FIRST AND ONLY ANNUAL MESSAGE OF PRESIDENT TAYLOR.
This only message of one of the American Presidents, shows that he
comprehended the difficulties of his position, and was determined
to grapple with them--that he saw where lay the dangers to the
harmony and stability of the Union, and was determined to lay these
dangers bare to the public view--and, as far as depended on him,
to apply the remedies which their cure demanded. The first and the
last paragraphs of his message looked to this danger, and while the
first showed his confidence in the strength of the Union, the latter
admitted the dangers to it, and averred his own determination to
stand by it to the full extent of his obligations and powers. It was
in these words:
"But attachment to the Union of the States should be habitually
fostered in every American heart. For more than half a century,
during which kingdoms and empires have fallen, this Union has
stood unshaken. The patriots who formed it have long since
descended to the grave; yet still it remains the proudest
monument to their memory, and the object of affection and
admiration with every one worthy to bear the American name. In
my judgment its dissolution would be the greatest of calamities,
and to avert that should be the study of every American. Upon
its preservation must depend our own happiness, and that of
countless generations to come. Whatever dangers may threaten it,
I shall stand by it, and maintain it in its integrity, to the
full extent of the obligations imposed and the power conferred
upon me by the constitution."
This paragraph has the appearance where it occurs of being an
addition to the message after it had been written: and such it was.
It was added in consequence of a visit from Mr. Calhoun to the
Department of State, and expressing a desire that nothing should be
said in the message about the point to which it relates. The two
paragraphs were then added--the one near the beginning, the other
at the end of the message; and it was in allusion to these passages
that Mr. Calhoun's last speech, read in the Senate by Mr. Mason, of
Virginia, contained those memorable words, so much noted at the time:
"_It (the Union) cannot, then, be saved by eulogies on it,
however splendid or numerous. The cry of 'Union, Union, the
glorious Union!' can no more prevent disunion than the cry of
'Health, Health, glorious Health!' on the part of the physician
can save a patient from dying that is lying dangerously ill._"
President Taylor surveyed the difficulties before him, and expressed
his opinion of the remedies they required. California, New Mexico,
and Utah had been left without governments: Texas was asserting a
claim to one half of New Mexico--a province settled two hundred
years before Texian independence, and to which no Texian invader
ever went except to be killed or taken, to the last man. Each of
these presented a question to be settled, in which the predominance
of the slavery agitation rendered settlement difficult and
embarrassing. President Taylor frankly and firmly presented his
remedy for each one. California, having the requisite population for
a State, and having formed her constitution, and prepared herself
for admission into the Union, was favorably recommended for that
purpose to Congress:
"No civil government having been provided by Congress for
California, the people of that territory, impelled by the
necessities of their political condition, recently met in
convention, for the purpose of forming a constitution and
State government, which the latest advices give me reason to
suppose has been accomplished; and it is believed they will
shortly apply for the admission of California into the Union
as a sovereign State. Should such be the case, and should
their constitution be conformable to the requisitions of the
constitution of the United States, I recommend their application
to the favorable consideration of Congress."
New Mexico and Utah, without mixing the slavery question with their
territorial governments, were recommended to be left to ripen into
States, and then to settle that question for themselves in their
State constitutions--saying:
"By awaiting their action, all causes of uneasiness may be
avoided, and confidence and kind feeling preserved. With the
view of maintaining the harmony and tranquillity so dear to all,
we should abstain from the introduction of those exciting topics
of a sectional character which have hitherto produced painful
apprehensions in the public mind; and I repeat the solemn
warning of the first and most illustrious of my predecessors,
against furnishing 'any ground for characterizing parties by
geographical discriminations!'"
This reference to Washington was answered by Calhoun in the same
speech read by Mr. Mason, denying that the Union could be saved by
invoking his name, and averring that there was "_nothing in his
history to deter us from seceding from the Union should it fail to
fulfil the objects for which it was instituted_:" which failure the
speech averred--as others had averred for twenty years before: for
secession was the off-shoot of nullification, and a favorite mode
of dissolving the Union. With respect to Texas and New Mexico, it
was the determination of the President that their boundaries should
be settled by the political, or judicial authority of the United
States, and not by arms.
In all these recommendations the message was wise, patriotic,
temperate and firm; but it encountered great opposition, and from
different quarters, and upon different grounds--from Mr. Clay, who
wished a general compromise; from Mr. Calhoun, intent upon extending
slavery; and holding the Union to be lost except by a remedy of
his own which he ambiguously shadowed forth--a dual executive--two
Presidents: one for the North, one for the South: which was itself
disunion if accomplished. In his reference to Washington's warnings
against geographical and sectional parties, there was a pointed
rebuke to the daily attempts to segregate the South from the North,
and to form political parties exclusively on the basis of an
opposition of interest between the Southern and the Northern States.
As a patriot, he condemned such sectionalism: as a President, he
would have counteracted it.
After our duty to ourselves the President spoke of our duty to
others--to our neighbors--and especially the Spanish possession of
Cuba. An invasion of that island by adventurers from the United
States had been attempted, and had been suppressed by an energetic
proclamation, backed by a determination to carry it into effect upon
the guilty. The message said:
"Having been apprised that a considerable number of adventurers
were engaged in fitting out a military expedition, within the
United States, against a foreign country, and believing, from
the best information I could obtain, that it was destined to
invade the island of Cuba, I deemed it due to the friendly
relations existing between the United States and Spain; to
the treaty between the two nations; to the laws of the United
States; and, above all, to the American honor, to exert
the lawful authority of this government in suppressing the
expedition and preventing the invasion. To this end I issued
a proclamation, enjoining it upon the officers of the United
States, civil and military, to use all lawful means within their
power. A copy of that proclamation is herewith submitted. The
expedition has been suppressed. So long as the act of Congress
of the 20th of April, 1818, which owes its existence to the law
of nations and to the policy of Washington himself, shall remain
on our statute book, I hold it to be the duty of the Executive
faithfully to obey its injunctions."
This was just conduct, and just language, worthy of an upright
magistrate of a Republic, which should set an example of justice
and fairness towards its neighbors. The Spanish government had been
greatly harassed by expeditions got up against Cuba in the United
States, and put to enormous expense in ships and troops to hold
herself in a condition to repulse them. Thirty thousand troops, and
a strong squadron, were constantly kept on foot to meet this danger.
A war establishment was kept up in time of peace in the island of
Cuba to protect the island from threatened invasions. Besides the
injury done to Spain by these aggravations, and the enormous expense
of a war establishment to be kept in Cuba, there was danger of
injury to ourselves from the number and constant recurrence of these
expeditions, which would seem to speak the connivance of the people,
or the negligence of the government. Fortunately for the peace of
the countries during the several years that these expeditions were
most undertaken, the Spanish government was long represented at
Washington by a minister of approved fitness for his situation--Don
Luis Calderon de la Barca: a fine specimen of the old Castilian
character--frank, courteous, honorable, patriotic--whose amiable
manners enabled him to mix intimately with American society, and to
see that these expeditions were criminally viewed by the government
and the immense majority of the citizens; and whose high character
enabled him to satisfy his own government of that important fact,
and to prevent from being viewed as the act of the nation, what was
only that of lawless adventurers, pursued and repressed by our own
laws.