CO / 
 
 28th CONGRESS, JJOC. No. 255. H^ 
 
 1st Session. 
 
 
 TEXAS- ANNEXATION. 
 
 PROCEEDINGS AND RESOLUTIONS 
 
 A PUBLIC MEETING 
 
 Of the citizens of Mobile county and city^ relative to tfa annexation of 
 Texas to the United States. 
 
 MAY 15, 1844. 
 
 Read, and laid upon the table. 
 
 PUBLIC MEETING. 
 
 Pursuant to previous notice in the city papers, a very numerous and re- 
 spectable assemblage of the citizens ot the city and county of Mobile took 
 place at the Mobile Theatre on Friday evening, the 3d of May, 1844, (the 
 selection of the court-house, which had been first announced as the place 
 'of meeting, having been considered not sufficiently commodious for "the oc- 
 casion,) to take into consideration the subject of the annexation of Texas 
 to the United States. On motion, F. B. Sheppard, esquire, was called to 
 ;the chair as president of the meeting ; and John Bloodgood and Robert D. 
 ! James, esquires, as vice presidents. 
 
 The meeting was then called to order and organized by the president- 
 f.when, on motion, P. B. Taylor and H. B. Holcombe, esquires, were ap- 
 pointed secretaries. 
 
 After the president had announced the object of the meeting, Percy 
 ^Walker, esquire, rose and offered the following preamble and resolutions 
 vfor the consideration of the meeting, having prefaced their reading with a 
 *few exceedingly felicitous and appropriate remarks. 
 
 Preamble and Resolutions. 
 
 The citizens of Mobile, having assembled this evening for the purpose 
 ~of expressing their opinions upon the question of annexing Texas to the 
 United States, do adopt the following resolutions: 
 
 I Resolved, That we consider the annexation of Texas as being demanded 
 iby a high state necessity such as warranted our Government in pur- 
 chasing Louisiana from France; and that we can perceive no constitu- 
 tional barrier to an act by which we shall repossess ourselves of a territory 
 originally ours. 
 
 Resolved, That, as the territory ceded by Spain to France in 1800 em- 
 braced Texas in its boundaries, and as France ceded the same to us in 
 
 Blair & Hives, print. 
 
2 . Doc. No. 255. 
 
 1803, that therefore our original right to Texas was beyond cavil or dis- 
 pute. 
 
 Resolved, That as the United States, at the time it acquired Louisiana, 
 with the Rio Bravo as its western limit, from France, stipulated to extend 
 the protection of their laws to all of its inhabitants, and, so soon as the 
 population warranted it. to admit them into the Union, in the same manner 
 and upon the same conditions as other States should be admitted, we Dep- 
 recate the policy by which the vast and fertile region of Texas was lost to 
 us in 1819; and that, as the sovereignty of the soil, in this country, exists 
 in the people, we deny the power of Government to cede away or relin- 
 quish* any portion of the territory; and that therefore the cession of Texas 
 to Spain was unauthorized and illegal. 
 
 Resolved, That Texas being an independent country, and acknowledged 
 as such by the great powers of the world, she has, under the recognised 
 laws of .nations, a clear and independent right to dispose of herself as she 
 may think proper ; that therefore she has lull power to annex herself to 
 the United States; and that, while we earnestly desire to secure the good 
 ' will* of all nations, we aie not bound, either in law or morals, to reject the 
 appeal for annexation, because Mexico has refused to recognise the inde- 
 pendence of Texas. 
 
 Resolved, That the evidences of the design on the part of Great Britain, 
 to appropriate Texas to herself, as a colonial dependency, present to us 
 the alternative of taking Texus ourselves, or witnessing its appendage to 
 England. And, in connexion with this view, we would recall to the mind 
 of the American people the declaration of Mr. Monroe, in 1824, "that this 
 Government would regard the efforts of any foreign power to colonize any 
 portion of the American continent, as indicative of unfriendly feelings to 
 the United Slates;" a declaration full' of wisdom, and affording us a correct 
 rule of action at this time. 
 
 Resolved, That, in the language of our fellow-citizens of New Orleans, 
 we consider the proposed annexation of Texas to the territory of the United 
 States as a great American measure ; to bend which to party or local uses 
 or prejudices, is unworthy of a patriotic people. 
 
 Resolved, That the manner in which the proposition for annexation has 
 been received at the north and east, met as it has been by denunciation of 
 the motives of its friends, and threats of a dissolution of the Union, is om- 
 inous of evil, indicating on the one hand a temper unsuited to the exercise 
 of reason, and on the other hand a decay of that nationality of feeling 
 which, forms a fur stronger safeguard to the Union than any written bond ; 
 that we art; bound to regard the opposition of a portion of our country- 
 men of the north to a measure so vital to our interests as the annexation 
 of Texas, as manifesting a rancorous and settled animosity to the south 
 and her institutions ; because that opposition is evidently founded upon the 
 fact that Texas is a slave-holding country thus establishing the purely 
 selfish and sectional character oif that opposition, and boding no good to 
 the security of our property and peace. 
 
