SPEECH
OF
MR. PEARCE, OF MARYLAND,
ON
THE BILL PLACING THREE MILLIONS OF DOLLARS AT THE
DISPOSAL OF THE PRESIDENT TO NEGOTIATE A TREATY
OF
PEACE AND LIMITS WITH MEXICO.
DELIVERED IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, MARCH 1, 1847.
WASHINGTON :
PRINTED BY JOHN T. TOWERS.
1847.
SPEECH
OF
MR. PEARCE, OF MARYLAND,
ON
THE THREE MILLION BILL.
Mr. PEARCE said : It is with great reluctance that I rise to
take part in this debate. Deeply important as the subject is, it has been
discussed so thoroughly, and so much at length, that I am quite sensible
of the difficulty of engaging the waning interest of the Senate. I do not
mean, therefore, to go at large into the subject, which, in general, may
be said to be exhausted. My chief purpose is a special one, and will
not consume much of the Senate's time. It is, to use a phrase employed
by the Senator from Missouri on another occasion, to vindicate the truth
of history. It may seem rash in me, sir, to oppose my opinions and researches to those of the Senator from Louisiana, (Mr. SOULE,) whose
character and position give so much authority to what he has said on this
subject. But my examination of it has led me to conclusions so entirely
opposite to those which he annnounced with all the confidence of undoubted certainty, that I am compelled to state the facts and reasoning by which
I have been led to a different result. It is not, indeed, of importance to
the decision of the questions presented by this bill to inquire what Eu
ropean power first discovered and colonized Texas—whether Spain had
an actual or constructive occupancy of it from the treaty of 1762, which
ceded Louisiana to Spain, or whether it was, in fact and of right, a part
of Louisiana. It may be a more important question whether the province
of Texas extended to the Rio Bravo, or was limited by the Nueces river.
But it has been so often said that our recent acquisition of Texas was
only a re-annexation of it to the United States, only bringing back into
the Union what had been wrongfully divorced from it, that many honept
people in the country have come to believe that this is an indisputable
and acknowledged fact ; and even the President assumed it in his message
to Congress at the commencement of the present session. Sir, the Senator from Missouri, in a speech which he delivered in the Senate in the
summer of 1844, gave us the key to this perpetual cry of re-annexation.
He said that Demosthenes once advised the Athenians to re-take a certain
city, and that in the little monosyllable " RE" lay all the virtue which rescued the act from the imputation of spoliation and robbery. I cannot
permit this error to be repeated now, however honestly, without such contradiction as I am able to give. In the reported speech of the Senator
from Louisiana I find the following passages :
-
"These matters have for three or four years past occupied a considerable portion of
public at ention ; and yet, sir, there are many mat ers con ected with the history of this
province with which, perhaps, the people of the United States are not yet thoroughly
acquainted. Texas was but during the short space of thirty-eight years under the same
dominion as Mexico, and that period was from 1762, the time of the formation of the
4
civil treaty of Versailles, up to 1800. Before that time never did Spain presume that it
had any title, any shadow of right, to the territory of Texas. How did Texas stand
then? Why, sir, as early as 1685, we find the bold and chivalrous La Salle planting the
flag of his country on the west side of the Guadaloupe, and taking possession of the whole
territory upon the right and upon the left of Matagorda bay. Where was the last settlement of Mexico at that time? It was upon the western side of the river Panuco, not
far from San Luis Potosi, as far from the river Guadeloupe as the Mississippi was from
that river ; and, sir, from that day up to 1800, never was a map known where that province was not designated as a part of new France, the whole province extending to the
southern side of the Rio Bravo Del Norte."
*
*
" In 1819 the treaty of Florida took place, and Spain was again put in possession, or,
at least, in constructive possession, (for she never was in actual possession of an inch of
the ground of that territory,) but she was again put into constructive possession of Texas."
These statements of the Senator I propose to controvert, with all courtesy to him, but with the confidence of earnest conviction. I say then,
sir, that Spain first discovered Texas, and first colonized it ; that she
stamped the impress of her power and her language on the province ; that
she gave to the country itself a name from her own language, as she did
to its bays, rivers, ports, and towns ; that Spain sent missions into Texas,
erected forts, built towns, settled colonies, and occupied every spot in
it which was known to civilization ; that her troops traversed it in all
directions, and enforced her power over it against France, at all times ;
that it was governed, at all times prior to the Mexican revolution, by
Spanish Governors, who, in various forms, and at different times, before
1762, made known to the French Colonial authority that it was considered
a part of, or as attached to, the Vice Royalty of Mexico. On the other
hand, I say that France never had any settlement in Texas, if we except
the accidental and temporary establishment made by La Salle in 1685,
which totally disappeared in the next two years, and was never renewed,
nor attempted to be renewed, until thirty-five years afterwards, and then
the attempt was a signal and ridiculous failure. France colonized no part
of Texas, built no forts there, established no missions, exercised no control over the aboriginal Indians, nor performed any of those acts of power
or sovereignty, necessary to give validity even to a title which was rightful
in its inception.
It is true that France set up a claim to all Texas, as far as the Rio
Bravo del Norte, as part of Louisiana, and that her writers and map.
makers generally asserted this claim. But it was a barren claim, never
matured and ripened into a right, by those acts which, according to the
publicists, are necessary to secure the fruits of discovery, that is to say,
settlement and cultivation ; while Spain as constantly, and far more
vigorously, asserted and maintained her title. "Infinitely more active and
vigorous was the claim which the Kings of England, the Edwards and
Henrys, pretended to the sovereignty of France itself. For centuries they
styled themselves Kings of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, and maintained this unjust pretension by force of arms, by long and bloody wars
of invasion and conquest, until one of them was at last crowned at Paris.
