鈥� I think Govr. Holmes¹ should be encouraged in keeping a wakeful eye to occurrences & appearances in W. Florida, and in transmitting information concerning them. It will be well for him also to be attentive to the means of having his militia in a state for any service that may be called for. In the event either of foreign interference with W.F. or of internal convulsions, more especially if threatening the neighboring tranquility, it will be proper to take care of the rights & interests of the U.S. by every measure within the limits of the Ex. Authority. Will it not be advisable to apprize Govr. H. confidentially, of the course adopted as to W.F. and to have his co-operation in diffusing the impressions we wish to be made there?鈥�

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California,^[2] who, through the many conferences which the Venerable Fr. Junipero had him conduct with these pagans, began to understand them and to pronounce a few words in their language. When he could explain to them what was said he gave them to understand that the purpose of the Fathers in coming to their land was to direct their souls into the way of heaven.

It was on the 26th of December of the same year that the first baptism was celebrated among these gentile^[3] people and it was for the fervent and devoted heart of our Venerable Father a source of unbounded joy. Little by little others were won and the number of Christians increased so that three years later when I came up to that Mission there were in all one hundred and sixty-five; and when the Venerable Founder Junipero terminated his glorious career he left one thousand and fourteen baptized souls of whom many had already passed on to enjoy God and eternal life, as the fruitage of his incessant and Apostolic labors.^[4]

One of the things that had greatly helped in these conversions, or perhaps I had better say, that was the principal foundation of this most important Conquest, was the strange marvels and prodigies which God, our Lord, had wrought in the eyes of the gentiles that they might fear and also learn to love the Catholics: Fear, to restrain them so that in spite of their numbers far in excess of the little group of Christians, they showed us no insolence; and Love, which brought them to hear with affection the gospel doctrine which we had come to teach them, and to embrace the gentle yoke of our holy law. . . .

Serra Founds Mission San Antonio de Padua

THAT ardent zeal for the conversion of the gentiles which ever burned in the heart of our Venerable Father Junipero gave him no rest nor permitted him to delay in putting into operation the means necessary for the carrying out of his plans. As soon as he had finished the exploration of the Carmel River and had set to work there the men employed in the cutting of timber,^[5] he returned immediately to Monterey in order to prepare for his trip to the Santa Lucia Mountains, and soon after set out with the Fathers destined to serve as the founders of the Mission of San Antonio.^[6] They took with them all the necessary equipment for that new Mission as well as the guard of soldiers necessary for their protection. They traveled twenty-five leagues toward the southeast from Monterey, in the direction of these mountains, and when they had arrived at the base of them they found there a large canyon which was called Los Robles^[7] as it was thickly covered with oak trees, and there they set up the camp. Having examined the contour of the land and found a wide and sightly plain in the canyon near to a river (to which they immediately gave the name of San Antonio), it seemed to them to be the proper place for the building of the Mission because there was a good head of water in the river even in the month of July, which was the time of the greatest drought, and also because the waters could be conducted without difficulty for the irrigation of the land.

As all had agreed upon the choice of the place for the Mission, the Venerable Father ordered that the mules should be unloaded and the bells hung up from the branch of a tree and as soon as everything was in readiness the Servant of God began to ring them, shouting at the same time as if he were beside himself, ‘”Hear, oh Gentiles, come, oh come to the Holy Church! Come, oh come and receive the Faith of Jesus Christ!” The Reverend Father Fr. Miguel Pieras, one of the two Missionaries, and the one designated to act as the President of the [new Mission San Gabriel], after watching him awhile said: “Why do you weary yourself unnecessarily, as this is not the place where the church is to stand, nor is there anywhere within hearing in these regions a single pagan soul? It is of no use to ring the bells.” To this the Father answered: “In this way, Father, let me give expansion to my heart, as I would that this bell might be heard in all the world, as indeed the Venerable Mother, Sister Maria de Jesus de Agreda,^[8] expressed her desire, or at least I would that the bell might be heard by all the pagan people who live in this sierra.”^[9] They then set up a large cross which, after it had been blessed, they venerated.^[10] A little shelter of branches was also made, and underneath was placed the table for the altar and here the Venerable Father celebrated the first Mass in honor of San Antonio, the Patron Saint of this Mission, on the 14th of July of the year 1771 . . . . A single Indian who had been attracted by the ringing of the bell, or by the strangeness of the people there gathered, happened to draw near at the time that the Mass was being celebrated and so was a witness to the act of the Divine Sacrifice.^[11] This the Venerable Priest discovered as he turned from the altar in order to preach the sermon after the reading of the Gospel, and with his heart overflowing with joy he expressed himself in his sermon in the following manner: “I trust in God and in the favor of San Antonio that this Mission will come to be a great settlement of many Christians because we see here what has not been seen in any of the other Missions founded hitherto, that at the very first Mass the first fruits of paganism have been present, and he will surely not fail to communicate to his fellows what he has here seen.”

This is indeed what took place, as we shall see hereafter how the hopes of our Venerable Father were fulfilled to the letter. As soon as Mass was over he began to manifest his affection with little gifts to the gentile in order to attract by these means the rest; and this he accomplished that very day, for as soon as the word spread, many of them, moved by curiosity, began to come in. Having attempted to make them understand by signs (in the absence of an interpreter) that the friars had come to settle and live in this region, [the natives] showed their great appreciation of the same by continuing to make their visits, with little gifts of pinions^[12] and acorns, which they brought to them and from which, as well as from other wild grains, they make their meals and porridge which they use for food, and which they harvest in great abundance. The Venerable Father reciprocated by giving them in return for their gifts strings of beads of glass of different colors, as well as some of our food made from corn and beans and which immediately pleased the palate of these pagan people. They immediately began the construction of the wooden houses which were to serve for the dwelling-house of the Fathers with their servants, the barracks for the soldiers, and the church for Divine Worship, surrounding all these buildings with a stockade for defense so that the squad of six soldiers and corporal could act as guard. Within a short time the Fathers had attracted the attention of the Indians who became singularly attached to them because of the love and affection with which they treated them, and immediately they began to show their entire trust in the Fathers by bringing to them their grains as soon as they had harvested them, saying that they might eat what they pleased of them and that the rest they could keep for the winter season. This the Missionaries did with great satisfaction, wondering that the gentiles should have such confidence in them from the very first, and also wondering how much greater that trust might be when, after being converted to baptism, they might come to look upon them as their real Fathers.

In this good opinion our Venerable Father Junípero freely shared as he saw these demonstrations of regard, and it was in this hope that he left the Missionaries of this Mission of San Antonio in order to return to Monterey, after remaining a fortnight with them. Following the instructions of the Venerable President, the new Missionaries gave themselves up with the greatest consecration to the learning of the language of these barbarians, making use of the small boys in order to obtain from them the names of things and to explain to them that their object in coming to this land was to direct their souls toward heaven. . . . When they had begun to teach them the doctrine and to baptize, the Mission had been founded only two years, and at that time when I visited it there were one hundred and fifty-eight new Christians.

The Visions of Sister Maria de Jesus de Agreda

These friars told me the following story. There was among the Indians a very old woman, whom they called Agueda, who, judging by her appearance, must have been over one hundred years old. She came to request baptism from the Fathers and when they asked her why she wished to be a Christian she replied that when she was a young girl she heard her father tell of the arrival in that country of a man who wore the same dress that the friars wear but who had come neither on foot over the hills but flying, and that he had taught them the same things which the Missionaries were now preaching, and when she had come to remember this she felt moved to become a Christian.

Not daring to accept wholly this story of the old woman, the Fathers inquired carefully concerning the matter of the other neophytes^[13] and they all unanimously replied that such was the story that they had heard from their fathers and that it was a general tradition which had been handed down. When I heard this story from the Fathers I remembered immediately a certain letter which had been written in the year 1631 by the holy Mother, Sister Maria de Jesus de Agreda to the Missionaries employed in the Spiritual Conquest of New Mexico and that among other things she says that our Father, San Francisco, had sent to these nations of the north two holy men of the Order in order to preach the faith of Jesus Christ (the men were not Spaniards), and that after having made many converts they suffered martyrdom. On estimating the time when they made their visit I concluded that it might have been one of these holy men of whom the convert Agueda had spoken.

This Mission of San Antonio, as I have already said, is situated in the center of the Sierra of Santa Lucia about eight leagues from the coast of the Pacific Ocean . . . and is twenty-five leagues from the port of Monterey. . . . The soil is very fertile and supplies abundant harvests of wheat, corn, beans, and other cereals brought out from Spain and with which the inhabitants now have supplied themselves. During the summer time the climate is extremely hot but in the winter time it is extremely cold on account of the severe frosts which are felt there. The stream which never ceases to flow during the year and which is close to the Mission houses is often frozen over to such a degree that the water is sometimes frozen solid until the sun shines again and melts the ice. For this same reason there have been serious losses in the early part of the season, especially if the corn and beans are planted too early. So very severe was the frost that fell on Easter Sunday in the year 1780 that a great part of the wheat fields which had already begun to ear, and was in blossom, was dried up like the dried stalks seen in the month of August. This misfortune brought great despair to the Indians but affected the Fathers even more seriously when they considered what drawbacks would follow the lack of provisions at the Mission, as it would be necessary for the young converts to go out into the hills in search of wild grains for food as they did when they were pagans.

But the Fathers, feeling a revival of their faith and trusting in the patronage of San Antonio, invited all the new Christians to join them in nine days of prayer. They all attended the services with great punctuality and devotion; and just before the period of prayer began the Fathers ordered that the frozen fields be irrigated, although they appeared to be entirely dry. Within a few days they noticed that the wheat began to sprout up from the roots, and by the time the Novena was over the field was green. They continued to irrigate it and it grew with such rapidity that within the fifty days, at the time of the feast of the Holy Spirit, the grain was as tall as it had been before, with fine large ears, and they were able to see it ripen at the usual time of harvest and to gather the largest crop which they had ever seen from the same amount of land.

When the Fathers and the Indians recognized their deep obligation for so very special a prodigy as the Lord our God had deigned to work in their favor, through the intercession of their patron Saint and miracle-worker, San Antonio, they all rendered to him the most sincere thanks. This incident and many others . . . have contributed a great deal toward the confirming of the faith of the converts and to the bringing in of the gentiles, so that it has happened that the number of Christians in that Mission exceed those of any other, as the number of them just before the death of the Venerable Father Junípero amounted to 1084 neophytes. . . .

Serra Moves Mission San Carlos to Carmel, Making it His Headquarters

AFTER a fortnight spent in establishing the Mission of San Antonio, the Venerable Father President Fr. Junipero set out thence for Monterey with the most earnest desire of founding the Mission of San Luis [Obispo]; but for the lack of troops . . . his desires were frustrated until the commandant . . . might be able to bring them up ; and so he occupied himself in the meantime in the transferring of the Mission of San Carlos to the banks of the Carmel River. . . .

When [his] preparations had been finished he set out for the place designated for the [Carmel] Mission, distant about a league from the garrison, to live there a sort of hermit life, having for his dwelling a little shack in which he lived. His work was that of overseer, but many times that of a day laborer, until a building had been erected in which he could find shelter from the very cold wind which is felt in that canyon almost all the year round. His first work was that of the hewing out of a great cross, which, after having been blessed, was erected with the help of the soldiers and the servants and fixed midway in the space destined for the quadrangle and which was near to the little house that served him for a dwelling. Another house was erected for a provisional church so that he always had this most holy symbol as his constant companion. He venerated it as soon as it was daybreak and had the soldiers of the troop sing there a Hymn of Praise. Here the servant of God also said the matin prayers^[14] and the first prayers of the day and then he immediately would celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass which would be attended by all the soldiers and servants. Then they would all go to their work, each one to his place, the Venerable Father acting as engineer and overseer. Many times during the day he venerated the Holy Cross, repeating there the prayers of the divine office. . . .^[15]

Whenever the Indians would come to visit the Venerable Father, and the day rarely passed in which they did not come, being attracted either by curiosity or by the presents he gave them, the first thing he did was to make the sign of the cross on their bodies with his own hand, and then he made them worship before the Holy Cross. When these sacred ceremonies were finished he would give them some little present, either food which he had ordered made for them of wheat, or boiled corn, with a porridge made from the meal of these grains, or else beads and trinkets, and so he tried to win their favor as far as possible, learning to talk with them in their own language. The young Christians also used to come to see him and would ask permission of Father Crespi to go, as they said, to see the Old Father, and he had such a good time with them showing them the greatest affection, as if they were really and truly his own children. He taught them to salute everybody with the holy words, “Amar de Dios” — Love God — and this salutation became so general that even the pagan people used it not only in speaking to the Fathers but to any other Spaniard, and so it extended over all the region, touching even the hardest heart whenever they would hear these gentiles use the expression, as it was just as if they heard their own companions speak it whenever they met them on the road . . . .

As soon as the Venerable Father had finished the erection of the chapel and dwelling house, which was at the close of the year 1771, he called his companion, Father Crespi, and the new Mission was moved with all the Christian neophytes, and there both of them began the work of this Spiritual Conquest. This was his own peculiar Mission in which he remained (with the exception of the time spent in visiting the Missions and in the necessary trips of his ministry as President) until he died, leaving in this Mission alone 1014 baptized persons, including children, the greater part of them having received the Sacrament from the Father himself, for in this matter he was beyond all degree zealous and with a thirst for souls which seemed never to be satisfied.

Mission San Gabriel Arcangel is Founded, After the Miraculous Calming of Hostile Natives

. . . 澳门六合彩开奖直播 the 7th of July of the year 1771 the packet-boat “San Antonio” sailed from the port of Monterey carrying the six Missionaries for the three Missions of the south, and the commander, Don Pedro Fages. After a week of sailing they arrived in the port of San Diego on the 14^th . . . . [From there] the establishing of the new Mission was undertaken . . . .

. . . The Fathers . . . guarded by ten soldiers, left San Diego, accompanied also by the muleteers carrying the equipment. . . . After going about forty leagues they arrived at the Rio de los Temblores^[16] . . . and just as they were in the act of deciding as to the location of the Mission, a great multitude of gentiles came up, all armed and under the direction of two captains who, with blood-curdling yells, tried to hinder the proceedings. As the Fathers feared that a battle was imminent which would surely result in the death of not a few, one of them produced a canvas on which was painted the image of Our Lady of Sorrows and held it up in view of the barbarians.

He had scarcely done this when they all, subdued by the vision of this beautiful image, threw down their bows and arrows and came running hastily forward. The two captains threw down at the feet of the Sovereign Queen^[17] the beads and trinkets which they wore about their necks, as a sign of their greatest respect, and also to indicate that they wished to make peace with our company. They invited all the people from the surrounding villages who, in great numbers, men, women and children, kept coming in to see the Most Holy Virgin, bringing with them loads of various grains which they left at the feet of Our Most Holy Lady, supposing that she needed them for food the same as the rest. . . .

