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ANNEXATION
THE TEXAS,
CASE OF WAR
BETWEEN
ENGLAND AND THE UNITED STATES.
" I know nothing greater or nobler than the undertaking and managing
some important accusation, by which some high criminal of State, or some
formed body of conspirators against the public, may be arraigned and brought
to punishment, through the honest zeal and public affection of a priv^ate
inan." — Lord Shafteahury.
D. UEQUHART, ESQ,
LONDON:
JAMES MAYNARD, PANTON STREET, HAYMARKET.
1844.
-U7
CONTENTS.
PAGE
Settlement of Texas — Its Revolution and Independence . 9
Engagements of Mexico to England . , . ,17
Recognition of Texas by England . . . . .21
Treaty between Great Britain and Texas . . . .22
Mexican Protest 30
Recognition by Great Britain of the Revolted American
Colonies of Spain ....... 32
Conduct of England towards Texas and Mexico, under the
New Administration ...... 48
Treaty between Texas and the United States . . .54
Means used by the United States' Government to obtain the
Treaty from Texas . . . . . . .63
War between the United States and Mexico . . .70
Dr. Channing in 1834, on the Annexation of Texas . . 93
From the "Boundary Differences" in 1838 . . . .98
i::-"' ~y
n
ANNEXATION OF THE TEXAS,
The great Felony has been consummated. As pirates
in disguise steal into a fortress to surprise by cunning,
when they cannot overcome by force, so did bands of
American outlaws enter the territories of their neighbour ;
and though the lifetime of half a generation has passed
between the beginning and the end — the original purpose
is proved and crowned by the present result.
When it was suspected that the American Union might
not prove the tranquil neighbour and peaceful community
of which she then wore the complacent aspect — when it
was doubtingly whispered that there might be something
under the Texan colonization — the Government and people
of the United States resented the suspicion as an insult..
They pleaded " constitutional difficulties," and the inability
of the executive to put down the lawlessness of their southern
border; but they declared that never should the Govern-
ment of the United States countenance such deeds or
profit by them. They were believed. Belief is rife in
these times — for phrases. The robbery went on, and the
world now beholds the consummation. That consumma-
tion produces no abhorrence, not even surprise ; — but it
was not so when these treacheries commenced — unheeded
A 2
4 ON THE ANNEXATION
when accomplished, they would have been impracticable
in their origin could they have been suspected.
The hordes thus engaged seemed to have united
every vicious dexterity, and to have expelled every com-
pensating virtue. By crimes committed, and immoral
and hateful principles proclaimed, they gained favour
among the nation they had left, inveigled new adven-
turers, and disseminating over the whole Union the virus of
this envenomed corruption, they made it directly participate
in their profits and their joys. Scrip was circulated for
land, to be robbed after it had been purchased, the free
States rejoiced that real ropnblicuiism was to be extended
southward, and the slave-holding States that new strength
was to be acquired by slavery ; for all there was con-
sideration and aggrandisement, trade and profits. Each
separate lust, immorality, or folly was called into play to
impel the whole Union into the paths of lawless ambition.
Gamblers without adventure — adventurers without faith —
stock-jobbers without capital — patriots without a country —
hucksters without industry — pirates without discipline —
pretenders without belief — pilferers without shame — be-
came to the United States guides, benefactors and exam-
ples !
Tens of thousands of these enlightened citizens co-
lonized Texas ; repudiated Mexico, and called it a revo-
lution. Bands of sympathisers pressed forward, bearing
banners inscribed with " Freedom," ** Liberty," '' Land,"
and ** Slavery" — the glorious revolution was paraded
through Europe— a " rising State" was to be hailed and
encouraged, liberalism rejoiced, benevolence commended,
and " the independence of Texas," from being the theme of
philosophic applause, became the pivot of political evolu-
tions. Diplomatic support sprung from the states of
Europe, and especially from that State, from which alone
they had to anticipate repression and punishment. Eng-
OF THE TEXAS. O
land stepped forth to treat with Texas, waving those rights
supposed most dear to her, to facilitate for the freebooters
the slavery schemes that rendered their plot chiefly de-
testable, and gave it support in the neighbouring States
of the Union. The Americans now learned the power of
lying words, and discovered the means of obtaining the
favour of England — but, indeed, they had made the
discovery before, and applied it to herself.
This insurrection had no subliming touch of daring ; it was
as cowardly as wicked. Mexico to them was a region of
golden dreams, which might be obtained safely by cheating
each other into contempt for its rights, and hatred for its
owners. The Mexicans were the descendants of the old
Spaniards, a worn out and decrepid race, ignorant, idle,
priest-ridden, poverty-stricken, a disgrace to the name of
republicans, and an incubus on the fairest region of the
earth. It was " the mission of the Anglo-Saxon race"* to
drive forth the mongrel breed of Indian and Spaniard.
It was their duty to root out antiquated superstitions.
'* God and Nature" had marked out these possessions as
their inheritance. By such blasphemies, more awful than
the atrocious deeds which they had been used to prompt,
was conscience stifled, and pollution poured forth over
the land of America, which generations of retributive
agonies will not expiate.
Let not this national crime be compired with those
of France in the 18th century, of the Moguls in the
13th, or of the English in the 19th. In France an
enslaved people was organized, and did nor know what
it was about. The Moguls rushed forward, daring
and conscious, with that sense of justice that robbers
* An Englishman in Texas, anticipating Sir R. Peel, speaks of
the ** acquisitive tendency of the Anglo-Saxon race," as the principle
directing the events of the Western Hemisphere.
O ON THE ANNEXATION
present,* and obedient to the laws they had given
themselves, and to the rulers they had set up. England,
too, in evil ignorance, but not with evil purpose, has perpe-
trated her crimes, and would, with joy and exultation, re-
gain her former virtue, could she but find an honest leader
among her people. But the United States have neither
been slaves, nor coerced, deceived, or heedless men ; nor
have they been plunderers that avowed their purpose, and
joined each other to share uprightly, both risk and profit.
Abhorrence is too feeble a term for conduct such as theirs
— loatliing and disgust alone fills the mind at the contem-
plation of such atrocities. Such a race has to he cast out
like lepers from the society of man; to such death itself is
an escape and not a punishment. These are not phrases
adjusted to belie integrity, nor are they epithets selected to
deepen the die even of recognized guilt ; our expressions
cannot reach the reality, and in what we say, we but find
words for their deeds. Yet they have been made what
they are by England.
There has been one distinguished son of America who
has long ago placed upon record his abhorrence of such
acts, and his prognostication of the consequences ; not
reviling in hatred, but in sorrow labouring to stay sin and
avert calamity. We subjoin the words of Dr. Channing,f
and entreat for ihem the most earnest attention, for they are
worth all that has for twenty years been written in Europe.
In face of such warnings, was the design prosecuted and
is now completed. We, indeed, have looked to this event
as one ensured in proper season by that diplomacy
that rules the world. Texas and then Canada stood to
the United States, as Algiers and then Tunis to France,^—
Serbia to Austria, — the small States of Germany to
* ** There can even be no robbery without justice," says St.
Augustin, *' for how otherwise should they divide the booty V
t They will be found at the end of this article.
OF THE TEXAS. 7
Prussia, — Scinde and Lahore to England : that is, as
temptations to which Russia should direct their covetous-
ness,* and thereby pervert their minds and lead them into
crime, so that the injured should find no protector; that
all should be confusion, until mutual animosity and ran-
cour, turned against each other the blood-thirstiness that
they had learnt to practise upon the -weak and honest.
Looking from this point of view at the present event, we
see rather subject of congratulation than of regret, for it has
come before its time. There is not at present a willing or
conscious instrument of Russia, minister either of England
or France. Mexico is not yet altogether cowed, and may
have the courage to make a stand — Canada is not yet in
insurrection— the parties in America have not concurred in
the resolution for the annexation of Texas ; none of the
parties have adopted it ; on the contrary, their leading men
oppose it. Clay,f Webster, and Van Buren declare it
immoral, inexpedient, and uncalled for by public opinion;
they point it out as dangerous to themselves, without
any reference to foreign dangers ; they speak even of the
dissolution of their own constitution and state as a con-
sequence of it. How, then, has it occurred? A man,
by accident raised to the chief magistracy, not a leader of
either party, and having made himself obnoxious to all,
grasps as he retires from office at this only unoccupied
* '* They," the allies of Philip, '* were gratified for a time with
the possession of the territories of others, to be in the end deprived
of their own." — Demosthenes.
t ** I consider the annexation of Texas at this time, without the
assent of Mexico, as a measure compromising the national character,
involving us certainly in a war with Mexico, probably with other
foreign powers, dangerous to the integrity of the Union, inexpedient
in the present financial condition of the country, and Jiot called for by
any general expression of public opinion:** — as if that were reason !
8 ON THE ANNEXATION
position. After his son has for years, with strangely un-
punished and unblushing daring, worked up the worst
passions, preaching conquest, blood and treachery, he
himself, in the last hour of his presidential existence,
makes this desperate throw for future popularity and
power.'*' Alas! in America, as in England, the days of
impeachment are gone by ; and there, too, while petty
offences are pursued with the greatest severity, the greatest
of crimes are certain of impunity, and become instruments
of success.
Forced on thus, before its time, that is before England is
bereft of her strength and alliances in America, or over-
taken by European dangers and colonial insurrection — the
British Government may be tempted by the want of
national support to this measure in the United States, or
impelled by the necessity of doing something to maintain
character, or embaj^rassed by the resistance of Mexico, — and
thus may cease for once to confide to events the care of over-
coming difficulties. Or Britain shall appear the camel
crouching for a speculator in American politics to mount.
Such a phantasm reflected back on her own eye from
the mirage of the world*s opinion, may shame her even yet.
* ** It should, however, be borne in mind, that this appeal to
public opinion is not only a circumstance in the case, but the main
object of the whole proceeding. Mr. Tyler and his profligate Cabinet
care very little whether they succeed in the annexation of Texas by
the aid of public opinion, but they hope to bend public opinion to
their interests by the project for the annexation of Texas. Viewed
in its true light, this act of the Republican Richelieus is the sub-
limest point of corruption. We have had many monsters in our
days — monster concerts, monster meetings, the monster mortar —
and this is the monster bribe — a bribe offered in one huge lump to
13,000,000 or 14,000,000 of people— slavery and lands for the
south, trade and market for the north — aggrandizement for the whole
Union. * Vote for President Tyler, and all this is yours.' "— Ttme*.
OF THE TEXAS. 9
Settlement of Texas — its Revolution and
Independence.
The State of Cohahuila and Texas, in order to invite
settlers for its spacious domains, passed, with the concur-
rence of the general Government, laws and regulations
to admit colonists without any restrictions, and granting
to every applicant vacant lands on the most liberal scale.
The profession of Catholicism, required in the other States
of Mexico, was here dispensed with. The only obligation
imposed on settlers was an oath of allegiance to the Re-
public, and obedience to the laws of Mexico. The sale
and purchase of slaves was strictly forbidden, on the
penalty (should this condition of their settlement be vio-
lated) of forfeiting their lands. Under these hos-
pitable enactments, numbers flocked from the United
States, and had lands assigned them free from all charge.
No taxes were imposed upon them.
A civil contest subsequently arose, through the de-
sire on the part of many in the Mexican republic to
do away with federal institutions in favour of a central
government; the citizens of Texas, whether natives or
foreign settlers, although marking their preference to
federal institutions, abstained from embroiling themselves
in this domestic feud.
The rising prosperity of the early settlers attracted
a new class of emigrants, from the very refuse of the
United States. These, impatient of steady industry,
beijan to look with distaste on the laws of Mexico for-
bidding slavery, and its rights of ownership; they from
thenceforth laboured to produce confusion, and the project
was formed of robbing Mexico of the province, and of
tempting adventurers to their support, by proposing to
throw it into the arms of the United States.
To accomplish this, land speculations were organized ;
10 ON THE ANNEXATION
and while the attention of the central government was
occupied with the civil commotions which unhappily
prevailed throughout Mexico, they succeeded in introduc-
ing cargoes of slaves.
The feelings and views of these men were in no way
shared by the original settlers from the United States,
so that their first steps were stealthy. In 1832, on
the strength of some grievances, of which the Texans then
complained, they commenced with putting forth the scheme
of a separation betweenTexas and Cohahuila. A constitution
having been drawn up, a convention was held in Texas to
petition the Sovereign Congress to sanction it, and to receive
them into the Mexican confederation as a separate State.
In this document, it is said, " The people of Texas present
the strongest assurances of their patriotic attachment to
the constitution and to the republic, pledging all and
every interest in life for the support of their declaration."
From this passage it will be seen, that the general con-
currence had been obtained, by the concealment of their
design .
Colonel Austin, charged with the mission of urging at
the capital the adoption of the prayer of the petition, re-
turned in 1834, with very different views. In the letter,
of the 25th August, announcing the conclusion of his mis-
sion, he says —
'* The Government have remedied the evils complained
of in Texas, and which threatened it with ruin ; and
those who acted last year in good faith, and with pure
intentioiis of separating from Cohahuila^ are now opposed to
it, because the reasons which made a separation neces-
sary no longer exist" Colonel Austin proceeded to ad-
vise, that *' a public act of gratitude should be expressed
by the people for those remedies that have been applied
by the State and General Government," and counselled
the Texans to '* discountenance in the most unequivocal
OF THE TEXAS. 11
niauner," all '* inflammatory men," " political adventu-
rers," " would-be-great-men," and " vain tattlers," and that
they should " proclaim, with one unanimous voice, fide-
lity TO Mexico, opposition to violent men and mea-
sures,— and it will be peace and prosperity to Texas."
Foiled by this unexpected result, the malcontents then
alleged the fact of the existence of disunion and civil war
in the republic, as a reason for accomplishing their separa-
tion from it.
These machinations were again counteracted by the
efforts and decisions of the loyal and respectable inha-
bitants of the province, and public tranquillity was re-
stored.
We subjoin an extract from the address of the central
Committee of Texas, which, while establishing the most
flagrant case that ever was made out against the infatua-
tion of revolution, and the guilt of treason, is a testimony
to the mildness, humanity, and excellence of the Govern-
ment of Mexico, such as seems rather belonging to tradi-
tions of patriarchal society, than to times in which
nations vie in insubordination, with governments in inter-
meddling.
'* Allow us to ask you as men, as husbands, as fathers, if you
are prepared heedlessly to rush forward in a cause, the termination
of which may involve your country of adoption in all the horrors of
civil war ? Are you prepared to plunge yourselves and your country
into revolution, to imbrue your hands in the blood of your brethren,
and finally to be expelled from the land, to which we are so much
attached by the strongest of ties ? If you are, then adopt the plan
suggested, and we have too much reason to fear that our worst anti-
cipations will be realized I
'* But from the information which we have, and which can be re-
lied upon with confidence, we assure you that the feelings of the
Federal Government, particularly those of the President, are of the
12 ON THE ANNEXATION
most favorable character towards Texas. We are assured of this
fact by our representative, Colonel Austin, and the advice which he
most earnestly presses upon us, is to be peaceful and quiet, and
to adopt as our motto, the Constitution and Laws, State and
Federal.
*' From the State Government too, we have surely received favors
the most liberal, and boons the most free ; in fact, what has been
for our particular benefit, which we have asked and they have not
granted, which was in their power to give? It has established the
trial by jury, it has organised a court especially for Texas, and if
it does not answer the desired end, and make us contented, it is not
the fault of the legislature.
" We ask you then, in the spirit of candor, has the government
ever asked anything unreasonable of Texas ? If she has, we must
before God and our country say, rve know it not! Again, for your
experimental knowledge shall bear us out, has she ever burdened
you with taxes, or the performance of arduous, expensive, or peri-
lous duties ? Nay, has Texas ever borne any part of the expenses
of sustaining the government that protects her citizens, their lives,
their liberty, and their property, either in legislation, or in war ?
" When have the people of Texas called upon the government
for any law to their advantage, or for the repeal of any law by which
they were aggrieved, but what their requests have been complied
with V
This fidelity to oaths, this peace, this prosperity, this
gratitude was, however, of short duration. Mexico dis-
turbed it not, withdrew no protection, infringed no right;
but the spirit of evil was busy and reviving. While honest
men slumbered over the triumph they had achieved, the
black activity of the designing broke forth again in the
form of a land job! The circumstances have been described
as follows by an American author : —
* " This address being founded on facts notorious to every man*s
experience, peace and quiet were the consequence." — Texas and
Mexico y by a Mexican Mer chanty p. 25.
OF THE TEXAS. 13
** A committee of land speculators, whose plans were well laid,
and whose funds were completely organized, presented themselves
before this — by the people of Texas never to be forgotten legisla-
ture, — which immediately passed a decree to sell the vacant lands of
Texas, and otherwise arranged it to be done as soon as bidders
should present themselves.
*' Of course they were there, and purchased this already sur-
veyed land, of 41 1 leagues, for 30,000 dollars in hand, to the Go-
vernment, or 72 dollars 99 cents per league. But we shall allow
their travelling expenses, in conjunction with those by-bribes to
such members of the legislature, as were not in partnership with
them, to raise the whole amount, expended in this nefarious trans-
action, to 40,000 dollars, or 96 dollars 35 cents per league.
" The house went on thus for some time gloriously ; decree after
decree was passed, and signed by as corrupted a governor, — what
will not gold do ! But behold the brother-in-law of the President
Santana, General Don Martin Perfecto del Cos, Commandant-General
of the Eastern States, and his troops were at hand I Santana him-
self was close by, quelling an insurrectionary movement in Zacatecas.
Orders were given from head-quarters, and the unconstitutionally
acting legislature of Cohahuila and Texas were (with the exception
of those who seasonably made their escape) made prisoners, and, in
due time, banished ; of course, their decrees of that session de-
clared null and void by the general Congress of Mexico. The
Texan representatives, ayid other Americans, at that time in Mon-
clova, lost no time in their retreat from thence to Texas — raised the
war-whoop — " Santana has destroyed the liberals of Zacatecas : Ge-
neral Cos has arrested the State Congress of Cohahuila and Texas, —
to arms,— ;/br the Mexicans have declared they will drive every
American out of their country .'"*
This appeal was not responded to ; public scorn and
condemnation pursued these vile speculators and their
treasonable confederates v^^ithin the walls of the legislature.
The sense of the province may be gathered from the pub-
lic act, of which we subjoin extracts : —
* History of Texas. By David B. Edwards. Cincinnati, 1 836.
14 ON THE ANNEXATION
" Our constituents learning that the Congress of the State (Co-
hahulla and Texas) had, during its session of March present year,
acted improperly, — contrary to the rights of State, and in direct op-
position to the Constitution of the Mexican confederation, —being
corrupted from their line of legislative duties by the undue influence
of a few foreigners and others, they became amenable to the laws made
and provided — therefore were they treated by the government of the
nation according to their deserts."
" The law of the 14th of March past (1835,) is looked upon by
the people with horror and indignation — it is looked upon as the
death-blow to this rising country. In violation of the general con-
stitution and the laws of the nation, — in violation of good faith and
the most sacred guarantees, — Congress has trampled upon the rights
of the people and the Government, in selling four hundred and eleven
leagues at private sale, and at a shameful sacrifice ; thereby creating
a monopoly — thereby entirely ruining the future prospects of our
country, contrary to law, and contrary to the true interest of every
citizen in Texas."
The speculators now endeavoured by desperate acts to
compromise their compatriots with the native Mexicans
and the government. But these sent two of their most re-
spected citizens to General Cos to state the real feeling of
the colonists and the people of Texas, and to repudiate
the conduct of the rebels. Thus, then, had every means
successively adopted, failed in effect, and the hitherto
insignificant as desperate band, was at once utterly frus-
trated in its machinations and exposed in its character and
intentions, and the repose of the community seemed thence-
forward secured, when a new and unexpected incident oc-
curred, and changed the face of affairs. An armed expe-
dition from New Orleans arrived in Texas!