But history is challenged for the proof of any active or successful effort
on the part of France to give efficacy to her claim to Texas. In the
investigation of this subject, I shall be compelled to refer to authorities to
vindicate the position which I have assumed, but I shall be as brief as
possible. I shall not rely upon partisan writers, upon diplomatic advocates, or the ex parte statements of mere politicians ; I shall draw the
facts on which I place reliance from historians of acknowledged authority—
from such as were as nearly as possible cotemporary with the events
5
of which they write—from such as may be supposed to have leaned to the
side of France and the United States—from Charlevoix, the Jesuit, who
was in Louisiana while it was yet an infant settlement—from the Count
de Vergennes, the Minister of Louis XVI—from Barbé Marbois, who
was a Minister of Napoleon—and from an illustrious citizen of Louisiana, I
mean the late Chief Justice of that State, Francis Xavier Martin, who, to
distinguished judicial learning, united the highest reputation for public purity
and historic impartiality. Now, sir, what are the facts, as we learn from
these sources ? As early as 1538, Hernandez de Soto, by the authority of
Charles I, of Spain, landed, at what is now called Tampa Bay, the largest
military force, perhaps, which had then been employed in the subjugation
of the Indians of North America—nine hundred foot and three hundred
and fifty horse. With this force he traversed Florida, the western parts
of Georgia, Tennessee, and even southern Kentucky. In 1539 he reach
sissippi, a little below the last Chickasaw Bluff,
ed the left bank of the Mis
crossed the river, marched up and down its Western bank, almost constantly in conflict with the natives, and finally died at the mouth of Red
River. His successor, Muscoso, in the hope of reaching Mexico by land,
conducted the shattered remnants of his army up the Red River, through
that part of the country called Nachitoches and Nacogdoches, probably,
says Martin, into that part of the country now called the Province of
Texas. He proceeded until he reached the foot of a mountainous country,
when he determined to retrace his steps. He accordingly returned to the
Mississippi, and passed-the winter and spring of 1542 at the mouth of Red
River, engaged in the construction of vessels to convey his men to Mexico. In these vessels he floated down the Mississippi, and coasted along
the shores of Louisiana and Texas, until he arrived at Panuco. Such was
the original discovery of the Mississippi and of Texas, by subjects of Spain,
under the authority of the crown. The rights which this discovery gave
to Spain were forfeited by abandonment ; and for nearly a century and a
half this whole region remained unknown to civilization, and in the possession of those who had the only good title to it—the aboriginal inhabitants. In 1681, La Salle, crossing the land from the Lakes to the Illinois,
re-discovered the Mississippi, and descending it, traced it to its mouth, in
the Gulf of Mexico. Then he retraced his way to Canada. In 1684,
having procured the royal authority and advances from the King's trea
sury, he sailed from France, with a squadron of four vessels, with the
purpose of founding a French colony on the banks of the Mississippi.
For two weeks after making the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, they sought
in vain for the mouth of the Great River. At last they landed on the
coast of Texas, on what is now called St. Bernard's Bay. At the western
extremity of this bay, La Salle built a fort, and soon after he made another
settlement some miles up a river,now believed to be the Colorado of Texas.
His object still was to discover the Mississippi, and found his colony
there. After various attempts and failures and losing his last ship, La
return to France by the way of Canada, and leaving
Salle determine
his settlement on Guadaloupe, he set out in 1687 in this last expedition,
and was murdered on the route by his own men. Four only of his party
reached the Mississippi, and made their way to Quebec. In the course
of another year the settlement on the Colorado was entirely destroyed by
famine, by Indian hostilities, or by a Spanish force. In the fact of its
destruction all the historians agree ; but they differ as to the agency of
the Spaniards in the deed. Martin says, that the Viceroy of Mexico, in
pursuance of standing instructions from the King of Spain, (Philip II,)
,
6
which enjoined the extermination of all foreignrs ewho might penetrate
the Gulf of Mexico, and having heard of La Salle's settlement, formed
an expedition at Coahuila, to scour the country, and hunt out the French
colonists. That Alonzo de Leon, who commanded this expedition, found
the site of the French Colony, but no traces of the colonists.* The Count
de Vergennes, in his memoir of Louisiana, says : " That the Spaniards
made prisoners of all the French, loaded them with irons, and drove them
to the mines of Mexico, in whose subterranean abysses they perished."
The fact is indisputable that the Spaniards sought the destruction of this
settlement as an encroachment on the territories claimed by them—that
it was destroyed in about two years after its accidental establishment ;
and that never afterwards was it restored by France. Indeed it was not
until thirty-five years afterwards that any attempt was made by the French
to re-settle St. Bernard's bay, and that attempt,as will be seen, was scarcely
worthy of the name. On the other hand, Alonzo de Leon traversed the
country with Spanish troops before the return of his expedition to Coahuila, giving to the Indians whom he met with the name of Texas, or
friends, which afterwards became the name of the Colony. In a few
years after, says Martin, the Spaniards sent missionaries into this part of
the country, and afterwards established military posts or presidios among
the Indians, which " were the beginning of the Spanish settlements in
the province of Texas." For twelve years after the death of La Salle,
France attempted no further settlement in Louisiana ; and never, at any
time afterwards, did she exercise any authority, or found any establishment in any part of the country called Texas ; while Spain sent out her
missionaries, built her forts, settled her colonies, and exercised such
authority as was usual in remote countries so little known to civilization.
