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i&' 
 
 A LETTER 
 
 ON 
 
 THE TEXAS QUESTION. 
 
 BY ALEXANDER H. EVERETT. 
 
 [From the Democratic Review for September ^ 1844.] 
 
 
 J 3 5 '3 
 
,f 
 
 
The. Tesai Question. 
 
 THE TEXAS QUESTION. 
 
 A LETTER FROM ALEXANDER H. EVERETT, 
 
 To the Editor of the Democratic Review. 
 
 My dear FRIEND : — You request me 
 to communicate to you, for publication, 
 my views upon the question of the An- 
 nexation of Texas, I cheerfully com- 
 ply with this request, although I can 
 hardly hope that I shall be able to throw 
 any new light upon the subject, after 
 the long and careful discussion which 
 it has already undergone. 
 
 It is one upon which, at first blush, it 
 would hardly be supposed that there 
 could be two opinions ,; nor would there, 
 probably, have been much division' of 
 sentiment about it, had it not been arbi- 
 trarily connected with parly controver- 
 sies growing out of other questions. 
 The political advantages of the acquisi- 
 Hion of this territory are, in fact, too 
 *obvious to escape the attention of any 
 one. A vast region, including from 
 three to four hundred thousand square 
 ..miles of the most productive land in the 
 world — enjoying a delightful climate — 
 communicating by a number of noble 
 rivers and by a long line of coast with 
 our great Western Mediterranean — 
 contiguous to our territory — peopled in 
 *^ great measure by our citizens, the 
 flower of our gallant Southern and 
 Western chivalry — that such a domain, 
 so situated, should be regarded by all 
 as a most desirable acquisition, seems 
 to be a matter of course. It was, in 
 fact, so regarded by all until very re- 
 cently. Even now the opponents of the 
 an^xation — with perhaps some un- 
 important individual or sectional ex- 
 ceptions — acknowledge the immense 
 advantages that would result from this 
 measure, and are only prevented from 
 giving it their support by conscientious 
 difficulties which operate upon their 
 minds as objections. That scruples of 
 this kind — assuming, as in courtesy and 
 charity we are bound to do, that they 
 are entirely sincere, should have been 
 permitted to obstruct, perhaps defeat 
 for ever, a " consummation so devoutly 
 to be wished," is an occurrence 
 which, uiyler one of its aspects, does 
 great honor to the national character. 
 Individually, no one can be more 
 
 strongly disposed than myself to treat 
 the conscientious scruples of every one 
 with the highest respect. I must say, 
 however, that on the most careful con- 
 sideration of the circumstances of the 
 present case, any doubts of this kind 
 appear to me to be entirely superfluous. 
 
 The objections which have been 
 chiefly urged are — the want of constitu-** 
 tional power in the government to make 
 the acquisition ; respect for the suppos-* 
 ed rights of Mexico ; and the bearing of 
 the measure upon the great and diffi-* 
 cult question of slavery. I will make 
 a few remarks upon each oi these 
 topics ; enlarging chiefly upon the last, 
 which has perhaps been somewhat less 
 satisfactorily treated than the others. 
 
 A supposed want of constitutional 
 power in the government is a favorite 
 ground of opposition to almost every 
 measure that is thought on other ac- 
 counts to be objectionable ; for the obvi- 
 ous reason that, if made out, it is per- 
 emptory and decisive. But I recollect 
 no instance, in which, as it seems to 
 me, it has been urged with less plausi- 
 bility than the present one. The au-*- 
 thority to admit new states into the 
 Union is not a constructive or doubtful 
 power, but is given in direct and un- 
 qualified terms by the letter of the 
 Constitution — " New states may be*— 
 admitted by the Congress into this 
 Union." Certain qualifications are 
 added in regard to the formation of 
 new states out of territory already 
 organized in this way ; but, as they 
 have no bearing upon the general 
 clause, they leave it, excepting in this 
 respect, entirely unencumbered by any 
 qualification or restriction whatever. 
 So far as constitutional power is con- 
 cerned, Congress have as perfect a 
 right to admit Great Britain, France 
 or China into the Union, as Wisconsin, 
 Florida or Iowa. 
 
 If it be suggested that the framers of 
 the Constitution could not possibly 
 have intended to confer on Congress 
 so large a discretion, and that it was 
 probably their design to restrict the 
 powers in question to states formed out 
 
 215428 
 
,The Texas, Qufistian.' 
 
 of territory then belonging to the Union,' 
 or some one of its mefQhtfTh^•it jh\ 9rilV, 
 necessary to say in repfiyj'th'atJ, .On tk&t 
 supposition, the language employed by 
 the framers of the Constitution went 
 beyond their intentions, since the power 
 is actually given, without restrictions 
 of any kind, and in unequivocal terms. 
 In reality, however, it is known that 
 the language of the Constitution, in- 
 stead of transcending the intentions of 
 those who employed it, was entirely 
 conformable to them. It appears, from 
 the reports of the proceedings of the 
 Federal Convention, that a form of the 
 clause in question was at one time 
 J)roposed, and even adopted, restricting 
 the power of admission to states formed 
 "out of territory then belonging to the 
 Union, and that the restriction was 
 afterwards omitted. It was a favorite 
 idea vi'ith the statesmen of the revolu- 
 tionary period that Canada, with per- 
 haps some others of the British provin- 
 ces, should be brought into the confed- 
 eracy ; and it w^s probably with a view 
 to some result of this kind, that the 
 clause was finally put into its present 
 shape. However this may be, it is at 
 all events certain that the present form 
 of the clause was not the result of 
 haste or accident, but was agreed upon 
 after a full consideration and even tem- 
 porary adoption of a different principle. 
 There is, therefore, no pretext what- 
 ever for the supposition that the 
 framers of the Constitution incidentally 
 gave to their language a larger extent 
 than they intended. 
 
 Mr. Van Buren has discussed this 
 point in his late letter with unanswer- 
 able logic, and in a way which really 
 leaves nothing to be added or desired. 
 
 In aid of the objection of a want of 
 constitutional power, it is sometimes 
 urged that, even were there no difficul- 
 ty of this kind in regard to the exten- 
 sion of our territory beyond the limits 
 of the original thirteen states, such ex- 
 tension is, in itself, inexpedient, from its 
 tendency to weaken the efficiency of the 
 general government, and perhaps en- 
 danger the continuance of the tJnion. 
 This view was presented with a good 
 deal of urgency in New England on the 
 occasion of the annexation of Louisi- 
 ana, and is still insisted on by some per- 
 sons of no inconsiderable authority, in- 
 cluding Mr. Webster. 
 
 This notion seems to have had its 
 origin in an opinion which prevailed to 
 
 s'orhe extend at the period of the adop- 
 Ition ;of ',the constitution. Among the 
 •actiyestatecmen of that day there were 
 some who considerecf it the principal 
 object of the reform then effected to 
 consolidate the thirteen states, as far 
 as possible, into one national republic, 
 and who believed that a government of 
 this kind could not with advantage be 
 extended over a large expanse of terri- 
 tory. This idea is, under all its aspects, 
 inconsistent with the experience of the 
 world, and has lost, I apprehend, long 
 since, whatever popularity it may once 
 have had. It seems to be a mere imag- 
 ination, thrown out without any proof 
 whatever, by the monarchical writers 
 of Europe, for the purpose of discredit- 
 ing a republican form of polity, and con- 
 demning the states by which it- is 
 adopted to perpetual insignificance. 
 The most illustrious, powerful and ex- 
 tensive states of ancient times, includ- 
 ing Rome and Carthage, were, through- 
 out all the better and more brilliant 
 periods of their existence, republics. 
 Republican Genoa, Venice, and Hol- 
 land, figured, in turn, as the dominant 
 maritime powers of the eastern world. 
 England, their successor in this respect, 
 is, like them, substantially an aristo- 
 cratical republic, with a strong and 
 constantly increasing democratic tend- 
 ency. But, independently of this con- 
 sideration, the form which our institu- 
 tions have assumed in practice, fur- 
 nishes of itself a completely decisive 
 reply to this objection. Whatever may 
 have been the opinions or the wishes of 
 some of the statesmen concerned in the 
 formation of the constitution, in regard 
 to the result of the system thereby es- 
 tablished, it has certainly developed 
 itself in the character of a confederacy 
 of substantially independent states, h^ld 
 together by a common authority, of 
 which the principal function is to main- 
 tain peace among the members of the 
 Union and with foreign nations. Our 
 system exemplifies more fully than it 
 has ever been exemplified before, and 
 probably to as great an extent as it 
 can be reduced to practice, the beauti- 
 ful idea of perpetual Peace. This is 
 the great practical result of our institu- 
 tions, and the one through which chief- 
 ly they work out the miracles of pro- 
 gress in population, wealth, and im- 
 provement, that we daily witness. It 
 is obvious that such a system has no 
 necessary territorial limits, excepting 
 
The Texas Question, 
 
 those which are imposed by considera- 
 tions of mere physical convenience : — 
 that it might be carried over the vi^hole 
 globe, if it were convenient for depu- 
 ties from every part of the globe to as- 
 semble regularly at any one point for 
 the despatch of public business. The 
 limits assigned by physical convenience 
 to the ultimate extent of our own con- 
 federacy seem to be those of the north- 
 ern sections of our continent ; and there 
 can be very little doubt that it will at 
 some future period occupy the whole 
 territory from the Isthmus of Darien to 
 the northern ocean. While the patriotic 
 citizen can have no motive for wishing 
 to precipitate this result in any of its 
 parts, so he can have none for wishing 
 to prevent or delay it, wherever circum- 
 stances naturally concur to bring it 
 about, from any apprehension of danger 
 connected with the extension of our 
 territory. The annexation of Texas is* 
 a measure to which our country has*, 
 been brought, with very little effort — 
 perhaps we may rather say, with a sorty 
 of coy reluctance on our part, — by the 
 force of causes in a great measure be- y 
 yond our control. Whatever may be' 
 the ultimate fate of the treaty lately re- 
 jected by the Senate, no human power 
 can prevent this measure from being 
 carried into effect within a very few 
 years. This being the case, it must be 
 apparent to every one that the sooner 
 it is consummated, the better it will be 
 for all the parties concerned. 
 
 Supposing the annexation of Texas, 
 to be in conformity with the constitu- 
 tion, and not inexpedient, merely as an 
 extension of territory, it is next urged, 
 that we cannot assent to it consistently 
 with our friendly relations to Mexico. V 
 This is the objection which has been 
 most ^trongly insisted on, and which 
 probably occasioned the rejection of 
 the treaty by the Senate, so far as that 
 result was founded in considerations 
 growing directly out of the merits of 
 the case. Whatever may be the true 
 value of this argument, impartially 
 viewed, it is certainly honorable to the 
 character of the country, that so much 
 delicacy should have been exhibited in 
 regard to the pretensions of a foreign 
 power, from which we have so little, 
 under any circumstances, to apprehend. 
 The objection presents itself under two 
 different aspects, upon each of which I 
 will make a few remarks. 
 
