A SPEECH DELIVERED IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, ON THE 23D OF
MARCH, 1848, ON THE BILL FROM THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES FOR RAISING A
LOAN OF SIXTEEN MILLIONS OF DOLLARS.
[On the 2d of February, 1848, the treaty called a "treaty of peace,
friendship, limits, and settlement, between the United States of America
and the Mexican Republic," was signed at Guadalupe Hidalgo. This treaty,
with the advice and consent of the Senate, was ratified by the President
of the United States on the 16th of March. In the mean time, a bill,
introduced into the House of Representatives on the 18th of February, to
authorize a loan of sixteen millions of dollars for the purpose of
carrying on the war, passed through that house, and was considered in
the Senate. Other war measures were considered and adopted by the two
houses, after the signature and ratification of the treaty. On the 23d
of March, the Sixteen Million Loan Bill being under consideration, Mr.
Webster spoke as follows.]
MR. PRESIDENT,--On Friday a bill passed the Senate for raising ten
regiments of new troops for the further prosecution of the war against
Mexico; and we have been informed that that measure is shortly to be
followed, in this branch of the legislature, by a bill to raise twenty
regiments of volunteers for the same service. I was desirous of
expressing my opinions against the object of these bills, against the
supposed necessity which leads to their enactment, and against the
general policy which they are apparently designed to promote.
Circumstances personal to myself, but beyond my control, compelled me to
forego, on that day, the execution of that design. The bill now before
the Senate is a measure for raising money to meet the exigencies of the
government, and to provide the means, as well as for other things, for
the pay and support of these thirty regiments.
Sir, the scenes through which we have passed, and are passing, here, are
various. For a fortnight the world supposes we have been occupied with
the ratification of a treaty of peace, and that within these walls, "the
world shut out," notes of peace, and hopes of peace, nay, strong
assurances of peace, and indications of peace, have been uttered to
console and to cheer us. Sir, it has been over and over stated, and is
public, that we have ratified a treaty, of course a treaty of peace,
and, as the country has been led to suppose, not of an uncertain, empty,
and delusive peace, but of real and substantial, a gratifying and an
enduring peace, a peace which would stanch the wounds of war, prevent
the further flow of human blood, cut off these enormous expenses, and
return our friends, and our brothers, and our children, if they be yet
living, from the land of slaughter, and the land of still more dismal
destruction by climate, to our firesides and our arms.
Hardly have these halcyon notes ceased upon our ears, when, in resumed
public session, we are summoned to fresh warlike operations; to create
a new army of thirty thousand men for the further prosecution of the
war; to carry the war, in the language of the President, still more
dreadfully into the vital parts of the enemy, and to press home, by fire
and sword, the claims we make, and the grounds which we insist upon,
against our fallen, prostrate, I had almost said, our ignoble enemy. If
we may judge from the opening speech of the honorable Senator from
Michigan, and from other speeches that have been made upon this floor,
there has been no time, from the commencement of the war, when it has
been more urgently pressed upon us, not only to maintain, but to
increase, our military means; not only to continue the war, but to press
it still more vigorously than at present.
Pray, what does all this mean? Is it, I ask, confessed, then,--is it
confessed that we are no nearer a peace than we were when we snatched up
this bit of paper called, or miscalled, a treaty, and ratified it? Have
we yet to fight it out to the utmost, as if nothing pacific had
intervened?
I wish, Sir, to treat the proceedings of this and of every department of
the government with the utmost respect. The Constitution of this
government, and the exercise of its just powers in the administration of
the laws under it, have been the cherished object of all my unimportant
life. But, if the subject were not one too deeply interesting, I should
say our proceedings here may well enough cause a smile. In the ordinary
transaction of the foreign relations of this and of all other
governments, the course has been to negotiate first, and to ratify
afterwards. This seems to be the natural order of conducting intercourse
between foreign states. We have chosen to reverse this order. We ratify
first, and negotiate afterwards. We set up a treaty, such as we find it
and choose to make it, and then send two ministers plenipotentiary to
negotiate thereupon in the capital of the enemy. One would think, Sir,
the ordinary course of proceeding much the juster; that to negotiate, to
hold intercourse, and come to some arrangement, by authorized agents,
and then to submit that arrangement to the sovereign authority to which
these agents are responsible, would be always the most desirable method
of proceeding. It strikes me that the course we have adopted is strange,
is even _grotesque_. So far as I know, it is unprecedented in the
history of diplomatic intercourse. Learned gentlemen on the floor of the
Senate, interested to defend and protect this course, may, in their
extensive reading, have found examples of it. I know of none.
Sir, we are in possession, by military power, of New Mexico and
California, countries belonging hitherto to the United States of Mexico.
We are informed by the President that it is his purpose to retain them,
to consider them as territory fit to be attached to these United States
of America; and our military operations and designs now before the
Senate are to enforce this claim of the executive of the United States.
We are to compel Mexico to agree that the part of her dominions called
New Mexico, and that called California, shall be ceded to us. We are in
possession, as is said, and she shall yield her title to us. This is the
precise object of this new army of thirty thousand men. Sir, it is the
identical object, in my judgment, for which the war was originally
commenced, for which it has hitherto been prosecuted, and in furtherance
of which this treaty is to be used but as one means to bring about this
general result; that general result depending, after all, on our own
superior power, and on the necessity of submitting to any terms which we
may prescribe to fallen, fallen, fallen Mexico!
Sir, the members composing the other house, the more popular branch of
the legislature, have all been elected since, I had almost said the
fatal, I will say the remarkable, events of the 11th and 13th days of
May, 1846. The other house has passed a resolution affirming that "the
war with Mexico was begun unconstitutionally and unnecessarily by the
executive government of the United States." I concur in that sentiment;
I hold that to be the most recent and authentic expression of the will
and opinion of the majority of the people of the United States.
There is, Sir, another proposition, not so authentically announced
hitherto, but, in my judgment, equally true and equally capable of
demonstration; and that is, that this war was begun, has been continued,
and is now prosecuted, for the great and leading purpose of the
acquisition of new territory, out of which to bring new States, with
their Mexican population, into this our Union of the United States.
If unavowed at first, this purpose did not remain unavowed long. However
often it may be said that we did not go to war for conquest,
"credat Judaeus Apella,
Non ego,"
yet the moment we get possession of territory we must retain it and make
it our own. Now I think that this original object has not been changed,
has not been varied. Sir, I think it exists in the eyes of those who
originally contemplated it, and who began the war for it, as plain, as
attractive to them, and from which they no more avert their eyes now
than they did then or have done at any time since. We have compelled a
treaty of cession; we know in our consciences that it is compelled. We
use it as an instrument and an agency, in conjunction with other
instruments and other agencies of a more formidable and destructive
character, to enforce the cession of Mexican territory, to acquire
territory for new States to be added to this Union. We know, every
intelligent man knows, that there is no stronger desire in the breast of
a Mexican citizen than to retain the territory which belongs to the
republic. We know that the Mexican people will part with it, if part
they must, with regret, with pangs of sorrow. That we know; we know it
is all forced; and therefore, because we know it must be forced, because
we know that (whether the government, which we consider our creature, do
or do not agree to it) the Mexican people will never accede to the terms
of this treaty but through the impulse of absolute necessity, and the
impression made upon them by absolute and irresistible force, therefore
we purpose to overwhelm them with another army. We purpose to raise
another army of ten thousand regulars and twenty thousand volunteers,
and to pour them in and upon the Mexican people.
