$w* M^fWwmm wmmmm ■ w?:mm& #W!&bi*M£)&eed& XJJJIYILLM. 5 LIBRARY" OF CONGRESS J # $ J [SMITHSONIAN DEPOSIT.] WM. WwWSfWV. ! UNITED STATES OF AMERICA wmmmm nrnti mm^^rm^ Iq^'^MaSSh , S |BP •immm 0Wyvm ******* S«^ nA,«n n '« (fVW»5SaA9af'A2»n«9' s ^m^Mm^, 2m^j-0M^^m H$Aftw\yyVYu WrZPi 'M&&PM ■iiAiift^^p THE LEGION OF LIBERTY. REMONSTRANCE OF SOME FREE MEN, STATES, AND PRESSES, TO THE TEXAS REBELLION, AGAINST THE LAWS OF NATURE AND OF NATIONS. Ruthless Rapine, Righteous Hope defies. •''Ye serpents ! ye generation of vipers! ! How can ye escape the damnation of hell! ! !" - 1843. Sold at the Patriot Office, No. 9 Exchange et. Albany. Six ds. single; 50 per dozen; $3 per hundred ; $25 i*er tttrtiWtW, ,L5 LIST OF THIS LEGION OF LIBEBTY. DeUnda est Texas. Benjamin Lundy, (Gen. Gaines' trespass,) Mexican Decrees for Universal Freedom, Texas Constitution against Freedom, President Guerero, John Quincy Adams, The Mexican Arms, The London Patriot, William B. Reed, National Intelligencer, Edward J. Wilson, G. L. Postlethwaite, New-York Sun, N. Y. Commercial Advertiser, Wilkinson's and Burr's trial, African Slave Trade and Texas, British Commissioners Report, (Bartow's Case,) Detroit Spectator, American Citizen, Liberia Herald, Daniel Webster, William Jay, The British Parliament, Barlow Hoy, Daniel O'Connell, Col. Thompson, Fowell Buxton, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, Robert Owen, Thomas Branagan, Joseph Sturge, William E. Channing, Commonwealth of Mass., Nathaniel P. Rogers, David Lee Child, Edwin W. Goodwin, Joshua R. Giddings, John Maynard, Zebina Eastman, Gamaliel Bailey, A. S. Standard, William L. McKenzie, La Roy Sunderland, J. B. Lamar, Archibald L. Linn, William Slade, British Emancipator, G. W. Alexander, George Bradburn, Edmund Quincy, Pawtucket Chronicle, Cleveland Journal, Legislature of Vermont, Gen. Assembly of Ohio State, A. S. Society of Pennsylvania, A. S. Convention of N. Y. State, Philadelphia Gazette, Friend of Man, Pres. Jackson's Inconsistency, William B. Tappan, Southport American, Edward Everett, Mass. Legislature, 1843. The Free American, The Liberator, ■ The Liberty Press, New- York American, Mexican Side, New-York Tribune, Pittsburg Gazette, Lynn Record, Richmond Whig, Hoonsocket Patriot, Hampshire Republican, William H. Burleigh, Louisville Journal, State of Rhode Island, Legislature of Michigan, John Quincy Adams, Seth M. Gates, William Slade, William B. Calhoun, Joshua R. Giddings, Sherlock J. Andrews, Nathaniel B. Borden, Thomas C. Chittenden, John Mattocks, Christopher Morgan, J. C. Howard, Victor Birdseye, HilandHall, Thos. A.Tomlinson, Stanley A. Clark, Chas. Hudson, Archibald L. Linn, Thos. W. Williams, Tru. Smith, Dav. Bronson, Geo. N. Brings, Petition to Congress. TEXAS AND MEXICO. But the prime cause, and the real object of this war, *t-e not dis- tinctly understood by a large portion of the honest, disinterested, and well-meaning citizens of the United States. Their means of obtain- ing correct information upon the subject have been necessarily limited ; and many of them have been deceived and misled by the misrepresen- tations of those concerned in it, and especially by hireling writers of the newspaper press. They have been induced to believe that the in- habitants of Texas were engaged in a legitimate contest for the mainte- nance of the sacred principles o*f liberty, and the natural, inalienable rights of man : — whereas, the motives of its instigators, and their chief incentives to action, have been, from the commencement, of a directly opposite character and tendency. It is susceptible of the clearest demon- stration, that the immediate cause, and the leading object of this contest, originated in a settled design, among the slaveholders of this country, (with land speculators and slave-traders,) to wrest the large and valuable territorij of Texas from the Mexican Republic, in order to re-establish the SYSTEM OF SLAVERY; to open a vast and profitable SLAVE MARKET therein ; and ultimately to annex it to the United States. And further, it is evident — nay, it is very generally acknowledged — - . that the insurrectionists are principally citizens of the United States, who have proceeded thither for the purpose of revolutionizing the country ; and that they are dependant upon this nation, for both the physical and pecuniary means, to carry the design into effect. Whether the national legislature will lend its aid to this most unwarrantable, aggressive attempt, will depend on tl e VOICE OF THE PEOPLE, expressed in their primary assembles, by their petitions and through the ballot boxes. The land speculations, aforesaid, have extended to most of the cities and villages of the United States, the British colonies in America, and the settlements of foreigners in all the eastern parts of Mexico. All concerned in them are aware that a change in the government of the country 7nust take place, if their claims should ever be legalized. The advocates of slavery, in our southern states and elsewhere, want more land on this continent suitable for the culture of sugar and cotton : and if Texas, with the adjoining portions of Tamaulipas, Coahuila, Chihuahua, and Santa Fe, east of the Rjo Bravo del INorte, can be wrested from the Mexican government, room will be afforded for the redundant slave population in the United States, even to a remote period of time. Such are the motives for action — such the combination of interests — such the organization, sources of influence, and foundation of authority, upon which the present Texas Insurrection rests. The resi- dent colonists compose but a small fraction of the party concerned in it. The standard of revolt was raised as soon as it was clearly ascer- tained that slavery could not be perpetuated, nor the illegal specula tionsin land continued, under the government of the Mexican Republic The Mexican authorities were charged with acts of oppression, while the true causes of the revolt — the motives and designs of the insurgents BENJAMIN LUNDY. — were studiously concealed from the public view. Influential slave- holders are contributing money, equipping troops, and marching to the scene of conflict. The land speculators are fitting out expeditions from ]New York and New Orleans, with men, munitions of war, pro- visions, 6cc, to promote the object. The Independence of Texas is declared, and the system of slavery, as well as the slave-trade (with the United States,)* is fully recognized by the government they have set up. Commissioners are sent from the colonies and agents are appointed here, to make formal application, enlist the sympathies of our citizens, and solicit aid in every way that it can be furnished. The hireling presses are actively engaged in promoting the success of their efforts, bv misrepresenting the character of the Mexicans, issuing inflammatory appeals, and urging forward the ignorant, the unsus- pecting, the adventurous, and the unprincipled, to a participation in the struggle. Under the erroneous construction of the treaty with Mexico, General Gaines was authorized to cross the boundary line with his army ; to march seventy miles into the Mexican territory ; and to occupy the military post of Nacogdoches, in case he should judge it expedient in order to guard against Indian depredations ! And further ; he was likewise authorized to call upon the governors of several of the south- western states for an additional number of troops, should he consider it necessary. From the Pensacolo Gazette. " About the middle of last month, General Gaines sent an officer of the United States arrcv into Texas to reclaim some deserters. He found them already enlisted in the Texian service to the number of two hundred. They still wore the uniform of our army, but refused, of course, to return. The com- mander of the Texian forces was a^p'.ied to, to enforce their return ; but bis onlv reply was, that the soldiers might go, but he had no authority to send them back. This is a new view of our Texian relations." The following decrees and ordinances are translated from an official compilation by authority of the government of Mexico. Extract from the Law of October 14th, 1823. Article 21. Foreigners who bring slaves with them, shall obey the Laws established upon the matter, or which shall hereafter be estab- lished. Decree of jclt 13, 1524. Prohibition of the Commerce and Traffic in Slaves. The Sovereign General Constituent Congress*>f the United Mexi can States has held it risht to decree the following : 1. The commerce and traffic in slaves, proceeding from whatever power, and under whatever flag, is forever prohibited, within the terri- tories of the United Mexican States. 2. The slaves, who mav be introduced contrary to the tenor of the preceding article, shall remain free in consequence of treading the Mexican soil. BENJAMIN LUNDY. 3. Every vessel, whether national or foreign, in which slaves mav be transported and introduced into the Mexican territories, shall be confiscated with the rest of its cargo — and the owner, purchaser, cap- tain, master, and pilot, shall suffer the punishment of ten years' con- finement. The Constitution of Coahuila and Texas, promulgated on the 11th of March, 1827, also contains this important article : " 13. In this state no person shall be born a slave after this Consti- tution is published in the capital of each district, and six months there- after, neither will the introduction of slaves be permitted under any pretext." [Translated from page 149, Vol. V, Mexican Laws.] Decree of President Guerrero. Abolition of Slavery. The President of the United Mexican States, to the inhabitants of the Republic — Be it known : That in the year 1S23, being desirous of signalizing the anniversary of our Indep indence by an act of national Justice and Beneficence, which may contribute to the strength and support of such inestimable welfare, as to secure more and more the public tranquility, and reinstate an unfortunate portion of our inhabitants in the sacred rights granted them by nature, a.. I may be protected by the nation, under wise and just laws, accord in » to the provision in artiele 30 of the Constitutive act ; availing myself of tHe extraordinary faculties granted me, I have thought proper to decree : 1. That slavery be exterminated in the republic. 2. Consequently those are free, who, up to this day, have been looked upon as slaves. 3. Whenever the circumstances of the public treasury will allow it, the owners of slaves shall be indemnified, in the manner which the laws shall provide. Mexico, 15th Sept. 1829, A. D. JOSE MARIA de BOCANEGRA. [Translation of part of the law of April 6th, 1830, prohibiting the migration of citizens of the United States to Texa3.J Art. 9. On the northern frontier, the entrance of foreigners shall be prohibited, under all pretexts whatever, unless they be furnished with passports, signed by the agents of the republic, at the places whence they proceed. Art. 10. There shall be no variation with regard to the colonies already established, nor with regard to the slaves that may be in them ; but the general government, or the particular state government, shall take care, under the strictest responsibility, that the colonization laics be obeyed, and that no more slaves be introduced. BENJAMIN LUNDT. Colonization Laws of Coahuila and Texas. Art. 31. The new settlers, in regard to the introduction of slaves, shall be subject to laws ivhick now exist, and which shall hereafter be made on the subject. Art. 36. The servants and laborers which, in future, foreign colonists shall introduce, shall not, by force of any contract whatever, remain bound to their service a longer space of time than ten years. Given in the city of Leona Vicario, 28th April, 1832. JOSE JESUS GRANDE, President. In the course of my observations, I have several times asserted, that it was the intention of the insurrectionists to establish and perpetuate the system of slavery, by "constitutional" provision. In proof of this, I now quote several paragraphs from the "constitution" which they lately adopted. This extract is taken from that part under the head of" General Provisions," and embraces all that relates to slavery. Texas Constitution. Sec 8. All persons who shall leave the country for the purpose of evading a participation in the present struggle, or shall refuse to partici- pate in it, or shall give aid or assistance to the present enemy, shall forfeit all rights to citizenship, and such lands as they may hold, in the republic. Sec 9. All persons of color, who were slaves for life previous to their emigration to Texas, and who are now held in bondage, shall remain in the like state of servitude, provided the said slave shall be the bona fide property of the person so holding said slave as aforesaid. Congress shall pass no laws to prohibit emigrants from the United States of America from bringing their slaves into the republic with them, and holding them by the same tenure by which such slaves were held in the United States ; nor shall congress have the power to emancipate slaves; nor shall any slaveholder be allowed to emancipate his or her slave or slaves, without the consent of congress, unless he or she shall send his or her slave or slaves without the limits of the republic. No free person of African descent, either in whole or in part, shall be permitted to reside permanently in the republic, without the consent of congress; and the importation or admission of Africans or negroes inw this republic, excepting from the United States of America, is for ever prohibited and declared to be piracy. Sec 10. All persons, (Africans, and the descendants of Africans, ayid Indians excepted,) who were residing in Texas on the day of the Decla- ration of Independence, [a great portion of the native Mexican citizens are, of course, excluded,] shall be considered citizens of the republic, and entitled to all the privileges of such. All citizens now living in Texas, who have not received their portion of land in like manner as colonists, shall be entitled to their land in the following proportion and manner: Every head of a family shall be entitled to one league and " labor" of land, and every single man of the age of seventeen and upwards, shall be entiiled to one third part of one league of land. BENJAMIN LUNDY. The period has indeed arrived— THE CRISIS IS NOW— when the wise, the virtuous, the patriotic, the philanthropic of this nation must examine, and reflect, and deeply ponder the momentous subject under consideration. Already we see the newspaper press in some of the free states, openly advocating the system of slavery, with all its outrages and abominations. Individuals occupying influential stations in the community at large, also countenance and encourage it and even instigate the vile rabble to oppose, maltreat, and trample on the necks of those who dare to plead the cause of the oppressed. At the ensuing session of our national congress, the great battle is to be fought, that must decide the question now at issue, and perhaps even scaUhe fate of this republic. The senators and representative s of the people will then be called on to sanction the independence of Texas, and also to provide for its admission, as a SLAVEHOLDING STATE, into this Union. These measures will positively be proposed, in case the Mexican government fails to suppress the insurrection very soon, and to recover the actual possession of the territory. A few of our most eminent statesmen will resist the proposition with energy and zeal • but unless the PI BLIC VOICE be raised against theunhallowed proceeding, and the sentiments of the people be most unequivocally expressed in the loudest tones of disapprobation, they will be unable to withstand the influence and power of their antagonists. Arouse then! and let your voice be heard through your primary assemblies, your legislative halls, and the columns of the periodical press, in every section of your cou nt rv! CJ? - !— Sons of the Pilgrims, and disciples of Wesley and Penn !— Coadjutors and pupils of Washington, Jeffer- son, and Franklin!— Advocates of freedom and the sacred "rights of man/"— Will you longer snut your eyes, and slumber in apathy, while the demon of oppression is thus stalking over the plains consecrated to the genius of liberty, and fertilized by the blood of her numerous martyrs ?— Will you permit the authors of this gigantic project of national aggression, interminable slavery, and Heaven-daring injustice, to perfect their diabolical schemes through your supineness, or with the sanction of your acquiescence ? If they succeed in the accomplish- ment ot their object, where will be your guarantee for the liberty which you, yourselves enjoy ? When the advocates of slavery shall obtain the balance of power in this confederation ; when they shall have corrupted a few more of the aspirants to office among you, and opened an illimitable field for the operations of your heartless land-jobbers and slave-merchants, (to secure their influence in effecting the unholy purposes of their ambition,) how long will you be able'to resist the encroachments of their tyrannical influence, or prevent them from usurping and exercising authority over you? ARISE IN THE MAJESTY OF MORAL POWER, and place the seal of condem- nation upon this flagrant violation of national laws, of human rights, and the eternal, immutable principles of justice.