It was not against Mexican armies that these bands
were directed ; they were engaged in vengeful and pre-
datory expeditions against Texans and Americans, to com-
pel them to make common cause with themselves. They
OF THE TEXAS. 15
had even the audacity to pass resolutions such as the fol-
lowing: —
" Resolved — That no person or persons whatsoever, under the
control or in the name of Santana, shall be suffered to enter
Texas, whatever may he his credentials, or upon whatever prin-
ciple he may assume the privilege.
" Resolved — That if any citizen or citizens whatever, shall leave
the country on, or before the contest — or shall assist the enemy in
any shape whatsoever, during the conflict, their property shall be
confiscated for and in behalf of the war.
" Resolved — That the property of those inhabitants who may pre-
tend neutrality or otherwise, so as not to assist their brother Ameri-
cans in this war, shall be the ^rst sacrificed to its welfare and pro-
secution."
This was the " Revolution of Texas.'*
The forces of Mexico were at one time occupied in con-
testing, under hostile leaders, the establishment of a cen-
tral or a purely federative constitution ; at another engaged
in preparing to receive, and finally in resisting, the attack
made upon it by a great European power ; so that the
Government was unable to resist or put down, not the in-
surrection, for that term cannot apply, but the piratical
seizure of the province, where the bandits were supplied and
recruited from the neighbouring great nation, whose co-ope-
ration involved at once the well disposed American settlers,
and added to the external and internal embarrassments of
the Mexican Government, the danger of a war with the
United States. However, in the early part of 1836, an
ejffort was made ; a considerable body of troops, under the
President Santana, entered Texas, driving before him
General Houston, with some hundred insurgents, from one
frontier of the province to the other, when he was, with his
vanguard of 1400, suddenly surprised by the Texans, who
had been just before on the point of crossing into the United
States territory. It is supposed that this surprise was owing
16 ON THE ANNEXATION
to reinforcements from the regular United States troops —
the Texan troops being themselves Americans. The Pre-
sident Santana was captured with the vanguard in this
bloodless surprise, and General Filisola, at the head of the
main body, was deterred from attacking the insurgents
from fear of compromising the life of the President; this
was the celebrated battle of San Jacinto, on the 2 1st April,
1836.
Texan independence was proclaimed on the 2d March,
1836. To this document 56 names were attached ; of these
50 were American citizens, three natives of Great Britain,
and three natives of Mexico. These three revolted Mexi-
cans — for the others are not only strangers and aliens, but
their presence takes from thedocument the authority it would
have, if signed only by the three Mexicans — give to them-
selves, by a resolution, 350,000 square miles of Mexican
territory. A year elapses, and Congress, by a vote, declares
them independent, according to their own terms; that is,
asserts that they do possess this property.
This was the " Independence of Texas."
These were the facts which European governments had
to consider in coming to a decision as to the light in which
they should look on the *' infant state" of Texas.
In concluding this statement of the circumstances of the
revolt, we have to remark,that what has been accomplished
by the United States against Ttxas, is now enacting
against California. Nor was it in Texas that the experi-
ment was first made. The revolt of Mexico against Spain
was fomented, encouraged, and supported by the United
States; their sympathies were then given to Republicanism
against Monarchy and Catholicism, as now their sympathy
is given to Anglo-Saxon against Indo- Mexican and free-
dom ; that is to say, lawless ambition has formed in these
days, and in this region, many pretexts ; but it is strange
that this war of castes, colors, and creeds^ should have been
OF THE TEXAS. 17
Stirred up by a people who fled from England to ej^cajx;
from religious persecution, and who struggled upon their
own soil to assert political liberty. Thus has been pre*
pared for the western world a fate which may make it
envy, and invite from our European shores the order which
a barbarous despotism shall have there established on the
ruins of enlightened faction and civilized corruption.
Engagements op Mexico to England.
Mexico, by no single act abandoned or compfo*
niised her sovereign rights over any portion of her ter-
ritory, comprised within the limits of the provincial
state of Texas. As early as November, 1835, when the
first overt expeditions proceeded from the shores of the
United States, she indignantly remonstrated at Wash-
ington. The disregard of these remonstrances was a case
of war, which the weakness of Mexico alone prevented.
A State thus assailed has to look throughout the world
for allies and supporters. Where could Mexico look ?
With France she was at variance. Russia was sup-
posed to have schemes upon her territory on the Pacific.
Both Governments could only be considered by Mexico
as associated with the United States in character
and design, if not in immediate projects. There was,
however, one great Government, deeply interested in her
welfare — this power was England, on whom was the obli-
gation of supporting Mexico imposed, by the fact that her
own territory was exposed to the same danger as that of
Mexico, and from the same source. It became, therefore,
her part to support the remonstrances of Mexico, and to
enforce them in case the United States disregarded the
appeal.
The case presented itself in two points of view — first, the
making of Texas a slave-holding state; and secondly, its
B
18 ON THE ANNEXATION
prospective incorporation with the United States. The first
was repugnant to all our sympathies, as well as to our
acquired rights. The second, alarming on the score of the
friendly relations which it was a primary object to preserve
with the United States, and threatening directly our
possessions and dominions on the American continent, —
and both these merged into one. Slavery being kept out of
Texas, its independence would be innoxious, and might be
real. Slavery established, independence was but a pretext
and a passage to its incorporation. A new power springing
into being between the Republic of Mexico and the United
States of America, though peopled originally and entirely
by citizens of the latter, could be no cause of apprehension
to England : being independent it became the necessary
ally of England in case she wanted one, that is, in
case the United States threatened her neighbours. It would
be the best protection to Mexico, as fitter to deal with their
Anglo-Saxon brethren, and being by the original constitu-
tion possessed of institutions similar to those of the New
England States, and not polluted by slavery, the new
republic would have found support most valuable within
the Union, and secured its permanency by arresting its
aggressive and ambitious tendencies. These, however
gigantic and alarming they have become, were then within
reach of easy cure. But the picture is reversed, the moment
that slavery is there established. It is no longer inde-
pendent ; and independence is but a mask for design ;
not of the United States against Mexico, but of a few
plotters against the United States. The property of the one
and the honour of the other were at once at stake ; the one
was to be plundered to constitute the other a plunderer.
Here, then, was a danger for England as for Mexico
of the most alarming kind, — a danger foreseen and self-an-
nounced from the very earliest moment. A danger which
now, after nearly ten years, bursts upon the nation unpre-
OF THE TEXAS. \ \ 19
pared, nothing having been done by its governmenfr,^n^ther
ignorant nor unappealed to, to prevent its occurrence, %n<J^
everything to encourage the actors and to precipitate the
event!
Nearly ten years ago was it furthermore avowed that
the diffijculty in the way of the annexation of Texas as a
slave-holding State, lay in the necessity of acquiring in th€
north a compensating and counterbalancing increase of anti-
slavery territory. By the establishment, therefore, of
slavery in the provinces detached from Mexico by Ame-
rican adventurers, without opposition from England and
with her concurrence, and, as will be hereafter seen, her
positive and vehement co-operation, a change was wrought
in the minds of the whole Union. By the bare possibility
that England might sanction the annexation of the
Texas— a wider range of ambitious prospects naturally
presented itself. Not the disputed territory of the North-
east, not disputed Oregon alone, but the colonial pos-
sessions of Great Britain, from objects of hopeless longing,
now became aims of settled ambition, — fostered directly in
like manner by the Boundary Difference on the North,
the work of the same minister.
At so early a period the Texan question commanded,
upon grounds the most urgent, that the evil should be
checked in its origin. The ease of doing so equalled the
necessity. Here was no doubtful pretender to a Persian
throne — no Asiatic complication — no Egyptian or Turkish
politics. In the most thrilling accents of the English tongue
was expounded the danger to Texan freedom and Eng*
land's interests, by a citizen of the United States, and
thousands upon thousands of our countrymen had read
the exposition.
England had not to rely alone on the general rights
given to her in common with every other nation by public
law in arresting a danger by which she was threatened,
B 2
20 ON fHE ANNEXATION
She had rights secured by treaty in Texas to defend —
rights which she could not abstain from asserting, but
wTiich being asserted, every difficulty was solved.
The 15th article of the treaty between Great Britain
and Mexico (December, 1B26,) stipulated that —
** The government of Mexico engages to co-operate with his Bri-
tannic Majesty ybr the total abolition of the slave trade, and to
prohibit all persons inhabiting within the territories of Mexico,
in the most effectual manner, from taking any share in such trade."
The revolution of Texas, supposing it bona fide in its
origin and successful in its termination, could alter no inter-
national obligation affecting it as previously constituting
a portion of Mexico. For more than three years be-
fore the recognition of its independence by any Power,
the Texans violated this treaty without calling forth
the necessary steps on the part of Britain to enforce her
right and obtain satisfaction ; yet the Texans had engaged
in the traffic of slaves and imported them from the
United States and direct from Africa. The opportunity
thus presented itself before any one government had ac-
knowledged the independent existence of Texas — hecome
a slave holding State^ — and hence before any one power
could, on the ground of a c?e/<2c^o independence intermeddle
in the separate proceedings of Great Britain, based on
Treaty. Moreover, her zealous philanthropy in favour of
the African was at that time admitted by all nations as a
legitimate ground of action.
Great Britain had to call the attention of the govern-
ment of Mexico to the flagrant violations of the Treaty
of 1826, ** by persons inhabiting the territories of Mexico."
The acknowledgment of that government that it was not
within their power to control those acts, gave England a
right of war against Texas, which she was free to exercise
with or without Mexico's consent. But gladly would she
have availed herself of such aid in restoring order, dis-
OF THE TEXAS. 2t
turbed only by foreign machinations, and in freeing the
loyal population of Texas from a forced participation in
the rebel outbreak. What, then, easier at the outset,
than prevention ? Had it not been easy it was requisite.
But it was easier far to do than to describe. The voice of
a powerful nation in a just cause is never heard in vain ;
the words of a great Government are acts.
The United States at first held aloof: disclaimed all
confederacy in or sanction of the proceedings in Texas, but
took no measures to repress them. Years having elapsed,
and public opinion gra<iually won over, the solicita-
tions of her citizens, now predominant in Texas, to be
received into the Union, was replied to by recognizing
their c?<?^yac^o independence — we might here be reading
the history of Georgia, Wallachia, or Serbia. France
followed up the act of the United States, and acknow-
ledged a sovereign existence in this body of American
plunderers. The French papers, with ready instinct,
exulted in the new enemy that had arisen for England
in the Western world, and the natural ally that had sprung
up for France. The recognition of the Texas was im-
portant in Paris because it was a Mow against England !
Her accredited representative in Texas, proposed to the
Congress, to cement the alliance between them by the
establishment of a line of French military colonists, as a
barrier against the Indians. This was one of the fruits^
of the treaty of the 15th of July.
Recognition of Texas by England.
Having shewn what England had neglected to do, we now
come to what she has done. She confirmed the act of
the United States and of France — she recognized Texas !
No redress for past infractions of treaty are the
conditions of this compact — no assurances for a future
22 ON THE ANNEXATION
observance of them contained in it — no single thing was
required from Texas — everything was sacriiiced to her.
Astounding as this may be, what we have stated
is nothing to what follows. It is a compact to coerce
Mexico— it is a bond of conspiracy, not a compact of
mutual advantage. It is an announcement, that the
independence of this revolted province is an object so
dear to the British Minister, that he sacrifices to it
all justice, sympathies, and interests of his nation. It
is to tell Mexico, before the world, that she must desist
from a contest in which she was engaged, and acknow-
ledge the sovereignty of foreign freebooters ; while aggra-
vating the wound to the national pride, by holding Texas
forth as dictating the conditions. In offering this unpa-
ralleled outrage, the British Government presented itself
as a mediator !
Treaty between Great Britain and Texas.
'* Whereas,* her Majesty, the Queen of the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Ireland, being desirous of putting an end to the
hostilities, which still continue to be carried on between Mexico
and Texas, has offered her mediation to the contending parties,
with a view to bring about a pacification between them, and whereas
the republic of Texas has accepted the mediation so oHered ; the re-
public of Texas, and her Britannic Majesty's Government, have deter"
mined to settle, by means of a convention, certain arrangements which
ivill become necessary, in the event of such pacification being
effected, and have, for this purpose, named as their plenipotentiaries,
that is to say, the Republic of Texas, General James Hamilton, &c.
&c. and her Majesty, the Queen of the United Kingdom, the Right
Honourable Henry John Viscount Palmerston, &c. &c. &c.* who
have agreed upon, and concluded the following articles : —
*' Article 1 .- — The Republic of Texas agrees that if, by means of
the mediation of her Britannic Majesty, an unlimited truce shall
* See a remarkable identity of style with the Lahore compact.
OF THE TEXAS. 23
be established between Mexico and Texas, within thirty days
after this convention shall have been communicated to the Mexican
Government, by her Britannic Majesty's mission at Mexico, and
Mexico shall have concluded a treaty of peace with Texas, then
and in such case the Republic of Texas will take upon itself a,
portion, amounting to one million pounds sterling, of the capital of
the foreign debt contracted by the Republic of Mexico before the 1st
of January, 1835.
" Article 2.— The manner hi which the capital of one million
pounds sterling of foreign debt, mentioned In the preceding article,
shall be transferred from the Republic of Mexico to the Republic of
Texas, shall be settled hereafter by a special government between
the Republic of Texas and the Republic of Mexico.
** Article 3. — The present convention shall be ratified, and the
ratifications shall be exchanged at London as soon as possible within
the space of nine months within this date.
" In witness whereof, &c. &c., London, 14th Nov., in the year
of our Lord, A.D. 1840.
(Signed) " Palmerston.
" Hamilton."
This treaty constituted England as much a freebooter
against Mexico as the Texan insurgents. Mexico could
therefore treat England only as an enemy, and if she did
not do so, she shewed at least by the language she held
that it was her weakness alone that prevented her.
Mexico is indebted to British subjects to the amount of
thirty millions sterling ; for the repayment of this debt
they hold Texas bound as a part of its territory. But in-
dependently of this general engagement, they obtained, as
a condition of reducing this debt to one-third, a special
bond on 45,000,000 of acres of unoccupied land in the
province of Texas, conceded by the law of conversion, for
the deferred debt in 1837. This property fell, therefore,
of right to the British bondholders, in case that Mexico
failed to perform her engagements. So that any attempt
of Mexico to alienate these lands, and any attempt at
24 ON THE ANNEXATION
usurping them by a foreign power, imposed upon Eng*
Jand, as a matter of mere attorney practice, the necessity
of interposing a bar to such misappropriation.
This claim was not unknown to the Minister who
signed the convention with Texas, having been strongly
urged upon him by the Committee of the South Ame-
rican Bondholders, and fully admitted. Nevertheless,
this claim, together with the stipulation for the abo-
lition of slavery, is put out of the way in adopting Texas,
and in associating England to her violences and crimes !
The treaty, conferring these lands of Mexico on the
insurgents, begins by saying that Texas is to pay one
million of the foreign debt ; that is, it wipes off nine of
the ten millions sterling for which the land is mortgaged,
and then wipes off this very million by placing to its
payment, conditions that Mexico was to fulfil, and which
of course Mexico would not fulfil.
Thus the Treaty is to wipe off at once all obligation of
Texas to Mexico, and of Mexico to England. But lest
Mexico should afterwards relent, and England be thus
committed to the enforcing of the onemillion against Texas,
a limit is placed in time, after the expiration of which there
can be no further claim. Thirty days are given ; and one
day later — say the thirty-first — Mexico consenting to the
*' unlimited truce,'* calls on Texas, made independent by
British protection, to pay this million to the British bond-
holders — the British minister would step in and forbid the
demand, saying, my fiat has not been executed— thirty days
have elapsed !
A British minister enforces the extinction of a mortgage
to British subjects in behalf of American freebooters-
helps to rob Mexico and England, sustaining, at the same
time, the establishment of slavery in a new region, and
inviting the United States to aggression against its neigh-
bours. Here is no matter in which men can admit doubts
OF THE TEXAS.
55'
with respect to conduct, and differences with respect to
opinion. It is a common matter of business ; it is mere
police or Old Bailey fraud. If the British minister were
a sharer in the plunder, it would be perhaps intelligible ;
if he does not pocket proceeds it is not the less fraud, and
it must be far more dangerous than if it were merely a
fraudulent transaction for pecuniary advantage.
All mention of the obligation of Texas having been
excluded from the discussion of this subject, this clause
presents England as interfering between Mexico and
Texas in order to gain. She appears domineering* and
* We must here anticipate the course of events in order to con-
nect causes and consequences, and mention that on the 15th June,
1843, this proclamation was issued by the President of Texas: —
** An official communication has been received at the Department of
State from her Britannic Majesty's Charge d'affaires in Mexico,
announcing to this government the fact that the President of Mexico,
would forthwith order a cessation of hostilities on his part, therefore
I, Sara Houston, President of the Republic of Texas, do hereby
declare and proclaim that an armistice is established, to continue
during the pendency of negotiations between the two countries, and
until due notice of an intention to resume hostilities (should such
an intention be hereafter entertained by either party) shall have been
formally announced through her Britannic Majesty's Charge d'affaires
at the respective governments."
So that it is the English government that is working for that
cessation of hostilities, and that recognition of independence of
Texas which should prepare the way for the usurpation of the United
States, while the United States take this very fact of these nego-
tiations as a ground for pushing the annexation, as an argument
for it for her own people, and a justification for it in the eyes of the
world. "Is not Texas," says a member of the Senate, commenting
upon this document, ** already dependent upon England, when
England obtains for her an armistice, and the President of Texas
announces that this will continue ujitil its termination be announced
by England?"
26 ON THE ANNEXATION
avaricious to foreigners, at home her minister appears
anxiously advancing her interests. The injured have now-
a-days forgot to cry aloud, for propositions only are heeded*
Let us take, to illustrate this act, the diplomatic inter-
ference between Turkey and Greece.
The limits were there adjusted so as to include the
})opulations which had joined in the war; the land belong-
ing to them going with them in their independence. No
land was included not occupied by the insurgents. For
the public property of Turkey, which was included within
these limits, compensation was made. The conferences
of Poros were held to ascertain these facts, and upon
its inquiries the conditions of the independence of Greece
were established. In Texas the insurgents had forfeited,
by the introduction of slaves, the right and title to the land
that each of them had previously possessed by Mexico's
grant and favour; and they proclaim their right to
hundreds of millions of other acres, and England treats
with them on that assumption, and constitutes herself a
party to it against the rightful owner ! So preposterous
a case presents itself, and there is, throughout Europe, na
eye to observe it — no abhorrence of the atrocity — no detec-
tion of the deception. In the whole discussions upon
this subject, the insurgents' and the Mexican unoccupied
lands are never doubted to be one and the same thing.
A pick-pocket in the streets of London, if he knocked down
a policeman, might with equal right be said to be the pro-
prietor of the whole of Middlesex.
The intelligence of this age is not less than that of any
other age, but there is the absence of the light by which
things can be discerned — the light of the law and the sense
of honesty. Ministers, while confused like their people,
are moreover overwhelmed with multiplicity of affairs, and
one Minister knows nothing of what another Minister has
done. The present Minister of Britain v^^ould no doubt
« OP THE TEXAS. §7
reply to questions about Texas, as when he was for the first
time questioned about Serbia — " there are more important
things to attend to." We have the faculty of making all
things important— it is easy to do so ; neglect is the secret.
But there may be even worse things than neglect. Lord
Aberdeen has had his feelings warmed and excited, though
in opposite senses, by virtuous Serbia and profligate Texas.
Suppose, again, that in England the town of Dover had
revolted, and the Government chose to grant them their
independence, would that grant them also the territory of
the rest of England ? But the territory of Texas is no less
the territory of Mexico; and if Mexico, in granting inde-
pendence to the band of insurgents settled in Texas, could
not grant to them more than the property they possessed,
how can a foreign minister interfere, and, pretending to
make treaties, in reality pass acts of confiscation? — not,
indeed, avowing a purpose, but by chicane covering the
crime from the nation whose power he used to perpetrate
it.
