Thirty Years' View (Vol. II of 2)

It is now my purpose, Mr. President, to show that all this movement, which is involving such great and serious consequences, and drawing upon us the eyes of the civilized world, is bottomed upon a weak and groundless pretext, discreditable to our government, and insulting and injurious to Great Britain. We want Texas – that is to say, the Texas of La Salle; and we want it for great national reasons, obvious as day, and permanent as nature. We want it because it is geographically appurtenant to our division of North America, essential to our political, commercial, and social system, and because it would be detrimental and injurious to us to have it fall into the hands or to sink under the domination of any foreign power. For these reasons, I was against sacrificing the country when it was thrown away – and thrown away by those who are now so suddenly possessed of a fury to get it back. For these reasons, I am for getting it back whenever it can be done with peace and honor, or even at the price of just war against any intrusive European power: but I am against all disguise and artifice – against all pretexts – and especially against weak and groundless pretexts, discreditable to ourselves, offensive to others, too thin and shallow not to be seen through by every beholder, and merely invented to cover unworthy purposes. I am against the inventions which have been brought forward to justify the secret concoction of this treaty, and its sudden explosion upon us, like a ripened plot, and a charged bomb, forty days before the conventional nomination of a presidential candidate. In looking into this pretext, I shall be governed by the evidence alone which I find upon the face of the papers, regretting that the resolution which I have laid upon the table for the examination of persons at the bar of the Senate, has not yet been adopted. That resolution is in these words:

"Resolved, That the AUTHOR of the 'private letter' from London, in the summer of 1843 (believed to be Mr. Duff Green), addressed to the American Secretary of State (Mr. Upshur), and giving him the first intelligence of the (imputed) British anti-slavery designs upon Texas, and the contents of which 'private letter' were made the basis of the Secretary's leading despatch of the 8th of August following, to our chargé in Texas, for procuring the annexation of Texas to the United States, be SUMMONED to appear at the bar of the Senate, to answer on oath to all questions in relation to the contents of said 'private letter,' and of any others in relation to the same subject: and also to answer all questions, so far as he shall be able, in relation to the origin and objects of the treaty for the annexation of Texas, and of all the designs, influences, and interests which led to the formation thereof.

"Resolved, also, That the Senate will examine at its bar, or through a committee, such other persons as shall be deemed proper in relation to their knowledge of any, or all, of the foregoing points of inquiry."

I hope, Mr. President, this resolution will be adopted. It is due to the gravity of the occasion that we should have facts and good evidence before us. We are engaged in a transaction which concerns the peace and the honor of the country; and extracts from private letters, and letters themselves, with or without name, and, it may be, from mistaken or interested persons, are not the evidence on which we should proceed. Dr. Franklin was examined at the bar of the British House of Commons before the American war, and I see no reason why those who wish to inform the Senate, and others from whom the Senate could obtain information, should not be examined at our bar, or at that of the House, before the Senate or Congress engages in the Mexican war. It would be a curious incident in the Texas drama if it should turn out to be a fact that the whole annexation scheme was organized before the reason for it was discovered in London! and if, from the beginning, the abolition plot was to be burst upon us, under a sudden and overwhelming sense of national destruction, exactly forty days before the national convention at Baltimore! I know nothing about these secrets; but, being called upon to act, and to give a vote which may be big with momentous consequences, I have a right to know the truth; and shall continue to ask for it, until fully obtained, or finally denied. I know not what the proof will be, if the examination is had. I pretend to no private knowledge; but I have my impressions; and if they are erroneous, let them be effaced – if correct, let them be confirmed.

In the absence of the evidence which this responsible and satisfactory examination might furnish, I limit myself to the information which appears upon the face of the papers – imperfect, defective, disjointed, and fixed up for the occasion, as those papers evidently are. And here I must remark upon the absence of all the customary information which sheds light upon the origin, progress, and conclusion of treaties. No minutes of conferences – no protocols – no propositions, or counter-propositions – no inside view of the nascent and progressive negotiation. To supply all this omission, the Senate is driven to the tedious process of calling on the President, day by day, for some new piece of information; and the endless necessity for these calls – the manner in which they are answered – and the often delay in getting any answer at all – become new reasons for the adoption of my resolution, and for the examination of persons at the bar of the Senate.