Now, Sir, I should be happy to agree, notwithstanding all this tocsin,
and all this cry of all the Semproniuses in the land, that _their_
"voices are still for war,"--I should be happy to agree, and
substantially I do agree, to the opinion of the Senator from South
Carolina. I think I have myself uttered the sentiment, within a
fortnight, to the same effect, that, after all, _the war with Mexico is
substantially over_, that there can be no more fighting. In the present
state of things, my opinion is that the people of this country will not
sustain the war. They will not go for its heavy expenses; they will not
find any gratification in putting the bayonet to the throats of the
Mexican people. For my part, I hope the ten regiment bill will never
become a law. Three weeks ago I should have entertained that hope with
the utmost confidence; events instruct me to abate my confidence. I
still _hope_ it will not pass.
And here, I dare say, I shall be called by some a "Mexican Whig." The
man who can stand up here and say that he hopes that what the
administration projects, and the further prosecution of the war with
Mexico requires, may not be carried into effect, must be an enemy to his
country, or what gentlemen have considered the same thing, an enemy to
the President of the United States, and to his administration and his
party. He is a Mexican. Sir, I think very badly of the Mexican
character, high and low, out and out; but names do not terrify me.
Besides, if I have suffered in this respect, if I have rendered myself
subject to the reproaches of these stipendiary presses, these hired
abusers of the motives of public men, I have the honor, on this
occasion, to be in very respectable company. In the reproachful sense of
that term, I don't know a greater Mexican in this body than the
honorable Senator from Michigan, the chairman of the Committee on
Military Affairs.
MR. CASS. Will the gentleman be good enough to explain what sort of
a Mexican I am?
On the resumption of the bill in the Senate the other day, the gentleman
told us that its principal object was to frighten Mexico; it would touch
his humanity too much to hurt her! He would frighten her--
MR. CASS. Does the gentleman affirm that I said that?
Yes; twice.
MR. CASS. No, Sir, I beg your pardon, I did not say it. I did not
say it would touch my humanity to hurt her.
Be it so.
MR. CASS. Will the honorable Senator allow me to repeat my
statement of the object of the bill? I said it was twofold: first,
that it would enable us to prosecute the war, if necessary; and,
second, that it would show Mexico we were prepared to do so; and
thus, by its moral effect, would induce her to ratify the treaty.
The gentleman said, that the principal object of the bill was to
frighten Mexico, and that this would be more humane than to harm her.
MR. CASS. That's true.
Well, Sir, the remarkable characteristic of that speech, that which
makes it so much a Mexican speech, is, that the gentleman spoke it in
the hearing of Mexico, as well as in the hearing of this Senate. We are
accused here, because what we say is heard by Mexico, and Mexico derives
encouragement from what is said here. And yet the honorable member comes
forth and tells Mexico that the principal object of the bill is to
frighten her! The words have passed along the wires; they are on the
Gulf, and are floating away to Vera Cruz; and when they get there, they
will signify to Mexico, "After all, ye good Mexicans, my principal
object is to frighten you; and to the end that you may not be frightened
too much, I have given you this indication of my purpose."
But, Sir, in any view of this case, in any view of the proper policy of
this government, to be pursued according to any man's apprehension and
judgment, where is the necessity for this augmentation, by regiments, of
the military force of the country? I hold in my hand here a note, which
I suppose to be substantially correct, of the present military force of
the United States. I cannot answer for its entire accuracy, but I
believe it to be substantially according to fact. We have twenty-five
regiments of regular troops, of various arms; if full, they would amount
to 28,960 rank and file, and including officers to 30,296 men. These,
with the exception of six or seven hundred men, are now all out of the
United States and in field service in Mexico, or _en route_ to Mexico.
These regiments are not full; casualties and the climate have sadly
reduced their numbers. If the recruiting service were now to yield ten
thousand men, it would not more than fill up these regiments, so that
every brigadier and colonel and captain should have his appropriate and
his full command. Here is a call, then, on the country now for the
enlistment of ten thousand men, to fill up the regiments in the foreign
service of the United States.
I understand, Sir, that there is a report from General Scott; from
General Scott, a man who has performed the most brilliant campaign on
recent military record, a man who has warred against the enemy, warred
against the climate, warred against a thousand unpropitious
circumstances, and has carried the flag of his country to the capital of
the enemy, honorably, proudly, _humanely_, to his own permanent honor,
and the great military credit of his country,--General Scott; and where
is he? At Puebla! at Puebla, undergoing an inquiry before his inferiors
in rank, and other persons without military rank while the high powers
he has exercised, and exercised with so much distinction, are
transferred to another, I do not say to one unworthy of them, but to one
inferior in rank, station, and experience to himself.
But General Scott reports, as I understand, that, in February, there
were twenty thousand regular troops under his command and _en route_,
and we have thirty regiments of volunteers for the war. If full, this
would make thirty-four thousand men, or, including officers, thirty-five
thousand. So that, if the regiments were full, there is at this moment a
number of troops, regular and volunteer, of not less than fifty-five or
sixty thousand men, including recruits on the way. And with these twenty
thousand men in the field, of regular troops, there were also ten
thousand volunteers; making, of regulars and volunteers under General
Scott, thirty thousand men. The Senator from Michigan knows these things
better than I do, but I believe this is very nearly the fact. Now all
these troops are regularly officered; there is no deficiency, in the
line or in the staff, of officers. They are all full. Where there is any
deficiency it consists of men.
Now, Sir, there may be a plausible reason for saying that there is
difficulty in recruiting at home for the supply of deficiency in the
volunteer regiments. It may be said that volunteers choose to enlist
under officers of their own knowledge and selection; they do not incline
to enlist as individual volunteers, to join regiments abroad, under
officers of whom they know nothing. There may be something in that; but
pray what conclusion does it lead to, if not to this, that all these
regiments must moulder away, by casualties or disease, until the
privates are less in number than the officers themselves.
But however that may be with respect to volunteers, in regard to
recruiting for the regular service, in filling up the regiments by pay
and bounties according to existing laws, or new laws, if new ones are
necessary, there is no reason on earth why we should now create five
hundred new officers, for the purpose of getting ten thousand more men.
The officers are already there; in that respect there is no deficiency.
All that is wanted is men, and there is place for the men; and I suppose
no gentleman, here or elsewhere, thinks that recruiting will go on
faster than would be necessary to obtain men to fill up the deficiencies
in the regiments abroad.
But now, Sir, what do we want of a greater force than we have in Mexico?
I am not saying, What do we want of a force greater than we can supply?
but, What is the object of bringing these new regiments into the field?