And to crown this infatuation and guilt, these lands are
mortgaged to the State whose minister — breaking through
every decency of international intercourse — rushes into the
arena to constitute it a party with Texas against Mexico,
to the robbery of Mexico's land, and the extinction of its
own rights.
Supposing that, by some catastrophe, France had become
a silent wilderness, and that the proprietorship of that
region, and sovereignty over it had fallen to England,
and that she had invited settlers into France, granting
them lands, upon the condition of swearing allegiance, and
abstaining from traffic in slaves ; and that in consequence,
a few — say Barbaresques and Moors— had settled in the
neighbourhood of Perpignan, bringing with them slaves in
defiance of the conditions of their admission ; what would
be said if Algiers interfered to support their revolt against
28 ON THE ANNEXATION
the crown aud laws of England ? — interfered not only to
make common cause with them, but to designate that
revolt as the Independence of *' France?" Who would
not at once comprehend the motives of the Algerian Go-
vernment, and recognise its character? Thi& is what
England has done, and no one can comprehend Aermotives,
nor understand her character.
A reason assigned in these times for displacing the
Indians from the land of their forefathers — is, that the right
of occupancy, must be restricted by the faculties of tillage.
This doctrine, put forth by an American Judge, is re-
echoed at the discriminating and interesting dinner tables
in England. Had the Indians robbed lands they could
not till, then would their claim be valid ; they would
command our sympathies, and be sure of our support.
This treaty does not stand alone. There are two more
treaties with Texas !* one bearing date of the same day,
the other of the day following. The one is a treaty of
commerce and navigation — a treaty of commerce and
navigation, with a republic q/*65,000 souls !
The other is on the subject of slavery— it makes no men-
tion of the obligation to exclude slavery from the soil — it
passes under silence the obligation lying upon Texas to
* These treaties have been asked for in vain of the Parliamentary
Stationers, one only being forthcoming, that of Commerce and Navi-
gation, of the 1 3th of November. The Annual Register is the most
valuable work that we possess for the public history of England. In
referring to that work upon the subject of Texas, the following passage
is all that is to be found :— •' On the 16th of November, a commercial
treaty between Great Britain and Texas was signed. By this treaty
the independence of the infant state was recognised, and the basis of
the commercial stipulations was perfect reciprocity. It was hoped
that this would tend to bring about a reconciliation between Mexico
and Texas, and cause a settlement of the boundary between them J"
Thus are the sources of history poisoned.
^OF THE TEXAS. 29
have no slaves, but it establishes the right of visit recipro-
cally by English and Texan men of war ! The slaves are
imported by land — this it is that gives to the Americans
their peculiar interest to the settlement. Lord Palmer-
ston makes a treaty to prevent the introduction of slaves —
by sea ! Such is the treaty signed by a Minister who was
the vehement enemy of slavery, and who was convulsing the
world in the prosecution of this darling scheme. The exis-
tence of this treaty is but an act of accusation against the
Minister, as proving that the circumstance of slavery was
before him, when drawing up that document. Slavery
could have been tolerated by him in such circumstances
only because he desired it. While this region is thrown
open to the establishment of slaver}^, so as might be sup-
posed to gratify the United States, the futile Right of
Visit clause is thrown in. The British minister is not
then sacrificing his country by collusion with the United
States, it is some other interest that he serves. The ob-
ject of that clause may be inferred from its effect as
represented in the following statement by one of the Can-
didates for the Vice-Presidentship.*
"Under this treaty the cruizers of England, and, in-
deed, the whole British navy, or any part of it, may be
brought into the gulph of Mexico, and stationed in the
narrow pass commanding the whole outlet from the gulph,
and all the commerce to and from the Mississippi. To
the right of search, under whatever name or form, espe-
cially within our own seas, and upon our own coasts, we
never have assented, and never can assent ; but here, under
the pretext of searcliing the vessels of Texas, the navy of
England, or any part of it, may occupy the only outlet of
the gulph of Mexico, and all our vessels entering the
* Mr. Walker, of Mississippi, from the New York Herald of March
7tli, 1814.
30 ON THE ANNEXATION
gulph or returning from the month of the Mississippi,
must pass by and under the supervision of British cruizers,
subject to seizure and detention, on suspicion of being
Texan vessels concerned in the slave trade. The British
navy may thus also be quartered on the southern coasts of
Florida, and along the coast of Cuba and Mexico, to seize
upon Cuba whenever an opportunity presents. Such is
tlie influence, which it is thus proved, by official documents,
Great Britain has already obtained in Texas."
Mexican Protest.
No sooner did this plot of the British Minister transpire,
than the Envoy of Mexico protested against it in fitting
terms of abhorrence and indignation ; and the Mexican
Government, taught respect for law by the European
violence to which she seemed to be exposed as a mark to
level its poisoned shafts of guilt and perfidy, sanctioned
the step of its representative, and supported it by a
declaration distinguished alike by dignity, courage, and
discrimination.
" The Government of Mexico ratifies the protest of its
Charge d' Affaires to Lord Palmerston, adding, that the
acknowledgment of a faction of adventurers as an inde-
pendent nation, is contrary to the principles which Lord
Palmerston, conjointly with the four Powers, has main-
tained in Europe on the Turco-Egyptian question, in
which no adventurer, but an illustrious prince, a native
born of the country, endeavoured to withdraw himself
from the country of the Grand Seignior of Constantinople.
That the conduct of Lord Palmerston was a breach of the
harmony and good faith which was considered also by the
Spanish American States to be characteristic of the
British Government, so that it was impossible to conceive,
in the face of existing treaties of alliance and friend-
OV THE TEXAS. 3t
ship between Great Britain and Mexico, by which th6
integrity of the Mexican territory is acknowledged,
Texas should he recognised as a sovereign people, not a
fraction of the same territory and its primitive inhabitants,
but a handful of adventurers who, in the sight of all the
world have entered upon the Mexican territory, is acknow-
ledged, bringing' slaves with them to re-establish slavery in
a country in which by law slavery was abolished, Tliat in
the treaty between Lord Palmerston and the Agent for
Texas, there is no provision for the abolition of slavery, a
condition which the English Government has exacted from
all the Spanish American Governments. That the territory
of Texas is mortgaged for the foreign debt of Mexico, and
to permit the alienation of a jjroperty so sacred against
THE WILL OF ITS OWNER, and encouraging the desires of
its aggressors with the moral force of the recognition of their
independence, is to attack every principle of justice and
international right.
*' In consequence, the Mexican government, firm in the
justice of its cause, and resolved to preserve the integrity
of its territory, will commit to force the execution of the
national will, whose energy is daily displayed in the re-
sources voluntarily proffered by all the citizens, and in the
progressive amelioration of the revenues of the state. And
the English people will render justice to Mexico when it is
seen that the anomalous conduct of the British Miriister
does not prevent her from fulfilling the obligations which she
has contracted, and will see besides that the Mexican na-
tion knows how to distinguish between the British people
and their Government.^*
The excuse set up for the minister's acts, that is, for
the speaker's heedlessness, will be — " Oh, he had other
business to attend to; he could not have been aware
of the circumstances; he left it to some clerk in tlie
Foreign Office. You cannot expect a British Minister to
32 ON THE ANNEXATION
attend to such paltry things as these." Now this defence
of ignorance cannot be set up here; there stands the
Mexican Protest, which is the whole case. The Mexican
Minister must have urged all these reasons before — never-
theless, there stands the Treaty. It has borne its fruits ;
Slavery is established and British debt wiped out ; Texas
Annexation is decided by two of the *' three estates" of
the Union ; war between the United States and Mexico
approaches, and there is the Protest — it was made public by
the Mexican Government,— ^Aere is no reply !
We cannot, need not stay for further comment. What
parallel is to be found for such acts in the records of
human crime ? and we know not if in the catalogue of the
deeds of the minister })y which it has been perpetrated
that it can be matched in composure and audacity !
Recognition by Great Britain of the Revolted
American Colonies of Spain.
In order that the conduct of the British Government
on the present occasion may be justly appreciated, it is
requisite to revert to her former acts, in somewhat similar
circumstances, when our councils were directed by men of
undoubted genius, and of recognised authority in matters of
international law and practice, and under whom served
both the Foreign Ministers that have conducted the recent
transactions with Texas.
The enormous possessions of Spain in the Western He-
misphere, were not held as England now holds North
America or India. She watched them with the most
jealous eye, she most sedulously excluded them from in-
tercourse with other countries, nor was it enough to deal
with her own territories in a manner which should take
from other nations, all interest for her sovereignty, and
OF THE TEXAS. 33
inspire them with sympathy for rebellion against it.
Her restrictive system was directed offensively and in-
juriously against Great Britain, interrupting her trade and
navigation with her own Colonies. Thence had arisen
deep animosity between the two nations. Under such
circumstances it was to be expected, that the insurrection
of the Spanish Colonies would have been hailed in England
with delight ; that seeing therein the gratification of
treasured up bitterness — the opening of new fields to
commerce, united to that great attraction of modern
Europe, the breaking up of empires and the overthrow of
states and laws — we should have rushed headlong to their
support, poured forth as England has done in Greece,
blood and treasure, or prepared cheap profits by en-
couragement and protection, as the United States in
Texas. So it would have been, had the event occurred to
day, but thirty-five years ago it was a different England,
little as her present inhabitants may suspect or can con-
ceive the change. England restrained her feelings, was
not seduced by her interests, took not her opinion as the
rule of her conduct, and observing the law, she granted to
the insurgents, neither avowed support nor secret encourage-
ment. Yet at the moment of the outbreak of these insurrec-
tions, the shield of England's protection was extended over
Spain, and she might have made with her, her own terms.
But she proposed nothing regarding the American Colonies,
she uttered no word that could wound the honour or pride
of Spain, or awaken suspicions respecting the motives of
England.
In 1810, the mediation of England to effect a recon-
ciliation with her Colonies, was requested by Spain and
granted to her, but she subsequently changed her mind.
On tlws occasion permission was asked and granted, to
trade with these Colonies, and the ancient interdiction of
c
34 ON THE ANNEXATION
trade and coast laws of Spain, were, as regarded them,
" considered tacitly repealed."
In 1812 circumstances appearing more favourable, Eng-
land offered her mediation to the Cortes . The independence
of the Colonies, was not assumed as the condition of that
mediation. Our mediation was refused and it was not
pressed.
In the Treaty of 1814 with Spain, the British Govern-
ment introduced the expression of " an earnest wish to see
the restoration of the Spanish authority in America," and
bound itself to prohibit British subjects from supplying the
revolted Colonies with munitions of war. This engagement
was fulfilled by an order in Council.
In 1815, Spain applied to England for her good offices,
in effecting an adjustment with her Colonies, but as she
refused to state the terms upon which she was willing to
negotiate, England refused to yield her mediation.*
In 1819, an Act of Parliament was passed to prohibit
British subjects from serving in the ranks of the revolted
Colonists.
In 1822 upon a representation on the part of Spain,
that she was about to take measures for the reduction of
the Colonists, Great Britain urged for the first time upon
* Mr. Canning thus states the case in a despatch to Sir William
A'Court, January 30th, 1824. " From the year 1810 to the year
1818, when the recognition was proposed to be undertaken by the
Allied Powers assembled in conference at Aixla-Chapelle, and from
1818 to the present time, the good offices of His Majesty have
been at the service of Spain, within limitations, and upon conditions
which have been in each instance explicitly described. Those limi-
tations have uniformly excluded the employment of force or
menace against the Colonies on the part of any mediating pow«r,
and have uniformly required the previous statement by Spain of
some definite and intelligible proposition." .
OF THE TEXAS. 25
the Spanish Government, the necessity of putting an end
to this state of hopeless war, and announced the necessity
in which she would be herself of negotiating with these de
facto independent States. It is indeed at once a cheering
and a melancholy contrast, that is here presented with the
doctrines of the instructed, and the conduct of the rulers of
our present time. Cheering that we have so recently con-
ducted ourselves like an honest and a rational nation ;
melancholy to think that we have so rapidly sunk into
heedlessness and misconduct, no less irrational than im-
moral.
While England interfered not herself, of course she pre-
vented interference by others.
On the invasion of Spain by France in 1823, the assent
of the British Government was yielded under the express
condition that France should not interfere between Spain
and her Colonies.
It was not till fourteen years after the first appeal for
mediation had been made ; it was not till after the power-
lessness of Spain to regain her ascendancy had been proved
and confirmed ; it was not till after the growth of extensive
commercial relations with the colonies, sanctioned by Spain,
had imposed the necessity of international relations with
them, that England took the first step of a formal and
diplomatic kind, — that was simply the appointing of con-
sular agents.
In the Royal speech at the opening of the Session of
1824. it was announced that in respect to Spain : —
*• His Majesty has appointed Consuls to preside at the principal
ports and places of those provinces (which have declared their sepa-
ration from Spain) for the protection of the trade of her subjects.
As to any further measures his Majesty has preserved to himself an
unfettered discretion, to be exercised as the circumstances of those
countries, and the interests of his own people, may appear to his
Majesty to require."
c 2
36 ON THE ANNEXATION
Mr. Canning, commenting upon this passage, says: —
"The interpretation of this passage is clear — all know the mean-
ing of it to be that his Majesty declined overtures for any joint
consideration of this subject."
Alas ! that Mr. Canning had not applied to the East the
doctrines he so prided himself in revering in the West.
Here was the twilight. We simultaneously exulted in un-
fettered action in one country, and announced as commend-
able, concert with Foreign Powers in another !
The sense of the Government at that time in respect to
the right of nations, and the rule of conduct which they
applied in the present case, was, on the 4th March of the
same year, expressed by Lord Liverpool as follows : —
** A formal acknowledgment of independence could properly
be made on/y by the power who claimed dominion over another,
and in the strict sense of the word we had no right either to ac-
knowledge or dispute their independence."
Here appears the declaration distinct in itself, that no
nation could interfere between states, or portions of states
at war, and that no value could attach to recognition of
independence, and also, that such recognition, if extending
beyond the admission of the fact, was itself criminal ; but
in the guarded fashion in which the law is laid down, in the
clogs and qualifications appended, appears the mean subser-
viency to the opinion of these times, that boded, and has
brought the lawlessness of the present.
So far the British Government had proceeded only to
the establishment of consular agents ; but there was a
growing desire throughout the nation, and an earnest appeal
from the mercantile interests for a formal recognition of
South American independence, whilst attempts were made
by the great Powers of Europe and of America to convert
this question into one of conjoint decision and of inter-
position of foreign States in the affairs of their neighbours.
The English Government resisted alike the desires of its
OF THE TEXAS. 37
people, and the instances of foreign Governments — it did
what it considered proper to do, and did so alone,
boldly as justly resisting the attempt of diplomatic inter-
vention.
On the 15th June, Sir James Mackintosh brought forward
this question, presenting a petition from 113 commercial
houses in London ; on which occasion Mr. Canning replied
to the following effect : —
"The Government of Great Britain thought it not merely
pohtically expedient, but just and generous to afford to Spain the
opportunity of presidency (of negotiation with the Colonies) and
absolutely to suspend any decision until they knew in what degree
she would avail herself of that opportunity. That condition is now
at an end. The British Government is left to act without further
reference to Spain — such is the result I have to communicate, and
here the only communication I have to make to the house ends."
He sat down amidst cheers from all parts of the House,
and immediately rose again to say —
" He had to communicate a fact which he had overlooked, and
the statement of which might be acceptable. That fact was, that
a second application had been made to the Government of His
Britannic Majesty to become parties to the conference about to
assemble (by the Powers of Europe for the settlement of the affairs
of South America) which application, though pressed with urgent
entreaties, had been again steadfastly refused ! '*
This information was received with reiterated applause.
At this time there were two great insurrectionary move-
ments going on in opposite regions of the earth, in Greece
against Turkey, and in America against Spain. On the
outbreak of the Greek revolution, Russia,— having de-
nounced it as revolutionary, — offered and pressed upon
Turkey her military co-operation to put it down. The
proposals for intervention in respect to America, were made
by the Spanish Government itself, in the first instance, to
France ; and by France it was urged on the other I'owers.
38 ON THE ANNEXATION
At this time France had just completed the intervention
in Spain itself, at the suggestion of Russia, and was governed
by an administration raised to office, — as now known on
indubitable testimony, that of the minister himself, — by
the intrigues of Russia, and under the acknowledged influ-
ence of that Power. Russia may therefore be looked
upon as the proposer of both interventions, the ostensible
object of which was the subjugation of the revolutionary
principle by reducing the revolted provinces. 1 he two
mother countries taking opposite courses : Spain invoking
co-operation, and Turkey protesting* against any inter-
ference between herself and her subjects, and appealing to
the rights of nature and nations, the practices of civihzed
communities and the faith of treaties.
England took opposite courses in these questions. In
respect to the first, she associated herself with Russia to
enforce hy arms the emancipation of Greece, while she
resisted, and thereby prevented, any intervention in the
afiairs of Spain in South America. In a memorandum of
a conference between Prince Polignac and Mr. Canning,
* The Greeks equally protested against Russian interference,
ftftd first addressed themselves to England rather for protection
against Russia than Turkey. M. Rodios writes to Mr. Canning,
August 12, 1824:-—
"The Government (of Greece) would have persevered in its
system of silence, had not a note proceeding from the north of
Europe obliged it to break this silence. This note decides on the
fate of Greece by a will that is foreign to it. The Greek nation
prefer a glorious death to the disgraceful lot intended to be imposed
on theiti.''
To this Mr. Canning replies : —
" The opinion of the British Government is, that any plan
proceeding from the Cabinet of St, Petersburgh can be drawn
up only with friendly intentions towards Oreece."
OF THE TEXAS. SO
on the 9th Oct. 1823, the views and decision of the British
Government are thus stated by the latter : —
"That the junction of any foreign power, in an enterprise of
Spain against the colonies, would be viewed by them as constituting
an entirely new question ; and one upon which they must take such
decision as the interests of Great Britain might require.
*' That the British Government absolutely disclaimed, not only
any desire of appropriating to itself any portion of the Spanish
colonies, but any intention of forming any political connexion with
them, beyond that of amity and commercial intercourse.
" That in those respects, so far from seeking an exclusive pre-
ference for British subjects over those of foreign states, England was
prepared, and would be contented, to see the mother country (by
virtue of an amicable arrangement) in possession of that preference ;
and to be ranked, after her, equally with others, on the footing of
the most favoured nation."
In the same conference the questions of consular agents
is thus disposed of by Mr. Canning : —
**That the mission of consuls to the several provinces of Spanish
America was no new measure on the part of this country : that it
was one which had, on the contrary, been delayed, perhaps too
long, in consideration of the state of Spain, after having been an-
nounced to the Spanish Government in the month of December
last, as settled ; and even after a list had been furnished to that
Government of the places to which such appointments were interided
to be made.
^'That such appointments were absolutely necessary for the pro-
tection of British trade in those countries."
Three months later the British Government made another
attempt to induce Spain to profit by the opportunity afforded
her, of acquiring advantages in South America, by being the
first to recognize colonies she could no longer hope to re-
conquer. Mr. Canning (January 30th, 1824) expressed
himself in these terms : —
*' Should Spain resolve to avail herself of the opportunity yet
40 ON THE ANNEXATION
within her power, the British Government would, if the Court of
Madrid desired it, willingly afford its countenance and aid to a
recognition, commenced on that only basis which appears to them
to be now practicable, and would see, without reluctance, the con-
clusion, through a negotiation on that basis, of an arrangement by
which the mother country should be secured in the enjoyment ot
commercial advantages superior to those conceded to other nations.
*' For herself, Great Britain asks no exclusive privileges of trade,
no insidious preference, but equal freedom of commerce for all. If
Spain should determine to persevere in the present counsels, it can-
not but be expected that Great Britain must take her own course
upon this matter, when the time for taking it shall arrive, of which
Spain shall have full and early intimation."
