[A PERUSAL of this speech will be always gratifying and
instructive, to all who would wish to be well informed in the
political history of the United States. While it shows, in a
striking manner, the foresight and sagacity of Mr. Clay, as an
American statesman, it contains facts of much importance with
regard to the settlement of the southern boundaries of the
United States and the acquisition of Florida. It will be seen,
that Mr. Clay disapproved of the treaty between this country
and Spain, made in 1819, by the administration of Mr. ♦Monroe,
for reasons stated in this speech, which was made before the
treaty was ratified by Spain. His principal objection to the
treaty appears to have been, that it relinquished our claim
to Texas, which territory Mr. Clay considered of much greater
value to us than Florida. The settlement of these questions,
by the subsequent ratification of the treaty, in October,
1820, by which we relinquished Texas and acquired Florida,
does not diminish the value of this record of Mr. Clay’s views
on a subject, which has increased in importance since the
independence of both Mexico and Texas has been established.]
THE house having resolved itself into a committee of the whole, on the
state of the union, and the following resolutions, submitted some days
ago by Mr. Clay (the speaker) being under consideration:
First, resolved, that the constitution of the United States vests in
congress the power to dispose of the territory belonging to them; and
that no treaty, purporting to alienate any portion thereof, is valid
without the concurrence of congress:
Second, resolved, that the equivalent proposed to be given by Spain
to the United States in the treaty concluded between them, on the
twenty-second of February, 1819, for that part of Louisiana lying west
of the Sabine, was inadequate; and that it would be inexpedient to
make a transfer thereof to any foreign power, or to renew the aforesaid
treaty:
Mr. Clay said, that, whilst he felt very grateful to the house for
the prompt and respectful manner in which they had allowed him to
enter upon the discussion of the resolutions which he had the honor
of submitting to their notice, he must at the same time frankly say,
that he thought their character and consideration, in the councils of
this country, were concerned in not letting the present session pass
off without deliberating upon our affairs with Spain. In coming to the
present session of congress, it had been his anxious wish to be able
to concur with the executive branch of the government in the measures
which it might conceive itself called upon to recommend on that subject,
for two reasons, of which the first, relating personally to himself,
he would not trouble the committee with further noticing. The other
was, that it appeared to him to be always desirable, in respect to
the foreign action of this government, that there should be a perfect
coincidence in opinion between its several coördinate branches. In time
of peace, however, it might be allowable, to those who are charged with
the public interests, to entertain and express their respective views,
although there might be some discordance between them. In a season of
war there should be no division in the public councils; but a united
and vigorous exertion to bring the war to an honorable conclusion.
For his part, whenever that calamity may befall his country, he would
entertain but one wish, and that is, that success might crown our
struggle, and the war be honorably and gloriously terminated. He
would never refuse to share in the joys incident to the victory of our
arms, nor to participate in the griefs of defeat and discomfiture. He
conceded entirely in the sentiment once expressed by that illustrious
hero, whose recent melancholy fall we all so sincerely deplore, that
fortune may attend our country in whatever war it may be involved.
There are two systems of policy, he said, of which our government
had had the choice. The first was, by appealing to the justice and
affections of Spain, to employ all those persuasives which could arise
out of our abstinence from any direct countenance to the cause of South
America, and the observance of a strict neutrality. The other was, by
appealing to her justice also, and to her fears, to prevail upon her to
redress the injuries of which we complain――her fears by a recognition
of the independent governments of South America, and leaving her in a
state of uncertainty as to the further step we might take in respect
to those governments. The unratified treaty was the result of the first
system. It could not be positively affirmed, what effect the other
system would have produced; but he verily believed that, whilst it
rendered justice to those governments, and would have better comported
with that magnanimous policy which ought to have characterized our own,
it would have more successfully tended to an amicable and satisfactory
arrangement of our differences with Spain.
The first system has so far failed. At the commencement of the
session, the president recommended an enforcement of the provisions of
the treaty. After three months’ deliberation, the committee of foreign
affairs, not being able to concur with him, has made us a report,
recommending the seizure of Florida in the nature of a reprisal. Now
the president recommends our postponement of the subject until the next
session. It had been his intention, whenever the committee of foreign
affairs should engage the house to act upon their bill, to offer, as a
substitute for it, the system which he thought it became this country
to adopt, of which the occupation of Texas, as our own, would have been
a part, and the recognition of the independent governments of South
America another. If he did not now bring forward this system, it was
because the committee proposed to withdraw their bill, and because he
knew too much of the temper of the house and of the executive, to think
that it was advisable to bring it forward. He hoped that some suitable
opportunity might occur during the session, for considering the
propriety of recognising the independent governments of South America.
