Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/597

 ", Considerations of the highest interest to the whole country demand that the existing and increasing dissensions between the north and the south, on the subject of slavery, should be speedily arrested, and that the questions in controversy be adjusted upon some basis which shall tend to give present quiet, repress sectional animosities remove, as far as possible, the causes of future discord, and serine the uninterrupted enjoyment of those benefits and advantages which the Union was intended to confer in equal measure upon all its members;

"And whereas, It is manifest, under present circumstances, that no adjustment can be effected of the points of difference unhappily existing between the northern and southern sections of the Union, connected with the subject of slavery, which shall secure to either section all that is contended for; and that mutual concessions upon questions of mere policy, not involving the violation of any constitutional right or principle must be the basis of every project affording any assurance of a favorable acceptance;

"And whereas, The joint resolution for annexing Texas to the United States, approved March 1, 1845, contains the following condition and guarantee — that is to say: 'New states of convenient size, not exceeding four in number, in addition to said state of Texas and having sufficient population, may hereafter, by the consent of said state, be formed out of the territory thereof, which shall be entitled to admission under the provisions of the federal constitution; and such states as may be formed out of that portion of said territory lying south of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes north latitude, commonly known as the Missouri compromise line, shall be admitted into the Union with or without slavery, as the people of each state asking admission may desire; and in such state or states as shall be formed out of said territory north of said Missouri compromise line slavery or involuntary servitude, (except for crime) shall be prohibited;' therefore,

"1. Resolved, That the obligation to comply with the condition and guarantee above recited in good faith be distinctly recognized; and that, in part compliance with the same as soon as the people of Texas shall, by an act of their legislature, signify their assent by restricting the limits thereof, within the territory east of the Trinity and south of the Red river, and when the people of the residue of the territory claimed by Texas adopt a constitution, republican in form, they be admitted into the Union upon an equal footing in all respects with the original states.

"2. Resolved, That if Texas shall agree to cede, the United States will accept, a cession of all the unappropriated domain in all the territory claimed by Texas, lying west of the Colorado and extending north to the forty-second parallel of north latitude, together with the jurisdiction and sovereignty of all the territory claimed by Texas north of the thirty-fourth parallel of north latitude, and to pay therefor a sum not exceeding millions of dollars, to be applied in the first place to the extinguishment of any portion of the existing public debt of Texas, for the discharge of which the United States are under any obligation, implied or otherwise, and the remainder as Texas shall require.

"3. Resolved, That when the population of that portion of the territory claimed by Texas lying south of the thirty-fourth parallel of north latitude and west of the Colorado, shall be equal to the ratio of representation in congress, under the last preceding apportionment, according to the provisions of the constitution, and the people of such territory shall, with the assent of the new state contemplated in the preceding resolution, have adopted a state constitution, republican in form, they be admitted into the Union as a state, upon an equal footing with the original states.

"4. Resolved, That all the territory now claimed by Texas lying north of the thirty-fourth parallel of north latitude, and which maybe ceded to the United States by Texas, be incorporated with the territory of New Mexico, except such part thereof as lies east of the Rio Grande and south of the thirty-fourth degree of north latitude, and that the territory so composed form a state, to be admitted into the Union when the inhabitants thereof shall adopt a state constitution, republican in form, with the consent of congress;