The sight of the image of Our Lady produced a wonderful change upon the gentiles surrounding the Mission of San Gabriel, and they came very often to visit the friars, seemingly not able to sufficiently express their joy that they should have come to live among them . . . .

The first Mass was celebrated under a little shelter made of branches on the day of the Nativity of Our Lady, the 8th of September, and on the next day work was begun on the chapel which was to serve as a provisional church, and also a house for the Fathers and another for the troops, all made of poles and surrounded by a stockade as a precaution against possible attack. The greater part of the wood for the building was cut down and dragged in by the pagans themselves, who also helped in the construction of the houses, and for this reason the Fathers were encouraged to hope for a great success in the work, seeing that from the very beginning there was no opposition to the gentle yoke of our Evangelical Law.

Confrontation Between the Natives at San Gabriel and the Mission’s Military Guard

At the time when the natives seemed to be most content their good disposition toward us was seriously upset by an outrage committed by one of the soldiers upon one of the head chiefs of the village, and what was worse, by committing a sin against God Our Lord. As the gentile chief naturally thought of taking vengeance for the outrage committed against himself and his wife,^[18] he gathered together all his neighbors from the near-by villages and inviting all of the warriors to arm themselves, he led them down to the place in the field where two of the soldiers of the Mission were pasturing and taking care of the horses, one of them being the evil-doer. As soon as these soldiers saw the armed band approaching they put on their leather jackets as a defense against the arrows and prepared themselves for battle, as there was no way by which they could advise the captain of the guard, who, by the way, was ignorant of the deed committed by the soldier.

The gentiles had no sooner come within bowshot, when they began to let fly their arrows, aiming all of them against the offending soldier. The latter immediately aimed his gun at the Indian who seemed to him to be the boldest, presuming that he was the captain [ie, chief], and discharging his piece, killed him on the spot. As soon as the others saw the deadly force of this new weapon, whose effect they had never before experienced, and when they also saw that their arrows did no harm, they turned and fled, leaving the unhappy [chief] dead upon the ground. From this deed the Indians became very much frightened.

A few days after the above incident the captain arrived with the Fathers, bringing the equipment for the Mission of San Buenaventura,^[19] but fearing that the Indians might make some attempt to avenge the death of their chief, he decided to increase the guard of the San Gabriel Mission up to the number of sixteen soldiers. . . . The commander then went on with his remaining soldiers to Monterey, taking with him the soldier who had killed the Indian in order that he might not serve as a means of provocation to the rest. . . .

So we see that four Missionaries remained in charge of the station of San Gabriel, but as the two formerly assigned to the work here were taken sick they had to retire shortly after to Old California, and the two assigned to San Buenaventura remained in charge and continued with all possible kindness and tact to attract to the Mission the pagans who, little by little, came to forget the deed of the soldier and the death of their chief, and to bring in some of their children to be baptized. One of the first of these children was the son of the unfortunate chieftain whom the widow gladly gave to the Fathers for this purpose, and her example was followed by many others, so that the number of Christians began to increase. Two years after the founding of the Mission, on the occasion of my visit to it, they had baptized seventy-three, and at the time of the death of our Venerable Father the number was 1019 neophytes.

The post The Life and Apostolic Labors of the Venerable Father Jun铆pero Serra appeared first on 澳门六合彩开奖直播.

I am very glad to see you here again, and to hear that you have tried so hard to carry out the promises made by you when you were here before – to keep the peace between your people and the whites. . . .

We want to do for you and your people all we can to advance and help them, and to enable them to become self-supporting. The time must come when, with the great growth of population here, the game will be gone, and your people will then have to resort to other means of support; and while there is time we would like to teach you new modes of living that will secure you in the future and be a safe means of livelihood.

I want to see the Indians get upon land where they can look forward to permanent homes for themselves and their children. The matter of the location of your agency we want to make agreeable to you, and also to the white people, and to regulate this you must speak to the Secretary of the Interior. I want you to have your talk with him. He tells me all that is said to him, and he speaks for me.

I do not want you and your people to go beyond the territory which has been guaranteed to you by treaty stipulations, except with your full consent; but I am going to suggest to you for your thought and reflection a movement – not for you to decide upon today, nor this year necessarily, but for you to think about taking into consideration the advantages that will be gained by it – and if you all consent I will state what we propose to do for you.

If, at any time, you feel like moving to what is known as the Cherokee country¹ – which is a large territory, with an admirable climate, where you would never suffer from the cold and where you could have lands set apart to remain exclusively your own – we would set apart a large tract of land that would belong to you and your children. We would at first build houses for your chiefs and principal men, and send men among your people to instruct them so they could have houses for shelter. We would send you large herds of cattle and sheep to live upon, and to enable you to raise stock. To this end we would send, if you so desire, Indians who have been accustomed to live with white men, who would instruct you in growing and raising stock until you know how to do so yourselves. We would establish schools, so that your children would learn to read and to write, and to speak the English language, the same as white people, and in this way you and your people would be prepared, before the game is gone, to live comfortably and securely.

I say this only for you to think about and talk about to your people. Whenever you are ready to avail yourself of this offer, then you can talk to us, and we will do what I say. All the treaty obligations we have entered into we shall keep with you unless it is with your own consent that the change is made, or so long as you keep those obligations yourself.

Any reply that you wish to make you can make to the Secretary of the Interior. This you can put off until you have thought over the subject.

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There was no intimation given that the removal of the 3rd and 4th regiments of infantry to the western border of Louisiana was occasioned in any way by the prospective annexation of Texas, but it was generally understood that such was the case. Ostensibly, we were intended to prevent filibustering¹ into Texas, but really as a menace to Mexico in case she appeared to contemplate war. Generally, the officers of the army were indifferent to whether the annexation was consummated or not; but not so all of them. For myself, I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day regard the war, which resulted, as one of the must unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation. It was an instance of a republic following the bad example of European monarchies, in not considering justice in their desire to acquire more territory.

Texas was originally a state belonging to the republic of Mexico. It extended from the Sabine River on the east to the Rio Grande on the west, and from the Gulf of Mexico on the south and east to the territory of the United States and New Mexico – another Mexican state at that time – on the north and west. An empire in territory, it had but a very sparse population, until settled by Americans who had received authority from Mexico to colonize. These colonists paid very little attention to the supreme government, and introduced slavery into the state almost from the start, though the constitution of Mexico did not, nor does it now, sanction that institution. Soon they set up an independent government of their own, and war existed, between Texas and Mexico, in name from that time until 1836, when active hostilities very nearly ceased upon the capture of Santa Anna, the Mexican President. Before long, however, the same people – who with permission of Mexico had colonized Texas, and afterwards set up slavery there, and then seceded as soon as they felt strong enough to do so – offered themselves and the State to the United States, and in 1845 their offer was accepted. The occupation, separation, and annexation were, from the inception of the movement to its final consummation, a conspiracy to acquire territory out of which slave states might be formed for the American Union.

Even if the annexation itself could be justified, the manner in which the subsequent war was forced upon Mexico cannot. The fact is, annexationists wanted more territory than they could possibly lay any claim to, as part of the new acquisition. Texas, as an independent State, never had exercised jurisdiction over the territory between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande. Mexico had never recognized the independence of Texas, and maintained that, even if independent, the State had no claim south of the Nueces. I am aware that a treaty, made by the Texans with Santa Anna while he was under duress, ceded all the territory between the Nueces and the Rio Grande; but he was a prisoner of war when the treaty was made, and his life was in jeopardy. . . .

In taking military possession of Texas after annexation, the army of occupation, under General Taylor, was directed to occupy the disputed territory. The army did not stop at the Nueces and offer to negotiate for a settlement of the boundary question, but went beyond, apparently in order to force Mexico to initiate war. It is to the credit of the American nation, however, that after conquering Mexico, and while practically holding the country in our possession, so that we could have retained the whole of it, or made any terms we chose, we paid a round sum for the additional territory taken; more than it was worth, or was likely to be, to Mexico. To us it was an empire and of incalculable value; but it might have been obtained by other means. The Southern rebellion was largely the outgrowth of the Mexican war. Nations, like individuals, are punished for their transgressions. We got our punishment in the most sanguinary and expensive war of modern times. . . .

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What are we, who declared this war, now doing? Here we are in the second week of this short session, denouncing the President for causing an unholy, impious, and vindictive war, and cavilling and carping at the manner in which he has protected the Mexican people who have yielded to the resistless shock of our victorious arms. Oh, shame. The very ashes of our fathers cry out against us! Are we, indeed, so degenerated that we are afraid to meet the responsibility of our own acts, and meanly attempt to throw the responsibility on other shoulders?

There was a time, according to my reading, when a portion of this policy was pursued by those who preceded the gentleman鈥檚 school of politics. The Federalists, in 1812, opposed, denounced, and vilified the Government, and those who then administered it, in much the same terms as those used now. But what was their fate? The virtuous indignation of a patriotic people consigned them and their names to the eternal infamy which their conduct so justly merited. And yet their conduct was honorable when compared to the conduct of those who voted for, and now oppose, this war. They opposed the war, from its inception; they voted against its declaration; but you voted for this war 鈥� you yourselves voted to plunge your country into what you now call an unholy war: one of infamy, commenced, as you now aver, with a view to conquest. And now you turn round and oppose it, and strain every nerve to convince the world that your own country is wholly in the wrong. Suppose it were possible for you to succeed, what then? Why, you have disgraced your Government, and yourselves with it! Is this the employment of patriots? But do gentlemen believe what they say, in relation to the iniquity of this war? I submit that it is impossible for any well-informed man honestly to take that view of the subject. He must know better. The causes which produced this war, and the justice of our cause, have been so fully and powerfully set forth by the President in his annual message, that shall not be guilty of the egregious folly of trying to render it more plain. But I ask all those who have not read that document, and who entertain any doubt on this subject, to read it. The evidence is clear, powerful, and conclusive. This Government had borne outrages, indignities, and insults, from that Government, longer than she would have done from any other Government upon earth.

Had England or France, or any other respectable Government, treated us with half the indignity, outrage, and insult, manifested by Mexico, long since would the honor of the country have been vindicated. But Mexico was a feeble Government, distracted by internal factions and feuds; beside, it approximated, to some extent, to a republican form, and excited our sympathies. Hence it was that this Government bore with her outrages and insults until forbearance ceased to be a virtue. Mexico took advantage of this forbearance, and repeated her injuries, and, as if for the purpose of filling the cup of outrages to overflowing, she finally crossed our territorial lines, and attacked our armies and citizens upon our own soil. Thus was our Government driven to the wall. National dishonor or a prompt punishment of the offender was the only alternative.

But, I repeat, do the gentlemen on the opposite side doubt the justness of our cause? It is my candid opinion that they do not. The lameness of their assaults upon the President shows that they do not believe their own assertions. First, they complain that the President moved our army to the left bank of the Rio Grande contrary to law, and thereby brought on the war. A moment鈥檚 investigation will prove the absurdity of their position. It was not the President, but Congress, which made the Rio Grande our boundary line. By the annexation of Texas we bound the President to defend that as our territory. The State of Texas claimed the territory to that line. Under that claim we annexed her to the Union.

But as we were determined to give to Mexico no just cause of complaint against us, and as she claimed territory on this side of the Rio Grande, we stipulated with Texas that after annexation we should have the right to settle all questions of boundary with the Mexican Government. So soon as Texas was annexed, the President informed Mexico of this power, now resting in the United States, and of his willingness to settle the question by negotiation. She refused to negotiate, but declared she would settle it by the sword. In the meantime, this very Congress passed a law establishing a collection district between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande, and directed the President to appoint a custom-house officer to reside in that country. By this act, on our part, we said to the President, in the strongest possible language, 鈥淭his is our country, and it is your duty to see that our jurisdiction is maintained over it.鈥� The Mexican Government, in the meantime, was concentrating a strong force on the south bank of the Rio Grande, and constantly fulminating her threats of slaughter and reconquest even to the Sabine. What, in the name of all that is sacred, was the President to do but exactly what he did do 鈥� move our army to the extreme limit of our boundary, and there await the onslaught, if Mexico chose to make it? If he had done otherwise, he would have been justly censurable; and in that event I make no doubt that the very men who are now denouncing him for having defended our soil, would have clamored in this House for an impeachment against him for having suffered its pollution by the hostile tread of a foreign foe. Foiled at this point, the next complaint is, that the President has conquered a large portion of Mexico and established civil governments therein. Well, where does the shoe pinch here, gentlemen? Are you horrified at the success of the American arms? I verily believe that many of you would have been better pleased if the results of this war had been the defeat of our armies and a loss of American territory, and more especially if it had secured the defeat of the dominant party. Or are your feelings of humanity outraged that the President has restrained the stern mandate of the military law in favor of the civil? Did you desire him to stain his character with cruelty, which the emergencies of the army did not demand, that you might have more cause to denounce the action of your own Government? In this again you are disappointed. All this your actions authorized us to charge, but I will not believe you as unpatriotic as your conduct imports. The truth probably is, that the actions of your Government you would have heartily approved, if the same acts had been performed by a President of your own choice. But such is your rooted and settled hostility to democratic measures, that you are willing to hazard the cause of your country, in the hope that you may render a democratic President unpopular, and thereby secure your own elevation to power. If this be your object 鈥� and it is the most charitable one which I can impute to you 鈥� I submit it to the country whether your elevation may not cost more than your services may be worth.

Since the commencement of this war there has been, in and out of this House, many and pathetic appeals by those who oppose it to the sympathy of the moral and religious portion of our people against the horrors necessarily resulting from a state of war. I profess to be as much opposed to a useless and unnecessary war as the most devout Christian can be. I believe war should never be resorted to when honor can be preserved without it. And I now arraign before the bar of public opinion those selfsame men, as being the sole cause of this war. I hold them responsible for every drop of blood which has been, or will be, shed in this contest. Does any man in his senses believe that Mexico would have commenced this war, if she had not been induced to believe, by the course of the opponents of the Executive, that this Government would not be suffered to chastise them for their injustice and insolence? . . . . By this have you opened the veins and destroyed the lives of many of our bravest soldiers! And you will deceive them still further. Are they not now publishing in their papers that there is a probability of a revolution in the north of this Republic 鈥� that the New England States would secede from the Union 鈥� and other such nonsense? Will they ever treat with us whilst they believe this? And what is to be the result? Will you fulfil the hopes which your conduct has inspired? Never! You cannot, if you would, and you would not, if you could, make your Government recede. No, an honorable peace, with indemnity for the past and security for the future, or an utter annihilation of the Mexican Government, will be the end of this war. . . .