In 1699, the second French expedition under Iberville, settled at the Bay
of Biloxi. In 1700, while Iberville was exploring the Mississippi, the
Spanish Commandant of Pensacola appeared before the fort at Biloxi in
a ship of war, with the purpose of driving the French from their settlement. This purpose was defeated by the superior force of the French.
The Spanish Commandant contented himself with delivering to the Count
de Surgeres a solemn protest against the occupation by the French of
terioswhclamdbeongithVc-RyalofMexi.
Subsequently the grant to was made, and the French pushed their
settlements up the Mississippi and the Red River, thus securing their title to the valley of the Mississippi. Long before this period the Spaniards had settled on the banks of the Rio Bravo, and at the time of which
I speak, their most southern post on that river was the Presidio del Norte.
In 1714, the French sent St. Dennys overland to the Del Norte to open a
trade with Mexico. Their object, says Martin, was also to check the progress of the Spaniards, who were preparing to advance their settlements in
Texas to the neighborhood of Nachitoches. Father Charlevoix tells us,
that the motive of the French settlements on Red River, was the neighborhood of the Spaniards ; he says "the Nachit are settled on the
Red River, and we have judged it convenient to bud a fort among them,
to hinder the Spaniards from settling nearer us." In his history of New
France, Charlevoix says, scarcely was this fort finished, when du Tirné
was informed that the Spaniards had made an establishment among the
Assinnais Indians, and that there was every reason to believe, that there
*Memoire sur la Louisianè par M. de Vergennes, 132 ; Martin's History of Louisiana,
126, 127.
7
project was to push on to the Mississippi, if not prevented, which obliged
the Governor of Louisiana to reinforce the garrison of Fort Nachitoches.*
In this first expedition of St. Dennys, he failed to open the overland trade
with Mexico ; and in 1716, another attempt was made. St. Dennys was
in this expedition also. About thirty miles from Nachitoches he found
the Spaniards had a mission, to which three soldiers were attached. At
Nacogdoches, their next stage, they found another Spanish mission ;
thirty miles further a third mission ; twenty-five miles further a Spanish
presidio or fort, garrisoned by a captain, lieutenant, and twenty-five sol
diers ; thirty miles further another mission with a few soldiers ; and finally, after crossing the Rio Colorado the French party were attacked by
sixty Spaniards on horseback. At the, Presidio del Norte, St. Dennys was
arrested. This was owing, says Martin, to a letter addressed to the Vice
Roy of Mexico by Don Martin de Alacome, then the Spanish Governor of
Texas, who was dissatisfied that St. Dennys should have passed through his
government without seeing him. So early, therefore, as this period, Texas
was a province of Mexico, with a Spanish Governor, several missions, a
military post, and such a population as that sixty Spanish horsemen were
embodied at one time near the Colorado. If the late Chief Justice of
Louisiana wrote unto history and not palpable fiction, Spain must at this
time have had an actual occupancy of Texas, and France not even a con' structive possession. | This same Governor, Alacome, in 1720, estab
lished other missions in Texas, and built a fort on the Bay of Esperitu
Santo; as he called St. Bernard's Bay. On his return from this place, he
was expected to establish a mission among the Caddos on the Red River,
the United States. In
whose settlement was near the present limits
obtained a grant at this
this they were disappointed—La Harpe, who
same place, having in 1719, taken possession nd settled it. Thus, says
Martin, " the settlement of the French in Louisiana acquired the utmost
extension from east to west, they ever had, id est, from Fort Toulouse,
on the Alibamoin, to a point on Red River beyond the present limits of
the State." While the French set lements were thus limited to the Red
River, the Spaniards were extending their establishments in Texas, and
sustaining them by considerable military force. In 1722, St. Dennys
learned that the Marquis de Gallo, the new Spanish Governor of Texas,
had arrived in the northeastern part of that Province with four hundred
horsemen. In 1724, St. Dennys, who was still in command at Nachitoches, informed the Governor of Louisiana that the Governor of Texas
had lately received a reinforcement of five hundred soldiers. To all this
the French colonial authorities submitted quietly, contented with the correspondence between La Harpe and Alaco Governor of Texas in
1720, in which each had asserted the claims of his own country to the
Province of Texas—the only difference being, that the Spaniards took actual possession of the country and maintained it with their military power,
while the French did not even attempt so to sustain their pretensions.
From this general remark, I must except a feeble effort made by La Harpe
in 1722, to revive the establishment of La Salle on the Bay of St. Ber
nard. || This officer was sent with a small vessel and thirty men with or.
ders to take possession of the country on St. Bernard's bay, build a fort,
*See Martin's History of Louisiana, 1 vol., 191 ; Charlevoix letters to the Duchess of
Lesdiguierès, translated from the French and printed at London, 1763 ; Historie et Description Géneralle de la Nouvelle France, t. 186—Paris, 1744.
| Martin's History of Louisiana, vol. 1 ; 203, 208, 219.
|| Martin's Louisiana, 207, 222, 244, 250.
8
and remove by force if necessary, any Spaniards whom he might find there.
