Thirty Years' View (Vol. II of 2)

The same paragraph admits that the United States has made this treaty in full view of war with Mexico; for the words "all possible consequences," taken in connection with the remaining words of the sentence, and with General Almonte's notice filed by order of his government at the commencement of this negotiation, can mean nothing else but war! and that to be made by the treaty-making power.

The second paragraph directs the despatch of Lord Aberdeen to be read to the Mexican Secretary of State, to show him our cause of complaint against Great Britain. This despatch is to be read – not delivered, not even a copy of it – to the Mexican minister. He may take notes of it during the reading, but not receive a copy, because it is a document to be sent to the Senate! Surely the Senate would have pardoned a departure from etiquette in a case where war was impending, and where the object was to convince the nation we were going to fight! that we had a right to fight her for fear of something which a third power might do to a fourth. To crown this scene, the reading is to be of a document in the English language, to a minister whose language is Spanish; and who may not know what is read, except through an interpreter.

The third paragraph of this pregnant letter admits that questions are to grow out of this treaty, for the settlement of which a minister will be sent by us to Mexico. This is a most grave admission. It is a confession that we commit such wrong upon Mexico by this treaty, that it will take another treaty to redress it; and that, as the wrong doer, we will volunteer an embassy to atone for our misconduct. Boundary is named as one of these things to be settled, and with reason; for we violate 2,000 miles of Mexican boundary which is to become ours by the ratification of this treaty, and to remain ours till restored to its proper owner by another treaty. Is this right? Is it sound in morals? Is it safe in policy? Would we take 2,000 miles of the Canadas in the same way? I presume not. And why not? why not treat Great Britain and Mexico alike? why not march up to "Fifty-Four Forty" as courageously as we march upon the Rio Grande? Because Great Britain is powerful, and Mexico weak – a reason which may fail in policy as much as in morals. Yes, sir! Boundary will have to be adjusted, and that of the Rio Grande; and until adjusted, we shall be aggressors, by our own admission, on the undisputed Mexican territory on the Rio Grande.

The last paragraph is the most significant of the whole. It is a confession, by the clearest inferences, that our whole conduct to Mexico has been tortuous and wrongful, and that she has "rights," to the settlement of which Mexico must be a party. The great admissions are, the want of the concurrence of Mexico; the want of her previous consent to this treaty; its objectionableness to her; the violation of her boundary; the "rights" of each, and of course the right of Mexico to settle questions of security and interest which are unsettled by the present treaty. The result of the whole is, that the war, in full view of which the treaty was made, was an unjust war upon Mexico.

Thus admitting our wrong in injuring Mexico, in not obtaining her concurrence; in not securing her previous consent; in violating her boundary; in proceeding without her in a case where her rights, security, and interests are concerned; admitting all this, what is the reason given to Mexico for treating her with the contempt of a total neglect in all this affair? And here strange scenes rise up before us. This negotiation began, upon the record, in August last. We had a minister in Mexico with whom we could communicate every twenty days. Mexico had a minister here, with whom we could communicate every hour in the day. Then why not consult Mexico before the treaty? Why not speak to her during these eight months, when in such hot haste to consult her afterwards, and so anxious to stop our action on the treaty till she was heard from, and so ready to volunteer millions to propitiate her wrath, or to conciliate her consent? Why this haste after the treaty, when there was so much time before? It was because the plan required the "bomb" to be kept back till forty days before the Baltimore convention, and then a storm to be excited.