Whatever he might think of the _discretion_ which was evinced in
recommending the postponement of the bill of the committee of foreign
relations, he could not think that the reasons, assigned by the
president for that recommendation, were entitled to the weight which
he had given them. He thought the house was called upon, by a high
sense of duty, seriously to animadvert upon some of those reasons. He
believed it was the first example, in the annals of the country, in
which a course of policy, respecting one foreign power, which we must
suppose had been deliberately considered, has been recommended to be
abandoned, in a domestic communication from one to another coördinate
branch of the government, upon the avowed ground of the interposition
of foreign powers. And what is the nature of this interposition? It is
evinced by a cargo of scraps, gathered up from this _chargé d’affaires_,
and that; of loose conversations held with this foreign minister, and
that――perhaps mere levee conversations, without a commitment in writing,
in a solitary instance, of any of the foreign parties concerned, except
only in the case of his imperial majesty; and what was the character
of his commitment we shall presently see. But, he must enter his solemn
protest against this and every other species of foreign interference
in our matters with Spain. What have they to do with them? Would _they_
not repel as officious and insulting intrusion, any interference on our
part in their concerns with foreign states? Would his imperial majesty
have listened with complacency, to our remonstrances against the vast
acquisitions which he has recently made? He has lately crammed his
enormous maw with Finland, and with the spoils of Poland, and, whilst
the difficult process of digestion is going on, he throws himself upon
a couch, and cries out, don’t, don’t disturb my repose.
_He_ charges his minister here to plead the cause of peace and concord!
The American ‘government is too enlightened’ (ah! sir, how sweet this
unction is, which is poured down our backs,) to take hasty steps. And
his imperial majesty’s minister here is required to _engage_ (Mr. Clay
said, he hoped the original expression was less strong, but he believed
the French word _engager_ bore the same meaning,) ‘the American
government,’ &c. ‘Nevertheless, the emperor does not interpose in this
discussion.’ No! not he. He makes above all ‘no pretension to exercise
influence in the councils of a foreign power.’ Not the slightest. And
yet, at the very instant when he is protesting against the imputation
of this influence, his interposition is proving effectual! His imperial
majesty has at least manifested so far, in this particular, his
capacity to govern his empire, by the selection of a sagacious minister.
For if count Nesselrode had never written another paragraph, the
extract from his despatch to Mr. Poletica, which has been transmitted
to this house, will demonstrate that he merited the confidence of
his master. It is quite refreshing to read such state papers, after
perusing those (he was sorry to say it, he wished there was a veil
broad and thick enough to conceal them for ever,) which this treaty
had produced on the part of our government.
Conversations between my lord Castlereagh and our minister at London
had also been communicated to this house. Nothing from the hand of
his lordship is produced; no! he does not commit himself in that way.
The _sense_ in which our minister understood him, and the purport
of certain parts of despatches from the British government to its
minister at Madrid, which he deigned to read to our minister, are alone
communicated to us. Now we know very well how diplomatists, when it is
their pleasure to do so, can wrap themselves up in mystery. No man more
than my lord Castlereagh, who is also an able minister, possessing much
greater talents than are allowed to him generally in this country, can
successfully express himself in ambiguous language, when he chooses to
employ it. He recollected himself once to have witnessed this facility,
on the part of his lordship. The case was this. When Bonaparte made his
escape from Elba, and invaded France, a great part of Europe believed
it was with the connivance of the British ministry. The opposition
charged them, in parliament, with it, and they were interrogated, to
know what measures of precaution they had taken against such an event.
Lord Castlereagh replied by stating, that there was an _understanding_
with a _certain_ naval officer of high rank, commanding in the adjacent
seas, that he was to _act_ on certain _contingences_. Now, Mr. Chairman,
if you can make any thing intelligible out of this reply, you will have
much more success than the English opposition had.