There was one allusion made by the gentleman from Tennessee, which rather horrified than surprised me. He, with something like a sneer, referred to what he seemed to hope would be the ultimate result of the acquisition of Mexican territory. He said the Northern Democrats would never suffer any other slave territory to exist in this, country, and that the Southern Democrats would not suffer any free States to exist west of Texas. And he seemed to gloat over the possible dissolution of the Union. Had this come from a northern Abolitionist, I could have accounted for and excused it. But coming from the quarter it did, it seemed like the patricide inviting the onslaught upon the devoted heads of his defenseless parents. . . . This was done avowedly for the purpose of securing, if possible, a bad feeling towards the President. And does the gentleman really think so poorly of our patriotism as to suppose that he could thereby induce us to quarrel with the President whilst he is engaged in the conduct of a foreign war? I feel myself under no obligation to defend the President in all his acts, nor does he need my defense. But if I had any little pique . . . I would wait until my country was extricated from this foreign war before I would wrangle with its Executive.

Such is the course duty points out to me, and I will follow it. And in conclusion, I say to the gentlemen on the other side, go on, if you choose, in this constant denunciation of your country鈥檚 cause; the end of it all will be, either you will render your constituents wholly mercenary and unpatriotic, which God in his mercy forefend; or, which is more likely, you will sink yourselves and your very names to that infamy which always overtakes those who are capable of sacrificing their country to self, and sinking the patriot into the partisan.

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Loving and kind father and mother, my most humble duty remembered to you, hoping in God of your good health. . . . This is to let you understand that I, your child, am in a most heavy case by reason of the nature of the country: [it] is such that it causes much sickness, as the scurvy and the bloody flux, and diverse other diseases, which makes the body very poor, and weak. [A]nd when we are sick there is nothing to comfort us; for since I came out of the ship, I never ate anything but peas, and loblollie [that is water gruel]; as for deer or venison, I never saw any since I came into this land. There is indeed some fowl, but we are not allowed to go and get it, but must work hard both early and late for a mess of water gruel, and a mouthful of bread, and beef. A mouthful of bread for a penny loaf must serve for four men which is most pitiful.

. . . We live in fear of the enemy. . . . [W]e have had a combat with them on the Sunday before Shrovetide [the beginning of Lent], and we took two alive, and made slaves of them, but it was by policy, for we are in great danger, for our plantation is very weak, by reason of the dearth, and sickness, of our company.
. . .

I have nothing to comfort me, nor there is nothing to be gotten here but sickness, and death, except that one had money to lay out in some things for profit; but I have nothing at all, no not a shirt to my back, but two rags, nor no clothes, but one poor suite, nor but one pair of shoes, but one pair of stockings, but one cap, but two band[s], my cloak is stolen by one of my own fellows, and to his dying however would not tell me what he did with it but some of my fellows saw him have butter and beef out of a ship, which my cloak I doubt [not?] paid for, so that I have not a penny, nor a penny worth to help me to either spice, or sugar, or strong waters, without the which one cannot live here, for as strong beer in England doth fatten and strengthen them so water here doth wash and weaken. . . .

I am not half a quarter so strong as I was in England, and all is for want of victuals, for I do protest unto you, that I have eaten more in day at home then I have allowed me here for a week. You have given more than my day鈥檚 allowance to a beggar at the door; and if M^r聽[John] Jackson had not relieved me, I should be in a poor case, but he like a father and she like a loving mother doth still help me. . . .

Goodman Jackson . . . much marveled that you would send me a servant to the Company.

He saith, I had been better knocked on the head, and indeed, so I find it now to my great grief and misery, and saith, that if you love me you will redeem me suddenly, for which I do entreat and beg. If you cannot get the merchants to redeem me for some little money, then for God鈥檚 sake, get a gathering or entreat some good folks to lay out some little sum of money, in meal and cheese and butter and beef, any eating meat will yield great profit. Oil and vinegar is very good, but father there is great loss in leaking, but for God鈥檚 sake send beef and cheese and butter, or the more of one sort and none of the other. . . . Look, whatsoever you send me, be it never so much, look what I make of it, I will deal truly with you. I will send it over, and beg the profit to redeem me, and if I die before it come, I have entreated Goodman Jackson to send you the worth of it, who hath promised he will. . . .

Good father do not forget me, but have mercy and pity my miserable case. I know if you did but see me you would weep to see me. . . .

Richard Frethorne
Martyns Hundred

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On the part of the King, Don Fernando, and of Doña Juana, his daughter, Queen of Castile and León, subduers of the barbarous nations, we their servants notify and make known to you, as best we can, that the Lord our God, Living and Eternal, created the Heaven and the Earth, and one man and one woman, of whom you and we, all the men of the world, were and are descendants, and all those who came after us. But, on account of the multitude which has sprung from this man and woman in the five thousand years since the world was created, it was necessary that some men should go one way and some another, and that they should be divided into many kingdoms and provinces, for in one alone they could not be sustained.

Of all these nations God our Lord gave charge to one man, called St. Peter, that he should be Lord and Superior of all the men in the world, that all should obey him, and that he should be the head of the whole human race, wherever men should live, and under whatever law, sect, or belief they should be; and he gave him the world for his kingdom and jurisdiction.

And he commanded him to place his seat in Rome as the spot most fitting to rule the world from; but also he permitted him to have his seat in any other part of the world, and to judge and govern all Christians, Moors [Muslims], Jews, Gentiles, and all other sects. This man was called Pope, as if to say, Admirable Great Father and Governor of men. The men who lived in that time obeyed that St. Peter and took him for Lord, King, and Superior of the universe; so also they have regarded the others who after him have been elected to the pontificate, and so has it been continued even till now and will continue till the end of the world.

One of these Pontiffs [popes] who succeeded that St. Peter as Lord of the world, in the dignity and seat which I have before mentioned, made donation of these isles and Tierra-firme to the aforesaid King and Queen and to their successors,¹ our lords, with all that there are in these territories, as is contained in certain writings which passed upon the subject as aforesaid, which you can see if you wish.

So their Highnesses are kings and lords of these islands and land of Tierra-firme by virtue of this donation: and some islands, and indeed almost all those to whom this has been notified, have received and served their Highnesses, as lords and kings, in the way that subjects ought to do, with good will, without any resistance, immediately, without delay, when they were informed of the aforesaid facts. And also they received and obeyed the priests whom their Highnesses sent to preach to them and to teach them our Holy Faith; and all these, of their own free will, without any reward or condition, have become Christians, and are so, and their Highnesses have joyfully and benignantly received them, and also have commanded them to be treated as their subjects and vassals; and you too are held and obliged to do the same. Wherefore, as best we can, we ask and require you that you consider what we have said to you, and that you take the time that shall be necessary to understand and deliberate upon it, and that you acknowledge the Church as the Ruler and Superior of the whole world, and the high priest called Pope, and in his name the King and Queen Doña Juana our lords, in his place, as superiors and lords and kings of these islands and this Tierra-firme by virtue of the said donation, and that you consent and give place that these religious fathers should declare and preach to you the aforesaid.

If you do so, you will do well, and that which you are obliged to do to their Highnesses, and we in their name shall receive you in all love and charity, and shall leave you, your wives, and your children, and your lands, free without servitude, that you may do with them and with yourselves freely that which you like and think best, and they shall not compel you to turn Christians, unless you yourselves, when informed of the truth, should wish to be converted to our Holy Catholic Faith, as almost all the inhabitants of the rest of the islands have done. And, besides this, their Highnesses award you many privileges and exemptions and will grant you many benefits.

But, if you do not do this, and maliciously make delay in it, I certify to you that, with the help of God, we shall powerfully enter into your country, and shall make war against you in all ways and manners that we can, and shall subject you to the yoke and obedience of the Church and of their Highnesses; we shall take you and your wives and your children, and shall make slaves of them, and as such shall sell and dispose of them as their Highnesses may command; and we shall take away your goods, and shall do you all the mischief and damage that we can, as to vassals who do not obey, and refuse to receive their lord, and resist and contradict him; and we protest that the deaths and losses which shall accrue from this are your fault, and not that of their Highnesses, or ours, nor of these cavaliers who come with us. And that we have said this to you and made this Requisition, we request the notary here present to give us his testimony in writing, and we ask the rest who are present that they should be witnesses of this Requisition.

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IN THE NAME OF ALMIGHTY GOD

The United States of America and the United Mexican States animated by a sincere desire to put an end to the calamities of the war which unhappily exists between the two Republics and to establish Upon a solid basis relations of peace and friendship, which shall confer reciprocal benefits upon the citizens of both, and assure the concord, harmony, and mutual confidence wherein the two people should live, as good neighbors have for that purpose appointed their respective plenipotentiaries, that is to say: The President of the United States has appointed Nicholas P. Trist, a citizen of the United States, and the President of the Mexican Republic has appointed Don Luis Gonzaga Cuevas, Don Bernardo Couto, and Don Miguel Atristain, citizens of the said Republic; Who, after a reciprocal communication of their respective full powers, have, under the protection of Almighty God, the author of peace, arranged, agreed upon, and signed the following: Treaty of Peace, Friendship, Limits, and Settlement between the United States of America and the Mexican Republic.

ARTICLE I

There shall be firm and universal peace between the United States of America and the Mexican Republic, and between their respective countries, territories, cities, towns, and people, without exception of places or persons.

ARTICLE II

Immediately upon the signature of this treaty, a convention shall be entered into between a commissioner or commissioners appointed by the General-in-chief of the forces of the United States, and such as may be appointed by the Mexican Government, to the end that a provisional suspension of hostilities shall take place, and that, in the places occupied by the said forces, constitutional order may be reestablished, as regards the political, administrative, and judicial branches, so far as this shall be permitted by the circumstances of military occupation.

ARTICLE III

Immediately upon the ratification of the present treaty by the Government of the United States, orders shall be transmitted to the commanders of their land and naval forces, requiring the latter (provided this treaty shall then have been ratified by the Government of the Mexican Republic, and the ratifications exchanged) immediately to desist from blockading any Mexican ports and requiring the former (under the same condition) to commence, at the earliest moment practicable, withdrawing all troops of the United States then in the interior of the Mexican Republic, to points that shall be selected by common agreement, at a distance from the seaports not exceeding thirty leagues; and such evacuation of the interior of the Republic shall be completed with the least possible delay; the Mexican Government hereby binding itself to afford every facility in its power for rendering the same convenient to the troops, on their march and in their new positions, and for promoting a good understanding between them and the inhabitants. In like manner orders shall be despatched to the persons in charge of the custom houses at all ports occupied by the forces of the United States, requiring them (under the same condition) immediately to deliver possession of the same to the persons authorized by the Mexican Government to receive it, together with all bonds and evidences of debt for duties on importations and on exportations, not yet fallen due. Moreover, a faithful and exact account shall be made out, showing the entire amount of all duties on imports and on exports, collected at such custom-houses, or elsewhere in Mexico, by authority of the United States, from and after the day of ratification of this treaty by the Government of the Mexican Republic; and also an account of the cost of collection; and such entire amount, deducting only the cost of collection, shall be delivered to the Mexican Government, at the city of Mexico, within three months after the exchange of ratifications.

The evacuation of the capital of the Mexican Republic by the troops of the United States, in virtue of the above stipulation, shall be completed in one month after the orders there stipulated for shall have been received by the commander of said troops, or sooner if possible.

ARTICLE IV

Immediately after the exchange of ratifications of the present treaty all castles, forts, territories, places, and possessions, which have been taken or occupied by the forces of the United States during the present war, within the limits of the Mexican Republic, as about to be established by the following article, shall be definitely restored to the said Republic, together with all the artillery, arms, apparatus of war, munitions, and other public property, which were in the said castles and forts when captured, and which shall remain there at the time when this treaty shall be duly ratified by the Government of the Mexican Republic. To this end, immediately upon the signature of this treaty, orders shall be despatched to the American officers commanding such castles and forts, securing against the removal or destruction of any such artillery, arms, apparatus of war, munitions, or other public property. The city of Mexico, within the inner line of intrenchments surrounding the said city, is comprehended in the above stipulation, as regards the restoration of artillery, apparatus of war, & c.

The final evacuation of the territory of the Mexican Republic, by the forces of the United States, shall be completed in three months from the said exchange of ratifications, or sooner if possible; the Mexican Government hereby engaging, as in the foregoing article to use all means in its power for facilitating such evacuation, and rendering it convenient to the troops, and for promoting a good understanding between them and the inhabitants.

If, however, the ratification of this treaty by both parties should not take place in time to allow the embarcation of the troops of the United States to be completed before the commencement of the sickly season, at the Mexican ports on the Gulf of Mexico, in such case a friendly arrangement shall be entered into between the General-in-Chief of the said troops and the Mexican Government, whereby healthy and otherwise suitable places, at a distance from the ports not exceeding thirty leagues, shall be designated for the residence of such troops as may not yet have embarked, until the return of the healthy season. And the space of time here referred to as, comprehending the sickly season shall be understood to extend from the first day of May to the first day of November.

All prisoners of war taken on either side, on land or on sea, shall be restored as soon as practicable after the exchange of ratifications of this treaty. It is also agreed that if any Mexicans should now be held as captives by any savage tribe within the limits of the United States, as about to be established by the following article, the Government of the said United States will exact the release of such captives and cause them to be restored to their country.

ARTICLE V

The boundary line between the two Republics shall commence in the Gulf of Mexico, three leagues from land, opposite the mouth of the Rio Grande, otherwise called Rio Bravo del Norte, or Opposite the mouth of its deepest branch, if it should have more than one branch emptying directly into the sea; from thence up the middle of that river, following the deepest channel, where it has more than one, to the point where it strikes the southern boundary of New Mexico; thence, westwardly, along the whole southern boundary of New Mexico (which runs north of the town called Paso) to its western termination; thence, northward, along the western line of New Mexico, until it intersects the first branch of the river Gila; (or if it should not intersect any branch of that river, then to the point on the said line nearest to such branch, and thence in a direct line to the same); thence down the middle of the said branch and of the said river, until it empties into the Rio Colorado; thence across the Rio Colorado, following the division line between Upper and Lower California, to the Pacific Ocean.