What do we propose? There is no army to fight. I suppose there are not
five hundred men under arms in any part of Mexico; probably not half
that number, except in one place. Mexico is prostrate. It is not the
government that resists us. Why, it is notorious that the government of
Mexico is on our side, that it is an instrument by which we hope to
establish such a peace, and accomplish such a treaty, as we like. As far
as I understand the matter, the government of Mexico owes its life and
breath and being to the support of our arms, and to the hope, I do not
say how inspired, that somehow or other, and at no distant period, she
will have the pecuniary means of carrying it on, from our three
millions, or our twelve millions, or from some of our other millions.
What do we propose to do, then, with these thirty regiments which it is
designed to throw into Mexico? Are we going to cut the throats of her
people? Are we to thrust the sword deeper and deeper into the "vital
parts" of Mexico? What is it proposed to do? Sir, I can see no object in
it; and yet, while we are pressed and urged to adopt this proposition to
raise ten and twenty regiments, we are told, and the public is told, and
the public believes, that we are on the verge of a safe and an honorable
peace. Every one looks every morning for tidings of a confirmed peace,
or of confirmed hopes of peace. We gather it from the administration,
and from every organ of the administration from Dan to Beersheba. And
yet warlike preparations, the incurring of expenses, the imposition of
new charges upon the treasury, are pressed here, as if peace were not in
all our thoughts, at least not in any of our expectations.
Now, Sir, I propose to hold a plain talk to-day; and I say that,
according to my best judgment, the object of the bill is patronage,
office, the gratification of friends. This very measure for raising ten
regiments creates four or five hundred officers; colonels, subalterns,
and not them only, for for all these I feel some respect, but there are
also paymasters, contractors, persons engaged in the transportation
service, commissaries, even down to sutlers, _et id genus omne_, people
who handle the public money without facing the foe, one and all of whom
are true descendants, or if not, true representatives, of Ancient
Pistol, who said,
"I shall sutler be
Unto the camp, and profits will accrue."
Sir, I hope, with no disrespect for the applicants, and the aspirants,
and the patriots (and among them are some sincere patriots) who would
fight for their country, and those others who are not ready to fight,
but who are willing to be paid,--with due respect for all of them
according to their several degrees and their merits, I hope they will
all be disappointed. I hope that, as the pleasant season advances, the
whole may find it for their interest to place themselves, of mild
mornings, in the cars, and take their destination to their respective
places of honorable private occupation and of civil employment. They
have my good wishes that they may find the way to their homes from the
Avenue and the Capitol, and from the purlieus of the President's house,
in good health themselves, and that they may find their families all
very happy to receive them.
But, Sir, to speak more seriously, this war was waged for the object of
creating new States, on the southern frontier of the United States, out
of Mexican territory, and with such population as could be found
resident thereupon. I have opposed this object. I am against all
accessions of territory to form new States. And this is no matter of
sentimentality, which I am to parade before mass meetings or before my
constituents at home. It is not a matter with me of declamation, or of
regret, or of expressed repugnance. It is a matter of firm, unchangeable
purpose. I yield nothing to the force of circumstances that have
occurred, or that I can consider as likely to occur. And therefore I
say, Sir, that, if I were asked to-day whether, for the sake of peace, I
would take a treaty for adding two new States to the Union on our
southern border, I would say, _No!_ distinctly, No! And I wish every man
in the United States to understand that to be my judgment and my
purpose.
I said upon our _southern_ border, because the present proposition takes
that locality. I would say the same of the western, the northeastern, or
of any other border. I resist to-day, and for ever, and to the end, any
proposition to add any foreign territory, south or west, north or east,
to the States of this Union, as they are constituted and held together
under the Constitution. I do not want the colonists of England on the
north; and as little do I want the population of Mexico on the south. I
resist and reject all, and all with equal resolution. Therefore I say,
that, if the question were put to me to-day, whether I would take peace
under the present state of the country, distressed as it is, during the
existence of a war odious as this is, under circumstances so afflictive
as now exist to humanity, and so disturbing to the business of those
whom I represent,--I say still, if it were put to me whether I would
have peace, with new States, I would say, No! no! And that because, Sir,
in my judgment, there is no necessity of being driven into that dilemma.
Other gentlemen think differently. I hold no man's conscience; but I
mean to make a clean breast of it myself; and I protest that I see no
reason, I believe there is none, why we cannot obtain as safe a peace,
as honorable and as prompt a peace, without territory as with it. The
two things are separable. There is no necessary connection between them.
Mexico does not wish us to take her territory, while she receives our
money. Far from it. She yields her assent, if she yields it at all,
reluctantly, and we all know it. It is the result of force, and there is
no man here who does not know that. And let me say, Sir, that, if this
Trist paper shall finally be rejected in Mexico, it is most likely to be
because those who under our protection hold the power there cannot
persuade the Mexican Congress or people to agree to this cession of
territory. The thing most likely to break up what we now expect to take
place is the repugnance of the Mexican people to part with their
territory. They would prefer to keep their territory, and that we should
keep our money; as I prefer we should keep our money, and they their
territory. We shall see. I pretend to no powers of prediction. I do not
know what may happen. The times are full of strange events. But I think
it certain that, if the treaty which has gone to Mexico shall fail to be
ratified, it will be because of the aversion of the Mexican Congress, or
the Mexican people, to cede the territory, or any part of it, belonging
to their republic.
I have said that I would rather have no peace for the present, than have
a peace which brings territory for new States; and the reason is, that
we shall get peace as soon without territory as with it, more safe, more
durable, and vastly more honorable to us, the great republic of the
world.
But we hear gentlemen say, We must have some territory, the people
demand it. I deny it; at least, I see no proof of it whatever. I do not
doubt that there are individuals of an enterprising character, disposed
to emigrate, who know nothing about New Mexico but that it is far off,
and nothing about California but that it is still farther off, who are
tired of the dull pursuits of agriculture and of civil life; that there
are hundreds and thousands of such persons to whom whatsoever is new and
distant is attractive. They feel the spirit of borderers; and the spirit
of a borderer, I take it, is to be tolerably contented with his
condition where he is, until somebody goes to regions beyond him; and
then he is all eagerness to take up his traps and go still farther than
he who has thus got in advance of him. With such men the desire to
emigrate is an irresistible passion. At least so thought that sagacious
observer of human nature, M. de Talleyrand, when he travelled in this
country in 1794.
But I say I do not find anywhere any considerable and respectable body
of persons who want more territory, and such territory. Twenty-four of
us last year in this house voted against the prosecution of the war for
territory, because we did not want it, both Southern and Northern men. I
believe the Southern gentlemen who concurred in that vote found
themselves, even when they had gone against what might be supposed to be
local feelings and partialities, sustained on the general policy of not
seeking territory, and by the acquisition of territory bringing into our
politics certain embarrassing and embroiling questions and
considerations. I do not learn that they suffered from the advocacy of
such a sentiment. I believe they were supported in it; and I believe
that through the greater part of the South, and even of the Southwest,
there is no prevalent opinion in favor of acquiring territory, and such
territory, and of the augmentation of our population by such an
accession. And such, I need not say, is, if not the undivided, the
preponderating sentiment of all the North.
