Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/568

 this trade rapidly fell off, until it got down to one million and a half. As the earliest and most consistent friend of Texas, he desired peace with Mexico, in order to procure the ultimate annexation of Texas. If Mexico, blind to her interests, should refuse to let Texas take her natural position as a part of the valley of the Mississippi, let congress say in what case the consent of Mexico might cease to be necessary.

Mr. Benton severely censured that party, who, while an armistice was subsisting between Mexico and Texas, which bid fair to lead to peace, rushed in with a firebrand to disturb these relations of amity. For this act they must stand condemned in the eyes of Christendom. Every wise man must see that Texas and Mexico were not naturally parts of a common country. The settlements of Mexico had never taken the direction of Texas. In a northeastern direction, they had not extended much over the Rio Grande; they had come merely to the pastoral regions, but had never professed strength enough to subdue the sugar and cotton sections. He alluded to his own far back prophecies and writings concerning Texas. Messrs. Walker and Woodbury he termed "Texas neophytes," who had been so anxious to make great demonstrations of love for Texas. For himself, he had no such anxiety, because his sentiments had always been known. With him it was not a question "now or never," but Texas then, now, and always

Mr. Benton said he had provided against another Missouri agitation. For those who regarded slavery as a great moral evil, in which he, perhaps, did not differ much from them, there was a provision which would neutralize the slave influence. He would not join the fanatics on either side — those who were running a muck for or against slavery.

The senator from South Carolina, in his zeal to defend his friends, goes beyond the line of defense and attacks me; he supposes me to have made anti-annexation speeches; and certainly, if he limits the supposition to my speeches against the treaty, he is right. But that treaty, far from securing the annexation of Texas, only provides for the disunion of these states. The annexation of the whole country as a territory, and that upon the avowed ground of laying it all out into slave states, is an open preparation for a Missouri question and a dissolution of the union. I am against that; and for annexation in the mode pointed out in my bill. I am for Texas — for Texas with peace and honor, and with the union. Those who want annexation on these terms should support my bill; those who want it without peace, without honor, and without the union, should stick to the lifeless corpse of the defunct treaty."

The president, having been foiled in his scheme of annexation by treaty, appealed to the house of representatives, in a message, dated the 10th of June, two days after the rejection of the treaty, accompanied by the rejected treaty with the correspondence and documents which had been submitted to the senate. The president says in the message, that he does not perceive the force of the objections of the senate to the ratification. Negotiations with Mexico, in advance of annexation, would not only prove abortive, but might be regarded as offensive to Mexico and insulting to Texas. We could not negotiate with