Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/565

 must be and remain "reännexed," until the acquisition should be rejected by the senate. In relation to this, Mr. Benton speaks thus:

"The president in his special message of Wednesday last informs us that we have acquired a title to the ceded territory by his signature to the treaty, wanting only the action of the senate to perfect it; and that, in the meantime, he will protect it from invasion, and for that purpose has detached all the disposable portions of the army and navy to the scene of action. This is a caper about equal to the mad freaks with which the unfortunate emperor Paul, of Russia, was accustomed to astonish Europe about forty years ago. By this declaration, the thirty thousand Mexicans in the left half of the valley of the Rio del Norte are our citizens, and standing, in the language of the president's message, in a hostile attitude towards us, and subject to be repelled as invaders. Taos, the seat of the custom-house, where our caravans enter their goods, is ours; governor Armijo is our governor, and subject to be tried for treason if he does not submit to us; twenty Mexican towns and villages are ours, and their peaceful inhabitants, cultivating their fields and tending their flocks, are suddenly converted, by a stroke of the president's pen, into American citizens, or American rebels. This is too bad: and, instead of making themselves party to its enormities, as the president invites them to do, I think rather that it is the duty of the senate to wash its hands of all this part of the transaction by a special disapprobation. The senate is the constitutional adviser of the president, and has the right, if not the duty, to give him advice when the occasion requires it. I therefore propose, as an additional resolution, applicable to the Rio del Norte boundary only — the one which I will read and send to the secretary's table — and on which, at the proper time, I shall ask the vote of the senate. This is the resolution:

'Resolved, That the incorporation of the left bank of the Rio del Norte into the American union, by virtue of a treaty with Texas, comprehending as the said incorporation would do, a part of the Mexican departments of New Mexico, Chihuahua, Coahuila, and Tamaulipas, would be an act of direct aggression on Mexico; for all the consequences of which the United States would stand responsible.'

Having shown the effect of the treaty on the Rio Grande frontier, Mr. B. took up the treaty itself, under all its aspects and in its whole extent, and assumed four positions in relation to it, namely:

 1. That the ratification of the treaty would be, of itself, war between the United States and Mexico. 2. That it would be unjust war. 3. That it would be war unconstitutionally made. 4. That it would be war upon weak and groundless pretext."

Mr. M'Duffie, on the 23d of May, replied to Mr. Benton. The question as to boundary, he said, had been exhausted by the conclusive argument of Mr. Walker, of Mississippi, and he would not discuss it. It had been contended by senators that the ratification of the treaty would subject us to the charge of a violation of the public faith. In answer to this objection, Mr. M'Duffie