But it is said we must take territory for the sake of peace. We must
take territory. It is the will of the President. If we do not now take
what he offers, we may fare worse. Mr. Polk will take no less, that he
is fixed upon, He is immovable. He--has--put--down--his--foot! Well,
Sir, he put it down upon "fifty-four forty," but it didn't stay. I speak
of the President, as of all Presidents, without disrespect. I know of no
reason why his opinion and his will, his purpose, declared to be final,
should control us, any more than our purpose, from equally conscientious
motives, and under as high responsibilities, should control him. We
think he is firm, and will not be moved. I should be sorry, Sir, very
sorry indeed, that we should entertain more respect for the firmness of
the individual at the head of the government than we entertain for our
own firmness. He stands out against us. Do we fear to stand out against
him? For one, I do not. It appears to me to be a slavish doctrine. For
one, I am willing to meet the issue, and go to the people all over this
broad land. Shall we take peace without new States, or refuse peace
without new States? I will stand upon that, and trust the people. And I
do that because I think it right, and because I have no distrust of the
people. I am not unwilling to put it to their sovereign decision and
arbitration. I hold this to be a question vital, permanent, elementary,
in the future prosperity of the country and the maintenance of the
Constitution; and I am willing to trust that question to the people. I
prefer that it should go to them, because, if what I take to be a great
constitutional principle, or what is essential to its maintenance, is to
be broken down, let it be the act of the people themselves; it shall
never be my act. I, therefore, do not distrust the people. I am willing
to take their sentiment, from the Gulf to the British Provinces, and
from the ocean to the Missouri: Will you continue the war for territory,
to be purchased, after all, at an enormous price, a price a thousand
times the value of all its purchases, or take peace, contenting
yourselves with the honor we have reaped by the military achievements of
the army? Will you take peace without territory, and preserve the
integrity of the Constitution of the country? I am entirely willing to
stand upon that question. I will therefore take the issue: _Peace, with
no new States, keeping our own money ourselves, or war till new States
shall be acquired, and vast sums paid._ That is the true issue. I am
willing to leave that before the people and to the people, because it is
a question for themselves. If they support me and think with me, very
well. If otherwise, if they will have territory and add new States to
the Union, let them do so; and let them be the artificers of their own
fortune, for good or for evil.
But, Sir, we tremble before executive power. The truth cannot be
concealed. We tremble before executive power! Mr. Polk will take no less
than this. If we do not take this, the king's anger may kindle, and he
will give us what is worse.
But now, Sir, who and what is Mr. Polk? I speak of him with no manner of
disrespect. I mean, thereby, only to ask who and what is the President
of the United States for the current moment. He is in the last year of
his administration. Formally, officially, it can only be drawn out till
the fourth of March, while really and substantially we know that two
short months will, or may, produce events that will render the duration
of that official term of very little importance. We are on the eve of a
Presidential election. That machinery which is employed to collect
public opinion or party opinion will be put in operation two months
hence. We shall see its result. It may be that the present incumbent of
the Presidential office will be again presented to his party friends and
admirers for their suffrages for the next Presidential term. I do not
say how probable or improbable this is. Perhaps it is not entirely
probable. Suppose this not to be the result, what then? Why, then Mr.
Polk becomes as absolutely insignificant as any respectable man among
the public men of the United States. Honored in private life, valued for
his private character, respectable, never eminent, in public life, he
will, from the moment a new star arises, have just as little influence
as you or I; and, so far as I am concerned, that certainly is little
enough.
Sir, political partisans, and aspirants, and office-seekers, are not
sunflowers. They do not
"turn to their god when he sets
The same look which they turned when he rose."
No, Sir, if the respectable gentleman now at the head of the government
be nominated, there will be those who will commend his consistency, who
will be bound to maintain it, for the interest of his party friends will
require it. It will be done. If otherwise, who is there in the whole
length and breadth of the land that will care for the consistency of the
present incumbent of the office? There will then be new objects.
"Manifest destiny" will have pointed out some other man. Sir, the
eulogies are now written, the commendations are already elaborated. I do
not say every thing fulsome, but every thing panegyrical, has already
been written out, with _blanks_ for names, to be filled when the
convention shall adjourn. When "manifest destiny" shall be unrolled, all
these strong panegyrics, wherever they may light, made beforehand, laid
up in pigeon-holes, studied, framed, emblazoned, and embossed, will all
come out; and then there will be found to be somebody in the United
States whose merits have been strangely overlooked, marked out by
Providence, a kind of miracle, while all will wonder that nobody ever
thought of him before, as a fit, and the only fit, man to be at the head
of this great republic!
I shrink not, therefore, from any thing that I feel to be my duty, from
any apprehension of the importance and imposing dignity, and the power
of will, ascribed to the present incumbent of office. But I wish we
possessed that power of will. I wish we had that firmness. Yes, Sir, I
wish we had adherence. I wish we could gather something from the spirit
of our brave forces, who have met the enemy under circumstances most
adverse and have stood the shock. I wish we could imitate Zachary Taylor
in his bivouac on the field of Buena Vista. He said he "would remain for
the night; he would feel the enemy in the morning, and try his
position." I wish, before we surrender, we could make up _our_ minds to
"_feel_ the enemy, and try his position," and I think we should find
him, as Taylor did, under the early sun, on his way to San Luis Potosi.
That is my judgment.
But, Sir, I come to the all-absorbing question, more particularly, of
the creation of New States.
Some years before I entered public life, Louisiana had been obtained
under the treaty with France. Shortly after, Florida was obtained under
the treaty with Spain. These two countries were situated on our
frontier, and commanded the outlets of the great rivers which flow into
the Gulf. As I have had occasion to say, in the first of these
instances, the President of the United States[1] supposed that an
amendment of the Constitution was required. He acted upon that
supposition. Mr. Madison was Secretary of State, and, upon the
suggestion of the President, proposed that the proper amendment to the
Constitution should be submitted, to bring Louisiana into the Union. Mr.
Madison drew it, and submitted it to Mr. Adams, as I have understood.
Mr. Madison did not go upon any general idea that new States might be
admitted; he did not proceed to a general amendment of the Constitution
in that respect. The amendment which he proposed and submitted to Mr.
Adams was a simple declaration, by a new article, that "the Province of
Louisiana is hereby declared to be part and parcel of the United
States." But public opinion, seeing the great importance of the
acquisition, took a turn favorable to the affirmation of the power. The
act was acquiesced in, and Louisiana became a part of the Union, without
any amendment of the Constitution.
On the example of Louisiana, Florida was admitted.
Now, Sir, I consider those transactions as passed, settled, legalized.
There they stand as matters of political history. They are facts against
which it would be idle at this day to contend.
My first agency in matters of this kind was upon the proposition for
admitting Texas into this Union. That I thought it my duty to oppose,
upon the general ground of opposing all formation of new States out of
foreign territory, and, I may add, and I ought to add in justice, of
States in which slaves were to be represented in the Congress of the
United States. I was opposed to this on the ground of its inequality. It
happened to me, Sir, to be called upon to address a political meeting in
New York, in 1837, soon after the recognition of Texan Independence. I
state now, Sir, what I have often stated before, that no man, from the
first, has been a more sincere well-wisher to the government and the
people of Texas than myself. I looked upon the achievement of their
independence in the battle of San Jacinto as an extraordinary, almost a
marvellous, incident in the affairs of mankind. I was among the first
disposed to acknowledge her independence. But from the first, down to
this moment, I have opposed, as far as I was able, the annexation of new
States to this Union. I stated my reasons on the occasion now referred
to, in language which I have now before me, and which I beg to present
to the Senate.