— National Enquirer of Philadelphia. JOHN Q. ADAMS. JOHN a. ADAMS. During the late war with Great Britain, the military and naval com- manders of that nation, issued proclamations inviting the slaves to repair to their standards, with promises of freedom and of settlement in some of the British colonial establishments. This, surely, was an interference with the institution of slavery in the states. By the treaty of peace, Great Britain stipulated to evacuate all the forts and places in the United States, without carrying away any slaves. If the government of the United States had no authority to interfere, in any way, with the institution of slavery in the states, they would not have had the authority to require this stipulation. It is well known that this engagement was not fulfilled by the British naval and military commanders ; that, on the contrary, they did carry away all the slaves whom they had induced to join them, and that the British government inflexibly refused to restore any of them to their masters ; that a claim of indemnity was consequently instituted in behalf of the owners of the slaves, and was successfully maintained. All that series of transactions was an interference by congress with the institution of slavery in the states in one way — in the way of protection and support. It was by the institution of slavery alone, that the restitution of slaves enticed by proclamations into the British service could be claimed as property. But for the institution of slavery, the British commanders could neither have allured them to their standard, nor restored them otherwise than as liberated prisoners of war. But for the institution of slavery, there could have been no stipulation that they should not be carried away as property, nor any claim of indemnity for the violation of that engagement. But the war power of congress over the institution of slavery in the states is yet far more extensive. Suppose the case of a servile war, complicated, as to some extent it is even now, with an Indian war; suppose congress were called to raise armies ; to supply money from the whole Union to suppress a servile insurrection : would they have no authority to interfere with the institution of slavery? The issue of a servile war may be disastrous. By war, the slave may emancipate himself; it may become necessary for the master to recognise his emancipation, by a treaty of peace; can it, for an instant, be pretended that congress, in such a contingency, would have no authority to interfere with the institution of slavery, in any ivay, in the states ? Why, it would be equivalent to saying, that congress have no consti- tutional authority to make peace. I suppose a more portentous case, certainly, within the bounds of possibility. — I would to God I could say not within the bounds of probability. You have been, if you are not now, at the very point of a war with Mexico — a war, I am sorry to say, so far as public rumor is credited, stimulated by provocations on our part from the very com- mencement of this Administration down to the recent authority given to General Gaines to invade the Mexican territory. It is said, that one of the earliest acts of this Administration, was a proposal made at a time when there was already much ill-humor in Mexico against the JOHN of Mexico, as if on purpose to give that country a nation of natural allies in their hostilities against you? Sir, you have a Mexican, an Indian, and a negro war upon your hands, and you are plunging yourself into it blindfold ; you are talking about acknowledging the independence of the republic of Texas, and you are thirsting to annex Texas, ay, Coahuila, and Tamaulipas, and Santa Pe, from the source to the mouth of the Rio Bravo, to your already over-distcnted dominions. Five hundred thousand square miles of the territory of Mexico would not even now quench your burning thirst for aggrandizement. Great Britain may have no serious objection to the independence of Texas, and may be willing enough to take her under her protection, as a barrier both against Mexico and against you. But, as aggrandize- ment to you she will not readily suffer it ; and, above all, she will not suffer you to acquire it by conquest and the re-establishment of slavery. Urged on by the irresistible, overwhelming torrent of public opinion, Great Britain has recently, at a cost of one hundred millions of dollars, which her people have joyfully paid, abolished slavery throughout all her colonies in the West Indies. After setting such an example, she will JOHN Q.. ADAMS. no t — it i s impossible that she should — stand by and witness a war for the re-establishment of slavery ; where it had been for years abolished, and situated thus in the immediate neighborhood of her islands. She will tell you, that if you must have Texas as a member of your confederacy, it must be without the trammels of slavery, and if you will wage a war to handcuff and fetter your fellow-man, she will wage the war against you to break his chains. Sir, what a figure, in the eyes of mankind, would you make, in deadly conflict with Great Britain: she fio-htino- the battles of emancipation, and you the battles of slavery; she the°benefactress, and you the oppressor of human kind ! In such a war, the enthusiasm of emancipation, too, would unite vast numbers of her people in aid of the national rivalry, and all her natural jealousy against our aggrandizement. No war was ever so popular in England, as that war would be against slavery, the slave-trade, and the Anglo- Saxon descendant from her own loins. As to the annexion of Texas to your confederation, for what do you want it ? Are you not large and unwieldy enough already ? Do not two millions of square miles cover enough for the insatiate rapacity of your land-jobbers ? I hope there are none of them within the sound of my voice. Have you not Indians enough to expel from the land of their fathers' sepulchres, and to exterminate ? What, in a prudential and military point of view, would be the addition of Texas to your domain ? It would be weakness and not power. Is your southern and southwestern frontier not sufficiently extensive ? not sufficiently feeble ? not sufficiently defenceless ? Why are you adding regiment after regiment of dragoons to your standing army ? Why are you struggling, by direction and by indirection, to raise per saltwn that armylroin less than six to more than twenty thousand men ? A war for the restoration of slavery, where it has been abolished, if successful in Texas, must extend over all Mexico ; and the example will threaten Great Britain with imminent danger of a war of colors in her own islands. She will take possession of Cuba and Porto Rico, by cession from Spain, or by the batteries from her wooden walls ; and if you ask her by what authority she has done it, she will ask y-ou, in return, by what authority you have extended your seacoast from the Sabine to the Rio Bravo. She will ask you a question more per- plexity namely— by what authority you, with freedom, independence, and democracy upon your lips, are waging a war of extermination to forge new manacles and fetters, instead of those which are falling from the hands and feet of man. She will carry emancipation and abolition with her in every fold of her flag ; while your stars, as they increase in numbers, will be overcast with the murky vapors of op- pression, and the only portion of your banners visible to the eye, will be the blood-stained stripes of the task-master? Little reason have the inhabitants of Georgia and Alabama to com- plain that the government of the United States has been remiss or neglectful in protecting them from Indian hostilities; the fact 13 directly the reverse. The people of Alabama and Georgia are now suffering the recoil of their own unlawful weapons. Georgia, sir, Georgia^ by trampling upon the faith of our national treaties with the JOHN Q. ADAMS. Indian tribes and by subjecting them to her state laws, first set the example of that policy which is now in the process of consummation by this Ina.an war, m setting this example, she bade defiance to the authority of the government of the nation ; she nullified your laws • she set at naught your executive guardians of the common constitu- tion ot the la. id. To what extent she carried this policy, the dun -eons of her prisons and the records of the Supreme Judicial Court of the Lmted States can tell. To those prisons she committed inoffensive innocent pious ministers of the gospel of truth, for carrying the lieht the comforts, and the consolations of that gospe4 to the hearts !nd minds of these unhappy Indians. A solemn decision of the Supreme Court of the Lmted States pronounced that act a violation of your treaties and your laws. Georgia defied that decision ; your executive government never carried it into execution ; the imprisoned mission- aries of the gospel were compelled to purchase their ransom from per- petual captivity by sacrificing their rights as freemen to the meekness of their principles as Christians ; and you have sanctioned all these outrages upon justice, law, and humanity, by succumbing to the power and the policy of Georgia, by accommodating your legislation to her arbitrary will; by tearing to tatters your old treaties with the Indians, and by constraining them, under peine forte et dure, to the mockery of signing other treaties wkh you, which, at the first nioment Z,u * 7i a " SUlt ?T PV r P° se >) TOU wil1 a S ain tear to tatters and scatter to the four winds of heaven, till the Indian race shall be extinct upon this continent, and it shall become a problem, beyond the solution ot antiquaries and historical societies, what the red man of the forest was. ,iJT heArn ?f °o the coin of the Mexican Republic, are Freedom's EarlA tSsaXLSEZSSSR ■■ Md i,s ™' se be - "» cap"™. bS£ LONDON PATRIOT WILLIAM B. REED. THE LONDON PATRIOT. The British public ought to be made aware of what is going on at present in Texas ; of the true cause and the true nature of the contest between the Mexican authorities and the American slave-jobbers. Texas has long been the Naboth's vineyard of brother Jonathan. For twenty years or more, an anxiety has been manifested to push back the boundary of the United States' territory, of which the Sabine river is the agreed line, so as to include the rich alluvial lands of the delta of the Colorado, at the head of the Gulf of Mexico. There are stronger passions at work, however, than the mere lust of territory — deeper interests at stake. Texas belongs to a republic which has abolished slavery ; the object of the Americans is to convert it into a slaveholding state ; not only to make it a field of slave cultivation, and a market for the Maryland slave-trade, but, by annexing it to the Federal Union to strengthen in congress the preponderating influence of the southern slaveholding states. This atrocious project is the real origin and cause of the pretended contest for Texian independence — a war, on the part of the United States, of unprovoked aggression for the vilest of all purposes.— July 6,1836. WILLIAM B. REED. One of the complaints made by the Texians is that the Mexican government will not permit the introduction of slaves, and one of the first fruits of independence and secure liberty (unnatural as is the paradox) will be the extension of slavery, and both the domestic and foreign slave-trade, over the limits of a territory large enough to form five states as large as Pennsylvania. Such being the result what becomes of any real or imaginary balance between the South and the North — the slaveholding and non-slaveholding interests? Five or more slaveholding states, with their additional representation, thoroughly imbued with southern feeling, thoroughly attached to what the South Carolina resolutions now before us, call " the patriarchal institution of domestic slavery," added to the Union, and where is the security of the North, and of the interests of free labor ? — These are questions worth considering — the more so, as the war fever which is now burning; in the veins of this community, and exhibiting itself in all the usual unreflecting expressions of sympathy and resentment, has disturbed the judgment of the nation, and distorted every notion of right and wrong. Let the Texians win independence as they can. That is their affair, not ours. But let no statesman that loves his country think of admitting such an increment of slaveholding popula- tion into this Union. He (Mr. R.) could not but fear that there was a deep laid plan to admit Texas into the Union, with a view to ar increase of slaveholding representation in congress ; and while h* viewed it in connexion with the growing indifference perceptible ii some quarters, he could not but feel melancholy forebodings. — Speed in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, June 11th, 1836. TEXAS. The following document, considering the avouched character of the gentlemen whose names are signed to it, and attest its truth, is entitled to a place in our columns : — National Intelligencer. TO THE PUBLIC. We will not dwell upon the false assurances made to us by men professing to be the accredited agents of Texas in this country. At a time when the cause of Texas was dark and gloomy, when Santa Anna seemed designed to carry desolation over the whole country, those men were prodigal of promises, and professing to be authorized to speak in the name of the Texian Government, made assurances of ultimate remuneration, which they knew at the time to be false, and which time proved to be so. We now state that our personal observation and undoubted infor- mation enabled us fully to perceive, 1st. That the present population of Texas seemed wholly incapable of a just idea of civil and political liberty, and that, so far as the extension of liberal principles is con- cerned, it is of but little moment whether Mexico or Texas succeed in the struggle. 2d. That the mass of the people, from the highest functionary of their pretended government to the humblest citizen (with but few ex- ceptions,) are animated alone by a desire of plunder, and appear totally indifferent whom they plunder, friends or foes. 3d. That even now there is really no organized government in the country, no laws administered, no judiciary, a perpetual struggle going on between the civil and military departments, and neither having the confidence of the people, or being worthy of it. These facts and others sufficiently demonstrate to us that the cabinet was deficient in all the requisites of a good government, and that no one in his senses would trust himself, his reputation, or his fortunes, to their charge or control. Charged with treason, bribery, and usur- pations, weak in their councils, and still weaker in power to enforce their orders, wo perceived at once that we must look for safety and proper inducements elsewhere. We then turned our eyes to the army, and a scene still more disheartening presented itself; undisciplined, and without an effort to become so ; not a roll called, nor a drill ; no regular encampment ; no authority nor obedience ; with plundering parties for self-emolument, robbing private individuals of their property. We could see nothing to induce us to embark our fortunes and destinies with them. With these views and facts, we could but sicken and wonder at the vile deceptions which had been practised upon us ; yet we are told that this people had risen up in their might to vindicate the cause of civil and religious liberty. It is a mockery of the very name of liberty. They are stimulated by that motive which such men can only appreciate — the hope of plunder. They are careless of the form of government under which they live, if that government will tolerate licentiousness and disorder. Such is a brief, but we sincerely be- lieve, a faithful picture of a country to which we were invited with so much assiduity, and such the manner in which we were received and treated. NEW-YORK SUN. We might multiply facts in support of each proposition here laid down, to show the miserable condition of things in Texas, and the utter impossibility that a man of honor could embark in such a cause with such men. Should it be rendered necessary, we may yet do so ; but for the present we will pause with this remark, that if there be any, now, in Kentucky, whose hearts are animated with the desire of an honorable fame, or to secure a competent settlement for themselves or families, they must look to some other theatre than the plains of Texas. We would say to them, Listen not to the deceitful and hypocritical allurements of land speculators, who ivish you to fight for their benefit, and who are as liberal of promises as they are faithless in perform- ance. We are aware of the responsibility which we incur by this course. We are aware that we subject ourselves to the misrepresen- tations of hired agents and unprincipled landmongers ; but we are willing to meet it all, relying upon the integrity of our motives and the correctness of our course. EDWARD J. WILSON, G. L. POSTLETHWAITE. Lexington, Sept. 10, 1836. NEW- YORK SUN. Extract from General Houston's letter to General Dunlap of Nash- ville — " For a portion of this force we must look to the United States. It cannot reach us too soon. There is but one feeling in Texas, in my opinion, and that is to establish the independence of Texas, and to be attached to the United States." Here, then, is an open avowal by the commander-in-chief of the Texian army, that American troops will be required to seize and sever this province of the Mexican republic, for the purpose of uniting it to ours ; and this avowal is made by a distinguished American citizen, in the very face of that glorious constitution of his country, which wisely gives no power to its citizens for acquiring foreign territory by conquest, their own territory being more than amply sufficient to gratify any safe ambition ; and in the face, too, of the following solemn and sacred contract of his country with the sister republic which he would dis- member : "There shall be a firm, inviolable, and universal peace, and a true and sincere friendship between the United States of America, and the United Mexican States, in all the extent of their possessions and terri- tories, between their people and citizens respectively, without distinction of persons or places." In the earlier days of our republic, when a hign-minded and honor- able fidelity to its constitution was an object proudly paramount to every mercenary consideration that might contravene it, an avowed design of this kind against the possessions of a nation with whom the United States were at peace, would have subjected its author, if a citizen, to the charge of high treason, and to its consequences. When Aaron Burr and his associates were supposed to meditate the conauest NEUTRALITY. of Mexico, and attempted to raise troops in the southern states to achii ve if, they were arrested for treason, and Burr, their chief, was tried for his lit"'-. But now. behold ! the conquest of a part of the same country is an obj set openly proclaimed, not in the letters of General 1 1 alone, but by many of our wealthiest citizens at public ban- quets, and by th< hireling presses in the chief cities of our Union. The of a Foreign territory to our own by foreign conquest, being thus unblushingly avowed, and our citizens, who are int< gral portionsof our national y, being openly invited and incited to join the of war, it becomes an interesting moral inc,uiry — what is there m the public mind to excuse or even to palliate so flagrant a prostitution of national faith and honor in these days v any more than in the days that are past ? The answer is ready at hand, and is im futable. An extensive and well organized gang of swindlers in Texas lands, h thecry, and the standard of "Liberty!" and to the thrilling charm of this glorious word, which stirs the blood of a free people, as the blasl of the bugle arous< - ev< ry nerve of the warho of our citizens responded in ardent delusi( lercial Advertiser truly declares, "Never was i ■ of American lib rtyinvoked more unrighteously;" and w- that the natural sagacity, good sense, and ! for their national honor, for which our citizens are distin- ill nations, will s] lie them from the ivise degrading error in which that vile crew of mercenary hvpo- critical swindlers would involve tb m. The artful deceive rs, however, have net relied up i 'and noble sympathy only of our fellow citizens, for they insidiously presented a bribe to excite their cupiditj TTRALITY! Next the Texian reyolution. Was it not laughable to see these Texia Jly speakiBg, slaveholders; adhering to the constitution of 1824, om article of -which emancipates all the slaves in Mexico! Was it not laughable to see them proclaiming a consti- i, of which, eleven ; - a o, the Americans in Texas had pro- hibited the proclamation by 1 e lexican authorities there, under the heaviest r eats! — \\ hal man of common sense can believe in this humbi' . gentlemen; none but those that, have risked their thousands in this country; and they, whoever they may be, fei^n to believe it. The statements made throughout the United Mates, of tyranny and oppression on the part of Mexico toward the American citizens in Texas, are slanderous falsehoods, fabricated to creat.: and nurture the worst prejudices and jealousies. The Americans in Texas have had their own way in every case, and on every occasion ; and whenever there happened a legislative act that was, from any cause, repugnant to the feelings of the people of Texas, it was silenced at once. In short, if there has existed a good cause of complaint in Texas, it was that men were too much their own masters, and too little under the restraint of any law. Any allegation to the effect that the Mexican government had deceived citizens of the United States in relation to GENERAL WILKINSON. promises of lands first, made to them, is false, and I defy any one to show a forfeiture of