The reason given for this great haste after so long delay, is that the safety of the United States was at stake: that the British would abolish slavery in Texas, and then in the United States, and so destroy the Union. Giving to this imputed design, for the sake of the argument, all the credit due to an uncontradicted scheme, and still it is a preposterous excuse for not obtaining the previous consent of Mexico. It turns upon the idea that this abolition of slavery in Texas is to be sudden, irresistible, irretrievable! and that not a minute was to be lost in averting the impending ruin! But this is not the case. Admitting what is charged – that Great Britain has adopted a policy, and made efforts to abolish slavery in Texas, with a view to its abolition in the United States – yet this is not to be done by force, or magic. The Duke of Wellington is not to land at the head of some 100,000 men to set the slaves free. No gunpowder plot, like that intended by Guy Fawkes, is to blow the slaves out of the country. No magic wand is to be waved over the land, and to convert it into the home of the free. No slips of magic carpet in the Arabian Nights is to be slipped under the feet of the negroes to send them all whizzing, by a wish, ten thousand miles through the air. None of these sudden, irresistible, irretrievable modes of operating is to be followed by Great Britain. She wishes to see slavery abolished in Texas, as elsewhere; but this wish, like all other human wishes, is wholly inoperative without works to back it: and these Great Britain denies. She denies that she will operate by works, only by words where acceptable. But admit it. Admit that she has now done what she never did before – denied her design! admit all this, and you still have to confess that she is a human power and has to work by human means, and in this case to operate upon the minds of people and of nations – upon Mexico, Texas, the United States, and slaves within the boundaries of these two latter countries. She has to work by moral means; that is to say, by operating on the mind and will. All this is a work of time – a work of years – the work of a generation! Slavery is in the constitution of Texas, and in the hearts, customs, and interests of the people; and cannot be got out in many years, if at all. And are we to be told that there was no time to consult Mexico? or, in the vague language of the letter, that circumstances did not permit the consultation, and that without disclosing what these circumstances were? It was last August that the negotiation began. Was there fear that Mexico would liberate Texian slaves if she found out the treaty before it was made? Alas! sir, she refused to have any thing to do with the scheme! Great Britain proposed to her to make emancipation of slaves the condition of acknowledging Texian independence. She utterly refused it; and of this our government was officially informed by the Earl of Aberdeen. No, sir, no! There is no reason in the excuse. I profess to be a man that can understand reason, and could comprehend the force of the circumstances which would show that the danger of delay was so imminent that nothing but immediate annexation could save the United States from destruction. But none such are named, or can be named; and the true reason is, that the Baltimore convention was to sit on the 27th of May.

Great Britain avows all she intends, and that is – a wish – TO SEE – slavery abolished in Texas; and she declares all the means which she means to use, and that is, advice where it is acceptable.

It will be a strange spectacle, in the nineteenth century, to behold the United States at war with Mexico, because Great Britain wishes – TO SEE – the abolition of slavery in Texas.

So far from being a just cause of war, I hold that the expression of such a wish is not even censurable by us, since our naval alliance with Great Britain for the suppression of the slave trade – since our diplomatic alliance with her to close the markets of the world against the slave trade – and since the large effusion of mawkish sentimentality on the subject of slavery, in which our advocates of the aforesaid diplomatic and naval alliance indulged themselves at the time of its negotiation and conclusion. Since that time, I think we have lost the right (if we ever possessed it) of fighting Mexico, because Great Britain says she wishes – TO SEE – slavery abolished in Texas, as elsewhere throughout the world.

The civilized world judges the causes of war, and discriminates between motives and pretexts: the former are respected when true and valid – the latter are always despised and exposed. Every Christian nation owes it to itself, as well as to the family of Christian nations, to examine well its grounds of war, before it begins one, and to hold itself in a condition to justify its act in the eyes of God and man. Not satisfied of either the truth or validity of the cause for our war with Mexico, in the alleged interference of Great Britain in Texian affairs, I feel myself bound to oppose it, and not the less because it is deemed a small war. Our constitution knows no difference between wars. The declaration of all wars is given to Congress – not to the President and Senate – much less to the President alone. Besides, a war is an ungovernable monster, and there is no knowing into what proportions even a small one may expand! especially when the interference of one large power may lead to the interference of another.