 The territory of Texas, as described 
 
 in the political constitution of that Re- 
 public, includes, we are told, an ex- 
 tensive region which has never been 
 brought under the jurisdiction of the 
 Texian government, but has always 
 been, and still is, in possession of Mex- 
 ico. The annexation of Texas, as pro-5^ 
 vided for in the Treaty, if carried into 
 effect by force, would amount, it is said, i 
 to the seizure of whole provinces, per- ^ 
 chance two or three states, including^ 
 the city of Santa Fe, which are not onlyi 
 claimed, but actually and rightfully held 
 by the Mexican government. This point 
 has been pressed very earnestly in i 
 several quarters, and particularly by*\ 
 Col. Benton, in his able speeches in the 
 Senate upon the ratification of the 
 Treaty. 
 
 If it could be supposed to have been 
 the intention of the Government of the 
 United States, in making the Treaty, 
 to obtain possession of any territory 
 actually belonging to and in possession 
 of Mexico, the objection would, no 
 doubt, be entitled to great considera- 
 tion, so far as it could be applied, which 
 would obviously be only to the part of 
 Texas so situated. On this supposition >< 
 the true way of averting the difficulty 
 would have been, to ratify the Treaty 
 with an express definition of a western 
 boundary, on a condition that the terri- 
 tory annexed should not be understood 
 to include any region not actually in 
 possession of Texas. A conditional 
 ratification of this kind might, perhaps, 
 under all the circumstances, have been 
 preferable to an unconditional one. It 
 is, however, apparent, on the face of the 
 whole question, that the Government of-;* 
 the United States have no intention to 
 encroach on the actual jurisdiction of 
 Mexico, It is expressly stated, on our 
 side of the correspondence, that the 
 western boundary is to be settled by an 
 amicable arrangement with the Mexi- 
 can Government, and in a spirit of the 
 most liberal consideration for any well- 
 founded pretensions On her side. Con- 
 sidered under this aspect, the objection 
 seems to be entirely destitute of any 
 substantial basis. 
 
 In its application to the territory ac- 
 tually in possession of Texas, it rests 
 on different grounds, and may be 
 thought, at first view, to wear a rather 
 more serious character, but will be 
 found, in reality, whether tested by the 
 rules and usages constituting what is 
 commonly called the law of nations, or 
 
The Texas Question. 
 
 by the principles of substantial justice, 
 to be of very little importance. It is 
 quite true that we have no right or pre- 
 tension to interfere in the internal con- 
 cerns of other independent nations — to 
 decide, for example, in this particular- 
 case, whether Texas was right in de- 
 claring independence, or whether Mex- 
 ico is right in seeking to deprive her of 
 it ; but it is not true, that in dealing 
 with Texas as an independent nation in 
 any way that the law of nations may 
 authorize, without regard to the bear- 
 ing which our acts may have upon the 
 interests of Mexico, we make any such 
 f^retension. In acknowledging the in- 
 dependence of Texas, we did not un- 
 dertake to say which of the two parties 
 to the previously existing war was in 
 the right, or to interfere in any way in 
 ^jdie internal concerns of the Mexican 
 ^ ilepublic. We considered the inde- 
 i pendence of Texas an established fact ; 
 and, this being assumed, we knew that 
 fwe were authorized by the law of na- 
 tions to deal with her, in every respect, 
 by word and by deed, as an indepen- 
 dent nation. Our intention to do so was 
 announced to the world in the usual 
 way, by the appointment of a diplomatic 
 ^gent to reside at the seat of the Gov- 
 ernment. Then, if ever, was the time 
 for Mexico to take exception to our 
 policy. None was taken, nor could 
 have been taken with a shadow of 
 plausibility. The Mexican Govern- 
 ment, as embodied in the person of her 
 President, who has been substantially 
 for many years past, like Louis the 
 Fourteenth of France, " himself the 
 State," had already acknowledged the 
 independence of Texas, under circum- 
 stances which rendered the acknow- 
 ledgment binding, in the strictest man- 
 ner, not only upon his official respon- 
 sibility, but upon his personal honor as 
 a man^ and which released the United 
 States from every appearance of obli- 
 gation to respect any claims that Mex- 
 ico might make upon the territory in 
 question. 
 
 But laying out of the case for the 
 present the previous acknowledgment 
 by Santa Ana, and looking at the 
 question merely under its general as- 
 pect, we had announced to the world 
 that Texas was, in fact, an independent 
 nation, — that we had a right, were 
 bound in duty, and were determined, in 
 fact, to deal with her as such. Mexico 
 took np. exception. The great powers 
 
 of Europe followed our example. It 
 may, therefore, be assumed that we 
 were thus far in the right. Texas is,/ 
 in fact, as we have announced it to be, 
 an independent State. What follows ? 
 Obviously, that we are authorized t<y^ 
 deal with Texas, by word and deed, as 
 an independent State, according to the 
 usual rules of international intercourse/ ^ 
 without regard to the bearing which our 
 proceedings may have upon the preten- 
 sions of Mexico. In acting upon this 
 principle, we do not undertake to de- 
 cide whether these pretensions were 
 originally well or ill founded. We give 
 no opinion upon the merits of the ques- 
 tion once at issue between the parties. 
 We merely act upon the privilege as- 
 sumed in our previous acknowledgment 
 of the independence of Texas, that this 
 question has been settled, — that the 
 case, whatever its merits may have 
 been, has had its turn in that high court 
 of destiny from whose decision there 
 lies no appeal, and has there been ad- 
 judged. We give no opinion upon the 
 justice of the sentence. We only as- 
 sume that it is binding upon us and all 
 other nations, including — whether she 
 choose to acknowledge it or not — 
 Mexico. 
 
 Now the law of nations and substan- 
 tial justice, as generally understood and 
 acted on throughout the world, fully 
 authorize any one independent nation, 
 to assume jurisdiction over any other, 
 that may voluntarily, for reasons satis- 
 factory to itself, desire or assent to 
 such an arrangement. The case is a 
 common one, and is never regarded by 
 third parties as furnishing any ground 
 for complaint. In making arrange^- 
 ments for the annexation of Texas to 
 the United States, the two nations ex- 
 ercise a right indisputably belonging to 
 them as actual and acknowledged mem- 
 bers of the great family of Christendom. 
 If the act interfere in any way with the 
 pretensions of Mexico, as defined by 
 herself, it is because she chooses to 
 make pretensions, in regard to Texas, 
 which she has not the means of ren- 
 dering eflfectual. We make no inquiry 
 into the validity of these pretensions. 
 Should she ever be able to enforce them, 
 we shall feel ourselves bound to ac- 
 knowledge the reality of the new state 
 of facts that would then exist, but in 
 dealing with the present as it is, ac- 
 cording to the acknowledged principles., 
 of law and justice — principles not; dig,-* 
 
The Texas Questim, 
 
 puted by Mexico herself— we do no 
 wrong to her, although our policy may 
 operate unfavorably upon her ability 
 to enforce her imaginary pretensions. 
 
 Cases of a strictly parallel charac- 
 ter are often occurring in the history of 
 our foreign relations. Thus we are 
 under the same obligation not to inter- 
 meddle in the controversies of foreign 
 powers with each other against their 
 wish, as we are not to interfere in their 
 internal affairs. But when they make 
 pretensions upon each other, which 
 come into conflict with our rights as an 
 independent state, we disregard their 
 claims, and, if necessary, compel them 
 by force to desist ; — a much stronger 
 case than the present one. Daring the 
 late revolutionary wars in Europe, 
 Great Britain claimed the right of put- 
 ting under a constructive blockade the 
 whole coast of the continent, and pro- 
 hibited all other nations from trading to 
 it ; but we continued to exercise our right 
 as an independent state without regard 
 to this absurd pretension, and finally 
 made war upon Great Britain for this 
 and other reasons of a similar char- 
 acter. 
 
 Mr. Van Buren remarks in his late 
 Letter, that he " by no means contends 
 that a formal recognition of the inde- 
 pendence of Texas by Mexico is ne- 
 cessary to justify us in assenting to her 
 annexation to the United States." In 
 this opinion he is probably sustained by 
 the nearly unanimous sentiment of the 
 country. The formal recognition of 
 Mexico not being necessary to author- 
 ize us to deal with Texas in all res- 
 pects as an independent state, what is \ 
 Evidently nothing but her really being 
 one. The moment when Texas really 
 became an independent state, was the 
 » one since which we and all the rest of 
 * the world have had the right to deal 
 with her in all respects as an indepen- 
 dent state. We had the right before 
 our public acknowledgment, supposing 
 her to have been in fact independent, 
 as was probably the case for some time 
 previous. By announcing to her and 
 the world that we considered her as an 
 independent state, we publicly pledged 
 ourselves to deal with her as such ; and 
 we cannot, without manifest inconsis- 
 tency, proceed upon any other princi- 
 ple. To act upon the idea that the 
 rights of Texas as an independent state, 
 or those of the United States, to treat 
 her a.8 such, are in any way diminished 
 
 by the imaginary claims of Mexico, 
 would be unjust not only to ourselves 
 but to Texas. 
 
 Such is the aspect of the question, 
 as tested by the rules of international 
 law. We have a perfect right to deal f 
 with Texas as an independent state; 
 and we have a perfect right to annex 
 to our territory that of any independent 
 state which is willing to agree to such 
 annexation. If either of these propo- 
 sitions be doubtful, it is the former, and 
 that will hardly be contested by any 
 one, at least in this country. 
 
 But supposing even that formal right, 
 the letter of the law, would authorize 
 the annexation, do not the courtesy and 
 consideration which we owe to a pow- 
 er connected with us by treaties of 
 amity and commerce, and weaker than 
 we are, require that we should abstain 
 from exercising even acknowledged 
 rights in a way that might appear like 
 taking an unfair advantage of our su- 
 periority ? This view of the subject 
 has often been presented, and, I think, 
 with some effect. It appeals to feel- 
 ings which are habitually cherished in 
 every honorable bosom, and are rarely 
 invoked without success. In regard to 
 this point, however, it may perhaps 
 well be questioned whether we should 
 show such real friendship for Mexico 
 by encouraging her in a delusion 
 which could have no other practical 
 result than that of betraying her, so far 
 as she might continue her attempts to 
 subjugate Texas, into a useless waste of 
 blood and treasure ; or, supposing that 
 our rejection of the proposed treasure 
 would be an act of real kindness to 
 Mexico, whether Texas, a nearer 
 neighbor and still weaker power, would 
 not have a right to complain of us for 
 showing kindness to others at her ex- 
 pense. But waving these points, let 
 us see what sort of a case Mexico, on / 
 their view of the subject, is able to 
 make out. If she or any other foreign 
 power, comes to us with a claim found- 
 ed in right, we must satisfy it, at all 
 hazards and sacrifices, to the extent of 
 our ability. If we are called upon to 
 grant favors, to show kindness and 
 courtesy, the ease is different. Before 
 Mexico can expect us to respond to 
 such a call, she must lay open the mer- 
 its of the affair, and make it appear 
 that her cause, as against Texas, is 
 one with which, as men. Christians, and 
 friends of liberty, we ought to sympa- 
 
8 
 
 The Texas Question. 
 
 thizc. Considered under this aspect, 
 how then does the case stand "? Very 
 nearly, I believe, as follows : 
 