The allowance of interference by foreign powers in the affairs of our
government, not pertaining to themselves, is against the councils of
all our wisest politicians――those of Washington, Jefferson, and he
would also add those of the present chief magistrate; for, pending this
very Spanish negotiation, the offer of the mediation of foreign states
was declined, upon the true ground, that Europe had her system, and
we ours; and that it was not compatible with our policy to entangle
ourselves in the labyrinths of hers. But a mediation is far preferable
to the species of interference on which it had been his reluctant duty
to comment. The mediator is a judge, placed on high; his conscience
his guide, the world his spectators, and posterity _his_ judge. His
position is one, therefore, of the greatest responsibility. But what
responsibility is attached to this sort of irregular, drawing-room,
intriguing interposition? He could see no motive for governing or
influencing our policy, in regard to Spain, furnished in any of the
communications which respected the disposition of foreign powers. He
regretted, for his part, that they had at all been consulted. There
was nothing in the character of the power of Spain, nothing in the
beneficial nature of the stipulations of the treaty to us, which
warranted us in seeking the aid of foreign powers, if in any case
whatever that aid were desirable. He was far from saying that, in the
foreign action of this government, it might not be prudent to keep a
watchful eye upon the probable conduct of foreign powers. That might
be a material circumstance to be taken into consideration. But he never
would avow to our own people, never promulgate to foreign powers, that
their wishes and interference were the controlling cause of our policy.
Such promulgation would lead to the most alarming consequences. It was
to _invite_ further interposition. It might, in process of time, create
in the bosom of our country a Russian faction, a British faction, a
French faction. Every nation ought to be jealous of this species of
interference, whatever was its form of government. But of all forms of
government, the united testimony of all history, admonished a republic
to be most guarded against it. From the moment Philip intermeddled with
the affairs of Greece, the liberty of Greece was doomed to inevitable
destruction.
Suppose, said Mr. Clay, we could see the communications which have
passed between his imperial majesty and the British government,
respectively, and Spain, in regard to the United States; what do you
imagine would be their character? Do you suppose the same language has
been held to Spain and to us? Do you not, on the contrary, believe that
sentiments have been expressed to her, consoling to her pride? That we
have been represented, perhaps as an ambitious republic, seeking to
aggrandize ourselves at her expense?
In the other ground taken by the president, the present distressed
condition of Spain, for his recommendation of forbearance to act during
the present session, he was also sorry to say, that it did not appear
to him to be solid. He could well conceive, how the weakness of your
aggressor might, when he was withholding from you justice, form a
motive for your pressing your equitable demands upon him; but he could
not accord in the wisdom of that policy which would wait his recovery
of strength, so as to enable him successfully to resist those demands.
Nor would it comport with the practice of our government heretofore.
Did we not, in 1811, when the present monarch of Spain was an ignoble
captive, and the people of the peninsula were contending for the
inestimable privilege of self-government, seize and occupy that part
of Louisiana which is situated between the Mississippi and the Perdido?
What must the people of Spain think of that policy which would not
spare them, and which commiserates alone an unworthy prince, who
ignominiously surrendered himself to his enemy; a vile despot, of whom
I cannot speak in appropriate language, without departing from the
respect due to this house or to myself? What must the people of South
America think of this sympathy for Ferdinand, at a moment when they, as
well as the people of the peninsula, themselves, (if we are to believe
the late accounts, and God send that they may be true,) are struggling
for liberty?
Again: when we declared our late just war against Great Britain, did
we wait for a moment when she was free from embarrassment or distress;
or did we not rather wisely select a period when there was the greatest
probability of giving success to our arms? What was the complaint in
England; what the language of faction here? Was it not, that we had
cruelly proclaimed the war at a time when she was struggling for the
liberties of the world? How truly, let the sequel and the voice of
impartial history tell.
Whilst he could not, therefore, persuade himself, that the reasons
assigned by the president for postponing the subject of our Spanish
affairs until another session, were entitled to all the weight which
he seemed to think belonged to them, he did not, nevertheless, regret
that the particular project recommended by the committee of foreign
relations was thus to be disposed of; for it was war――war, attempted to
be disguised. And if we went to war, he thought it should have no other
limit than indemnity for the past, and security for the future. He had
no idea of the wisdom of that measure of hostility which would bind us,
whilst the other party is left free.
