not even to entertain such a proposition in the present stato of the controversy. If we admit Texas into our Union while Mexico is still waging war against that province with a view to re-establish her supremacy over it, we shall, by the very act itself, make ourselves a party to the war; nor can we take this step without incurring this heavy responsibility until Mexico herself shall recognize the independence of her revolted province." And now, disunion being at the bottom, this gentleman is the first to step forth, in the absence of that recognition on the part of Mexico, and while our Executive is complaining in his annual messages of the savage and inhuman war carried on by that power against Texas, which he thinks we ought to put a stop to, he steps forward and proposes to take it, nolens volens, by the simple adoption of a joint resolution, as if it were a matter of no more moment than the payment of a messenger's wages. It serves well to show the degeneracy of the times and of our people. A few years back, and such a proposition would have aroused the indignation of all men of all parties; and he who would have presented it would have been regarded as little short of a madman, and the party that would have entertained it would have been overwhelmed with popular resentment. Well might Mr. Gallatin have expressed his surprise that such a mode of acquiring Texas could have entered into the imagination of man.

But again, at a more recent period, you find this able and most skillful and accomplished negotiator and diplomatist, who has done nothing but blunder and stumble on like a blind horse over plowed ground ever since he has been in the department, whose sensibilities have been so much shocked at the bare presentation of abolition petitions from members of this confederacy as to propose at one time to the whole Southern delegation in Congress to retire from.

the halls of Congress, and thus by violence dismember the government, you find him throwing wide the whole question of domestic slavery, and not only authorizing but inviting the interference and co-operation of the French government in the treaty or other new-fangled mode of annexation, for the purpose of perpetuating the blessings and advantages of slavery. Now, if it bo conceded by our gov ernment that France may rightfully interfere, I pray to know upon what principle of civil or international law the same right can be denied to Great Britain, whose pretended designs upon this question were made the first pretext for immediate, instantaneous annexation, or slavery was to be abolished and Southern interests destroyed? And why is this interference on the part of France with our peculiar fireside domestic rights courted and entreated, but that it may lead to an interference on the part of Great Britain for its destruction; and which may lead, by their natural sympathics and affinities, to a co-operation between the Abolitionists of the North and that government that would tend to unite more closely the sympathies and interests of the South, lead to a division of the empire, and annexation with Texas? This I believe to be the design, and this, I fear, will be the result, if this Texas humbug is not speedily and decisively settled by the good sense of our countrymen. Upon no other view of the subject can the weakness and puerility-I should say madness-of his diplomatic corrcspondence bo accounted for.

But apart from all this, apart from Mexican rights, the national honor, the integrity of the Union, what are the advantages that we are to derive from the annexation of Texas? We already see that our negotiator and his confederates have placed us in a position toward Mexico that we can not escape a war without dishonor to the executive

branch of the government, and we can not get into one without disgrace to the nation. But let that terminate as it may, what, I ask, are the advantages to be derived from such annexation, even with the assent of Mexico? Is not our.territory already sufficiently capacious to contain our population? Are our millions of unsold public lands, which must sooner or later inure to the benefit of the states, to whom it belongs, to be surrendered or rendered valueless in order to satisfy the demands of speculators in Texas lands or Texas scrip, or to favor the views of political tradesmen? Are we to depreciate the land of the old states (in Virginia, for example) and depopulate our state to people Texas? Are we to despoil it of the most active, industrious, and useful portion of its population, by holding out an invitation and inducement to the energetic and enterprising young men of the state to seek adventures and fortunes in a new country? Are we to plunder our treasury to pay the debts of Texas-at a time, too, when the credit of our states is dishonored? Are we so harmonious in our councils now as to make occasion for new difficulties and new strife? Is our legislation so satisfactory to all parts of the present Union that we should desire to extend its influence, diversify still more the interests to be cared for, and introduce among us an additional number of disaffected disorganizers and repudiationists? Are we to open still wider the door to fraud and corruption, not by the introduction of individual foreigners, but of a foreign nation? When it has become an interesting and a prominent question whether we shall restrict or prohibit entirely all future naturalization, is it expedient to naturalize two hundred thousand at a batch-seven tenths of whom, no doubt, have the same leveling and destructive propensities common to too many of our own people? Have we not, as a nation, deteriorated

in morality sufficiently in the last sixteen years, without the introduction of Texas adventurers among us?

EFFORTS TO EXTEND SLAVERY.

Up to this period secession had made but little perceptible progress. But the archfiend of secession, Mr. Tyler's Secretary of State (Mr. Calhoun), took good care, as you will perceive, to see that the extension of slavery should constitute a prominent feature in the foreground of the negotiation, as a great and momentous issue, upon the result of which the safety and existence of Southern institutions was to depend. He openly proclaimed that the great object of the annexation was for the expansion of slave territory, and consequent increase and continuance of power to the Democracy of the South, and this it was, as I had it from his own lips, that first drove John Quincy Adams into the ranks of the Abolition party. I was at that time in Washington, contesting the scat of the late John W. Jones. Mr. Adams had made a speech, in which ho had given utterance to sentiments on the subject of slavery which did not correspond with the views he had been supposed to entertain; for up to that time he had made himself obnoxious to the Abolition party in his district, and they had on several occasions brought forward an Abolition candidate against him.

Upon the adjournment of the IIouse wo walked down together, and I took occasion to refer to his remarks (which I do not now precisely recollect), and said I thought he did not mean to say all that his language could imply. "Yes," he replied, "I said it deliberately and purposely." "But," said I, “Mr. Adams, you are not an Abolitionist." "Yes, I am," said he; "I never have been one until now; but when I see the Constitution of my country struck down by

the South for such purposes as are openly avowed, no alternative is left me; I must oppose them with all the means within my reach; I must fight the devil with his own fire; and, to do this effectually, I am obliged to co-operate with the Abolition party, who have been hateful to me heretofore. If the South," he continued, "had consulted her true interests, and followed your counsels on the 21st rule and on this Texas question, their institutions would never have been endangered by the North; but if matters are to take the shape foreshadowed by Mr. Calhoun and others of the Democratic party, then no one can foretell what may be the consequences."

Much more conversation of a similar nature passed between us before we separated; but this is enough to show what influences operated on him, and, through him, on a large portion of the North, over which he exercised moro influence than any other living man.

In this connection, and as farther proof, I attach an extract from an editorial of the Charleston Courier (at a later period), the mouth-piece and organ of the whole secession school of politicians, which of itself plainly shows that the purposes and ends of this war was to perpetuate the power of Southern Democracy: "Every battle fought in Mexico, and every dollar spent there, but insures the acquisition of territory which must widen the field of Southern enterprise and power in future. And the final result will be to re-adjust the balance of power in the confederacy so as to give us control over the operations of government in all time to come." This was the only kind of" balance of power" they ever sought-a balance all on one side.

Such a declaration Mr. Calhoun well knew would unavoidably engender an embittered sectional contest, which would necessarily, as it did, more and more unite and ce