title to lands, token the conditions of the grant had been fulfilled by the settler. Now, sir, as to the war: here I will ask Americans, (except the speculators,) how many military incursions, insurrections, and rebel- lions, avowedly for the purpose of snatching Texas from its proper owners, will, in their mind, justify Mexico in driving from its territories, the pirates that would thus possess themselves of the country ? Be it remembered, that these revolutions have never been attempted by the resident citizens of Texas, but in every case by men organized in the United States for the purpose and coming from afar: why, a single provocation of this nature were ample justification ; but Texas has, from the time of the adjustment of the boundary by Wilkinson and Ferrara, experienced seven or eight. The Americans (I mean ihe regulars) and Tex':ans, appear to understand each other perfectly. The neutrality is preserved on the part of General Gaines, by allowing all volunteers, and other organized corps destined for Texas, to pass in hundreds and thousands undis- turbed, but keeps in check any attempt on the part of the native Mexicans and Indians, to act against the Texians. The Texians are allowed to wage war against a Friendly power, in a district of country claimed by the United States. The prisoners of war taken by the Texians are ignorant to which party they are subject. The American general claims the countrv only from Mexico, but has no objections to the carrying on of war against Mexico in the district he claims! Pray, sir, let Americans speak honestly, and let them say whether any gov- ernment has, within the last century, placed itself in so ridiculous a light? — not only ridiculous, but contemptible. Will not any honest man confess at once that General Gaines, or any authority clothing him with the discretion so indiscreetly used, would never have dreamed of the like against a government able and ready to deli ml itself, and punish such arrogance ? What is Europe to say to this ? Will not Mexico complain ? And will there be no sympathy for her? — Letter to the Editors of the New-York Commercial Advertiser, dated JVacog- doges, Texas, September 14, 1836. [Alas, for our national degeneracy and infamy; — Tn 1811, the sus- picion of being accessory to this horrible outrage against the laws of nature, and of nations, led a to distinct charge in the trial for treason of] GENERAL WILKINSON. Charge V. — That he, the said James. Wilkinson, while commanding the army of the United States, by virtue of his said commission, ancl being bound by the duties of his office to do all that in him lay, to discover and to frustrate all such enormous violations of the law as tended to endanger the peace ancl tranquillity of the United States, did, nevertheless, unlawfully combine and conspire to set on foot a military expedition against the territories of a nat'on, then at peace w ith the United States. Specification, He, the said James Wilkinson, in the years 1S05 and THE AFRICAN SLAVE-TRADE AND TEXAS. 1806, combining and conspiring with Aaron Burr and his associates, to set on foot a military expedition against the Spanish provinces and territories in America. — Wilkinson's Memoirs, Vol. II. THE AFRICAN SLAVE-TRADE AND TEXAS. By a treaty between Great Britain and Spain, for the suppression of the slave-trade, concluded in 1817, the British government was authoriz d to appoint commissioners to reside in Cuba, who, with i commissioners, wete to form a court for the adjudication of such ships a^ might be seized with slaves actually on board. The British com - from time to time make reports to their government, which are laid before Parliament, and published by their direction. The following are extracts from a report, dated 1st January, 1836. "Nevi r Bince the establishment of this mixed commission, has the slave-trade of the Havana r< a< h< d such a disgraceful pitch as during ..">. By the list we have the honor to enclose, it will be si en that fil ■ Is have safely arrived in this port during the \ there were twenty-seven arrivals, and in 1 thirl -three; but 1835 presents a number, by means of which th landed upwards of fifteen thousand negroes. "In r an American agent from Texas pur- .;i!i;i two hu . fifty newly imported Africans, at tw) hundred and seventy dollars a head, and carried them away with him to that district of Mexico — having first procured from the American Consul hen i 5 of their freedom. This, perhaps, would have l<» n scarcely worth mentioning to your lordship, had we not learned, that within the last six weeks, considerable sums of money have been deposited by the American citizens in certain mer- cantile e, for the purpose of making additional purchases of bozal negroes for Texas. According to the laws of Mexico, we believe smh Africans are free, whether they have certificates of freedom or not ; but we doubt much whether this freedom will be more than nominal under tin ir American masters, or whether the whole system may not b founded onsoi ie plan of smuggling them across the frontier of the slave stat< s of the Union. I lowevi rthis may be. a great impulse is thus given to this illicit traffic of the Havana ; and it is not easy for i:< to pi in1 oul to go\ rnmentwhat remonstrances ought to be made on the subject since the American settlers in Texas are almost as independent of American authority as they are of Mexico. These lawless will doubtless, moreover assert, that they buy negroea in the Havana with a view to their ultimate emancipation. We thought the first experiment to be of little consequence — but now that we perceive fresh commissions arriving in the Havana for the purchase of Africans, we cannot refrain from calling your lordship's attention to the fact, as being another cause of the increase of the slave-trade in the Havana." The foregoing throws light on the following recent article in the Albany Argus : — TEXAS AND SLAVERY. "The fate of Henry Bartow, late of the Commercial Bank of this city, has been at length definitely ascertained. The agent sent out by"the bank has returned, and states that Bartow died at Marianne, near Columbia, in Texas, on the 30th of June last, of the fever of the country, after an illness of about four weeks. He had purchased a farm on the Brassos, an I, in company with a native of the country, had commenced an extensive plantation, and sent % 10,000 to Cuba for the purchase of slaves. We grant that Texas would present, us an immense territory of rich soil, and would be another brilliant star in our standard. On the other hand she would give us her quarrel with Mexico — add to our un wieldly slave incumbrance — and give the balance of power to the southern and southwestern states. We much question whether the United States should ever add more states to the confederacy. Already we are rent by the fiercest internal dissension. The North and South, the East and West, have their local feelings—which are becoming more strong and definite every day. As it is, we are in constant and hourly danger of splitting, The time must come ulti- mately, and when it does it will be with terrible power. Why then should we burthen ourselves with still another local interest that must tend vapidly to hasten this result? But another strong reason against such an annexation is the fact that it is a slaveholding country. The northern people differ n to the expediency of interferin : with this subject; but they all admit that it is an evil, dangerous 10 our safety as a nation. It is univer- sally acknowledged that the slave population may ultimately become unmanageable by rapid increase ; and when it does we may expect to see re-enacted the fearful, blood-curdling scenes of the West Indies. It is obvious, therefore, it would be highly impolitic to add such a slave market as Texas to the Union. — Detroit Spectator. Were any further proof wanting to convince those at all conversant with the subject, that Texas will speedily become a great slave mart, the following article from the Liberia Herald, will furnish it. We have proved, time and again, by the most indubitable testimony, (and the fact should he kept constantly before the people,) that the great cause which led to the rupture between the inhabitants of Texas and the mother country, was a determination on their part to traffic in slaves, which is strictly forbidden by the constitution of Mexico. How northern men, therefore, who profess to be opposed to slavery, can with any degree of consistency lend their influence in behalf of Texas, is more than can be accounted for. The fact is, they are not opposed to slavery; and we unhesitatingly declare, that every one who has taken the pains to inform himself of the first cause ■ of the Texian in- surrection, is at heart a slaveholder, if he is in any manner aiding the cause of the insurgents. By "defending Texas," he is "upholding" and virtually justifying the enslavement of his brother, and his cry cf liberty, is the very quintessence of hypocrisy. Shall Texas be admitted into the Union ? That is the question DANIEL WEBSTER. now. Her independence has already been recognized by our govern- ment; but it is yet to be decided whether this nation is to be cursed with an extension of its slave territory. What say you, freemen of the North? Shall Texas be admitted into the Union? Will you willingly hug a viper to your own bosoms? There is but one alter- native"' left you— inundate congress, at its next session, with remon- strances against the admission of Texas, or you sign at once the death warrant of American freedom. Efforts are already being made for the admission of Florida as a Blaveholding state. Shoufd these efforts prove successful— but may heaven forbid it!— should Texas also be admitted, the slaveholding states would outnumber the free states— there being already thirteen slave to thirteen free states. And Texas alone is sufficiently large for, and probably will ultimately be divided into, some six or eight states. The liberty of the free states would exist only in name, were they to be outnumbered by the slave states. In such an event, a darker cloud would hang over the United States than ever did before: and wo to that "fanatic" who might then talk of the abolition of slavery, even in the District of Columbia ! We might then expect to see all the horrors of slavery— horrors to which those of the French revolution bear but a feeble comparison— visited upon the heads of all who might dare to raise their voice in behalf of their down-trodden colored brethren ! Shai: I admitted into the Union? We again ask. Free- men, will you willingly submit to the manacles of slavery ? If you would not, arouse from your slumbers, and thunder in the ears of the tyrant- rutins for you and your children, your determination still to be free. — JFYwn the American Citizen. Slave Trale.—We have learned that great calculations are already making by slavers on the coast, on the increased demand and ad- vanced" price of slaves which it is confidently anticipated will take place on the erection of Texas into an independent government. It has been rumored that offers have been made by a commercial house in New Orleans, to a slaver on the coast, for a certain number of slaves, to be delivered in a specified period j and the only circumstance which prevented the consummation of the bargain was, that the slaver refused to be responsible for the slaves after they should be put on board. These facts, we think are important to be known, as the christian and philanthropic world may learn from them what they are upholding when they are defending Texas.— Liberia Herald. DANIEL WEBSTER. But when we come to speak of admitting new states, the subject assun.es an entirely different aspect Our rights and our duties are then both different. The free states, and all the states, are then at liberty to accept, or to rejeet. When it is proposed to bring new members into this politi- cal partnership, the old members have a right to say on what terms WILLIAM JAY. such new members are to come in, and what they are to bring along with them. In my opinion, the people of the United States will not consent to bring a new, vastly extensive, a slaveholding country, large enough for half a dozen or a dozen states, into the Union. In my opinion they ought not to consent to it. Indeed I am altogether at a loss to conceive, what possible benefits any part of this country can expect to derive from such annexation. All benefit, to any part is at least doubtful and uncertain ; the objections obvious, plain, and strong. On the general question of slavery, a great portion of the community is already strongly excited. The subject has not only at- tracted attention as a question of politics, but it has struck a far deeper toned chord. It has arrested the religious feelings of the country ; it has taken strong hold on the consciences of men. He is a rash man, indeed, little conversant with human nature, and especially has he a very erroneous estimate of the character of the people of this country, who supposes that a feeling of this kind is to be trifled with, or despised. It will assuredly cause itself to be respected. It may be reasoned with, it may be made willing, I believe it is entirely willing to fulfil all existing engagements, and all existing duties, to uphold and defend the con- stitution, as it is established, with whatever regrets about some provi- sions, which it does actually contain. But to coerce it into silence, — to endeavor to restrain its free expression, to seek to compress and confine it, warm as it. is and more heated as such endeavors would inevitably render it, — should all this be attempted, I know nothing even in the constitution, or in the Union itself, which would not be endangered by the explosion which might follow. 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, decisive character. — Jlddressin NiHo's Garden, TS37. WILLIAM JAY. Fellow citizens, a crisis has arrived in which we must maintain our rights, or surrender them for ever. I speak not to abolitionists alone, but to all who value the liberty of our fathers achieved. Do you ask what we have to do with slavery? — Let our muzzled presses answer — let the mobs excited against us by merchants and politicians answer — let the gag laws threatened by our governors and legislatures answer, let the conduct of the National G overnment answer. In 1826, Mexico and Columbia being at war with Spain, proposed carrying their armies into Cuba, a Spanish colony. These republics had abolished slavery within their own limits, and it. was feared that if they conquered Cuba they would give liberty to the thousands there enchained. And what did our liberty-loving government do? Why they sent on special messengers to Panama to threaten our sister republics with war if they dared to invade Cuba. Nor was this all ; a minister was sent to Spain, and ordered to urge upon the Spanish monarch the policy of making peace with his revolted colonies, lest if the war con- tinued, nearly a million of human beings should recover and enjoy the THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT TEXAS. rights ofrnan. What have we to do with slavery ? Is it nothing that nineteen Senators were found to vote for a bill establishing £ w post town a censorship of the press, and that a citizen of New York gave a casting vote in favor of the abomination, and has received as &s reward, the ofhee of President of the United States ? Is k nothin" Jjt our om r u,v,s have spurned our petitions at the man? '"7" ,; : > V ha* have we to do with slavery ? Look at '"' /oaths , m ty, just sprung into being on our southern border, the prog, ny oi treason and robbery, a vile republic, or aS for the express purpose of re-establishing slavery on a soil from which "bid b , Lai ly exp, lied ; and providing for L perpetualTontinu- ance by constitu ,onal provisions, and daring to insult us, with the hTnr ° a r ] u l) ° ly ° f US trade '" lmman flesE-Yet northern specu! ators and politicians m conjunction with slaveholders, are now plotting to compel us to > ,■ sc0 ions into Q * h P g wth a territory capable of furnishing ei^h S \T" ^ ] b - v tluis S jvin S £ the enemies of humTn " - :J ' ' l '; o y, erw j»elmmng majority in congress, to subject this northern •minion of the South; and perhaps before Ion a to .eclikofchdnstore-eehoono^ !" ,, \J ,r "" r " "led with the blood and tears of shaves X union with Texas, endeavors are now makin* to ' a war mth Mexico, and when the unholy alliance snaU ', l .-. ' arewell to republican freedom, to a at home, or to respect abroad. This fair land, oil ,ry of all lands, will become a bye word, a «£ proach and a hissing; to all people, and we and our children will be jER£*Elu ^at the North had to do with slavery.- THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT. Texas. Mr. Barlow Hoi r-.- r ,, -all the attention of the House to the pre- teol affair, m the l'exas.