The southern and western limits of New Mexico, mentioned in the article, are those laid down in the map entitled “Map of the United Mexican States, as organized and defined by various acts of the Congress of said republic, and constructed according to the best authorities. Revised edition. Published at New York, in 1847, by J. Disturnell,” of which map a copy is added to this treaty, bearing the signatures and seals of the undersigned Plenipotentiaries. And, in order to preclude all difficulty in tracing upon the ground the limit separating Upper from Lower California, it is agreed that the said limit shall consist of a straight line drawn from the middle of the Rio Gila, where it unites with the Colorado, to a point on the coast of the Pacific Ocean, distant one marine league due south of the southernmost point of the port of San Diego, according to the plan of said port made in the year 1782 by DonJuan Pantoja, second sailing-master of the Spanish fleet, and published at Madrid in the year 1802, in the atlas to the voyage of the schooners Sutil and Mexicana; of which plan a copy is hereunto added, signed and sealed by the respective Plenipotentiaries.

In order to designate the boundary line with due precision, upon authoritative maps, and to establish upon the ground land-marks which shall show the limits of both republics, as described in the present article, the two Governments shall each appoint a commissioner and a surveyor, who, before the expiration of one year from the date of the exchange of ratifications of this treaty, shall meet at the port of San Diego, and proceed to run and mark the said boundary in its whole course to the mouth of the Rio Bravo del Norte. They shall keep journals and make out plans of their operations; and the result agreed upon by them shall be deemed a part of this treaty, and shall have the same force as if it were inserted therein. The two Governments will amicably agree regarding what may be necessary to these persons, and also as to their respective escorts, should such be necessary.

The boundary line established by this article shall be religiously respected by each of the two republics, and no change shall ever be made therein, except by the express and free consent of both nations, lawfully given by the General Government of each, in conformity with its own constitution.

ARTICLE VI

The vessels and citizens of the United States shall, in all time, have a free and uninterrupted passage by the Gulf of California, and by the river Colorado below its confluence with the Gila, to and from their possessions situated north of the boundary line defined in the preceding article; it being understood that this passage is to be by navigating the Gulf of California and the river Colorado, and not by land, without the express consent of the Mexican Government.

If, by the examinations which may be made, it should be ascertained to be practicable and advantageous to construct a road, canal, or railway, which should in whole or in part run upon the river Gila, or upon its right or its left bank, within the space of one marine league from either margin of the river, the Governments of both republics will form an agreement regarding its construction, in order that it may serve equally for the use and advantage of both countries.

ARTICLE VII

The river Gila, and the part of the Rio Bravo del Norte lying below the southern boundary of New Mexico, being, agreeably to the fifth article, divided in the middle between the two republics, the navigation of the Gila and of the Bravo below said boundary shall be free and common to the vessels and citizens of both countries; and neither shall, without the consent of the other, construct any work that may impede or interrupt, in whole or in part, the exercise of this right; not even for the purpose of favoring new methods of navigation. Nor shall any tax or contribution, under any denomination or title, be levied upon vessels or persons navigating the same or upon merchandise or effects transported thereon, except in the case of landing upon one of their shores. If, for the purpose of making the said rivers navigable, or for maintaining them in such state, it should be necessary or advantageous to establish any tax or contribution, this shall not be done without the consent of both Governments.

The stipulations contained in the present article shall not impair the territorial rights of either republic within its established limits.

ARTICLE VIII

Mexicans now established in territories previously belonging to Mexico, and which remain for the future within the limits of the United States, as defined by the present treaty, shall be free to continue where they now reside, or to remove at any time to the Mexican Republic, retaining the property which they possess in the said territories, or disposing thereof, and removing the proceeds wherever they please, without their being subjected, on this account, to any contribution, tax, or charge whatever.

Those who shall prefer to remain in the said territories may either retain the title and rights of Mexican citizens, or acquire those of citizens of the United States. But they shall be under the obligation to make their election within one year from the date of the exchange of ratifications of this treaty; and those who shall remain in the said territories after the expiration of that year, without having declared their intention to retain the character of Mexicans, shall be considered to have elected to become citizens of the United States.

In the said territories, property of every kind, now belonging to Mexicans not established there, shall be inviolably respected. The present owners, the heirs of these, and all Mexicans who may hereafter acquire said property by contract, shall enjoy with respect to it guarantees equally ample as if the same belonged to citizens of the United States.

ARTICLE IX

The Mexicans who, in the territories aforesaid, shall not preserve the character of citizens of the Mexican Republic, conformably with what is stipulated in the preceding article, shall be incorporated into the Union of the United States. and be admitted at the proper time (to be judged of by the Congress of the United States) to the enjoyment of all the rights of citizens of the United States, according to the principles of the Constitution; and in the mean time, shall be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty and property, and secured in the free exercise of their religion without; restriction.

ARTICLE X

[Stricken out]

Article XI

Considering that a great part of the territories, which, by the present treaty, are to be comprehended for the future within the limits of the United States, is now occupied by savage tribes, who will hereafter be under the exclusive control of the Government of the United States, and whose incursions within the territory of Mexico would be prejudicial in the extreme, it is solemnly agreed that all such incursions shall be forcibly restrained by the Government of the United States whensoever this may be necessary; and that when they cannot be prevented, they shall be punished by the said Government, and satisfaction for the same shall be exactedall in the same way, and with equal diligence and energy, as if the same incursions were meditated or committed within its own territory, against its own citizens.

It shall not be lawful, under any pretext whatever, for any inhabitant of the United States to purchase or acquire any Mexican, or any foreigner residing in Mexico, who may have been captured by Indians inhabiting the territory of either of the two republics; nor to purchase or acquire horses, mules, cattle, or property of any kind, stolen within Mexican territory by such Indians.

And in the event of any person or persons, captured within Mexican territory by Indians, being carried into the territory of the United States, the Government of the latter engages and binds itself, in the most solemn manner, so soon as it shall know of such captives being within its territory, and shall be able so to do, through the faithful exercise of its influence and power, to rescue them and return them to their country. or deliver them to the agent or representative of the Mexican Government. The Mexican authorities will, as far as practicable, give to the Government of the United States notice of such captures; and its agents shall pay the expenses incurred in the maintenance and transmission of the rescued captives; who, in the mean time, shall be treated with the utmost hospitality by the American authorities at the place where they may be. But if the Government of the United States, before receiving such notice from Mexico, should obtain intelligence, through any other channel, of the existence of Mexican captives within its territory, it will proceed forthwith to effect their release and delivery to the Mexican agent, as above stipulated.

For the purpose of giving to these stipulations the fullest possible efficacy, thereby affording the security and redress demanded by their true spirit and intent, the Government of the United States will now and hereafter pass, without unnecessary delay, and always vigilantly enforce, such laws as the nature of the subject may require. And, finally, the sacredness of this obligation shall never be lost sight of by the said Government, when providing for the removal of the Indians from any portion of the said territories, or for its being settled by citizens of the United States; but, on the contrary, special care shall then be taken not to place its Indian occupants under the necessity of seeking new homes, by committing those invasions which the United States have solemnly obliged themselves to restrain.

ARTICLE XII

In consideration of the extension acquired by the boundaries of the United States, as defined in the fifth article of the present treaty, the Government of the United States engages to pay to that of the Mexican Republic the sum of fifteen millions of dollars.

Immediately after the treaty shall have been duly ratified by the Government of the Mexican Republic, the sum of three millions of dollars shall be paid to the said Government by that of the United States, at the city of Mexico, in the gold or silver coin of Mexico The remaining twelve millions of dollars shall be paid at the same place, and in the same coin, in annual installments of three millions of dollars each, together with interest on the same at the rate of six per centum per annum. This interest shall begin to run upon the whole sum of twelve millions from the day of the ratification of the present treaty by-the Mexican Government, and the first of the installments shall be paid-at the expiration of one year from the same day. Together with each annual installment, as it falls due, the whole interest accruing on such installment from the beginning shall also be paid.

ARTICLE XIII

The United States engage, moreover, to assume and pay to the claimants all the amounts now due them, and those hereafter to become due, by reason of the claims already liquidated and decided against the Mexican Republic, under the conventions between the two republics severally concluded on the eleventh day of April, eighteen hundred and thirty-nine, and on the thirtieth day of January, eighteen hundred and forty-three; so that the Mexican Republic shall be absolutely exempt, for the future, from all expense whatever on account of the said claims.

ARTICLE XIV

The United States do furthermore discharge the Mexican Republic from all claims of citizens of the United States, not heretofore decided against the Mexican Government, which may have arisen previously to the date of the signature of this treaty; which discharge shall be final and perpetual, whether the said claims be rejected or be allowed by the board of commissioners provided for in the following article, and whatever shall be the total amount of those allowed.

ARTICLE XV

The United States, exonerating Mexico from all demands on account of the claims of their citizens mentioned in the preceding article, and considering them entirely and forever canceled, whatever their amount may be, undertake to make satisfaction for the same, to an amount not exceeding three and one-quarter millions of dollars. To ascertain the validity and amount of those claims, a board of commissioners shall be established by the Government of the United States, whose awards shall be final and conclusive; provided that, in deciding upon the validity of each claim, the boa shall be guided and governed by the principles and rules of decision prescribed by the first and fifth articles of the unratified convention, concluded at the city of Mexico on the twentieth day of November, one thousand eight hundred and forty-three; and in no case shall an award be made in favour of any claim not embraced by these principles and rules.

If, in the opinion of the said board of commissioners or of the claimants, any books, records, or documents, in the possession or power of the Government of the Mexican Republic, shall be deemed necessary to the just decision of any claim, the commissioners, or the claimants through them, shall, within such period as Congress may designate, make an application in writing for the same, addressed to the Mexican Minister of Foreign Affairs, to be transmitted by the Secretary of State of the United States; and the Mexican Government engages, at the earliest possible moment after the receipt of such demand, to cause any of the books, records, or documents so specified, which shall be in their possession or power (or authenticated copies or extracts of the same), to be transmitted to the said Secretary of State, who shall immediately deliver them over to the said board of commissioners; provided that no such application shall be made by or at the instance of any claimant, until the facts which it is expected to prove by such books, records, or documents, shall have been stated under oath or affirmation.

ARTICLE XVI

Each of the contracting parties reserves to itself the entire right to fortify whatever point within its territory it may judge proper so to fortify for its security.

ARTICLE XVII

The treaty of amity, commerce, and navigation, concluded at the city of Mexico, on the fifth day of April, A. D. 1831, between the United States of America and the United Mexican States, except the additional article, and except so far as the stipulations of the said treaty may be incompatible with any stipulation contained in the present treaty, is hereby revived for the period of eight years from the day of the exchange of ratifications of this treaty, with the same force and virtue as if incorporated therein; it being understood that each of the contracting parties reserves to itself the right, at any time after the said period of eight years shall have expired, to terminate the same by giving one year鈥檚 notice of such intention to the other party.

ARTICLE XVIII

All supplies whatever for troops of the United States in Mexico, arriving at ports in the occupation of such troops previous to the final evacuation thereof, although subsequently to the restoration of the custom-houses at such ports, shall be entirely exempt from duties and charges of any kind; the Government of the United States hereby engaging and pledging its faith to establish and vigilantly to enforce, all possible guards for securing the revenue of Mexico, by preventing the importation, under cover of this stipulation, of any articles other than such, both in kind and in quantity, as shall really be wanted for the use and consumption of the forces of the United States during the time they may remain in Mexico. To this end it shall be the duty of all officers and agents of the United States to denounce to the Mexican authorities at the respective ports any attempts at a fraudulent abuse of this stipulation, which they may know of, or may have reason to suspect, and to give to such authorities all the aid in their power with regard thereto; and every such attempt, when duly proved and established by sentence of a competent tribunal, They shall be punished by the confiscation of the property so attempted to be fraudulently introduced.

ARTICLE XIX

With respect to all merchandise, effects, and property whatsoever, imported into ports of Mexico, whilst in the occupation of the forces of the United States, whether by citizens of either republic, or by citizens or subjects of any neutral nation, the following rules shall be observed:

(1) All such merchandise, effects, and property, if imported previously to the restoration of the custom-houses to the Mexican authorities, as stipulated for in the third article of this treaty, shall be exempt from confiscation, although the importation of the same be prohibited by the Mexican tariff.

(2) The same perfect exemption shall be enjoyed by all such merchandise, effects, and property, imported subsequently to the restoration of the custom-houses, and previously to the sixty days fixed in the following article for the coming into force of the Mexican tariff at such ports respectively; the said merchandise, effects, and property being, however, at the time of their importation, subject to the payment of duties, as provided for in the said following article.

(3) All merchandise, effects, and property described in the two rules foregoing shall, during their continuance at the place of importation, and upon their leaving such place for the interior, be exempt from all duty, tax, or imposts of every kind, under whatsoever title or denomination. Nor shall they be there subject to any charge whatsoever upon the sale thereof.

(4) All merchandise, effects, and property, described in the first and second rules, which shall have been removed to any place in the interior, whilst such place was in the occupation of the forces of the United States, shall, during their continuance therein, be exempt from all tax upon the sale or consumption thereof, and from every kind of impost or contribution, under whatsoever title or denomination.

(5) But if any merchandise, effects, or property, described in the first and second rules, shall be removed to any place not occupied at the time by the forces of the United States, they shall, upon their introduction into such place, or upon their sale or consumption there, be subject to the same duties which, under the Mexican laws, they would be required to pay in such cases if they had been imported in time of peace, through the maritime custom-houses, and had there paid the duties conformably with the Mexican tariff.

(6) The owners of all merchandise, effects, or property, described in the first and second rules, and existing in any port of Mexico, shall have the right to reship the same, exempt from all tax, impost, or contribution whatever.

With respect to the metals, or other property, exported from any Mexican port whilst in the occupation of the forces of the United States, and previously to the restoration of the custom-house at such port, no person shall be required by the Mexican authorities, whether general or state, to pay any tax, duty, or contribution upon any such exportation, or in any manner to account for the same to the said authorities.

ARTICLE XX

Through consideration for the interests of commerce generally, it is agreed, that if less than sixty days should elapse between the date of the signature of this treaty and the restoration of the custom houses, conformably with the stipulation in the third article, in such case all merchandise, effects and property whatsoever, arriving at the Mexican ports after the restoration of the said custom-houses, and previously to the expiration of sixty days after the day of signature of this treaty, shall be admitted to entry; and no other duties shall be levied thereon than the duties established by the tariff found in force at such custom-houses at the time of the restoration of the same. And to all such merchandise, effects, and property, the rules established by the preceding article shall apply.

ARTICLE XXI

If unhappily any disagreement should hereafter arise between the Governments of the two republics, whether with respect to the interpretation of any stipulation in this treaty, or with respect to any other particular concerning the political or commercial relations of the two nations, the said Governments, in the name of those nations, do promise to each other that they will endeavour, in the most sincere and earnest manner, to settle the differences so arising, and to preserve the state of peace and friendship in which the two countries are now placing themselves, using, for this end, mutual representations and pacific negotiations. And if, by these means, they should not be enabled to come to an agreement, a resort shall not, on this account, be had to reprisals, aggression, or hostility of any kind, by the one republic against the other, until the Government of that which deems itself aggrieved shall have maturely considered, in the spirit of peace and good neighbourship, whether it would not be better that such difference should be settled by the arbitration of commissioners appointed on each side, or by that of a friendly nation. And should such course be proposed by either party, it shall be acceded to by the other, unless deemed by it altogether incompatible with the nature of the difference, or the circumstances of the case.