In the same despatch the English Government declares
in express terms its determination to take part with the
Colonies in the event of any attempt of mediation, and of
Congress, upon the conditions assumed of interference,
either by ^^ force or menace;" and we learn that the Powers,
who so proposed to interfere, were Austria, Russia, Prussia,
Portugal, the Netherlands, and the United States.
Lord Brougham, on the 3d Feb. 1824, said : — " Ferdi-
nand had been expressly assured by the Emperor Alexander,
that upon the destruction of the constitutional system he
would assist him to recover his Transatlantic dominions,"
and he prognosticates as the result, '• that these countries
would be again brought under the iron rule of the mother-
country," and on these grounds he " applauded the course
taken by the United States," — who were acting in concert
with this same Emperor Alexander, — " and hoped that
England would follow in the same path '' But fortunately,
those who then ruled England neither sought the help of
Henry Brougham, nor were scared by his thunder.
It has been seen that the object of England was to
allow to Spain priority of negotiation, and therefore pre-
ference in treaties with her late colonies. The object of
OF THE TEXAS. 41
the United States, as exposed in the Message to Congress
of 1825, was exactly the reverse. It is laid down as a fun-
damental maxim to prevent such concessions as " indispen-
sable to the effectual emancipation of the American hemis-
phere,^^ and it is enforced upon the South American States
'* that such concession to any European nation would be
incompatible with that independence which they have
declared and maintained," and on this the President
grounds the mission of representatives from the United
States to the Congress at Panama.
Mr. Quincy Adams, in a subsequent Message (1826,)
deplores the death of the Emperor Alexander, as a great
misfortune for the United States. He speaks of the ^'can-
did and confidential intercourse of sentiment between him
and the Government of the United States, upon the affairs
OF Southern America ;' and he points out " the necessity
in which the other Governments of Europe were thereby
placed, of sooner or later recognising the independence of
our neighbours."
Here then is seen, entirely from another source, the
agency of Russia in the questions at issue between Spain
and her Colonies. While moving at once the diplomacy of
Europe and the diplomacy of America, she was using them
in opposite senses. Employing in Europe the principle of
legitimacy, to induce them to form a congress, to restore by
force and threat, the supremacy of the Crown of Spain, —
employing in America the revolutionary tendencies and sym-
pathies of the United States, to lead them to a concert to
extort the independence of the Colonies from the Crown of
Spain !
The American President goes on to shew that the policy
of Russia is not contingent upon the accidental biasses of a
chief, and that, as amongst us, the King does not die, so in
Russia policy does not change.
'* We have had the most satisfactory assurance that the sen-
42 ON THE ANNEXATION
timents of the reigning Emperor towards the United States, are
altogether comformable to those which have so long and constantly
animated his Imperial Brother, and we have reason to hope that
they will serve to cement that harmony and good understand-
ing between the two nations, which, founded in congenial interests^
cannot but result in advancement of the welfare and prosperity of
both."
Mr. Canning was, however, able and fortunate enough
to paralyse these projects, or at least to postpone their
execution for a time. He prevented European conferences
to decide upon the affairs of America, and caused to drop
from the hands of Russia the half forged additional chains
which she was about to place upon the necks of European
Cabinets, and dissolved the power of the attractions with
which she was drawing to herself the desires and the
policy of the United States. Preserving the faith of Eng-
land to law, and its obligations to Spain, he preserved also
his duties to British interest,s, and to the American Colo-
nies, and prevented the accumulation of incalculable con-
fusion and distraction upon Europe and America. It
was with a full sense of the difficulties with which he had to
contend, and of the triumph that he had effected over
them, that those memorable words of his were uttered,
though inteUigible only in the knowledge of those difficul-
ties, '* that he had called a new world into existence to
redress the balance of the old.'^
At the opening of the Session of 1825, the following
announcement was made from the throne by the Commis-
sioners appointed to open Parliament: —
" In conformity with the declarations which have been repeatedly
made by his Majesty, his Majesty has taken measures for confirm-
ing by treaties the commercial relations already subsisting between
this kingdom and those countries of America, which appear to
have established their separation from Spain.*'
Such was the simplicity of this most grave announce-
OF THE TEXAS. 43
ment, such the care even at this last moment, to fulfil the
conditions imposed upon the Government of this country,
as laid down by Lord Liverpool, as interfering in no way
between countries, one of whom claimed dominion over the
other, and of invalidating by no act the de jure rights of
Spain.
The discussion which took place upon the Address was
memorable as being one of the happiest oratorical efforts of
Mr. Canning.* The point at issue reduced itself indeed
to the simple one of the time and mode of execution.
The opposition did not question the recognition of the
provinces — it had been previously urging to that recogni-
tion. The Government now justified the time it had
chosen, and the mode it had adopted, and concurring with
the opposition upon all other points, it peculiarly upon these
entered its claim to merit and applause.
** As to the propriety," says Mr. Canning, " of admitting the
independence of States that had successfully shaken off their de-
pendence on the mother country, to the rights of nations, there can
be no dispute. There were two ways of proceeding, where the case
was made questionable — recklessly and with a hurried course, or by
another so strictly guarded, that no principle should be violated,
and no offence should be given. The three States with which the
British Government had to deal were Buenos Ayres, Colombia, and
Mexico, and at no earlier period could any of them have been
recognized."
'* As to Buenos Ayres, it was undoubtedly true that the Spanish
forces were sent away many years since ; but it comprised thirteen
or fourteen small and separate states, which were not till very lately
collected into any federal union. Would it not have been an
absurdity to have treated with a power which was incapable of
answering for the conduct of the communities of which it was com-
posed ? So soon as it was known that a consolidation had taken
* it was on this occasion that he quoted and applied the
words, '* this is my thunder J'
44 ON THE ANNEXATION
place, the treaty with Buenos Ayres was signed. Next, as to
Colombia. As late as 1 822 the last of the Spanish forces were
sent away from Porto Cabello, which was up till that time held for
the King of Spain. It was only since that time that Colombia
would have been admitted as a state having a separate existence.
Some time after that, however, Colombia chose to risk her whole
force, and a great part of her treasure, in a distant war with Spain
in Peru. Had that enterprise proved disastrous, the expedition
would have returned with the troops to re-establish the royal autho-
rity. The danger was now at an end. The case of Mexico was
still more striking. Not nine months ago, an adventurer who had
wielded the sceptre of Mexico, left these shores to return thither,
and re possess his abdicated throne. Was that a moment at which
this country ought to have interfered to decide, by recognition, the
government of Mexico ? The failure of the attempt of that adven-
turer afforded the opportunity for recognition ; and, the instant the
failure was known, the decision of the British Cabinet was taken.
Therefore, so far from the time being ill-chosen, or the measures
tardily adopted, it was not physically or morally possible to have
anticipated them even by a few weeks."
Coining then to deal with the mode of recognition, and
the objections respecting it, Mr. Canning says —
** Was this mode of proceeding unsatisfactory, because there did
not exist in the archives of the Foreign Office, a single document
relative to this question, which Spain had not seen, and of which
the powers in alliance with this country had not been supplied with
copies ? Was this transaction deemed unsatisfactory, because Spain
was told, that if she would take precedence in recognising the
independence of the Colonies, this country would be content to
follow her steps, and to allow to her a priority in the markets of
those Colonies? Was the arrangement unsatisfactory, because pro-
ceeding alone, England disdained to take any unfair advantages of a
friendly State ? Was it unsatisfactory, because we saw, that who-
ever might follow us in recognising the independence of those
States, would be placed by our side, and would enjoy equal ad-
vantages with ourselves."
OF THE TEXAS. 45
In the treaty proposed by Great Britain to Mexico, there
was the clause of the most favoured nation, but that clause
was restricted, allowing under certain restrictions, prefer-
ences to be given to Spain and to the South American
States. Moreover, tRere was no article containing a re-
cognition of the independence of Mexico. The Com-
mittee of the Mexican Congress, to which it was referred,
urged the Congress to reject it, and the Congress itself
expressed the wish that it should contain ** an express re-
cognition of independence." This the British Government
would not admit.
In the very same message in which is announced the
ratification of the treaty with Great Britain, is also announced
by the President to the Mexican Republic, that " the
frontier on the west and the north has been fortified with
particular care to the side of the Texas'' This was a period
of great financial embarrassments, and this was one of the
first applications made by Mexico of the sums borrowed
from England.
The proposed Congress of Panama was to be assembled,
not merely for the purpose of maintaining the conjoint in-
dependence of the South American States against '* the
common enemy'^ (Spain) ; but also for the purpose of adjust-
ing common principles of international law and internal
practice, to bring about *' good harmony amongst them-
selves, and free them from all European influence or domina-
tion," and further to extend that harmony " throughout the
world." In these propositions we may find the interpreta-
tion of the " candid and confidential communication"
between the United States and the Russian Government,
respecting " the afiairs of Southern America."
*' The general Congress which the South American Republics
proposed to hold at Panama held out to the United States," says
the Annual Register, " an opportunity of forming with themselves a
connection exclusive of all European influence, which would make
North America, in some measure, a member of their own body, and
46 ON THE ANNEXATION
secure to it preferences and a preponderance to which European
powers, who took no part in the deliberations of the assembled repre-
sentatives, could not hope to aspire."
The Union would rather have made the Southern
States dependencies of the Northern, and that not by the
exclusion of '*all European influence," but through a
European influence, and one equally interested in gaining
an ascendancy over the United States, and in convulsing the
Southern Republics, if only to prevent their produce from
coming into competition with her own. With strange
inconsistency, the same authority which argues that the
United States sought to exclude European influence, repre-
sents Russia as supporting their views " warmly at Madrid."
At the very moment that these philanthropic objects were
put forward by the United States, they were making the
same insidious preparation for breaking down the authority
of Mexico that they had so recently been applying to Spain.
In 1825 the fortification of the Texas frontier had been
provided for. How necessary the precaution appeared in
the subsequent year, when a revolt broke out in the Texas.
The insurgents on the 16th December, 1826, declared their
independence, assumed the title of the Republic of Fre-
donia, and entered into treaties of alliance with the neigh-
bouring Indian tribes. '* This event was believed to have
taken place, if not at the instigation yet with the knowledge
and connivance of the United States. The Mexican Con-
gress appropriated £500,000. for the expedition for the
repression of the insurrection ; but the rebellion was put
down without assistance from Mexico, by the troops in the
country and its inhabitants ; the dispersed insurgents took
refuge amongst the Indians and in the territory of the United
States."''^ This is the interpretation of those principles of
general harmony and benevolence which Russia assisted
-the United States to urge at Madrid, and which the United
States, through the Congress of Panama and subsequently
* Annual Register, 1827.
OF THE TEXAS. 47
of Tacubaya, endeavoured to establish throughout the
" American Continent," and which were thence to be ex-
tended " throughout the world !"
At the close of the year 1827, the President says : '* Since
the accession of the Emperor Nicholas to the Imperial
throne of all the Russias, the friendly dispositions towards
the United States, so constantly maintained by his pre-
decessor, continue unabated, and have recently been
testified by the appointment of a Minister Plenipotentiary
to reside at this place." Thus then had the harmony in-
dured throughout, full and complete at its close as pro-
mising at its commencement.
At the opaning of the Drama, the parts are distributed
as they now appear at the close of the first act. The United
States preying on the Southern Republics and secretly
prompted by Russia, while France stands hanging between,
urged and used by both. There is this difference, however,
that England is changed from protector to betrayer.
It seems impossible to imagine that the same nation, and
within the same generation, should present examples of
characters so opposite, and of conduct so contradictory.
Her conduct in the first instance was not the result of
caprice, but in obedience to the laws ; in the second, our
acts are in rebellion against those very laws, in opposition to
interests the most clear, in sacrifice of the most distinctly
established rights, and in defiance of the most strongly
pronounced opinions and sympathies.
We conclude this reference to our past conduct in respect
to the Spanish Colonies, by repeating what we have already
noticed, that in the treaties ratified in 1826, between
England and the former Colonies of Spain, the condition
was established, that slavery should be extirpated from
their soil. In taking part with the American freebooters
that have robbed Texas, we have supported them against
the mother state and our Treaties in the establishment of
slavery !
48 ON THE ANNEXATION
Conduct of England towards Texas and Mexico,
UNDER THE New ADMINISTRATION.
The administration to whom pertained the Pbreign
Minister whose acts in Texas we have described, was driven
from office in 1^41. On the accession of their opponents,
a reversion of a course so criminal and incomprehensible
as that pursued in Texas, and in regard to Mexico and
the United States -might have been considered, not as a
consequence only, but as of necessity, involved in the
change which England had effected in her governors. But
nothing of what was rational, — nothing of what was ex-
pected, — nothing of what was requisite was done. Nor
was it cold indifference alone that was manifested by the
new chiefs of England to a position of such imbecile infamy ;
but their apathy was coloured with the show of approval —
they sent a Consul -General to Texas. They choose for that
officer one selected by their predecessor for buccaneering
expeditions in the other hemisphere, and marked thus at
once by this eloquent selection their adoption of the policy
of their predecessor, and their sympathy with the pursuits
and character of Texas.
Definite language or specific act in reference to Texas,
we have not from Lord Aberdeen, until two years and some
days after his appointment to the office of disposer of Great
Britain ; — it is then no act of his —it is in reply to empty
words uttered in the House of Lords.
Lord Brougham was, on the 18th August, 1843, " irre-
sistibly anxious* for the abolition of slavery in Texas," and
" knew the Texans would do much as regarded the abolition
of slavery, if Mexico could be induced to recognize their in-
dependence," and " if by our good offices we could get the
Mexican government to acknowledge the independence of
* It is a pity that this anxiety did not lead him to read the trea-
tieS; and then to consult some work on international law.
OF THE TEXAS. 49
Texas, it might terminate in the abolition of slavery in
Texas, and ultimately the whole of the Southern States in
America.''
Lord Aberdeen, thereupon, said that he was endeavour-
ing *' to procure from Mexico the recognition of Texas^*
and that he "need hardly say that every effort on the
part of Her Majesty's Government would lead to that
result which was contemplated by his noble friend ; that no
one was more anxious than himself to see the abolition of
slavery in Texas," which would be " pressed" hy ^^negotia-
tions and every other means in the power of Government."
Supposing that Lord Aberdeen had meant what he said,
and that with the power of England at his disposal, he had
intended to interfere in the affairs of a foreign state, to
change its internal constitution, then would this have been
an announcement to the United States of a danger of the
greatest magnitude, and the revelation on the part of Great
Britain of a conspiracy of the blackest die, giving to the
United States the power of appealing to every civihzed
community for support and assistance in the war for exist-
ence into which it was impelled. But the words of Lord
Aberdeen were simply breath, mere gossip, and every man
in both hemispheres knew that they were so ; and he con-
cludes with excusing himself from expressing any opinion on
the subject ; in fact, he was not aware that he had said any
thing. Nevertheless this conversation has been made the
foundation of the subsequent proceedings of the United
States, and not without reason, as the very insignificance of
the words uttered made them to the United States of the
deepest importance.
Mr. Everett, on Nov. 3rd, 1 843, writes :—
" In obedience to your instructions, I alluded to the agency
which the British government were supposed to be exercising to
procure the abolition of slavery in Texas. Lord Aberdeen said
he was glad I had mentioned this subject, for it was one on wMch
^50 ON THE ANNEXATION
he intended himself to make some observations. His attention
had been called to some suggestions in the American papers in
favour of the annexation of Texas to the Union, by way of coun-
teracting the designs imputed to England ; and he would say, that
if this measure WERE undertaken on aky such grounds, it
would be wholly without provocation.^^
To say that if undertaken on such grounds it would be
without provocation, is to concede to the United States the
right to take -this step if one pleased.
Mr. Everett reporting, Lord Aberdeen proceeds : —
*' England had acknowledged the independence of Texas, and
had treated and would continue to treat her as an independent
power. That England had long been pledged to encourage the
abolition of the slave trade and of slavery, as far as her influence
extended, and in every proper way, but had no wish to interfere in
the internal concerns of foreign governments. She gave her advice
where she thought it would be acceptable in favour of the aboli-
tion of slavery, but nothing more. In reference to Texas, the sug-
gestion that England had made or intended to make the abolition
of slavery the condition of any treaty arrangement with herj
was wholly without foundation. It had never been alluded to in
that connection."
Lord Aberdeen repels as an injurious imputation, that
which it was his duty to have enforced. It was a right which
he ought to have obtained for England, had it not been
already secured to her by Canning.
We continue to quote Lord Aberdeen. What he can
utter is truly wonderful.
" General Hamilton, as commissioner from Texas, had proposed
that England should make or guarantee a loan to Texas, to be used
to aid her in obtaining from Mexico the recognition of her inde-
pendence, and in other ways to promote the development of her re- •
•sources ; and he himself (Lord Aberdeen) had at first thought
somewhat favourably of the proposition, considering Texas as a fine
promising country, which it would be good policy to help through
her temporary embarrassments. But on mentioning the project to
OF THE TEXAS. 31
his colleagues, they deemed it wholly inexpedient, nor did he him-
self continue to give it countenance ; nor was the loan, as proposed
by General Hamilton, and at first favourably viewed by himself, in
the slightest degree connected with the abolition of slavery as a
condition or consequence. In the course of the last summer he
had been waited upon, as he supposed I was aware at the time, by
a deputation of American abolitionists, who were desirous of engag-
ing the British government in some such measure, (viz., of a loan
connected with the abolition of slavery), but that he had given them
no countenance whatever. He had informed them that, by every
proper means of influence he would encourage the abolition of
slavery, and that he had recommended the Mexican Govern-
ment TO INTEREST ITSELF IN THE MATTER ; but he told them at
the outset that he should consider himself bound in good faith to
repeat every thing that might pass between them to the Texan
Charge d'affaires."
By England's treaty with Mexico in 1826, the federative
states of that republic bound the territories appertaining
to them, to a total abolition of slavery. That obligation is
inherent to the soil. Texas could not, by separating from
the United States of Mexico, free herself from it, even
though that de facto independence claimed for her should
have been secured de jure by an unconditional recogni-
tion of Mexico. England had not caused the insertion of a
special clause reiterative of this obligation, but she had
inserted no clause discharging either England or Texas from
their mutual obligations ; she required to exercise no agency^
* What the agency was that England employed in Texas to pro-
mote her views, the American agents suflSciently represent, in
describing the hoax played off on Lord Aberdeen about the loan;
beyond this there was the agent sent by Lord Durham from
Canada to Texas, to preach war against Mexico, extol slavery, and
proclaim the *' acquisitive instincts " of the Anglo Saxon race ; and
this was the aspirant to place in Texas, the confidentially consulted
of the Foreign Office, and the sole instructor of, and authority to
the British nation on Texan politics.
D 2
^2 ON THE ANNEXATION
to procure abolition of slavery in any portion of the then
existing Mexican territory. She had kept silent on the past
infraction, awaiting the termination of this contest, but this
proceeding of the representative of the United States, re-
quired, if any thing could require, that an end be put to
suspense, and the right of England asserted. Had such —
the statement of the case — been the British minister's reply,
the matter was at once closed ; but had such reply been
possible, the case would not have arisen. Lord Aberdeen
was estimated from the hour of his entrance into office, or
long before. The interview was a gossiping forth of opinion
on his part, warily drawn forth and recorded by the crafty
American, and then sent back to Lord Aberdeen to confirm.
But, as if this had not sufficiently compromised Eng-
land, Lord Aberdeen recapitulates all his untutored anxiety
in a despatch to Mr. Pakenham, for communication to the
United States' Secretary of State ; in which he says, that
Her Majesty's Government " have put themselves forward
" in pressing the Government of Mexico to acknowledge
'* Texas as independent," and that with regard thereto, they
** avow that they wish to see slavery abolished there, as else-
*' where^ and they should rejoice if the recognition of that
" country J^ the Mexican Government should be accompanied
"*' BY AN ENGAGEMENT on the part of Texas to abolish slavery
** eventually^ and, under proper conditions ^ throughout the
" republic."
