Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/546

 and other new states were fully organized and perfect, and self-governed, before they came in; and so might Texas be admitted. The power to admit new states was expressly given; and by the very terms of the grant they must be states before they were admitted. The power granted to congress was, not to create, but to admit new states; the states created themselves. Missouri and Michigan had done so, and exercised all the functions of self-government, while congress deliberated whether they should be admitted. In the meantime, the territorial organization was abrogated, and the laws of congress superseded."

After some further discussion of the question, Mr. P. said: "There is no point of view in which the proposition for annexation can be considered, that any serious obstacle in point of form presents itself. If this government be a confederation of states, then it is proposed to add another state to the confederation. If this government be a consolidation, then it is proposed to add to it additional territory and population. That we can annex, and afterwards admit, the cases of Florida and Louisiana prove. We can therefore deal with the people of Texas for the territory of Texas; and the people can be secured in the rights and privileges of the constitution, as were the subjects of Spain and France."

Having considered these "formal difficulties," he next adverted to those which exercised a more decisive influence over that portion of the Union which was offering such determined opposition to this measure. He regarded this joint movement of the northern states as a "combination conceived in a spirit of hostility towards one section, for the purpose of aggrandizing the political power of another." It could not fail to make a deep and mournful impression upon the south, that the opposition to the proposed measure was contemporaneous with the recent excitement on the subject of abolition. He said: "All men, of all parties, from all sections, in and out of office, Mr. Adams most conspicuous amongst them, desired the [sic]aquisition of Texas, until the clamorous interference in the affairs of the south was caught up in New England from old England. Then, for the first time, objections were made to this measure; then those very statesmen who were anxious for the acquisition of Texas for their glory, found out that it would subvert the constitution and ruin the country. You are called upon to declare that the southern portion of your confederacy, by reason of certain domestic institutions, in the judgment of your petitioners wicked and detestable, is to be excluded from some part of the benefits of this government. The assumption is equally insulting to the feelings and derogatory to the constitutional rights of the south. We neither can nor ought — I say it, Mr. President, in no light mood or wrong temper — we neither can nor ought to continue in political union on such terms."

"Mr. P. spoke of the diminution of the comparative political power of the south. The sceptre, he said, had passed from them, and forever. All that was left them was to protect themselves. All they asked was some reasonable check upon an acknowledged power; some approach to equipoise in the senate. All the power they coveted was the power to resist incursions. He