ARTICLE XXII

If (which is not to be expected, and which God forbid) war should unhappily break out between the two republics, they do now, with a view to such calamity, solemnly pledge themselves to each other and to the world to observe the following rules; absolutely where the nature of the subject permits, and as closely as possible in all cases where such absolute observance shall be impossible:

(1) The merchants of either republic then residing in the other shall be allowed to remain twelve months (for those dwelling in the interior), and six months (for those dwelling at the seaports) to collect their debts and settle their affairs; during which periods they shall enjoy the same protection, and be on the same footing, in all respects, as the citizens or subjects of the most friendly nations; and, at the expiration thereof, or at any time before, they shall have full liberty to depart, carrying off all their effects without molestation or hindrance, conforming therein to the same laws which the citizens or subjects of the most friendly nations are required to conform to. Upon the entrance of the armies of either nation into the territories of the other, women and children, ecclesiastics, scholars of every faculty, cultivators of the earth, merchants, artisans, manufacturers, and fishermen, unarmed and inhabiting unfortified towns, villages, or places, and in general all persons whose occupations are for the common subsistence and benefit of mankind, shall be allowed to continue their respective employments, unmolested in their persons. Nor shall their houses or goods be burnt or otherwise destroyed, nor their cattle taken, nor their fields wasted, by the armed force into whose power, by the events of war, they may happen to fall; but if the necessity arise to take anything from them for the use of such armed force, the same shall be paid for at an equitable price. All churches, hospitals, schools, colleges, libraries, and other establishments for charitable and beneficent purposes, shall be respected, and all persons connected with the same protected in the discharge of their duties, and the pursuit of their vocations.

(2). In order that the fate of prisoners of war may be alleviated all such practices as those of sending them into distant, inclement or unwholesome districts, or crowding them into close and noxious places, shall be studiously avoided. They shall not be confined in dungeons, prison ships, or prisons; nor be put in irons, or bound or otherwise restrained in the use of their limbs. The officers shall enjoy liberty on their paroles, within convenient districts, and have comfortable quarters; and the common soldiers shall be dispose( in cantonments, open and extensive enough for air and exercise and lodged in barracks as roomy and good as are provided by the party in whose power they are for its own troops. But if any office shall break his parole by leaving the district so assigned him, o any other prisoner shall escape from the limits of his cantonment after they shall have been designated to him, such individual, officer, or other prisoner, shall forfeit so much of the benefit of this article as provides for his liberty on parole or in cantonment. And if any officer so breaking his parole or any common soldier so escaping from the limits assigned him, shall afterwards be found in arms previously to his being regularly exchanged, the person so offending shall be dealt with according to the established laws of war. The officers shall be daily furnished, by the party in whose power they are, with as many rations, and of the same articles, as are allowed either in kind or by commutation, to officers of equal rank in its own army; and all others shall be daily furnished with such ration as is allowed to a common soldier in its own service; the value of all which supplies shall, at the close of the war, or at periods to be agreed upon between the respective commanders, be paid by the other party, on a mutual adjustment of accounts for the subsistence of prisoners; and such accounts shall not be mingled with or set off against any others, nor the balance due on them withheld, as a compensation or reprisal for any cause whatever, real or pretended Each party shall be allowed to keep a commissary of prisoners, appointed by itself, with every cantonment of prisoners, in possession of the other; which commissary shall see the prisoners as often a he pleases; shall be allowed to receive, exempt from all duties a taxes, and to distribute, whatever comforts may be sent to them by their friends; and shall be free to transmit his reports in open letters to the party by whom he is employed. And it is declared that neither the pretense that war dissolves all treaties, nor any other whatever, shall be considered as annulling or suspending the solemn covenant contained in this article. On the contrary, the state of war is precisely that for which it is provided; and, during which, its stipulations are to be as sacredly observed as the most acknowledged obligations under the law of nature or nations.

ARTICLE XXIII

This treaty shall be ratified by the President of the United States of America, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate thereof; and by the President of the Mexican Republic, with the previous approbation of its general Congress; and the ratifications shall be exchanged in the City of Washington, or at the seat of Government of Mexico, in four months from the date of the signature hereof, or sooner if practicable. In faith whereof we, the respective Plenipotentiaries, have signed this treaty of peace, friendship, limits, and settlement, and have hereunto affixed our seals respectively. Done in quintuplicate, at the city of Guadalupe Hidalgo, on the second day of February, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and forty-eight.

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A Word of Explanation To the Hasty Reader

Please do not mistake the purpose of this sermon. . . .

The sermon is against the assumption that the only way to meet our responsibilities is to annex the Philippine Islands as a permanent portion of our national domain.

It is against the abandonment of the American ideal of national growth for the European ideal of colonial conquest.

It is against the theory that it is our duty to take a share in the forcible division of the territories of the Eastern peoples, instead of using our influence for their protection and their native growth into free and intelligent States like Japan.

It is against the extension of the American frontier, by the sword, to the China Sea.

It is dead against imperialism.

It is in favor of republicanism as held and taught by the authors of the Declaration of Independence. . . .

Hebrews 12:16. “Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright.”

This is the most important Thanksgiving Day that has been celebrated by the present generation of Americans. Three and thirty years have rolled away since we gave thanks for the ending of the Civil War. Never since that time has our national religious festival been observed under such brilliant sunlight of prosperity or with such portentous clouds of danger massed along the horizon.

It is a significant Thanksgiving because we have extraordinary causes for national gratitude. The first and greatest of these causes is the superabundant harvest with which, for the second year in succession, God has rewarded the patient toilers who are the strength and pride of our country. . . .

The second cause for gratitude to-day is the new evidence that we have received of the union of the whole American people in loyalty and patriotism. The gaping wounds left by the Civil War have closed. . . .

The third cause for gratitude is the renewal of cordial amity between the two leading nations of the world – Great Britain and the United States. . . .

The fourth cause for thanksgiving to-day is the signal victory that has been granted to our country’s arms in a war undertaken for the destruction of the ancient Spanish tyranny in the Western Hemisphere and the liberation of the oppressed people of Cuba. How reluctantly the American people took up the cross of war after thirty-three years of peace none can know except those who have read the peace-loving heart of the great silent classes, the happy, industrious, prosperous classes, of our country. The call of humanity was the only summons that could have roused them; the cause of liberty was the only cause for which they would have fought. No party, no administration could have received the loyal support of the whole people unless it had written on its banner the splendid motto: “Not for gain, not for territory, but for freedom and human brotherhood!” That avowal alone made the war possible and successful. For that cause alone Christians could pray with a sincere heart, and mothers give their sons to death by slaughter or disease, and lovers of liberty take up the unselfish sword. . . . [P]roud and glad of all that American soldiers and sailors have done this year in the cause of liberty, we present our offerings upon the solemn altar of gratitude. For the Divine guidance and protection, without which a victory so complete and swift, even over an inferior foe, could never have been won, let us give most humble and hearty thanks.

But this Thanksgiving Day is not significant alone in its causes for gratitude. It is an important day, a marked day, an immensely serious day because it finds us, suddenly and without preparation, face to face with the most momentous and far-reaching problem of our national history. . . . Can we fix the hanging periods?

Are the United States to continue as a peaceful republic, or are they to become a conquering empire? Is the result of the war with Spain to be the banishment of European tyranny from the Western Hemisphere, or is it to be the entanglement of the Western republic in the rivalries of European kingdoms? Have we set the Cubans free, or have we lost our own faith in freedom? Are we still loyal to the principles of our forefathers, as expressed in the Declaration of Independence, or are we now ready to sell the American birthright for a mess of pottage in the Philippines? . . .

. . . There is an old-fashioned document called the American Constitution which was expressly constructed to discourage the unconscious humor of such sudden changes. Before the die is cast the people must be taken fairly into the game; before the result is irrevocable the Supreme Court must pass upon the rules and the play. The question whether the American birthright is to be bartered for the Philippine pottage is still open. A brief, preliminary discussion of this question will not be out of place this morning. . . .

The proposal to annex, by force, or purchase, or forcible purchase, these distant, unwilling and semi-barbarous islands is hailed as a new and glorious departure in American history. A new word – imperialism – has been coined to define it. It is frankly confessed that it involves a departure from ancient traditions; it is openly boasted that it leaves the counsels of Washington and Jefferson far behind us forever. Because of this novelty, because of this separation from what we once counted a most precious heritage, I venture to ask whether this bargain offers any fit compensation for the loss of our American birthright?

I. Let us consider the arguments in favor of it. They may be summed up under three heads: the argument from duty, the argument from destiny, and the argument from desperation.

1. The argument from duty comes first because it is the strongest with honest and conscientious men. Undoubtedly we have incurred responsibilities by the late war, and we must meet them in a manly spirit; but certainly these responsibilities are not unlimited. They are bounded on one side by our rights. The very question at issue is whether we have a right to deny the principles of our constitution by conquering unwilling subjects and annexing tributary colonies to our domain. On the other side our responsibilities are bounded by our abilities. It is never a duty to attempt a task which there is no prospect of performing with real usefulness. We surely owe the Filipinos the very best we can give them consistently with our other responsibilities; but it is far from being certain that the best thing we can do for them is to make them our vassals. If that were true our whole duty would not be done, the humane results of the war would not be completed, until we had annexed the misgoverned Spaniards of Spain also. No argument drawn from our duty to an oppressed and suffering race can be applied to the conquest of the Philippine Islands which does not apply with equal and even with greater force to the conquest of the Iberian Peninsula.

2. The argument from destiny is not an argument; it is a phrase. It takes for granted all that is in dispute; it clothes itself in glittering rainbows and introduces the question of debate in the disguise of a fact accomplished. “Yesterday,” says a brilliant orator, “there were four great nations ruling the world and dividing up the territories of barbarous tribes – Great Britain, Russia, France and Germany – to-day there are five, for America has entered the arena of colonial conquest.” But how came the great republic in that strange co-partnership? By what device was she led blindfold into that curious company? What does she there? What must she forfeit to obtain her share in the partition of spoils? That is the question. To talk of destiny is not to discuss, but to dodge, the point at issue.

3. The argument from desperation directly contradicts the argument from destiny. It presents the annexation of the Philippines, not as a glorious accomplishment, but as a hard necessity. We must do it because there is nothing else that we can do. A speaker less brilliant than the orator of the five nations, but more cautious, puts the case in a sentence: “We have got a wolf by the ears and we can’t let go.”¹

The answer to this is simple. We have not got the wolf at present, though we are trying our best to get hold of him. It is absurd to say that the only way for us to get out of our difficulties is to go into the enterprise of wolf-keeping. Nothing has yet been said or done which binds us to take permanent possession of these islands. Granting that the Philippines need a strong hand to set them in order, it has not been shown that ours is the only hand, nor that we must do it all alone. A protectorate for a limited time and with the purpose of building up a firm self-government would be one of the possible solutions of the difficulty. To pass this by and say that our only resort is to assume sovereignty of these yet unconquered islands is merely to beg the question.

No, these contradictory arguments from duty and destiny and despair do not touch the real spring of the movement for colonial expansion. It is the prospect of profit that makes those distant islands gleam before our fancy as desirable acquisitions. The argument drawn from the supposed need of creating and fortifying new outlets for our trade has the most practical force. It is the unconscious desire of rivaling England in her colonial wealth and power that allures us to the untried path of conquest; and this in spite of the fact that during the last seven years, England, with all her colonies, has lost five per cent of her export trade, while the United States, without colonies, have gained eighteen per cent. It is a secret discontent with the part of a peaceful, industrious, self-contained nation that urges us to take an armed hand in the partition of the East and exchange our birthright for a mess of pottage.

II. Let us weigh the arguments against such a course.

1. It is contrary to the Constitution of the United States as interpreted by the Supreme Court. The authority of that magnificent tribunal in which the Anglo-Saxon ideal of the supremacy of law is forever embodied, more clearly and powerfully than in any other human institution, is clearly against the legitimacy of a policy of colonial expansion for this republic as now constituted. “There is certainly no power given by the constitution to the federal government to establish or maintain colonies bordering on the United States or at a distance, to be ruled and governed at its own pleasure. . . . No power is given to acquire a territory to be held and governed permanently in that character. . . .”²

2. Every following step in the career of colonial imperialism will bring us into conflict with our own institutions and necessitate constitutional change or insure practical failure. Our Government, with its checks and balances, with its prudent and conservative divisions of power, is the best in the world for peace and self-defense; but the worst in the world for what the President called, a few months ago, “criminal aggression.”³ We cannot compete with monarchies and empires in the game of land-grabbing and vassal ruling. We have not the machinery; and we cannot get it, except by breaking up our present system of government and building a new fabric out of the pieces. Republics have not been successful as rulers of colonies. When they have entered that career they have changed quickly into monarchies or empires. The supposed analogy between England and America is a fatal illusion. British institutions are founded, as Gladstone⁴ has said, on the doctrine of inequality; American institutions are founded on the doctrine of equality. If we become a colonizing power we must abandon our institutions or be paralyzed by them. The swiftness of action, the secrecy, not to say slipperiness of policy, and the absolutism of control which are essential to success in territorial conquest and dominion are inconsistent with republicanism as America has interpreted it. Imperialism and democracy, militarism and self-government are contradictory terms. A government of the people, by the people, for the people is impregnable for defense, but impotent for conquest. When imperialism comes in at the door democracy flies out at the window. An imperialistic democracy is an impossible hybrid; we might as well speak of an atheistic religion, or a white blackness. To enter upon a career of colonial expansion with our present institutions is to court failure or to prepare for silent revolution.

3. There is an equally serious objection to the attempt to launch the United States upon the business of acquiring vassal colonies and governing distant and inferior races, in the poor outfit of our people for such a task.

It is said that we must begin or we shall never learn; the trouble is that we have already begun, but we have not learned. I am not speaking now in the spirit of pessimism or despair of the American people. No man could have a more profound confidence in their native ability, their fundamental integrity, and their ultimate common sense. It is to this common sense that I would appeal for a candid judgment of our preparation for an imperial career at the present moment.

