addresses testified to the zeal with which both parties entered into the contest. Nor was the spirit manifested at the South less vehement. In some parts of it-in South Carolina, for example, and perhaps elsewhere-the cry of "Texas, or Disunion," was openly raised, and warmly reiterated. Of the Northern States, Massachusetts had been promptly and decisively in the field, in its legislative capacity; and the tone of its resolutions, during successive years, before the question had been acted upon in Congress, and while it was in progress at Washington, may serve as an indication of the temper displayed by the more ardent opponents of the project. So early as in the legislative session of 1843, with a Democratic Governor in the chair, and a majority of Democrats in both branches of the General Court,1 a stand was taken on this subject, which, as an expression of the deliberate opinion of sober legislators, may be thought to afford a somewhat ominous intimation of disunion sentiment in the North. was, in fact, resolved:

It

(6 That, under no circumstances whatever, can the people of Massachusetts regard the proposition to admit Texas into the Union in any other light than as dangerons to its continuance in peace, in prosperity, and in the enjoyment of those blessings which it is the object of a free government to secure."

It is plain that the words italicised could have had reference to the domestic peace of the Union alone; an interpretation which is confirmed by the only construction of which the context appears to admit. Indeed, it could hardly have been said with any reason by the legislature, that "under no circumstances whatever" could the annexation take place without danger of foreign war, since it certainly was possible to effect that object by amicable arrangement. Nor could there be any thing in the measure dangerous to the internal peace of the Union, except at the will of those who passed this resolution, and of others at the North in sympathy with them; since the people of the South were understood to

That is the official style of the Legislature of Massachusetts, derived from a very early period.

LEGISLATIVE RESOLUTIONS IN MASSACHUSETTS.

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be very generally in favor of the measure, against which this emphatic and unqualified protest was pronounced. The Governor was requested to forward the resolution to the Senators and Representatives of Massachusetts in Congress, and to call upon them to spare no exertions to oppose and, if possible, to prevent the annexation; and also to send a copy to the Executive of each State. The spirit of "the people of Massachusetts," therefore, so far as they were truly represented by the legislature, was thus extensively made known in other States.

For reasons which doubtless seemed to him sufficient, and which may, perhaps, be inferred, Governor Morton did not affix his signature to this resolution; a fact which was af terwards called to notice on the floor of Congress; to which Mr. J. Q. Adams made reply, that "the resolution was introduced into the legislature by the leader of the Democratic party."

But if any doubt could remain as to the meaning of the Massachusetts Democrats, in the legislature of 1843, no such question could attend upon the more specific language employed by the Massachusetts Whigs, in the legislature of 1844. But, in the preamble to a resolution of a still later date (1847), the action of preceding legislatures is referred to, as having taken place on this subject, "with great unanimity;" so that the conclusion cannot but be justified, that both Democrats and Whigs in the legislature concurred in the general sentiment expressed on those several occasions. In the year 1844, the legislature, directing that the proceedings should be sent to Senators and Representatives in Congress, as usual, and to the Executives of the several States, in this instance with the approval of the Governor, solemnly

* *

Resolved, * That the project of the annexation of Texas, unless arrested on the threshold, may tend to drive these States into a dissolution of the Union.

The idea of the dissolution of the Union, therefore, as a consequence of the annexation in question, was contemplated

by the legislative assembly of Massachusetts, and was held out by it as a menace to the General Government, to prevent the consummation of the project. In later days, such action as this could hardly have failed to incur the imputation of "disloyalty;" and it affords, perhaps, one of the most emphatic examples possible of the assertion of "State Rights." As the time for the determination of this question drew nearer at hand, the spirit of the Massachusetts legislators proved to have become by no means abated in the interval. On the 22d day of February, 1845-whether the act was, or was not clothed with a more solemn sanction, by selecting for it the anniversary of the birth of the first great President from a slaveholding State-the Governor approved a further series of resolutions, passed with the usual formalities in regard to transmission to Congress and the Executives of other States. Their identity of character with those of a former date appears by the following extracts:

*

Resolved, * * And, as the powers of legislation, granted in the Constitution of the United States to Congress, do not embrace a case of the admission of a foreign state or foreign territory, by legislation, into the Union, such an act of admission would have no binding force whatever on the people of Massachusetts.