-The importance of that territory was well known to all who were acquainted with its geographical n. Mr. Huakisson, aware that the United States would be J to annex the Texas to their territory, laid it down as a maxim, at Britain should on no account allow America to extend her boundary m the direction of Mexico—It was notorious that an enor- mous importation of slaves took place into the Texas, and if this system were allowed to continue, all the sums which we had expended m endeavoring to suppress the traffic in slaves would have been tnrown away. If we did not co-operate with Mexico in endeavouring to preserve the Texas for Mexico, and thus to prevent the importation of slaves into the Mexican territory, we had better at once withdraw our fleet from the coast of Africa, and abandon Sierra Leone. The United States, appeared to be acting a faithless part; they kept the boundary question open both with respect to Mexico and Great cntain. it they had not some sinister motive for keeping the question RELIGIOUS AND MORAL TESTIMONY. open, it ought to have been settled long since, as it would have been, if the United States had accepted the mediation of the King of Holland. It was not the standard of liberty and independence which was raised in the Texas, but the pirate's flag, under cover of which the slave-trade was carried on. We had interfered in the affairs of Holland and Belgium, Portugal and Spain ; why, then, should we not remonstrate in a friendly manner with the United States upon the conduct which they were pursuing with regard to the Texas ? Mr. O'Connel thought that humanity was indebted to the Hon. Member for bringing this question before the House. It was only by the expression of public opinion that we could hope to check the pro- gress of one of the most horrible evils the human mind could contem- plate — viz. the formation of eight or nine additional slaveholding states. The revolt of Texas was founded on nothing else but the abolition of slavery by the Mexican government. In 1824, the Mexican govern- ment had pronounced that no person after that period should be born a slave. In 1829 they went further, and abolished slavery, and immediately followed the revolt of the landholders, who had settled themselves in Texas. Who could contemplate without horror the calculation, as in the case of stocking a farm, what was the necessary complement of men and women, and when they would be ready and ripe for the market? It was a blot which no other country but America had ever yet suffered to stain its history — no nation on the face of the earth had ever been degraded by such crimes, except the high-spirited North American Republic. Talk of the progress of democratic principle! No man admired it more than he did. What became of it when its principal advocates could not be persuaded to abstain from such species of traffic as this ? Texas had speculated on it, Colonel Thompson asked whether it was not the fact that all the inhabitants of this province were Americans, and not Mexicans? It had been said in former times, ubi Romane vincis, ibi habitas; and with equal truth it might now be said, that where an American con- quered there he carried slavery as a necessary of life. — March dth, 1837. MEXICO. ANTONIO LOPEZ DE SANTA ANNA. I do not conceive how you can preserve the title of citizen of a nation at peace, harmony and friendship with Mexico, while, at the same time, you endeavor to do her all the harm in your power, and to cut off from her a part of its territory, by means you have em. ployed with such singular activity. This species of impudence with which you represent yourself as a citizen of the United States, ex. cites vivid recollections that your countrymen first commenced the war ; introduced disorder into Texas and still maintain it, in scan- dalous violation of the treaties which should, in good faith, unite the two nations. But leaving this examination to the criticism of the civilized world, which is ignorant neither of the origin, nor the ten- dencies of the usurpation of Texas, I will quickly show you, that you are mistaken, and that too, greatly, in supposing Mexico defi- cient either in strength or the will to maintain her incontestible rights. We have fully weighed the actual and the possible value of the territory of Texas, the advantage accruing to Mexico by retaining it in possession, and still more by the precarious situation to which she would find herself reduced were she to permit a colossus to arise within her own limits, always ready to advance, and covetous to ob- tain new acquisitions by the rite title of theft and usurpation : but even were the soil of Texas a mere desert of sand, unproductive save of thorns to wound the foot of the traveller, this plain, useless, sterile and unproductive, should be defended with energy and constancy, under the conviction that the possession of a right imposes upon a na- tion the necessity of never abandoning it, with shame and disgrace to her name. I promised in Texas, beneath the rifles of the tumultuary (tumui. tanous) soldiers, who surrounded me, that I would procure a hear- ing for their commissioners from my Government, and would exer- cise my influence to prevent, for the time being, a fatal struggle ; And this promise, whose object was to secure, without molestation, die retreat which the Mexican army had already commenced, and xhich I learned with the greatest sorrow from General Wall, natu- WILLIAM MACLURE. rally remained without effect, from sad consideration as prisoner ; bi- causc the aggressions of the Texians removed even the possibility of lightening the evils of war, and because they failed themselves, in their promises, they annulled the resolutions of him whom (hey called their cabinet, they caused me violently to disembark from the schooner Invincible; and abandoned mc to the excited pasnions of one hundred and thirty recruits just arrived from New-Orleans. In a different point of view, the question of Texas involves another of the greatest importance to the cause of humanity — that of slavery. Mexico, who has given the noble and illustrious example of renounc ing to the increase of her wealth, and even to the cultivation o r her fields, that she may not see them fattened with the sweat, the blood and the tears of the African race, will not retrocede in this course ; and her efforts to recover a usurped territory will be blessed by all those who sincerely esteem the natural and impracticable rights of the human species. The civilized world will not learn without scandal, that the in- habitants of the United States, infringing their own laws, and vio- lating the most sacred international rights, support for a second time, a usurpation which they have commenced, and constantly supported, abusing and mocking the generosity with which the Mexicans be- stowed upon their countrymen rich and coveted lands, and invited them to enjoy the benefit of their institutions. If Mexico should receive sucli hostility from those who call themselves her friends, sho will treat them as enemies in the field of battle, she will repel force with force, and she will appeal to the judgment of the Universe upon such an aggression, as unjust as it would be violent. ROBERT OWEN. I have seldom seen any public character except the late Mr. Jef- ferson, so apparently determined to examine any system to its first principles, as General Santa Anna. He wished to commence his examination with the first principles of the system, with the laws of our nature that he might be sure whether the base was sound or not, upon which the superstructure was erected. I left him with the im- pression that he had good talents for command, and that he was truly desirous of contributing to the prosperity of the country. WILLIAM MACLURE. The language of children in all countries where negroes are the nurses and servants, is sufficient proof of the imitation of sounds ; and a further examination of the characters formed by the unfortu- nate mixture of abject submission, cringing flatter)', and low, artful cunning, would finish the disagreeable picture of the characters of those, so unfortunate as to have slaves for their first companions and teachers. Of all the animals, man or what is called the better or higher or- ders, is the only class that do not attend to the instruction of their offspring themselves, but leave that essential duty to hirelings. We WILLIAM MACLURE. chould naturally suppose, that in doing so, they would at least em- ploy all their faculties of discrimination and selection, in the choice of the person or persons to whom they delegated that important trust; that they would surround their innocent progeny, with mildness, benevolence, friendship 'and good will towards man: so that every action they saw, and every expression they heard, should breathe nothing but peace, unanimity and friendly feeling, towards the whole human species. But how are these objects effected, when the forma- tion of the infant mind is entrusted to an untaught and therefore ig- norant slave ? Slaves, in this free country, though physically better treated, yet morally, by the contrast, are in a much more tantalizing situation, than in countries under despotism, where all are a kind of slaves, and not a ray of freedom flashes across the dismal field of universal coercion. When comparing their destiny with those around them, their motives for disobedience, discontent, revenge, &c. are much stronger, than in countries, where the chain of arbitrary power, though lighter near the source, yet weighs more or less heavily on all classes and descriptions of men. In all countries where there are slaves, whether white or black, there is a perpetual war between force and fraud. The master, as legitimate owner of all production of the slave, seizes the whole, and the slave, to recover part for his own use, exercises his ingenuity to purloin, what has been considered by law and habit, the property of the master. This alternation of legal and illegal hostilities, leaves both parties in a state of irritable retaliation, manifested by force on the part of the master, and retorted by cunning, subterfuge, deceit, and hypocrisy, by the slave ; a state of society which, while it clothes the master with an arbitrary power, necessary to its continuance, in- creases the temptation to crime on the part of the slave ; and thus becomes the cause of a partial demoralization of both. Between this high-handed violence, and low, deceitful cunning, can the imitative minds of children become otherwise than corrupted and vilia'ed ? It is the monopoly of property, knowledge and power, that has supported the assumed superiority of the whites over the colored peo- ple in all the European colonies. In Mexico, the vast number of native Mexicans must command power, when property and know- ledge shall lend their assistance, and join the strongest. The tyranny of the strongest over the weakest ha» been manifested in all states of society, even where civilization has made some pro- gress. The women are prevented, by the oppression of men, from being so useful either to themselves or others, as they would be, if freed from the arbitrary control of those who are only superior to them in physical strength. The improvement of mankind, has lost the aid and assistance of half the population, by the education of women being confined. THOMAS BRANAGAN. At the present crisis, no subject can be presented to the public eye more deserving of their serious attention than slavery ; our pros- perity, nay, our very existence as a nation depends upon the question before us, viz : Whether new slave-holding states, particularly Texas, shall be annexed to the American republic, till the planters of the South gain the sole sovereignty, as they ever have held the balance of power by a preponderating influence in congress, or not ? For instance, every cargo of slaves transported by the citizens of the South, and every additional slave state, not only enhances their riches, but increases their political influence ; for, according to the constitution, five slaves in the South are equal to two citizens in the North, with respect to the rights of suffrage. Slavery depends on the consumption of the produce of its labor for support. Refuse this produce, and slavery must cease. Say not that individual influence is small. Every aggregate must be com- posed of a collection of individuals. Though individual influence be small, the influence of collected numbers is irresistible. The number of representatives of slaves, alias southern property, has already increased to twenty-five, and they are urging the annexa- tion of new slave states. These considerations alone should cause our representatives to be on the alert, even laying aside the princi- ples of natural justice, moral rectitude, and the super-excellent pre- cepts of revelation, which inculcate, " that we should do to all men whatever we would that they should do unto us, and that we should love our neighbors (or all mankind) as ourselves." We certainly have increased in luxury, avarice, and systematical cruelty, since the epoch of our independence, more than any other nation ever did in the same number of years ; for what Rome was in her decline, America is in her infancy. We look with a supercilious glance upon personal virtue and national honor, while we are ena- moured with riches. We suffer ambition to monopolize the rewards that should be conferred on virtue ; nay, we supinely behold our fel- low citizens, not only enslave .and murder thousands of their inno- cent, unoffending fellow creatures periodically, but we permit them, by this unjust and unwarrantable medium, to gain not only riches to fill their coffers, but also political influence in our national councils, the permanent right of suffrage and sovereignty. For it is a lamen table fact, that for every two slaves the dealers in human flesh smug gle from Africa, or breed, they gain the same influence at elections, THOMAS BRANAGAN. as a free citizen inherits in his own person ; and a planter that pur. chases two hundred negroes, not only replenishes his piirse thereby, but also gains one hundred and twenty times as much influence in the nation, as the virtuous and honorable patriot who nobly refuses to prostitute his political and religious character, by participating in such unparalleled duplicity, hypocrisy, and viliany. Is such in- equality consistent with a republican form of government; is it con- sistent with justice, generosity, or even common sense ? No ; it is a canker that eats, and will of itself eventually destroy our consti- tution. If there was no other enemy to excite our fears and alarm our sensibility, this surely is sufficient. No less than sixty odd thou- sand slaves annually increase the representation. If your slavers wish to effect a counter revolution in the minds of your injured fellow citizens, you must first cause them to unlearn what they learned in " the times that tried men's souls ;" you must destroy their memories ; you must draw a mighty veil before their in- tellectual eyes, to screen the tragical end of slavery in the now re- public of Hayti ; you must consign every copy of the Rights of Man, and every other patriotic work, disseminated over the face of the earth, to the flames ; you must destroy the liberty of the press, that glorious privilege of freemen ; you must finally destroy our post offi- ces, and every conduit and vehicle of intelligence. Before you can fetter the understanding and blind the eyes of your fellow citizens, you must accomplish all these things and many more. I think and believe, that to sanction and support slavery in Texas, is a national crime that would have disgraced Sodom and Gomorrah. My mind is much affected by the case of the injured Indians, and by the Texas mania ; for sure I am, unless the friends of freedom strain every nerve, the tyrants of the south will gain their objects, as they have two or three times before. [Under the Mexican government slavery has been totally abolished in Texas, and elsewhere. The Texian rebels could have effected nothing but for the assistance of the southern states, (backed by northern doughfaces,) who have as fully waged the treasonable, pira- tical war they excited, as if it had been by them formally declared. The number of principled men in Texas is too small to redeem the country and their cause from the fathomless abyss of misery, degra- dation, and infamy into which this unprecedented establishment and perpetuation of slavery must inevitably plunge them, as well as the United States. The slave-mongers, slave-politicians, slave-presses, and slave-senators, have foisted the recognition of the independence of that slave region, and are urging its incorporation into the United States as rapidly as possible. The monstrous outrage against the laws of nature and of nations, unsurpassed by the blackest page of history, is fast tending to its fatal consummation !] The diabolical principle, which confers such a super-abundance of the paramount rights of suffrage and sovereignty upon a part of the citizens, accordingly as they enslave and torture their fellow men, to the great injury of the virtuous and honorable part of society — this infernal practice must be abolished, or the union must be dissolved, that is, if the spirit of '76 is not completely obliterated from the THOMAS BRANAGAtf. breasts of the citizens of the north ; for it is not only an insult to common sense, but degrading them to cowards, to suppose, that they will tamely see their sacred inalienable rights infringed by the exten- sion of slavery. Twelve amendments have been made to the constitution. Why not amend the principle alluded to? The constitution has provided ways and means to amend its own defects. Why not embrace this constitutional privilege, and eradicate this shameful inequality ? Is is not more eligible to accommodate any misunderstanding that may exist between the different states, in this way, than to do it by the force of arms ? Surely this would produce anarchy and intestine commotion ; and who, in such an event, will be the greatest sufferers ? I answer, and I ghudder while I answer, the Oppressors ! For how could they stand with injured innocence behind them, — their infuriated slaves ; and virtuous patriotism before them, — their insulted fellow citizens ? Is a diversity of color a certain proof of a diversity of species ? No. This argument, if it could prove any thing, would prove too much. It will be found, upon investigation, that there are among the nations of mankind, no less than four or five principal colors ; not to say any thing of the various intermediate shades, which ap- proach more or less towards each of them. What ! are there four or five species of human beings ? Is each of the four great quarters of the world inhabited by a distinct species of men ? Are there to be found even in the same quarter of the world, human beings of dif- ferent kinds ? Besides it appears to be a fixed law of nature, which operates in all parts of creation, that, if two animals of a different species pair, the offspring is unable to continue its species. Do not a black Afri- can and a white American, in instances innumerable, unite ? Cer- tainly ! Is the mulatto incapable of marriage ? No, he is as capa- ble of continuing his own color, as his white father is of continuing his. An irrefragable proof this, that the black and the white inhabi- tants of our globe constitute one species of beings. Whence the immense sums, which proprietors of plantations, and of negroes and mulattoes, receive annually, and spend in magnifi- cence and luxury ? Whence is all this great treasure ? How is it raised ? By the sweat, the blood, the tears, torments, the lives of your poor, hungry, naked, oppressed slaves. Are they so infinitely advantageous to you ? And can you refuse ; can you delay to hear the cry of their oppression, their sweat, and their blood ? Have you not, as a nation, been long distinguished and famous, for a free, inde- pendent, generous spirit? Is your constitution civil and religious, your glory among the nations of the world ? Do you suffer no slavery at the North ? Why do you allow it elsewhere ? Do you, year after year, concert the best measures which your wisdom can devise, for the prosperity and happiness of your white citizens at home and abroad ? Why overlook, neglect, and oppress, your black subjects ? Is there, can there be, such merit in one color, and such demerit in another ? Is industry a source of wealth to a nation ? Slavery must be the WILLIAM E. CHANNING. grand impoverisher, for it is an encouragement to idleness, and a de- preciator of labor. Docs virtue consolidate and strengthen a nation? Slavery, and its concomitant vices, must enervate, if not subvert it. How shamefully slavery exposes and endangers the virtue of females, I forbear to say ; delicacy would shudder at the recital. The female who in theory or practice is an advocate for slavery, cannot be a vo tary or a friend to chastity. — The Guardian Genius, JOSEPH STURGE. General Santa Anna's real crime in the eyes of the American slave- owner is his enforcing the abolition of slavery throughout the Mexi- can Republic, when they were looking to seize Texas as a market for their slaves. This object was publicly avowed by them years ago. In the de- bates in the Virginia Convention, in 1829, Judge Upsher said, " If it should be our lot, as I trust it will be, to acquire the country of Texas, their price (the slaves) will rise again." We are told by the advocates of the Texian scheme, as a caution not to interfere ; that the cause of emancipation has retrograded in the United States, •• owing to the intemperate zeal of the Northern abolitionists." I need not remind the friends of emancipation in Eng. land, that this was ever the favorite assertion of the slave-holders and their advocates, during the b! niggle for negro freedom in the British West India Colonies ; nor yet record the opinion of American gentlemen, most accurately informed on the subject, that the bold and strenuous efforts of the Northern abolitionists, in denouncing this plague-spot of their social and political system, have, within the last four years, done more towards effecting its extinction than the exer- tions of the previous half century. The slave-owners of the South know this full well. Such, then, being the fearful plan for erecting the new state of Texas, by giving new