He accomplished none of these objects, and returned after having exasperated the Indians by kidnapping some of their chiefs—the only exploit
effected*. Charlevoix, writing of this on the 5th April, 1722, says
" They are at present engaged in seeking, to the west of the Mississippi, a place to make
a settlement, which may bring us nearer to Mexico ; and they think they have found it at
a hundred leagues from the mouth of the river, in a bay which bears the name, some-
times, of St. Magdalen, and sometimes of St. Louis, but oftener that of St. Bernard. It
receives many rivers, some of which are pretty large, and it was there that La Salle
landed when he missed the mouth of the Mississippi. A brigantine had lately been' sent
thither to reconnoitre it, but they found there some savages who appear little disposed to
receive us, &c. I also hear that the Spaniards have very lately prevented this design
by settling there before us."
He adds :
" The neighborhood of the Spaniards may have its use, but let us leave it to them to ,
aprochusmteywil;arnocdti,wehavnodt
extend ourselves further."—Charlevoix's Letters, &c. 343, 344.
Thus, whatever the French claims and schemes might be, the Spaniards
seem always to have been more active and energetic, and to, have taken
actual possession, while France was dreaming of extirpated colonies and
abandoned rights. The Count de Vergennes tells us that the Spaniards
remembered the bay of St. Louis, (St. Bernard's,) and the French post
of that name—they repaired thither, established themselves upon the
ruins they had formerly made, and erected there the standard of Spain—
that they imported from the Canary Islands many families, who went into
the interior sixty leagues from this post, and built the -town of San Fer.
nando on the little river; San Antonio ; and he declares that it would be
one of the happiest Spanish Colonies if it were not for the warlike savages who surround it. | Me adds, that the Louisiana company were far
from taking umbrage at the movements of the Spaniards, and did not pro
test against their usurpations—that they opened their eyes too late to the
ambition of the Spaniards, when sending La Harpe with a detachment
to retake possession of the bay of St. Louis, they found the Spaniards
already established there.
Martin confirms this account, and tells us that soon after the settlement
of the families from the Canaries on the San Antonio,.another body of
these Islanders, amounting to five hundred, came to Texas, and settled in
the northwest, among the Assinnais Indians. || This was in 1719. From
about this period down to the cession of Louisiana to Spain by the treaty
of Versailles, the latter power remained in undisturbed and undisputed
possession of all Texas, which was not in the occupancy of the native
Indians. The French colonists even recognized a right in the crown of
Spain to the province of Texas. I say this upon the authority of Martin,
who quotes from the archives' of Louisana, to which he had access, and
in which, doubtless, the evidence is to he found. in the chapter in which
he treats of the boundaries of Louisiana, at the time of its cession to the
United States, is the following passage :
"On the bayou des Lauriérs, (Laurel creek,) six miles southwest by south from the
town of Natchioches, on the Red river, and fifteen miles from the Adayes, where the
road to Nacogdoches crosses the bayou, the French had placed leaden plates on a tree on
each side of the road, with an inscription expressing that the spot was the boundary between the French and Spanish dominions, without indicating the continuation of the line
*1 Martin's Louisiana, 238, 239.
| Mèmoire sur Louisiana, par M. de Vergennes, 146, 147, 148, 149.
|| 1 Martin's Louisiana, 209.
'
4
9
on either side. Similar plates were also fixed at Yatassees, a village of the Nadoca Indians, fifty leagues northwest of Nachitoches. The boundary line from bayou des Lauriers to the sea was never run, each party claiming much more than the other was willing
to allow. The Spaniards claimed that the line was to be run due south, in which case
it would strike the sea near the river Carcasson."-2 Martin's Louisiana, 201.
However this may be, the evidence is quite sufficient, I think, to
show that Spain not only claimed Texas as part of the dominions of her
crown, but that she had the actual occupancy of it long prior to the treaty
of Versailles ; and that though the line of demarcation was never run,
and the precise limits were never defined, the French colonial authorities,
by adopting the points mentioned by Martin, admitted the Spanish right
to almost the whole of Texas. Even Barbé Marbois, the Minister of
Napoleon, who negotiated, on the part of France, the treaty of cession to
the United States, says that the country claimed by France extended only
to the Bay of St. Bernard.*
But in addition to all this historical evidence, is that of the geographers
and map-makers. The Senator from Louisiana was mistaken in supposing that no map prior to 1800 could be found, where New France was
not designated as extending to the Rio Bravo del Norte. I have before
me a work published at Paris, in 1787, entitled " Atlas Encyclopédique,
par M. Bonne, Engénieur-Hydrographe de la Marine, et par M. Desmarest,
de l'Academié Royale des Sciences," &c. in which there are two maps,
showing not only that New Mexico lay on both sides of the upper Bravo
del Norte, but that New Santander, now called Tamaulipas, extended
considerably east of that river. In a general chart by Lieut. Roberts, of
the British Navy, dated in 1784, which I found in the Library of Congress,
among the collections of Mr. Jefferson, New Leon is made to extend east
of the Rio Grande ; and in a map, dated in 1743, and bound up in the
first volume of Charlevoix's "Histoire Generale de la Nouvelle France,"
published in 1774, at Paris, while no limits are marked, it is very manifest, from the position of the word Louisiana, that it was confined very
closely to the Mississippi and the Red Rivers. Further research doubtless would have multiplied this sort of evidence, particularly if Spanish maps
could have been obtained. While, therefore, I believe, with the Senator
from Missouri, that the country between the Red river and the Arkansas,
which was ceded by the treaty of 1819, to Spain, was rightfully the territory of the United States prior to that time, I must think that this treaty,
which was unanimously ratified by the Senate, did not divorce Texas
from the United States, but only yielded an unfounded claim to it. We
found this country in the possession of Spain, when Louisiana was ceded
to us ; and though we urged a diplomatic claim to it, we left it in the undisturbed occupancy of the Spanish authorities, and relinquished our pretensions when we obtained the transfer of Florida. How, then, can the
term re-annexation be justly employed, or what end can it serve but that
of popular delusion ?