Puerile as all this is, the heart sinks as it dwells on the
solemnity of the transactions, the magnitude of the interests
thus bartered away in vain sounds ; words without substance
or application, taking the place of language consistent with
a position of undoubted right and acknowledged power.
The words of Lord Aberdeen amount to an avowal of a
desire to make Mexico impose that condition of things on
Texas which is the object of the fears of the United States.
Fearful of an act of energy made in the behalf and in the
OF THE TEXAS. 53
name of England, that of Mexico is put forward ; to her it
is left to do that which the act of England disqualifies her
from performing. This cowardly purpose is perceptible
amid useless sentences, uncalled-for observations, and
general propositions, all of which serve him nothing and are
turned against him. His declarations of integrity, his pro-
pitiations of favour serve him not, his empty propositions are
returned upon him, to overwhelm him. Lord Aberdeen's
communication is reported on the 3d of November, 1843,
it is not answered till the 13th of April, 1844. The honest
man has deemed his favour ripening, — and lo his words have
brought forth the Annexation Treaty ! The day after it
is signed the American Government deign to reply by com-
municating the treaty in a despatch the most insulting that
ever was addressed by overbearing despot to cringing slave.
Mr. Calhoun* says that he is directed by the President
of the United States to express the —
'*deep concern excited by the avowal for the first time made ta
this government, 'that Great Britain desires, and is constantly
exerting herself to procure, the general abolition of slavery through-
out the world.' "
** It is with still deeper concern the President regards the avowal
of Lord Aberdeen, of the desire of Great Britain to see slavery
abolished in Texas ; and, as he infers, is endeavouring, through
her diplomacy, to accomplish it, by making the abolition of slavery
ONE OF THE CONDITIONS ON WHICH Mexico SHOULD acknowledge
her independence. It has confirmed his previous impressions as
to the policy of Great Britain in reference to Texas, and made it his
* In this despatch there is the unblushing avowal that the Texan
insurgents were American citizens. He says, **It was the Spanish
Government and Mexico herself that invited and offered high pre-
miums to our citizens to colonize Texas." There have been before
now men treacherous and ungrateful, but they have never before
made parade of their ingratitude, nor urged it as giving them a right
to punish or destroy their benefactor.
54 ON THE ANNEXATION
duty to examine with much care and solicitude what would be Us
effects on the prosperity and safety of the United States should she
succeed in her endeavours. * * * Under this conviction it is felt to
be the imperious duty of the federal government, the common
representative and ^ro^ecior of the States of the Union, to adopt, in
self-defence, the most effectual measures to defeat it."
"Texas would expose the weakest and most vulnerable portion of
our frontier to inroads, and place in the power of Great Britain
the most efficient means of effecting in the neighbouring States of
this Union what she avows to be her desire to do in all countries
where slavery exists.'*
'* The President directs me to inform you that a treaty has
BEEN CONCLUDED between the United States and Texas for the
ANNEXATION of the latter to the former as a part of its terri-
TORV, which will be submitted without delay to the Senate for its
approval. This step has been taken as the most effectual, if
not the only means of guarding against the threatened danger
and securing their permanent peace and welfare.'^
England had to act, she fails to do so, but gives words,
and words of no avail, destructive of her power and nonsen-
sical. On the other hand, the United States, thus strength-
ened, encouraged and armed, acts, and the act is as bold as
it is flagrant and decisive.
Treaty between Texas and the United States.
Article 1. Cedes to the United States all its territories,
to be held by the United States in full property and sove-
reignty. It is a cession of territories to be held as such ;
there is no naention of state or annexation.
2. The citizens of Texas are incorporated in the Union.
3. Titles and claims to real estate recognized.
4. Public lands to be regulated as other public lands
of the Union.
5. The United States assume the debts and liabilities
of Texas. No mention of foreign debt, or of liability for
OF THE TEXAS. 55
Mexican debt. The debt so assumed, shall not exceed
10,000,000 dollars.
5. Settles a Commission for the liquidation of the debts.
6. Texan laws to be maintained, and officers retained,
until new provision, excepting the President, Vice-Presi-
dent, and heads of Departments.
7. Commissioner of the United States to receive the
transfer of territory, archives, and public property ; '* and he
SHALL EXERCISE ALL EXECUTIVE AUTHORITy IN SUCH TER-
RITORY.**
This treaty is thus not of Annexation, but of Sur-
render; it is not a state annexed, but a province acquired.
The Federal Government takes possession of the public
property, archives, &c. and sends a Commission to adminis-
ter the internal laws — its present Government being dis-
posed of by simply excepting "President, Vice-President,
and heads of departments," in the article stipulating the
conditional continuance in their functions of the inferior
officers.
Texas is to be incorporated without a voice in Congress,
so that the objection of the New England States on the
score of slavery is removed, and Texan equality adjourned
until compensation can be had on the north.
Texas is brought under the international stipulations
existing between the United States and Foreign Powers, to
the abrogation of its own.
Its laws are confirmed, so slavery is established.
No foreign debt is provided for, and a stipulation, limit-
ing the amount of its debts, excludes foreign debt and
liabilities.
The United States is to liquidate internal debts, and ap-
propriates for that purpose a sum greatly exceeding the
debits, as presented in the Texan documents.
But there are treaty stipulations existing between Eng-
land and Mexico, and between England and Texas, which
56
ON THE ANNEXATION
directly, on two general grounds, bring the question to
issue, and constitute this annexation a casus belli against
Texas. Our treaty with Mexico stipulates the aboli-
tion of slaver3\ This treaty binds all the parts of the
Mexican republic — the separation of a portion from the
rest abrogates the treaty in neither; for, if the separation
of Texas from Mexico could discharge Texas, so would
the separation of Mexico from Texas discharge Mexico :
nor can the transfer, however legitimate, of a territory
from one crown to another, take off any burden; it
passes with its rights and duties, its debts, credits, privileges,
and obligations. No more can incorporation with the
United States, than separation from Mexico invalidate
that treaty; and slavery in Texas is an infraction of that
treaty, and if, on appeal, continued, is a casus belli.
The treaty is therefore, —
1 . A violation of the treaty rights of England in Texas
as a part of Mexico, in respect to internal slavery.
2. A violation of the treaty rights of England with Texas,
as regards th3 right of search.
3. A violation of the obligation of Texas to British capi-
talists, as conjointly contracted with Mexico, and is a usur-
pation, by the United States, of the property mortgaged to
England for the payment of the Mexican debt.
This is on the hypothesis that the United States denies
existing obligations. Not denying them, and accepting
Texas with its burdens, the United States Government
takes upon itself, —
1st, The obligations imposed by England's treaty with
Mexico, to extinguish slavery in Texas — 2ndly, to hold the
land mortgaged to the Mexican bondholders in Texas at
their disposal — 3dly, to fulfil, with respect to Texas, the
mutual obligations of Right of Visit.
These obligations, it is for the English Minister to
enforce, and here the question is brought to the sim-
OF THE TEXAS. 57
plest issue. Not doing so he is guilty. From the mo-
ment that the British Minister foregoes those rights, it is
no longer for England a question with the United States.
Her enemy is within, it is a culprit you have to bring to
justice ; and, retaining such a one as your Minister, — are
you serious when you speak of extrication or relief?
An American statesman, writing subsequently to the sig-
nature of the treaty, says : —
** If the Government of the United States, were to ac-
quire Texas, it would acquire along with it all the incum-
brances that Texas is under."
And again,
" Should Texas be annexed to the Union, the United
States will assume and become responsible for the debt of
Texas, be its amount what it may ; and this responsibility
will exist whether there be a stipulation in the treaty or
not expressly assuming the payment of the debt of Texas.
For I suppose it to be undeniable, that if one nation becomes
incorporated in another, all the debts, and obligations, and
incumbrances, and wars of the incorporated nation become
the debts, and obligations, and incumbrances, and wars of
the common nation created by the incorporation."
Texas comprises the largest area of conjoined upland
and alluvial soil in the known world. It is capable of grow-
ing rice, indigo, cotton, sugar, coffee, tobacco, silk, and all
tropical produce ; it consists of above 200,000,000 acres of
flooded and arable land ; it is estimated as being capable of
forming two slave and three free labour states; 136,000,000
of acres are unoccupied and public property, that is, Mexi-
can property. The remainder is illegally occupied, and
is forfeit by violation of the original compact, or has been
taken possession of by fraudulent contrivance. This pro-
perty, equal in dimensions to France, but many times
exceeding it in capabilities of production, would, by the
treaty, pass into the hands of the Federal Government.
58 ON THE ANNEXATION
The value will depend entirely on the stream of emi-
gration directed upon the Republic, but exceeding in
resources, fertility, and facility of communication, the ad-
vantages which any other unoccupied regions possess, it is
a property which may be made more rapidly productive
than any other of a similar description.
Forty-five millions of acres have been mortgaged to
British subjects by the Mexican Government, at five
shillings per acre — the Texan Government has disposed
of other lands to British adventurers at fifteen shillings ;
at what sum, then, shall we set down the value of these
350,000 square miles, to the United States? Shall' it
be 10 millions sterling, or 50, or 100, or 200« millions ?
The latter is a small sum compared with what that country
may produce, and yet it may be the dearest purchase that
ever has been made. We must, however, take the United
States as intelligently acquiring this property, and therefore
calculate on its due application, and in this sense we may
rate it at the largest of these sums.
We have seen here that there is one and the same question
made out of Texan annexation and slavery abolition. These
two are resolved into one by the United States, — they
present themselves, therefore, as one to us.
England has paid 20 millions sterling, to do away with
slavery in her own colonies, and these colonies are going
into decay ; the United States establishes slavery in inde-
pendent regions, making them thereby her own in absolute
possession. England has paid about 30 millions to support
the independence of an " infant state," to wit, Mexico; and
the land mortgaged to her for repayment of a portion of her
lien, passes to the United States : she supporting the " infant"
of Texas, breaks England's lien, and acquires in land four
times its amount. Thus has England, on the conjoint
Texan and slavery questions, sacrificed £50,000,000 — the
United States have gained £200,000,000. We, by losing
OF THE TEXAS. 59
our money, sacrifice our objects ; they, gaining money, have
realised theirs. This booty, secured by the United States
is obtained through the very pretence of hostility to Eng-
land, and by obtaining it, the means are prepared to achieve
the confiscation in the North, of other British property in-
finitely exceeding, for the present, even this gigantic gain ;
and that is the territories, mines, and fisheries of Canada,
Kova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Cape Breton.
But, it may be said, if England's mortgage on Texas is
wiped out, she still has recourse against Mexico. What
will be the answer of Mexico to such a pretension ? *' You
have endeavoured to force us to recognise the independence
of a province where you had nothing to do, making it a con-
dition that your own mortgage should be broken, even upon
the unoccupied land, our property, which it contained.
We protested in your interest against your act — we wipe
our hands clean of all bonds to you — and hold you respon-
sible for the loss, thrice exceeding your own, which you have
entailed upon us. There stands your own act — there stands
our protest recorded against it.""
The message of the President conveying the treaty, is
of course a verbose pleading of advantage, and an impu-
dent asserting of pure and upright motives, or repudiation
of all spirit of *' unjust aggrandizement." But the essen-
tials of this document are in reference to France and
England.
France has no possessions to be endangered in the West-
ern Hemisphere. France has herself entertained there
projects of aggrandisement ; at one time leaning to schemes
for the subversion of the existing powers, at another hav-
ing recourse to open assaults upon them. Her ambition
has been directed thither, not for acquisition only but to
gain maritime power, and this has been pursued in secret
long years ago, at the direct suggestion of the Russian go-
vernment, as a means of placing France in hostility with
60 ON THE ANNEXATION
England.* France has not long since most cruelly
wounded Mexico. It is not then to France that Mexico
will turn for protection, either rel}ing on her sense of jus-
tice or her good-will, or through apprehensions whicli she
might entertain from Mexico's enemy. All these conside-
rations act in an opposite sense. Further, the feelings of
England and France are not estranged only hut mutually
emhittered, and their relations are so precarious that it is
attributed as a success and merit to the minister of the lat-
ter country that he has kept them at peace. France must,
therefore, not only look to ingratiate herself with the
United States, but to foster ill-will between them and Eng-
land. It is with those considerations duly weighed and
perfectly understood that the step of Mr. Tyler is taken.
But of course the Message can contain no direct allusion
to such a subject, and human ingenuity could not con-
trive the means of bringing France into such a document.
In the very first paragraph appears the word France !
" Should this treaty meet with your approval, the govern-
ment will have succeeded in reclaiming a territory which
formerly constituted a portion, as it is confidently believed,
of its domain under the Treaty of Cession of 1803,=* by
France to the United States."
The proposition could only render the matter ludicrous
— but that it is a signal flung out to the French people,
from whom the United States derive their rights. Absurd
as a statement, this becomes respectable as a deception.
Mr. Tyler commences then with saying, France is with
you : you flatter her by this act ; you gratify her hatred ta
England and encourage it.
It might be supposed in this country, that upon such
an occasion all allusion to England would be carefully
avoided, as it was England they would have to fear and
* Chateaubriand's Congress of Verona.
t The treaty of 1803 was abrogated by the treaty of 1819.
OF THE TEXAS. 61
propitiate. But the President has only his own compa-
triots to apprehend, and these he can combat only through
the animosit}'^ against England, of which he seeks to con-
stitute himself the leader, and which he has in his hands
so wonderful an occasion for exasperating.
" Least of all was the Executive ignorant of the anxiety of
other Powers to induce Mexico to enter into terms of reconcilia-
tion with Texas, which, affecting the domestic institutions of
Texas, would operate most injuriously upon the United States, and
might most seriously threaten the existence of this happy union.
Nor could it be unacquainted with the fact, that although foreign
Governments might disavow all design to disturb the relations
which exist under the constitution between these States, yet that
one, the most powerful amongst them, had not failed to declare
its marked and decided hostility to the chief features in those
relations, and its purpose, on all suitable occasions, to urge upon
Mexico the adoption of such a course in negotiating with Texas
as to produce the obliteration of that feature from her domestic
policy, as one of the conditions of her recognition by Mexico as
an independent State. The Executive was also aware of the
fact, that formidable associations of persons, the subjects of
foreign Powers, existed, who were directing their utmost efforts
to the accomplishment of this object.'*
He then farther goes on to represent, that England had
ambitious views upon Texas; he asserts, that the annexation
treaty is a measure of seU-defence,— defence against Eng-
land to be made at the expense of Mexico. We have before
shewn that England supported Texas without enforcing
her treaty-right in the abolition of slaver)^ The corre-
spondence published in America shews that Lord Aberdeen
had positively declared against any interposition on the
part of England in this matter. Every thing that could
favour the designs of the United States upon Texas had,
therefore, been done by two successive British governments.
More could not have been done had Mr. Tyler dictated
G2 ON THE ANNEXATIOIS
to either English minister his course. Lord Aberdeen had,
moreover, explained, in the manner the most satisfactory
that could be for Mr. Tyler, his expressions in the House
of Lords of the 18th August, and denied the imputation
cast upon him. The statements of the President are there-
fore falsehoods, designed not to deceive but to degrade.
The diplomatic documents are published with them, in
order that that falsehood may appear. It is in the force
of insult, and in the weight of contumely, that his gain
lies, because England's degradation.* And well he knows
that he had to deal with one who would neither resist in
deed, nor reply in word, and be alike cowed and bewil-
dered by the audacity of the act, and the turpitude of the
man. The Anti-Slavery Association is then forced into
the service of this inflammatory manifesto, linking its
rhetoric and Lord Aberdeen's designs.
This document is for Europe and the world; it is the
announcement, as well as the exposition of a startling
event. The world is told what Mr. Tyler can dare — and,
as they will soon see, with impunity and success. This is
in connexion with the question of the Slave Trade, there-
fore also with the Right of Search ; to France and Ger-
many the matter is brought home, and an opportunity
afforded to each of adjoining themselves to this harmless
course of excitement and popularity. Thus has the English
Government by, as it fancies, w^ishing well to all men and
doing their best, succeeded in entangling question after
question, and the knot of each difficulty ravels all the
cords and tightens all the meshes.f
* Russia studiously exhibited to the Eastern world the lawless-
ness of her seizure of the Vixen, for, in like manner, in that lay the
value to her of the act.
+ The project of a discriminating duty on slave-grown sugar comes
on the top of this to lay on fresh meshes on the one side, and heap
new disturbance to public law on the other. In your treaties wherein
OF THE TEXAS. 63
** One circumstance," says the Times, " however, which renders
this treaty more inexplicable than it would have been at any other
moment is, that an armistice, dated the 9th of March, had been
concluded between the authorities of Mexico and Texas for the pur-
pose of enabling them to bring their negotiations for the pacifica-
tion and independence of Texas to a conclusion before the 1st of
May. In this very interval of time, however, and at the very
moment at which the Texan Commissioners are supposed to be
at the city of Mexico under a safe conduct, for the adjustment
of their quarrel and the recognition of their independence, we
■iearn that another treaty has been signed at Austin to merge this
barely acquired sovereignty, this unfledged independence, in the
Union ; and that not even with the privileges of a State, but in
the humbler capacity of a territory, sending one member to the
JSenate.'*
By this suspension of hostilities was the way paved for
the annexation treaty, and tJiis suspension was brought about
hy the agency of England. Her intervention was made
public by proclamation in Texas ! England, then, by Mr.
Tyler's act, appears in Mexico as conspiring against her with
the United States. She is, by Mr. Tyler's word, represented in
Europe and America as conspiring against the United States
with Mexico ? England has neither a hand to resist nor a
tongue to deny ; she has only a hand for her foes' assist-
ance, and a tongue for his use. Mr. Tyler, can at once
employ her docile agency and denounce her insidious
■designs.
Means used by the United States' Government to
OBTAIN the Treaty from Texas.
The United States have presented themselves in this
act, and throughout, as fostering and protecting the Texas —
you have granted the ** rights of the most favoured nation," you
asked no question about slaves and contrived no provision against their
produce. What is this pandering to declaimers at home but fur-
nishing new bitterness to those who arc not your foes and new
weapons to those who are ?
64< ON THE ANNEXATION
but their protection has been that of the " wolf to the lamb,"
according to the simile which they seem to delight to apply
to England in their official documents — their protection has
been the hug of the bear, such as Serbia or Wallachia have
felt ; but here the design is not covered with Muscovite
art, it is openly and unblushingly avowed. In the English
manifesto, on declaring war, there would require nothing
but their own words hereafter quoted.
The American Secretary of State directs the most intent care
and anxiety to be given to prevent Texas from acquiring
"a separate legislature,'^ or even a *' quasi independence. ''*
The proposal of annexation did not proceed from Texas ;
there is not even a collusive supplication obtained from
the weak state ; it is on the proposal, and the threat of the
strong ! It was first made after the conversation in the
House of Lords, and was finally and absolutely urged, after
the receipt of Lord Aberdeen's explanations, in a lengthened
despatch, dated Washington, 16th of January, 1844. But
before examining this document, it is necessary to state
that the present proposal must not be confounded with that
originally made to the United States by the Texan Govern-
ment. That proposal came while as yet no act of Congress
had been passed, and when the band of freebooters had not
been dandled and swaddled by foreign diplomacy, and
docketted with the style and title of independence and of
sovereignty. While distracted between the agonies of pre-
tension and the anxieties of alarm, they proposed not to
become an annexed territory, or to extinguish themselves
as a state; they offered an "amalgamation of flags" only,
and association to the Union, " with full reservation of their
sovereign rights." This the United States rejected, but
recognized their independence. Texas then formally with-
drew the proposal, in order to facilitate negotiations for
recognition by the powers of Europe : and it was on the
impresssion conveyed of reality in that independence, and
* Despatch of Mr. Upshur, November IS, 1843.