life and energy to a system of crime and in- justice, which in many of the neighboring states is sinking under its inherent rottenness, it becomes the duty of every real abolitionist, whether in England or America, to warn his countrymen against being decoyed within the sphere of its contaminating influence. The country is "designed to be the "home of the slave," and to be peopled by a trafHc more hideous than the African slave trade itself. WILLIAM E. CHANNING. Wars with Europe and Mexico are to be entailed on us by the an- nexation of Texas. And is war the policy by which this country is to flourish ? Was it for interminable conflicts that we formed our Union ? Is it blood shed for plunder, which is to consolidate our in- stitutions ? Is it by collision with the greatest maritime power, that our commerce is to gain strength ? Is it by arming against ourselves the moral sentiments of the world, that we are to build up national honor ? Must we of the North buckle on our armor, to fight the bat- tles of slavery ; to fight for a possession, which our moral principles WILLIAM E. CHANNING. and just jealousy forbid us to incorporate with our confederacy ? In attaching Texas to ourselves, we provoke hostilities, and at the same time expose new points of a'fack to our foes. Vulnerable at so many points, we shall need a vast military force. Great armies will re- quire great revenues, and raise up great chieftains. Are we tired of freedom, that we are prepared to place it under such guardians ? Is the republic bent on dying by its own hands? Does not every man feel, that, with war for our habit, our institutions cannot be pre- served ? If ever a country were bound to peace, it is this. Peace is our great interest. In peace our resources are to be developed, the true interpretation of the constitution to be established, and the inter, fering claims of liberty and order to be adjusted. In peace we are to discharge our great debt to the human race, and to diffuse freedom by manifesting its fruits. A country has no right to adopt, a policy, however gainful, which, as it may foresee, will determine it to a ca- reer of war. A nation, like an individual, is bound to seek, even by sacrifices, a position, which will favor peace, justice, and the ex- ercise of a beneficent influence on the world. A nation, provoking war by cupidity, by encroachment, and, above all, by efforts to pro. pagate the curse of slavery, is alike false to itself, to God, and to the human race. The annexation of Texas, I have said, will extend and perpetuate slavery. It is fitted, and, still more, intended to do so. On this point there can be no doubt. \s fur back as the year 1829, the an- nexation of Texas was agitated in the Southern and Western States ; and it was urged on the ground of the strength and extension it would give to the slave-holding interest. In a series of essays, as- cribed to a gentleman, now a senator in Congress, it was maintained, that five or six slave-holding states would by this measure be added to the Union ; and he even intimated that as many as nine States as large as Kentucky might be formed within the limits of Texas. In Virginia, about the same time, calculations were made as to the in- creased value which would thus be given to slaves, and it was even said, that this acquisition would rise the price fifty per cent. Of late the language on this subject is most explicit. The great argument for annexing Texas is, that it will strengthen " the peculiar institu tions" of the south, and open a new and vast field for slavery. Nor is the worst told. As I have before intimated, and it cannot be too often repeated, we shall not only quicken the domestic slave- trade ; we shall give a new impulse to the foreign. This, indeed, we have pronounced in our laws to be felony ; but we make our laws cobwebs, when we offer to rapacious men strong motives for their violation. Open a market, for slaves in an unsettled country, with a sweep of sea-coast, and at such distance from the seat of government that laws may be evaded with impunity, and how can you exclude slaves from Africa ? It is well known that cargoes have been landed in Louisiana. What is to drive them from Texas ? In incorporat- ing this region with the Union to make it a slave-country, we send the kidnapper to prowl through the jungles, and to dart, like a beast of prey, on the defenceless villages of Africa ; we chain the help- less, despairing victims ; crowd them into the fcetid, pestilential slave. N. P. ROGERS. ship ; expose them to the unutterable cruelties of the middle passage, and, if they survive it, crush them with perpetual bondage. I now ask, whether, as a people, we are prepared to seize on a neighboring territory for the end of extending slavery ? I ask, whether, as a people, we can stand forth in the sight of God, in the sight of the nations, and adopt this atrocious policy ? Sooner perish ! Sooner be our name blotted out from the record of* nations ! COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS, 1838. 44 Resolves against the annexation of Texas to the United States. 44 Whereas a proposition to admit into the United States, as a con- stituent member thereof, the foreign nation of Texas, has been re- commended by the legislative resolutions of several States, and brought before Congress for its approval and sanction: and whereas such a measure would involve great wrong to Mexico, and other wise be of evil precedent, injurious to the interests and dishonorable to the character of this country ; and whereas its avowed objects are doubly fraught with peril to the prosperity and permanency of this Union, as tending to disturb and destroy the conditions of those com- promises and concessions entered into at the formation of the Consti- tution, by which the relative weight, of different sections and interests was adjusted, and to strengthen and extend the evils of a system which is unjust in itself, in striking contrast with the theory of our institutions, and condemned by the moral sentiment of mankind : and whereas the People of these United States have not granted to any or all of the departments of their Government, but have retained in themselves, the only power adequate to the admission of a foreign na- tion into this confederacy ; therefore, "Resolved. That we, the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled, do, in the name of the People of Massa- chusetts, earnestly and solemnly protest against the incorporation oi Texas into this Union ; and declare that no act done, or compact made, for such purpose, by the Government of the United States, will be binding on the States or the People. 44 Resolved, That his excellency the Governor be requested to for- ward a copy of these resolves, and the accompanying report, to the Executive of the United States, and the Executive of each State ; and also to each of our Senators and Representatives in Congress, with a request that they present the resolves to both Houses of Co'n- NATHANIEL P. ROGERS. We should not be surprised, if by reason of this slave-holding, our nation should get involved in a war with Mexico — with all the re- maining tribes of American Indians our Christianity has spared, and Great Britain besides, backed up by the sympathies of the whole christian world. If it should, the Republic will be in an enviable predicament. British steamers and war craft cover the ocean. We have Canada on the North, Aboriginality and Mexico on the West. 3» D. L. CHILD. The West Indies on the south, with 3,000,000 dark allies* dispersed upon the plantations, to facilitate and further a visit to the " Patriot States," — and New Brunswick beyond the pine woods of the disputed territory. To meet all this, we have a bankrupt treasury — a corrupt and confounded people — the " peculiar institution," to inspirit us, and Texas to help us, as an ally. There is not a people under heaven, that could sympathize with us in such a contest, but the Republic of Texas. Texas is a Republic, to be sure, and almost the only one on earth, besides ours. Her Republican sympathy would out weigh that of monarchy and despotisms, on the other side. But then it would not work to much purpose for us, against the pressure of the British steamer. It would not avail us greatly as a counter propulsion. It might inspire our hearts, with enthusiasm to fight for slavery and equal rights, — but it would not Waft artillery, like the floats of the British steam ship, or guard us from the tomahawk of the universal west, which such a war would call back against us from all the re- gions of Indian banishment, where revenge has been sharpening its edge, and hushing the animosities of the hostile tribes in one over whelming enmity to the race, that has outraged their love of home and native land, and fathers? graves. And if we fall in such a war- fare, it would be glorious enough — however unfortunate for the cause of Liberty. Slavery has been troublesome to us. ever since we were a nation. But we have seen but the beginning of sorrows. It can- not remain well with us. It were in impeachment of the equal ways of Providence, if such a nation as this has been, can have prosperity, or experience any thing but. signal retribution. To have enslaved hu inanity, under circumstances like these, is no light transgression, and brings with it, naturally, no light retribution. And our solemn statesmen, — when it burst upon us, can no more devise relief or es- cape, than Belshazzar's wise men could help him in Ins extremity, or read the writing on the wall. — Herald of Freedom DAVID LEE CHILD. What authority had president Jackson to commence the war in Texas? Not a jot more than Gen. Gaines. His power, in respect to making war upon a foreign nation, is restricted by the constitu- tion to the repelling of invasions ; and lie cannot, without a violation of the constitution, and his oath, march a man beyond the limits of the Union. If it be true, as there appears no reason to doubt, that he has done this, he ought by law to be impeached, and expelled from office, and then punished by fine and imprisonment, or given up to the injured nation to be punished by them for any murder or robbery, which, the troops may commit, in pursuing ins orders. He has no more right to enter Mexico, seize property and slay inhabi- tants, whether Indians or others, than any citizen of the United States has to go into Great Britain and do it. Such acts will be rob- bery, piracy, or murder, and ought to be punished accordingly. The power of declaring war is vested exclusively in the congress of the United States; and there cannot be a lawful war, and one which *>hall confer upon those taking part in it, the rights of war, E. W. GOODWIN. without such declaration. Supposing Com. Porter, when he enterei. the town of Foxardo, in the Island of Porto Rico,— or Aaron Burr, when ha entered Texas, thirty years ago, had been taken with their officers and men ; would they not have been put to death agreeably to the law of nations. So would Gen. Jackson and his men, when, in two instances, they deliberately marched into Florida, and seized the towns and possessions of Spain. If the constitution had been supported, and the laws of the land faithfully executed, on either of those occasions, we should not now have had a president who would have ventured to issue an order to invade a friendly country and be- gin a war ; nor a general who would dare to obey it, nor a subordi- nate officer, who would not throw up his commission, nor a soldier who would not throw down his arms at the frontier, and refuse, as they might lawfully and dutifully do, to be the instruments of usur- pation, and the perpetrators of crime. And where arc the remonstrances of the press, and the meetings of the people ? Where are the friends of universal peace, and above all, where is the Christian priesthood? And you merchants, ship- owners, and underwriters, where are you ? Know you not that this presidential i fatally opposed to the purest devotion to self- interest that ever chilli l a half-penny heart? Awake, arise; it is not (only) a breach of the constitution. There is a breach in the strong . . If any circumstance could enhance the intrinsic wickedness or the executive pi , it is the end and object at which they are aiming. It is to PROPAGATE SLAVERY, or in other words, perpetual robbery, rapine, and murder throughout a. vast and beauti- ful rcgi n now, by the laws of M xico, perfectly free. It is to open a new and interminable slave-market to the old slave-breeding sinners of Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, and other old slave sta e , an I to .1 s urn »ngers every where. It is to bring into this Union, for the benefit of nullifiers, five to ten new slave states, each with a Coi ution, not only establishing slavery, but also forbidding their own legislatures ever to abolish it. 1 his is a provision of the new constitution of Texas, formed since the strug- gle forlibertj commenced! The old or Mexican constitution of Texas abolished slavery forever! ^ And the free slates are willing to pay three fourths of the taxes (as they ever must so long as they are raised on consumption) to sup- port a war for these objects; for, remember if war exists, « appropria- tions must be made to cany it on.' EDWIN W. GOODWIN. Texas.— A correct idea of the importance, magnitude, and power of that nation, for which such an anxiety is expressed that it may be united with this country, may be obtained from the fact that the whole vote for President at the late election, was 10,084 ; only about one-ninth'aa many votes as were cast at our late presidential election in the single state of Illinois. ffi11( ,. ftia , . , , The national debt of this immense people is $11,602,127, includ- J. R. GIDDINGS. mg the appropriation of ihe last congress, and $1,000,000 of bonds Hypothecated by Gen. Hamilton. This, upon an average, is about eleven hundred and sixty dollars to each voter at the late election. It is a very reasonable conclusion then, that the people of Texas are anxious to form a new connection in business, especially if the pro- posed partner has some money or credit. " By Art IV. Sect. 2, of the Constitution, fugitives from justice are to be delivered up on demand, to the state from which they fled ; so that Texas, if annexed to the United States, would be left without a corporal's guard !" — Tocsin of Liberty. JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. Our constituents are asked to engage in a war with one of the most powerful nations of the earth, in order to enable the slave-dealers of the south to carry their slaves out of the territory and jurisdiction of the slave states under the flag of our common country. They insist upon the privilege of involving our constituents, the free people of Ohio, in the disgrace and expense of maintaining what Mr. Jeffer- eon calls " an execrable commerce in human beings." Against these abuses our constituents have remonstrated. Conscious that they are unconstitutional infringments of their rights, they have year after year sent their petitions here, praying in the most respectful manner that they may be relieved from these oppressions and from such un- constitutional taxation. They have approached congress in the most respectful manner, and in the most unexceptionable language have asked that these abuses may cease. These petitions have been treated with contempt and the most insulting epithets applied to the people who have thus dared to approach their servants. When petitioning for the protection of their constitutional rights, they have been falsely represented as attempting to invade the rights of others. When they have asked relief from taxation for the support of slavery, they have been represented as attempting to interfere with the vested rights of others. When they have asked congress to repeal the laws of their own enacting, they have been held up to the country and the world, as seeking for unconstitutional objects which congress had no power to grant. — Letter to the Members of Congress, March 5, 1842. Resolutions offered by Mr. Giddings, for which he was censured by a majority of the house. Resolved, That slavery, being an abridgement of the natural rights of man, can exist only by force of positive municipal law, and is ne- cessarily confined to the territorial jurisdiction of the power creat- ing it. Resolved, That when the brig Creole, on her late passage for New- Orleans, left the territorial jurisdiction of Virginia, the slave laws of that state ceased to have jurisdiction over the persons on board said brig, and such persons became amenable only to the laws of the United States. Resolved, That all attempts to exert our national influence in fa- Z. EASTMAN. vor of the coastwise slave trade, or to place this nation in the atti tude of maintaining a " commerce in human beings," are subversive of the rights and injurious to the feelings and the interests of the free states ; are unauthorized by the constitution, and prejudicial to our national character. MR. MAYNARD. Under the pretence of preventing any Indian disturbances, while the Texian soldiers and citizens are in the service against the Mexi- cans, the Secretary of War has put Gen. Taylor in command of a body of U. S. troops, and sent him to that republic, with discretionary powers ; and every one who knows how General Gaines managed be. fore, under similar circumstances, and how such matters were con- ducted by Gen. Jackson, in Florida, will of course understand, that this is equivalent to sending an army of 2,000 men, to the aid of Texas. Under the same pretence before, our army was marched some 200 miles into Mexican territory, If I remember rightly, and if necessary, no doubt will be again. — Madison Abolitionist STARTLING FACTS. The late three years' war with England, the most powerful nation in the world, cost the United States about $90,000,000. The three years' war in Florida, with a remnant tribe of Seminole Indians and a few runaway Negroes, has cost us $40,000,000, or nearly half the whole expense of our war with England ! ! ! The war against the miserable Indians and Negroes, was wickedly commenced, has been ingloriously conducted, and threatens to be in- terminable? There is not, in the history of wars among civilized nations, a parallel for the wantonness, imbecility and corruption which distin- guishes this dishonorable, infamous crusade.— Albany Evening Journal. ZALMON EASTMAN. So it appears to be a plan already matured, that troops are to be conveyed from this country directly into the territory of Mexico, without setting a foot on the soil of Texas. Remember, that the original contest with Mexico, was not com. menced for liberty, but for the purpose of introducing slavery into Texas, and for wresting that territory from Mexico, that it might be joined to the United States to strengthen the slave power here. And remember also, that the sympathy manifested for the people of Texas, and all this violation of neutrality and the laws and usages of na- tions, is not svmpathv for the oppressed, nor for the extension or pre- servation of liberty, but is sympathy for the oppressor, and these plans are carried out for the sake of strengthening the chains of the slave, and for extending the dominion of slavery.