I come now, sir, to inquire what were the limits of the Spanish province and modern republic of Texas. On this point I shall quote only
two modern authorities. The first is a map of Texas, by Stephen H.
Austin, the great Texan colonist, compiled by him in 1836, and published
by Tanner, a highly respectable map-maker of Philadelphia. In this
map, the river Nueces is the western boundary of Texas ; and the country between that river and the Rio Grande is designated as a part of the
Mexican State of Tamaulipas.
*Barbé Marbois' History of Louisiana, p. 107.
10
My next authority is one entitled to great consideration. It is not
"Humboldt, sir, but one much more familiar to the Democracy of this country, and for a long time, if not still, considered by them as oracular—
the Senator from Missouri, (Mr. BENTON.) In May, 1844, that Senator
delivered in this chamber, a speech against the annexation of Texas, by
the treaty then just concluded by the administration of Mr. Tyler. Among
the prominent objections to the treaty, which he urged, was this : That
it proposed to annex Texas, not as properly limited and defined, but as
claimed by an act of the. Texian Congress, to extend to the Rio Grande,
and reaching from the mouth of that river, in the climate of eternal flowers,
to its sources amidst eternal snows. Whether the treaty did propose this
or not, is of no consequence in the veiw which I am taking ; since my
object is to show, by the authority of the Senator, that the valley of the
Rio Grande or Bravo did not belong to Texas, was the rightful territory
of Mexico, and was occupied by the troops of the United States, under the
order of the President, in violation of the territorial rights of Mexico. The
Senator said that the whole upper part of this valley " was settled by the
Spaniards, and great part of it in 1594, just one hundred years before La
Salle first saw Texas ! All this upper part was then formed into prov
inces, on both sides of the river, and has remained under Spanish or
Mexican authority ever since. These former provinces of the Mexican
Vice-Royalty, now Departments of the Mexican Republic, lying on both
sides of the Rio Grande from its mouth to its source, we now propose to
incorporate, so far as they lie on the left bank of the river, into our Union,
by virtue of a re-annexation with Texas." The Senator then described
to us the four Departments of Mexico, lying on both sides of the Rio Grande,
New Mexico, Chihuahua, Coahuila, and Tamaulipas. He asked if the
term re-annexation would legitimate this slicing off a portion of Mexican
territory two thousand miles long and some hundred broad—this seizure
of a neighbor's dominion with whom we had treaties of peace, amity, and
commerce—" when no Texian force—witness the disastrous expeditions
to Santa Fe and Mier—have been seen near it, without being taken or
killed to the last man." The Senator denounced it as an act of crime and
infamy, and said he washed his hands of all attempts thus to dismember
the Mexican Republic. He called it an act of unparalleled outrage, and
said it was the duty of the Senate to avoid any participation in its enormities, by a special disapprobation. He therefore submitted to the Senate
the following resolution :
" Resolved, That the incorporation of the left bank of the Rio del Norte with the
American Union, by virtue of a treaty with Texas, comprehending as the said incorporation would do, a part of the Mexican Departments of New Mexico, Chihuahua, Coahuila,
and Tamaulipas, would be an act of direct aggression, for all the consequences of which
the United States would stand responsible."
He called our attention to the fact that when, in 1829, Gen. Jackson
sought to procure a cession to the United States of Mexican territory west
-of the Sabine river, " he meditated no such crime or folly as that of adding
the left bank of the Rio del Norte, from its head to its mouth, to our Union."
He proposed to go no further west than to the desert prairies east of the
Nueces River. " He left the whole of the valley of the Rio Grande—
every inch of its soil and every drop of its water, with all its towns and
villages, and all its flocks and fields to its ancient possessor, who had held
it for centuries."
Sir, in all this I heartily concurred with the Senator at the time, and I
dontpercivhafsotryndheigfUtSaes,
11.
Mexico, or Texas, can be varied by the decree of a Baltimore convention,
the result of a presidential election, or the substitution for a treaty of a
joint resolution of annexation.
The opposition of the Senator from Missouri to the treaty of 1844, contributed largely to its defeat. He washed his hands of the deed of madness and crime then, but washed them in it at the ensuing session of Congress ,when the annexation was effected by, what I consider, the unconstitutional form of a joint resolution—a treaty of incorporation accomplished by legislative act. I remember that when the Senator from New
Jersey (Mr. MILLER) offered, as an amendment to the resolutions of annexation, one of the Senator's (Mr. BENTON'S) resolutions, submitted by him
at the previous session, and expressed the hope that his own offspring
would meet with favor at his hands, he replied that he would kill it stone
dead—and so he did. But there was this difference between the treaty
and the joint resolution by which Texas was annexed. The former was
held by many to dispossess. Mexico of, or to use the language of the Senator
from Missouri, to disrupt and tear from her the valley of the Rio Grande,
which she had held for centuries. The joint resolutions were intended to
be so framed as to guard against this objection. They provided that the
territory properly included within, and rightfully belonging to Texas,
might be erected into a new State ; and the consent of Congress to its
admission into the Union was given, on the condition that all questions of
boundary that might arise with other Governments, should he subject to
Adjustment by the Government of the United States.
