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.
The senator from South Carolina compares the rejected treaty to
the slain Cæsar, and gives it a ghost, which is to meet me at
some future day, as the spectre met Brutus at Philippi. I accept
the comparison, and thank the senator for it. It is both classic
and just; for as Cæsar was slain for the good of his country, so
has been this treaty; and as the spectre appeared at Philippi on
the side of the ambitious Antony and the hypocrite Octavius, and
against the patriot Brutus, so would the ghost of this poor treaty,
when it comes to meet me, appear on the side of the President and
his secretary, and against the man who was struggling to save his
country from their lawless designs. But here the comparison must
stop; for I can promise the ghost and his backers that if the fight
goes against me at this new Philippi, with which I am threatened,
and the enemies of the American Union triumph over me as the enemies
of Roman liberty triumphed over Brutus and Cassius, I shall not fall
upon my sword, as Brutus did, though Cassius be killed, and run
it through my own body; but I shall save it, and save myself for
another day, and for another use--for the day when the battle of the
disunion of these States is to be fought--not with words, but with
iron--and for the hearts of the traitors who appear in arms against
their country.
The comparison is just. Cæsar was rightfully killed for conspiring
against his country; but it was not he that destroyed the liberties
of Rome. That work was done by the profligate politicians, without
him, and before his time; and his death did not restore the
republic. There were no more elections. Rotten politicians had
destroyed them; and the nephew of Cæsar, as heir to his uncle,
succeeded to the empire on the principle of hereditary succession.
And here, Mr. President, History appears in her grand and
instructive character, as Philosophy teaching by example: and let
us not be senseless to her warning voice. Superficial readers
believe it was the military men who destroyed the Roman republic. No
such thing! It was the politicians who did it! factious, corrupt,
intriguing, politicians! destroying public virtue in their mad
pursuit after office! destroying their rivals by crime! deceiving
and debauching the people for votes! and bringing elections into
contempt by the frauds and violence with which they were conducted.
From the time of the Gracchi there were no elections that could bear
the name. Confederate and rotten politicians bought and sold the
consulship. Intrigue, and the dagger, disposed of rivals. Fraud,
violence, bribes, terror, and the plunder of the public treasury,
commanded votes. The people had no choice: and long before the time
of Cæsar nothing remained of republican government, but the name,
and the abuse. Read Plutarch. In the life of Cæsar, and not three
pages before the crossing of the Rubicon, he paints the ruined
state of the elections--shows that all elective government was
gone--that the hereditary form had become a necessary relief from
the contests of the corrupt--and that in choosing between Pompey
and Cæsar, many preferred Pompey, not because they thought him
republican, but because they thought he would make the milder king.
Even arms were but a small part of Cæsar's reliance when he crossed
the Rubicon. Gold, still more than the sword, was his dependence:
and he sent forward the accumulated treasures of plundered Gaul, to
be poured into the laps of rotten politicians. There was no longer
a popular government; and in taking all power to himself, he only
took advantage of the state of things which profligate politicians
had produced. In this he was culpable, and paid the forfeit with his
life; but in contemplating his fate, let us never forget that the
politicians had undermined and destroyed the republic, before he
came to seize and to master it.
It was the same in our day. We have seen the conqueror of Egypt
and Italy overturn the Directory, usurp all power, and receive the
sanction of the people. And why? Because the government was rotten,
and elections had become a farce. The elections of forty-eight
departments, at one time, in the year 1798, were annulled, to give
the Directory a majority in the legislative councils. All sorts of
fraud and violence were committed at the elections. The people had
no confidence in them, and submitted to Bonaparte.
All elective governments have failed in this manner; and, in process
of time, must fail here, unless elections can be taken out of the
hands of the politicians, and restored to the full control of the
people. The plan which I have submitted this day, for dispensing
with intermediate bodies, and holding a second election for
President when the first fails, is designed to accomplish this great
purpose; and will do much good if adopted. Never have politicians,
in so young a country, shown such a thirst for office--such
disregard of the popular will, such readiness to deceive and betray
the people. The Texas treaty (for I must confine myself to the case
before us) is an intrigue for the presidency, and a contrivance
to get the Southern States out of the Union, instead of getting
Texian States into it; and is among the most unscrupulous intrigues
which any country every beheld. But we know how to discriminate.
We know how to separate the wrong from the right. Texas, which the
intriguers prostrated to their ambitious purposes (caring nothing
about it, as their past lives show), will be rescued from their
designs, and restored to this Union as naturally, and as easily,
as the ripened pear falls to the earth. Those who prepared the
result at the Baltimore convention, in which the will of the people
was overthrown, will be consigned to oblivion; while the nominees
of the convention will be accepted and sustained: and as for the
plotters of disunion and secession, they will be found out and will
receive their reward; and I, for one, shall be ready to meet them at
Philippi, sword in hand, whenever they bring their parricidal scheme
to the test of arms.