OF THE TEXAS. 65
of the absence of designs on the part of the United States,
evinced by the rejection of the proposal of annexation, that
the recognition of Texas was obtained from the European
Governments, or excused by those Governments to their
nations. These results being now realized, again in 1842,
as we learn from a note of the Mexican Commissioners,*
an informal renewal of the negotiation on the part of Texas
took place. On what terms we are not informed, but it
was again withdrawn in August last — that is to say, at the
very time of the conversation in the House of Lords, which
gave to the United States the occasion to proceed, as already
shewn. The proposal was made on the 16th October.
After commenting on the rejection by Texas of its pro-
posal, the American Government proceeds to say —
** It is quite natural that they should be disinclined to hazard
the friendship of other -powers, and particularly of England, by
an appeal to the United States, which might not be successful.'*
It then applies itself to remove grounds of ill-will and
doubts of the readiness of the nation to come into the views
of the President, which he is ready to support by his " treaty-
making power.''
'* When the measure was first suggested, although the entire
south was in favour of it, as they still are, it found few friends
among the statesmen of the other states. Now, the north, to a great
extent, are not only favourable to, but anxious for it, and every day
increases the popularity of the measure simong those who originally
opposed it. Measures have been taken to ascertain the opinions and
views of senators upon the subject,, and it is found that a clear con-
stitutional majority of two-thirds are in favour of the measure. There
is not, in my opinion, the slightest doubt of the ratification of a
treaty of annexation, should Texas agree to make one."
The representative of the United States is instructed " to
urge" upon the Texan President '* the absolute necessity of
* 15th April, 1844.
£
66 ON THE ANNEXATION
annexation, with reference to the interests, s.rid possiblf/ the
safety, of both countries.'*
The despatch then deals with the question of England,
and repeats the arguments used with the Minister in Lon-
don, which, by such use must acquire certainly increased
efficacy with the Texan Government.
" My views are, in fact, disclosed in a despatch addressed to Mr.
Everett, at London, of wliich a copy is enclosed. To these may be
added the following considerations : — Tf^Aa/ motive cati England
have for a disinterested friendship towards Texas? Friendship
between nations is never disinterested, but in this case even the
common feeling of national kindness cannot be presumed to exist.
The policy of England is purely commercial. Her object is to
engross the commerce of the world ; by diplomacy, if she can, and
by force if she must. On this subject she will expect, and ulti-
mately compel^ concessions from Texas, which Texas, once surren-
dered to her influence and protection, will not have the power to
refuse. The consequence will be to disgust and irritate other
nations, and particularly the United States. We are even now the
great rivals of England in commerce and manufactures. It is a
favourite object with her to cripple us in both these branches of our
industry, and for that reason she is pushing her influence in every
commercial mart of the world.'*
It then shews that a connexion between Texas and Eng-
land must lead to collision between Texas and the United
States ; and upon this proceeds to threaten the Republic.
" We have it in our power to do more injury to the commerce,
and, incidentally, to the agriculture of Texas, in time of peace, than
ail the other countries of the world combined ; and for the same
reason, we can benefit her in equal degree. It is not to be supposed
that we shall feel any hesitation on this subject, if Texas shall reject
our overtures, and throw herself hito the arms of England. Instead
of being, as we ought to be, the closest friends, it is inevitable
that we shall become the bitterest foes. In this feeling all farts
of our country will participate. The north, which is the most
OF THE TEXAS. 67
influential in the policy of our government, will entertain it more
strongly than the south ; because their great and leading interests,
particularly in New England, must fall a sacrifice to this hostile
policy on the part of Texas."
So that, while the commercial policy of Great Britain, and
her activity in executing or planning thirty-seven commer-
cial treaties, has the effect, as avowed by their negotiator, of
" choking up the old channels of commerce,'* they are never-
theless successful in furnishing to America arguments by
which to unite nations against us, and coerce, by threats,
independent states not only into submission, but to the
surrender of their existence.
The American Secretary then proceeds to the subject of
slavery : —
"I have commented upon this topic in the despatch to Mr.
Everett. I will only add, that if Texas should not be attached to
the United States she cannot maintain that institution ten yean^
and probably not half that time,
" You will readily perceive that, with such causes as these at work,
a long continuance of peace between that country and the United
States is absolutely impossible. War is inevitable. England will
be a party to it from necessity, if not from choice ; and the other
great powers of the world will not be idle spectators of a contest In-
volving such momentous results. I think it almost certain that the
peace of the civilized world, the stability of long-established institu-
tions, and the destinies of millions, both in Europe and America,
hang on the decision which Texas shall now pronounce. What has
she to hope in this conflict of stronger powers ? She will find her-
self between the upper and the nether millstones, ground to powder
in their revolutions."
Finally, the conditions of annexation are thus stated : —
" To admit her people to a full participation in its government,
and a full share in its promising destinies.*^
We have seen how this condition is fulfilled in the
treaty.
E 2
68
ON THE ANNEXATION
We must here notice means of another description. The
Texan Commissioners present the following statement of
the debts of the Republic, as " extracted from a Report of
the Committee of the House of Representatives of the
Congress of Texas, made on the 12th January, 184 1 :" —
Dollars.
*' Funded debt, bearing interest 10 per cent. . 1,650,000
** Bonds sold and pledged, bearing interest I
percent. .... 1,350,000
" Treasury notes, without interest . . 3,000,000
** Debts of various descriptions, say audited
drafts, and other claims, without interest . 1,000,000
*' Total . . . 7,000,000"
This account includes accumulated interest ; the interest,
therefore, not having been paid, while rated at 10 per cent.,
shews the stock, however created, to have been worthless,
and, therefore, the charge to be fictitious. The two latter
items " treasury notes," and various, ^^ sai/ audited drahs,''
present nothing tangible ; and this is a statement made out
by a Committee of the Texan speculators. The two first
items alone bear interest, which, in the course of three
years, would, at their nominal rate, amount to 900,000
dollars. The Commissioners allow that, since that period,
" the revenues of the Government have more than equalled
its expenditure." This is the account they bring forward
at the moment that the United States' Government is pres-
sing in the most instant manner, the annexation, and when,
therefore, they may make their own terms. Their whole
debt, under these circumstances, falls 2,000,000 of dollars
short of the sum set down in the treaty. But the Report
of the Texan Government, in the same year, (1841) sets
down the debt at between four and five millions of dollars !
The American Government now undertakes to pay
10,000,000 dollars. Here, then, are at least 5,000,000 dollars.
OF THE TEXAS. 69
that is above a million sterling, appropriated for the purpose
of bribery ! For this sum, however, the lands of Texas
are mortgaged, that is to say, Texas (supposing the land its
own) is purchased with its own money, to its own undoing^
But these lands are Mexican and riot Texan, they have in
part been transferred to England, so that this money is pro-
cured at the expense first of Mexico, and then of England ;
or, in other words, England has placed a million sterling at
the disposal of Mr. Tyler, to enable him to bribe the Legis-
lature, and the authorities of Texas, into a surrender of
themselves and their trust, in order to give such importance
to the anti- British feelings in the United States, that Mr^
Tyler may be re-elected President of the Union.
Nothing so curious has been narrated of the Arabiaa
Nights. Yet the glorious British nation, for whose re-
laxation from its severer studies and occupations these
exhibitions are prepared, seem to fail to derive from them
the amusement which future generations will suppose they
were calculated to afford, either by the merit or the cost
of the performance.
Here are menaces of irresistible power directed against
Texas, to constrain her to self-sacrifice, joined to false pro-
fession and corruption. Is not this tantamount to in-
vasion ? And if it was our duty before to defend Mexico —
this despatch imposes the additional obligation of protecting
Texas.
While Mexico and England are pursued with open ran-
cour, Texas, as now published by themselves, has been the
object of covered perfidy. Not less has been the treachery
of the Government to its own free nation, from whom the
plot was concealed until it had ripened for execution. And
this is the act of the model republic ; and it is the people
which does such things, and doing avows them, that have
taken the stars of Heaven for its emblem, and for its
colours the hues that indicate innocence and love !
7ft ON THE ANNEXATION
War between the United States and Mexico.
It requires that some difference should be pending
between two States for war to be made, into the justice of
which neutrals have to inquire. There are no griev-
ances of the United States to which Mexico refuses re-
dress — there are no demands of Mexico which the United
States will not acknowledge.
The fact of civil war does confer the character of inde-
pendence, with the rights of belligerents to both parties ;
and it is open to any neutral appealed to by the revolted
province, if it judged its cause just, to declare war
against the parent State, In that case it would be for
the United States to declare war against Mexico. It
would then be for other States to judge of the justice
or of the objects of such declaration, and to deal with it
accordingly. In taking this course, there must have been
grounds, and their hands must have been clean, and no
creating of revolt by secret machination, to be afterwards
defended by open violence. This is not attempted. Yet
this was the only form in which the case could have been
presented, to throw around it the least complication, as
brought to the test of the Laws of Nations, and of
civilized communities.
The United States does not make war against Mexico,
but lays hold on Texas, and leaves Mexico to find re-
dress where and how she can.* The act is therefore
one of that character which brands the United States,
not only with unjust and ambitious violence, but which
* ** A deadly hatred burns in Mexico towards this country. No
stronger national sentiment now binds the scattered provinces
together, than dread and detestation of Republican America.
Suspicion, dread, and abhorrence, have supplanted respect and
trust." — Dr. Channing in 1834.
OF THE TEXAS. 71
Stamps it a ^'pirate State," making it the enemy of man-
kind, and imposing on all neighbours within the sphere
of their operations, the obligation to protect Mexico, as
a first necessary measure of self-defence.
We have first, then, anxiously to inquire, and devoutly
to pray that Mexico, **the Circassia of the West," may
have heart and strength to assert her rights and ours, and
those of human nature, and it is with delight that we are
enabled to quote the following words of indignation, with
which the Mexican Government has met the announce-
ment of the Annexation Treaty : —
"The usurpation of Texas (for its annexation to the United States
can be called by no other name) would be an open declaration of
war against Mexico by the United States ; and doubtless is only
the precursor of other ambitious movements which many of their
papers are already in plain terras predicting. It happens that the
Spanish-American race does not admit the superiority claimed in
favour of the Anglo-Saxon race ; and even if they did, Mexico would
know how to defend with glory the territory which she was able by
her unaided arm to render independent of the mother country, and to
maintain her honour and rights, or perish in the attempt, sooner
than submit to an insult so degrading. In future she could not
count upon her own safety, nor even her political existence, should
she permit a friendly nation to erect itself into a conqueror of her
territory, by means so degrading, shameful (vergonzoso) and
perfidious." — Diario del Gohierno.
The American nation is, however, not yet that " pirate
state," but becomes so by this act if completed. A seal is
then set to the compact between the present opposing ten-
dencies of the Union. " No Texas !" recently exclaimed
the southerns ; then «* no Oregon !" " No Oregon !" ex-
claimed the northerns ; then ** no Texas !" The annexa-
tion of Texas was the condition upon which the Southern
States should consent in the usurpation of Oregon — the
usurpation of Oregon the condition upon which the Northern
7^ ON THE ANNEXATION
States should assent to the annexation of Texas. But as
England might be so far dreaded as yet to enforce moder-
ation, they are involved in a preliminary contest with an
enemy whom they despise. The American nation does
not rush on in united vehemence of lustful guilt — it is en-
trapped. There are those who appeal to the lingering
sense of integrity in the breasts of their countrymen, and
look around for every argument that can give weight to
their words or arrest by the fear of consequences. They
appeal to — England^ to her rights, her interests, her duty,
and her power ; they invoke those interests and that
power !
If covetousness for Texas has prompted cupidity for
Oregon and Canada, so has covetousness of Oi'egon
strengthened and confirmed cupidity for Texas. Had
there not been British possessions in North America,
Texas might not have been invaded ; and if there were
not hatred for England in the United States, Mexico
might not have been doomed to destruction. If, there-
fore, England had here no interest at stake, she is in jus-
tice bound to rescue Mexico, even were it required to
have recourse to those extreme means of arms and coer-
cion, which she is so accustomed on other occasions to
employ. But while the Americans do reckon upon a war
with Mexico — they have no idea of danger from England !
So in the usurpation of the Oregon, it is not England, but
the Red Indians that cause alarm ! In every case England
furnishes but a theme for eloquence in the enormity of
her crimes, and temptation for rapacity in the vastness of
her possessions.
But the American Government have grounded their
act — one not of war, but far worse— of robbery against
Mexico, on the statements in Parliament of the British
Minister. All that Lord Aberdeen has to say, is—" You
have acted without provocation, for we (England) had
OF THE TEXAS. 73
really no design to supplant the authority of Mexico in
in Texas, or to establish our own." The explanation is
not accepted.* The original declaration is insisted on —
the measure persevered in. There the official declaration
stands; it is England that the United States assails, and
Mexico is subjected to this war in consequence of a
difference between the United States and England ;f
England disavows the truth of the allegation, but leaves
the United States to proceed, and Mexico to perish.
This question presents itself to the British Cabinet as
a surprise, no doubt, in the first instance ; but it will soon
be considered merely as an embarrassment, occasioned,
not by the pretensions of the United States, but by
the resistance of Mexico. Then will come the idea
of conciliating the good-will of the United States by
pressing Mexico to a surrender, which will limit the
duration of her trouble, and diminish the amount of her
sacrifices. You cannot stand neuter ; not supporting
Mexico you must bring your weight to depress and
subdue her.
Tunis was Lord Aberdeen's first embarrassment, when
* The New York American remarks — " The correspondence
which in some surreptitious way has got before the public, presents
grave cause for reflection in the tone of the letter from our Secretary
of State to Mr. Pakenham, respecting the alleged interference by
England with slavery in Texas. Any purpose of such interference
having been explicitly disclaimed on behalf of his Government by
Lord Aberdeen, the persistance with which Mr. Calhoun under-
takes to prove inferentially that this disclaimer cannot be true, is
anything but courteous or conciliatory."
f A pretty contrast this, to the invasion of Caubul — because of a
pretended difference with Russia, and because the Prince of Caubul
had admitted an agent of Russia at the request of the agent of
England, We do present riddles to the world, but cannot read
them ourselves.
7^ ON THE ANNEXATION
assailed by France. He considered that the best way
of settling the matter, was siding with the strong ;
consequently he threatened the Porte with a junction
of the English and French fleets, if they should main-
tain their sovereign rights; he had thus also the
opportunity of conciliating a powerful ally, and France,
as all the world knows, has been from that time indisso-
lubly bound to England. Serbia was his next great
embarrassment, that Province being assailed by Russia.
He adopted a somewhat similar plan : he mitigated
the wrong by undertaking to execute it; vituperated as
*^ semi-harbarous '* the people that clung to their rights —
and as ^^intemperate,*' the Prince that opposed Russia.
The embarrassment being got rid of, the gratitude of
Russia has been secured to England by incalculable
obligations. Why should not Mexico in like manner be
saved from inexpedient pretensions, and the occasion
seized to propitiate our Anglo-Saxon brethren — and com-
plete the circle of good will and affection between the great
powers of the earth ?
Happy era ! when the harsh dictates of justice have been
supplanted by the benign promptings of humanity, and
the rude barriers of law have given place before the
softening influences of expediency.
Let us suppose the case, that Mexico, by patiently sub-
mitting, should not afford us this standing ground, would
that deprive us of the right of resistance or diminish the
obligation to do so ? No, it would only diminish our
facilities, and increase our dangers.
On the accession of the present Ministry, they had to
do what their predecessors had left undone, and en-
force against Texas the treaty with Mexico respect-
ing slavery; which done, the thorn and poison was ex-
tracted from the transaction. Had they been prepared
to enforce even the subsequent treaty with Texas, a bar
OF THE TEXAS. 75
would have been placed to this attempt, and of course
the knowledge of their determination would have pre-
vented this coup d'etat, which in that case could only
recoil upon its authors. This is not done — they are not
even left in suspense. Lord Aberdeen is communicative
and busy. He converses with the excellent person re-
presenting the United States — he writes letters to Mr.
Pakenham — he has interviews with -the abolitionists, and
makes proposals to the Mexican envoy ; where England
and the United States are opposed, he reconciles himself
with them and is confidential ; where Mexico is concerned,
takes counsel with ** the excellent person," that is, conspires
with Mr. Tyler ; he presses poor devoted Mexico into the
breach, and places her in the alternative of doing what
England disqualified her from attempting, or of losing
Lord Aberdeen's grace and favour. And this is a con-
scientious man's service, who strains to overtake his duties,
and who would do nothing he knows to be wrong. With
the utmost sincerity he reveals his predilections for the
" promising young state," his wishes to support it with
money ; he then frankly avows the discomfiture of his pro-
ject. With this integrity and unwonted simplicity of cha-
racter, he has brought upon England shame, and con-
firmed her in the path to ruin ; and there have been, before
now, men whose good qualities were more dangerous and
fatal to their country, than if they had been engaged in the
blackest designs, and prompted by the direst passions.
What would have been the conduct of France, if Greece,
while struggling with Turkey, had been incorporated by
England, even although Greece had not been a name
only for a horde of English adventurers, entering insi-
diously under the garb of allegiance and submission to
Turkey ? Although England had not been assaulting
the provinces of France, and preparing for her dismem-
berment by the previous dismembermentof Turkey, would
76 ON THE ANNEXATION
the French people not have arisen from the Rhone to the
Alps, from the Channel to the Mediterranean, as one man,
to wreak vengeance on such perfidy ? What their turpi-
tude had they quietly acquiesced ? And what, still more,
if the England that had planned this treaty was a weak
and contemptible power, unable to resist for a single day
the armaments of France, and pursuing these insidious
practices only on the calculation of her unlimited endur-
ance and irredeemable imbecility? Such, however, is the
design which the United States have planned, such the
infamy which England has endured, and they now com-
bine to startle the world with its sufferance and execu-
tion.
We now come to the great question, Will the treaty be
ratified ? But what means such a question at the present
day ? Has not England executed a treaty without ratifi-
cation ? Did not that very treaty stipulate that it should
be executed without ratification ?* Did any one question
that act? Was it so much as noticed? To England,
then, a treaty is binding in its signature, and not in its
ratification. And as regards her, the United States have
their case clear, if not taking her stand now when it is
signed, she attempt to resist when it shall be ratified.
The authority that ratifies, is the same that negotiates.
Powers of negotiation, are given to obtain credence for the
negotiators from the opposite party, and therefore are they
exchanged. Ratification is withheld merely as a security
against the exceeding of their powers by the negotiators.
A case of refusing ratification cannot have reference to
differences of the negotiating authority with itself, but to
the conduct of the negotiations with respect to the opposite
* Treaty of July 15, 1840, where England (or Russia through
her) dragged along with her Austria and Prussia, and France, in
opposing the treaty, did not dare to take her stand on this violation
of public law.
OF THE TEXAS. 77
party. Katrfication has been withheld hilherto only on
such occasions, or on the discovery of some plot or design,
which, if discovered after the ratification, would have
broken up the treaty itself.*
In the United States, the consent of the Senate is con-
stitutionally requisite for the ratification of a treaty, but so
it is for its negotiation. To negotiate a treaty in the
United States without tWe consent of the Senate, is as
great an usurpation on the part of the President, as to
execute it without its ratification. The case of assent or
dissent cannot arise at this stage of the proceedings. Here
is therefore a concerted fraud between the parties, or an
inability on the part of the Senate to comprehend, or an
indisposition to support its rights. The second alterna-
tive would be equally dangerous with the first; but both
are conjoined. In some there is collusive assent, in others,
indistinct, and therefore futile opposition. Instantaneously
the question is raised from insignificance to magnitude by
the mere fact, that it is presented in a novel and fallacious
manner. The ingenuity of its managers in displacing con-
stitutional practice, is a further addition to its importance.
We would however earnestly press on the American citizens
one consideration which may touch them. While they are
confused between the signing and the ratifying of a treaty,
that is debating where there is no diiference, — they are in
reality surrendering liberty and power. A President has
used the diplomacy of the state for his purposes, committed
the nation before it was aware, and where he has exercised
a flagrant usurpation occupies it in a sophistical dispute.