— Genius of Liberty. THE LEGION OF LIBERTY. GAMALIEL BAILEY. The report of the invasion of Texas by Mexico, is confirmed. Many of our newspapers never tire in eulogizing the spirit of the Texians on this occasion. The conduct of a certain portion of our citizens in relation to the belligerents deserves notice. A meeting has been held in Cincinnati, to sympathize with the revolted province ; a similar one in Philadel- phia. Meantime, open efforLs are made to enlist the people of the United States in a crusade against Mexico. Tiie National Intelli- gencer coolly announces that ''a company of seventy emigrants, well armed and equipped, left Mobile on the 24th ultimo for Texas, on an exploring expedition." A correspondent of the Daily Message, writing from New-Orleans, March 26th, says— that "fresh recruits are marching from every quarter to aid them (the Texians.) in their glorious struggle. Last Sunday the steamship Neptune left this port with two hundred fearless and gallant spirits. May the God of bat- tles crown their efforts with speedy and brilliant success." Why have we no president's message to repress these hostile de- monstrations towards a power, with winch we are at peace ? Here are armed bands marching from this country against Mexico, in vio- lation of good faith and of the laws of the United States, and yet John Tyler, whose oath of office binds him to " take care that the laws be faithfully executed," looks on and is silent ! We all know how prompt was the executive with its proclamation, when the hos- tility of our northern borderers was likely to interrupt the friendly re- lations with Great Britain. But circumstances alter cases. Eng. land is a formidable, Mexico a feeble, power. We were afraid of the former ; but most valiantly do we bully the latter. Besides, slavery had nothing to gain from irruptions into Canada ; so a pro-slavery government was most scrupulous in fulfilling the obligations imposed by the laws of nations. But, having every thing to gain by the separation of Texas from Mexico, the government which it controls, connives at the most flagitious aggressions by our citizens on that friendly state ! And yet this government, after having permitted many of its citizens to inflict outrage after outrage on Mexico, affects a saint-like countenance, and complains of the hostility of our neigh- bor ! Most perfidious ! " And thus I clothe my naked villiany, And seem a saint, when most I play the devil." Some wretched trucklers to the powers that be, are apt to repre- sent opposition to the administration of the government as treason against the country. Poor fools ! they should be slaves to the grand Turk. It is because we love our country — its honor, its interest — that we abhor the government, as it has long been administered. It does not represent the people of the United States. It is the expo- nent and instrument of one interest — the tool of a single class. That interest is slavery, that class is made up of slave-holders and their northern menials. Let the government be redeemed from this degra- dation, and be controlled by the constitution, interpreted in the light ANTI-TEXAS. of the Declaration of Independence, and then may we expect to see this republic respecting the rights of all mankind, acting with even- handed justice towards all nations, the weak, as well as powerful.— The Philanthropist. NATIONAL A. S. STANDARD. Let abolitionists be on their guard, and not be deceived by quieting rumors. We have it from high authority, too well informed to be?nis. taken, that the slaveholders were never more intent upon their favorite plan of annexing Texas than at the present moment. They are doubt- less ready to spring the trap at any favorable moment. Let not aboli- tionists be lulled to sleep by the disclaimer of General Hamilton, who says he would rather not have Texas belong to the United States. Cats have covered themselves with meal before now to catch old rats. Neither let them be too sure that the rumored mediation of Fiance and England between .Mexico and Texas is going to avert the danger of annexation. It is indeed difficull to foretell what will be the result of all this plot- ting and underplotting ; but one thing is certain — abolitionists have need to keep wide awake ; for no single event involves such disastrous consequences to the cause of freedom, as this. Let the opinion of the free States be earnestly and perseveringly expressed in the form of petitions and the action on the Stale legisla- tures on Congress. There is need of this. Be not lulled into false security. Will anti-slavery papers copy t 1 ". articles which we have from the New-York American? Prevention is much easier than cure. We trust the English and Irish abolitionists will keep themselves well in- formed on this important question, and will see that John Q. Adams's Address at Braintree is extensively circulated. — L. Maria Child. WILLIAM L. MACKENZIE. The intrigues of the United States slave-owners it was, which con. verted Texas into a place of bondage in the man of color. Honest Mexico had made it fiee alike to all men in 1829, and for this offence has southern vengeance and European diplomacy continued to strike at the tranquillity of her devoted population ever since, while it is whis- pered that Cass, the agent of the south in Paris, was not unfriendly to Louis Phillipe's villainous attack. Again, Cuba was about to seek independence, and ofter equal liber- ty to all its inhabitants some years ago. But it is well known that Messrs. Clay and Adams in 1827, and Mr. Van Buren and Mr. Van Ness in lfci29, made the most urgent remonstrances to old Spain against permitting such a step. The south was ready to tender the aid of the arms of the great American republic to crush a struggle for freedom, which might end in yielding an asylum to a Virginia mulatto slave. Not content with the gains of their own serfs, the THE LEGION OP LIBERTY. avarice of man is such, that of 177 slave ships which arrive every year in Cuba, five-ninths are owned and fitted out in this Union un- der the fostering care of its government, and their guilty gains are truly enormous. Compare the conduct of the slave power at "Washington to Texas, and to Canada. Scattered along an extensive line, without muni- tions of war, without provisions, almost without clothing, pursued by the English forces on one side, and by the troops under the com- mand of General Scott on the other, during a most severe and stormy winter. Such was the situation of the Canadian republicans in 1838. The Texians were slave-owners fighting to re-establish slavery on a soil from which it had been recently banished by the Mexicans ; the American government gave them every possible aid and assistance. The Canadian Patriots fought for liberty to all, and no negro slavery could be expected to crown their triumphs. — McKenzie's Gazette June, 1840. LA ROY SUNDERLAND. Meetings in favor of Texas and against Mexico, have been held in every southern and south-western city. Upwards of fifty thousand dollars in money and munitions have been subscribed for the Texians. And it is said, that several have already left this city for Texas, in order to engage in the war against Mexico. Who can witness these efforts to support and extend slavery, and not feel a blush of indignation for this boasted republic ! And look, too, at the prodigality with which the slave-holders pour out their money, and for the basest of purposes, while the cause of human rights, at the north, languishes for the want of support. — iV. Y. Watchman. The south never will give the slave up until the North is converted to our doctrines. While the north regards the colored man as it now does, it would be a Herculean, a desperate enterprise for the south to undertake the emancipation of the slave. The north must make its peace with the " free colored man," before the south can emancipate the slave. It would not save the country, or free the slave, to enact the abolition of slavery by congress, and by every state general court in the union, without a moral change in the white population to- wards the black, and the consequent revolution of feeling in the black towards the white man. Nothing can effect this change but the ac- tion and prevalence of anti-slavery societies and principles. — Anti- Slavery Manual. Change of Opinion. — Mr. J. B. Lamar, formerly warmly and ac- tively engaged in the support of the Texian cause, is not disposed, it appears to pursue the same course at present. In a letter to the Sa- vannah Georgian, he says, that " time, reflection, and a more en- lightened conscience, convince him that any interference with the war in Texas, by citizens of one of the United States, is a violation THE LEGION OF LIBERTY. of the laws of our own country, and inconsistent with our interests and the doctrines we hold of like conduct in others towards us; and he must therefore in justice to himself, not only decline the appoint- ment, (to which he had been called by a meeting, held in Savannah, of friends of that cause,) hut refuse to contribute to the object in any way whatever." — Boston Daily Mail ARCHIBALD L. LINN. Recent even's have satisfied me that new and serious attempts are to be made to accomplish the annexation of Texas to this Union. One of the principal instruments in the scheme is to be found in the character of the present mission to Mexico, and, as no higher in- terests can be involved in our foreign intercourse than the political cousiderations which belong to this mission, I feel it my duty to ad- vert to them at the earliest opportunity. Whoever would look back upon the history of our relations with Mexico in reference to the province of Texas — of the first settle- ment of that provicc — and of the men who and the influences which produced the revolution there and her separation from Mexico ; whoever would look back upon the legislation of congress — of the legislation of several of the states of the union, and upon the opin- ions and influences of men in all parts of the country ; whoever would trace the whole progress of that revolution from its inception down to the present, time, and connect it with the present events and present condition of that country, would come to the conclusion that the political difficulties which had heretofore existed between this go. vernment and Mexico, had reference only to the annexation of Texas — and that the efforts to attain that object were to be renewed, with all the moral and political evils which could not fail to accompany it. Mr. L. then glanced briefly at the history of Texas as a province, to show that the whole history of diplomacy on this subject, (of which he said, he had copious no'es,) and the whole history of legislation went to show that the annexation of Texas, (whether successful or not,) was the desired fruit of the present mission to Mexico. He re- ferred to the representative history of General VVaddy Thompson, as a member of this house, to show that that gentleman had introduced a proposition for the recognition of the independence of Texas ; that he had pursued a course which pledged him to that step. And he (Mr. L.) hesitated not to predict that one of the fruits of this mis. sion, as now created, would be a renewal of the proposition for the annexation of Texas to the United States. Mr. L. passed on to notice the claims of the citizens of the United States against the government of Mexico, in relation to which a commission has been in session for some two years past ; and expres- sed the conviction that the grand finale of these claims (if ever set- tled at all) would be the relinquishment of them on the part of this government, either by means of a recognition of the independence of Texas, or a direct cession of Texas to this government. And it W. SLADE. was to prevent the evils arising from this slate of things, that this mission ought not, in his judgment to he allowed. Notwithstanding our aggressions upon Mexico, (which he did not advert to, but which were matters of history,) we were still, at least professedly, at peace with her, under solemn treaties of amity and commerce. By what rule, then, of national law or national honor we were justiiied in interfering in the affairs of Texas, he could not divine — Texas, a province in a stale of open revolt, whose indepen- dence Mexico had never recognized, hut against which she was at this time waging a most uncompromising war. Whence, then, the sympathy and enthusiasm which had been excited on the subject in this country ? Whence the injustice and breach of national faith against Mexico, which had engendered so much ill-blood and ill-feel- ing against a government which was doing the most that she was able to do, to establish free institutions of the same kind as our own ? Whence the abandonment, of the policy of non-interference, which had been so studiously cultivated and adhered to by this government in all the contests which had taken place on this continent ? Or who could doubt that the continuance of negotiations between this government and Mexico, in relation to the annexation of Texas, would inevitably lead to war ? And Mr. L. alluded to the probabili ty, in 6uch an event, of interference on the part of Great Britain — Speech in Congress, April 13, 1842. W I TAJ AM SLADE. Mr. S. had been greatly surprised at the nomination to Mexico of a public man who had always zealously advocated the cause of Texian independence. Gentlemen in the south did not appreciate the feeling which pervaded this country in reference to this Texian question. Throughout, more than half "the stales of this union, it was walched with the utmost jealousy, and excited the deepest feeling, because it was well known that anxious efforts had long been going on to effect the annexation of Texas to the United States, and ft was as perfectly understood that the entering w< Ige to the accomplishment of such a design was never applied in the open light, of day, but secretly, and, for aught that appeared upon the surface, that wedge might not only be entered, but driven up past all 'nope of retraction before the" fact was known at all. And there were, those in this union who looked the more sharply at all such measures from their apprehension as to the connexion between the annexation of Texas and the extension of slavery. Whether these persons were imprudent or not, in the course they pursued — whether or not they adopted the best means to accom- plish their ohjects, and whether their ahstract positions were sound or not, still they were perpetually on the wa^ch-tower, looking with eao-le eyes at every movement bearing on the Texian question, and but for their unsleeping vigilance, the so much desired union between that country and this would have been effected long ago. Here Mr. S. referred to the vast number of petitions which they had sent up against the annexation. That number was not so great now, because an impression had begun to prevail that the danger was now over. W. SLADE. \\ it Mr. S. pould assure them they were entirely mistaken. It was not over; very far i\->:n it. and he thanked the gentleman from New- York. (Mr. Linn,) for rousing the attention of the country to the subject. What had they seen during the last year? Not only did the public press of the south and south-west come out openly for an- nexation, but several of the states had passed official resolutions to the same effect ; and when brought into the House of Representa- tives, how were they treated ? Not as the abolition resolutions even from state legislatures were. They were not only received, but or- dered to be printed, that they might be considered and acted upon. The same thing had been done at the other end of the capitol. All this was done with the intent of forming public opinion, and, so far, it was all fair. But if a northern abolitionist should attempt any means to counteract such opinion at the south, by arguments how- ever strong and however reasonable, he must straightway be seized and hung to a lamp post. [A laugh.] The American people never could be drawn into any such mea- sure as the annexation of Texas ; it would be utter ruin to the union of the states. Mr. S. would not give a snap of his fingers for this union from the day such a measure was effected. It would be dis- solvi d ipso fur.!') from that moment. He was a friend to the union ; ho desired to see it preserved, and therefore he deprecated a scheme that must dissolve it. He would say, in general terms, that he believed it arose from a desire to extend and to perpetuate slavery. That such a desire did exist was a fact beyond dispute ; it had been manifested with greater or less distinctness for the last forty years ; in its practical effects it had trampled on all the safeguards of the constitution, and lengthened the cords and strengthened the stakes of slavery in this land. The general expectation at the adoption of the constitution, was that slavery would be abolished in less than a quarter of a century ; but half a century had elapsed, and instead of being abolished it had in- creased three-fold. This process began with the purchase of Louisi- ana, or rather, with the toleration of slavery in that state, and it had been extended in the free states since formed out of the Louisiana purchase. Mr. S. considered this as having inflicted a deeper wound on the constitution than any other event that had ever happened since its adoption. Mr. S. could show, did time permit, how slavery had governed this land ; how it had chosen our presidents for a succession of forty years, while there had, since the foundation of the government, been "a president in the chair from the free states but for twelve years and one month. And of these, one never would have been president had he not been " a northern man with southern principles." A review of the individuals who had filled the speaker's chair of this house would show the same thing. He might refer to the fact that five out of six of those who had filled the mission to Mexico, had been gentlemen from the southern states. Of the reason of such a selection there could be no doubt. He need not say how impossible it was to carry on important nego- tiations with almost any government, and especially with Mexico, THE LEGION OF LIBERTY. without their having m important bearing on our relations with other governments. And here he took occas'on to repel the expressions of contempt which had fallen from Mr. Cashing, in which he spoke of gentlemen cowering under the f.own of Great Britain, and of being actuateu by a dread of British interferenoe. The peopla of New- England would be tne very last to be actuated by such a feeling, as the glorious history of this country would abundantly show. But while we were ready to maintain our rights aga'nst all the world, it was the part of wisdom and prudence not to be insensible to the dan- ger of becoming needlessly embroiled with other governments. The gentleman from South Carolina, (Mr. Pickens,) had given pretty strong indications not only of a very strong sympathy with the cause of Texas, but of a disposition to carry that feeling into our relations with Mexico. He had alluded to what he supposed to be a fact, that the British governmont stood pledged to that of Mexico, to aid it un- der certain contingencies. If this were true, it was of itself suffi- cient to put every prudent statesman on his guard. Mr. S. would tell gentlemen that their scheme never could be car- ried into effect ; there might be a union on parchment, but it never could go down with the people of the northern slates. Let the thought be banished at once. Let not gentlemen deceive themselves — he could tell them that the very moment they came out and showed their hand they would find a spirit which they little dreamed of. He v/ouid say to them, as a friend, " hands off." Let this government declare at once to Texas, to Mexico, and to all the world beside, that such a thing as a union between Texas and the United States was utterly impracticable. When this should have been done, the government of Mexico would be more likely to open