Let us be on our guard against the flattering comparison with England. The English people have a natural genius for governing inferior races – a steady head, an inflexible hand, and a superb self-confidence. What proof have we given of any such extraordinary genius in our dealing with inferior races? Does the comparison of the treatment of the Indians in Canada and in the United States give us a comfortable sense of pride? Is the condition of drunken and disorderly Alaska a just encouragement to larger enterprises? Is our success in treating the Chinese problem and the Negro problem so notorious that we must attempt to repeat it on a magnified scale eight thousand miles away? The rifle-shots that ring from Illinois and the Carolinas,⁵ announcing a bloody skirmish of races in the very heart of the republic – are these the joyous salutes that herald our advance to rule eight millions more of black and yellow people in the islands of the Pacific Ocean?

England has a magnificent Civil Service at the foundation of her colonial empire. What have we? A recently unstarched Civil Service in New York, a Civil Service in Washington which is threatened with a new and serious crippling, and a persistent endemic of boss-rule all over the country. These things are not good guarantees that we shall send our best, our cleanest, our most educated young men to fill the offices in our distant colonies. And even if we could be sure that such men would be sent, they are more needed at home than they are abroad. We have no such domestic surplus of men and deficit of work as England has. Her tiny territory and immense population mark her necessity, even as our immense territory, not yet fully peopled nor wisely ruled, marks ours. For a country in our position to set out upon the adventure of colonial conquest promises discredit to ourselves and discomfort to our vassals. With our unsolved problems staring us in the face, our cities misgoverned and our territories neglected, the cry of to-day – not the cry of despair, but the cry of hope and courage – must be “Americans for America!”

4. Another weighty argument against the annexation of the Philippines is the frightful burden which it will almost certainly impose upon the people.

First, a burden of military service. . . . [T]he ranks must be kept full; and if Americans do not thirst for garrison duty in the tropics they must be compelled or bought to serve. On the one hand we see a system of conscription like that of Germany, where every man-child is born with a soldier’s collar around his neck; on the other hand, we see an enormous drain upon the earnings of the people, like England’s annual budget of $203,000,000 for the army and navy.

Second, a burden of heavy taxation. . . .

Third, a burden of interminable and bloody strife. Expansion means entanglement; entanglement means ultimate conflict. The great nations of Europe are encamped around the China Sea in arms. If we go in among them we must fight when they blow the trumpet. . . .

. . . Colonial expansion means coming strife; the annexation of the Philippines means the annexation of a new danger to the world’s peace. The acceptance of imperialism means that we must prepare to beat our ploughshares into swords and our pruning hooks into spears,⁶ and be ready to water distant lands and stain foreign seas with an ever-increasing torrent of American blood. Is it for this that philanthropists and Christian preachers urge us to abandon our peaceful mission of enlightenment and thrust forward, sword in hand, into the arena of imperial conflict?

5. But the chief argument against the forcible extension of American sovereignty over the Philippines is that it certainly involves the surrender of our American birthright of glorious ideals. “This imitation of Old World methods,” said one of our most powerful journals, a few months ago, “by the New World appears to us to be based upon an entire disregard, not merely of American precedence, but of American principles.”⁷

I do not speak now of our word of honor, tacitly pledged to the world, when we disclaimed “Any Disposition Or Intention To Exercise Any Sovereignty, Jurisdiction Or Control Over Said Islands, Except For The Pacification Thereof.”⁸ . . . Pass it by.

But how can we pass by the solemn and majestic claim of our Declaration of Independence, that “Government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed?” How can we abandon the principle for which our fathers fought and died: “No taxation without representation?” . . .

Anonymous patriots have written to warn me that it is a dangerous task to call for this discussion. It imperils popularity. The cry of to-day is: “Wherever the American flag has been raised it never must be hauled down.” The man who will not join that cry may be accused of disloyalty and called a Spaniard. So be it, then. If the price of popularity is the stifling of conviction, I want none of it. If the test of loyalty is to join in every thoughtless cry of the multitude, I decline it. I profess a higher loyalty – allegiance to the flag, not for what it covers, but for what it means.

There is one thing that can happen to the American flag worse than to be hauled down. That is to have its meaning and its message changed.

Hitherto it has meant freedom, and equality, and self-government, and battle only for the sake of peace. Pray God its message may never be altered. . . .

God save the birthright of the one country on earth whose ideal is not to subjugate the world but to enlighten it.

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It is under these circumstances, I present myself before you. No ordinary occasion would have drawn me from the retirement in which I live; but, whilst a single pulsation of the human heart remains, it should, if necessary, be dedicated to the service of one鈥檚 country. And I have hope that, although I am a private and humble citizen, an expression of the views and opinions I entertain, might form some little addition to the general stock of information, and afford a small assistance in delivering our country from the perils and dangers which surround it.

I have come here with no purpose to attempt to make a fine speech, or any ambitious oratorical display. I have brought with me no rhetorical bouquets to throw into this assemblage. In the circle of the year, autumn has come, and the season of flowers has passed away. In the progress of years, my spring time has gone by, and I too am in the autumn of life, and feel the frost of age. My desire and aim are to address you, earnestly, calmly, seriously and plainly, upon the grave and momentous subjects which have brought us together. And I am most solicitous that not a solitary word may fall from me, offensive to any party or person in the whole extent of the union.

War, pestilence, and famine, by the common consent of mankind, are the three greatest calamities which can befal our species; and war, as the most direful, justly stands foremost and in front. Pestilence and famine, no doubt for wise although inscrutable purposes, are inflictions of Providence, to which it is our duty, therefore, to bow with obedience, humble submission and resignation. Their duration is not long, and their ravages are limited. They bring, indeed, great affliction whilst they last, but society soon recovers from their effects. War is the voluntary work of our own hands, and whatever reproaches it may deserve should be directed to ourselves. When it breaks out, its duration is indefinite and unknown鈥攊ts vicissitudes are hidden from our view. In the sacrifice of human life, and in the waste of human treasure, in its losses and in its burthens, it affects both belligerent nations; and its sad effects of mangled bodies, of death, and of desolation, endure long after its thunders are hushed in peace. War unhinges society, disturbs its peaceful and regular industry, and scatters poisonous seeds of disease and immorality, which continue to germinate and diffuse theirbaneful influence long after it has ceased. Dazzling by its glitter, pomp and pageantry, it begets a spirit of wild adventure and romantic enterprise, and often disqualifies those who embark in it, after their return fromthe bloody fields of battle, from engaging in the industrious and peaceful vocations of life.

We are informed by a statement which is apparently correct, that the number of our countrymen slain in this lamentable Mexican war, although it has yet been of only 18 months existence, is equal to one half of the whole of the American loss during the seven years war of the Revolution! And I venture to assert that the expenditure of treasure which it has occasioned, when it shall come to be fairly ascertained and footed up, will be found to be more than half of the pecuniary cost of the war of our independence. And this is the condition of the party whose arms have been every where and constantly victorious!

How did we unhappily get involved in this war? It was predicted as the consequence of the annexation of Texas to the United States. If we had not Texas, we should have no war. The people were told that if that event happened, war would ensue. They were told that the war between Texas and Mexico had not been terminated by a treaty of peace; that Mexico still claimed Texas as a revolted province: and that, if we received Texas in our Union, we took along with her, the war existing between her and Mexico. And the Minister of Mexico [Juan N. Almonte] formally announced to the Government at Washington, that his nation would consider the annexation of Texas to the United States as producing a state of war. But all this was denied by the partisans of annexation. They insisted we should have no war, and even imputed to those who foretold it, sinister motives for their groundless prediction.

But, notwithstanding a state of virtual war necessarily resulted from the fact of annexation of one of the belligerents to the United States, actual hostilities might have been probably averted by prudence, moderation and wise statesmanship. If General Taylor had been permitted to remain, where his own good sense prompted him to believe he ought to remain, at the point of Corpus Christi; and, if a negotiation had been opened with Mexico, in a true spirit of amity and conciliation, war possibly might have been prevented. But, instead of this pacific and moderate course, whilst Mr. Slidell was bending his way to Mexico with his diplomatic credentials, General Taylor was ordered to transport his cannon, and to plant them, in a warlike attitude, opposite to Matamoras, on the east bank of the Rio Bravo; within the very disputed territory, the adjustment of which was to be the object of Mr. Slidell鈥檚 mission. What else could have transpired but a conflict of arms?

Thus the war commenced, and the President after having produced it, appealed to Congress. A bill was proposed to raise 50,000 volunteers, and in order to commit all who should vote for it, a preamble was inserted falsely attributing the commencement of the war to the act of Mexico. I have no doubt of the patriotic motives of those who, after struggling to divest the bill of that flagrant error, found themselves constrained to vote for it. But I must say that no earthly consideration would have ever tempted or provoked me to vote for a bill, with a palpable falsehood stamped on its face. Almost idolizing truth, as I do, I never, never, could have voted for that bill.

The exceptionable conduct of the Federal party, during that last British War, has excited an influence in the prosecution of the present war, and prevented a just discrimination between the two wars. That was a war of National defence, required for the vindication of the National rights and honor, and demanded by the indignant voice of the People. President Madison himself, I know, at first, reluctantly and with great doubt and hesitation, brought himself to the conviction that it ought to be declared. A leading, and perhaps the most influential member of his Cabinet, (Mr. Gallatin,) was, up to the time of its declaration, opposed to it. But nothing could withstand the irresistible force of public sentiment. It was a just war, and its great object, as announced at the time, was “Free Trade and Sailors Rights,” against the intolerable and oppressive acts of British power on the ocean. The justice of the war, far from being denied or controverted, was admitted by the Federal party, which only questioned it on considerations of policy. Being deliberately and constitutionally declared, it was, I think, their duty to have given to it their hearty co-operation. But the mass of them did not. They continued to oppose and thwart it, to discourage loans and enlistments, to deny the power of the General Government to march the militia beyond our limits, and to hold a Hartford Convention, which, whatever were its real objects, bore the aspect of seeking a dissolution of the Union itself. They lost and justly lost the public confidence.鈥擝ut has not an apprehension of a similar fate, in a state of case widely different, repressed a fearless expression of their real sentiments in some of our public men?

How totally variant is the present war! This is no war of defence, but one unnecessary and of offensive aggression. It is Mexico that is defending her fire-sides, her castles and her altars, not we. And how different also is the conduct of the whig party of the present day from that of the major part of the federal party during the war of 1812! Far from interposing any obstacles to the prosecution of the war, if the Whigs in office are reproachable at all, it is for having lent too ready a facility to it, without careful examination into the objects of the war. And, out of office, who have rushed to the prosecution of the war with more ardor and alacrity than the Whigs? Whose hearts have bled more freely than those of the Whigs?鈥擶ho have more occasion to mourn the loss of sons, husbands, brothers, fathers, than whig parents, whig wives and whig brothers, in this deadly and unprofitable strife?

But the havoc of war is in progress, and the no less deplorable havoc of an inhospitable and pestilential climate. Without indulging in an unnecessary retrospect and useless reproaches on the past, all hearts and heads should unite in the patriotic endeavor to bring it to a satisfactory close. Is there no way that this can be done? Must we blindly continue the conflict, without any visible object, or any prospect of a definite termination?鈥擳his is the important subject upon which I desire to consult and to commune with you. Who, in this free government is, to decide upon the objects of a War, at its commencement, or at any time during its existence? Does the power belong to the Nation, to the collective wisdom of the Nation in Congress assembled, or is it vested solely in a single functionary of the government?

A declaration of war is the highest and most awful exercise of sovereignty. The Convention, which framed our federal constitution, had learned from the pages of history that it had been often and greatly abused. It had seen that war had often been commenced upon the most trifling pretexts; that it had been frequently waged to establish or exclude a dynasty; to snatch a crown from the head of one potentate and place it upon the head of another; that it had been often prosecuted to promote alien and other interests than those of the nation whose chief had proclaimed it, as in the case of English wars for Hanoverian interest; and, in short, that such a vast and tremendous power ought not to be confided to the perilous exercise of one single man. The Convention, therefore, resolved to guard the war-making power against those great abuses, of which in the hands of a monarch it was so susceptible. And the security, against those abuses which its wisdom devised, was to vest the war-making power in the Congress of the United States, being the immediate representatives of the people and the States. So apprehensive and jealous was the Convention of its abuse in any other hands, that it interdicted the exercise of the power to any State in the Union, without the consent of Congress. Congress, then, in our system of government, is the sole depository of that tremendous power.鈥擳he Constitution provides that Congress shall have power to declare war, and grant letters of marque and reprisal, to make rules concerning captures on land and water, to raise and support armies, to provide and maintain a navy, and to make rules for the government of the land and naval forces. Thus we perceive that the principal power, in regard to war, with all its ancillary attendants, is granted to Congress. Whenever called upon to determine upon the solemn question of peace or war, Congress must consider and deliberate and decide upon the motives, objects and causes of the war. And, if a war be commenced without any previous declaration of its objects, as in the case of the existing war with Mexico, Congress must necessarily possess the authority, at any time, to declare for what purposes it shall be further prosecuted. If we suppose Congress does not possess the controlling authority attributed to it; if it be conended that a war having been once commenced, the President of the United States may direct it to the accomplishment of any objects he pleases, without consulting and without any regard to the will of Congress, the Convention will have utterly failed in guarding the nation against the abuses and ambition of a single individual. Either Congress, or the President, must have the right of determining upon the objects for which a war shall be prosecuted. There is no other alternative. If the President possess it and may prosecute it for objects against the will of Congress, where is the difference between our free government and that of any other nation which may be governed by an absolute Czar, Emperor, or King?

Congress may omit, as it has omitted in the present war, to proclaim the objects for which it was commenced or has been since prosecuted, and in cases of such omission the President, being charged with the employment and direction of the national force is, necessarily, left to his own judgment to decide upon the objects, to the attainment of which that force shall be applied. But, whenever Congress shall think proper to declare, by some authentic act, for what purposes a war shall be commenced or continued it is the duty of the President to apply the national force to the attainment of those purposes. In the instance of the last war with Great Britain, the act of Congress by which it was declared was preceded by a message of President Madison enumerating the wrongs and injuries of which we complained against Great Britain. That message therefore, and without it the well known objects of the war, which was a war purely of defence, rendered it unnecessary that Congress should particularize, in the act, the specific objects for which it was proclaimed. The whole world knew that it was a war waged for Free Trade and Sailors鈥� Rights.

It may be urged that the President and Senate possess the treaty making power, without any express limitation as to its exercise; that the natural and ordinary termination of a war is by a treaty of peace; and therefore, that the President and Senate must possess the power to decide what stipulations and conditions shall enter into such a treaty. But it is not more true that the President and Senate possess the treaty making power, without limitation, than that Congress possesses the war making power, without restriction. These two powers then ought to be so interpreted as to reconcile the one with the other; and, in expounding the constitution, we ought to keep constantly in view the nature and structure of our free government, and especially the great object of the Convention in taking the war-making power out of the hands of a single man and placing it in the safer custody of the representatives of the whole nation. The desirable reconciliation between the two powers is effected by attributing to Congress the right to declare what shall be the objects of war, and to the President the duty of endeavoring to obtain those objects by the direction of the national force and by diplomacy.