* The refusal of France to ratify her treaty respecting the Slave
Trade, is a new incident in the history of the world, presented by
the imbecility of a Minister (M. Guizot) who could not judge of
what he could effect, and who escaped from the embarrassment of
attempting too much, by subverting further international practice
and right.
78 ON THE ANNEXATION
He prepares to carry a project of his own by corrupting and
seducing the very Senate whose authority he has defied and
overthrown. Asa minister in England can plot in secret
and use the arm of the nation to do his work, and then
pervert that nation's mind into approval of his acts ; so
now has a President of the United States in Uke manner
discovered the facility of doing any thing with a people
vehement in proclaiming its liberty. If that liberty is dear
to them— if it be not a pretence and a deceit, let them now
assert it in the only manner in which it can be preserved. —
The impeachment of Mr. Tyler.
In a recent report of the Committee on Federal Relations,
respecting "admission into the harbour of the United States
of free persons of colour," there are some remarks on the
*' Treaty-making power" which are worthy of consideration
in connexion with the Texan Treaty.
It is there argued that the Senate, being composed not
according to the general population of the Union, but to
the number of States, were the Treaty-making power to
overrule the separate legislation of the States, the greater
States would lose their preponderance, "and the Federal
Government could do by treaty what Congress could not
by Law,^* The basis of the reasoning is the Senate's con-
stitutional authority in making treaties, and the object of
the argument is to represent that authority as one that
might become despotic and alarming. Contemporaneously
we have the President making treaties himself, without
consulting the Senate. Has the plain sense to substitute
■''this is a usurpation;" for '* will the Senate ratify ?" If
there was reason to apprehend the usurpation o/the Senate,
is there none to apprehend the usurpation from the Senate ?
If the Senate could be dangerous merely as yielding to the
inclinations of the weaker States, will that danger be dimi-
nished by its being converted into a tool of the Executive
Government ?
OF THE TEXAS. 79
In the same report these words occur :
*' A question of vital importance occurs — *How far the
Treaty-making power can bind the States?' This depends
upon the previous question, ' How far the States have
yielded by the federal compact their individual sovereignty?*
The Constitution vests in the President the power to make
treaties hy and with the advice of the Senate, Sec'*
To the question of ** vital importance," as to the limit of
the Treaty-making power, comes now to be added the
question of much graver importance as to who is to exercise
the Treaty-making power? The first they have not an-
swered, the second they do not ask. The first is a prospec-
tive fear, the second a consummated act. The first is to be
decided by the constitution when it arises, by the second
the constitution is upset.
Mr. Clay touches on the subject — weakly and inefficiently,
but still he touches.
" Assuming that the Annexation of Texas is war with Mexico, is
it competent to the Treaty-making power to plunge this country into
war, not only without the concurrence of, but without deigning to
consult Congress, to which, by the constitution, belongs exclusively
the power of declaring war ?"
His letter, however, furnishes far deeper colouring for
this usurpation, for when he speaks of danger which the
Mexican war must bring if England sides with her, and of
the burden of the treaty rights and pecuniary obligations
weighing on Texas, which the United States will assume —
of the abhorrence of the world against a nation plunging into
a war of unprovoked aggression, to sustain a practice repu-
diated by mankind, he only enumerates consequences
directly flowing from the violation of the American consti-
tution by its President, not in usurping the powers of Con-
gress, but in superseding in fact and deed the functions of
the Senate. All this might have been done by the Senate
and by the Congress — without any constitutional infraction,
80 ON THE ANNEXATION
but as it is done, the President usurps from Congress the
powersof war, from the Senate of negotiation — and he looks
to public opinion to justify him — that is, he seeks to change
the nation by his crime, and to convert that crime into a
means of greatness.
The following reflections of Mr. Clay, valuable to us on
other grounds, present for the United States most alarming
considerations.
*' I was aware, too, that holders of Texan land and Texan scrip,
and speculators in them, were actively engaged in promoting the
object of annexation. Still, I did not believe that any executive of
the United States would venture upon so grave and momentous a
proceeding, not only without any general manifestation of public
opinion in favour of it, but in direct opposition to strong and decided
expressions of public disapprobation. But it appears that I was
mistaken."
Again : —
*' Such a principle, put into practical operation, would menace
the existence, if it did not certainly sow the seeds of a dissolution of
the Union. It would be to proclaim to the world an insatiable and
unquenchable thirst for foreign conquest or acquisition of territory.
For if to-day Texas he acquired to strengthen one fart of the
confederacy y to-morrow Canada may be required to add strength
to another. And after that might have been obtained, still other
and further acquisitions would become necessary to equalise and
adjust the balance of political poiuer. Finally, in the progress of
this spirit of universal dominion, the part of the confederacy which is
now weakest, would find itself still weaker, from the impossibility of
securing new theatres for those peculiar institutions which it is
charged with being desirous to extend." ;
Shall these warnings be disregarded, and England's
acquiescence be the triumph of Mr. Tyler ? The formal
character of a treaty will give authority to the project,
and implicate the nation in its furtherance. Texas will
appear a suppliant, which is exposed by its predilections
for them, and whom it would be ungenerous to cast off.
OF THE TEXAS. 81
On these grounds, we much doubt whether internal resist-
ance will be sufficient to frustrate this design, nor do we
look upon its realization as immediate. Such would not
be even advantageous to the promoters; it would lose
thereby to them its agitational value.
England, on her side, will be puzzled between treaty
and ratification, and looking to the point of ratification
to take its stand, the Government will wait; by not
acting at once they will have done their worst. The
Americans will wait also, to allow the talk to be ex-
pended. They will reject the treaty-^knowing its rejection
to be a step towards its acceptance — England will accept
the rejection as a triumph. The next time it comes before
the Senate, it will be no longer a novelty for England, and
therefore not worth thinking of. What would an occasion
be if it endured always ! Would genius be commended if
mediocrity insured success, or knowledge esteemed, if
ignorance conferred security?
At the beginning of Van Buren's administration, repug-^
nance to the Texan scheme was still so strong, that they
positively seized a vessel, the Pelican, which was fitted out
to assist the Texans. The last act of Van Buren's career
was to recognize the independence of Texas. At the com-
mencement of Mr. Tyler's Presidency the annexation of
Texas was as much reprobated as in the former period
their recognition ; the last, act of his authority is a Treaty
for its annexation.
In the mean time every encouragement is given from
England. The first outbreak of indignation of the public
press might have had its efi^ect were England without a go-
vernment or America without an envoy. But there is Lord
Aberdeen in England and Mr. Everett from America.
But Lord Aberdeen may have been shocked by perfidy, to
which even he could scarcely remain longer blind, and
have proved restive or wrapped himself up in dogged
82 ON THE ANNEXATION
silence, but Lord Aberdeen has spoken, and, as with
Russia, while the press exasperates the minister invites.
Lord Brouorhafti has here rendered his usual service of
o
dragging to light and revealing the nakedness of the land.*
Having expressed his surprise that it should have been
upon a conversation with him that the American govern-
ment had justified its act, and having demanded expla-
nation, Lord Aberdeen said that he " believed the case was
wholly without example in the history of public laio,'*
What would be expected if in the case of an atrocious
murder, the judge before, whom the criminal was tried,
said, this is wholly unexampled in the history of law?
You would know that the man was an idiot ; but what if
you could not get rid of him as a judge, and if all the
people saw nothing strange but something remarkably
spirited in the expression ? Afterwards Lord Aberdeen
says, that if the treaty were carried into effect : —
"He should be prepared to state his opinion to the
house, and to do that which was consistent with his duty
as a minister of the crown, and which the public service
might require."
Lord Aberdeen has already done all that is requisite ; he
has declared it to be law — public law — extraordinary indeed,
but still law — very much to be deplored, but still law —
very desirable that the majority of the senate should reject
it, but they would be very wrong to reject it, seeing that it
is law : when it is carried into effect — whatever the opinion
which he will be " prepared to state," his ** duty as a
* Lord Brougham can injure England also by suppression. A
conversation in the House of Lords, in which Lord Beaumont de-
nounced the recent interference with the laws of Turkey, and
WHICH WAS RESPONDED TO BY LORD ABERDEEN BY A HEARTY
Hear, hear, was suppressed by all the papers at the suggestion cf
lx)rd Brougham.
OF THE TEXAS. 83
minister of the crown, and the public service" will require
him to recognize that law. Lord Brougham was, of course,
content, having got the ** satisfactory information" on
the subject which he had asked. And after this interrup-
tion the House proceeded to business upon — the Dublin
and Cashel Railway.
There is but one course for England to take, not two
courses. There is but one time for England to act, and
there is not a moment for delay. There is one path of
duty, one of right, one of necessity, one of security, one of
honour — glorious, unheard-of occasion, all these are one !
There is no time requisite to deliberate, there are no
longings interposed by the necessity of delay to the
grasping of such a fortune. It requires no treaty of
common defence with Mexico, no compulsion by arms
of Texas ; and it is not necessary to shatter to atoms the
pretensions republic. Mexico revives in strength and
security ; Texas eschews slavery ; the United States pu-
nish the insolent offender, and make atonement for his
offence, without suffering in their lives and fortune?, and
with the recovery of their rights and honour — for all this
it requires only to be known that there is in England a
Minister, such as Channing described and supposed a
Minister of England to be. Such a man would know
that the navies and armies of England are weapons not
to perpetrate crimes, but to use in her own defence. *' A
terrible thing," says de Maistre, "would be a robust
child." What is an empire oppressing the earth with
terrific power, yet less in mind than a child ?
We are not left to guess what the effect of an upright
and a bold course would be upon the United States itself
or on Europe. The following passage from Mr. Clay re-
cognizes the sharaelessness of his country's acts, the right
of England, or, indeed, of any power to protect Mexico,
and points out the means of doing so. We make no apology
F 2
84 ON THE ANNEXATION
for fortifying by quotations positions of such vital import-
ance, on the appreciation of which our very existence will
soon be seen to depend. We are upon the very turn of
the affairs of the world, and the chance of making this
matter clear imposes the endeavour by every means to
accomplish it.
** Honour and good faith and justice are equally due from this
country towards the weak as towards the strong. And, if an act of
injustice were to be perpetrated towards any power, it would be
more compatible with the dignity of the nation, and, in my judg-
ment, less dishonourable to inflict it upon a powerful instead of a
weak foreign nation. But are we perfectly sure that we should be
free from injury in a state of war with Mexico ? Have we any
security that countless numbers of foreign vessels, under the autho-
rity and flag of Mexico, would not prey upon our defenceless com-
merce in the Mexican gulf, on the Pacific ocean, and on every
other sea and ocean ? Have we any certain guarantee that Mexico
would obtain no allies among the great European powers ? Suppose
Great Britain and France, or one of them, were to take part with
Mexico, and, by a manifesto, were to proclaim that their objects
were to assist a weak and helpless ally to check the spirit of en-
croachment and ambition of an already overgrown republic, seeking
still further acquisitions of territory, to maintain the independence of
Texas, disconnected with the United States, and to prevent the
further propagation of the slave trade from the United States — what
would be the effect of such allegations vpon the judgment of an
impartial and enlightened world?'*
Nor are we without the means of justifying Mr. Clay's
estimate of the effect upon mankind of such a course, ii
adopted by England. The Government, from whom resist-
ance alone could be apprehended, thus deals with the
question, through its organ the Journal des Debats.
*' A country which, like France, has taken so glorious a part in
the abolition of slavery, should energetically condemn the language
openly held by the Government of the United States. We have
before, us the correspondence exchanged between Mr. Upshur, Mr.
OF THE TEXAS. 85
Calhoun, Mr. Everett, and Mr. Pakenham ; and all the notes
written on the part of the United States are, from beginning to end,
not only an apology, but an audacious justification of the principle
of slavery ; while nearly all the rest of the Christian world is making
immense sacrifices to deliver society from this hideous leprosy that
has so long disfigured it, the United States alone defend it in lan-
guage of the most revolting nature. These are the terms in which
republican and democratic governments understand humanity,
equality, and liberty I"
But sowing time and harvest season come, and depart
alike in vain, when there are none to sow and none to reap ;
and so will these favourable dispositions fade away. For-
tune belongs of right to the acting hand ; and never since
the world has rolled on, was mere energy possessed of such
power as now ; for right and wrong being obliterated, the
boldest will ever be the best. Here, then, was the chance
of arresting the growing hostile dispositions of France and
of the United States ; and, that occasion lost, these will be
strengthened, if only by the additional evidence of fatuity
presented in our neglect.
" Is it needful to urge the English Government to such
a course V a stranger might say, *' is it not rather the task
of those who look to rights to restrain the too ready use
of weapons and exercise of power. Have not armies been
pushed into distant regions, because of the mere presence
there of the envoy of a friendly power? Have not expeditions
been sent all round the globe to be themselves the bearers
of a simple demand for payment for smuggled goods, and
used their weapons in destroying cities, to enforce it without
having made it ? Have we not seen the fortresses of Syria
blown into the air, because a subordinate Government
had a difference with its principal ? Have we not seen
the navies of England used in a civil quarrel between
a sovereign and his subjects, where they were sent as
' mediators ?' What shall be the terrible and rapid ven-
86 ON THE ANNEXATION
geance that such a Government will exercise against a
not unworthy foe, and in a case no less of provocation
than of justice!'* He who should speak thus would be
strange to England in our times, and he would have to
learn that the load-stone of England was crime, and that
injustice was her inducement, whether to inflict or sufter
at any cost.
Keep the law and the law will keep you ; break the law
and the law will break you. Our feet have been in the
paths of iniquity, our hands have been imbrued in inno-
cent blood, we have enacted before the world on the
grandest scale the character of destroyer and spoiler. —
Shall you not then be a spoil to another destroyer? We
have imitated the American citizens in Texas— can we
resist their deeds because we suffer ? We who have been
every where removing our neighbours* landmark — shall
we hold firm our own? We have substituted might for,
right ; and those who do so are smitten with cowardice,
and are dismayed by the God they have raised on high.
Shall we tell the Mexicans that they can confide in our
sense of justice? — can we call upon the Ameiicans to re-
nounce their projects 1 A shout of laughter would be the
answer to our appeal, and a finger of scorn would point to
Scinde, China, and Affghanistan. These were the en-
couragements to American ambition — these the strength
of her injustice — these the blight of English power, the
load upon her heart, the mark upon her brow, and the
curse upon her faith. Until justice be done, lustration be
made throughout the land, atonement before heaven and
upon earth, — England can resist no aggression. Till then
injustice is sacred and inviolable in her eyes---unassail-
able by her weapons, and irresistible by her power.
This is not a weakness of a part, it is a disease of the
body, it circulates through the limbs, it is propelled from
the heart, it invigorates with the strength of delirium^ it
OF THE TEXAS. 87
poisons the whole frame, and the gangrene which is revealed
in the limb which we are now examining, will affect every
limb progressively of which the body is composed; and
as in respect to the neighbouring state of America our
guilt has developed in them crime, and armed in them
injustice, so will every other neighbour be rendered dan-
gerous by the passions we have inspired, and coalesced by
the mightiness of the plunder which we ojffer to their con-
federated cupidity. *' This treason," exclaimed Cicero upon
a memorable occasion, *' is directed against the state, its
gods, the senate in which we stand, against every one of
you — against the world." So is this treason under which
England lies guilty and suffering, a treason against the
faith which we profess, the laws which we obey, the con-
stitution we uphold, the nation we compose, the subjects
wp possess — against the very enemies we arouse, against
human nature and the world itself.
And can it be that dangers so mighty shall raise no
deliverer?
The possession of power and dominion involves duties
corresponding with fortune, and if our rights are sacred, it
is only when our obligations have been kept. The yoke
of obligation has long been broken by this nation, and
now behold the fruits — calling itself free, it despises, even
to the very knowledge, its affairs, until they are confused,
and then it is interested because of novelty, and the slum-
ber of its reason is succeeded by the vehemence of its pas-
sions. It is because England has neglected the manage-
ment of her affairs and called them *' foreign," that these
results have been brought, and these fatal passions instilled
on either side of the Atlantic. It is but two months since
we entered at considerable length into the position of Eng-
land in the Western Hemisphere, and these two months
have sufficed to give the character of prophecy to the
statements there contained, but it is years since the very
88 ON THE ANNEXATION
same things have been asserted, the same explanation given
of mysterious acts, the same sequence pointed out as their
necessary result. Common characters have been shewn
in the Boundary Differences, from the setting aside the
award of the King of Holland, the Caroline negotia-
tions, the Texan Recognition and Treaty, the support
given to France in her blockade of Mexico, &c. all
tending to and necessarily bringing estrangement and
hatred between the United States and England, while
simultaneously a similar process was bringing a similar
result between France and England. If, then, there were
those who did foresee and who laboured to prevent, may
there not have been those who did foresee and laboured to
effect ? And what is it that was foreseen by those, the value
of whose warnings has been confirmed by results, it was
not that the wind or the storm, it was not that chance and
" tendencies'* should bring those things, but that they should
he done, that there was a purpose to be gained by doing
them, and that in that purpose were involved men who
having the power to act for nations, could blind them and
then drive them mad.
As we have before said, this attempt on the part of the
United States would be, were there men in England to
deal with it, not an embarrassment, and not a danger, bat
a most glorious opportunity; neglected, however, as it will
be, it becomes a fatal calamity. Mexico surrendered,
England becomes of necessity the satellite of the United
States in the West, as she is of Russia in the East ; the only
hope of nations for their defence becomes the dupe and
instrument of their assailant.
Mexico abandoned, of course you then abandon the
Oregon, and Mexico surrendered and the Oregon aban-
doned, what hearts will your colonists in North America
have to defend your sovereignty ? They will not be the
pivot of your action and the body of your strength ; it will
OF THE TEXAS. 89
be against them that your power, if exerted at all, must be
directed. The provinces who formerly defended you against
your neighbours, will invite those neighbours against
you. Deal with the question in Mexico : support that
state; give it strength and confidence in your support ;
beat down the projects of America by that strength of
Mexico and your resistance, and you will have no struggle
to maintain. The knowledge of your decision then, to do
justice in favour of a foreign power, will save you from a
disgraceful surrender of your own territory, and will save
you from the otherwise inevitable dismemberment of your
own empire. All that is wanted is a word, but that word
must be spoken by a man. But to do this, England must
become different from what she is. The present ministers,
whatever their good intentions, can do nothing ; their
hands are bound by our past crimes, and that load of
crime cannot be thrown off till the nation abhors it ; the
nation cannot abhor it till it understands it, and no crime, as
no law, can be understood, except by judicial investigation
of facts. Parliamentary inquiry into our past conduct,—
that inquiry which Sir R. Peel resisted as inexpedient for
the public service, — alone can save England from dis-
memberment in America, from a war with France and the
United States, and finally from being protocolised ; that
is to say, extinguished as an independent power. Her inde-
pendence cannot be broken down with the same ease and
comfort to herself as in Turkey and Persia ; internal con-
vulsion and ruin will accompany our degradation.
p.S. — The intelligence that has just reached this coun-
try, respecting the convulsion in the United States,
will, alas, only excite gratification, through the animosity
which the intelligence by the former packet aroused ;
90 ON THE ANNEXATION
they will fancy that the Government of the United
States is weakened, and its power of aggression thereby
paralyzed; they will imagine that the hour of dissolution is
at hand, and complacently repeat that all danger for them
is passed away. There is security for England only where
there exists contentment at home and integrity. As there
are elements for Russian ambition to work upon, only where
there is internal discontent and external ambition. The
more the internal bonds of union are weakened, the more
will external aggression be palliated, excused, and adopted
by American statesmen; who will see, in committing their
country against England, a safety valve opened for internal
discontent, and a bond presented to them, in the failure of
all others, by those very designs which they had recently
looked upon as subversive of their liberties, and destructive
of their federal union.
June 20.
The President has continued to prosecute with unblush-
ing daring his scheme ; and the remedy which we suggested
as alone available, namely, — impeachment, has suggested
itself to his compatriots. This has been declared by Chan-
cellor Kent as the only course to be pursued, and as a
course that must be pursued to preserve Constitution and
Liberty.
