it will be for this purpose; for certainly, if they meet for any purpose hostile to the Union, they have been singularly inappropriate in their selection of a place. I remember, sir, that when the treaty was concluded between France and England at the peace of Amiens, a stern old Englishman and an orator, who disliked the terms of the peace as ignominious to England, said in the House of Commons that if King William could know the terms of the treaty he would turn in his coffin. Let me commend the saying of Mr. Windham, in all its emphasis and in all its force, to any persons who shall meet at Nashville for the purpose of concerting meas ures for the overthrow of the Union of this country over the bones of Andrew Jackson.

Sir, I wish to make two remarks, and hasten to a conclusion. I wish to say, in regard to Texas, that if it should be hereafter at any time the pleasure of the Government of Texas to cede to the United States a portion, larger or smaller, of her territory which lies adjacent to New Mexico and north of the 34° of north latitude, to be formed into Free States, for a fair equivalent in money or in the payment of her debt, I think it an object well worthy the consideration of Congress, and I shall be happy to concur in it myself, if I should be in the public councils of the country at the time.

I have one other remark to make. In my observations upon slavery as it has existed in the country, and as it now exists, I have expressed no opinion of the mode of its extinguishment or amelioration. I will say, however, though I have nothing to propose on that subject, because I do not deem myself so competent as other gentlemen to consider it, that if any gentleman from the South shall propose a scheme of colonization, to be carried on by this Government upon a large scale, for the transportation of free colored people to any colony or any place in the world, I should be quite disposed to incur almost any degree of expense to accomplish that object. Nay, sir, following an example set here more than twenty years ago by a great man, then a Senator from New York, I would return to Virginia-and through her for the benefit of the whole South -the received from the lands and territories money ceded by her to this Government, for any such purpose as to relieve, in whole or in part, or in any way to diminish or deal beneficially with, the free colored population of the Southern States. I have said that I honor Virginia for her cession of this territory. There have been received into the treasury of the United States eighty millions of dollars, the proceeds of the sales of public lands ceded by Virginia. If the residue should be sold at the same rate, the whole aggregate will exceed two hundred millions of dollars. If Virginia and the South see fit to adopt any proposition to relieve themselves from the free people of color among them, they have my free consent that the Govern

ment shall pay them any sum of money out of its proceeds which may be adequate to the purpose.

And now, Mr. President, I draw these observations to a close. I have spoken freely, and I meant to do so. I have sought to make no display; I have sought to enliven the occasion by no animated discussion; nor have I attempted any train of elaborate argument; I have sought only to speak my sentiments fully and at large, being desirous once and for all to let the Senate know, and to let the country know, the opinions and sentiments which I entertain on all these subjects. These opinions are not likely to be suddenly changed. If there be any future service that I can render to the country consistently with these sentiments and opinions, I shall cheerfully render it. If there be not, I shall still be glad to have had an opportunity to disburden my conscience from the bottom of my heart, and to make known every political sentiment that therein exists.

And now, Mr. President, instead of speaking of the possibility or utility of secession, instead of dwelling in these caverns of darkness, instead of groping with those ideas so full of all that is horrid and horrible, let us come out into the light of day; let us enjoy the fresh airs of liberty and union; let us cherish those hopes which belong to us; let us devóte ourselves to those great objects that are fit for our consideration and our action; let us raise our conceptions to the magnitude and the importance of the duties that devolve upon us; let our comprehension be as broad as the country for which we act, our aspirations as high as its certain destiny; let us not be pigmies in a case that calls for men. Never did there devolve on any generation of men higher trusts than now devolve upon us for the preservation of this constitution, and the harmony and peace of all who are destined to live under it. Let us make our generation one of the strongest, and the brightest link in that golden chain which is destined, I fondly believe, to grapple the people of all the States to this Constitution, for ages to come. It is a great popular Constitutional Government, guarded by legislation, by law, by judicature, and defended by the whole affections of the people. No monarchical throne presses these States together; no iron chain of despotic power encircles them; they live and stand upon a Government popular in its form, representative in its character, founded upon principles of equality, and calculated, we hope, to last forever. In all its history it has been beneficent; it has trodden down no man's liberty; it has crushed no State. Its daily respiration is liberty and patriotism, its yet youthful veins are full of enterprise, courage and honorable love of glory and renown. Large before, the country has now, by recent events, become vastly larger. This republic now extends with a vast breadth, across the whole continent. The

two great seas of the world wash the one and the other shore. We realize on a mighty scale the beautiful description of the ornamental edging of the buckler of Achilles

"Now the broad shield complete the artist crowned, With his last hand, and poured the ocean round;

In living silver seemed the waves to roll,

And beat the buckler's verge, and bound the whole."