 The government of the United States 
 of Mexico— a confederacy, constituted 
 and organized on the same principles 
 "with our own — held out inducements to 
 foreigners to settle Texas, with the 
 evident purpose of inviting emigration 
 from the United States. A number of 
 our citizens accepted the proposal, — 
 made settlements upon the grants of 
 land, that were offered them, — and by 
 their superior enterprise soon obtained 
 the political control of the province. 
 Texas was recognized by the existing 
 institutions as a member of the con- 
 federacy, to which it delegated by the 
 act of Union a portion of its sovereign- 
 ty, — but, in all other respects, was a 
 free, sovereign, and independent State. 
 Under these circumstances a military 
 chieftain overthrows by violence the 
 existing institutions, annuls the act of 
 Union, abolishes the sovereignty of the 
 States, and converts them all by a sin- 
 gle stroke of the pen into departments. 
 Texas, not choosing to acquiesce in 
 this innocent little manoeuvre, remained, 
 
 I of course, what she was before, with 
 this difference, that, as the foreign au- 
 thority to which she had delegated a 
 
 ; portion of her sovereignty, had ceased 
 to exist, this qualification of her sove- 
 reignty had ceased to exist with it, 
 and that she was now, to all in- 
 tents and purposes, an independent 
 State. She accordingly declared her 
 independence. This proceeding was 
 not in her case, as it had been in 
 ours, revolutionary in form, though 
 founded in substantial justice. The 
 revolution consisted in the abolition of 
 the preceding constitution. The in- 
 dependence of Texas was a necessary, 
 and, on her part, involuntary result of 
 that revolution. She was, therefore, 
 in form, as well as in substance, en- 
 tirely in the right. She appeared as 
 the champion of law and order against 
 a military usurpation, and exhibited to 
 the other States of the Union, a noble 
 example of firmness and patriotism. 
 Had they been capable of imitating it, 
 the usurpation would have been crushed 
 and the constitution restored. What 
 right had Santa Ana, or Mexico, if an 
 unprincipled military chief can be sup- 
 posed for a moment to represent the 
 will of a community which he retained 
 by force under his government, — what 
 right had Mexico to invade and attempt 
 
 to subjugate Texas ? The only right- 
 ful authority which Mexico had over 
 Texas was that delegated by the con- 
 stitution which Mexico had herself 
 subverted, and which had now no ex- 
 istence. 
 
 Had General Jackson in the year 
 1825, instead of acquiescing, as he did, 
 like a prudent and patriotic citizen, in 
 the results of the canvass for the Pre- 
 sidency, attempted to secure his elec- 
 tion by force, and succeeded in estab- 
 lishing his power over a part of the 
 Union, while the rest refused to ac- 
 knowledge his authority, and declared 
 itself independent, the case would have 
 been parallel to that of Mexico and 
 Texas. Whether General Jackson, 
 under these circumstances, would have 
 retained his popularity, and whether 
 the friends of liberty and humanity 
 throughout the world would have sym- 
 pathized with him in his attempts to 
 subjugate Virginia, Massachusetts, or 
 whatever other States might have held 
 out against him, are questions, which, 
 of course, answer themselves. 
 
 Thus far there seems to be very lit- 
 tle in the case of Mexico as against 
 Texas, which would naturally recom- 
 mend it to our favorable consideration. 
 What follows? Santa Ana, in the 
 same spirit of lawless violence which 
 he had exhibited in overthrowing the 
 established institutions of his country, 
 undertook to subdue and bring under 
 his dominion by .force the only State 
 in the Union, which had had the firm- 
 ness to resist his usurpation. Not only 
 so, but in order to take what he doubt- 
 less regarded as a very rightful and 
 proper revenge upon that State for the 
 high crime and misdemeanor of assert- 
 ing and maintaining her acknowledged 
 sovereignty, against a military usurper, 
 he determined to carry on the war with- 
 out regard to the usages of civilized 
 nations, and actually slaughtered his 
 prisoners, the flower and pride of the 
 Texian army, in cold blood. Thus 
 perished the gallant and lamented 
 Fanning and his comrades, — names 
 that will be registered in the memory 
 of the friends of liberty with those of 
 the Warrens and the Russells. The 
 Texians proved to the invader, at San 
 Jacinto, that they knew how to main- 
 tain, as well as declare their independ- 
 ence : and as if Providence had in- 
 tended that he should suffer a just 
 retribution for his inhumanity, precisely 
 in the point where he had most deeply 
 
The Texas Question. 
 
 9 
 
 offended, — they succeeded in obtaining 
 possession of his person. What was 
 to be done ? Every principle, not 
 merely of the military code, but of 
 natural justice and humanity, required 
 that he should experience in his own 
 person the same tender mercies which 
 he had meted out to the best and 
 bravest of the Texians. When a mili- 
 tary usurper, in attempting to subjugate 
 an unoffending foreign people, happens 
 to fall into their hands, his claim for 
 consideration on the score of humanity, 
 if justly viewed, must appear, under any 
 circumstances, very small. A disabled 
 wolf, soliciting mercy from the peace- 
 ful animals whom he has been seeking 
 to destroy, presents a nearly parallel 
 case. The usage of the world has, 
 however, given even to a character of 
 this description, supposing him to have 
 perpetrated his deeds of carnage and 
 plunder in the forms and according to 
 the rules of public war, a sort of recog- 
 nized existence, accompanied with con- 
 ventional rights, that are generally 
 respected. But where a person of this 
 character sets at defiance the ordinary 
 usages of civilized war and actually 
 slaughters his prisoners in cold blood, 
 he loses all title to this sort of conven- 
 tional consideration, degrades himself 
 to the level of a common pirate, and 
 ought on every principle of humanity 
 and justice to be treated like one. Na- 
 poleon himself, had his military career 
 been stained, like that of Santa Ana, 
 by a contemptuous disregard for the 
 rules of civilized war, — would have 
 been shot by the allies, when he fell 
 into their power : and humanity, instead 
 of blaming, would have applauded the 
 act. It is much to be regretted that 
 this kind of summary justice was not 
 administered in the case of Santa Ana. 
 He has been throughout, and still is, 
 the great stumbling-block in the way 
 of a constitutional organization of the 
 unfortunate region which he now dic- 
 tatorially governs. His death, while 
 it was most richly merited, or rather 
 imperiously and peremptorily demand- 
 ed by every consideration of humanity 
 and justice, would have been, at the 
 same time, a substantial and permanent 
 benefit to his country. 
 
 It is impossible, however, not to ad- 
 mire, though we can hardly approve, 
 the moderation of the Texians in liber- 
 ating their important prisoner. Their 
 determination appears to have been 
 
 1* 
 
 taken under the mediation of General 
 Jackson, as President of the United 
 States, and on conditions, which if any 
 reliance could have been placed on the 
 personal honor of Santa Ana, might 
 have rendered the act a politic one. 
 Before his liberation he agreed to and 
 signed a treaty acknowledging the in- 
 dependence of Texas, and binding him- 
 self to abstain from any hostile attempts 
 against her in future. On these condi- 
 tions he was permitted to return with 
 his army in safety to Mexico. Without 
 inquiring how far such an arrangement, 
 if made by a captive general in the 
 service of a regular government, would 
 have been binding upon his superiors — > 
 without expecting or exacting from 
 Santa Ana, had he been so situated, 
 the virtue of the Roman Regulus, who 
 having deemed it his duty to his coun- 
 try to violate the understanding upon 
 which he had been sent home by the 
 Carthaginians, thought it due to his 
 own honor to return to Carthage, and 
 place himself again in their hands — in 
 short under any point of view, without 
 considering what might have been the 
 force of this transaction in a different 
 state of things, there can be no doubt 
 that Santa Ana, having been at the 
 time and ever since to all intents and 
 purposes, the government^ was politic- 
 ally and personally bound by it ; and 
 although the intervention of General 
 Jackson in the proceeding may have 
 been entirely informal, the acceptance 
 of his mediation by Santa Ana can be 
 viewed in no other light than as a com- 
 plete abandonment, so far at least as he 
 and Mexico while under his government 
 were concerned, of any right or claim 
 to prevent the United States from 
 treating Texas in all respects as an in- 
 dependent power. The government of 
 the United States proceeded, accord- 
 ingly, not long after this transaction, 
 to make a public and formal acknow- 
 ledgment of the independence of Tex- 
 as, in which we were followed imme- 
 diately by the great powers of Europe. 
 Meanwhile Santa Ana no sooner found 
 himself at liberty, than setting aside the 
 treaty, to which he owed his life and 
 liberty, with the same indifference with 
 which he had previously nullified the 
 constitution of his country, he resumed 
 his pretension to overthrow by force the 
 independence of Texas ; and although 
 he has since made no serious attempt 
 at invasion, and will probably be very 
 
10 
 
 The Texas Question. 
 
 careful not to appear again in person 
 upon the Texian territory, has kept up 
 a harassing, though ineffectual border 
 warfare against her, conducted with 
 the same humane and beautiful regard 
 for the usages of nations that distin- 
 guished his former invasion. 
 
 Such is the character of the person 
 whom — under the name of Mexico — 
 we are called upon to treat, not merely 
 with justice, but with consideration, 
 favor and courtesy ; for whom we are , 
 requested to sacrifice our acknowledged 
 rights and interests, as well as those 
 of Texas. In recognizing as the ex- 
 isting de facto government of Mexico, 
 the military system which Santa Ana 
 has established and maintains by force 
 upon the ruins of the preceding insti- 
 tutions, it seems to me that we do all 
 that the law of nations requires or au- 
 thorizes us to do. To expect that we 
 should look with sympathy and favor 
 upon the attempts of such a person ta 
 subvert by force the independence of 
 the only State which had the firmness 
 to resist his usurpation — that we should 
 abstain from exercising our undoubted 
 light to admit this gallant and generous 
 young State into our own Union, lest 
 we should in any way interfere with or 
 disorganize these attempts — this, I ap- 
 prehend, would be going a little too 
 far. 
 
 But Mexico, it may be said, has 
 already announced that she will con- 
 sider the annexation of Texas to our 
 territory as a declaration of war ; and 
 that whether she be right or wrong in 
 this, we shall equally in either case 
 have to encounter her hostile move- 
 ments, in which she may be aided by 
 powers much more formidable than her- 
 self. 
 
 In answer to this objection I should 
 say that, if Santa Ana, after making war 
 upon a nation which gave him his justly 
 forfeited life, and his personal liberty, 
 upon his express engagement never to 
 attempt anything against her, should 
 also declare war against us — the nation 
 at whose friendly intercession he ob- 
 tained these favors — because we do not 
 think proper to aid and abet him in his 
 treachery, I, for one, am quite wil- 
 ling to take the consequences. On 
 the Mexican side of such a quarrel, 
 there would be no element, as Mr. Jef- 
 ferson remarked upon another occa- 
 sion, " on which the Almighty can be 
 expected to look with an eye of favor," 
 
 or which would naturally engage the 
 sympathy of any other power. 
 
 If there be anything more than mere 
 bravado in these threats of war by 
 Santa Ana, they are probably uttered 
 in the expectation that he will receive 
 aid from England. In this expectation, 
 if he in fact entertain it, he will be 
 disappointed. The settled policy of 
 England, in regard to this country, 
 since our war of 1812, is permanent 
 peace. Up to that time, she had cherish- 
 ed a lingering hope that she should be 
 able to reduce us again to our original 
 condition of colonial dependence, and 
 never, in fact, dealt with as as a really 
 independent power. The war of 1812 
 dissipated this delusion, and she then 
 made up her mind to be content with 
 the advantages which she can obtain 
 from us as her best customer, in the 
 peaceful intercourse of a mutually profit- 
 able trade. She will, in the indulgence 
 of her habitual overbearing humor, or in 
 order to effect any temporary purpose 
 that she may have in view, threaten, 
 brovs^beat, and plunder us as long as we 
 choose to acquiesce ; but will never, 
 under any circumstances, make war 
 upon us, or permit us to make war upon 
 her. 
 