Great Britain disavows (and that four times over) all the designs upon Texas attributed to her. She disavows every thing. I believe I am as jealous of the encroaching and domineering spirit of that power, as any reasonable man ought to be; but these disavowals are enough for me. That government is too proud to lie! too wise to criminate its future conduct by admitting the culpability which the disavowal implies. Its fault is on the other side of the account – in its arrogance in avowing, and even overstating, its pretensions. Copenhagen is her style! I repeat it, then, the disavowal of all design to interfere with Texian Independence, or with the existence of slavery in Texas, is enough for me. I shall believe in it until I see it disproved by evidence, or otherwise falsified. Would to God that our administration could get the same disavowal in all the questions of real difference between the two countries! that we could get it in the case of the Oregon – the claim of search – the claim of visitation – the claim of impressment – the practice of liberating our fugitive and criminal slaves – the repetition of the Schlosser invasion of our territory and murder of our citizens – the outrage of the Comet, Encomium, Enterprise, and Hermosa cases!

And here, without regard to the truth or falsehood of this imputed design of British intentions to abolish slavery in Texas, a very awkward circumstance crosses our path in relation to its validity, if true: for, it so happens that we did that very thing ourselves! By the Louisiana treaty of 1803, Texas, and all the country, between the Red River and Arkansas, became ours, and was subject to slavery: by the treaty of 1819, made, as Mr. Adams assures us, by the majority of Mr. Monroe's cabinet, who were Southern men, this Texas, and a hundred thousand square miles of other territory between the Red River and Arkansas, were dismembered from our Union, and added to Mexico, a non-slaveholding empire. By that treaty of 1819, slavery was actually abolished in all that region in which we now only fear, contrary to the evidence, that there is a design to abolish it! and the confines of a non-slaveholding empire were then actually brought to the boundaries of Louisiana, Arkansas, and Missouri! the exact places which we now so greatly fear to expose to the contact of a non-slaveholding dominion. All this I exposed at the time the treaty of 1819 was made, and pointed out as one of the follies or crimes, of that unaccountable treaty; and now recur to it in my place here to absolve Mr. Adams, the negotiator of the treaty of 1819, from the blame which I then cast upon him. His responsible statement on the floor of the House of Representatives has absolved him from that blame, and transferred it to the shoulders of the majority of Mr. Monroe's cabinet. On seeing the report of his speech in the papers, I deemed it right to communicate with Mr. Adams, through a senator from his State, now in my eye, and who hears what I say (looking at Mr. Bates, of Massachusetts), and through him received the confirmation of the reported speech, that he (Mr. Adams) was the last of Mr. Monroe's cabinet to yield our true boundaries in that quarter. [Here Mr. Bates nodded assent.] Southern men deprived us of Texas, and made it non-slaveholding in 1819. Our present Secretary of State was a member of that cabinet, and counselled that treaty: our present President was a member of the House, and sanctioned it in voting against Mr. Clay's condemnatory resolution. They did a great mischief then: they should be cautious not to err again in the manner of getting it back.

I have shown you, Mr. President, that the ratification of this treaty would be war with Mexico – that it would be unjust war, unconstitutionally made – and made upon a weak and groundless pretext. It is not my purpose to show for what object this war is made – why these marching and sailing orders have been given – and why our troops and ships, as squadrons and corps of observation, are now in the Gulf of Mexico, watching Mexican cities; or on the Red River, watching Mexican soldiers. I have not told the reasons for this war, and warlike movements, nor is it necessary to do so. The purpose of the whole is plain and obvious. It is in every body's mouth. It is in the air, and we can see and feel it. Mr. Tyler wants to be President; and, different from the perfumed fop of Shakspeare, to whom the smell of gunpowder was so offensive, he not only wants to smell that compound, but also to smell of it. He wants an odor of the "villanous compound" upon him. He has become infected with the modern notion that gunpowder popularity is the passport to the presidency; and he wants that passport. He wants to play Jackson; but let him have a care. From the sublime to the ridiculous there is but a step; and, in heroic imitations, there is no middle ground. The hero missed, the harlequin appears; and hisses salute the ears which were itching for applause. Jackson was no candidate for the presidency when he acted the real, not the mock hero. He staked himself for his country – did nothing but what was just – and eschewed intrigue. His elevation to the presidency was the act of his fellow-citizens – not the machination of himself.

