of remonstrances against the resolution itself; to which remonstrances were added, before the close of the session, resolutions severely reprobating it, adopted by the Legislature of Massachusetts.

*

In the mean time the conspiracy for the dismemberment of Mexico, the reinstitution of slavery in the dismembered portion of that Republic, and the acquisition, by purchase or by conquest, of the territory, to sustain, spread, and perpetuate, the moral and religious blessing of slavery in this Union, was in the full tide of successful experiment. The battle of San Jacinto had been nearly cotemporaneous with the gag-resolution of 26th May, 1836. It had prostrated the power of Mexico in Texas, and surrendered the President of the Mexican Confederacy a captive to the chief of the Texian insurrection. The grasping spirit of slaverestoring rapacity, far from being discouraged by the repugnance and disgust with which the Mexicans of all parties had repelled every proposition for the purchase of Texas, had enlarged the dimensions of the coveted territory, till it comprehended not only the whole course of the Rio del Norte, including Santa Fe, but had taken a sweep of five degrees of latitude across the continent, to include the convenient port of San Francisco, on the Pacific ocean. The constitution of the Republic of Texas had consecrated the blessing of Eternal Slavery, by interdicting even to their Legislature the power of emancipation. Mexico was amused with a new convention for surveying and marking the boundary line, and with promises of neutrality between her and Texas. General Gaines was authorized to invade the territory of Mexico. An Envoy Extraordinary was sent from Mexico in solemn mission to Washington, to complain of these proceedings; in return for which, after refusing all satisfaction for this act of war, a thundering message was on the 6th of February, 1837, sent by the President of the United States to Congress, trumping up a bundle of individual claims and petty vexations, well or ill founded, and most of them traceable to the popular resentment and hatred excited by this double-dealing policy on our own part, and recommending a last solemn mission to Mexico to demand satisfaction for these wrongs, and then an authority to the Executive to make reprisals.

Simultaneous with this movement was another, by which, against the grave and cautious warnings of prudence, and justice, and neutrality, by repeated Executive messages, the recognition of the independence of Texas was, on the last day of the session and of the Jackson Administration, smuggled through both Houses of Congress, and approved by the President, in the form of an appropriation for a diplomatic func

* See letter from Mr. Forsyth to Anthony Butler, of 6th August, 1835.

tionary, who on that same midnight hour was nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate of the United States.

This measure, thus precipitated for the purpose of hastening, and facilitating the annexation of Texas to this Union, was, in the wise and just decrees of Providence, destined to raise, perhaps, the most effective obstacles to its consummation. Just before the warlike message of the 7th of February, the captive Mexican President had been released by his Texian conqueror, and sent to Washington, to negotiate in person the cession by Mexico of Texas to the United States of the North. This negotiation, which commenced by correspondence in writing, apparently failed only because the Mexican Congress had formally decreed and notified a total suspension of his official powers during his captivity. The acquisition of Texas by purchase from Mexico having thus become desperate, the next step towards obtaining it was by acknowledging the independence of Texas, and at the same time fretting the people of this Union into a war with Mexico, making with Texas a common cause against her, and thus extorting by conquest what it had been found impracticable to obtain by negotiation. And when once engaged with Texas against Mexico, the annexation of the new slave-ridden Republic to this Union was foreseen as bearing upon us with a pressure which nothing could resist.

But it was essential to the success of this system of policy, that it should continue to be pursued by indirect means and with a double face. Immediately after the formal recognition of Texas as an independent State, the Legislature of that Republic, instructed by the People, directed their President (Houston) to make application to the Government of the United States for admission to this Union. This application was accordingly made, by a Minister Plenipotentiary, Mr. Memucan Hunt, precisely at the time of the meeting of Congress at their special session in September, 1837. The proposal had been made by a note from Mr. Hunt dated the 4th of August, and declined by the answer of the Secretary of State, Mr. Forsyth, on the 25th of that month, only one week before the meeting of Congress. No notice whatever of this transaction was taken by President Van Buren in his message to Congress of the 1st of September; nor would the nation have known that such a negotiation existed, but for a call by the House of Representatives, on the 13th of September, upon the President, for information whether a proposition had been made, on the part of the Republic of Texas, for annexation; and, if so, what answer had been returned thereto.

By another call, on the same 13th of September, the House had required of the President, as far as might be consistent with the public interest, an exhibition of the correspondence with the Mexican Govern

ment concerning the boundary between the United States and Mexico, and concerning any proposition for a cession of territory from the Mexican Confederation to the United States. In answer to this call, a scanty communication was returned of correspondence relating to the boundary, from which all the despatches of our diplomatic officers accredited to the Mexican Government were withheld, on the avowed ground that they came within the exception conceded in the call. From the report of the Secretary of State (Mr. Forsyth) to the President, accompanying the documents communicated in answer to this call, it appeared, further, that of the only direct and formal argumentative proposal ever addressed to the Mexican Government, urging a change of boundary from the Sabine, and contained in a note from Mr. Butler to the Mexican Secretary of State, of 15th July, 1832, no copy was ever transmitted by him to the Department of State, and that there is no draught or record of it in the archives of the legation of the United States at Mexico.