MR. CALHOUN. I rise to correct what I conceive to be an error of the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts as to the motives which induced the acquisition of Florida, Louisiana, and Texas. He attributed it to the great growth of cotton, and the desire of the Southern people to get an extension of territory, with the view of cultivating it with more profit than they could in a compact and crowded settlement. Now, Mr. President, the history of these acquisitions I think was not correctly given. It is well known that the acquisition of Florida was the result of an Indian war. The Seminole Indians residing along the line attacked one of our fortresses; troops were ordered out, they were driven back; and, under the command of General Jackson, Pensacola and St. Marks were seized. It was these acts, and not the desire for the extended cultivation of cotton, which led to the acquisition of Florida. I admit that there had been for a long time a desire on the part of the South, and of the Administration I believe, to acquire Florida, but it was very different from the reason assigned by the honorable Senator. There were collected together four tribes of Indians the Creeks, the Choctaws, the Chickasaws, and the Cherokees, about thirty thousand warriors-who held connexion, almost the whole of them, with the Spanish authorities in Florida, and carried on a trade perpetually with them. It was well known that a most pernicious influence was thus exercised over them; and it was the desire of preventing conflict between the Indians and ourselves in the South, as I believe, which induced the acquisition of Florida. I come now to Louisiana. We well know that the immediate cause for the acquisition of Louisiana was the suspension of our right of deposit at New Orleans. Under a treaty with Spain we had a right to the navigation of the river as far as New Orleans, and a right to make deposits in the port of New Orleans. The Spanish authorities interrupted that right, and that interruption produced a great agitation at the West, and I may say throughout the whole United States. The gentlemen then in opposition, a highly respectable party — the old Federal party, which I have never said a word of disrespect in regard to—if I mistake not, took the lead in a desire to resort to arms to acquire that territory. Mr. Jefferson, more prudent, desired to procure it by purchase. A purchase was inade, in order to remove the difficulty and to give an outlet to the West to the ocean. That was the immediate cause of the acquisition of Louisiana. Now, sir, we come to Texas. Perhaps no gentleman had more to do with the acquisition of Texas than myself; and I aver, Mr. President, that I would have been among the very last individuals in the United States to have made any movement at that time for the acquisition of Texas; and I go further, if I know myself, I was incapable of acquiring any territory simply on the ground that it was to be an enlargement of slave territory. I would just as freely have acquired it if it had been on the Northern as on the Southern side. No, sir, very different motives actuated me. I knew at a very early period I will not go into the history of it-the British Government had given encouragement to the abolitionists of the United States, who were represented at the World's Convention. The question of the abolition of slavery was agitated in that Convention. One gentleman stated that Mr. Adams informed him that if the British Government wished to abolish slavery in the United States they must begin with Texas. A commission was sent from this World's Convention to the British Secretary of State, Lord Aberdeen; and it so happened that a gentleman was present when the interview took place be

tween Lord Aberdeen and the Committee, who gave me a full account of it shortly after it occurred. Lord Aberdeen fell into the project, and gave full encouragement to the abolitionists.

Well, sir, it is well known that Lord Aberdeen was a very direct, and, in my opinion, a very honest and worthy man; and when Mr. Pakenham was sent here to negotiate with regard to Oregon, and incidentally with respect to Texas, he was ordered to read a declaration to this Government stating that the British Government was anxious to put an end to slavery all over the world, commencing at Texas. It is well known, further, that at that very time a negotiation was going on between France and England to accomplish that object, and our Government was thrown by stratagem out of the negotiation, and that object was first to incline Mexico to acknowledge the independence of Texas upon the ground that she would abolish it. All these are matters of history; and where is the man so blind I am sure the Senator from Massachusetts is not so blind as not to see that if the project of Great Britian had been successful, the whole frontier of the States of Louisiana and Arkansas and the adjacent States, would have been exposed to the inroads of British emissaries. Sir, so far as I was concerned, I put it exclusively upon that ground. I never would run into the folly of re-annexation which I always held to be absurd. Nor, sir, would I put it upon the ground which I might well have put it—of commercial and manufacturing considerations, because those were not my motive principles, and I chose to assign what were. So far as commerce and manufactures were concerned, I would not have moved in the matter at that early period.

The Senator objects that many Northern gentlemen voted for annexation. Why, sir, it was natural that they should be desirous of fulfilling the obligations of the constitution; and, besides, what man at that time doubted that the Missouri compromise line would be adopted, and that the territory would fall entirely to the South? All that Northern men asked for at that time was the extension of that line. Their course, in my opinion, was eminently correct and patriotic.

