too much time has been given for 
 the ripening of this unrighteous project. I doubt not, as 
 I have said, that opposition exists to it in the slaveholding 
 states. This, if manifested in any strength, would imme- 
 diately defeat it. The other states should raise a voice 
 against it, like the voice of many waters. Party dissen- 
 sions should be swallowed up in this vast common interest. 
 
65 
 
 The will of the people, too strong and fixed to be resisted, 
 should be expressed to Congress, in remonstrances from 
 towns, cities, counties, and Legislatures. Let no man, who 
 feels the greatness of the evil which threatens us, satisfy 
 himself with unprofitable regrets ; but let each embody his 
 opposition in a form which will give incitements to his neigh- 
 bors, and act on men in power. -tianCTOft LJbftfen 
 
 I take it for granted, that those who differ from me will 
 ascribe what I have written to unworthy motives. This is 
 the common mode of parrying unwelcome truths ; and it is 
 not without influence, where the author is unknown. May 
 I then be allowed to say, that I have strong reasons for be- 
 lieving, that, among the many defects of this letter, those 
 of unworthy intention are not to be numbered. The re- 
 luctance with which I have written satisfies me, that I have 
 not been impelled by any headlong passion. Nor can I have 
 been impelled by party spirit. I am pledged to no party. 
 In truth, I do not feel myself able to form a decisive opinion 
 on the subjects, which now inflame and divide the country, 
 and which can be very little understood except by men who 
 have made a study of commerce and finance. As to having 
 written from that most common motive, the desire of dis- 
 tinction, I may be permitted to say, that, to win the public 
 ear, I need not engage in a controversy which will expose 
 me to unmeasured reproach. May I add, that I have lived 
 long enough to learn the worth of applause. Could I indeed 
 admit the slightest hope of securing to myself that enduring 
 fame, which future ages award to the lights and benefactors 
 of their race, I could not but be stirred by the prospect. 
 But notoriety among contemporaries, obtained by taking part 
 in the irritating discussions of the day, I would not stretch 
 out a hand to secure. 
 
 I cannot but fear, that the earnestness with which I have 
 written may seem to indicate an undue excitement of 
 6* 
 
66 
 
 mind. But I have all along felt distinctly the importance 
 of calmness, and have seemed to myself to maintain it. I 
 have prepared this letter, not amidst the goadings, irrita- 
 tions, and feverish tumults of a crowded city, but in the still- 
 ness of retirement, amid scenes of peace and beauty. Hardly 
 an hour has passed, in which I have not sought relief from 
 the exhaustion of writing, by walking abroad amidst God's 
 works, which seldom fail to breathe tranquillity, and which, 
 by their harmony and beneficence, continually cheer me, as 
 emblems and prophecies of a more harmonious and blessed 
 state of human affairs than has yet been known. Perhaps 
 some will object it to me, that a man, living in such re- 
 tirement, unfits himself to judge of passing events, that 
 he is prone to substitute his visions for realities, and to 
 legislate for a world which does not exist I acknowledge 
 the danger of such a position. On the other hand, it is 
 equally true, that the man, who lives in a crowd and re- 
 ceives perpetual impulse from its prejudices and passions, 
 who connects himself with a party and looks to it for reward, 
 cannot easily keep his mind open to truth, or sacrifice the 
 interests of the moment to everlasting principles, and the 
 enduring welfare of his country. Everywhere our frail 
 nature is severely tried. All circumstances have their perils. 
 In every condition, there are biases to wrong judgment and 
 incitements to wrong action. Through such discipline, we 
 are to make our way to truth and perfection. The dread 
 of these must not keep us inactive. Having sought to un- 
 derstand the difficulties in our respective paths, and having 
 done what we can to learn the truth, we must commit our- 
 selves to our convictions without fear, expressing them in 
 word and action, and leaving results to Him, who will ac- 
 cept our pure purpose, and whose providence is the pledge 
 of the ultimate triumphs of humanity and uprightness. 
 
You and I, my dear Sir, are approaching that period of 
 life, when the passions lose much of their force, when dis- 
 appointment, bereavement, the fall of our contemporaries on 
 the right hand and the left, and long experience of the 
 emptiness of human favor and of the instability of all 
 earthly goods, are teaching us the lofty lessons of superior- 
 ity to the fleeting opinion of our day, of reliance on the 
 everlasting law of Right, of reference to a Higher Judge 
 than man, of solemn anticipation of a final account. Per- 
 mit me to close this letter, with desiring for you in your com- 
 manding station, what I ask for myself in private life, that 
 we may be faithful to ourselves, to our country, to mankind, 
 to the benevolent principles of the Christian faith, and to 
 the common Father of the whole human race. 
 
 Very respectfully, 
 
 Your friend and servant, 
 
 WILLIAM E. CHANNING. 
 