The first piece of testimony I shall use in making good the position I have assumed, is the letter of Mr. Upshur, our Secretary of State, to Mr. Murphy, our chargé in Texas dated the 8th day of August, in the year 1843. It is the first one, so far as we are permitted to see, that begins the business of the Texas annexation; and has all the appearance of beginning it in the middle, so far as the United States are concerned, and upon grounds previously well considered: for this letter of the 8th of August, 1843, contains every reason on which the whole annexation movement has been defended, or justified. And, here, I must repeat what I have already said: in quoting these letters of the secretaries, I use the name of the writer to discriminate the writer, but not to impute it to him. The President is the author: the secretary only his head clerk, writing by his command, and having no authority to write any thing but as he commands. This important letter, the basis of all Texian "immediate" annexation, opens thus:

"Sir: A private letter from a citizen of Maryland, then in London, contains the following passage:

"'I learn from a source entitled to the fullest confidence, that there is now here a Mr. Andrews, deputed by the abolitionists of Texas to negotiate with the British government. That he has seen Lord Aberdeen, and submitted his project for the abolition of slavery in Texas, which is, that there shall be organized a company in England, who shall advance a sum sufficient to pay for the slaves now in Texas, and receive in payment Texas lands; that the sum thus advanced shall be paid over as an indemnity for the abolition of slavery; and I am authorized by the Texian minister to say to you, that Lord Aberdeen has agreed that the British government will guarantee the payment of the interest on this loan, upon condition that the Texian government will abolish slavery.'

"The writer professes to feel entire confidence in the accuracy of this information. He is a man of great intelligence, and well versed in public affairs. Hence I have every reason to confide in the correctness of his conclusions."

The name of the writer is not given, but he is believed to be Mr. Duff Green – a name which suggests a vicarious relation to our Secretary of State – which is a synonym for intrigue – and a voucher for finding in London whatever he was sent to bring back – who is the putative recipient of the Gilmer letter to a friend in Maryland, destined for General Jackson – and whose complicity with this Texas plot is a fixed fact. Truly this "inhabitant of Maryland," who lived in Washington, and whose existence was as ubiquitous as his rôle was vicarious, was a very indispensable agent in all this Texas plot.

The letter then goes on, through a dozen elaborate paragraphs, to give every reason for the annexation of Texas, founded on the apprehension of British views there and the consequent danger to the slave property of the South, and other injuries to the United States, which have been so incontinently reproduced, and so tenaciously adhered to ever since.

Thus commenced the plan for the immediate annexation of Texas to the United States, as the only means of saving that country from British domination, and from the anti-slavery schemes attributed to her by Mr. Duff Green. Unfortunately, it was not deemed necessary to inquire into the truth of this gentleman's information; and it was not until four months afterwards, and until after the most extraordinary efforts to secure annexation had been made by our government, that it was discovered that the information given by Mr. Green was entirely mistaken and unfounded! The British minister (the Earl of Aberdeen) and the Texian chargé in London (Mr. Ashbel Smith), both of whom were referred to by Mr. Green, being informed in the month of November of the use which had been made of their names, availed themselves of the first opportunity to contradict the whole story to our minister, Mr. Everett. This minister immediately communicated these important contradictions to his own government, and we find them in the official correspondence transmitted to us by Mr. Everett, under dates of the 3d and 16th of November, 1843. I quote first from that of the 3d of November:

(Here was read Mr. Everett's account of his first conversation with the Earl of Aberdeen on this subject.)