I am broaching no new and speculative theory. The Statute book of the United States is full of examples of prior declarations by Congress of the objects to be attained by negotiations with Foreign Powers, and the archives of the Executive Department furnish abundant evidence of the accomplishment of those objects, or the attempt to accomplish them, by subsequent negotiation. Prior to the declaration of the last war against Great Britain, in all the restrictive measures which Congress adopted, against the two great belligerent Powers of Europe, clauses were inserted in the several acts establishing them, tendering to both or either of the belligerents the abolition of those restrictions if they would repeal their hostile Berlin and Milan decrees and Orders in Council, operating against our commerce and navigation. And these acts of Congress were invariably communicated, through the Executive, by diplomatic notes, to France and Great Britain, as the basis upon which it was proposed to restore friendly intercourse with them. So, after the termination of the war, various acts of Congress were passed, from time to time, offering to Foreign Powers the principle of reciprocity in the commerce and navigation of the United States with them. Out of these acts have sprung a class, and a large class, of treaties (four or five of which were negotiated, whilst I was in the department of State,) commonly called reciprocity treaties concluded under all the Presidents, from Mr. Madison to Mr. Van Buren, inclusive. And, with regard to commercial treaties, negotiated without the sanction of prior acts of Congress, where they contained either appropriations or were in conflict with unrepealed statutes, it has been ever held as the republican doctrine from Mr. Jay鈥檚 treaty down to the present time, that the passage of acts of Congress was necessary to secure the execution of those treaties. If in the matter of Foreign Commerce, in respect to which the power vested in Congress to regulate it and the treaty making power may be regarded as concurrent, Congress can previously decide the objects to which negotiation shall be applied, how much stronger is the case of war, the power to declare which is confided exclusively to Congress?

I conclude, therefore, Mr. President and Fellow-Citizens, with entire confidence, that Congress has the right either at the beginning or during the prosecution of any war, to decide the objects and purposes for which it was proclaimed, or for which it ought to be continued. And, I think, it is the duty of Congress, by some deliberate and authentic act, to declare for what objects the present war shall be longer prosecuted. I suppose that the President would not hesitate to regulate his conduct by the pronounced will of Congress, and to employ the force and the diplomatic power of the nation to execute that will. But, if the President should decline or refuse to do so, and, in contempt of the supreme authority of Congress, should persevere in waging the war, for other objects than those proclaimed by Congress, then it would be the imperative duty of that body to vindicate its authority, by the most stringent, and effectual, and appropriate measures. And, if, on the contrary, the enemy should refuse to conclude a treaty, containing stipulations securing the objects, designated by Congress, it would become the duty of the whole government to prosecute the war, with all the national energy, until those objects were obtained by a treaty of peace. There can be no insuperable difficulty in Congress making such an authoritative declaration. Let it resolve, simply, that the war shall, or shall not, be a war of conquest; and, if a war of conquest, what is to be conquered. Should a resolution pass, disclaiming the design of conquest, peace would follow, in less than sixty days, if the President would conform to his constitutional duty.

Here, fellow Citizens, I might pause, having indicated a mode by which the nation, through its accredited and legitimate representatives in Congress, can announce for what purposes and objects this war shall be longer prosecuted, and can thus let the whole people of the United States know for what end their blood is to be further shed and their treasure further expended, instead of the knowledge of it being locked up and concealed in the bosom of one man. We should no longer perceive the objects of the war, varying, from time to time, according to the changing opinions of the Chief Magistrate, charged with its prosecution. But I do not think it right to stop here. It is the privilege of the people, in their primitive assemblies, and of every private man, however humble, to express an opinion in regard to the purposes for which the war should be continued; and such an expression will receive just so much consideration and consequence as it is entitled to, and no more. Shall this war be prosecuted for the purpose of conquering and annexing Mexico, in all its boundless extent, to the United States?

I will not attribute to the President of the United States any such design; but I confess that I have been shocked and alarmed by manifestations of it in various quarters. Of all the dangers and misfortunes which could befall this nation, I should regard that of its becoming a warlike and conquering power the most direful and fatal. History tells the mournful tale of conquering nations and conquerors. The three most celebrated conquerors, in the civilized world, were Alexander, Caesar and Napoleon. The first, after overrunning a large portion of Asia, and sighing and lamenting that there were no more worlds to subdue, met a premature and ignoble death. His Lieutenants quarrelled and warred with each other, as to the spoils of his victories, and finally lost them all. Caesar, after conquering Gaul, returned, with his triumphant legions to Rome, passed the Rubicon, won the battle of Pharsalia, trampled upon the liberties of his country, and expired by the patriot hand of Brutus. But Rome ceased to be free. War and conquest had enervated and corrupted the masses. The spirit of true liberty was extinguished, and a long line of Emperors succeeded, some of whom were the most execrable monsters that ever existed in human form. And that most extraordinary man [Napoleon], perhaps, in all history, after subjugating all continental Europe, occupying almost all its Capitals, seriously threatening, according to Mr. Thiers, proud Albion itself, and decking the brow of various members of his family, with crowns torn from the heads of other monarchs, lived to behold his own dear France itself in the possession of his enemies, and was made himself a wretched captive, and far removed from country, family, and friends, breathed his last on the distant and inhospitable rock of St. Helena. The Alps and the Rhine had been claimed as the natural boundaries of France, but even these could not be secured in the treaties to which she was reduced to submit. Do you believe that the people of Macedon or Greece, or Rome, or France, were benefitted, individually or collectively, by the triumphs of their great Captains? Their sad lot was immense sacrifice of life, heavy and intolerable burdens, and the ultimate loss of liberty itself.

That the power of the United States is competent to the conquest of Mexico, is quite probable. But it could not be achieved without frightful carnage, dreadful sacrifices of human life, and the creation of an onerous national debt; nor could it be completely effected, in all probability, until after the lapse of many years. It would be necessary to occupy all its strongholds, to disarm its inhabitants, and to keep them in constant fear and subjection. To consummate the work, I presume that standing armies, not less than a hundred thousand men, would be necessary, to be kept perhaps always in the bosom of their country. These standing armies, revelling in a foreign land, and accustomed to trample upon the liberties of a foreign people, at some distant day, might be fit and ready instruments, under the lead of some daring and unprincipled chieftain, to return to their country and prostrate the public liberty.

Supposing the conquest to be once made, what is to be done with it? Is it to be governed, like Roman Provinces, by Proconsuls? Would it be compatible with the genius, character, and safety of our free institutions, to keep such a great country as Mexico, with a population of not less that nine millions, in a state of constant military subjection?

Shall it be annexed to the United States: Does any considerate man believe it possible that two such immense countries, with territories of nearly equal extent, with populations so incongruous, so different in race, in language, in religion and in laws, could be blended together in one harmonious mass, and happily governed by one common authority? Murmurs, discontent, insurrections, rebellion, would inevitably ensue, until the incompatible parts would be broken asunder, and possibly, in the frightful struggle, our present glorious Union itself would be dissevered or dissolved. We ought not to forget the warning voice of all history, which teaches the difficulty of combining and consolidating together, conquering and conquered nations. After the lapse of eight hundred years, during which the Moors held their conquest of Spain, the indomitable courage, perseverance and obstinacy of the Spanish race finally triumphed, and expelled the Africa invaders from the Peninsula. And, even within our own time, the colossal power of Napoleon, when at its loftiest height, was incompetent to subdue and subjugate the proud Castilian. And here in our own neighborhood, Lower Canada, which near one hundred years ago, after the conclusion of the seven years war, was ceded by France to Great Britain, remains a foreign land in the midst of the British provinces, foreign in feelings and attachment, and foreign in laws and language. And what has been the fact with poor, gallant, generous and oppressed Ireland? Centuries have passed away, since the overbearing Saxon overrun and subjugated the Emerald Isle. Rivers of Irish blood have flowed, during the long and arduous contest. Insurrection and rebellion have been the order of the day; and yet, up to this time, Ireland remains alien in feeling, affection and sympathy, towards the power which has so long borne her down. Every Irishman hates, with a mortal hatred, his Saxon oppressor. Although there are great territorial differences between the condition of England and Ireland, as compared to that of the United States and Mexico, there are some points of striking resemblance between them. Both the Irish and the Mexicans are probably of the same Celtic race. Both the English and the Americans are of the same Saxon origin. The Catholic religion predominates in both the former, the Protestant among both the latter. Religion has been the fruitful cause of dissatisfaction and discontent between the Irish and the English nations. Is there not reason to apprehend that it would become so between the people of the United States and those of Mexico, if they were united together? Why should we seek to interfere with them, in their mode of worship of a common Saviour? We believe that they are wrong, especially in the exclusive character of their faith, and that we are right. They think that they are right and we wrong. What other rule can there be than to leave the followers of each religion to their own solemn convictions of conscientious duty towards God? Who, but the great Arbiter of the Universe, can judge in such a question? For my own part, I sincerely believe and hope, that those, who belong to all the departments of the great church of Christ, if, in truth and purity, they conform to the doctrines which they profess, will ultimately secure an abode in those regions of bliss, which all aim finally to reach. I think that there is no potentate in Europe, whatever his religion may be, more enlightened or at this moment so interesting as the liberal head of the Papal See.

But I suppose it to be impossible that those who favor, if there be any who favor the annexation of Mexico to the United States, can think that it ought to be perpetually governed by military sway. Certainly no votary of human liberty could deem it right that a violation should be perpetrated of the great principles of our own revolution, according to which, laws ought not to be enacted and taxes ought not to be levied, without representation on the part of those who are to obey the one, and pay the other. Then, Mexico is to participate in our councils and equally share in our legislation and government. But, suppose she would not voluntarily choose representatives to the national Congress, is our soldiery to follow the electors to the ballot-box, and by force to compel them, at the point of the bayonet, to deposit their ballots? And how are the nine millions of Mexican people to be represented in the Congress of the United States of America and the Congress of the United States of the Republic of Mexico combined? Is every Mexican, without regard to color or caste, per capitum, to exercise the elective franchise? How is the quota of representation between the two Republics, to be fixed? Where is their Seat of Common Government to be established? And who can foresee or foretell, if Mexico, voluntarily or by force, were to share in the common government what would be the consequences to her or to us? Unprepared, as I fear her population yet is, for the practical enjoyment of self government, and of habits, customs, languages, laws and religion, so totally different from our own, we should present the revolting spectacle of a confused, distracted, and motley government. We should have a Mexican Party, a Pacific Ocean Party, an Atlantic Party in addition to the other Parties, which exist, or with which we are threatened, each striving to execute its own particular views and purposes, and reproaching the others with thwarting and disappointing them. The Mexican representation, in Congress would probably form a separate and impenetrable corps, always ready to throw itself into the scale of any other party, to advance and promote Mexican interests. Such a state of things could not long endure. Those, whom God and Geography have pronounced should live asunder, could never be permanently and harmoniously united together.

Do we want for our own happiness or greatness the addition of Mexico to the existing Union of our States? If our population was too dense for our territory, and there was a difficulty in obtaining honorably the means of subsistence, there might be some excuse for an attempt to enlarge our dominions. But we have no such apology. We have already, in our glorious country, a vast and almost boundless territory. Beginning at the North, in the frozen regions of the British Provinces, it stretches thousands of miles along the coasts of the Atlantic Ocean and the Mexican Gulf, until it almost reaches the Tropics. It extends to the Pacific Ocean, borders on those great inland seas, the Lakes, which separate us from the possession of Great Britain, and it embraces the great father of rivers, from its uppermost source to the Belize, and the still longer Missouri, from its mouth to the gorges of the Rocky Mountains. It comprehends the greatest variety of the richest soils, capable of almost all the productions of the earth, except tea and coffee and the spices, and it includes every variety of climate, which the heart could wish or desire. We have more than ten thousand millions of acres of waste and unsettled lands, enough for the subsistence of ten or twenty times our present population. Ought we not to be satisfied with such a country? Ought we not to be profoundly thankful to the Giver of all good things for such a vast and bountiful land? Is it not the height of ingratitude to Him to seek, by war and conquest, indulging in a spirit of rapacity, to acquire other lands, the homes and habitations of a large portion of his common children? If we pursue the object of such a conquest, besides mortgaging the revenue and resources of this country for ages to come, in the form of an onerous national debt, we should have greatly to augment that debt, by an assumption of the sixty or seventy millions of the national debt of Mexico. For I take it that nothing is more certain than that, if we obtain, voluntarily or by conquest, a foreign nation we acquire it with all the incumbrances attached to it. In my humble opinion, we are now bound, in honor and morality, to pay the just debt of Texas. And we should be equally bound, by the same obligations, to pay the debt of Mexico, if it were annexed to the United States.

Of all the possessions which appertain to man, in his collective or individual condition, none should be preserved and cherished, with more sedulous and unremitting care, than that of an unsullied character. It is impossible to estimate it too highly, in society, when attached to an individual, nor can it be exaggerated or too greatly magnified in a nation. Those who lose or are indifferent to it become just objects of scorn an contempt. Of all the abominable transactions, which sully the pages of history none exceed in enormity that of the dismemberment and partition of Poland, by the three great Continental Powers of Russia, Austria, and Prussia.鈥擜ges may pass away, and centuries roll around, but as long as human records endure all mankind will unite in execrating the rapacious and detestable deed. That was accomplished by overwhelming force, and the unfortunate existence of fatal dissensions and divisions in the bosom of Poland.鈥擫et us avoid affixing to our name and national character a similar, if not worse, stigma. I am afraid that we do not now stand well in the opinion of other parts of christendom. Repudiation has brought upon us much reproach. All the nations, I apprehend, look upon us, in the prosecution of the present war, as being actuated by a spirit of rapacity, and an inordinate desire for territorial aggrandizement. Let us not forfeit altogether their good opinions. Let us command their applause by a noble exercise of forbearance and justice. In the elevated station which we hold, we can safely afford to practice the Godlike virtues of moderation and magnanimity. The long series of glorious triumphs, achieved by our gallant commanders and their brave armies, unattended by a single reverse, justify us, without the least danger of tarnishing the national honor, in disinterestedly holding out the olive branch of peace. We do not want the mines, the mountains, the morasses, and the sterile lands of Mexico. To her the loss of them would be humiliating, and be a perpetual source of regret and mortification. To us they might prove a fatal acquisition, producing distraction, dissension, division, possibly disunion. Let, therefore, the integrity of the national existence and national territory of Mexico remain undisturbed. For one, I desire to see no part of her territory torn from her by war. Some of our people have placed their hearts upon the acquisition of the Bay of San Francisco in Upper California. To us, as a great maritime Power, it might prove to be of advantage hereafter in respect to our commercial and navigating interests. To Mexico, which can never be a great maritime Power, it can never be of much advantage. If we can obtain it by fair purchase with a just equivalent, I should be happy to see it so acquired. As, whenever the war ceases, Mexico ought to be required to pay the debt due our citizens, perhaps an equivalent for that Bay may be found in that debt, our Government assuming to pay to our citizens whatever portion of it may be applied to that object. But it should form no motive in the prosecution of the war, which I would not continue a solitary hour for the sake of that harbor.

