Page:Webster and Hayne's Celebrated Speeches.djvu/116

112 now to Louisiana. We well know that the immediate cause for the acquisition of Louisiana was the suspension of our right of deposit at New Orleans. Under a treaty with Spain we had a right to the navigation of the river as far as New Orleans, and a right to make deposits in the port of New Orleans. The Spanish authorities interrupted that right, and that interruption produced a great agitation at the west, and I may say, throughout the whole United States. The gentlemen then in opposition, a highly respectable party—the old federal party, which I have never said a word of disrespect in regard to—if I mistake not, took the lead in a desire to resort to arms to acquire that territory. Mr. Jefferson, more prudent, desired to procure it by purchase. A purchase was made, in order to remove the difficulty, and to give an outlet to the west to the ocean. That was the immediate cause of the acquisition of Louisiana. Now, sir, we come to Texas. Perhaps no gentleman had more to do with the acquisition of Texas than myself; and I aver, Mr. President, that I would have been among the very last individuals in the United States to have made any movement at that time for the acquisition of Texas; and I go further: if I know myself, I was incapable of acquiring any territory simply on the ground that it was to be an enlargement of slave territory. I would just as freely have acquired it if it had been on the northern as on the southern side. No, sir; very different motives actuated me. I knew at a very early period—I will not go into the history of it—the British government had given encouragement to the abolitionists of the United States, who were represented at the World’s Convention. The question of the abolition of slavery was agitated in that convention. One gentleman stated that Mr. Adams informed him that if the British government wished to abolish slavery in the United States, they must begin with Texas. A commission was sent from this World’s Convention to the British secretary of state, Lord Aberdeen; and it so happened that a gentleman was present when the interview took place between Lord Aberdeen and the committee, who gave me a full account of it shortly after it occurred. Lord Aberdeen fell into the project, and gave full encouragement to the abolitionists. Well, sir, it is well known that Lord Aberdeen was a very direct, and in my opinion, a very honest and worthy man; and when Mr. Pakenham was sent to negotiate with regard to Oregon, and incidentally with respect to Texas, he was ordered to read a declaration to this government, stating that the British government was anxious to put an end to slavery all over the world, commencing at Texas. It is well known, further, that at that very time a negotiation was going on between France and England to accomplish that object, and our government was thrown by stratagem out of the negotiation; and that object was, first, to induce Mexico to acknowledge the independence of Texas upon the ground that she would abolish it. All these are matters of history; and where is the man so blind—I am sure the senator from Massachusetts is not so blind—as not to see that if the project of Great Britain had been successful, the whole frontier of the states of Louisiana and Arkansas, and the adjacent states, would have been exposed to the inroads of British emissaries. Sir, so far as I was concerned, I put it exclusively upon that ground. I never would run into the folly of reannexation, which I always held to be absurd. Nor, sir, would I put it upon the ground—which I might well have put it—of commercial and manufacturing considerations; because those were not my motive principles, and I chose to assign what were. So far as