We know, sir, that this provision was extended to guard against any
difficulty that might arise from the Texan claim to the Rio Grande—a
claim which they had never been able to enforce, and which was
considered by the Senator from Missouri himself as utterly unfounded.
This proviso was intended to secure the control of that matter, not to the
President of the United States, but to the whole Government—to both
branches of Congress, if the war-making power should be invoked for
its settlement—to the President and the Senate, if the treaty-making
power should be adequate to its adjustment. No one dreamed, until the
deed was done, that this Gordian knot was to be cut by the Executive
sword—that the President, without the authority and knowledge of Congress, while it was in session, and might have been consulted for instruction and authority, would be guilty of the " madness and crime" of seizing
on any portion of this " slice of Mexico," and would thus involve the country in the " unparalleled outrage" of this " aggression upon Mexico."
Whoever considers these facts, and the attendant circumstances, must
see that the war in which we are now engaged is a Presidential war,
and a war of conquest.
The message of the President to Congress at the present session, is a
sort of appeal to the people from that judgment on his official conduct,
which its consequences were forcing upon the national mind. To me it
seems to be a series of disingenuous sophistries and superficial glosses.
It gives an exaggerated and highly colored statement of all our old causes of complaint against Mexico, from the earliest period of her independence, as if these things had the slightest connection with the war now
waging ; and in disregard of the fact, that these grievances had been set.
tled by treaties, which it is notorious that Mexico was making the greatest efforts to fulfil in good faith, down to the period of the annexation
treaty. Sir, it is difficult to conceive for what purpose all this could be
intended but popular delusion. For the causes of this war, we must look
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to the annexation of Texas, and the proceedings of the President subsequent to that event.
When, in 1844, Mr. Tyler was negotiating the annexation treaty, he
sent an army of observation to our southwestern frontier, and concentrated
a strong squadron in the Gulf of Mexico. What said the Senator from
Missouri to this ? 'Why, sir, in the speech from which I have already
quoted he said :
" What is an army of observation but an army in the field for war? It is to watch the
Friends cannot be watched by armed
men individually, or nationally, without open enmity. Let an armed man take a posi
tion before your door—show himself to your family—watch your movements—remonstrate with you, and report upon you if, he judge your movements equivocal—let him de
this, and what is it but an act of hostility and outrage, which every feeling of the heart,
and every law of God and man require you to resent and repulse? This would be the
case with a mere individual, still more with nations ; and when squadrons and armies are
the watchers and remonstrants."
enemy, and can never be made to watch a friend.
•
Mexico, he said, must feel herself outraged and attacked. All this was
declared of an army of observation, in position within our acknowledged
limits. And what has Mr. Polk done ? Very soon after entering upon
the duties of the Chief Magistracy, he gave orders to that gallant and
glorious old soldier, General Taylor, to move the troops under his command into Texas, and to take up a position as near the Rio Grande as
prudence would permit. He claimed that river as the boundary line, notwithstanding it had been purposely left upon and unsettled by the terms of
annexation—told General Taylor that was his ultimate destination ; and,
in the mean time, desired Aat " his position for a part of his forces, at
least, should be west of the Nueces." Such was the tenor of the Secretary of War's despatches to General Taylor of May 28, June 15, and
July 30, 1845. This, he it recollected, was before the passage of those
laws of which the President speaks in his message, creating a port of delivery at Corpus Christi, and establishing certain post routes in Texas—
the one being passed on the 31st December, 1845, the other on the 12th
February, 1846. If, when these laws were pending in Congress, their
operation on the question of boundary had been considered ever so deliberately, (which was not the case,) this would still afford no authority, express
or implied, for the seizure of the valley of the Rio Grande. And when they
are relied on to justify the orders to our army, given months before, nothing
but an examination of the dates is necessary to expose the shallow and ri
diculous pretence. Sir, the territory rightfully included within, and properly
belongly to Texas, was only that over which she had extended the jurisdiction of the sword. Her limits were those within which her civil authority had been in fact extended, and where her military power could
give efficacy to it. I believe that Texas had, in fact, some establish.
ments on the west bank of the Nueces. This, then, justified the acts of
Congress referred to, and authorized the position of the army on the Nueces, as within the actual limits of Texas. Beyond this the President
had no right to move the army an inch, and when he did so he committed
"an act of direct aggression upon Mexico," for all the consequences of
which he is responsible. The Senator from Missouri did not advise this
movement. We have it from his own lips, that if he had been consulted,
he would not have advised it. And if the object of the President had
been, in good faith, nothing more than to protect Texas from invasion,
why did he not select that central and desirable point, San Antonio—from
which, in whatever direction they might approach, an invading Mexican
force might have been met and repelled.