Before he proceeded to consider the particular propositions which the
resolutions contained, which he had had the honor of submitting, it was
material to determine the actual posture of our relations to Spain. He
considered it too clear to need discussion, that the treaty was at an
end; that it contained, in its present state, no obligation whatever
upon us, and no obligation whatever on the part of Spain. It was, as if
it had never been. We are remitted back to the state of our rights and
our demands which existed prior to the conclusion of the treaty, with
this only difference, that, instead of being merged in, or weakened
by the treaty, they had acquired all the additional force which the
intervening time, and the faithlessness of Spain, can communicate to
them. Standing on this position, he should not deem it necessary to
interfere with the treaty-making power, if a fixed and persevering
purpose had not been indicated by it, to obtain the revival of the
treaty. Now he thought it a bad treaty. The interest of the country, as
it appeared to him, forbade its renewal. Being gone, it was perfectly
incomprehensible to him, why so much solicitude was manifested to
restore it. Yet it is clung to with the same sort of frantic affection
with which the bereaved mother hugs her dead infant, in the vain hope
of bringing it back to life.
Has the house of representatives a right to express its opinion upon
the arrangement made in that treaty? The president, by asking congress
to carry it into effect, has given us jurisdiction of the subject, if
we had it not before. We derive from that circumstance the right to
consider, first, if there be a treaty; secondly, if we ought to carry
it into effect; and, thirdly, if there be no treaty, whether it be
expedient to assert our rights, independent of the treaty. It will not
be contended that we are restricted to that specific mode of redress
which the president intimated in his opening message.
The first resolution which he had presented, asserted, that the
constitution vests in the congress of the United States the power
to dispose of the territory belonging to them; and that no treaty
purporting to alienate any portion thereof, is valid, without the
concurrence of congress.[8] It was far from his wish to renew at large
a discussion of the treaty-making power. The constitution of the United
States had not defined the precise limits of that power, because, from
the nature of it, they could not be prescribed. It appeared to him,
however, that no safe American statesman would assign to it a boundless
scope. He presumed, for example, that it would not be contended that in
a government which was itself limited, there was a functionary without
limit. The first great bound to the power in question, he apprehended,
was, that no treaty could constitutionally transcend the very objects
and purposes of the government itself. He thought, also, that wherever
there were specific grants of powers to congress, they limited and
controlled, or, he would rather say, modified the exercise of the
general grant of the treaty-making power, upon the principle which
was familiar to every one. He did not insist, that the treaty-making
power could not act upon the subjects committed to the charge of
congress; he merely contended that the concurrence of congress, in
its action upon those subjects, was necessary. Nor would he insist,
that the concurrence should precede that action. It would be always
most desirable that it should precede it, if convenient, to guard
against the commitment of congress, on the one hand, by the executive,
or on the other, what might seem to be a violation of the faith of
the country, pledged for the ratification of the treaty. But he was
perfectly aware, that it would be very often highly inconvenient to
deliberate, in a body so numerous as congress, on the nature of those
terms on which it might be proper to treat with foreign powers. In the
view of the subject which he had been taking, there was a much higher
degree of security to the interests of this country. For, with all
respect to the president and senate, it could not disparage the wisdom
of their councils, to add to that of this house also. But, if the
concurrence of this house be not necessary in the cases asserted, if
there be no restriction upon the power he was considering, it might
draw to itself and absorb the whole of the powers of government. To
contract alliances; to stipulate for raising troops to be employed in
a common war about to be waged; to grant subsidies; even to introduce
foreign troops within the bosom of the country; were not unfrequent
instances of the exercise of this power; and if, in all such cases, the
honor and faith of the nation were committed, by the exclusive act of
the president and senate, the melancholy duty alone might be left to
congress of recording the ruin of the republic.[9]
Supposing, however, that no treaty, which undertakes to dispose of the
territory of the United States, is valid, without the concurrence of
congress, it may be contended, that such treaty may constitutionally
fix the limits of the territory of the United States, where they are
disputed, without the coöperation of congress. He admitted it, when
the fixation of the limits simply was the object. As in the case of the
river St. Croix, or the more recent stipulation in the treaty of Ghent,
or in that of the treaty of Spain in 1795. In all these cases, the
treaty-making power merely reduces to certainty that which was before
unascertained. It announces the fact; it proclaims, in a tangible form,
the existence of the boundary. It does not make a new boundary; it
asserts only where the old boundary was. But it cannot, under color
of fixing a boundary previously existing, though not in fact marked,
undertake to cede away, without the concurrence of congress, whole
provinces. If the subject be one of a mixed character, if it consists
partly of cession, and partly of the fixation of a prior limit, he
contended that the president must come here for the consent of congress.
