MR. TYLER'S LAST MESSAGE TO CONGRESS.
Texas was the prominent topic of this message, and presented in
a way to have the effect, whatever may have been the intent, of
inflaming and exasperating, instead of soothing and conciliating
Mexico. Mr. Calhoun was now the Secretary of State, and was now
officially what he had been all along actually, the master spirit
in all that related to Texas annexation. Of the interests concerned
in the late attempted negotiation, one large interest, both active
and powerful, was for war with Mexico--not for the sake of the war,
but of the treaty of peace which would follow it, and by which
their Texas scrip and Texas land, now worth but little, would
become of great value. Neither Mr. Tyler nor Mr. Calhoun were among
these speculators, but their most active supporters were; and
these supporters gave the spirit in which the Texas movement was
conducted; and in this spirit the message, in all that related to
the point, was conceived. The imperious notification given at the
last session to cease the war, was repeated with equal arrogance,
and with an intimation that the United States would come to the aid
of Texas, if it went on. Thus:
"In my last annual message, I felt it to be my duty to make
known to Congress, in terms both plain and emphatic, my opinion
in regard to the war which has so long existed between Mexico
and Texas; and which, since the battle of San Jacinto, has
consisted altogether of predatory incursions, attended by
circumstances revolting to humanity. I repeat now, what I then
said, that, after eight years of feeble and ineffectual efforts
to recover Texas, it was time that the war should have ceased."
This was not the language for one nation to hold towards another,
nor would such have been held towards Mexico, except from her
inability to help herself, and our desire to get a chance to make
a treaty of acquisitions with her. The message goes on to say,
"_Mexico has no right to jeopard the peace of the world, by urging
any longer a useless and fruitless contest._" Very imperious
language that, but entirely unfounded in the facts. Hostilities
had ceased between Mexico and Texas upon an armistice under the
guarantee of the great powers, and peace with Mexico was immediate
and certain when Mr. Tyler's government effected the breach and
termination of the armistice by the Texas negotiations, and by
lending detachments of the army and navy to President Houston, to
assist in the protection of Texas. This interposition, and by the
lawless and clandestine loan of troops and ships, to procure a
rupture of the armistice, and prevent the peace which Mexico and
Texas were on the point of making, was one of the most revolting
circumstances in all this Texas intrigue. Thus presenting a defiant
aspect to Mexico, the President recommended the admission of Texas
into the Union upon an act of Congress, to be passed for that
purpose, and under the clause in the constitution which authorizes
Congress to admit new States. Thus, a great constitutional point was
gained by those who had opposed and defeated the annexation treaty.
By that mode of annexation the treaty-making power--the President
and Senate--made the acquisition: by the mode now recommended the
legislative authority was to do it.
The remainder of the message presents nothing to be noted, except
the congratulations of the President upon the restoration of the
federal currency to what he called a sound state, but which was,
in fact, a solid state--for it had become gold and silver; and his
equal felicitations upon the equalization of the exchanges (which
had never been unequal between those who had money to exchange),
saying that exchange was now only the difference of the expense
of transporting gold. That had been the case always with those
who had gold; and what had been called inequalities of exchange
before, was nothing but the different degrees of the depreciation of
different bank notes. But what the President did not note, but which
all others observed, was the obvious fact, that this restoration
and equalization were attained without any of the remedies which
he had been prescribing for four years! without any of those
Fiscal Institutes--Fiscal Corporations--Fiscal Agents--or Fiscal
Exchequers, which he had been prescribing for four years. It was the
effect of the gold bill, and of the Independent Treasury, and the
cessation of all attempts to make a national currency of paper money.