 In reality, however, these threats of 
 war by Santa Ana are the merest va- 
 poring, without any intention on his 
 part to give them effect. Though not, 
 perhaps, fairly entitled to the epithet 
 wise^ which Mr. Thompson, our late 
 Minister to Mexico, too liberally be- 
 stowed upon him, Santa Ana is adroit 
 and cunning. He knows that the most 
 probable result of an attempt by him to 
 make war upon Texas and the United 
 States would be the overthrow of his 
 own usurped power by a domestic revo- 
 lution, and the restoration of the consti- 
 tutional system. He knows that should 
 this not happen, and should he retain a 
 sufficiently effective control over his 
 countrymen to drag them again into an 
 actual invasion of Texas, combined 
 with open war against the United States, 
 thousands — if necessary, tens of thou- 
 sands — of our ardent spirits would rush 
 from every corner of the West to the 
 scene of action, and bear aloft the ban- 
 ner of the " lone star" on a tide of 
 martial and popular enthusiasm, until, 
 after one or two campaigns, they 
 should have planted it on the towers of 
 Mexico. He knows, that, although in 
 that event there would probably be no 
 
The Texas Question. 
 
 U 
 
 disposition in the Government of the 
 United States to take any undue advan- 
 tage of circumstances, there would 
 also be as little to give much import- 
 ance to his own personal pretensions. 
 Santa Ana will declare war against 
 the United States when he desires to 
 exchange the presidential chair and 
 the quiet paradise of Manga de Clavo 
 for a niche in the temple of fame by 
 the side of His Imperial Majesty Don 
 Agustino I., and not before. 
 
 So much for the objections to the 
 annexation of Texas, founded on a 
 supposed want of constitutional power 
 in the government, and on respect for 
 the pretended rights of Mexico. The 
 third, and only remaining objection, is 
 th^apprehended effect of this measure 
 in extending the influence of slavery, 
 and increasing the weight in the na- 
 tional councils of the slave-holding 
 section of the Union. 
 
 By the present Constitution of the 
 Republic of Texas, the importation of 
 slaves from any country other than 
 the United States, is prohibited by law. 
 Citizens 0/ the United States who go 
 to settle in Texas are permitted to 
 bring their slaves with them. Such 
 is, in this respect, the present state of 
 things. What will it be after the annex- 
 ation of Texas to the United States ] 
 The importation of slaves from all 
 other countries will still be prohibited, 
 and citizens of the United States who 
 go to settle in Texas will still be per- 
 mitted to bring their slaves with them. 
 In both particulars the state of things, 
 as regulated by law, will be exactly 
 the same as it is now. How, then, 
 does it appear that the annexation of 
 Texas will extend the domain of 
 slavery, or increase the weight of the 
 slave-holding section of the Union 1 
 The probability is, on the contrary, 
 that, while this state of things, as re- 
 gulated by her, will remain in this 
 respect exactly what it is now, the 
 practical result of the measure will be 
 rather adverse than favorable to the 
 extension of slavery, for the three fol- 
 lowing reasons. 
 
 1. The laws against the foreign slave 
 trade will be more effectually enforced 
 under the authority of the United 
 States than they are now, and a small- 
 er number of slaves will, of course, 
 be introduced in a clandestine way at 
 the sea ports. 
 
 a. The emigration from the United 
 
 States to Texas would probably in- 
 crease ; but, admitting this to be the 
 case, it is obvious that the slaves can- 
 not be in two places at the same time. 
 If they cross the Mississippi to build 
 up new slave-holding States in Texas, 
 they cannot remain in their former 
 abodes on the coast of the Atlantic 
 Ocean, and the banks of the Ohio. Virgi- 
 nia, Maryland, Kentucky and Delaware 
 would become, almost immediately, 
 free States. Tennessee, the Carolinas 
 and Georgia, where the culture of cot- 
 ton is much less productive than in the 
 far South West, would soon follow 
 their example. The weight of the 
 slave-holding section of the Union in 
 the national councils, instead of being 
 augmented, would, of course, be di- 
 minished. Such would be the practi- 
 cal result of the measure, supposing 
 even that Texas should be annexe^as- 
 a slave-holding territory, and that ftie 
 whole should afterwards be cut up mto 
 slave-holding States. But this would 
 probably not be the case : for — 
 
 3. The territcH-y of Texas, which 
 reaches in a northerly direction to 
 nearly the latitude of Boston, when cut 
 up into States, will probably give about 
 equal accessions of strength to the two 
 interests. Mr. Clay supposes that it 
 will furnish three free to two slave - 
 holding States. Others suppose that 
 there will be two of each class. Ad- 
 mitting this, as the least favorable sup- 
 position, the immediate effect is still, 
 on this view of the subject, to leave the 
 respective forces of the two parties 
 nearly as they were before, while, on 
 every other view, it is positively ad- 
 verse to the extension of slavery. 
 
 The general result would, in fact,, 
 be, that the laws prohibiting the foreign 
 slave trade would be- better enforced in 
 Texas, and as a compensation for the 
 addition of two new slave-holding States 
 to the Union, three, or at least two, 
 new free States would be added to the 
 Union, and the weight of at least six, 
 perhaps eight or ten States, added in 
 Congress to the influence of the free- 
 side. 
 
 It would be easy, by enlarging on 
 these statements, and the practical re- 
 sults that follow from them, to give 
 them a high degree of probability ; but 
 this seems to be unnecessary, as they 
 are admitted alike by the prominent 
 champions of both parties to this <}ues- 
 tion. On the only point where any: 
 
12 
 
 The Texas Question. 
 
 positive accession to the slave-holding 
 interest could be apprehended — I mean 
 the character of the new States to be 
 formed out of Texas — Mr. Clay him- 
 self, as we have seen, believes that the 
 advantage will be on the other side. 
 There will be, according to him, three 
 new free States, and only two slave- 
 
 V^iolding ones. Our late Minister to 
 Mexico, Mr. Waddy Thompson, also a 
 decided opponent oi the annexation of 
 Texas, agrees with Mr. Clay in this 
 '6pinion ; and it is, in fact, precisely for 
 this reason that he opposes the mea- 
 sure. If he believed that Texas could 
 be admitted into the Union in the shape 
 of four or five slave-holding States, he 
 would " disregard all minor objections, 
 and go for the measure." But he is 
 persuaded — very correctly, no doubt — 
 that the North would never consent to 
 tlus arrangement, and having the ma- 
 joiity in Congress, would, of course, 
 prevent it, were it even, which is not 
 probable, desired by the more enlight- 
 ened portion of the South. The real 
 question, as Mr. Thompson says, is, 
 *' between Texas, divided into an equal 
 number of slave-holding and non-slave- 
 holding States of the Union, and Texas 
 as it is now, an undivided slave-holding 
 country." Preferring the latter part of 
 the alternative, Mr. Thompson opposes 
 annexation : those who wish to di- 
 minish the territorial extent and poli- 
 tical influence of slavery, ought, for the 
 same reason, to be in favor of it. 
 
 Mr. Thompson is equally decided in 
 the opinion that the eflTect of annexation 
 will be, to extinguish the remains of 
 slavery in most of the old slave-holding 
 
 vStates. " Slave labor," he says, " can 
 be employed in Texas with, at least, 
 twice the profit which it yields in the 
 average of the slave States of the 
 Union. Our slaves will then be car- 
 ried to Texas by the force of a law as 
 great and certain as that by which wa- 
 ter finds its level. The slaves will very 
 soon disappear from Maryland,Virginia, 
 N. Carolina, Tennessee, and Kentucky; 
 and in a period very, short for such an 
 operation those States will become 
 non-slave-holding States. Whenever 
 that is the case, they will not only no 
 longer have a common interest with 
 the remaining slave-holding States, but 
 will very soon partake of that fanatical 
 spirit of a false philanthropy which is 
 now pervading the whole world. Thus 
 shall we lose the most important of our 
 
 allies — most important in numerical 
 strength at the ballot-box, still more 
 important if we should be driven to the 
 cartouch-box as our last defence." In 
 general, the unfavorable eflfect of the 
 annexation of Texas upon the exten- 
 sion, influence, and even existence of 
 slavery, is the precise reason why Mr. 
 Thompson, an open and avowed friend 
 of slavery under all its aspects, opposes 
 the measure. It is, according to him, 
 "the most efficient plan that can be 
 adopted for the abolition of slavery .^"^ 
 " If I believed," says he, "that abolii- 
 tion either was or would become bene- 
 ficial or necessary for the South, I 
 should certainly be for annexation, as 
 the most certain and best mode of ac^ 
 complishing the object. I am firmly- 
 persuaded, that it is the certain and in- 
 evitable tendency of the annexation of 
 Texas to promote the abolition of slave- 
 ry — more so, indeed, than that of any- 
 other measure that has heretofore been 
 proposed." 
 
 The reasoning by which Mr. Thomp- 
 son supports these opinions is entirely 
 satisfactory ; and his Letter against 
 annexation, excepting for the few per- 
 sons who believe with him that slavery 
 is a positive good, is perhaps the strong- 
 est paper that has yet been published in 
 favor of it. I make use of his author- 
 ity, not in the way o^ argumentum ad 
 hominem, for the purpose of confuting 
 the opponents of annexation out of the 
 mouths of their own most prominent 
 and able champions. It is not my ob- 
 ject to gain the advantage, fairly or un- 
 fairly, in a logical encounter of wits, but 
 to arrive at the truth, I entirely con- 
 cur in the opinions expressed by Mr. 
 Thompson, in regard to the effect of 
 the annexation upon the extension and 
 influence of slavery, and I give them in 
 his words, because they will naturally 
 have more weight, coming from an open 
 and ardent opponent of the measure, 
 than they would from any of its friends. 
 
 I repeat, therefore, that the general 
 result of this measure will be, to enforce 
 more eff'ectually in Texas the execution 
 of the laws against the foreign slave 
 trade — to extinguish slavery in several 
 of the old slave-holding States, and of 
 increase proportionally the weight to 
 the free, as compared with that of the 
 slave-holding States, in Congress ; — in 
 short, to exercise a stronger influence 
 than any other measure that has yet 
 been suggested in favor of the gradual 
 
The Texas Question. 
 
 13 
 
 restriction and final abolition of slavery, 
 Such being the case, by the general 
 admission of the most intelligent and 
 zealous supporters of both sides of this 
 question, it is really singular that any 
 one should object to it on account of 
 its supposed tendency to extend and in- 
 crease the influence of slavery ; and yet 
 it cannot be doubted that an erroneous 
 view of the operation of the measure in 
 this respect is not only very honestly 
 and seriously entertained by many, but, 
 after all that has been said of the rights 
 of Mexico, is the principal cause of the 
 opposition made to it at the North. The 
 great names of Channing and J. Q. 
 Adams had taken the public mind by 
 surprise, and given popularity to the 
 views alluded to, before the question had 
 been thoroughly canvassed. When the 
 discussion which it is now undergoing 
 shall have had its effect, the current of 
 opinion will, I think, take a new direc- 
 tion ; and I believe that the eminent 
 and truly philanthropic men whom I 
 have just mentioned as opponents of 
 the measure, could they now,with minds 
 entirely unbiassed, look at it under the 
 new lights that have recently been 
 thrown upon it, would be among the 
 first to give it their hearty and delibe- 
 rate sanction. 
 