Mr. Webster here read the passage from his speech at Niblo's
Saloon, New York, which will be found in a previous part of this
work, pages 429, 430, beginning, "But it cannot be disguised,
Gentlemen, that a desire, or an intention, is already manifested to
annex Texas to the United States."
Well, Sir, for a few years I held a position in the executive
administration of the government. I left the Department of State in
1843, in the month of May. Within a month after, another (an intelligent
gentleman, for whom I cherished a high respect, and who came to a sad
and untimely end) had taken my place, I had occasion to know, not
officially, but from circumstances, that the annexation of Texas was
taken up by Mr. Tyler's administration as an administration measure. It
was pushed, pressed, insisted on; and I believe the honorable gentleman
to whom I have referred[2] had something like a passion for the
accomplishment of this purpose. And I am afraid that the President of
the United States[3] at that time suffered his ardent feelings not a
little to control his more prudent judgment. At any rate, I saw, in
1843, that annexation had become a purpose of the administration. I was
not in Congress nor in public life. But, seeing this state of things, I
thought it my duty to admonish the country, so far as I could, of the
existence of that purpose. There are gentlemen at the North, many of
them, there are gentlemen now in the Capitol, who know that, in the
summer of 1843, being fully persuaded that this purpose was embraced
with zeal and determination by the executive department of the
government of the United States, I thought it my duty, and asked them to
concur with me in the attempt, to make that purpose known to the
country. I conferred with gentlemen of distinction and influence. I
proposed means for exciting public attention to the question of
annexation, before it should have become a party question; for I had
learned that, when any topic becomes a party question, it is in vain to
argue upon it.
But the optimists and the quietists, and those who said, All things are
well, and let all things alone, discouraged, discountenanced, and
repressed any such effort. The North, they said, could take care of
itself; the country could take care of itself, and would not sustain Mr.
Tyler in his project of annexation. When the time should come, they
said, the power of the North would be felt, and would be found
sufficient to resist and prevent the consummation of the measure. And I
could now refer to paragraphs and articles in the most respectable and
leading journals of the North, in which it was attempted to produce the
impression that there was no danger; there could be no addition of new
States, and men need not alarm themselves about that.
I was not in Congress, Sir, when the preliminary resolutions, providing
for the annexation of Texas, passed. I only know that, up to a very
short period before the passage of those resolutions, the impression in
that part of the country of which I have spoken was, that no such
measure could be adopted. But I have found, in the course of thirty
years' experience, that whatever measures the executive government may
embrace and push are quite likely to succeed in the end. There is always
a giving way somewhere. The executive government acts with uniformity,
with steadiness, with entire unity of purpose. And sooner or later,
often enough, and, according to my construction of our history, quite
too often, it effects its purposes. In this way it becomes the
predominating power of the government.
Well, Sir, just before the commencement of the present administration,
the resolutions for the annexation of Texas were passed in Congress.
Texas complied with the provisions of those resolutions, and was here,
or the case was here, on the 22d day of December, 1845, for her final
admission into the Union, as one of the States. I took occasion then to
say, that I hoped I had shown all proper regard for Texas; that I had
been certainly opposed to annexation; that, if I should go over the
whole matter again, I should have nothing new to add; that I had acted,
all along, under the unanimous declaration of all parties, and of the
legislature of Massachusetts; that I thought there must be some limit to
the extent of our territories, and that I wished this country should
exhibit to the world the example of a powerful republic, without
greediness and hunger of empire. And I added, that while I held, with as
much faithfulness as any citizen of the country, to all the original
arrangements and compromises of the Constitution under which we live, I
never could, and I never should, bring myself to be in favor of the
admission of any States into the Union as slave-holding States; and I
might have added, any States at all, to be formed out of territories not
now belonging to us.
Now, as I have said, in all this I acted under the resolutions of the
State of Massachusetts, certainly concurrent with my own judgment, so
often repeated, and reaffirmed by the unanimous consent of all men of
all parties, that I could not well go through the series, pointing out,
not only the impolicy, but the unconstitutionality, of such annexation.
If a State proposes to come into the Union, and to come in as a slave
State, then there is an augmentation of the inequality in the
representation of the people; an inequality already existing, with which
I do not quarrel, and which I never will attempt to alter, but shall
preserve as long as I have a vote to give, or any voice in this
government, because it is a part of the original compact. Let it stand.
But then there is another consideration of vastly more general
importance even than that; more general, because it affects all the
States, free and slave-holding; and it is, that, if States formed out of
territories thus thinly populated come into the Union, they necessarily
and inevitably break up the relation existing between the two branches
of the government, and destroy its balance. They break up the intended
relation between the Senate and the House of Representatives. If you
bring in new States, any State that comes in must have two Senators. She
may come in with fifty or sixty thousand people, or more. You may have,
from a particular State, more Senators than you have Representatives.
Can any thing occur to disfigure and derange the form of government
under which we live more signally than that? Here would be a Senate
bearing no proportion to the people, out of all relation to them, by the
addition of new States; from some of them only one Representative,
perhaps, and two Senators, whereas the larger States may have ten,
fifteen, or even thirty Representatives, and but two Senators. The
Senate, augmented by these new Senators coming from States where there
are few people, becomes an odious oligarchy. It holds power without any
adequate constituency. Sir, it is but "borough-mongering" upon a large
scale. Now, I do not depend upon theory; I ask the Senate and the
country to look at facts, to see where we were when we made our
departure three years ago, and where we now are; and I leave it to the
imagination to conjecture where we shall be.
We admitted Texas,--one State for the present; but, Sir, if you refer to
the resolutions providing for the annexation of Texas, you find a
provision that it shall be in the power of Congress hereafter to make
four new States out of Texan territory. Present and prospectively, five
new States, with ten Senators, may come into the Union out of Texas.
Three years ago we did this; we now propose to make two States.
Undoubtedly, if we take, as the President recommends, New Mexico and
California, there must then be four new Senators. We shall then have
provided, in these territories out of the United States along our
southern borders, for the creation of States enough to send fourteen
Senators into this chamber. Now, what will be the relation between these
Senators and the people they represent, or the States from which they
come? I do not understand that there is any very accurate census of
Texas. It is generally supposed to contain one hundred and fifty
thousand persons. I doubt whether it contains above one hundred
thousand.
MR. MANGUM. It contains one hundred and forty-nine thousand.
My honorable friend on my left says, a hundred and forty-nine thousand.