13
,
This did not suit a project of invasion, conquest, and annexation—the
prompt seizure of the eastern bank of the Rio Grande. As early as
November, 1845, the President knew from the letter of our late Consul
at Matamoras, Mr. Marks, which was communicated to the Department
of State, and which is admitted to be genuine, that if the American army
did not move westward from its position near the Nueces, the Mexican
General, Arista, would not cross the Rio Grande in force ; and would
send only small detachments, as tar as the Anoyo Colorado, with the view
of preventing Indian depredations and illicit trade. Yet, with a full
knowledge of this, the march to the Rio Grande was ordered, on the 13th
January, 1846. Great complaint is made of the refusal of Mexico to
receive our minister plenipotentiary, Mr. Slidell ; and this refusal is declared to have been in violation of her plighted faith. Yet the published
letters of the Mexican Secretary of State show that this promise was to
receive a commissioner, who might come with full powers to settle the
present dispute ; and the refusal to receive Mr. Slidell was placed on the
ground, that instead of being such a commissioner ad hoc, he was a minister plenipotentiary, with general, and therefore different functions—an
obvious and extraordinary blunder of our Government, if indeed it was not
a part of their deliberate plans. Before the President could have known
the final refusal of the Mexican Government to receive Mr. Slidell, the
order was given to Gen. Taylor to take post on the Rio Grande. Although the President professes that the eastern part of the valley of the
Rio Grande was ours, yet from the Secretary of War's official despatches
to General Taylor, of July 8th and 30th, 1845, it is manifest that our
Government very well knew that the territory was not only claimed, but
occupied by Mexico. On July 8, 1845, Mr. Marcy writes to General
Taylor, that" This department is informed that Mexico has some military establishments on the
east side of the Rio Grande, which are, and for some time have been, in the actual occupancy of her troops."
And on the 30th July, he says" The Rio Grande is claimed as the boundary between the two countries, and up to
this boundary you are to extend your protection, only excepting any posts on the eastern
side thereof, which are in the actual occupancy of Mexican forces, or Mexican settlements,
over which the Republic of Texas did not exercise jurisdiction, &c."
The President knew that the Mexicans had a custom-house at San Isabel, on the east side of the river, and at its mouth—that Loredo was a
Mexican town, on the east bank—that the few cultivated lands were held
by Mexicans, and that neither town, nor farm, nor any thing else on the
east bank of that river, was or ever had been, held by Texas. Yet on
the 13th January, 1846, while Mr. Slidell was still endeavoring to negotiate, Gen. Taylor was ordered to advance and occupy position on the Rio
Grande. He was told in this despatch that Point Isabel is supposed to
be an eligible situation, (that the place of an established Mexican custom-house,) and that points opposite Matamoras and Mier, and in, the
neighborhood of Loredo, are suggested for his consideration.
The march was made in obedience to these orders, and against the
remonstrances of the Mexican local and military authorities. As our
army advanced, the Mexicans burned their custom-house at the mouth of
the river ; and the little Mexican village of Frontone was discovered to
be in flames.
The army encamped in the midst of Mexican corn and cotton fields,
and finally our batteries were so planted opposite the Mexican city of
14
Matamoros, as to spot any house in the town. So wrote the officers of
our army. This was the consummation of that "crime or folly" which
the Senator from Missouri resisted so powerfully in 1844—the seizure of
this " slice of the Mexican Republic," and thus the war began. If any
further evidence were wanting that this is a Presidential war of conquest,
we may find it in the plan of its prosecution. No s ooner was the war recognized by Congress than despatches were forwarded to the officer commanding our naval forces in the Pacific, directing something more than a
vigorous prosecution of hostilities, and contemplating the conquest and
permanent possession by the United States of California at least. Commodore Sloat was told, on the 12th July, 1845, that " this would bring
with it the necessity of a civil administration," and "that it may be proper
to require an oath of allegiance from those who are entrusted with authority." At the same time a sort of roving commission is given to a
citizen of New York, who is told to enlist a regiment to serve somewhere
on the Pacific coast, and to be prepared to settle in whatever country they
may find themselves at the close of the war. Gen. Kearney, too, is directed to march with a large force, from Fort Leavenworth on the Missouri,
seven or eight hundred miles across the prairies, on the route of the trading
caravans to Santa Fe, to conquer New Mexico, and then press forward
to California. This was all very well if our object was to conquer provinces and dismember Mexico ; but it was not the prompt and obvious
method of conquering a peace. Mexico might be annoyed by thus lopping off these remote branches of her empire, so far from the central
seats of her population and power ; but a speedy peace could and can be
attained, if at all, only by striking vigorously at the heart of the country.
That the object of the war was conquest I infer; too, from the extravagant demands of indemnity for the expenses of the war, which we are
told by the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs, will be made. Unfortunately,
these unusual and extraordinary demands seem to have been contemplated
before the expenses were incurred. And indeed these expensive conquests
would be no indemnity ; but would only bring burdens and discord upon
our Union. And, sir, if we succeed in these ambitious projects, and tear
from Mexico not only the eastern bank of the Rio Grande, to which we
pretend a title, but to all New Mexico and California, what will it profit
us ? Military glory is not always safe and profitable to a nation—very
often it has proved not to be associated with national prosperity and hap.
piness. In many cases it only " leads to bewilder, and dazzles to blind."
But how is the harmony of our Union to be effected by this vast acquisi.
tion of territory, which is to overshadow the old thirteen States, leaving
them pars minima sui ? Instead of consolidating our Union, promoting
our prosperity, and securing our peace, it will, as I believe, endanger the
one, impair the other, and distract the last. I say nothing of that question
of paramount importance which it will force upon us, inflaming to the
highest degree, sectional feelings and prejudices. The extension of empire has been fatal, sooner or later, to all nations, who have yielded to the
temptings of this ambition. It will be so to us ; and the more speedily
because of the peculiar form of our government. A nation is often
weakened by extension of territory ; its power is diminished by dispersion ; its burdens increased, and its institutions endangered by the necessary maintenance of large military forces. To make a nation great,
prosperous, and happy, it should be compacted, well peopled, well educated, blessed with the sound and prudent legislation of peace, improved and
,
15
adorned by all that art and utility can furnish for its benefit and embellishment.