But what, it will be asked, shall we make peace without any indemnity for the expences of the war? If the published documents in relation to the late negotiations between Mr. Trist and the Mexican Commissioners be true, and I have not seen them any where contradicted, the Executive properly waived any demand of indemnity for the expences of the war. And the rupture of that negotiation was produced, by our Government insisting upon a cessation from Mexico, of the strip of mostly barren land between the Nueces and the Rio Bravo and New Mexico, which Mexico refused to make. So that we are now fighting, if not for the conquest of all Mexico, as intimated in some quarters, for that narrow strip and for the barren Province of New Mexico, with its few miserable mines. We bought all the Province of Louisiana for fifteen millions of dollars, and it is, in my opinion, worth more than all Mexico together. We bought Florida for five millions of dollars, and a hard bargain it was, since, besides that sum, we gave up the boundary of the Rio Bravo, to which I think we were entitled, as the Western limit of the Province of Louisiana, and were restricted to that of the Sabine. And we are now, if not seeking the conquest of all Mexico, to continue this war indefinitely for the inconsiderable objects to which I have just referred.

But, it will be repeated, are we to have no indemnity for the expenses of this war? Mexico is utterly unable to make us any pecuniary indemnity, if the justice of the war on our part entitled us to demand it. Her country has been laid waste, her cities burned or occupied by our troops, her means so exhausted that she is unable to pay even her own armies. And every day鈥檚 prosecution of the war, whilst it would augment the amount of our indemnity, would lessen the ability of Mexico to pay it. We have seen, however, that there is another form in which we are to demand indemnity. It is to be territorial indemnity! I hope, for reasons already stated that that fire-brand will not be brought into our country.

Among the resolutions, which it is my intention to present for your consideration, at the conclusion of this address, one proposes, in your behalf and mine, to disavow, in the most positive manner, any desire, on our part, to acquire any foreign territory whatever, for the purpose of introducing slavery into it. I do not know that any citizen of the United States entertains such a wish. But such a motive has been often imputed to the slave States, and I therefore think it necessary to notice it on this occasion. My opinions on the subject of slavery are well known. They have the merit, if it be one, of consistency, uniformity, and long duration. I have ever regarded slavery as a great evil, a wrong, for the present, I fear, an irremediable wrong to its unfortunate victims. I should rejoice if not a single slave breathed the air or was within the limits of our country. But here they are, to be dealt with as well as we can, with a due consideration of all circumstances affecting the security, safety and happiness of both races. Every State has the supreme, uncontrolled and exclusive power to decide for itself whether slavery shall cease or continue within its limits, without any exterior intervention from any quarter. In States, where the slaves outnumber the whites, as is the case with several, the blacks could not be emancipated and invested with all the rights of freemen, without becoming the governing race in those States. Collisions and conflicts, between the two races, would be inevitable, and, after shocking scenes of rapine and carnage, the extinction or expulsion of the blacks would certainly take place. In the State of Kentucky, near fifty years ago, I thought the proportion of slaves, in comparison with the whites, was so inconsiderable that we might safely adopt a system of gradual emancipation that would ultimately eradicate this evil in our State. That system was totally different from the immediate abolition of slavery for which the party of the Abolitionists of the present day contend. Whether they have intended it or not, it is my calm and deliberate belief, that they have done incalculable mischief even to the very cause which they have espoused, to say nothing of the discord which has been produced between different parts of the Union. According to the system, we attempted, near the close of the last century, all slaves in being were to remain such, but, all who might be born subsequent to a specified day, were to become free at the age of twenty-eight, and, during their service, were to be taught to read, write, and cypher. Thus, instead of being thrown upon the community, ignorant and unprepared, as would be the case by immediate emancipation, they would have entered upon the possession of their freedom, capable, in some degree, of enjoying it. After a hard struggle, the system was defeated, and I regret it extremely, as, if it had been then adopted, our State would be now nearly rid of that reproach.

Since the epoch, a scheme of unmixed benevolence has sprung up, which, if it had existed at that time, would have obviated one of the greatest objections which was made to gradual emancipation, which was the continuance of the emancipated slaves to abide among us. That scheme is the American Colonization Society. 澳门六合彩开奖直播 twenty-eight years ago, a few individuals, myself among them, met together in the city of Washington, and laid the foundations of that society. It has gone on, amidst extraordinary difficulties and trials, sustaining its elf almost entirely, by spontaneous and voluntary contributions, from individual benevolence, without scarcely any aid from Government. The Colonies, planted under its auspices, are now well established communities, with churches, schools and other institutions appertaining to the civilized state. They have made successful war in repelling attacks and invasions by their barbarous and savage neighbors. They have made treaties, annexed territories to their dominion, and are blessed with a free representative Government. I recently read a message, from one of their Governors to their Legislature, which, in point of composition, and in careful attention to the public affairs of their Republic, would compare advantageously to the messages of the Governors of our own States. I am not very superstitious, but I do solemnly believe that these Colonies are blest with the smiles of Providence; and, if we may dare attempt penetrating the veil, by which He conceals his allwise dispensations from mortal eyes, that he designs that Africa shall be the refuge and the home of the descendants of its sons and daughters, torn and dragged from their native land, by lawless violence.

It is a philanthropic and consoling reflection that the moral and physical condition of the African race in the United States, even in a State of slavery, is far better than it would have been if their ancestors had never been brought from their native land. And if it should be the decree of the Great Ruler of the Universe that their descendants shall be made instruments in His hands in the establishment of Civilization and the Christian Religion throughout Africa, our regrets on account of the original wrong, will be greatly mitigated.

It may be argued, that, in admitting the injustice of slavery, I admit the necessity of an instantaneous reparation of that injustice. Unfortunately, however, it is not always safe, practicable or possible, in the great movements of States and public affairs of nations, to remedy or repair the infliction of previous injustice. In the inception of it, we may oppose and denounce it, by our most strenuous exertions, but, after its consummation, there is often no other alternative left us but to deplore its perpetration, and to acquiesce as the only alternative, in its existence, as a less evil that the frightful consequences which might ensue from the vain endeavor to repair it. Slavery is one of those unfortunate instances. The evil of it was inflicted upon us, by the parent country of Great Britain, against all the entreaties and remonstrances of the colonies. And here it is among us, and we must dispose of it, as best we can under all the circumstances which surround us. It continued, by the importation of slaves from Africa, in spite of Colonial resistance, for a period of more than a century and a half, and it may require an equal or longer lapse of time before our country is entirely rid of the evil. And, in the meantime, moderation, prudence and discretion among ourselves, and the blessings of Providence may be all necessary to accomplish our ultimate deliverance from it. Example of similar infliction of irreparable national evil and injustice might be multiplied to an indefinite extent. The case of the annexation of Texas to the United States is a recent and obvious one where, if it were wrong, it cannot now be repaired. Texas is now an integral part of our Union, with its own voluntary consent. Many of us opposed the annexation with honest zeal and most earnest exertions. But who would now think of perpetrating the folly of casting Texas out of the confederacy and throwing her backupon her own independence, or into the armsof Mexico? Who would now seek to divorce her from this Union? The Creeks and the Cherokee Indians were, by the most exceptionable means, driven from their country, and transported beyond the Mississippi river. Their lands have been fairly purchased and occupied by inhabitants of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee. Who would now conceive of the flagrant injustice of expelling those inhabitants and restoring the Indian country to the Cherokees and the Creeks, under color of repairing original injustice? During the war of our revolution, millions of paper money were issued by our ancestors, as the only currency with which they could achieve our liberties and independence. Thousands and hundreds of thousands of families were stripped of their homes and their all and brought to ruin, by giving credit and confidence to that spurious currency. Stern necessity has prevented the reparation of that great national injustice.

But I forbear, I will no longer trespass upon your patience or further tax my own voice, impaired by a speech of more than three hours duration, which professional duty required me to make only a few days ago. If I have been at all successful in the exposition of the views and opinions which I entertain I have shown鈥�

1st. That the present war was brought about by the annexation of Texas and the subsequent order of the President, without the previous consent and authority of Congress.

2d. That the President, being unenlightened and uninstructed, by any public declaration of Congress, as to objects for which it ought to be prosecuted, in the conduct of it is, necessarily, left to his own sense of what the national interests and honor may require.

3d. That the whole war making power of the nation, as to motives, causes and objects, is confided by the constitution to the discretion and judgment of Congress.

4th. That it is, therefore, the right of Congress, at the commencement or during the progress of any war, to declare for what objects and purposes the war ought to be waged and prosecuted.

5th. That it is the right and duty of Congress to announce to the nation for what objects the present war shall be longer continued; that it is the duty of the President, in the exercise of all his official functions, to conform to and carry out this declared will of Congress, by the exercise, if necessary, of all the high powers with which he is clothed; and that, if he fail or refuse to do so, it becomes the imperative duty of Congress to arrest the further progress of the war by the most effectual means in its power.

Let Congress announce to the nation the objects for which this war shall be further protracted and public suspense and public inquietude will no longer remain. If it is to be a war of conquest of all, or any part of Mexico, let the people know it, and they will be no longer agitated by a dark and uncertain future. But, although I might have foreborne to express any opinion whatever as to purposes and objects for which the war should be continued, I have not thought proper to conceal my opinions, whether worth any thing or not, from the public examination. Accordingly I have stated.

6th. That it seems to me that it is the duty of our country, as well on the score of moderation and magnanimity, as with the view of avoiding discord and discontent at home, to abstain from seeking to conquer and annex to the United States Mexico or any part of it; and, especially, to disabuse the public mind in any quarter of the Union of the impression, if it any where exists, that a desire for such a conquest, is cherished for the purpose of propagating or extending slavery.

I have embodied, Mr. President and fellow-citizens, the sentiments and opinions which I have endeavored to explain and enforce in a series of resolutions which I beg now to submit to your consideration and judgment. They are the following:

1. Resolved, as the opinion of this meeting, that the primary cause of the present unhappy war, existing between the United States of America, and the United States of the Republic of Mexico, was the annexation of Texas to the former; and that the immediate occasion of hostilities between the two republics arose out of the order of the President of the United States for the removal of the army under the command of General Taylor, from its position at Corpus Christi to a point opposite to Matamoras, on the East bank of the Rio Bravo, within territory claimed by both Republics, but then under the jurisdiction of that of Mexico, and inhabited by its citizens; and that the order of the President for the removal of the army to that point, was improvident and unconstitutional, it being without the concurrence of Congress, or even any consultation with it, although it was in session: but that Congress having, by subsequent acts, recognized the war thus brought into existence without its previous authority or consent, the prosecution of it became thereby National.

2. Resolved, That, in the absence of any formal and public declaration by Congress, of the objects for which the war ought to be prosecuted, the President of the United States, as Chief Magistrate, and as Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, is left to the guidance of his own judgment to prosecute it for such purposes and objects as he may deem the honor and interest of the nation to require.

3. Resolved, That, by the Constitution of the United States, Congress, being invested with the power to declare war, and grant letters of marque and reprizal, to make rules concerning captures on land and water, to raise and support armies, to provide and maintain a navy, and to make rules for the government of the land and naval forces, has the full and complete war making power of the United States; and, so possessing it, has a right to determine upon the motives, causes and objects of any war, when it commences, or at any time during the progress of its existence.

4. Resolved, as the further opinion of this meeting, that it is the right and duty of Congress to declare, by some authentic act, for what purposes and objects the existing war ought to be further prosecuted; that it is the duty of the President, in his official conduct, to conform to such a declaration of Congress; and that, if, after such declaration, the President should decline or refuse to endeavor, by all the means, civil, diplomatic, and military, in his power, to execute the announced will of Congress, and, in defiance of its authority, should continue to prosecute the war for purposes and objects other than those declared by that body, it would become the right and duty of Congress to adopt the most efficacious measures to arrest the further progress of the war, taking care to make ample provision for the honor, the safety and security of our armies in Mexico, in every contingency. And, if Mexico should decline or refuse to conclude a treaty with us, stipulating for the purposes and objects so declared by Congress, it would be the duty of the Government to prosecute the war with the utmost vigor, until they were attained by a treaty of peace.

5. Resolved, That we view with serious alarm, and are utterly opposed to any purpose of annexing Mexico to the United States, in any mode, and especially by conquest; that we believe the two nations could not be happily governed by one common authority, owing to their great difference of race, law, language and religion, and the vast extent of their respective territories, and large amount of their respective populations; that such a union, against the consent of the exasperated Mexican people, could only be effected and preserved by large standing armies, and the constant application of military force鈥攊n other words, by despotic sway exercised over the Mexican people, in the first instance, but which, there would be just cause to apprehend, might, in process of time, be extended over the people of the United States. That we deprecate, therefore, such a union, as wholly incompatible with the genius of our Government, and with the character of free and liberal institutions; and we anxiously hope that each nation may be left in the undisturbed possession of its own laws, language, cherished religion and territory, to pursue its own happiness, according to what it may deem best for itself.

6. Resolved, That, considering the series of splendid and brilliant victories achieved by our brave armies and their gallant commanders, during the war with Mexico, unattended by a single reverse, The United States, without any danger of their honor suffering the slightest tarnish, can practice the virtues of moderation and magnanimity towards their discomfited foe. We have no desire for the dismemberment of the United States of the Republic of Mexico, but wish only a just and proper fixation of the limits of Texas.

7. Resolved, That we do, positively and emphatically, disclaim and disavow any wish or desire, on our part, to acquire any foreign territory whatever,for the purpose of propagating slavery, or of introducing slaves from the United States, into such foreign territory.

8. Resolved, That we invite our fellow citizens of the United States, who are anxious for the restoration of the blessings of peace, or, if the existing war shall continue to be prosecuted, are desirous that its purpose and objects shall be defined and known; who are anxious to avert present and future perils and dangers, with which it may be fraught; and who are also anxious to produce contentment and satisfaction at home, and to elevate the national character abroad, to assemble together in their respective communities, and to express their views, feelings, and opinions.

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