Right or wrong as these several successive demonstrations may have been, as a matter of principle, it is quite evident that they enunciated the assertion of the right of nullification and secession; and that, if followed out to their legitimate results, they could have received their practical application only on the "peacably, if we can; forcibly, if we must" doctrine of a former representative of the State in Congress. In a further resolution of the same series (1845), the real reason for the objection appears, as follows:

"That the people of Massachusetts will never consent to use the powers reserved to themselves to admit Texas, or any other state or territory now without the Union, on any other basis than the perfect equality of freemen. And that while slavery, or slave representation, forms any part of the claims or conditions of admission, Texas, with their consent, can never be admitted."

MR. TYLER AND MR. POLK.

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To a careful observer, there may appear to be a partial inconsistency between these several expressions of legislative determination. By the first of the latter two resolutions, the members declared that the admission of a foreign state or territory, by legislation, would have no binding force upon the people of Massachusetts; by the second, that, in spite of the Missouri Compromise, or any other consideration, they will never consent to the admission, by any mode whatever, of such state or territory, with slavery or slave representation. The implication certainly is, by comparison of the two resolves, that the admission of such state or territory, by some other mode than legislation, would be of constitutional obligation; yet that they will not consent to be bound by it, if slavery or slave representation constitute either of the conditions. The language in italic letters in the resolve last above cited is remarkable, as being an extraordinary claim for the reserved rights of the people of a State. But the right to admit States was not among those reserved, it having been especially granted to the Congress of the United States.

Notwithstanding this action of the General Court of Massachusetts, with that of the legislative assemblies of various other non-slaveholding States, the two Houses of Congress concurred in passing the alternative resolutions for the admission of Texas, on the 28th of the same month of February. Mr. Tyler adopted the mode of procedure by legislation, on the first of March, and despatched his messenger to Texas. Mr. Polk thought, perhaps, after his own inauguration, that the matter had gone too far to warrant the attempt to recall the agent of his predecessor, or that such a step might have an awkward influence upon party relations-at the best not too concordant at the time-and the affair was permitted to take its course. At the beginning of the next session of Congress, in December, 1845, a multitude of memorials, on the one side and the other of the question, were heaped upon its tables, together with the proceedings of the legislative assemblies of various States.

But Texas, in the mean time, had formally acceded to the terms proposed; and on the 10th of December, a joint resolution for its admission into the Union was reported, by committee, to the House, and it passed that body by a vote of yeas 141 to nays 57. On the 22d of December, which, as a noteworthy coincidence, happened to be the anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers at Plymouth, the Senate also adopted the resolution, by a vote of 31 yeas to 14 nays. Upon this final disposition of the question, the Southern Whigs acted in concert with the Southern and Northern Democrats. In the majority vote of the House, the names of Messrs. Johnson of Tennessee, Hamlin of Maine, and Davis of Mississippi, appear, in conjunction with those of such leading members of the Whig party as Messrs. Hilliard of Alabama, and Toombs and Stephens of Georgia. In the Senate, Messrs. Archer of Virginia, Berrien of Georgia, and Mangum of North Carolina, with their fellows, voted with Messrs. Calhoun of South Carolina, Cass of Michigan, Dickinson and Dix of New York, and other well-known members of the Democratic party.

It is certainly curious to trace the history of these State resolutions; because, however decided their phraseology, they often exert only a very temporary influence; and for another reason shortly to be noticed. It should be observed, that soon after Mr. Tyler's messenger was on his way to Texas, another series of resolves, directed especially against the President's action, passed the Legislature of Massachusetts, and was approved by the Governor, March 26th, 1845. These were entitled "Resolves concerning the admission of the slaveholding nation of Texas into the Union." They declared that Massachusetts refuses to acknowledge "the act of the Government of the United States, authorizing the admission of Texas, as a legal act," and promise every lawful exertion to annul and defeat it. They insist that no Territory ought to be admitted as a State, except on the condition that slavery shall "be utterly extinguished within its borders;" and that Massachusetts "denies the validity of