But in the Florida treaty it was not pretended that the object was
simply a declaration of where the western limit of Louisiana was. It
was, on the contrary, the case of an avowed cession of territory from
the United States to Spain. The whole of the correspondence manifested
that the respective parties to the negotiation were not engaged so much
in an inquiry where the limit of Louisiana _was_, as that they were
exchanging overtures as to where it _should be_. Hence, we find various
limits proposed and discussed. At one time the Mississippi is proposed;
then the Missouri; then a river discharging itself into the gulf east
of the Sabine. A vast desert is proposed to separate the territories
of the two powers; and finally the Sabine, which neither of the parties
had ever contended was the ancient limit of Louisiana, is adopted, and
the boundary is extended from its source by a line perfectly new and
arbitrary; and the treaty itself proclaims its purpose to be a cession
from the United States to Spain.
The second resolution comprehended three propositions; the first of
which was, that the equivalent granted by Spain to the United States,
for the province of Texas, was inadequate. To determine this, it
was necessary to estimate the value of what we gave, and of what we
received. This involved an inquiry into our claim to Texas. It was
not his purpose to enter at large into this subject. He presumed the
spectacle would not be presented of questioning, in this branch of the
government, our title to Texas, which had been constantly maintained
by the executive for more than fifteen years past, under three several
administrations. He was, at the same time, ready and prepared to
make out our title, if any one in the house were fearless enough to
controvert it. He would, for the present, briefly state, that the man
who is most familiar with the transactions of this government, who
largely participated in the formation of our constitution, and all
that has been done under it, who, besides the eminent services that he
has rendered his country, principally contributed to the acquisition
of Louisiana, who must be supposed, from his various opportunities,
best to know its limits, declared, fifteen years ago, that our title
to the Rio del Norte was as well founded as it was to the island of
New Orleans. [Here Mr. Clay read an extract from a memoir presented in
1805, by Mr. Monroe and Mr. Pinckney, to Mr. Cevallos, proving that the
boundary of Louisiana extended eastward to the Perdido, and westward to
the Rio del Norte, in which they say, ‘the facts and principles which
justify this conclusion, are so satisfactory to their government as
to convince it, that the United States have not a better right to the
island of New Orleans, under the cession referred to, than they have
to the whole district of territory thus described.’] The title to the
Perdido on the one side, and to the Rio del Norte on the other, rested
on the same principle――the priority of discovery and of occupation
by France. Spain had first discovered and made an establishment
at Pensacola; France at Dauphine island, in the bay of Mobile. The
intermediate space was unoccupied; and the principle observed among
European nations having contiguous settlements, being, that the
unoccupied space between them should be equally divided, was applied
to it, and the Perdido thus became the common boundary. So, west of
the Mississippi, La Salle, acting under France, in 1682 or 3, first
discovered that river. In 1685, he made an establishment on the bay
of St. Bernard, west of the Colorado, emptying into it. The nearest
Spanish settlement was Panuco; and the Rio del Norte, about the midway
line, became the common boundary.
All the accounts concurred in representing Texas to be extremely
valuable. Its superficial extent was three or four times greater than
that of Florida. The climate was delicious; the soil fertile; the
margins of the rivers abounding in live oak; and the country admitting
of easy settlement. It possessed, moreover, if he were not misinformed,
one of the finest ports in the Gulf of Mexico. The productions of
which it was capable were suited to our wants. The unfortunate captive
of St. Helena wished for ships, commerce, and colonies. We have them
all, if we do not throw them away. The colonies of other countries are
separated from them by vast seas, requiring great expense to protect
them, and are held subject to a constant risk of their being torn from
their grasp. Our colonies, on the contrary, are united to and form
a part of our continent; and the same Mississippi, from whose rich
deposit the best of them (Louisiana) has been formed, will transport
on her bosom the brave, the patriotic men from her tributary streams,
to defend and preserve the next most valuable, the province of Texas.