I quote copiously, and with pleasure, Mr. President, from this report of Lord Aberdeen's conversation with Mr. Everett; it is frank and friendly, equally honorable to the minister as a man and a statesman, and worthy of the noble spirit of the great William Pitt. Nothing could dissipate more completely, and extinguish more utterly, the insidious designs imputed to Great Britain; nothing could be more satisfactory and complete; nothing more was wanting to acquit the British government of all the alarming designs imputed to her. It was enough; but the Earl of Aberdeen, in the fulness of his desire to leave the American government no ground for suspicion or complaint on this head, voluntarily returned to the topic a few days afterwards; and, on the 6th of November, again disclaims in the strongest terms the offensive designs imputed to his government. Mr. Everett thus relates, in his letter of the 16th of November, the substance of these renewed declarations:

(Here the letter giving an account of the second interview was read.)

Thus, twice, in three days, the British minister fully, formally, and in the broadest manner contradicted the whole story upon the faith of which our President had commenced (so far as the papers show the commencement of it) his immediate annexation project, as the only means of counteracting the dangerous designs of Great Britain! But this was not all. There was another witness in London who had been referred to by Mr. Duff Green; and it remained for this witness to confirm or contradict his story. This was the Texian chargé (Mr. Ashbel Smith): and the same letter from Mr. Everett, of the 16th of November, brought his contradiction in unequivocal terms. Mr. Everett thus recites it:

(The passage was read.)

Such was the statement of Mr. Ashbel Smith! and the story of Mr. Duff Green, which had been made the basis of the whole scheme for immediate annexation, being now contradicted by two witnesses – the two which he himself had named – it might have been expected that some halt or pause would have taken place, to give an opportunity for consideration and reflection, and for consulting the American people, and endeavoring to procure the consent of Mexico. This might have been expected: but not so the fact. On the contrary, the immediate annexation was pressed more warmly than ever, and the administration papers became more clamorous and incessant in their accusations of Great Britain. Seeing this, and being anxious (to use his own words) to put a stop to these misrepresentations, and to correct the errors of the American government, the Earl of Aberdeen, in a formal despatch to Mr. Pakenham, the new British minister at Washington, took the trouble of a third contradiction, and a most formal and impressive one, to all the evil designs in relation to Texas, and, through Texas, upon the United States, which were thus perseveringly attributed to his government. This paper, destined to become a great landmark in this controversy, from the frankness and fulness of its disavowals, and from the manner in which detached phrases, picked out of it, have been used by our Secretary of State [Mr. Calhoun] since the treaty was signed, to justify its signature, deserves to be read in full, and to be made a corner-stone in the debate on this subject. I therefore, quote it in full, and shall read it at length in the body of my speech. This is it:

(The whole letter read.)

This was intended to stop the misrepresentations which were circulated, and to correct the errors of the government in relation to Great Britain and Texas. It was a reiteration, and that for the third time, and voluntarily, of denial of all the alarming designs attributed to Great Britain, and by means of which a Texas agitation was getting up in the United States. Besides the full declaration made to our federal government, as head of the Union, a special assurance was given to the slaveholding States, to quiet their apprehensions, the truth and sufficiency of which must be admitted by every person who cannot furnish proof to the contrary. I read this special assurance a second time, that its importance may be more distinctly and deeply felt by every senator:

"And the governments of the slaveholding States may be assured, that, although we shall not desist from those open and honest efforts which we have constantly made for procuring the abolition of slavery throughout the world, we shall neither openly nor secretly resort to any measures which can tend to disturb their internal tranquillity, or thereby to affect the prosperity of the American Union."

It was on the 26th day of February that this noble despatch was communicated to the (then) American Secretary of State. That gentleman lost his life by an awful catastrophe on the 28th, and it seems to be understood, and admitted all around, that the treaty of annexation was agreed upon, and virtually concluded before his death. Nothing, then, in Lord Aberdeen's declaration, could have had any effect upon its formation or conclusion. Yet, six days after the actual signature of the treaty by the present Secretary of State – namely, on the 18th day of April – this identical despatch of Lord Aberdeen is seized upon, in a letter to Mr. Pakenham, to justify the formation of the treaty, and to prove the necessity for the immediate annexation of Texas to the United States, as a measure of self-defence, and as the only means of saving our Union! Listen to the two or three first paragraphs of that letter: it is the long one filled with those negro statistics of which Mr. Pakenham declines the controversy. The secretary says:

(Here the paragraphs were read, and the Senate heard with as much amazement as Mr. Pakenham could have done, that comparative statement of the lame, blind, halt, idiotic, pauper and jail tenants of the free and the slave blacks, which the letter to the British minister contained, with a view to prove that slavery was their best condition.)