 Newport, R. I., August 1, 1837. 
 
NOTE. 
 
 A FEW remarks, which have been suggested since the 
 completion of the preceding letter, I shall throw into a 
 note. 
 
 The recognition of the Independence of Texas by our 
 government, is to be lamented, as unbecomingly hasty, and 
 as a violation of the principle adopted by Mr. Monroe, in 
 regard to the Spanish colonies. " These new states," he 
 says, " had completely established their independence, be- 
 fore we acknowledged them." We have recognised Texas 
 as a nation, having all the attributes of sovereignty, and 
 competent to the discharge of all the obligations of an in- 
 dependent state. And what is Texas ? A collection of a few 
 settlements, which would vanish at once, were a Mexican 
 army of any force to enter the country. One decisive vic- 
 tory would scatter all Texas like a horde of Tartars, arid 
 not a trace of its institutions and population would remain. 
 We have been accustomed to think of a nation as something 
 permanent, as having some fixtures, some lasting bond of 
 union. There would be nothing to hold Texas together, 
 were her single, small army to be routed in one battle. To 
 send a minister plenipotentiary to such a handful of people, 
 made up chiefly of our own citizens, is to degrade the forms 
 of national intercourse. This new republic, with its Presi- 
 dent and diplomatic corps, has been called a Farce. But 
 the tragic element prevails so much over the farcical in 
 this whole business, that we cannot laugh at it. The move- 
 ments of our government in regard to Texas are chiefly 
 interesting, as they are thought to indicate a disposition 
 favorable to its annexation to our country. But we will not 
 believe, that the government is resolved on this great wrong, 
 unless we are compelled so to do. We hope, that the pres- 
 ent administration will secure the confidence of good men 
 by well considered and upright measures, looking beyond 
 
69 
 
 momentary interests to the lasting peace, order, and strength 
 of the country. 
 
 There is another objection to the annexation of Texas, 
 which, after our late experience, is entitled to attention. 
 This possession will involve us in new Indian wars. Texas, 
 besides being open to the irruption of the tribes within our 
 territories, has a tribe of its own, the Camanches, which is 
 described as more formidable than any in North America. 
 Such foes are not to be coveted. The Indians ! that omin- 
 ous word, which ought to pierce the conscience of this 
 nation, more than the savage war-cry pierces the ear., JThe 
 Indians ! Have we not inflicted and endured evil enough in 
 our intercourse with this wretched people, to abstain from 
 new wars with them? Is the tragedy of Florida to be acted 
 again and again in our own day, and in our children's? 
 
 In addition to what I have said of the constitutional ob- 
 jections to the annexation of Texas to our country, I would 
 observe, that we may infer, from the history and language 
 of the Constitution, that our national Union was so far from 
 being intended to spread slavery over new countries, that, 
 had the possibility of such a result been anticipated, decided 
 provisions would have been introduced for its prevention. 
 It is worthy of remark, how anxious the framers of that in- 
 strument were to exclude from it the word Slavery. They 
 were not willing, that this feature of our social system should 
 be betrayed in the construction of our free government. A 
 stranger might read it, without suspecting the existence of 
 this institution among us. Were slavery to be wholly abol- 
 ished here, no change would be needed in the constitution, 
 nor would any part become obsolete, except an obscure 
 clause, which, in apportioning the representatives, provides 
 that there shall be added to the whole number of free per- 
 sons " three-fifths of other persons." Slavery is studiously 
 thrown into the back ground. How little did our forefathers 
 suppose, that it was to become a leading interest of the gov- 
 ernment, to which our peace at home and abroad was to be 
 made a sacrifice ! 
 
 I have said, that I desire no political Union with commu- 
 nities bent on spreading and perpetuating slavery. It is 
 hardly necessary to observe, that this was not intended to 
 express a desire to decline friendly intercourse with the 
 members of those communities. Individuals, who have re- 
 
70 
 
 ceived from their ancestors some pernicious prejudice or 
 institution, may still, in their general spirit, be disinterested 
 and just. Our testimony against the wrong which such 
 men practice is not to be stifled or impaired by the feelings 
 of interest or attachment which they inspire ; nor, on the 
 other hand, must this wrong be spread by our imaginations 
 over their whole characters, so as to seem their sole attri- 
 bute, and so as to hide all their claims to regard. In an 
 age of reform, one of the hardest duties is, to be inflexibly 
 hostile to the long rooted corruptions of society, and at the 
 same time to be candid and just to those who uphold them. 
 It is true, that, with the most friendly feelings, we shall 
 probably give offence to those, who are interested in abuses 
 which we condemn. But we are not on this account ab- 
 solved from the duty of cultivating and expressing kindness 
 and justice, of laying strong restraint on our passions, and 
 of avoiding all needless provocation. 
 