CHAPTER CXL.

TEXAS OR DISUNION: SOUTHERN CONVENTION: MR. BENTON'S SPEECH: EXTRACTS

The senator from South Carolina (Mr. McDuffie) assumes it for certain, that the great meeting projected for Nashville is to take place: and wishes to know who are to be my bedfellows in that great gathering: and I on my part, would wish to know who are to be his! Misery, says the proverb, makes strange bedfellows: and political combinations sometimes make them equally strange. The fertile imagination of Burke has presented us with a view of one of these strange sights; and the South Carolina procession at Nashville (if nothing occurs to balk it) may present another. Burke has exhibited to us the picture of a cluster of old political antagonists (it was after the formation of Lord North's broad bottomed administration, and after the country's good and love of office had smothered old animosities) – all sleeping together in one truckle-bed: to use his own language, all pigging together (that is, lying like pigs, heads and tails, and as many together) in the same truckle-bed: and a queer picture he made of it! But if things go on as projected here, never did misery, or political combination, or the imagination of Burke, present such a medley of bedfellows as will be seen at Nashville. All South Carolina is to be there: of course General Jackson will be there, and will be good and hospitable to all. But let the travellers take care who goes to bed to him. If he should happen to find old tariff disunion, disguised as Texas disunion, lying by his side! then woe to the hapless wight that has sought such a lodging. Preservation of the Federal Union is as strong in the old Roman's heart now as ever: and while, as a Christian, he forgives all that is past (if it were past!), yet, no old tricks under new names. Texas disunion will be to him the same as tariff disunion: and if he detects a Texas disunionist nestling into his bed, I say again, woe to the luckless wight! Sheets and blankets will be no salvation. The tiger will not be toothless – the senator understands the allusion – nor clawless either. Teeth and claws he will have, and sharp use he will make of them! Not only skin and fur, but blood and bowels may fly, and double-quick time scampering may clear that bed! I shall not be there: even if the scheme goes on (which I doubt after this day's occurrences); if it should go on, and any thing should induce me to go so far out of my line, it would be to have a view of the senator from South Carolina, and the friends for whom he speaks, and their new bedfellows, or fellows in bed, as the case may be, all pigging together in one truckle-bed at Nashville.

But I advise the contrivers to give up this scheme. Polk and Texas are strong, and can carry a great deal, but not every thing. The oriental story informs us that it was the last ounce which broke the camel's back? What if a mountain had been put first on the poor animal's back? Nullification is a mountain! Disunion is a mountain! and what could Polk and Texas do with two mountains on their backs? And here, Mr. President, I must speak out. The time has come for those to speak out who neither fear nor count consequences when their country is in danger. Nullification and disunion are revived, and revived under circumstances which menace more danger than ever, since coupled with a popular question which gives to the plotters the honest sympathies of the patriotic millions. I have often intimated it before, but now proclaim it. Disunion is at the bottom of this long-concealed Texas machination. Intrigue and speculation co-operate; but disunion is at the bottom, and I denounce it to the American people. Under the pretext of getting Texas into the Union, the scheme is to get the South out of it. A separate confederacy, stretching from the Atlantic to the Californias (and hence the secret of the Rio Grande del Norte frontier), is the cherished vision of disappointed ambition; and for this consummation every circumstance has been carefully and artfully contrived. A secret and intriguing negotiation, concealed from Congress and the people: an abolition quarrel picked with Great Britain to father an abolition quarrel at home: a slavery correspondence to outrage the North: war with Mexico: the clandestine concentration of troops and ships in the southwest: the secret compact with the President of Texas, and the subjection of American forces to his command: the flagrant seizure of the purse and the sword: the contradictory and preposterous reasons on which the detected military and naval movement was defended – all these announce the prepared catastrophe; and the inside view of the treaty betrays its design. The whole annexed country is to be admitted as one territory, with a treaty-promise to be admitted as States, when we all know that Congress alone can admit new States, and that the treaty-promise, without a law of Congress to back it, is void. The whole to be slave States (and with the boundary to the Rio Grande there may be a great many); and the correspondence, which is the key to the treaty, and shows the design of its framers, wholly directed to the extension of slavery and the exasperation of the North. What else could be done to get up Missouri controversies and make sure of the non-admission of these States? Then the plot is consummated: and Texas without the Union, sooner than the Union without Texas (already the premonitory chorus of so many resolves), receives its practical application in the secession of the South, and its adhesion to the rejected Texas. Even without waiting for the non-admission of the States, so carefully provided for in the treaty and correspondence, secession and confederation with the foreign Texas is already the scheme of the subaltern disunionists. The subalterns, charged too high by their chiefs, are ready for this; but the more cunning chiefs, want Texas in as a territory – in by treaty – the supreme law of the land – with a void promise for admission as States. Then non-admission can be called a breach of the treaty. Texas can be assumed to be a part of the Union; and secession and conjunction with her becomes the rightful remedy. This is the design, and I denounce it; and blind is he who, occupying a position at this capitol, does not behold it!