As to the future, --the resistance awakened in the United
States affords the Government of England time to regain
their ground. If the English Government can now make
up its mind to perform its duty,— if they declare they will
hold the United States, on the annexation of Texas,
bound by the Treaties lying upon Texas and Mexico —
abolition of slavery^ liability for Mexican debt, and right
of search, they may, even without going to the point of
defending Texas against the United States, or defending
OF THE TEXAS. 91
Mexico against the one and the other, so strengthen
internal resistance as not merely to frustrate the design,
but even to restore the character of the United States, by
bringing about the impeachment of this Great Criminal.
If the British Government fail in doing this, then have
we no resource but the impeachment of Lord Aberdeen.
Impeachments, it is true, require public virtue and public
spirit. We say not that we possess the means of cure, but
we declare what that cure is, and assert that there is none
other.
The following extracts from the American papers will
speak for themselves : —
*^ The permanent well-being of the American people, as well as
public justice and self-respect, demand at the hands of the House
of Representatives the immediate impeachment of John Tyler, for
the high crimes and misdemeanors of which he has been guilty.
We say this out of no feelings of detestation to his character, or of
hatred to his person. We demand his impeachment as an act of
justice, essential to the safety of the American republic. We be-
lieve the course of conduct he has pursued vitally hostile to the con-
stitution, the laws, and liberties of the Union. How far soever he
may be beneath the contempt of honest men, his acts in the high office
whose powers he accidentally wi6lds,are dangerous — infinitely danger-
ous to the national safety ; and the House of Representatives, in
whose care the constitution has placed the public peace, rests under
an obligation which it cannot shake off, to take such measures^ as,
in its best discretion, acting as the sworn agent of the national will,
it may deem necessary for its preservation.
*' It has been ascertained upon good authority, and the informa-^
tion is corroborated, so far as they go, by official documents, that
Mr. Tyler has so disposed of a portion of the navy and army of the
United States as to offer a forcible opposition, under the direction of
the President of Texas, to the action of Mexico, should that
government see fit to prosecute the lawful war in which it has been
for several years engaged with the Republic of Texas. These offi-
92 ON THE ANNEXATION
cial orders, though those of them which have reached the pubKceyc
are drawn up in a guarded and cautious manner, taken in connection
with the secret stipulations said on good authority to have been made,
are equivalent, in all essential respects, to the commencement of a
war with Mexico, — a nation with whom we have, in existing,
unrepealed, and on their part, un violated treaties, solemnly pledged
.our national faith and sacred honour to maintain relations of peace
and friendship. Obedience to these orders will speedily plunge us
into the horrors of actual hostility. The lives of American citizens
will at once be sacrificed. The ships of American merchants will
instantly be made the prey of privateers. The resources of our
national treasury will be used for the slaughter of our allies. The
peace of the world will be disturbed ; the citizens of the United
States involved in the horrors and responsibilities of an infamous
war, and the escutcheon of the American Union blackened in the
eyes of every Christian nation, with a disgrace more foul and
damning than ever blotted the name of any civilized people on the
face of the earth. These are not imaginary evils ; they are the
legitimate and inevitable results of obedience to the orders of the
acting President. And these orders were given, involving as they
do consequences of infinite and dreadful moment, not only in con-
tempt of the will of the people of the United States, but without
the knowledge, so far as appears, of a single member of either
branch of the national legislature I" — New York Courier and
Enquirer,
** What is the reasoning in favour of annexation ? Confident
expectation of a war with England as the basis — the facilities Eng-
land would have in the possession of Texas for the prosecution of
war against the United States, as the superstructure. There is the
whole story.
** Now we confess, for our own part, that we are becoming
heartily tired and ashamed of this perpetual bug-bearing about
England by our public men. It manifests a paltry, miserable jea-
lousy, coupled with a still more paltry fear, which might be pardoned
in some petty German principality, but is most unbecoming in the
great and powerful republic of the western continent. What is
OF THE TEXAS. OS
there to justify us in this everlasting looking forward to war ? Why
cannot we place some little confidence in our strength, to say
nothingof our just dealings with other nations and the just dealings
of other nations with us ? Why must we be for ever libelling the
spirit of our own political institutions, whose end and aim and glory
are all bound up with peace ? Why do we, republicans, proclaimers
and apostles of justice, progress, civilisation, and enlightenment —
why do we prate eternally of that which is the deadliest foe to civi-
lisation and progress?" — New York Commercial Advertiser.
Dr. Channing in 1834, on the Annexation of Texas.
"Some crimes, by their magnitude, have a touch of the
sublime; and to this dignity the seizure of Texas by our citi-
zens is entitled. Modern times furnish no example of indivi-
dual 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 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 invaded England under their sove-
reigns, and with the sanction of the gloomy religion of the
North. But it is in a civilized age, and amidst refinements
of manners ; — it is amidst the lights of science and the teach-
ing of Christianity, amidst expositions of the law of nations
and enforcements of the law of universal love, amidst institu-
tions 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.
** We boast of our rapid growth, forgetting that, through-
out nature, noble growths are slow. Our people throw them-
94 ON THE ANNEXATION
selves beyond the bounds of civilization, and expose themselves
to relapses into a semi-barbarous state, under the impulse of
wild imagination, 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.
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. To this
spirit we have sacrificed justice and humanity ; and through
its ascendancy, the records of this young nation are stained
with atrocities, at which communities grown grey in corrup-
tion might blush.
** Texas is a country conquered by our citizens ; and the
annexation of it to our Union will be the beginning of con-
quests, which, unless arrested and beaten back by a just and
kind providence, will stop only at the Isthmus of 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 alluring 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 mind with boundless wealth, has already
awakened rapacity. Already it has been proclaimed, that the
Anglo-Saxon race is destined to the sway of this magni-
ficent realm, — that the rude form of society, which Spain
established there, is to yield and vanish before a higher
civilization.
** A deadly hatred burns in Mexico towards this country.
No stronger national sentiment now binds her scattered pro-
vinces together, than dread and detestation of Republican
America. She is ready to attach herself to Europe for de-
fence 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 tru&it.
OF THE TEXAS. §5
** I am aware that these remarks are met by a vicious rea-
soning which discredits a people among whom it finds favour.
It is sometimes said, that nations are swayed by laws, as un-
failing as those which govern matter ; that they have their
destinies ; that their character and position carry them for-
ward 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.
" 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 with 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 considerations of
this nature, but the particular relations 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 to ourselves.
She has at once a moral and political interest in this question,
which demands and will justify interference.
"England has a political as well as moral interest in this
question. By the annexation of Texas we shall approach
her liberated colonies ; we shall build up a power in her
neighbourhood, to which no limits can be prescribed. By
adding Texas to our acquisition of Florida, we shall do much
towards 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 Archipelago, in which the
96 ON THE ANNEXATION
European is regarded as an intruder, will, of course, be em-
braced in our over-growing scheme of empire. In truths
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 freedom, of the elevation of
the coloured race to the rights of men, is, of all influences,
most menacing to slavery at the South. It must grow conti-
nually more perilous. These islands, unless interfered with
from abroad, seem destined to be nurseries of civilization and
freedom to the African race.
" Will a slaveholding people, spreading along the shores of
the Mexican Gulf, cultivate friendly sentiments towards com-
munities, 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 grow from this neighbourhood
of hostile principles, of communities regarding one another
with unextinguishable hatred. All the islands of the Archi-
pelago 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 coloured race, the
destruction of this tempting example of freedom, should
spring from the proposed extension of our dominion along the
Mexican Gulf? Can England view our encroachments with-
out alarm?
" An English Minister would be unworthy of his office,
who should see another state greedily swallow up territories
in the neighbourhood of British colonies, and not strive, by
all just means, to avert the danger.
*' 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 de-
fenders will repay themselves by making her subservient to
their views, that they will thus strike root in her soil, mono-
polize her trade, and control her resources. And with what
face can we resist the aggressions of others on our neighbour.
OF THE TEXAS. 97
if we give an example of aggression ? 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 neigh-
bourhood, 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 interminable
conflicts that we formed our Union ? Is it blood, shed for
plunder, which is to consolidate our institutions? Is it by
collision with the greatest maritime power, that we are to
gain strength ? Is it by arming against ourselves the moral
sentiments of the world, that we are to build up national
honour ? Must we of the North buckle on our armour, to
fight the battles of slavery ; to fight for a possession, which
our moral principles and just jealousy, forbid us to incorpo-
rate with our confederacy ? In attaching Texas to ourselves,
we provoke hostilities, and at the same time expose new points
of attack to our foes. Vulnerable 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 free-
dom, 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
cannot 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 interpretation of the constitution
to be established, and the interfering 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 nation, like an individual, is bound to seek, even
by sacrifices, a position, which will favour peace, justice, and
the exercise of a beneficent influence on the "world. A nation,
o
98 ON THE ANNEXATION
provoking 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.
" 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 I that ominous
word, which ought to pierce the conscience of this nation,
more than the savage war-cry pierces the ear. The Indians I
have we not inflicted and endured evil enough in our inter-
course 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?
'* But one thing does move me. It is a sore evil, that free-
dom should be blasphemed, that republican institutions should
forfeit the confidence of mankind, through the unfaithfulness
of this people to their trust."
{From the " Boundary Diff'erences*' in 1838.)
*' The New World was to read a political lesson to us of the
old. May the moral of the old not be cast away on its young
ambition — and, tainted already with crimes from which the
oldest civilization recoils, let it not suppose that the experience
of the past is not available for it, nor that retributive justice is
to slumber over violence, because it is disguised as free, or
excused as new.
** An apostle of national justice, worthy of better ages and
of nobler times, has arisen among our descendants in the
West. In the seclusion of remoteness — under the shade of
privacy —engaged in the holy ministry of the altar — this ex-
traordinary man has grasped the political relations of the old
and the new world, with a precision, and exposed them with a
power, which the land of his birth, as that of his ancestry,
has hailed with cold and fruitless admiration.
, " To attempt to' exhibit to America the ruin of its character
OF THE TEXAS. 99
— the destruction of its institutions— the downfall of its political
existence — as the inevitable consequences of a career of aggres-
sion ;--the deluging of Europe and America in blood, as tha
result of an insane purpose of greatness and dominion ;— would
be but to follow the argument exhausted by Dr. Channing;
I refer to his letter on the Texas, to Mr. Clay ; — from which,
extensive as has been its circulation, I have extracted some pas-
sages — confident that those who have already read them will
re-peruse them with increased interest and advantage.*
**The attempt of Dr. Channing to arrest the spirit of
violence, or the lust of plunder, amongst his countrymen,
was made during the first aggressions upon a large scale
against the Province of Mexico. He justly considered that
event, not as an accident, but as the result of inherent na-
tional immorality, and as the commencement of a long series
of future violence, wars, and disasters. His arguments bore
on considerations of a moral kind ; and on the misfortune
which the United States, as a nation, was preparing for itself.
These are his strong — his unassailable positions : having how-
ever established these, he proceeds to unrol before his country-
men another aspect of futurity ; —he points out to them the
certainty of collision with England, (although at that time,
designs against the Canadas, nor aggressions upon the dis-
puted territory, appeared in the distance, but as incidentally
among a hundred other results of a purpose of aggression),
and he pointed out the impossibility on the part of England,
of submission to the assaults of the 'United States, or any peo-
ple whatever : the imperative obligation resting on the British
Cabinet, not merely to prevent an extension of her dominions,
alarming to the peaceful relations of the world, but also to
curb and repress, in the people of the United States, the spirit
• I cannot omit stating that the question of the Texas, so far
back as the year 1833, had engaged my most serious attention, and
has been to me, looking to it from the shores of theEuxine, as the
key to the events of the world.
The perusal of Dr. Channing's letter produced on me an elec-
trical effect. — That such thoughts should in this age exist any
where ! That such views should proceed from America !
100 ON THE ANNEXATION
of aggression. — That spirit, easily arrested at its source,
would be irresistible in the full current of its accumulated
streams, and accelerated course. The responsible guardian
of the interests and destinies of a neighbouring people, could
not contemplate, without dismay, the development of such a
spirit in America ; nor avoid, without criminality, to use
every just and honourable means to repress its growth, and
resist its progress.
** England has falsified the prognostics, and disproved the
conclusionSj of Dr. Channing. England has been heedless of
the alarms which he entertained, — she has been blind to the
motives he has exposed ; — felt, or seemed to feel, no interest
in the present or the future, to entertain no sense of duty, or
instinct of preservation. England has thus abandoned Dr.
Chaaning, with the friends, in America, of England and of
peace, to the contempt of their compatriots. Those who,
with him, alike respected England's power and her intelli-
gence, and who had raised their voices to say to their country-
men, * Venture not there — it is unjust — it is moreover,
* injurious to England, and she will not suffer it/ have learnt
to disbelieve reason, or to despise England; — have learnt
that nothing was too unjust for England to approve, and
nothing too injurious for her to suffer."
** America has commenced to speak of war — to threaten
England. Is this a result of the perversion of its own rea-
son, or a justifiable conviction of the degradation of that of
Great Britain ? It is a natural result of long endurance of
injustice, that they should threaten violence : but new inquiries
will not fail to be made, and conclusions, startling to America,
may be the result.
** With a Government, weak in its central authority, dis-
jointed in its constitutional power; — with a People, destitute
of national patriotism, sacrificing every feeling to gain, and
bending every faculty on acquisition, — disunited in popular
sympathies, divided in immediate interests, distinct in ulterior
aims, — haughty in the exaction of submission, suspicious in
the yielding of authority,— untrained to war, unbroken to
OF THE TEXAS. 101
discipline ; — with a Country, extended, unoccupied, exposed,
— undefended by frontiers of difficulty, unprotected by for-
tresses of strength ; — with every neighbour a foe — a servile
insurrection threatening within, — and the Indian prowling
around, maddened by injustice, and desperate in revenge ; —
to enter into war, except a war of necessity, and a war
of justice, would be an act of madness, not a measure
of policy.
*' Let us suppose, however, that collision takes place — let
us suppose the United States re-enacting the tragedy of 1812,
and marching her armies to the St. Lawrence. In the last
war, when England was in anns against France (then mistress
of Europe,) and could not send a single soldier to Canada,
did not the United States incur defeat after defeat ? Was
not army after army captured ? And did that power not
reckon then on a bloodless triumph : and was not the result
all but fatal to her political existence ?
" No elements of strength have grown up since then ; no
fortifying of popular judgment — no strengthening of executive
authority : — the United States are, now, as weak as then : no
better fitted to judge, and more liable to err, — to be carried
away by popular passion, and to be acted on by foreign in-
trigue. The American Union is now more likely to plunge
into war, because England ceases to steady its judgment, by
imposing respect for justice; and less likely either to muster
strength for the struggle, or to exhibit judgment in its con-
duct. What could America do against England ?— Invade
Canada ? Does she conceive that the conquest of Canada can
be eflfected, except with the destruction of the power of Great
Britain : or that England, recalling her energies, as she has
always done in war, will not bring them all to bear on a con-
test for existence; — strike the Union at all points at once, and
hy the weapons the most dreadful — legalized by necessity."
**Thus demoralized, their first step was to re-enact on the
Indian, the lessons of injustice they had learnt from their
parental state. Each district brought into cultivation — each
successive extension of territory and dominion, waa extorted
lOS ON THE ANNEXATION
by violence, or abstracted by fraud, from the ' lords of the
soil ;' and each successive wave of population, as it spread in
a widened circle around, marked its flow with blood. The
settlement of the new race upon the virgin soil, was effected
by the extirpation of the charities of nature, and the outrage
of the rights of man,
*' Among the chief sources of American weakness, — glaring
amidst the proofs of constitutional fallacy and of human in-
justice, is the state of the Negro, and the condition of the
coloured race. But here, too, has not England with humilia-
tion to remember, that ihat system was her system, — that the
crime of which she has ceased to be guilty, had been by her
transmitted to her American progeny, as a principle of law,
and an hereditary possession.
" A popular opinion arose in the southern portion of the
Union, in favour of invading the neighbouring country ; and
that measure was announced, adopted, and carried into effect,
in the manner of a proposal touching some municipal or paro-
chial regulation. Public opinion justified it; a free press
advocated it ; and a people proud of their institutions car-
ried it into effect : exhibiting a departure from those ordinary
feelings of integrity and honour which had hitherto been ad-
mitted in common by all men, — and, at the same time, a dis-
regard for the existing authority of the State, which I believe
has never before occurred in the history of man ; for even
rebellion in the old world has been united by a principle or
controlled by a leader. Dr. Channing asks whether they are
prepared to take the new position in the world of a * robber
state :* — but robbers have never yet been known destitute of
authority among themselves. What prospect does such an
event present to the neighbours of the United States ? What
prospect for itself ? England, — whose interests in the inde-
pendence of Mexico were not less than her interests in the
independence of this Island, — extends no protecting shield
before that State ; articulates no word to save it from this
disaster— the American people from this guilt — the American
Government from this degradation. Yet, one word would
OF THE TEXAS. 103
have sufficed. England— whose most anxious efforts ought
to have been directed, and whose whole power, if necessary,
ought to have been exerted, to arrest the progress of a spirit
of aggression in the United States, — carefully avoids the in-
dication of any interest or of any opinion on that subject j
when an expression of her intention and her determination
would have effectually overawed and repressed that spirit.
She is indeed the first to hail, and first to confirm, the triumph
of this injustice.
"The United States, thus mentally constituted, thus morally
instructed, next turned the lawlessness of their ambition, di-
rected with the cunning of the Indian, against Great Britain
herself. And here again has Great Britain to bear the dis-
grace of their attempts, and the penalty of their success.
Her contemptible submission was the cause of their boldness,
the justification of their injustice, by yielding up every con-
tested right, and sanctioning each advanced pretension.
" Commotions take place in Canada : the people of the
North, emulating those of the South, look on Canada as a
new Texas, on England as another Mexico. Armed bands
proceed to carry war into the provinces of a friendly power ;
and constituted authorities applaud, support, and co-operate.
England, differing in this respect from Mexico, finds excuses
for such acts in 'the constitutional difficulties' of the Govern-
ment of the United States ; — the perpetrators, when discom-
fited, withdraw in peace to their homes, experiencing, and
fearing, no retribution from the power they have offended, or
from the state to which they belong : and, instructed by the
* harmony prevailing between the two Governments,' consider
such acts as honourable enterprises — Then follows, — the new
assault on the disputed territory."
" It is because England has been false to herself, that the
United States have not been true to their own interests. It is
because England is allied to her foes, that the United States
have been false to her. The interests of both are then iden-
tical. England, by the assertion of her own rights and the
performance of her own duties, can still preserve both."
104 ON THE ANNEXATION OF THE TEXAS.
(The same writer, twelve years ago, in illustrating the
causes of the instability of European Governments, thus
alludes to Texas) : —
** The Mexican government being unable to protect or
occupy the Texas, granted a large tract of that splendid pro-
vince to American settlers, who became subjects of the Mexi-
can republic — this opened to Mexico the prospect of many
and important advantages ; the confirmation, by occupation,
of its right to the province, the protection of its frontier from
the Indians, the augmentation of its population and territorial
resources, and, above all, the formation of a population towards
the United States, possessing the characteristic energy of its
population, and eminently capable of resisting its encroach-
ments. For the supply of their wants, and the disposal of
their produce, the settlers found it convenient to establish a
yearly, caravan with Louisville. A barbarous Turkish ad-
ministration would have thought that the province could best
understand its own wants ; but the Mexican government had
not emancipated itself from the prejudices of Europe. The
sequel may easily be anticipated — prohibition of the caravan,
contempt of the settlers for orders that could not be enforced,
measures to prevent further settlements, and animosity deeply
implanted, which, of course, will end in the loss of the province
to Mexico." — Turkey and its Resources.
THE END.
O. NORMAN, PRINTER, MAIDEN LANE, COVENT GARDEN.
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