And have we not country enough? Can we not be satisfied with over
two millions of square miles of territory, abounding in fertile, lands and
noble rivers ; blessed with the finest of climates ; with every variety of
soil and product ; teeming with all that ministers to the comfort and happiness of, man, and capable of supporting twice the population of China?
Why must we penetrate the central wilderness of the continent, and seek
the shores of the far Pacific ? Sir, if we make these acquisitions, we
shall find them anything but profitable. Our resources, at all events, will
be drained to build up and improve a rival power on the Pacific. We
shall be taxed to build forts, and light-houses, and custom-houses, and
seats of territorial governments three thousand miles from the centre of
our present Union; to clear out rivers which flow into the Pacific ; to
make harbors on the Sacramento, or the Colorado of the West—to maintain a much larger military and naval force than we have ever before been
willing to endure. And when we have done all this, the country which
we have thus built up will break the bonds of our Union, and sever the
unnatural alliance. Sir, I want no more annexation—no partnership with
these outside barbarians—and, with my consent, none shall ever take
place. Already has this war absorbed the large surplus which we had
accumulated before hostilities began, and created alarming deficiencies in
the exchequer. Besides that surplus of about twelve millions, and the
accruing revenues of more than twenty millions, we have, in less than
one year from the commencement of the war, authorized direct or indirect loans to the amount of twenty-three millions. At this rate, if the
war continues long, it requires no gift of prophecy to forsee the creation
of an immense debt which will burden and oppress our own industry and
that of our posterity. This war speculation is a fancy stock which I do
not fancy. It must be a bad investment. Those who sow the storm reap
the whirlwind. Those who scatter bullets and gunpowder, and reap with
sabres and bayonets, must have a sad if not a fatal harvest. Already we
have sown the seeds of a bitter and lasting hatred in the minds and hearts
of the Mexican people. We had before lost a valuable trade with that
country, probably never to be regained ; and we have now lost that great
moral influence which we had, and which prudent counsels would always
have secured to us, among all the Spanish American races. I know that
recently, even in Brazil, intelligent men have expressed the apprehension
that, at some future day, swarms of military adventurers will pour forth
from our Northern hive, and rush to rapine and conquest in Southern Ame
rica. Instead of being considered the conservative hea of a great system of American Republics, we are likely to be looked upon as rapacious,
grasping, and unscrupulous conquerors. Sir, I trust we shall better understand our true glory and interest than to justify these suspicions—that public virtue and a magnanimous spirit will yet prevail in our councils. I
trust that the President is not quite intoxicated with the rage for gunpowder popularity—that he is not so much inflamed by the lust of dominion as
to persist in a career of conquest which I believe fatal to the
interests, if not the liberties, of the country.
And now, sir, as to the three millions oposed by the bill to be placed
at the disposal of the President. I would very cheerfully give much more
than that sum to effect an honorable peace with Mexico. But I cannot
vote for this proposition. I cannot consent to this union of the purse and
the sword in the hands of the Executive. Already Congress has placed at
,
16
his command more than seventy thousand men, and appropriated, at the
present session, nearly forty-five millions of dollars for military and naval
purposes. And now we are asked to place at his disposal, and controlled
only by his discretion, this sum of three millions, to be expended, we know
not, so far as he has informed us, for what specific purposes, but under the
provisions of a treaty which he hopes to make with Mexico. If he should
not fail in this hope, the money may, and probably will, be transferred
from our treasury to that of Mexico, under the stipulations of a treaty not
submitted to the Senate for ratification, and to which the constitutional
majority May never assent. I will not consent thus to surrender, in advance, my functions as a Senator, to cede to the President my constitutional right and duty to act on a treaty, before it goes into effect.
Still less can I do this, when the Senator from Arkansas, the Chairman
of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, avers that the President's object is to
obtain a cession of New Mexico and California at least, by way of indemnity; while the three millions are to be paid into the exhausted treasury
of Mexico, to enable that Government to pay off the arrears due to their
army, and on their civil list.
I will have no part nor lot in such a proceeding. I might be induced
to consent to the Rio Grande, for a part of its course, as a boundary,
though I think it by no means a good one—not at all as desirable as that
which Gen. Jackson, in 1829, endeavored to acquire. If it could be obtained by the free consent of Mexico, I would not resist the acquisition
of a port on the Pacific, for the resort and protection of our commerce in
that ocean, but I never will consent to these ruinous schemes of gigantic
conquest, these vast projects of annexation.
We have been taunted by gentlemen on the other side with voting
supplies for a war, the origin and object of which we think unjust to
Mexico and injurious to our own country. Sir, I feel the embarrassment
of the position. Our hearts are stirred as with a trumpet, when we hear
of our gallant armies carrying the flag of their country in triumph over a
a foreign land. We feel power, and forget right. It is difficult to with.
hold from these brave men the means of support and safety, in the distant
and difficult enterprise on which they have been sent. To do so might
seem to be a desertion of our country's cause. And yet, sir, to assist the
President in his scheme of conquest and annexation is, as I believe, to
bring the greatest of evils upon the people of the United States. But appropriations may be so limited as to secure the one purpose, and deny the
other. And whenever I shall be satisfied that a solid and durable peace
can be had without ismembering the territory of Mexico—if the President
shall persist in hi erritorial acquisition—I, for one, whatever may be the
risk of misconce tion and unjust imputation, will withhold from him the
means of pursu a war of conquest, and compel him, if I can, to give
peace to the country.