their ears to the claims of American citizens. Let it be distinctly understood that the moment we united ourselves with Texas, thai moment we married ourselves to a war. He was, therefore, for a proclamation of neutrality. Why should this measure not be resorted to in relation to our neigh- bors at one extremity of the union as to those at the other? We did it relalion to Canada, why not in regard to Texas and Mexico? We owed this to ourrelves and to the peace of the world. We stood in a highly dangerous position — before we knew it the matches might ba applied to the magazine. THE LEGION OF LIBERTY. THE BRITISH EMANCIPATOR. Texas. — It is a deplorable thing in this age of the world, after such gigantic and persevering efforts have been made to get rid of slavery and the slave-trade, and with so much success, that in a country in which slavery had been abolished, (and that country four times as large as France,) this curse and crime should be restored ! It is yet more deplorable, that this restoration of slavery should have the effect, and should have been brought about for the purpose, of providing a vast and almost boundless market for the slaves reared like cattle by an adjoining nation, boasting, to be civilized and chris- tian ! The domestic slave-trade has made the United States the sink and the scorn of the world • yet, this more than infernal traffic is to find an inexhaustible outlet in Texas ! Yet more deplorable is it, that a nation born amidst the agonies of the slavery it revives, and exist- ing but for the perpetuation and aggravation of atrocities which all civilized governments have agreed to denounce and exterminate, should by any one of those governments have been acknowledged as a nation at all. Humanity bleeds on contemplating slavery as a fact of the past ; it is dreadful to see it originating anew. A nascent peo- ple ordaining slavery should have met with not a moment's toleration; they should been frowned and trodden out of being by the united scorn and resistance of the civilized world. — The British Emancipator. The Committee of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery So- ciety, to Lord Palmerston, Secretary for Foreign Affairs. The committee will not trouble your Lordship with a detail of the unjust and atrocious manner in which the Mexican province of Texas has been wrested from the parent state by unprincipled adventurers, land jobbers, and slave-holders from the United States, whose con- duct merits the most indignant rebuke, and must attach lasting dis- honor to all who may become implicated in it : but would press on the consideration of your Lordship and the government the well-known fact, that the legislature of Texas has abolished the universal freedom which, with such admirable justice and propriety, had been decreed by the Mexican government, and have re-established slavery in its worst form. The committee would also call your Lordship's atten- tion to the fact, that the Texian laws also provide for the expulsion from its territory of all Africans and the descendants of Africans, whether in whole or in part born free, as well as of the native In- dian tribes, an iniquity not less cruel than it is infamous, and un- paralleled in the history of any civilized people. The establishment of slavery in Texas will open an immense mar ket for the slave-breeders of the United States, and will inevitably enlarge to an unprecedented extent, and raise to a pitch of unpre- cedented horrors, a traffic so infamous and deplorable. Nor can it be doubted but, in spite of the law which prohibits it, the slave-trade with Africa, against which the whole power of the British empire is arrayed, will be extensively carried on, as there is too great reason to believe it has already begun. Under these circumstances, the committee trust that her Majesty s government will regard the proposed recognition of Texas with the THE LEG10S OF LIBERTY. greatest abhorrence ; and they cherish an earnest hope that in their decisions, considerations of humanity, justice, and liberty will be firmly held paramount to every other. On behalf of the Committee, G. W. ALEXANDER, Chairman. GEORGE BRABBURN. Until lately. Texas was, as it now is of right, a part of the re- public of Mexico. While Mexico was under the dominion of Spain, slavery was tolerated there. But on becoming independent of the mother country, she, with a consistency of which our country would have done well to set the example, gave liberty to her bondmen, and declared, that slavery should exist no'more within her borders forever. With this state of things, the people were evidently well enough sa- tisfied. For, they were not the hypocrites to withhold from others the liberty which they had fought and bled to secure for themselves. They had not yet been contaminated by association with North Ameri- can republicans. They would, therefore, to a man, have remained satisfied, but for the ' foreign interference' — the emigration into their country of a desperate set of speculators, gamblers, blacklegs, fleshmongers, slave-drivers, and demagogues, from these United States. These miserable libels upon humanity, though they did not without great difficulty, and never wholly, succeed in joining to their causes the old settlers of the soil, did, nevertheless, by accession to their numbers from this country, and by aid of friends they left be- hind, who, unlike themselves it seems, had not quite patriotism enough to leave their country for their country's good, ultimately felt themselves sufficiently strong to attempt the transfer of their allegi- ance from Mexico to the government of the United States. They desired to establish slavery in their new country. It was one of the chief objects of their rebellion. The plan was regarded with favor by the slave-holding members of this Union, as also by certain land- sharks of the free states, who had made investments in Texan lots. The former saw in it a powerful means of strengthening their " pe- culiar institution." Both knew, if it succeeded, it would put money into their pockets. EDMUND QUINCY. There are perils, and those imminent — perils, which in the opinion of many wise men threaten to lock forever the fetters of the slave, and even to throw the links of the chain around the limbs of the free. If Texas, say they, — the land of the pirate and the murderer, the common sewer into which is drained all the filth which is too abomi- nable even for the slaves states to endure — if Texas be annexed to the United States, then slavery will be forever entailed upon us, and the preponderance which will be given to the slave-holding interest in the councils of the nation, by that event, will render the freemen of tiie north but the serfs of a southern task-master. If Texas be not annexed, then the Union will be dissolved ; a slave-holding con- federacy will be formed, and slavery forever perpetuated. EDMUND QUINCT. I am sure thai no man can deprecate more .sincerely than I do, the annexation of Texas to this union. I believe that I realize all the immediate and all the remote hearings which that event would have upon the great cause of Universal Freedom. There is no effort which I would not make— no sacrifice to which I would not gladly submit -to avert that most hateful alliance. But were it accomplished to- morrow, should I despair ? Should I despondingly abandon the cause of Gotl and liberty on that account, and believe that the trickery of a handful of scurvy politicians at Washington could cancel the decree registered in the chancery of heaven— that every slave shall be free ? Should I even believe that the period of universal emancipa- tion would be very much delayed by that event ? No, sir. The only effect which such a blow would have upon me, and which I believe it would have upon every Abolitionist, would be to make me feel that a great work was to be done in a short time. That we must concen- trate all our efforts, and multiply all our machinery for acting upon the public mind, before the young dragon bv the banks of the Sabine be fully grown, and before she have engendered a brood like unto herself, to be arrayed by her side against the cause of God and free- dom. Whenever proclamation is made that the union of these states is dissolved, 0:1 that day the rleath-knell of slavery is tolled. As soon a.s they arc rel( ased from the fatal embrace of their northern friends, their patriarchal system falls to the ground. It is the sympathy and encouragement of the free states which sustain that system now. Ixjt the lies of interest, which create that false sympathy, be severed] and it vanishes; stifled humanity revives, and" the oppressor must soon break his rod for very shame. It is a strange infatuation to sup- pose that any military force, or any custom house regulations, could keep from the inhabitants of any country the influence of the whole- some public opinion of neighboring nations, and the scorn of ths civilized world. The Americans of our revolution then fought for their own liberty, and through their example of successful resistance, for the liberty of the world, But the Texans are fighting for slavery among themselves, and if success crown their desperate efforts, they will have fought for the perpetuity of slavery throughout the world. The wishes of the Te.xian.^ are now for their annexation to these United States of America. If they be admitted into the union, a deep, perhaps one of the deepest blows that can be struck, will have been inflicted on the rights of man ; the name of liberty will have been profaned, her spirit disgraced, and her fair presence banished for a time, perhaps forever, from ' the land of the free, and the home of the brave.* As Texas rebelled against Mexico, because the institutions of domes- tic slavery could not exist in that nation, she, of course, would not ask for admission into our union, unless permitted to enter with all her slavish retinue. She deserted Mexico, because Mexico is a free state ; she now begs in the name of liberty, and with the prayer of freemen, to be united with the United States, because here under the TEXAS. star-spangled banner of our republic, she can legally fasten iron chains on the bodies, and the far worse than iron chains, the corroding ma- nacles of ignorance and servitude on, in, and all around the minds of her slaves. — The Pawtucket Chronicle. Texas. — Shall this land of slavery, this immense reservoir of col lected abominations, become an integral part of this nation ? The avowed object is to secure ' the safety and repose of the south- ern states :' that is, in plain King's English, to rivet the chains of slavery not on the slave only but the nation. In Rome, next to crucifixion the most infamous punishment con- sisted in lashing to the felon's back a dead and putrefying carcass. That we as a nation have reached the point of criminality at which justice might righteously doom us to carry ' this body of death,' is what we dare not deny. But we are called upon to bind the burden on our own backs — to do it freely — and by a deliberate act of na- tional legislation, to proclaim that we are worthy of the infamous punishment, and are ready to bow down and bear it ! What then is to be done ? Petition Congress. This is a legiti- mate remedy. On this question all may unite, except the slave-holder, without distinction of party, sect, or place. Let public sentiment then, concentrating its decisive and determined energies into one loud and defening veto, meet the proposed measure on the threshold. Let it be seen that however artfully the demon of oppression may lay his plans, the friends of freedom are prepared at every point to meet him. — Cleveland Journal. LEGISLATURE OF VERMONT. Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives, That the Senators in Congress be instructed, and our Representatives requested to use their influence in that body to prevent the annexation of Texas to the union. That, representing as we do the people of Vermont, we do, here- by, in their name, solemnly protest against such annexation in any form. That as the representatives of the people of Vermont, we do so- lemnly protest against the admission into this union, of any state whose constitution tolerates domestic slavery- That congress have full power by the constitution, to abolish sla- very and the slave trade in the district of Columbia and in the terri- tories of the United States. That our senators in congress be instructed and our representatives requested to present the foregoing report and resolutions to their re- spective houses in congress, and use their influence to carry the same speedily into effect. That the governor of this state be requested to transmit a copy of the foregoing report and resolutions to the president of the United States, and to each of our senators and representatives in congress. November 1, 1837. TEXAS. By the House also resolved, That congress has the constitutional power to prohibit the slave trade between the several states of this union, and to make such laws as shall effectually prohibit such trade. THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF OHIO. Resolved, That in the name and on behalf of the people of Ohio, we do hereby protest against the annexation of the republic of Texas to the union of these states, as unjust, inexpedient, and destructive of the peace, safety, and well-being of the nation ; and we do, in the name and on behalf of the said people solemnly declare that congress has no power conferred on it by the constitution of the United States, to consent to such annexation ; and that the people of Ohio cannot be bound by any such covenant, league or arrangement, made be- tween congress and any foreign state or nation. MEMORIAL. To the senate and house of representatives of the United States of America, in congress assembled. The memorial of the convention for the formation of an anti-sla- very society for the state of Pennsylvania, assembled at Harrisburg, respectfully sheweth, That your memorialists have learned with sorrow and alarm, that a proposition is at this time before your honorable body, to recognize the independence of the government assumed to be established by the insurgents of Texas. Against this measure, your memorialists in be- half of themselves, of the thousands whom they represent, and of the principles Ion'; cherished by the people of Pennsylvania ; in the name of liberty, justice, and humanity enter their SOLEMN AND UNITED PROTEST. Facts incontrovertible, which have come to the knowledge of your memorialists, warrant the belief that the insurrection in Texas, has been aided by citizens of the United States, that its main object, the grand cause of the movement, as evinced by the sentiments and con. duct of its advocates, and by the very constitution of their assumed government, is the establishment of domestic slavery, the re-opening of an immense slave market— to set up anew the shambles for human flesh, where the abhorrent traffic had been arrested and abolished by the legitimate authorities of Mexico— and finally, to annex the terri- tory to the United States. From a regard to the national honor ; for the character of the age in which we live; by their obligations to posterity ; and above all to the God of justice, your memorialists feel themselves called upon as Pennsylvanians, the representatives of free- men and christians, to offer their strong remonstrance against any act on the part of the country of which they are citizens, which shall sanction or recognize a government which owes its origin to the base and unhallowed purpose of re-establishing slavery upon the soil of liberty. Your memorialists, therefore, respectfully but earnestly entreat your honorable body, to reject the proposition for the recognition of TEXAS. the government, assumed to be established by the insurgents of Texas, as well as all attorn p s that may be made to connect it with the United States,- and as in duly bound we will ever pray, &c. Signed in behalf of the Convention, F. JULIUS LE MOYNE, President. B. F. Allen, Wra. A. Adair, Benjamin Brown, Nathan Stein, Jo- seph M'Truman, Lindley Coates, Bartholomew Fussel, VVm. H. Fussels, Vice-Presidents, James Rhoads, Henry Duffield, Benjamin S.Jones, Wm. B. Thomas, A. L. Post, Secretaries. NEW-YORK STATE A. S. CONVENTION Resolved, That we regard the influence and efforts of American citizens, in exciting and supporting an insurrectionary war in Mexico, with loathing and horror. That the south, in countenancing and encouraging insurrectionary movements in Mexico, has madly lent herself to assist in forging and sharpening the knife of the insurgent for her own defenceless throat. That we feel disgraced and outraged by the efforts of American citizens to lestore slavery to Texas; and that to the utmost of our power lawfully exercised, we will resist and call upon others to resist the introduction of Texas into our republic. The sympathy which exists in behalf of Texas at the south, looks to other objects than the mere defence of that country. Texas is de- sired as an appendage to the strength of the south. They wish it annexed to the union, that the balance of power may still be found on the feeble side of' Mason and Dixon's line.' Once let the cry for succor be rung through the land, and the annexation of Texas, they imagine, will be as easy as it is desirable. So reasons the south. Let the north reason otherwise. The Texians arc not deserving of aid or sympathy. The invasion of that country by Santa Anna, is not un- prov ked. It is in a great measure justified, in retaliation for the Santa Fe expedition, which had for its avowed purpose the subjuga- tion and pillage of Mexico. The Texians have provoked the assault, and now they must abide the consequences, unless a fool-hardy and absurd idea prevails, that we must succor these men, because Texas affords a refuge for outlaws and desperadoes for the whole continent of North America. — Phila. Gaz. There is little reason to believe that the independence of Texas would have been acknowledged if there had been any previous ap- prehension, in the minds of the people at large, that such an event was about to take place. Remonstrance upon remonstrance would have been poured upon the national legislature. But there was no effort, because there was no alarm. The message of president Jack- son, and the speech of Gov. McDuflie, (whatever might have been intended by those documents,) undoubtedly had the effect to make the almost universal impression that no attempt would be made during the session, to acknowledge the independence of Texas. The im- pression that it would not be attempted, was without doubt, the prin- cipal secret of its success. The friends of liberty and the union should see well to it that they are not caught slumbering a second tune, on their posts. If they are, they must not be surprised if the wreck of our free institutions should finally prove to have been owing to their own inactivity and supiheness. We call on all good citizens and especially on those who have influence with the individuals now in power, to step forward at a crisis like the present, and save the administration, by saving the country from blood guiltiness, from re. tribution, from disgrace, disaster, and irretrievable ruin. — Friend of Ma::. Message of President Jackson to the House of Reorssentativss, December 22, 1836. "The acknowledgment of a new state as independent and entitled to a place in the family of nations, is at all times an act of great delicacy and responsibility: bul more especially so, when such stato has forcibly separated itself from another, of which it had formed an integral part, and which still claims dominion