 Having disposed of all the objections 
 that have been urged against this mea- 
 sure, I might here terminate the dis- 
 cussion ; but there is one view of the 
 '^subject, connected with the topic of 
 slavery, which I have not yet consider- 
 ed, and which is, for practical purposes, 
 perhaps the most important of all, be- 
 cause it furnishes the precise reason 
 why the annexation of Texas is not 
 only desirable, but ought to be carried 
 into effect without any unnecessary de- 
 lay. I allude, of course, to the danger 
 resulting to the tranquillity of the 
 Southern States from the policy acted 
 on and avowed by Great Britain in re- 
 gard to the existence of slavery in 
 other countries. 
 
 It has been thought by some that 
 the direct disavowal by the British 
 Government of any sinister or selfish 
 intentions in their dealings with Texas, 
 ought to remove the apprehensions 
 that we might otherwise entertain upon 
 this subject. But considering the 
 watchful, not to say jealous feeling 
 with which we are accustomed to look 
 in this country at all the proceedings of 
 ^at Government, bearing upon our 
 
 own interests, — a feeling which a too 
 sad experience has shown not to be un- 
 necessary, — I must say that I cannot 
 regard these disavowals as quite satis- 
 factory, and that I have even been sur- 
 prised that they should have been so 
 regarded by some experienced states- 
 men, who have not heretofore givenproof 
 of any decided leaning towards a too 
 favorable view of the policy of Great 
 Britain. 
 
 It is not very usual, in the first place, 
 for experienced statesmen to attach any 
 great importance to mere oflScial dis- 
 avowals, however direct and complete 
 in form, excepting so far as they are 
 confirmed by facts, or may coincide 
 with the interest and habitual policy of 
 the government making them. Gov- 
 ernments which have occasion to take 
 measures of an offensive or disagreea- 
 ble character, rarely make known in 
 advance the full extent of their pro- 
 jects, and often put forward a formal 
 disavowal for the express purpose of 
 diverting the attention of the party to 
 be acted on, and thus accomplishing the 
 object with greater facility. The most 
 celebrated European statesman of the 
 late revolutionary period is said to have 
 laid it down as an axiom containing in it- 
 self the sum and substance of all diplo- 
 macy, that language was given to man to 
 conceal his thoughts; and the history 
 of Europe at all periods proves that 
 his theory has been too often adopted 
 as a practical rule by the most power- 
 ful and enlightened governments. 
 When Napoleon, for example, invited 
 the royal family of Spain to meet him 
 at Bayonne, he did not mention in his 
 letter of invitation that he intended to 
 seize their persons and carry them 
 away captives into France. If he had, 
 they, of course, would not have come. 
 The state papers of the three great 
 powers who divided among them the ter- 
 ritory of Poland, a century ago, breathe 
 a spirit of the purest philanthropy, and 
 disown all other motives than a wish 
 to promote the internal tranquillity of that 
 country, and the welfare of the whole 
 human race. Great Britain, we are 
 told, is an exception to the general 
 correctness of this remark. " She may 
 do a wrong or an arrogant thing," says 
 Mr. Thompson in his late letter, " but 
 she is incapable of deliberate false- 
 hood." Such implicit confidence in 
 the good faith of others is a pleasing 
 evidence of the integrity and sincerity 
 
14 
 
 The Texas Question. 
 
 of the writer himself; but human na- 
 ture, after all, is substantially the same* 
 throughout the world. " In the va- 
 rious countries which I have had oc- 
 casion to visit," says Lady Mary 
 Wortley Montague, " I have met with 
 only two sorts of persons, men and 
 women. '^^ History, in fact, does not 
 sustain this somewhat rose-colored 
 view of the politics of the " fast-an- 
 chored isle." To go no farther back 
 than our own revolutionary war, the 
 documents issued by the British Gov- 
 ernment during the whole of that 
 struggle disavow in the most explicit 
 terms any intention to oppress the co- 
 lonies ; but it does not appear that 
 these disavowals were ever alluded to 
 in our town-meetings or congresses as 
 motives for not opposing the preten- 
 sions of the ministry. The public 
 documents issued by the British Gov- 
 ernment during the war of 1812 con- 
 tain the most explicit disavowals of 
 any disposition to encroach on the 
 rights of neutral nations. These were 
 taken for gospel at the time by a por- 
 tion of the people : but a large majority 
 obstinately refused to give credit to 
 them ; and their views have been con- 
 firmed by the now unanimous sentiment 
 of the country. More recently, the 
 same Government distinctly disavowed 
 in various official communications any 
 intention to appropriate to itself any 
 part of the territory rightfully belong- 
 ing to the State of Maine. The final 
 negotiation upon this subject was open- 
 ed by Lord Ashburton with professions 
 of fairness unprecedented on any simi- 
 lar occasion. Since the conclusion of 
 the treaty, by which we ceded without 
 equivalent a large section of that State, 
 it has been made known by the exult- 
 ing avowals of Sir Robert Peel in the 
 House of Commons, that through the 
 whole negotiation the King had in his 
 library three maps, each marked by the 
 royal hand of his predecessor George 
 III. with a red line completely sub- 
 stantiating the claims of the tJnited 
 States, and invalidating those of Great 
 Britain. It has been said, by way of 
 apology for this proceeding, that the 
 persons immediately employed: in the 
 negotiation. Lord Aberdeen and Lord 
 Ashburton, were kept in ignorance by 
 the ministerial leaders. Lord Welling- 
 ton and Sir Robert Peel, of the exist- 
 ence of any such evidence against the 
 Biitish claims. This explanation, for 
 
 those who are charitable enough to re- 
 ceive it, relieves the agents in this 
 transaction from the charge of unfair- 
 ness by throwing it with double weight 
 upon the principals, but has no tenden- 
 cy to show that the British Govern- 
 ment is " incapable" of deliberate de- 
 ception. 
 
 But, waiving this point, it may be- 
 well, perhaps, before we permit our 
 usual vigilance in regard to the pro- 
 ceedings of the British government to 
 be entirely lulled to sleep by a few 
 smooth words, to inquire a little more 
 particularly what those very satisfac- 
 tory disavowals really are. It will be 
 found, I suspect, that Lord Aberdeen, 
 has avowed quite enough to excite ap- 
 prehension in the mind of every patri- 
 otic citizen. 
 
 In the letter addressed to Mr. Paken- 
 ham for the information of the govern- / 
 ment of the United States, Lord Aber-^ 
 deen states, that the British government 
 has '' put itself forward in pressing that 
 of Mexico to acknowledge Texas as 
 independent," but disavows any inten- 
 tion to interfere " unduly,'''' or " with 
 any injurious assumption of authority,'^ 
 with either party in order to ensure the 
 adoption of such a course. He also 
 disavows the intention to establish 
 " any dominant influence in Texas." 
 " Great Britain wishes to share her 
 influence equally with all other nations. 
 Her objects are purely commercial, and 
 she has no thought or intention o^ 
 seeking to act directly or indirectly on 
 the United States through Texas." 
 He avows that his government " de- 
 sires and is constantly exerting itself 
 to procure the general abolition of 
 slavery throughout the world, and par- 
 ticularly in Texas and the United 
 States ; and that it will not desist from, 
 the open and honest efforts which it 
 has hitherto made for the purpose," 
 but disavows any intention to endeavor, 
 to effisct the object by the employment 
 of " secret or underhand means, or any 
 means, whether secret or open, whicb 
 can tend to disturb the internal tran- 
 quillity or affect the prosperity of the 
 American Union." " The British gov- 
 ernment, as the United States well 
 knows (know 1) have never sought in. 
 any way to= stir up disaffection or 
 excitement of any kind in the slave- 
 holding States of the American Union. 
 Much as we should wish to see those 
 States placed on the firm and solidi 
 
The Texas Question. 
 
 15 
 
 footing, which, we conscientiously be- 
 lieve, is to be attained by general free- 
 dom alone, we have never in our treat- 
 ment of them made any difference 
 between the slave-holding and free 
 States of the Union. All are, in our 
 eyes, entitled, as component members 
 of the Union, to equal political respect, 
 favor, and forbearance on our part. 
 To that wise and just policy we shall 
 continue to adhere : and the govern- 
 ments of the slave-holding States may 
 be assured, that although we shall not 
 desist from those open and honest ef- 
 forts which we have constantly made 
 for procuring the abolition of slavery 
 throughout the world, we shall, neither 
 openly nor secretly, resort to any mea- 
 sure, which can tend to disturb their 
 internal tranquillity, or thereby to affect 
 the prosperity of the American Union." 
 Such are the substantial parts, in his 
 own language, of Lord Aberdeen's note. 
 The disavowal of any intention to es- 
 Vtablish a dominant influence either in 
 Mexico or Texas, or to effect any other 
 ythan commercial purposes, taken, as it 
 must be, in connection with the con- 
 stant interference of the British Agents 
 >Jin the most impartant political concerns 
 of both those countries, and their 
 avowed opposition to the annexation of 
 Texas to the United States, can only 
 be reconciled with the supposition of 
 sincerity in the British government, by 
 a latitude of construction which would 
 render it practically of no value. But 
 allowing for the present the disavowals 
 contained in the letter to pass for what 
 they may be thought by any one to be 
 really worth, let us come to something 
 more important. In this letter the 
 British government, through its highest 
 official agents, distinctly and repeatedly 
 avows its intention to endeavor to bring 
 about the general abolition of slavery 
 in the United States and Texas. 
 