Now, Mr. President, having made these corrections, I must go back a little further and correct a statement which I think the Senator has left very defective, relative to the ordinance of 1787. He states very correctly that it commenced under the Old Confederation; that it was afterwards confirmed by Congress; that Congress was sitting in New York at the time, while the Convention sat in Philadelphia; and that there was concert of action. I have not looked into the ordinance very recently, but my memory will serve me thus far, that MR. JEFFERSON introduced his first proposition to exclude slavery in 1784. There was a vote taken upon it, and I think on that vote every Southern Senator voted against it; but I am not certain of it. One thing I am certain of, that it was three years before the ordinance could pass. It was sturdily resisted, down to 1787; and when it was passed, as I had good reason to believe, it was upon a principle of compromise; first, that the ordinance should contain a provision similar to the one put in the constitution with respect to fugitive slaves; and next, that it should be inserted in the constitution; and this was the compromise upon which the prohibition was inserted in the ordinance of 1787. We thought we had an indemnity in that, but we made a great mistake. Of what possible advantage has it been to us? Violated faith has met us on every side, and the advantage has been altogether in their favor. On the other side, it has been thrown open to a Northern population to the entire seclusion of the Southern. This was the leading measure which destroyed the compromise of the constitution, and then followed the Missouri compromise which was carried mainly by Northern votes, although now disavowed and not respected by them. That was the next step, and between these two causes the equilibrium has been broken.

Having made these remarks, let me say that I took great pleasure in listeniug to the declarations of the honorable Senator from Massachusetts upon several point. He puts himself upon the fulfilment of the contract of Congress in the resolutions of Texas annexation, for the admission of the four new States

provided for by those resolutions to be formed out of the Territory of Texas. All that was manly, statesmanlike, and calculated to do good, because just. He went further; he condemned, and rightfully condemned, and in that he has shown a great firmness, the course of the North relative to the stipulations of the constitution for the restoration of fugitive slaves; but permit me to say, for I desire to be candid upon all subjects, that if the Senator, together with many friends on this side of the chamber, puts his confidence in the bill which has been reported here, further to extend the laws of Congress upon this subject, it will prove fallacious. It is impossible to execute any law of Congress until the people of the States shall coöperate.

I heard the gentleman with great pleasure say that he would not vote for the Wilmot Proviso, for he regarded such an act unnecessary, considering that Nature had already excluded slavery. As far as the new acquisitions are concerned, I am disposed to leave them to be disposed of as the hand of Nature shall determine. It is what I have always insisted upon. Leave that portion of a country more natural to a non-slaveholding population to be filled by that description of population and leave that portion into which slavery would naturally go, to be filled by a slaveholding population-destroying artificial lines, though perhaps they may be better than none. Mr. Jefferson spoke like a prophet of the effect of the Missouri compromise line. I am willing to leave it for Nature to settle; and to organize governments for the Territories, giving all free scope to enter, and prepare themselves to participate in their privileges. We want, sir, nothing but justice. When the gentleman says he is willing to leave it to Nature, I understand he is willing to remove all impediments, whether real or imaginary. It is consummate folly to assert that the Mexican law, prohibiting slavery in California and New Mexico, is in force; and I have always regarded it so.

No man would feel more happy than myself to believe that this Union formed by our ancestors, should live forever. Looking back to the long course of forty years' service here, I have the consolation to believe that I have never done one act which would weaken it; that I have done full justice to all sections. And if I have ever been exposed to the imputation of a contrary motive, it is because I have been willing to defend my section from unconsti tutional encroachments. But I cannot agree with the Senator from Massachusetts that this Union cannot be dissolved. Am I to understand him that no degree of oppression, no outrage, no broken faith, can produce the destruction of this Union? Why, sir, if that becomes a fixed fact, it will itself become the great instrument of producing oppression, outrage, and broken faith. No, sir, the Union can be broken. Great moral causes will break it if they go on, and it can only be preserved by justice, good faith, and a rigid adherence to the constitution.

Mr. WEBSTER. Mr. President, a single word in reply to the honorable member from South Carolina. My distance from the honorable member and the crowded state of the room prevented me from hearing the whole of his remarks. I have only one or two observations to make; and, to begin, I first notice the honorable gentleman's last remark. He asks me if I hold the breaking up of the Union, by any such thing as the voluntary secession of States, as an impossibility. I know, sir, this Union can be broken up; every government can be; and I admit that there may be such a degree of oppression as will warrant resistance and a forcible severance. That is revolution. Of that ultimate right of revolution I have not been speaking. I know that that law of necessity does exist. I forbear from going further, because I do not wish to run into a discussion of the nature of this Government. The honorable member and myself have broken lances sufficiently often before on that subject.

Mr. CALHOUN. I have no desire to do it now.

Mr. WEBSTER. I presume the gentleman has not, and I have quite as little. The gentleman refers to the occasions on which these great acquisitions were made to territory on the Southern side. Why, undoubtedly wise and skilful public men, having an object to accomplish, may take advantage of occasions. Indian wars are an occasion; a fo the occupation of Texas hy the British