Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 9.djvu/427

 Speech of Senator J. Semple. 399 owed no allegiance or obligation to any other on earth. They can make all laws among- themselves, that the wishes of the people mig'ht dictate, without interfering with any other. This interference a State would have no right to exercise if it did not belong to the Union, and was wholly independent. All such interference among' independent nations is pro- hibited by the greneral laws of nations. The powers of the Federal Gov- ernment are, and ought to be, limited to those matters w^hich concern the whole — powers which no one State would ever desire to possess. If, while the several States were thus exercising the powers of sovereignty, we could suppose, or be assured, that there never would be any difference among them, or that none of them would ever be attacked by foreign powers, there would be no use for a Federal Government. But the sad experience of all nations proves that this it is idle to expect. The trans- actiou--^- now going on before our ej^es, where a powerful maritime nation is actually robbing, in the most unjust and cruel manner, .-x people who never molested or injured them, admonishes us that we must be on our guard against like aggressions. This can only be done by presenting a powerful force, capable of preventing any attack, or of punishing any insult. This can onlj^ be done by the united force of all. The greater this power, the more certain will be the security. The more extensive our Union, the more powerful we will be ; while one of a thousand States would manage its own affairs as well as if that was the only State on the continent. I have long been convinced, that, under our peculiar and happy form of Government, so well adapted to the genius of our people, no extension of territory will ever endanger the Union ; but, on the contrary, the tendency of extension will be to strengthen the Union. But suppose the contrary-- suppose that extension be, in truth, dangerous ; the question arises, how^ will we avoid the danger? Is extension more dangerous than division? Is it necessary for me at this day to portray the dangers of disunion? Have the glowing pictures drawn by the ablest statesmen and purest patriots been forgotten? Is the question of union or disunion again to be debated? God forbid! What, then, are we to do with those extensive regions west of us? The time has arrived when we must act. If we do not occupy them, others will. Our people will emigrate to those regions. Are we to extend over them our protecting arm, or will we either allow them to add to the power of some ambitious foreign nation, or lec them form an independent Government? While none will admit the former, the latter would at once be disunion. It is a people that constitutes a nation, not a territory. Those who will emigrate to Oregon will be our people, possessed of the same ideas of Government ; the same industry and enter- prise, the same ambition, and the same powers of injuring us, if ever foreign intrigues should (which God forbid) make us enemies. I consider this Union as already dissolved and separated into two parts, by the separation of Texas ; and the sooner we go to work to unite that, as one of our States, the sooner will we be able to cure the evils arising from disunion. I am convinced, that, at this moment of time, all the arts and intrigues of which European powers are capable, are at work to make the Texans our enemies. Those powers of intrigues have already triumphed as to all the rest of the States of Spanish America, and we are now suffering under its evil effect. Our interests, as well as our safety, require that we should look well to the effects of an extension of that hostility. It is true, we have nothing to fear from the weak and puerile States of Spanish America. Have we as little to fear from a State composed of the Saxon race? Can we have any assurance that we will always be able to