The answer of the Secretary of State to the proposal of Mr. Memucan Hunt of the annexation of Texas to the United States, though formally negative, was in nowise discouraging to the new Republic. There was a very distinct avowal, that so long as Texas should remain at war, while the United States should be at peace with her adversary, they could not listen to the proposition for annexation. A profound reverence for their treaty obligations to Mexico was professed, contrasting rather humorously with the late President's call for powers of contingent reprisals six months before, and with the militant message of President Van Buren three months later. A constitutional scruple as to the power of Congress to annex the People of a foreign independent State to the Union was "just hinted," but by no means in terms so strong as Mr. Jefferson had used to disclaim the power of Congress to merge the People of Louisiana into the mass of the People of the United States, under the charter of national independence. It would, indeed, have been impossible to express a refusal in terms better suited to be construed into assent, than was exemplified in the answer of Mr. Forsyth to Mr. Hunt.

But the extraordinary obliquity of the proceedings of the federal Executive, in their relations with Mexico and Texas, had at length roused the anxious attention of the free People of the Union. It was generally known, though in no authentic form, that President Jackson had, from the commencement of his administration, been constantly stimulated by slave-dealers, land-jobbers, and speculators, to the acquisition of Texas, till he had been deluded into the belief that it would be the crowning glory of his administration. No communication of this intention was ever made by him to Congress; on the contrary, a system

of mystery and of secresy had been constantly adhered to by him on the subject, to such an extent that a resolution, offered on the 17th of May, 1836, and repeated on the 24th of the same month, in the House of Representatives of the United States, calling for information concerning any overture by him to the Mexican Government for the acquisition of any portion of their territory, was twice evaded by the influence and votes of his most devoted partisans. The interminable negotiations, incessantly renewed and never concluded, with Mexico, for surveying and drawing the line of boundary stipulated by the treaty of 1819, and recognised time after time by both parties; the sympathetic and corresponding movements of the Texian insurrection and of the North American Executive Administration; the importunate eagerness of the slave representation, combined with the Texian land-jobbing interest, in Congress, to precipitate the recognition of Texas; and perhaps more than all, the inadvertent disclosure of the authority to General Gaines to invade the Mexican territory—an outrage no less upon the war-declaring power, reserved by the constitution to Congress, than upon the laws of peace with a neighboring nation-had excited in the States consisting only of freemen a very extensive alarm. At the special session of Congress, besides the anti-slavery petitions, far more numerous than they had ever been before, there were presented multitudes specially remonstrating against the annexation of Texas. They were all easily disposed of at that session, by a resolution of the House discarding from consideration all subjects other than those specially recommended by the message of the President. All petitions and memorials upon every other subject were therefore laid, of course, upon the table, to be taken up in order at the regular session.

At that session the anti-slavery petitioners and remonstrants were increased to a number exceeding two hundred thousand.

On the 20th of December, 1837, Mr. SLADE, of Vermont, moved that a petition of upwards of five hundred men and women, citizens of that State, which had been presented by him, should be referred to a select committee, with instruction to report a bill providing for the abolition of slavery and the slave trade in the District of Columbia.

While Mr. SLADE was supporting this motion, in the regular course of debate, a question of order was made by a member of the slave representation from South Carolina; and, by an arbitrary decision of the Speaker, Mr. SLADE was pronounced out of order. Most of the members of the slave representation left their seats and the House; and, at the moment of the adjournment, a verbal notice was given by another member from South Carolina, that a meeting was then assembled in one

of the committee-rooms of the Capitol, at which the members from the slaveholding States were requested to attend.

This meeting, in which no member from a non-slaveholding State was admitted to participate, but in which the members of the slave representation in the Senate took part in common with those of the House, prepared and adopted a gag-resolution, in substance the same with that of the two preceding annual sessions; and they appointed Mr. PATTON, a member of the House from Virginia, to present it to the House, and at the same time to move the previous question upon its adoption. It was accordingly presented to the House the next day, admitted by a suspension of the rules, debarred from all deliberation by the previous question, and carried by yeas and nays, 122 to 74; of which majority 51 members were from non-slaveholding States, who received and voted for this resolution, as dictated by the Southern conventicle of Senators and Representatives, without having been permitted to share in the deliberations of the meeting by which it had been prescribed.

From thenceforward, all petitions, memorials, and papers, relating to the abolition of slavery or the slave trade, were laid on the table, without being debated, printed, read, or referred; and under that order about two hundred thousand petitioners were refused a hearing by the House. This resolution was understood not to include the petitions, remonstrances, and memorials, against the annexation of Texas to the Union; but as most of these did touch the abolition of slavery, and the buying, selling, and transferring of slaves, whenever any such paper was presented, some slave Representative moved it should be laid on the table, which motion the standing majority of the House always sustained; and thus summarily were the prayers of about one hundred thousand more petitioners disposed of.

Resolutions of the Legislature of the State of Rhode Island, remonstrating against the annexation of Texas, were presented on the 29th of December, and laid on the table. They were not printed on the Journal of the House, as by a practice without exception till then had always been done.

On the same day, a petition from inhabitants of Newport, in the State of New Hampshire, was presented, praying Congress to recognise the independence of Hayti. It was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, who never reported upon it at all.

The resolutions from the Legislature of the State of Vermont were presented on the 14th of February. They not only protested against the annexation of Texas to the Union, but declared that Congress have: full power to abolish slavery and the slave trade in the District of