It is evident, Mr. President, that the treaty was commenced, carried on, formed, and agreed upon, so far as the documents show its origin, in virtue of the information given in the private letter of Mr. Duff Green, contradicted as that was by the Texian and British ministers, to whom it referred. It is evident from all the papers that this was the case. The attempt to find in Lord Aberdeen's letter a subsequent pretext for what had previously been done, is evidently an afterthought, put to paper, for the first time, just six days after the treaty had been signed! The treaty was signed on the 12th of April: the afterthought was committed to paper, in the form of a letter to Mr. Pakenham, on the 18th! and on the 19th the treaty was sent to the Senate! having been delayed seven days to admit of drawing up, and sending in along with it, this ex post facto discovery of reasons to justify it. The letter of Mr. Calhoun was sent in with the treaty: the reply of Mr. Pakenham to it, though brief and prompt, being written on the same day (the 19th of April), was not received by the Senate until ten days thereafter – to wit: on the 29th of April; and when received, it turns out to be a fourth disavowal, in the most clear and unequivocal terms, of this new discovery of the old designs imputed to Great Britain, and which had been three times disavowed before. Here is the letter of Mr. Pakenham, giving this fourth contradiction to the old story, and appealing to the judgment of the civilized world for its opinion on the whole transaction. I read an extract from this letter; the last one, it is presumed, that Mr. Pakenham can write till he hears from his government, to which he had immediately transmitted Mr. Calhoun's ex post facto letter of the 18th.

(It was read.)

Now what will the civilized world, to whose good opinion we must all look: what will Christendom, now so averse to war, and pretexted war: what will the laws of reason and honor, so just in their application to the conduct of nations and individuals: what will this civilized world, this Christian world, these just laws – what will they all say that our government ought to have done, under this accumulation of peremptory denials of all the causes which we had undertaken to find in the conduct of Great Britain for our "immediate" annexation of Texas, and war with Mexico? Surely these tribunals will say: First, That the disavowals should have been received as sufficient; or Secondly, They should be disproved, if not admitted to be true; or Thirdly, That reasonable time should be allowed for looking further into their truth.