We wanted Florida, or rather we _shall_ want it; or, to speak more
correctly, we want no body else to have it. We do not desire it for
immediate use. It fills a space in our imagination, and we wish it
to complete the _arrondissement_ of our territory. It must certainly
come to us. The ripened fruit will not more surely fall. Florida is
enclosed in between Alabama and Georgia, and cannot escape. Texas may.
Whether we get Florida now, or some five or ten years hence, it is of
no consequence, provided no other power gets it; and if any other power
should attempt to take it, an existing act of congress authorizes the
president to prevent it. He was not disposed to disparage Florida, but
its intrinsic value was incomparably less than that of Texas. Almost
its sole value was military. The possession of it would undoubtedly
communicate some additional security to Louisiana, and to the American
commerce in the Gulf of Mexico. But it was not very essential to have
it for protection to Georgia and Alabama. There could be no attack
upon either of them, by a foreign power, on the side of Florida. It now
covered those states. Annexed to the United States, and we should have
to extend our line of defence so as to embrace Florida. Far from being,
therefore, a source of immediate profit, it would be the occasion of
considerable immediate expense. The acquisition of it was certainly
a fair object of our policy; and ought never to be lost sight of. It
is even a laudable ambition, in any chief magistrate, to endeavor to
illustrate the epoch of his administration, by such an acquisition.
It was less necessary, however, to fill the measure of honors of the
present chief magistrate, than that of any other man, in consequence of
the large share which he had in obtaining all Louisiana. But, whoever
may deserve the renown which may attend the incorporation of Florida
into our confederacy, it is our business, as the representatives of
that people who are to pay the price of it, to take care, as far as
we constitutionally can, that too much is not given. He would not give
Texas for Florida in a naked exchange. We were bound by the treaty
to give not merely Texas, but five millions of dollars, also, and the
excess beyond that sum of all our claims upon Spain, which have been
variously estimated at from fifteen to twenty millions of dollars!
The public is not generally apprized of another large consideration
which passed from us to Spain; if an interpretation which he had
heard given to the treaty were just; and it certainly was plausible.
Subsequent to the transfer, but before the delivery of Louisiana
from Spain to France, the then governor of New Orleans (he believed
his name was Gayoso) made a number of concessions, upon the payment
of an inconsiderable pecuniary consideration, amounting to between
nine hundred thousand and a million acres of land, similar to those
recently made at Madrid to the royal favorites. This land is situated
in Feliciana, and between the Mississippi and the Amité, in the present
state of Louisiana. It was granted to persons who possessed the very
best information of the country, and is no doubt, therefore, the choice
land. The United States have never recognised, but have constantly
denied the validity of these concessions. It is contended by the
parties concerned, that they are confirmed by the late treaty. By the
second article his catholic majesty cedes to the United States, in
full property and sovereignty, all the territories which belong to him,
situated to the _eastward_ of the Mississippi, known by the name of
_East and West Florida_. And by the eighth article, all grants of land
made before the twenty-fourth of January, 1818, by his catholic majesty,
or by his _lawful authorities_, shall be ratified and confirmed, &c.
Now, the grants in question having been made long prior to that day,
are supposed to be confirmed. He understood from a person interested,
that don Onis had assured him it was his intention to confirm them.
Whether the American negotiator had the same intention or not, he did
not know. It will not be pretended, that the letter of Mr. Adams, of
the twelfth of March, 1818, in which he declines to treat any further
with respect to any part of the territory included within the limits
of the state of Louisiana, can control the operation of the subsequent
treaty. That treaty must be interpreted by what is in it, and not
by what is out of it. The overtures which passed between the parties
respectively, prior to the conclusion of the treaty, can neither
restrict nor enlarge its meaning. Moreover, when Mr. Madison occupied,
in 1811, the country between the Mississippi and the Perdido, he
declared, that in our hands it should be, as it has been, subject to
negotiation.
It results, then, that we have given for Florida, charged and
incumbered as it is,
First, unincumbered Texas;
Secondly, five millions of dollars;
Thirdly, a surrender of all our claims upon Spain, not included in that
five millions; and,
Fourthly, if the interpretation of the treaty which he had stated were
well founded, about a million of acres of the best unseated land in the
state of Louisiana, worth perhaps ten millions of dollars.