 The speech of Mr. Adams on the subject of the preced- 
 ing letter, delivered in Congress, December 1835, should be 
 republished and circulated. It deserves to be read as a 
 specimen of parliamentary eloquence ; and its moral and 
 political views are worthy of its eminent author. 
 
 There seems to be an apprehension at the South, that 
 the free states, should they obtain the ascendancy, might 
 be disposed to use the powers of the government for 
 the abolition of slavery. On this point, there is but one 
 feeling at the North. The free states feel, that they 
 have no more right to abolish slavery in the slaveholding 
 states, than in a foreign country. They regard the matter 
 as wholly out of their reach. They indeed claim the right 
 of setting forth the evils of slavery, as of any other perni- 
 cious and morally wrong institution. But the thought of 
 touching the laws which establish it in any state, they reject 
 without a discordant voice. In regard to the District of 
 Columbia, many of us feel, that slavery continues there by 
 the action of all the states, that the free states, therefore, are 
 responsible for it; and we maintain that it is most unreason- 
 able, that an institution should be sustained by those who 
 hold it to be immoral and pernicious. But we feel no such 
 responsibility for slavery in the slaveholding states. These 
 states must determine for themselves how long it shall con- 
 tinue, and by what means it shall be abolished. We solemnly 
 
71 
 
 urge them to use their power for its removal ; but nothing 
 would tempt us to wrest the power from them, if we could. 
 The South has fears, that the free states may be hurried 
 away by " enthusiasm " into usurpation of unconstitutional 
 powers on the subject. One is tempted to smile at the want 
 of acquaintance with the North, which such an apprehen- 
 sion betrays. This enthusiasm, to endanger the South, must 
 spread through all the free states ; for as the slaveholders are 
 unanimous, nothing but a like unanimity in their opponents 
 can expose them to harm. And is it possible, that a large 
 number of communities, spread over a vast surface, having a 
 diversity of interests, and all absorbed in the pursuit of gain 
 to a degree, perhaps, without a parallel, should be driven by a 
 moral, philanthrophic enthusiasm, into violations of a national 
 compact, by which their peace and prosperity would be put 
 in peril, and into combined and lawless efforts against other 
 communities, with whom they sustain exceedingly profitable 
 connexions, and from whom they could not be sundered 
 without serious loss? Whoever is acquainted with the free 
 states knows, that the excesses, to which they are exposed, 
 are not so much those of enthusiasm, as of caution and 
 worldly prudence. The patience with which they have 
 endured recent violent measures directed against their citi- 
 zens shows little propensity to rashness. The danger is, not 
 so much that they will invade the rights of other members 
 of the confederacy, as that they will be indifferent to their 
 own. 
 
 I have spoken in this letter of the estimation in which 
 this country is held abroad. I hope I shall not be num- 
 bered among those, too common here, who are irritably 
 alive to the opinions of other nations, to the censures and 
 misrepresentations of travellers. To a great and growing 
 people, how insignificant is the praise or blame of a travel- 
 ler on a nation." " None of these things move me." But 
 one thing does move me. It is a sore evil that freedom 
 should be blasphemed, that republican institutions should 
 forfeit the confidence of mankind, through the unfaithful- 
 ness of this people to their trust. 
 
 In reviewing this letter, I perceive that I have used the 
 strong language, in which the apprehension of great evils 
 naturally expresses itself. I hope this will not be construed 
 as betokening any anxieties or misgivings in regard to the 
 
72 
 
 issues of passing events. I place a cheerful trust in Provi- 
 dence. The triumphs of evil, which men call great, are 
 but clouds passing over the serene and everlasting heavens. 
 Public men may, in craft or passion, decree violence and 
 oppression. But silently, irresistibly, they and their works 
 are swept away. A voice of encouragement comes to us 
 from the ruins of the past, from the humiliations of the 
 proud, from the prostrate thrones of conquerors, from the 
 baffled schemes of statesmen, from the reprobation with 
 which the present age looks back on the unrighteous policy 
 of former times. Such sentence the future will pass on 
 present wrongs. Men, measures, and all earthly interests 
 pass away; but Principles are Eternal. Truth, justice, and 
 goodness partake of the omnipotence and immutableness of 
 God, whose essence they are. In these, it becomes us to 
 place a calm, joyful trust, in the darkest hour. 
 
JAMES MUNROE AND CO 
 
 ARE PUBLISHERS OF 
 
 THE FOLLOWING WORKS, 
 
 SLAVERY, BY WILLIAM E. CHANNING. Fourth 
 
 Edition. 
 LETTER of WILLIAM E. CHANNING to JAMES G, 
 
 BlRNEY. 
 
 A LETTER to the Hon. HARRISON GRAY OTIS, 
 PELEG SPRAGUE, and RICHARD FLETCHER, Esq.