One of these things should have been done: our President does neither. He concludes the treaty – retains it a week – sends it to the Senate – and his Secretary of State obtains a promise from the chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations [Mr. Archer] to delay all action upon it – not to take it up for forty days – the exact time that would cover the sitting of the Baltimore democratic convention for the nomination of presidential candidates! This promise was obtained under the assurance that a special messenger had been despatched to Mexico for her consent to the treaty; and the forty days was the time claimed for the execution of his errand, and at the end of which he was expected to return with the required consent. Bad luck again! This despatch of the messenger, and delay for his return, and the reasons he was understood to be able to have offered for the consent of Mexico, were felt by all as an admission that the consent of Mexico must be obtained, cost what millions it might. This admission was fatal! and it became necessary to take another tack, and do it away! This was attempted in a subsequent message of the President, admitting, to be sure, that the messenger was sent, and sent to operate upon Mexico in relation to the treaty; but taking a fine distinction between obtaining her consent to it, and preventing her from being angry at it! This message will receive justice at the hands of others; I only heard it as read, and cannot quote it in its own words. But the substance of it was, that the messenger was sent to prevent Mexico from going to war with us on account of the treaty! as if there was any difference between getting her to consent to the treaty, and getting her not to dissent! But, here again, more bad luck. Besides the declarations of the chairman of Foreign Relations, showing what this messenger was sent for, there is a copy of the letter furnished to us of which he was the bearer, and which shows that the "concurrence" of Mexico was wanted, and that apologies are offered for not obtaining her "previous consent." But, of this hereafter. I go on with the current of events. The treaty was sent in, and forty days' silence upon it was demanded of the Senate. Now why send it in, if the Senate was not to touch it for forty days? Why not retain it in the Department of State until the lapse of these forty days, when the answer from Mexico would have been received, and a fifth disavowal arrived from Great Britain! if, indeed, it is possible for her to reiterate a disavowal already four times made, and not received? Why not retain the treaty during these forty days of required silence upon it in the Senate, and when that precious time might have been turned to such valuable account in interchanging friendly explanations with Great Britain and Mexico? Why not keep the treaty in the Secretary of State's office, as well as in the Secretary of the Senate's office, during these forty days? Precisely because the Baltimore convention was to sit in thirty-eight days from that time! and forty days would give time for the "Texas bomb" to burst and scatter its fragments all over the Union, blowing up candidates for the presidency, blowing up the tongue-tied Senate itself for not ratifying the treaty, and furnishing a new Texas candidate, anointed with gunpowder, for the presidential chair. This was the reason, and as obvious as if written at the head of every public document. In the mean time, all these movements give fresh reason for an examination of persons at the bar of the Senate. The determination of the President to conclude the treaty, before the Earl of Aberdeen's despatch was known to him – that is to say, before the 26th of February, 1844: the true nature of the messenger's errand to Mexico, and many other points, now involved in obscurity, may be cleared up in these examinations, to the benefit and well being of the Union. Perhaps it may chance to turn out in proof, that the secretary, who found his reasons for making the treaty and hastening the immediate annexation, had determined upon all that long before he heard of Lord Aberdeen's letter.

But to go on. Instead of admitting, disproving, or taking time to consider the reiterated disavowals of the British government, the messenger to Mexico is charged with our manifesto of war against that government, on account of the imputed designs of Great Britain, and in which they are all assumed to be true! and not only true, but fraught with such sudden, irresistible, and irretrievable ruin to the United States, that there was no time for an instant of delay, nor any way to save the Union from destruction but by the "immediate" annexation of Texas. Here is the letter. It is too important to be abridged; and though referred to several times, will now be read in full. Hear it:

(The letter read.)

This letter was addressed to Mr. Benjamin Green, the son of Mr. Duff Green; so that the beginning and the ending of this "immediate" annexation scheme, so far as the invention of the pretext, and the inculpation of Great Britain is concerned, is in the hands of father and son – a couple, of whom it may be said, in the language of Gil Blas, "These two make a pair." The letter itself is one of the most unfortunate that the annals of diplomacy ever exhibited. It admits the wrong to Mexico, and offers to fight her for that wrong; and not for any thing that she has done to the United States, but because of some supposed operation of Great Britain upon Texas. Was there ever such a comedy of errors, or, it may be, tragedy of crimes! Let us analyze this important letter; let us examine it, paragraph by paragraph.

The first paragraph enjoins the strongest assurances to be given to Mexico of our indisposition to wound the dignity or honor of Mexico in making this treaty, and of our regret if she should consider it otherwise. This admits that we have done something to outrage Mexico, and that we owe her a volunteer apology, to soften her anticipated resentment.

The same paragraph states that we have been driven to this step in self-defence, and to counteract the "policy adopted," and the "efforts made" by Great Britain to abolish slavery in Texas. This is an admission that we have done what may be offensive and injurious to Mexico, not on account of any thing she has done to us, but for what we fear Great Britain may do to Texas. And as for this plea of self-defence, it is an invasion of the homicidal criminal's prerogative, to plead it. All the murders committed in our country, are done in self-defence – a few through insanity. The choice of the defence lies between them, and it is often a nice guess for counsel to say which to take. And so it might have been in this case; and insanity would have been an advantage in the plea, being more honorable, and not more false.