I put it down, then, one hundred and fifty thousand. Well, Sir, Texas is
not destined, probably, to be a country of dense population. We will
suppose it to have at the present time a population of near one hundred
and fifty thousand. New Mexico may have sixty or seventy thousand
inhabitants; say seventy thousand. In California, there are not supposed
to be above twenty-five thousand men; but undoubtedly, if this territory
should become ours, persons from Oregon, and from our Western States,
will find their way to San Francisco, where there is some good land, and
we may suppose they will shortly amount to sixty or seventy thousand. We
will put them down at seventy thousand. Then the whole territory in this
estimate, which is as high as any man puts it, will contain two hundred
and ninety thousand persons, and they will send us, whenever we ask for
them, fourteen Senators; a population less than that of the State of
Vermont, and not the eighth part of that of New York. Fourteen Senators,
and not as many people as Vermont, and no more people than New
Hampshire! and not so many people as the good State of New Jersey!
But then, Sir, Texas claims to the line of the Rio Grande, and if it be
her true line, why then of course she absorbs a considerable part, nay,
the greater part, of the population of what is now called New Mexico. I
do not argue the question of the true southern or western line of Texas;
I only say, that it is apparent to everybody who will look at the map,
and learn any thing of the matter, that New Mexico cannot be divided by
this river, the Rio Grande, which is a shallow, fordable, insignificant
stream, creeping along through a narrow valley, at the base of enormous
mountains. New Mexico must remain together; it must be a State, with its
seventy thousand people, and so it will be; and so will California.
But then, Sir, suppose Texas to remain a unit, and but one State for the
present; still we shall have three States, Texas, New Mexico, and
California. We shall have six Senators, then, for less than three
hundred thousand people. We shall have as many Senators for three
hundred thousand people in that region as we have for New York,
Pennsylvania, and Ohio, with four or five millions of people; and that
is what we call an equal representation! Is not this enormous? Have
gentlemen considered this? Have they looked at it? Are they willing to
look it in the face, and then say they embrace it? I trust, Sir, the
people will look at it and consider it. And now let me add, that this
disproportion can never be diminished; it must remain for ever. How are
you going to diminish it? Why, here is Texas, with a hundred and
forty-nine thousand people, with one State. Suppose that population
should flow into Texas, where will it go? Not to any dense point, but
to be spread over all that region, in places remote from the Gulf, in
places remote from what is now the capital of Texas; and therefore, as
soon as there are in other portions of Texas people enough within our
common construction of the Constitution and our practice in respect to
the admission of States, my honorable friend from Texas[4] will have a
new State, and I have no doubt he has chalked it out already.
As to New Mexico, its population is not likely to increase. It is a
settled country; the people living along in the bottom of the valley on
the sides of a little stream, a garter of land only on one side and the
other, filled by coarse landholders and miserable _peons_. It can
sustain, not only under this cultivation, but under any cultivation that
our American race would ever submit to, no more people than are there
now. There will, then, be two Senators for sixty thousand inhabitants in
New Mexico to the end of our lives and to the end of the lives of our
children.
And how is it with California? We propose to take California, from the
forty-second degree of north latitude down to the thirty-second. We
propose to take ten degrees along the coast of the Pacific. Scattered
along the coast for that great distance are settlements and villages and
ports; and in the rear all is wilderness and barrenness, and Indian
country. But if, just about San Francisco, and perhaps Monterey,
emigrants enough should settle to make up one State, then the people
five hundred miles off would have another State. And so this
disproportion of the Senate to the people will go on, and must go on,
and we cannot prevent it.
I say, Sir, that, according to my conscientious conviction, we are now
fixing on the Constitution of the United States, and its frame of
government, a monstrosity, a disfiguration, an enormity! Sir, I hardly
dare trust myself. I don't know but I may be under some delusion. It may
be the weakness of my eyes that forms this monstrous apparition. But, if
I may trust myself, if I can persuade myself that I am in my right mind,
then it does appear to me that we in this Senate have been and are
acting, and are likely to be acting hereafter, and immediately, a part
which will form the most remarkable epoch in the history of our country.
I hold it to be enormous, flagrant, an outrage upon all the principles
of popular republican government, and on the elementary provisions of
the Constitution under which we live, and which we have sworn to
support.
But then, Sir, what relieves the case from this enormity? What is our
reliance? Why, it is that we stipulate that these new States shall only
be brought in at a suitable time. And pray, what is to constitute the
suitableness of time? Who is to judge of it? I tell you, Sir, that
suitable time will come when the preponderance of party power here makes
it necessary to bring in new States. Be assured it will be a suitable
time when votes are wanted in this Senate. We have had some little
experience of that. Texas came in at a "suitable time," a _very_
suitable time! Texas was finally admitted in December, 1845. My friend
near me here, for whom I have a great regard, and whose acquaintance I
have cultivated with pleasure,[5] took his seat in March, 1846, with his
colleague. In July, 1846, these two Texan votes turned the balance in
the Senate, and overthrew the tariff of 1842, in my judgment the best
system of revenue ever established in this country. Gentlemen on the
opposite side think otherwise. They think it fortunate. They think that
was a suitable time, and they mean to take care that other times shall
be equally suitable. I understand it perfectly well. That is the
difference of opinion between me and these honorable gentlemen. To their
policy, their objects, and their purposes the time was _suitable_, and
the aid was efficient and decisive.
Sir, in 1850 perhaps a similar question may be agitated here. It is not
likely to be before that time, but agitated it will be then, unless a
change in the administration of the government shall take place.
According to my apprehension, looking at general results as flowing from
our established system of commerce and revenue, in two years from this
time we shall probably be engaged in a new revision of our system: in
the work of establishing, if we can, a tariff of specific duties; of
protecting, if we can, our domestic industry and the manufactures of the
country; in the work of preventing, if we can, the overwhelming flood of
foreign importations. Suppose that to be part of the future: that would
be exactly the "suitable time," if necessary, for two Senators from New
Mexico to make their appearance here!
But, again, we hear another halcyon, soothing tone, which quiets none of
my alarms, assuages none of my apprehensions, commends me to my nightly
rest with no more resignation. And that is, the plea that we may trust
the popular branch of the legislature, we may look to the House of
Representatives, to the Northern and Middle States and even the sound
men of the South, and trust them to take care that States be not
admitted sooner than they should be, or for party purposes. I am
compelled, by experience, to distrust all such reliances. If we cannot
rely on ourselves, when we have the clear constitutional authority
competent to carry us through, and the motives intensely powerful, I beg
to know how we can rely on others. Have we more reliance on the
patriotism, the firmness, of others, than on our own?
Besides, experience shows us that things of this sort may be _sprung_
upon Congress and the people. It was so in the case of Texas. It was so
in the Twenty-eighth Congress. The members of that Congress were not
chosen to decide the question of annexation or no annexation. They came
in on other grounds, political and party, and were supported for reasons
not connected with that question. What then? The administration sprung
upon them the question of annexation. It obtained a _snap_ judgment upon
it, and carried the measure of annexation. That is indubitable, as I
could show by many instances, of which I shall state only one.
Four gentlemen from the State of Connecticut were elected before the
question arose, belonging to the dominant party. They had not been here
long before they were committed to annexation; and when it was known in
Connecticut that annexation was in contemplation, remonstrances,
private, public, and legislative, were uttered, in tones that any one
could hear who could hear thunder. Did they move them? Not at all. Every
one of them voted for annexation! The election came on, and they were
turned out, to a man. But what did those care who had had the benefit of
their votes? Such agencies, if it be not more proper to call them such
instrumentalities, retain respect no longer than they continue to be
useful.