 Let us see what this avowal amounts 
 to. Slavery is an important element in 
 the political institutions of every coun- 
 try in which it exists. It determines 
 the personal relations of the parties 
 immediately affected by it, and modi- 
 fies, to a greater or less extent, the 
 whole character of the government. It 
 is part and parcel of the law of the 
 land. We are informed then by Lord 
 Aberdeen's note, that the British gov- 
 •TBrnment is dissatisfied with an impor- 
 \^ant feature in our political institutions, 
 ^ad is laboring with great assiduity to 
 
 reform it. This is a pretty serious 
 matter : nor is the gravity of it much 
 diminished by the accompanying dis- 
 avowals of any intention to employ for 
 this purpose any means that would tend 
 to disturb the tranquillity of the country. 
 The reform of existing abuses, real or 
 supposed, is a delicate operation, and 
 one which no community, that respects 
 itself and is really independent, will 
 consent to entrust to any foreign gov- 
 ernment, however enlightened and 
 honest. So objectionable, indeed, is 
 this pretension on the part of Great 
 Britain that the announcement of it, 
 however cautiously worded, cannot be 
 made to wear any other than an essen- 
 tially offensive and uncivil character. 
 Although the philanthropic labors of the 
 British government for the abolition of 
 slavery are represented as extending 
 over the whole globe, this country, I 
 believe, enjoys the distinction of being 
 the only one to which official notice of 
 their policy on this subject has yet been 
 given. Great Britain has invited most 
 of the other Christian powers, including 
 the United States, to concur with her 
 in abolishing the slave-trade, and has 
 offered them the aid of her naval arma- 
 ment in executing the laws which they 
 might make to this effect : but she has 
 not, I think, before officially informed 
 any slave-holding power of her dissatis- 
 faction with this feature in its political 
 institutions, and her intention to employ 
 all the fair and honorable means at her 
 disposal to bring about a change. Al- 
 though some exception has been taken 
 to the reply made by Mr. Calhoun to ' 
 their communication, I have great 
 doubts whether all the other slave- 
 holding powers would have received a 
 similar one with equal courtesy. If 
 the British Ambassador at St. Peters- 
 burgh should announce officially to 
 the Russian Minister of Foreign Af- 
 fairs, that the Queen entirely disap- 
 proves of the extent to which personal 
 bondage i» tolerated in the Russian 
 Empire, and is constantly laboring to 
 reform this great mischief by all the 
 means in her power consistent with a 
 due regard to its general welfare, I am 
 confident that so singular an overture 
 would be met either by an angry re- 
 pulse, or a cold and dignified silence. 
 If, however, the Russian Court should 
 prefer to recriminate, they might find 
 in the present condition of the British. 
 Empire several points quite as much at 
 
16 
 
 The Texas Question. 
 
 variance with abstract principles of 
 right, and far more within the control 
 of the administration than slavery, as it 
 exists either in Russia or in the United 
 States. If, in the case supposed, 
 the Russian Ambassador at London 
 should be instructed, for example, — 
 after thanking the British government 
 in the name of his master for their kind 
 solicitude in regard to the internal con- 
 cerns of the Russian Empire, to express 
 to Lord Aberdeen, for the information 
 of the Queen, the regret and dissatis- 
 faction with which the Emperor wit- 
 nesses the toleration of slavery in the 
 British East Indian possessions, — the 
 wars of aggression and conquest that 
 are continually carried on by the Bri- 
 tish agents in that quarter, including 
 the late unprovoked attack on China, — 
 the practice of providing the navy with 
 seamen by impressment, — the oppres- 
 sion of Ireland, — the dreadful cruelties 
 inflicted upon unoffending children of 
 both sexes in the mines and manufacto- 
 ries, — the inhuman policy of actually 
 starving a large portion of the people 
 by preventing the importation of for- 
 eign corn, — the refusal of the govern- 
 ment to recognize the acknowledged 
 rights of neutral powers in time of war, 
 — their constant interference in the 
 affairs of all the other nations in the 
 world : — intimating, at the same time, 
 His Imperial Majesty's fixed determi- 
 nation to labor assiduously and ear- 
 nestly for the reform of these evils, by 
 all the means at his disposal, which 
 may not be of a character to endanger 
 the tranquillity and prosperity of the 
 British empire :— I really do not see 
 that his Lordship, consistently with his 
 ovi^n principles and practice, would be 
 able to make any very triumphant 
 answer. 
 
 The only proceeding of a similar char- 
 acter, that has actually occurred at any 
 preceding period in the history of mod- 
 ern Europe, is to be found in the con- 
 duct of the early French revolutionary 
 leaders. They publicly announced, as 
 is well known, their dissatisfaction 
 with most of the existing governments, 
 and their determination to endeavor to 
 reform them, — beginning (and in this 
 they were more consistent than the 
 British government of the present 
 day) with what they regarded as a 
 thorough reform at home. Madame 
 Roland's celebrated letter to the Pope, 
 is one of the most remarkable speci- 
 
 mens of this kind of diplomacy, and is 
 in no way interior, either in beauty of 
 style or philanthropic sentiment, to- Mr. 
 Pakenham's communication from " the 
 travelled Thane, Atheni&n Aberdeen." 
 Far from receiving these overtures 
 with gratitude or even courtesy, the 
 government so addressed resented them 
 in the most violent manner, and com- 
 menced immediately a war of exter- 
 mination upon the people in whose 
 name they were issued. The British 
 government itself took the lead in this 
 anti-reform crusade, and carried it on 
 with unheard-of effort and expense for 
 more than twenty years. The pro- 
 fessed objects of the Irish revolutionists 
 were the establishment of Liberty and 
 Equality. They were, of course, iden- 
 tical with those now put forward 
 by the British government. The ad- 
 vantages anticipated from the proposed 
 reform were just as real as those now 
 expected from the abolition of slavery : 
 but it was felt by all, and by none mor» 
 strongly than the rulers of England, 
 that a public announcement by any one 
 power of dissatisfaction with the poli- 
 tical institutions of another is offensive, 
 and that an expressed determination to 
 reform them differs very linle in sub- 
 stance from a declaration of war. It 
 is really most extraordinary, that the 
 British government, after having re- 
 sented and resisted with so much vio- 
 lence the attempts made by the Irish 
 revolutionists to propagate liberal poli- 
 tical sentiments in foreign countries, 
 should have become itself, in less than 
 thirty years after the battle of Waterloo, 
 a propagandist of the same sentiments, 
 under the same form which they had 
 considered most objectionable, and 
 assailed, through the ablest pens, with 
 a perfect storm of argument, eloquence, 
 and ridicule. 
 
 There is another point in Lord Aber- 
 deen's letter to Mr. Pakenham, which 
 I have not seen noticed, but which is 
 not, perhaps, wholly unworthy of atten- 
 tion. I allude to the closing paragraph 
 quoted above, in which his Lordship 
 informs Mr. P. of the intention of the 
 British government to observe entire 
 impartiality in its- treatment of the 
 slave-holding and non-slave-holding 
 States of the Union. Satisfactory as 
 this assurance may be in substance, it 
 is not the less certain that it ia in form 
 entirely irregular. The British gov- 
 ernment can hold no communication 
 
The Texas Question, 
 
 17 
 
 whatever with the governments of the 
 States ; it has no right or power under 
 the constitution to treat with them at 
 all ; and, of course, no means, if it were 
 so disposed, to make any difference, in 
 its treatment of them, between the free 
 and slave-holding States of the Union. 
 The language used implies either a 
 want of knowledge in the British gov- 
 ernment of the restrictions imposed by 
 the constitution upon the intercourse 
 between the State governments and for- 
 eign powers, or that the British gov- 
 ernment might, if it were so disposed, 
 disregard these restrictions. It amounts, 
 in short, to an indelicate interference in 
 the internal concerns of the Union, with 
 which Great Britain has nothing to do. 
 If the American government should of- 
 ficially notify Lord Aberdeen that the 
 United States disapprove entirely the 
 plan of an established church, and con- 
 scientiously believe that no portion of 
 the Queen's subjects ought to be sub- 
 jected to political or civil disabilities or 
 pecuniary exactions on account of their 
 religious faith, — but that the President, 
 in his treatment of the different sects 
 existing in the British Empire, has 
 never made any distinction between the 
 members of the established church and 
 dissenters ; and that though he will ne- 
 ver desist from the honest and open ef- 
 forts which he is constantly making to 
 abolish church establishments through- 
 out the world, and particularly in Great 
 Britain, the members of the established 
 church may be assured that he will, 
 neither openly nor secretly, resort to 
 any means for this purpose which 
 would endanger the tranquillity and 
 prosperity of that country : — if, I say, 
 the American government were to make 
 such a communication as this to Lord 
 Aberdeen, he would have a right to re- 
 ply, and probably would reply, that the 
 Queen is much obliged to the American 
 government for the information, but 
 that as that government has neither the 
 right nor the power to treat regularly 
 with any of the sects, a promise to ob- 
 serve entire impartiality in its treat- 
 ment of them, is, to say the least of it, 
 quite superfluous. 
 
 The declaration made by the British 
 government, in the letter to Mr. Pak- 
 enham, that it is constantly exerting it- 
 self to procure the abolition of slavery 
 in foreign countries, and will continue 
 to employ all proper means for this pur- 
 pose, — however objectionable in form 
 
 and substance, as an ofBcial communi- 
 cation to the government of a foreign 
 slave-holding state, — must, of course, 
 for practical purposes, be interpreted by 
 the acts of the government that makes 
 it. If unaccompanied by any act, to 
 which exception can justly be taken, it 
 might be overlooked as a harmless piece 
 of incivility. If accompanied, in our 
 own case as those of other nations, by 
 acts of a nature to endanger our inter- 
 nal tranquillity, it must be received as 
 the expression of a policy which it is 
 necessary for us to counteract by all the 
 fair and honorable means in our power. 
 It is, therefore, of the highest import- 
 ance to inquire what are, in fact, the 
 means employed by Great Britain, in 
 what Lord Aberdeen calls her " open 
 and honest efforts to abolish slavery in 
 foreign countries." In making this in- 
 quiry, it is necessary to take into view 
 the proceedings of British subjects, 
 whether acting as individuals or asso- 
 ciations, as well as those of the British 
 government; first, because they are 
 among the most efficient forms in 
 which Great Britain as a body politic 
 acts upon this question ; and, secondly, 
 because the British government makes 
 itself indirectly responsible for these 
 proceedings by giving them the sanction 
 of its approbation in its official commu- 
 nications, and by placing the persons 
 most active in this way in official sta- 
 tions of trust and confidence in slave- 
 holding countries, as is seen in the ap* 
 pointment of Mr. David Turnbull to the 
 place of British Consul and Superin- 
 tendent of liberated Africans at the 
 Havana, to which I shall have occa- 
 sion to allude again. The means em- 
 ployed by Great Britain for the purpose 
 in question are therefore — 
 
 1. Direct : — interference with for- 
 eign governments in the form of coun- 
 sel and of action, by treaty or other- 
 wise, so far as it can be carried with 
 safety to herself : 
 
 2. Indirect : — by giving a general 
 approval and sanction to the proceed- 
 ings of the Abolition Societies. 
 
 It is obvious that a system of policy 
 of which these are the two principal 
 features, is well calculaied to effect the 
 general object of acting unfavorably 
 upon the existence of slavery in foreign 
 countries without committing the Bri- 
 tish government to any act which can 
 be resented as directly hostile by slave- 
 holding states. Whether it is quite as 
 
18 
 
 The Texas Question. 
 
 consistent with the internal tranquillity 
 and general prosperity of such states, 
 as Lord Aberdeen appears to consider 
 it, may perhaps be questioned. It might 
 appear, on the contrary, to an unchari- 
 table observer, well calculated, and 
 therefore probably intended, to enable 
 the British government to take the most 
 effectual, and at the same time the most 
 dangerous measures for operating upon 
 foreign countries without incurring any 
 direct official responsibility. By giving 
 a public and general sanction to the 
 proceedings of the abolition societies, 
 and by appointing their prominent mem- 
 bers to places of trust and confidence in 
 slave-holding states, it affords them 
 nearly all the aid in the way of authori- 
 ty and respectability, which they would 
 derive from being conducted in the 
 name of the government ; while by 
 throwing upon private associations the 
 detail of the proceedings, it insures, 
 morally speaking, the adoption of mea- 
 sures and the circulation of publica- 
 tions, of which no government could, as 
 such, venture to assume the responsi- 
 bility. A large proportion of the lec- 
 tures given, and publications issued, by 
 the abolition societies, have a direct 
 tendency to render the slaves discon- 
 tented with their condition, and to pro- 
 • - duce a state of mutual exasperation be- 
 *'^' tween them and their masters, which, 
 carried to a certain extent, can only end 
 in insurrection and blood. No Chris- 
 tian government would dare to sanction 
 such proceedings directly ; but by pub- 
 licly giving a general approval to the 
 acts of these societies, the British gov- 
 ernment virtually authorizes these most 
 inflammatory publications, and while it 
 avoids any official responsibility, is 
 morally responsible for them, as much 
 as if they were issued in its own name. 
 That the governments of the slave- 
 holding States of this country do not 
 consider this system of policy as con- 
 sistent with their tranquillity and pros- 
 perity, is apparent from the fact, that 
 they have thought it necessary, for 
 many years past, to prohibit the en- 
 trance into the territory within their 
 jurisdiction of any publication in any 
 way relating to slavery. Without 
 questioning the entire sincerity of Lord 
 Aberdeen in the opinion that the mea- 
 sures adopted and sanctioned by the 
 British government are consistent with 
 the tranquillity and prosperity of for- 
 eign slave-holding states, it is perhaps 
 
 safe to assume that the governments of 
 such states are better informed and more 
 clear-sighted upon the subject than that 
 of Great Britain. 
 