I mention secession as the more cunning method of dissolving the Union. It is disunion, and the more dangerous because less palpable. Nullification begat it, and if allowed there is an end to the Union. For a few States to secede, without other alliances, would only put the rest to the trouble of bringing them back; but with Texas and California to retire upon, the Union would have to go. Many persons would secede on the non-admission of Texian States who abhor disunion now. To avoid all these dangers, and to make sure of Texas, pass my bill! which gives the promise of Congress for the admission of the new States – neutralizes the slave question – avoids Missouri controversies – pacifies Mexico – and harmonizes the Union.

The senator from South Carolina complains that I have been arrogant and overbearing in this debate, and dictatorial to those who were opposed to me. So far as this reproach is founded, I have to regret it, and to ask pardon of the Senate and of its members. I may be in some fault. I have, indeed, been laboring under deep feeling; and while much was kept down, something may have escaped. I marked the commencement of this Texas movement long before it was visible to the public eye; and always felt it to be dangerous, because it gave to the plotters the honest sympathies of the millions. I saw men who never cared a straw about Texas – one of whom gave it away – another of whom voted against saving it – and all of whom were silent and indifferent while the true friends of the sacrificed country were laboring to get it back: I saw these men lay their plot in the winter of 1842-'43, and told every person with whom I talked every step they were to take in it. All that has taken place, I foretold: all that is intended, I foresee. The intrigue for the presidency was the first act in the drama; the dissolution of the Union the second. And I, who hate intrigue, and love the Union, can only speak of intriguers and disunionists with warmth and indignation. The oldest advocate for the recovery of Texas, I must be allowed to speak in just terms of the criminal politicians who prostituted the question of its recovery to their own base purposes, and delayed its success by degrading and disgracing it. A western man, and coming from a State more than any other interested in the recovery of this country so unaccountably thrown away by the treaty of 1819, I must be allowed to feel indignant at seeing Atlantic politicians seizing upon it, and making it a sectional question, for the purposes of ambition and disunion. I have spoken warmly of these plotters and intriguers; but I have not permitted their conduct to alter my own, or to relax my zeal for the recovery of the sacrificed country. I have helped to reject the disunion treaty; and that obstacle being removed, I have brought in the bill which will insure the recovery of Texas (with peace, and honor, and with the Union) as soon as the exasperation has subsided which the outrageous conduct of this administration has excited in every Mexican breast. No earthly power but Mexico has a right to say a word. Civil treatment and consultation beforehand would have conciliated her; but the seizure of two thousand miles of her undisputed territory, an insulting correspondence, breach of the armistice, secret negotiations with Texas, and sending troops and ships to waylay and attack her, have excited feelings of resentment which must be allayed before any thing can be done.