Page:Webster and Hayne's Celebrated Speeches.djvu/100

96 this government, acting in good faith, as I trust it always will, can relieve itself from that stipulation and pledge, by any honest course of legislation whatever. And, therefore, I say again that, so far as Texas is concerned—the whole of Texas south of 36° 30′, which I suppose embraces all the slave territory—there is no land, not an acre, the character of which is not established by law, a law which cannot be repealed without the violation of a contract, and plain disregard of the public faith.

I hope, sir, it is now apparent that my proposition, so far as Texas is concerned, has been maintained; and the provision in this article—and it has been well suggested by my friend from Rhode Island that that part of Texas which lies north of 34° of north latitude may be formed into free states—is dependent, in like manner, upon the consent of Texas, herself a slave state.

Well, now, sir, how came this? How came it that within these walls, where it is said by the honorable member from South Carolina, that the free states have a majority, this resolution of annexation, such as I have described it, found a majority in both houses of Congress? Why, sir, it found that majority by the great addition of northern votes added to the entire southern vote, or at least, nearly the whole of the southern votes. That majority was made up of northern as well as of southern votes. In the House of Representatives it stood, I think, about eighty southern votes for the admission of Texas, and about fifty northern votes for the admission of Texas. In the Senate the vote stood for the admission of Texas, twenty-seven, and twenty-five against it; and of those twenty-seven votes, constituting a majority for the admission of Texas in this body, no less than thirteen of them came from the free states—four of them were from New England. The whole of these thirteen senators from the free states—within a fraction, you see, of one half of all the votes in this body for the admission of Texas, with its immeasurable extent of slave territory—were sent here by the votes of free states.

Sir, there is not so remarkable a chapter in our history of political events, political parties, and political men, as is afforded by this measure for the admission of Texas, with this immense territory, that a bird cannot fly over in a week. [Laughter.] Sir, New England, with some of her votes, supported this measure. Three fourths of the votes of liberty-loving Connecticut went for it in the other house, and one half here. There was one vote for it in Maine, but I am happy to say, not the vote of the honorable member who addressed the Senate the day before yesterday, (Mr. Hamlin,) and who was then a representative from Maine in the other house; but there was a vote or two from Maine—ay, and there was one vote for it from Massachusetts, the gentleman then representing and now living in the district in which the prevalence of freesoil sentiment, for a couple of years or so, has defeated the choice of any member to represent it in Congress. Sir, that body of northern and eastern men who gave those votes at that time, are now seen taking upon themselves, in the nomenclature of politics, the appellation of the Northern Democracy. They undertook to wield the destinies of this empire—if I may call a republic an empire—and their policy was, and they persisted in it, to bring into this country all the territory they could. They did it under pledges, absolute pledges to the slave interest in the case of Texas, and afterwards they lent their aid in bringing in these new conquests. My honorable friend from Georgia, in March, 1847, moved the Senate to declare that the war ought not to be prosecuted for acquisition, for conquest, for the