Page:Webster and Hayne's Celebrated Speeches.djvu/103

Rh occasion, sir, in 1837, to meet friends in New York, on some political occasion, and I then stated my sentiments upon the subject. It was the first time that I had occasion to advert to it; and I will ask a friend near me to do me the favor to read an extract from the speech, for the Senate may find it rather tedious to listen to the whole of it. It was delivered in Niblo’s Garden in 1837.

Mr. then read the following extract from the speech of the honorable senator, to which he referred:—

“Gentlemen, we all see that, by whomsoever possessed, Texas is likely to be a slaveholding country; and I frankly avow my entire unwillingness to do any thing which shall extend the slavery of the African race on this continent, or add other slaveholding states to the Union.

“When I say that I regard slavery in itself as a great moral, social, and political evil, I only use language which has been adopted by distinguished men, themselves citizens of slaveholding states.

“I shall do nothing, therefore, to favor or encourage its further extension. We have slavery already among us. The constitution found it among us; it recognized it, and gave it solemn guaranties.

“To the full extent of these guaranties we are all bound in honor, in justice, and by the constitution. All the stipulations contained in the constitution in favor of the slaveholding states, which are already in the Union, ought to be fulfilled, and, so far as depends on me, shall be fulfilled in the fulness of their spirit and to the exactness of their letter. Slavery, as it exists in the states, is beyond the reach of Congress. It is a concern of the states themselves. They have never submitted it to Congress, and Congress has no rightful power over it.

“I shall concur, therefore, in no act, no measure, no menace, no indication of purpose which shall interfere or threaten to interfere with the exclusive authority of the several states over the subject of slavery, as it exists within their respective limits. All this appears to me to be matter of plain and imperative duty.

“But when we come to speak of admitting new states, the subject assumes an entirely different aspect. Our rights and our duties are then both different

“I see, therefore, no political necessity for the annexation of Texas to the Union—no advantages to be derived from it; and objections to it of a strong, and, in my judgment, of a decisive character.”

Mr. . I have nothing, sir, to add to, nor to take back from, those sentiments. That, the Senate will perceive, was in 1837. The purpose of immediately annexing Texas at that time was abandoned or postponed; and it was not revived with any vigor for some years. In the mean time it had so happened that I had become a member of the executive administration, and was for a short period in the department of state. The annexation of Texas was a subject of conversation—not confidential—with the president and heads of department, as well as with other public men. No serious attempt was then made, however, to bring it about. I left the department of state in May, 1843, and shortly after I learned, though no way connected with official information, that a design had been taken up of bringing in Texas, with her slave territory and population, into the United States. I was here in Washington at the time, and persons are now here who will remember that we had an arranged meeting for conversation upon it. I went home to Massachusetts, and proclaimed the existence of that purpose; but I could get no audience, and but little