 Resolved, That while we would prefer regarding the annexation of 
 Texas as a great national measure, from which incalculable benefits would 
 accrue to the whole country, we cannot be blind to the fact, that the peace 
 and quiet, if not the existence of the southern States as sovereignties, im- 
 periously demand it ; that the transfer of Texas, the great key* to the south 
 and west, to a foreign power, would block up the States bordering on the 
 
Doc. No. 255, 3 
 
 galley of the Mississippi, together with the whole Missouri region ; that, 
 upon refusal to annex Texas on our part, she would become the theatre for 
 foreign intrigue, and the centre of movements utterly destructive of our 
 rights arid interests. 
 
 Resolved, That we not only desire the annexation of Texas, from reasons 
 of state policy, but because it offers a new and wider field for the diffusion 
 of those liberal principles of government, under the benign influence of 
 which we have grown into a great and powerful nation, and which are the 
 handmaidens, of religion, in ameliorating the condition of man, and giving 
 a larger and freer development to his intellectual and moral faculties. 
 
 Resolved, That, apart from all these reasons, we earnestly desire annex- 
 ation, because the people of Texas are of our kin and lineage cc bone of 
 our bone, and flesh of our flesh," members of oar family, speaking our lan- 
 guage, taught in our political school, reverencing our religion, and that 
 we shrink in abhorrence at the idea of her becoming a tributary to any 
 foreign power. 
 
 Resolved, That a copy of the proceedings of this meeting be transmit- 
 ted to the President of the United States, and to each of our Senators and 
 Representatives in Congress, and lhat the latter be respectfully requested 
 to present the same in the branches to which they belong. 
 
 After the resolutions were read, they were supported in a short, but able 
 and animated speech, by Percy Walker, esquire ; in which he reviewed the 
 history of the negotiations and treaties, which had, at one period, placed 
 the United States in peaceable possession of the territory now forming the 
 area of the republic of Texas, and, at another, lost it to the nation, by the 
 treachery of a Secretary of State of the United States, who, having in his 
 possession the evidence of the consent of the Spanish Government to the 
 establishment of the Rio del Norte as the western boundary, actually ac- 
 cepted of the Sabine as that boundary, when the Spanish minister, then 
 accredited to the United States, had full power to accord the former bound- 
 ary. He dwelt with singular force of expression and felicity of thought 
 upon the incalculable advantages to the United States, as a great national 
 measure, which the annexation would produce; and. on the other hand, 
 on the disastrous and deplorable consequences to the southern section of 
 the Union which would follow in the train of events, 'should this crisis be 
 suffered to pass away without securing an object absolutely vital to the 
 peace and safety, if not the political existence, of the southern States. 
 
 After Mr. Walker had taken his seat, Daniel Chandler, esquire, was called 
 up by the unanimous voice of the meeting. He rose, and, in his usual able 
 and happy style, enchained the audience in a speech of considerable length, 
 which was received by the meeting with every demonstration of approba- 
 tion. He fully sustained the whole spirit of the resolutions ; and as we are 
 not able to enter fully into a detail of his arguments in favor of annexation, 
 it must suffice to state that he reviewed the prominent objections of the 
 opponents of annexation, and demonstrated that, under every aspect of the 
 question, annexation of Texas, as a national measure, was called for by 
 every consideration of justice to Texas, and the honor, safety, and true pol- 
 icy @f the United States. As to the dread of the resulting consequence of 
 war with Mexico, or with any other power, to annexation, he referred to 
 the indisposition of them all to encounter the United States, and insisted, 
 with peculiar cogency of reasoning, that from that source we had nothing 
 to apprehend. 
 
Doc. No. 255. 
 
 He deprecated the introduction of party feelings into so grave and mo- 
 mentous a question as that now presented to the people of the United States, 
 and invoked the meeting, by appeals calculated to awaken all the kindlier 
 feelings of the heart, and the clearest and unbiassed judgment of the head, 
 to discard all party considerations, and leave their reason and consciences 
 free to decide so grave and momentous a question. 
 
 He maintained that the crisis had arrived when the question should be 
 boldly met and decided that now is the proper time and that, were the 
 ambition of presidential aspirants separated from the question, all would be 
 of one mind upon it. 
 
 After he had concluded, on motion of P. Waters, esquire, the resolutions 
 were again read, and unanimously adopted by the meeting. 
 
 On motion, the proceedings of the meeting were ordered to be published 
 in the city papers. 
 
 The meeting then adjourned. 
 
 P. B. SHEPPARD, President.