 But the natural results of the system 
 of policy pursued by Great Britain ara 
 perhaps best tested by observing its 
 practical operation in the quarters 
 where it has been acted on with the 
 least restraint and for the greatest 
 length of time. Although Lord Aber- 
 deen represents the British government 
 as seeking to effect the abolition of 
 slavery throughout the world, their ef- 
 forts have been directed with very dif- 
 ferent degrees of intensity to the 
 different regions in which it exists. 
 The slavery that prevails to an immense 
 extent in their own vast East Indian, 
 possessions engages very little of their 
 attention. In Turkey, Persia, Egypt,, 
 and various parts of Germany, where 
 slaves abound, and where the British 
 government habitually exercise, through 
 their diplomatic agents, a powerful in- 
 fluence, we hear of no movements upon 
 this subject. In the vast empire of 
 Russia where, out of the sixty million 
 inhabitants, from forty to fifty millions 
 are slaves, the British diplomacy is as^ 
 silent in regard to emancipation as the 
 grave. Even in soliciting the Emperor 
 to concur with them in endeavoring tO' 
 prevent the annual exportation of a few 
 thousand negroes into America, they 
 carefully avoid the slightest suggestion 
 as to the expediency of doing anything 
 to better the condition of the forty or 
 fifty millions of white slaves under his 
 Imperial Majesty's own jurisdiction. 
 The Spanish and Portuguese colonies 
 in this part of the world, and the United 
 States of America, are the favorite 
 fields for the exercise of British benevo- 
 lence on this subject, and those to 
 which it has been in practice, I believe, 
 wholly confined. Of these the Island 
 of Cuba is the one of which the history 
 aflfords the best illustration of the sub- 
 ject for the present purpose. By ex- 
 amining the practical operation of the 
 British system of policy in that beauti- 
 ful region, we shall be able to judge 
 with some degree of certainty, what it 
 would be in others that are similarly 
 situated, and how far the United States 
 can, with safety to themselves, permit 
 it to be carried into effect on a territory 
 contiguous to our own, among a popu- 
 lation so closely of kin to ouis, in 
 all respects, as that of Texas. 
 
The Texas Question. 
 
 Id 
 
 For the last thirty years the British 
 system of policy in reference to the 
 abolition of slavery in foreign countries, 
 has been acted on almost without any 
 check from the locafor metropolitan gov- 
 ernments in the island of Cuba. By her 
 treaty with Spain of 1817, Great Bri- 
 tain was permitted to maintain at the 
 Havana a permanent commission to 
 superintend the execution of the treaty. 
 At this time her efforts were directed 
 chiefly to the abolition of the slave 
 trade. After the emancipation of the 
 slaves in her own West India colonies, 
 she extended her arms somewhat far- 
 ther and began to contemplate a similar 
 emancipation in Cuba. In the year 
 1839, the British anti-slavery societies 
 sent agents to Madrid, to propose to 
 the government a measure of this des- 
 cription, to be accompanied, as it was 
 in the British Islands, by the payment 
 of an indemnity to the owners. About 
 the same time Mr. David Turnbull, a 
 writer of known ability and a decided 
 abolitionist, was appointed consul and 
 superintendent of liberated Africans at 
 the Havana. This person seems to 
 have acted ever since as the chief man- 
 ager of the operations of the abolition- 
 ists, as well as of the government in 
 this quarter. Immediately after his 
 arrival he began a series of movements 
 of a character so offensive and so dan- 
 gerous to the tranquillity of the Island, 
 that the local government thought it 
 necessary to solicit, and, in fact, obtain- 
 ed his recall, before his formal exequatur, 
 had been transmitted from Madrid. 
 He remained some time longer at the 
 Havana, in his capacity of superinten- 
 dent of liberated Africans, but was 
 finally compelled to leave the Island, 
 and has since resided alternately in the 
 Bahama Islands and in Jamaica. His 
 removal from the Island appears to 
 have inspired him with additional zeal 
 and energy in the prosecution of his 
 projects. While residing in the Ba- 
 hama Islands he planned an insurrection 
 which was to commence at Santiago, a 
 port on the south shore of Cuba, where 
 he landed in person and began the move- 
 ment. He was arrested by the authori- 
 ties and sent to Havana. The usages 
 of nations would have freely justified 
 the local authorities in putting him on 
 trial for his life, but from considera- 
 tion for the British government, he was 
 again set at liberty on condition of 
 leaving the Island. He has since re- 
 
 sided in Jamaica, and in return for the 
 indulgence shown him, appears to have 
 been prosecuting ever since, with aug- 
 mented activity, his plans of a general in- 
 surrection. Abolition agents of a less 
 conspicuous character have been co-op- 
 erating with him. Within the last two 
 years the result has been made known 
 to the world, and may be regarded as a 
 full and clear exposition of the practical 
 operation of the British system of 
 policy in regard to this subject. This 
 result has been a conspiracy, including 
 the whole colored population of the 
 Island, and a small portion of the Creoles,, 
 having for its object the emancipation 
 of the slaves and the independence of 
 the Island, and including among the 
 ways and means of effecting these ob- 
 jects a general massacre of the whites. 
 An explosion precisely like that of 
 St. Domingo would have occurred, had 
 not the plan been discovered, before it. 
 was quite ripe for execution. By the 
 employment of the most energetic 
 measures on the part of the local gov- 
 ernment, it has been temporarily sup- 
 pressed. The confessions of the per- 
 sons implicated in it designate Turnbull 
 as the head of the insurrection, and the 
 person who was looked to as the pro- 
 visional ruler of the Island in the event 
 of its success. Though the immediate 
 danger is probably over, the elements of 
 future trouble are still fermenting with 
 unabated violence. Indeed the guilty 
 infatuation of the planters, who are 
 constantly importing fresh quantities of 
 blacks from Africa, and the cupidity of 
 the local government, which connives 
 at this clandestine traffic in order to 
 make profit by it, annually increase the 
 mass of inflammatory materials, which, 
 unless some very decided measures can 
 be taken to prevent it, must finally burst 
 out in a general conflagration. 
 
 This series of events has attracted 
 less attention in the United States than 
 it properly deserves, because the de- 
 tails arej in a great measure concealed 
 from the public eye by the silence of 
 the Havana press, which is subjected, 
 as is well known, to the strictest pre- 
 liminary censorship, and publishes 
 scarcely anything that has the most 
 distant bearing upon the condition of 
 the slaves. On this occasion the gov- 
 ernment has departed in some degree 
 from its usual reserve. The report of 
 the court martial held upon the con-* 
 spirators appears in the daily papers of 
 
20 
 
 The Texas Question. 
 
 theHavana, and furnishes a full and most 
 interesting, I should rather say, appal- 
 ling history of the events in question : 
 which is corroborated by the most au- 
 thentic private intelligence. This state 
 of things in Cuba — though for the rea- 
 son I have mentioned, and others that 
 will readily occur, it attracts less at- 
 tention here than it is entitled to — is a 
 matter of the deepest interest to that 
 country, and one that may well invite 
 the most anxious scrutiny and the most 
 careful deliberation of the Government 
 and people of the United States. A 
 moral and political volcano — teeming, 
 under an outside of forced tranquillity, 
 with a fiery ocean of insurrection and 
 massacre — ready at any moment to 
 spread, by explosion, its boiling lava 
 over everything in its neighborhood — 
 separated from our Southern States by 
 a channel that may be traversed in a 
 few hours — this is an object to which 
 statesmen, and particularly Southern 
 statesmen, cannot well be indifferent. 
 I advert to it at present exclusively in 
 its connection with the question of 
 Texas. If such a state of things be 
 fraught with alarm and danger to this 
 country, even when it exists upon a 
 neighboring island, inhabited by men of 
 another race, in what light should we 
 be compelled to regard it, if it were to 
 grow up in a territory separated from 
 ours only by a narrow river and an 
 imaginary line, and inhabited by colo- 
 nies of our own citizens'? That the 
 agents of the British Abolition socie- 
 ties are already laboring in Texas with 
 their characteristic zeal, and with the 
 open approbation of the British Gov- 
 ernment — as given, for example, in 
 Lord Aberdeen's letter to Mr. Ashbel 
 Smith — we know. What the result 
 will be — if no decisive measures should 
 be taken to prevent it — within some 
 not very distant period, we may learn 
 from what is now occurring in Cuba. 
 
 It is unnecessary to enlarge upon the 
 closing scenes of this frightful tragedy, 
 to which I have briefly adverted, and 
 which have been rendered in some de- 
 gree familiar to ihe public mind by the 
 newspapers. They exhibit, as I have 
 said, the practical operation of the plan 
 of abolishing slavery in foreign coun- 
 tries as avowed and acted on by the 
 British Government, and by the agents 
 of the British anti-slavery societies, 
 nnder the public approval and with the 
 official co-operation ol that government. 
 
 Within two or three years past fhi» 
 system has been brought into action in 
 Texas with quite as much zeal and 
 energy as it had formerly been in Cuba. 
 The results, unless it can be efficiently 
 counteracted, must, of course, be the 
 same ; their necessary and immediate 
 effects upon the condition of the neigh- 
 boring portions of our territory, are 
 sufficiently apparent. The annexation 
 of Texas would enable the United 
 States to place a partial check upon an 
 evil for which there is no real and final 
 reniedy except the return of the British 
 Government to a more correct and 
 humane view of this great subject, and 
 the total abandonment by them of the 
 policy of interfering with the domestic 
 institutions of foreign countries. 
 
 It will be perceived that the argu- 
 ment on this branch of the subject is 
 not, as it has sometimes been repre- 
 sented, a defence of slavery. The ob- 
 ject is simply to secure the inhabitants 
 of a large portion of our country from 
 imminent danger of lawless violence in 
 its worst forms. To this they are ex- 
 posed while Texas is left open to the 
 labors of the British abolitionists, car- 
 ried on under instructions of the British 
 government. It is for this reason chief- 
 ly that the necessity of annexation has 
 appeared at the south to be immediate 
 and urgent. On other accounts the 
 southern statesmen might have waited 
 for it without impatience, or perhaps 
 have opposed it, — for the reasons given 
 by Mr. Barrow, Mr. Thompson, and 
 others, — as positively injurious to their 
 interest. 
 
