that England desires to colonize Texas. England could not make her a colony without certain war with this country, unless we should abandon the principle announced by Mr. Monroe in 1823, and which was enthusiastically hailed by the American people, that European nations shall no longer be permitted to plant colonies on our continent. No, sir, Texas will never become a colony of England, but she will form a commercial alliance with England; and to this we could not object under any principle of the law of nations. an alliance, in its consequences, would be equally injurious to our peace and prosperity.

Such

Permit me for a few moments to present this branch of the subject in its different aspects. The cotton manufacture is necessary not merely to the prosperity, but almost to the very existence, of England. Destroy it, and you ruin her prosperity. She well knows that she is necessarily dependent upon the nation which holds in its hands the raw material of this manufacture. Such is our position towards her at the present moment. To relieve herself from this dependence, she has endeavoured to promote the cultivation of cotton every where

throughout the world.

Brazil, Egypt and the

East Indies have all, in turns, been the theatre of her operations; but she has yet succeeded nowhere to any great extent. She has encountered difficulties in the soil or in the climate of these different countries which she has not been able to Texas is now presented to her, with a soil and a climate better adapted for the cultivation of cotton than any other region on the face of the earth. England would not be true to herself if she did not eagerly desire to form a commercial alliance with Texas.

overcome.

Now, sir, annex Texas to the United States, and we shall have within the limits of our broad confederacy all the favoured cotton growing regions of the earth. England will then for ever remain dependent upon us for the raw material of her greatest manufacture; and an army of one hundred thousand men would not be so great a security for preserving the peace between the two nations as this dependence.

It is the very condition of England's existence as a powerful and prosperous nation that she shall find consumers for her manufactures. The con

D

tinent of Europe is now, in a great degree, closed against them, and she is traversing sea and land, and exerting all her power, to open markets for them throughout the other quarters of the globe. A very long period of time must elapse even, if ever, before Texas can become a manufacturing nation. A commercial treaty will, then, be concluded between the two nations founded on their mutual interests, the basis of which will be free trade, so far as this may be possible. England will receive the cotton, sugar and other productions of Texas, whilst Texas, in return, will admit the manufactures of England. And I ask what could be more ruinous to all our interests than such a free trade convention between these two powers?

British manufactures will be admitted into Texas either entirely free or at a very low rate of duty; and a system of smuggling will be organized along our extended frontier which no vigilance can prevent, and which will greatly reduce our revenue and injure our domestic manufactures.

In arriving at the conclusion to support this treaty, I had to encounter but one serious obstacle,

and this was the question of Slavery. Whilst I ever have maintained, and ever shall maintain, in their full force and vigour, the constitutional rights of the southern States over their slave property, I yet feel a strong repugnance, by any act of mine, to extend the present limits of the Union over a new slave holding territory. After mature reflection, however, I overcame these scruples, and now believe that the acquisition of Texas will be the means of limiting, not enlarging, the dominion of slavery. In the government of the world, Providence generally produces great changes by gradual means. There is nothing rash in the counsels of the Almighty. May not, then, the acquisition of Texas be the drawing the slaves far to the south, to a climate more congenial to their nature; and may they not finally pass off into Mexico, and there mingle with a race where no prejudice exists against their colour? The Mexican nation is composed of Spaniards, Indians and Negroes, blended together in every variety, who would receive our slaves on terms of perfect social equality. To this condition they never can be admitted in the United States.

means of gradually

That the acquisition of Texas would ere long convert Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, and probably others of the more northern slave States into free States, I entertain not a doubt. In fact, public opinion was gradually accomplishing this happy result, when the process was arrested by the mad interference of the abolitionists. A measure, having directly in view the gradual abolition of slavery, came within one vote, if my memory serves me, of passing the House of Delegates of Virginia shortly before the abolition excitement commenced. There was then in that State a powerful, influential and growing party in favour of gradual Emancipation, and they were animated to exertion by the brightest hopes of success; but the interference of fanatics from abroad has so effectually turned back the tide of public opinion, that no individual would now venture to offer such a proposition in the Virginia legislature. The efforts of the abolitionists, whether so intended or not, have long postponed the day of emancipation.

But should Texas be annexed to the Union, causes will be brought into operation which must inevitably remove slavery from what may be called