Part 64 (1/2)

”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 dest.i.tute 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 pa.s.sions, 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 ma.s.sacre 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 Const.i.tution 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 const.i.tutional 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 Const.i.tution. 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 Const.i.tution 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 G.o.d I could auspicate good influences! Would to G.o.d 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 G.o.d, 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.]

EXCLUSION OF SLAVERY FROM THE TERRITORIES.

REMARKS MADE IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, ON THE 12TH OF AUGUST, 1848.

[In the course of the first session of the Thirtieth Congress, a bill pa.s.sed the House of Representatives to organize a government for the Territory of Oregon. This bill received several amendments on its pa.s.sage through the Senate, and among them one moved by Mr. Dougla.s.s of Illinois, on the 10th of August, by which the eighth section of the law of the 6th of March, 1820, for the admission of Missouri, was revived and adopted, as a part of the bill, and declared to be ”in full force, and binding, for the future organization of the territories of the United States, in the same sense and with the same understanding with which it was originally adopted.”

This, with some of the other amendments of the Senate, was disagreed to by the House. On the return of the bill to the Senate, a discussion arose, and continued for several days, on the question of agreement or disagreement with the amendments of the House to the Senate's amendments.

The princ.i.p.al subject of this discussion was whether the Senate would recede from the above-mentioned amendment moved by Mr. Dougla.s.s, which was finally decided in the affirmative. In these discussions, a considerable portion of which was of a conversational character, Mr.

Webster took a leading part; but of most of what was said by him, as by other Senators, no report has been preserved. The session of the Senate at which the last and most animated discussion of this subject took place, nominally on Sat.u.r.day of the 12th of August, was prolonged till ten o'clock, A.M., of Sunday, the 13th. In the course of the debate on this day Mr. Webster spoke as follows.]

I am very little inclined to prolong this debate, and I hope I am utterly disinclined to bring into it any new warmth or excitement. I wish to say a few words, however, first, upon the question as it is presented to us, as a parliamentary question; and secondly, upon the general political questions involved in the debate.

As a question of parliamentary proceeding, I understand the case to be this. The House of Representatives sent us a bill for the establishment of a territorial government in Oregon; and no motion has been made in the Senate to strike out any part of that bill. The bill purporting to respect Oregon, simply and alone, has not been the subject of any objection in this branch of the legislature. The Senate has proposed no important amendment to this bill, affecting Oregon itself; and the honorable member from Missouri[1] was right, entirely right, when he said that the amendment now under consideration had no relation to Oregon. That is perfectly true; and therefore the amendment which the Senate has adopted, and the House has disagreed to, has no connection with the immediate subject before it. The truth is, that it is an amendment by which the Senate wished to have now a public, legal declaration, not respecting Oregon, but respecting the newly acquired territories of California and New Mexico. It wishes now to make a line of slavery, which shall include those new territories. The amendment says that the line of the ”Missouri Compromise” shall be the line to the Pacific, and then goes on to say, in the language of the bill as it now stands, that the Ordinance of 1787 shall be applicable to Oregon; and therefore I say that the amendment proposed is foreign to the immediate object of the bill. It does nothing to modify, restrain, or affect, in any way, the government which we propose to establish over Oregon, or the condition or character of that government, or of the people under it. In a parliamentary view, this is the state of the case.

Now, Sir, this amendment has been attached to this bill by a strong majority of the Senate. That majority had the right, as it had the power, to pa.s.s it. The House disagreed to that amendment. If the majority of the Senate, who attached it to the bill, are of opinion that a conference with the House will lead to some adjustment of the question, by which this amendment, or something equivalent to it, may be adopted by the House, it is very proper for them to urge a conference.