Sir, we take New Mexico and California; who is weak enough to suppose
that there is an end? Don't we hear it avowed every day, that it would
be proper also to take Sonora, Tamaulipas, and other provinces of
Northern Mexico? Who thinks that the hunger for dominion will stop here
of itself? It is said, to be sure, that our present acquisitions will
prove so lean and unsatisfactory, that we shall seek no further. In my
judgment, we may as well say of a rapacious animal, that, if he has made
one unproductive hunt, he will not try for a better foray.
But further. There are some things one can argue against with temper,
and submit to, if overruled, without mortification. There are other
things that seem to affect one's consciousness of being a sensible man,
and to imply a disposition to impose upon his common sense. And of this
class of topics, or pretences, I have never heard of any thing, and I
cannot conceive of any thing, more ridiculous in itself, more absurd,
and more affrontive to all sober judgment, than the cry that we are
getting indemnity by the acquisition of New Mexico and California. I
hold they are not worth a dollar; and we pay for them vast sums of
money! We have expended, as everybody knows, large treasures in the
prosecution of the war; and now what is to constitute this indemnity?
What do gentlemen mean by it? Let us see a little how this stands. We
get a country; we get, in the first instance, a cession, or an
acknowledgment of boundary, (I care not which way you state it,) of the
country between the Nueces and the Rio Grande. What this country is
appears from a publication made by a gentleman in the other house.[6] He
speaks of the country in the following manner:--
"The country from the Nueces to the valley of the Rio Grande is
poor, sterile, sandy, and barren, with not a single tree of any
size or value on our whole route. The only tree which we saw was
the musquit-tree, and very few of these. The musquit is a small
tree, resembling an old and decayed peach-tree. The whole country
may be truly called a perfect waste, uninhabited and uninhabitable.
There is not a drop of running water between the two rivers, except
in the two small streams of San Salvador and Santa Gertrudis, and
these only contain water in the rainy season. Neither of them had
running water when we passed them. The _chaparral_ commences within
forty or fifty miles of the Rio Grande. This is poor, rocky, and
sandy; covered with prickly-pear, thistles, and almost every
sticking thing, constituting a thick and perfectly impenetrable
undergrowth. For any useful or agricultural purpose, the country is
not worth a _sous_.
"So far as we were able to form any opinion of this desert upon the
other routes which had been travelled, its character, everywhere
between the two rivers, is pretty much the same. We learned that
the route pursued by General Taylor, south of ours, was through a
country similar to that through which we passed; as also was that
travelled by General Wool from San Antonio to Presidio on the Rio
Grande. From what we both saw and heard, the whole command came to
the conclusion which I have already expressed, that it was worth
_nothing_. I have no hesitation in saying, that I would not hazard
the life of one valuable and useful man for every foot of land
between San Patricio and the valley of the Rio Grande. The country
is not now, and can never be, of the _slightest value_."
Major Gaines has been there lately. He is a competent observer. He is
contradicted by nobody. And so far as that country is concerned, I take
it for granted that it is not worth a dollar.
Now of New Mexico, what of that! Forty-nine fiftieths, at least, of the
whole of New Mexico, are a barren waste, a desert plain of mountain,
with no wood, no timber. Little fagots for lighting a fire are carried
thirty or forty miles on mules. There is no fall of rain there, as in
temperate climates. It is Asiatic in scenery altogether: enormously high
mountains, running up some of them ten thousand feet, with narrow
valleys at their bases, through which streams sometimes trickle along. A
strip, a garter, winds along, through which runs the Rio Grande, from
far away up in the Rocky Mountains to latitude 33°, a distance of three
or four hundred miles. There these sixty thousand persons reside. In the
mountains on the right and left are streams which, obeying the natural
tendency as tributaries, should flow into the Rio Grande, and which, in
certain seasons, when rains are abundant, do, some of them, actually
reach the Rio Grande; while the greater part always, and all for the
greater part of the year, never reach an outlet to the sea, but are
absorbed in the sands and desert plains of the country. There is no
cultivation there. There is cultivation where there is artificial
watering or irrigation, and nowhere else. Men can live only in the
narrow valley, and in the gorges of the mountains which rise round it,
and not along the course of the streams which lose themselves in the
sands.
Now there is no public domain in New Mexico, not a foot of land, to the
soil of which we shall obtain title. Not an acre becomes ours when the
country becomes ours. More than that, the country is as full of people,
such as they are, as it is likely to be. There is not the least thing in
it to invite settlement from the fertile valley of the Mississippi. And
I undertake to say, there would not be two hundred families of persons
who would emigrate from the United States to New Mexico, for
agricultural purposes, in fifty years. They could not live there.
Suppose they were to cultivate the lands; they could only make them
productive in a slight degree by irrigation or artificial watering. The
people there produce little, and live on little. That is not the
characteristic, I take it, of the people of the Eastern or of the Middle
States, or of the Valley of the Mississippi. They produce a good deal,
and they consume a good deal.
Again, Sir, New Mexico is not like Texas. I have hoped, and I still
hope, that Texas will be filled up from among ourselves, not with
Spaniards, not with _peons_; that its inhabitants will not be Mexican
landlords, with troops of slaves, predial or otherwise.
Mr. Rusk here rose, and said that he disliked to interrupt the
Senator, and therefore he had said nothing while he was describing
the country between the Nueces and the Rio Grande; but he wished
now to say, that, when that country comes to be known, it will be
found to be as valuable as any part of Texas. The valley of the Rio
Grande is valuable from its source to its mouth. But he did not
look upon _that_ as indemnity; he claimed that as the _right_ of
Texas. So far as the Mexican population is concerned, there is a
good deal of it in Texas; and it comprises many respectable
persons, wealthy, intelligent, and distinguished. A good many are
now moving in from New Mexico, and settling in Texas.
I take what I say from Major Gaines. But I am glad to hear that any part
of New Mexico is fit for the foot of civilized man. And I am glad,
moreover, that there are some persons in New Mexico who are not so
blindly attached to their miserable condition as not to make an effort
to come out of their country, and get into a better.
Sir, I would, if I had time, call the attention of the Senate to an
instructive speech made in the other house by Mr. Smith of Connecticut.
He seems to have examined all the authorities, to have conversed with
all the travellers, to have corresponded with all our agents. His speech
contains communications from all of them; and I commend it to every man
in the United States who wishes to know what we are about to acquire by
the annexation of New Mexico.