The first proposition contained in the second resolution, was thus,
he thought, fully sustained. The next was, that it was inexpedient to
cede Texas to any foreign power. They constituted, in his opinion, a
sacred inheritance of posterity, which we ought to preserve unimpaired.
He wished it was, if it were not, a fundamental and inviolable law of
the land, that they should be inalienable to any foreign power. It was
quite evident, that it was in the order of providence; that it was an
inevitable result of the principle of population, that the whole of
this continent, including Texas, was to be peopled in process of time.
The question was, by whose race shall it be peopled? In our hands it
will be peopled by freemen, and the sons of freemen, carrying with
them our language, our laws, and our liberties; establishing, on the
prairies of Texas, temples dedicated to the simple, and devout modes
of worship of God, incident to our religion, and temples dedicated to
that freedom which we adore next to Him. In the hands of others, it may
become the habitation of despotism and of slaves, subject to the vile
dominion of the inquisition and of superstition. He knew that there
were honest and enlightened men, who feared that our confederacy was
already too large, and that there was danger of disruption, arising out
of the want of reciprocal coherence between its several parts. He hoped
and believed, that the principle of representation, and the formation
of states, would preserve us a united people. But if Texas, after being
peopled by us, and grappling with us, should, at some distant day,
break off, she will carry along with her a noble crew, consisting of
our children’s children. The difference between those who might be
disinclined to its annexation to our confederacy, and him, was, that
their system began where his might, possibly, in some distant future
day, terminate; and their’s began with a foreign race, aliens to every
thing that we hold dear, and his ended with a race partaking of all our
qualities.
The last proposition which the second resolution affirms, is, that
it is inexpedient to renew the treaty. If Spain had promptly ratified
it, bad as it is, he would have acquiesced in it. After the protracted
negotiation which it terminated; after the irritating and exasperating
correspondence which preceded it, he would have taken the treaty as
a man who has passed a long and restless night, turning and tossing
in his bed, snatches at day an hour’s disturbed repose. But she would
not ratify it; she would not consent to be bound by it; and she has
liberated us from it. Is it wise to renew the negotiation, if it is
to be recommenced, by announcing to her at once our ultimatum? Shall
we not give her the vantage ground? In early life he had sometimes
indulged in a species of amusement, which years and experience had
determined him to renounce, which, if the committee would allow him
to use it, furnished him with a figure――shall we enter on the game,
with our hand exposed to the adversary, whilst he shuffles the cards
to acquire more strength? What has lost us his ratification of the
treaty? Incontestably, our importunity to procure the ratification,
and the hopes which that importunity inspired, that he could yet obtain
more from us. Let us undeceive him. Let us proclaim the acknowledged
truth, that the treaty is prejudicial to the interests of this country.
Are we not told, by the secretary of state, in the bold and confident
assertion, that don Onis was authorized to grant us _much_ more, and
that Spain _dare_ not deny his instructions? The line of demarcation is
_far_ within his limits? If she would have then granted us more, is her
position now more favorable to her in the negotiation? In our relations
to foreign powers, it may be sometimes politic to sacrifice a portion
of our rights to secure the residue. But is Spain such a power, as
that it becomes us to sacrifice those rights? Is she entitled to it
by her justice, by her observance of good faith, or by her possible
annoyance of us in the event of war? She will seek, as she has sought,
procrastination in the negotiation, taking the treaty as the basis.
She will dare to offend us, as she has insulted us, by asking the
disgraceful stipulation, that we shall not recognise the patriots.
Let us put aside the treaty; tell her to grant us our rights, to their
uttermost extent. And if she still _palters_, let us assert those
rights by whatever measures it is for the interest of our country to
adopt.
If the treaty were abandoned; if we were not on the contrary
signified, too distinctly, that there was to be a continued and
unremitting endeavor to obtain its revival; he would not think it
advisable for this house to interpose. But, with all the information
in our possession, and holding the opinions which he entertained, he
thought it the bounden duty of the house to adopt the resolutions. He
had acquitted himself of what he deemed a solemn duty, in bringing up
the subject. Others would discharge their’s, according to their own
sense of them.