 I am not one of those who believe 
 that it is any part of the policy of the 
 British government to obtain posses- 
 sion of Texas as a colony, or to secure 
 peculiar advantages in trading with her 
 by a commercial treaty. They know 
 that the United States would not ac- 
 quiesce in the former measure, and that 
 the advantages resulting from the lat- 
 ter would be too trifling to compensate 
 for the odium which it would carry with 
 it, — supposing now, what is not very 
 probable, that Texas could be brought 
 to consent to either. Lord Aberdeen, 
 accordingly, disclaims very distinctly, 
 and I have no doubt very sincerely, 
 any intention of this kind. With Texas 
 nominally independent, Great Britain 
 can put in operation with less respon- 
 sibility and more efficiency, the means 
 which she deems it proper to employ 
 
The Texas Question. 
 
 21 
 
 fot abolishing slavery in foreign coun- 
 tries, and which she is urging with so 
 much effect in Cuba. She would not 
 probably accept Texas as a colony, if 
 it were offered her : to us it is desira- 
 ble, not only as a territorial acquisition 
 of great value, but as an indispensably 
 guaranty of our domestic tranquillity. 
 The United States have been charg- 
 ed, in connection with this subject, with 
 a grasping disposition, and that by the 
 public press of a nation which, while 
 this subject has been under discussion, 
 has incorporated two or three addition- 
 al empires into its already boundless 
 Indian possessions, — made war upon 
 China in order to open a new market 
 for its trade, — and intermeddled, in one 
 way or another, with the politics of 
 every other people on the face of the 
 globe. I undertake to say, on the con- 
 trary, that no question has come up in 
 any part of Christendom, during the last 
 half century, in regard to which any 
 nation has given stronger proof of mod- 
 eration than the United States have 
 displayed for twenty years past on this 
 very matter of Texas. In the original 
 settlement of the boundary of Louis- 
 iana with Spain, Mr. Monroe relin- 
 quished this territory, when, as it ap- 
 pears, Spain was willing that we should 
 have it. Mr. Adams, then Secretary 
 of State, has publicly stated that Spain 
 had then authorized a much larger ces- 
 sion of territory than she actually made, 
 and that we had declined, in a spirit of 
 magnanimous forbearance, to take ad- 
 vantage of this disposition. He has 
 stated that, individually, he disap- 
 proved at the time the alienation of 
 Texas ; that it was carried against him 
 by a majority of votes in Mr. Monroe's 
 cabinet, and that he signed the treaty 
 as agreed upon, merely as an organ of 
 that majority. It is now, I believe, the 
 general sentiment of the country that 
 Mr. Adams was in the right, and Mr. 
 Monroe and his cabinet in the wrong ; 
 but there is certainly no appearance in 
 their conduct of a grasping eagerness 
 for territorial aggrandizement at the 
 expense of others. When the people 
 of Texas, after declaring and establish- 
 ing their independence and obtaining 
 the acknowledgment of it from Mexico, 
 the United States, and the principal 
 maritime powers of Europe, sponta- 
 neously proposed to our government, 
 through their own, to come into the 
 Union, Mr. Van Buren, then President 
 
 of the United States, would not enter- 
 tain the overture for a moment. He 
 declined to submit it to Congress, or 
 even to reserve it for his own future 
 consideration. In disposing in this way, 
 upon his individual responsibility, of 
 this great national question, he com- 
 mitted, in my opinion, a grave error, 
 and even exceeded his proper consti- 
 tutional powers. Congress and the 
 people should have been consulted upon 
 a matter of such transcendant import- 
 ance. But, however he may have erred 
 in other respects, he at least gave suffi- 
 cient proof that he was not under the 
 influence of an undue zeal for the ex- 
 tension of our territory. Finally, when 
 a treaty for the re-annexation of our 
 alienated domain had been actually con- 
 cluded by the executive department of 
 the government, the Senate made haste 
 to reject it by a large majority. In so 
 doing, they assumed a more fearful re- 
 sponsibility than has been involved in 
 any preceding act of either branch of 
 Congress. What the ultimate opinion 
 of the country will be upon their con- 
 duct may be conjectured from the pre- 
 sent feeling in regard to the acquisition 
 of Louisiana, which was opposed at 
 that time on nearly the same grounds. 
 But whatever else may be said with 
 justice of the cdurse taken by the 
 Senate, it implied but too clearly a total 
 abnegation of every thought of national 
 aggrandizement. When we recollect 
 the oceans of blood and treasure which 
 have been poured out in all parts of the 
 world in wars having no other ostensi- 
 ble ground than a difference of opinion 
 about the right to some little strip of 
 worthless land, it is impossible not to 
 feel some degree of admiration for the 
 disinterestedness which dictated this 
 thrice-repeated rejection of a region 
 not inferior in extent or richness to the 
 kingdom of France, however baseless 
 may have been the scruples of con- 
 science alleged in each of these cases 
 as the motive. When any one of the 
 governments of Europe shall be able to 
 produce an example from its own con- 
 duct of a single refusal of a similar 
 kind, it may with a better grace ac- 
 cuse the United States of exhibiting a 
 grasping spirit of territorial aggrand- 
 izement in regard to the acquisition of 
 Texas. The British writers, in urging 
 this charge upon us with so much 
 unanimity and perseverance, display^ if 
 not much argument or eloquence, at 
 
32 
 
 The Texas Question. 
 
 least a very remarkable "power of 
 face." 
 
 Before closing this letter — already, 
 I fear, much too protracted for your 
 patience — I will add a few remarks 
 upon the manner in which the discus- 
 sion of this question and others of a 
 kindred character has been conducted 
 in the northern part of the country. 
 The tone taken in regard to the South, 
 not only in the violent party journals, 
 but even, in many cases, by men of 
 high pretensions and great personal 
 respectability on the floor of Congress 
 and elsewhere, is very little less bitter 
 and offensive, than that of the British 
 journals in regard to the country at 
 large. The slavery of the South is 
 represented as a wrong inflicted upon 
 the North, not as an evil forced upon 
 the South by our forefathers of Old and 
 New England. The South is charged 
 with a spirit of sectional aggrandize- 
 ment at the expense of the North. 
 Threats of disunion are openly made, 
 even in the imposing form of resolu- 
 tions of State Legislatures ; and socie- 
 ties professing a philanthropic charac- 
 ter publicly announce, and are actually 
 carrying into effect, the intention to 
 agitate the country with a view to the 
 dissolution of the Union. 
 
 It is impossible, of course, to enter 
 upon a full discussion of so fruitful a 
 topic at the close of a letter which 
 treats immediately of another question, 
 but I cannot let the occasion pass 
 without entering my protest, as an 
 individual citizen of one of the North- 
 ern States, against these proceedings 
 as unjust, unkind and unchristian. We 
 are told that we are, always have been 
 — and, until the constitution shall have 
 been amended, always shall be — govern- 
 ed by a junto of slaveholders. This 
 supposition, if admitted, would lead to 
 eoDclusions not very palatable, per- 
 haps, to those who make it. If the 
 miracles of success and prosperity 
 which have uniformly attended our 
 progress, as a nation, are to be attribut- 
 ed to the influence of a junto of slave- 
 holders, it will be necessary to conclude 
 that the government of such a junto, 
 judged by its results — the only sure 
 test of the character of any political 
 institutions — is one of the best that has 
 ever been tried. But the supposition 
 is itself entirely erroneous. If the 
 South has exercised a good deal of 
 political influence, it has not been be- 
 
 cause she held slaves — a circumstance 
 which, on the contrary, has greatly 
 diminished, and is regularly diminish- 
 ing, her sectional weight in the Union 
 — but because she has produced such 
 men as Washington, Henry, Marshall, 
 Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and Weir ; 
 not to mention living characters of 
 hardly less distinction and dignity. 
 Most of these persons, it is true, held 
 slaves, but they exercised influence, 
 not as slaveholders, but as men. If 
 these men, or some of them, have 
 possessed more weight in the Union 
 than others of equal merit at the North, 
 it has been, I apprehend, not because 
 they held slaves, but because they took 
 views of the policy of the country more 
 in accordance with the genius of our 
 institutions, and which, for that reason, 
 have ultimately obtained the almost 
 unanimous assent of the people. It is 
 a fact which cannot be disputed, and 
 need not be disguised, that on all the 
 great questions that have necessarily 
 agitated the country, the South has 
 taken the side which has finally carried 
 the people with it ; and, what is still 
 more remarkable, account for it as we 
 may, the side most favorable to liberty. 
 I allude, of course, to dominant parties 
 and the general tendency of opinion. 
 In the controversies which grew out of 
 the foundation and construction of the 
 Federal Constitution — and in those 
 which succeeded, and had their origin 
 in the revolutionary struggles of Eu- 
 rope — in the disputes with Great 
 Britain respecting neutral rights — on 
 the great financial questions of the 
 Bank and Protection — we find the 
 North, right or wrong, uniformly on 
 the side of Power — the South on that 
 of Liberty. Even on isolated questions, 
 like that of the acquisition of Louisiana 
 — which seem to have no connection 
 with general principles — the South has 
 had the fortune to espouse the opinion 
 that has finally been sanctioned by the 
 people. At this moment, when a re- 
 gion not inferior, as I have said, in 
 extent and richness, to the kingdom of 
 France, is thrown, as it were, into our 
 arms, the North — for reasons which, 
 as I think I have shown, will hardly 
 bear examination — repels the magnifi- 
 cent god-send : the South is ready 
 to receive it with eagerness and grati- 
 tude. There can hardly be a doubt 
 which of these two sentiments in 
 regard to this measure, will finally 
 
The Texas Question. 
 
 23 
 
 prevail throughout the country. It wOl 
 not be pretended — at least at the North 
 — that a community of slaveholders is 
 naturally, as such, more favorable to 
 liberal principles of government, than 
 one composed entirely of freemen : but 
 it is not very difficult to imagine that in 
 a country like ours, where all the in- 
 stitutions are based on the principles of 
 Liberty, the supporters of liberal prin- 
 ciples should regularly maintain the 
 ascendency. How it has happened 
 that the slaveholding South should have 
 uniformly raised the standard of Liber- 
 ty and the free North that of Power, is 
 a curious question, which has often 
 been asked, but never satisfactorily 
 answered. Perhaps the native gene- 
 rosity and lofty spirit of the South are 
 better guides to the judgment than our 
 vaunted Northern calculation. The 
 fact is certain ; and it is in this fact, 
 taken in connection with the power of 
 steadiness which Southern statesmen 
 
 have evinced in supporting their opi- 
 nions in the national councils, that we 
 must look for the cause of Southern 
 preponderance. The South has exer- 
 cised influence, not as a community of 
 slaveholders, but as the able, vigorous 
 and eloquent champion of popular and 
 state rights — in one word, of Liberty. 
 Let the North adopt the same course 
 and she will find no difficulty — with 
 her overflowing exuberance of material 
 and intellectual resources — in arriving 
 at the same result : nor will the attain- 
 ment of it be at all obstructed by the 
 adoption of a kinder and more courte- 
 ous tone in regard to the South, than 
 that which prevails in the controversies 
 of the present day. 
 
 I am, with great regard, my dear 
 friend, very truly yours, 
 
 A. H. Everett. 
 
 Springfield, Mass., August 8, 1844. 
 

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