New Mexico is secluded, isolated, a place by itself, in the midst and at
the foot of vast mountains, five hundred miles from the settled part of
Texas, and as far from anywhere else! It does not belong anywhere! It
has no _belongings_ about it! At this moment it is absolutely more
retired and shut out from communication with the civilized world than
Hawaii or any of the other islands of the Pacific sea. In seclusion and
remoteness, New Mexico may press hard on the character and condition of
Typee. And its people are infinitely less elevated, in morals and
condition, than the people of the Sandwich Islands. We had much better
have Senators from Oahu. They are far less intelligent than the better
class of our Indian neighbors. Commend me to the Cherokees, to the
Choctaws; if you please, speak of the Pawnees, of the Snakes, the
Flatfeet, of any thing but the _Digging_ Indians, and I will be
satisfied not to take the people of New Mexico. Have they any notion of
our institutions, or of _any_ free institutions? Have they any notion of
popular government? Not the slightest! Not the slightest on earth! When
the question is asked, What will be their constitution? it is farcical
to talk of such people making a constitution for themselves. They do not
know the meaning of the term, they do not know its import. They know
nothing at all about it; and I can tell you, Sir, that when they are
made a Territory, and are to be made a State, such a constitution as the
executive power of this government may think fit to send them will be
sent, and will be adopted. The constitution of our _fellow citizens_ of
New Mexico will be framed in the city of Washington.
Now what says in regard to all Mexico Colonel Hardin, that most lamented
and distinguished officer, honorably known as a member of the other
house, and who has fallen gallantly fighting in the service of his
country? Here is his description:--
"The whole country is miserably watered. Large districts have no
water at all. The streams are small, and at great distances apart.
One day we marched on the road from Monclova to Parras thirty-five
miles without water, a pretty severe day's marching for infantry.
"Grass is very scarce, and indeed there is none at all in many
regions for miles square. Its place is supplied with prickly-pear
and thorny bushes. There is not one acre in two hundred, more
probably not one in five hundred, of all the land we have seen in
Mexico, which can ever be cultivated; the greater portion of it is
the most desolate region I could ever have imagined. The pure
granite hills of New England are a paradise to it, for they are
without the thorny briers and venomous reptiles which infest the
barbed barrenness of Mexico. The good land and cultivated spots in
Mexico are but dots on the map. Were it not that it takes so very
little to support a Mexican, and that the land which is cultivated
yields its produce with little labor, it would be surprising how
its sparse population is sustained. All the towns we have visited,
with perhaps the exception of Parras, are depopulating, as is also
the whole country.
"The people are on a par with their land. One in two hundred or
five hundred is rich, and lives like a nabob; the rest are _peons_,
or servants sold for debt, who work for their masters, and are as
subservient as the slaves of the South, and look like Indians, and,
indeed, are not more capable of self-government. One man, Jacobus
Sanchez, owns three fourths of all the land our column has passed
over in Mexico. We are told we have seen the best part of Northern
Mexico; if so, the whole of it is not worth much.
"I came to Mexico in favor of getting or taking enough of it to pay
the expenses of the war. I now doubt whether all Northern Mexico is
worth the expenses of our column of three thousand men. The
expenses of the war must be enormous; we have paid enormous prices
for every thing, much beyond the usual prices of the country."
There it is. That's all North Mexico; and New Mexico is not the better
part of it.
Sir, there is a recent traveller, not unfriendly to the United States,
if we may judge from his work, for he speaks well of us everywhere; an
Englishman, named Ruxton. He gives an account of the morals and the
manners of the population of New Mexico. And, Mr. President and
Senators, I shall take leave to introduce you to these soon to be your
respected _fellow-citizens_ of New Mexico:--
"It is remarkable that, although existing from the earliest times
of the colonization of New Mexico, a period of two centuries, in a
state of continual hostility with the numerous savage tribes of
Indians who surround their territory, and in constant insecurity of
life and property from their attacks, being also far removed from
the enervating influences of large cities, and, in their isolated
situation, entirely dependent upon their own resources, the
inhabitants are totally destitute of those qualities which, for the
above reasons, we might naturally have expected to distinguish
them, and are as deficient in energy of character and physical
courage as they are in all the moral and intellectual qualities. In
their social state but one degree removed from the veriest savages,
they might take a lesson even from these in morality and the
conventional decencies of life. Imposing no restraint on their
passions, a shameless and universal concubinage exists, and a total
disregard of morality, to which it would be impossible to find a
parallel in any country calling itself civilized. A want of
honorable principle, and consummate duplicity and treachery,
characterize all their dealings. Liars by nature, they are
treacherous and faithless to their friends, cowardly and cringing
to their enemies; cruel, as all cowards are, they unite savage
ferocity with their want of animal courage; as an example of which,
their recent massacre of Governor Bent, and other Americans, may be
given, one of a hundred instances."
These, Sir, are soon to be our beloved countrymen!
Mr. President, for a good many years I have struggled in opposition to
every thing which I thought tended to strengthen the arm of executive
power. I think it is growing more and more formidable every day. And I
think that by yielding to it in this, as in other instances, we give it
a strength which it will be difficult hereafter to resist. I think that
it is nothing less than the fear of executive power which induces us to
acquiesce in the acquisition of territory; fear, _fear_, and nothing
else.
In the little part which I have acted in public life, it has been my
purpose to maintain the people of the United States, what the
Constitution designed to make them, _one people_, one in interest, one
in character, and one in political feeling. If we depart from that, we
break it all up. What sympathy can there be between the people of Mexico
and California and the inhabitants of the Valley of the Mississippi and
the Eastern States in the choice of a President? Do they know the same
man? Do they concur in any general constitutional principles? Not at
all.
Arbitrary governments may have territories and distant possessions,
because arbitrary governments may rule them by different laws and
different systems. Russia may rule in the Ukraine and the provinces of
the Caucasus and Kamtschatka by different codes, ordinances, or ukases.
We can do no such thing. They must be of us, _part_ of us, or else
strangers.
I think I see that in progress which will disfigure and deform the
Constitution. While these territories remain territories, they will be a
trouble and an annoyance; they will draw after them vast expenses; they
will probably require as many troops as we have maintained during the
last twenty years to defend them against the Indian tribes. We must
maintain an army at that immense distance. When they shall become
States, they will be still more likely to give us trouble.
I think I see a course adopted which is likely to turn the Constitution
of the land into a deformed monster, into a curse rather than a
blessing; in fact, a frame of an unequal government, not founded on
popular representation, not founded on equality, but on the grossest
inequality; and I think that this process will go on, or that there is
_danger_ that it will go on, until this Union shall fall to pieces. I
resist it, to-day and always! Whoever falters or whoever flies, I
continue the contest!
I know, Sir, that all the portents are discouraging. Would to God I
could auspicate good influences! Would to God that those who think with
me, and myself, could hope for stronger support! Would that we could
stand where we desire to stand! I see the signs are sinister. But with
few, or alone, my position is fixed. If there were time, I would gladly
awaken the country. I believe the country might be awakened, although it
may be too late. For myself, supported or unsupported, by the blessing
of God, I shall do my duty. I see well enough all the adverse
indications. But I am sustained by a deep and a conscientious sense of
duty; and while supported by that feeling, and while such great
interests are at stake, I defy auguries, and ask no omen but my
country's cause!
[Footnote 1: Mr. Jefferson.]
[Footnote 2: Mr. Upshur.]
[Footnote 3: Mr. Tyler.]
[Footnote 4: Mr. Rusk.]
[Footnote 5: Mr. Rusk.]
[Footnote 6: Major Gaines.]