over it. A premature recognition, se circumstances, if not looked upon as justi- fiable cause of war, i'- always liable to be regarded as a proof of an unfriendly spiri! b> one of the contending parties." Extracl from the general order of General Jackson, for the execu- tion of Arbuthnot and Ambrister: '-It is an established principle of the law of nations, that any individual, of any nation, making war againsi the citizens of another nation, they being at peace, forfeits his allegianc< i les an out'aw and a pirate." If th:s principle is correct, then by the rules of war, Santa Anna was right in executing the prisoners that he took in Texas, for they \vre, mosi of them, confessedly of this country. Here were their re a !ove of plunder and of glory induced them to go to Texas, to fight against a government with which their native coun- try was at peace. — Liberator. WILLIAM B. TAPPAN. A Irnit her to the Union ? Yes ! If our democracy can bow To kings, and is prepared to kiss The loathsome hem of tyrants now. From principles that years have tried If thus we fall, no longer men, And to our fathers' deeds of pride Are recreant — why admit her then ! If slavery's foul and damning spot Must here increase like Ahab's cloud, Blackening the moral heavens till not One star shall blaze upon the proud ; If thus, a spectacle of scorn To nations, we're content, — let men Lift up the consummated horn Of infamy — admit her then ! ANTI-TEXAS. Annexation of Texas. — Resolutions in favor of annexing Texas to the United States have passed the Texan Congress. It will how- ever take two to make a bargain. The people of this country will never sanction it unless slavery is first abolished — and perhaps not then. We have too much territory now. — Souihport (Illinois,) American. EDWARD EVERETT. Whatever step we take towards annexation, is gratuitous. This whole subject has been so ably discussed by Dr. Channing, in his recent letter to Mr. Clay, that it would be superfluous to enlarge up. on it. I will only say that if, at this moment, when an all import- ant experiment is in train, to abolish slavery by peaceful and legal means in the British West Indies, the United States, instead of imi- tating their example or even awaiting their result, should rush into a policy of giving an indefinite extension to slavery over a vast re- gion incorporated into their Union, we should stand condemned be- fore the civilized world. It would be in vain to expect to gain credit for any further professions of a willingness to be rid of sla- very as soon as possible. No extenuation of its existence, on the ground of its having been forced upon the country in its colonial state, would any longer avail us. It would be thought, and thought justly, that lust of power and lust of gold had made us deaf to the voice of humanity and justice. We should be self-convicted of the enormous crime of having voluntarily given the greatest possible en- largement to an evil, which, in concert with the rest of mankind, we had affected to deplore, and that at a time when the public sen- timent of the civilized world, more than at any former period, is aroused to its magnitude. There are other objections to the measure, drawn from its bear- ing on our foreign relations, but it is unnecessary to discuss them. Answer to Questions of his Constituents, 1837 MASSACHUSETTS LEGISLATURE, 1843 Resolves against the annexation of Texas to the Union. Resolved, That under no circumstances wha'soever can the peo- ple of Massachusetts regard the proposition to admit Texas into the Union, in any other light than as dangerous to its continuance in peace, in prosperity, and in the enjoyment of those blessings which it is the object of a free government to secure. Resolved, That the Senators and Representatives of Massachu- setts, in the Congress of the United Slates, be requested to spare no exertions to oppose, and if possible to prevent the adoption of the proposition referred to. Resolved, That His Excellency the Governor, be requested to transmit one copy of these resolutions to the Executive of each of the United States, and a iike copy to each Senator and Represents tive in Congress from Massachusetts. ANTI-TEXAS. THE FREE AMERICAN. The success of the slaveholders thus far in disposing of the sub- ject of petitions and compelling their Northern satellites to lie still, and be trampled on ; the very affectionate and paternal expressions of the President's message towards our "daughter," republic; the unveiled anxiety of the South to find a balance weight in the Sen- ate for the new States of Iowa and Wisconsin, both of which will have Senators here in the 28th Congress ; the certainty that it is " Now or never" with them, and the strong ground of encourage- ment that they may now succeed, leave no room for doubt that either by a direct application from Texas to Congress, or by negociation with Mexico, confidentially, well understood to be agreeable to the leaders in Texas, there will be a more strenuous and determined ef- fort than lias ever yet been made to secure the annexation of Tex- as to the United States. The only formal difficulty on our part, to a negociation with Mexico, to-wit, that we have fully acknowledg- ed the independence of Texas herself, can never be allowed to stand in the way of so great an object, especially when the whole thing is in the hands of slaveholders, and still more when the only party in interest to object, to-wit, Texas, is actually in favor of the trans- fer. — J. Lcavitt. THE LIBERATOR. Although the south has been defeated in her first attempt to an- nex the stolen and blood stained territory of Texas to this Union, yet it must not be supposed that she means to give up the project as hopeless, without making fresh exertions to carry it into effect. When she put her robber-hand upon Texas, and wrested it from Mexico, she did not dream of creating an independent slave-holding country by her side ; nor did she anticipate the amount of opposition that would be called forth on the part of the partially abolitionizcd north, against the daring proposition to unite Texas with this coun- try. She does not mean to be foiled in her purpose, but is unques- tionably watching for a favorable opportunity, when northern sus- picion is slumbering, to carry the measure in Congress by the same device that she procured the acknowledgment of Texan independ- ence, Hear the Natchez Free Trader on this subject, in a recent number : — " We have reason to believe, from some advices, that a new proposition relative to the union of Texas with this country will be brought forward by a distinguished gentleman, at the next session of Congress, under very favorable auspices." This warning is fairly given, and it behoves the non-slaveholding States to be pre- pared for the conflict. They must never consent to such an an- nexation on any terms. Sooner let the Union be dashed to pieces. ANTI-TEXAS. THE LIBERTY PRESS. Be assured that a fixed and unalterable determination is entertain, ed by the slaveholders of the South to have Texas annexed to this Union early next session. In addition to the evidences of this con- tained in the Resolutions of Tennessee, Alabama, &c, the general tone of the Southern press, the express declarations of Henry A. Wise made last session, the appointment of Waddy Thompson as Minister to Mexico, the recent letter of Governor Gilmer, of Vir- ginia, the assurance of Mr. Adams that this is and will continue to be a measure vehemently urged by the South, so long as they have the least hope of securing it, we now have from a reliable source some further information in reference to it. A member of Congress from one of the ultra-slaveholding States has a friend in Texas^who has just written him, detailing their wretched and despairing con- dition there. They have neither money nor credit to carry on the war, are in daily expectation of invasion, are so utterly bankrupt in property and character at home and abroad that they can get no aid, and unless they can ultimately be annexed to the United States, that there is absolutely no hope for them ! ! He says if invaded they can make a sudden and temporary rally, and defend themselves, but they can neither raise nor sustain an army for continued ser- vice. It is a case of life or death with them, and the South know it. This member of Congress said to another with whom he conversed, and to whom he shewed the letter, we must and shall have Texas annexed soon — probably not this Congress, but early the next session. But can you expect to get Northern votes to aid in this project ? Yes, we do expect to, and we shall get them, too, replied the former, and once haying secured the object, if the Northern folks don't like it, let the dissolution of the Union come — we are prepared for it ! ! The Texians are bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, and must be sustained. Mr. Calhoun and President Tyler are well known to be in favor of it. The Southern policy is to say as little about it as possible be- forehand, so that the masses in the North need not be aroused, and when the deed is once done, they anticipate a grumbling acquies- cence, as in similar instances heretofore- Several members of Con- gress have been writing into their districts, sounding the alarm. THE NEW-YORK AMERICAN. So, then, it is only necessary for a gang of plunderers and out- laws to declare themselves a party of emigrants, (armed to the teeth though they be,) and they can go on in their lawless career unmo- lested. Well, then, as it is a poor rule that will not work both ways, let us reverse the case. Let us suppose another South Caro- lina nullification affair. Let us suppose matters to be brought to such a pass, as to involve the general government and South Caro- lina in civil war. And now for emigrating parties. Fleets and ar- mies come from Mexico and Great Britain, and various other quar- ANTI-TEXAS. ters, to aid South Carolina in its revolt against the national govern- ment. That Government remonstrates against such proceedings, as a violation of neutrality, or even as an attempt to overthrow the govern. merit itself. To all its remonstrances ; to all its complaints that those armies and fleets were openly raised and fitted out, and that they sailed " with drums beating, and fifes playing," for the land of nullification ; the reply of those foreign governments should be, that those forces called themselves emigrating parties. Think ye, that our government would be satisfied with this? And who can tell but this supposition may yet become history ? Who can say, that some American Cataline, some Arnold, or Shays, or Burr, will not yet rear the standard of rebellion against the government, and be aided in this very way by the "emigrant" fleets and armies of those gov- ernments that wish to see our republican institutions overthrown ? We should remember the scripture maxim : " With the same mea- sure that ye mete, it shall be measured to you again." These Texan emissaries appealed to the passions of our people something after the manner following, as portrayed by a Mexican writer : " They claimed the assistance of the Americans as brothers ; but they took care to say nothing about how they had cheated these brothers before they went to Texas. They told them the Mexicans are cruel, treacherous and cowardly ; but they took care to say nothing about their own deceitful, and treacherous conduct to the Moxicans. They told them that the Mexican government, instead of nourishing and cherishing the people of Texas, was their robber o.nd oppressor ; but they carefully concealed, that the Mexicans had u them lands for nothing — had never called upon them for any ice whatever — allowed them even the free exercise of their re- .1 — and that their only robbers and oppressors were their fellow citizens of the United Slates, who wanted to seize their lands. They told them that in colonizing Texas, the Mexican government owed them a favor, and not they to the Mexican government, but they made no reference to the fact, that in the United States, every territory was settled in the same manner, and that, too, after paying well for the land, which they did not" — in Texas. " They assured them that the Mexicans were bringing the savage Indians to mur- der them ; but they concealed that the Mexican troops protected them from those very Indians, and that if the Indians are hostile, it is on account of indignities offered by the Texans, and of being de- prived of their lands by them. They spoke most pathetically of hunger, thirst, dangers innumerable, and evils inexpressible in Tex- as, all owing to the vile Mexicans ; but they confessed not the truth, namely, that from the Mexicans they not only got lands, but also flocks and herds, and that the hardships incident to all new set. tlements were scarcely ever felt in Texas. They declared, that it was not they who were the aggressors, but the Mexican govern- ment, without any provocation whatever; but they omitted the fact, that the Mexican government had granted every law they wanted ; ANTI-TEXAS. promised protection to all orderly settlers ; and only wanted to pun- ish and expel land speculators and jobbers, who had introduced themselves from the United States, with slaves. They tempted them with the large tracts of fertile land that the grateful Texians would allow them for their assistance against the Mexicans ; but they (the land jobbers) concealed, that they themselves, by false titles and usurpation, pretended a right to all the lands in Texas that were valuable ; that they wanted to resist the Mexican govern- ment, to preserve these lands unlawfully acquired ; and that the Texans, in place of sympathizing with them, hated them as spoilers of the commonwealth, and disturbers of the public peace." JUSTITIA. NEW- YORK TRIBUNE. We have received communications on both sides of the question of consenting to the Annexation of Texas to our Federal Union. W r e cannot make room for them, deeming it incredible that any sane man should favor such Annexation, and having no room to waste on fighting shadows. Whenever the question shall be brought be- fore the country by the advocates of Annexation, we shall be found among the most determined, untiring opposers of any such measure- Our country is quite large enough now ; Texas is burthened with war and debt ; her people are too generally improvident and idle, and we would far sooner spare many more such than take them back again. Besides, any attempt to annex Texas to the Union would excite the bitterest jealousy and hostility in England, France, and throughout the civilized world. Why not let well enough alone ? If the Texans prefer to live in the United Slates, they in easily come back here — far more easily than they can maintain elves where they are. We have reports that the Southern States favor the Annexation, but do not yet find evidence to confirm them. Why should the South seek needlessly to renew the perils of the Missouri controver- sy ? — to throw the whole subject of Slavery into the arena of party politics and bar-room altercation ? No, no: the old and safe rule of our International policy— " Equal justice to all; entangling alliances with none," — must be adhered to, or we shall be afloat on a fathom- less, shoreless sea of troubles. Let us be wise now. — Nov. 1842. PITTSBURGH GAZETTE. We are fearful that the importance and truth of Mr. Adams's re. marks in reference to the conspiracy existing among slavcholding politicians, to annex Texas to the Union, will not be felt by the peo- ple generally, until they wake up to find the object of the conspira- cy consummated, or so nearly consummated that insistence will be hopeless. If, through supineness and indifference, the North permits this great object of the South to be accomplished, there will be an end of all independence and free legislation, on the part of the free ANTI-TEXAS. States. We shall then hecome the vassals of the southern taskmas- ter. A sufficient number of States can be carried out of Texas, to give the South the balance of power forever. They will then have both the power of numbers and the power resulting from a common interest in an immense amount of property. Can any lover of his country look upon this prospect of entailing upon us the power, the influence and enormities of American sla- very, through all time, without a feeling of horror and indignation; and yet there cannot be the slightest doubt that such is the design of the South. The following article, from the Cincinnati Gazette, commenting on an article from the Union, the organ of Tyler, in New-York city, is worthy of attention. The remarks of the Union are strongly corroborative of the statements of Mr. Adams, and show that there is danger, — danger near at hand, and of a most alarming character. The present unprincipled occupant of the Presidential chair is a firm believer in the sentiment that "what the law declares to be property, is property :" and that " two hundred years of legislation has sanctioned and sanctified negro slaves as property." Acting on this belief, he is bending all his exertions to perpetuate the existence of this great evil. Let every patriot and friend of human rights ponder well on this subject. The Gazette says: " There are those who affect to laugh at Mr. Adams's views as regards the annexation of Texas to this Union. We believe his statements ; and furthermore we believe that it is the intention of a large portion of the politicians now in power to secure this object. The plan, as we understand it, is to guarantee the independence of Texas, and, if practicable, to go further, and secure its annexation to this country." Texas. — Memorials against the admission of Texas into the union ought to be industriously circulated through the country, for every body to sign, and he poured in at the next. Congress in clouds. Tiie admission of Texas into the union, would be the death warrant of that union. It might linger out a short and painful existence after- wards, but what would remain of life after admitting Texas, would be like the life of man after 70 — " We rather sigh and groan than live."— Lynn Record. We trust for our country's sake and happiness — for our liberty and union and peace — that this most extravagant scheme about to be renewed, of annexing Texas, which is twice as large as Pennsyl- vania and Virginia united — to her already bloated Territory, will be frowned down by the universal people. A union resting as one ter- minus on the Pacific Ocean, as another on Mexico, as a third on N. Brunswick and the Atlantic, could not be held together for six months. It would crumble to pieces by its own weight, and over- whelm all in its ruins. Or, if it was kept consolidated, it would on- ly be by the agency, of some despotic principle, which could bury the Liberty and happiness of the American people in one common grave. — Richmond Whig 5* ANTI-TEXAS. SANTA-ANNA. How can we style him a tyrant, who benevolently offered the southern planters the noble privilege of tilling the land in the Prov- ince of Texas, and that, too exempt from taxation for ten years ? Can we call Santa-Anna a tyrant, who in 1829, passed a decree that there should be no slaves held in his dominions after that year ? Can we call him a tyrant, who opposed the efforts of rebels, and used them with deserved severity ? Do we call him a tyrant, who fought and bled in a cause whose principles are. immortal, and are from the authority of God ? — who to contravene the efforts of those who wished to substantiate more firmly the horrible system of sla- very. Justice and equity — right and wrong, remain the same, not- withstanding the customs of man being vitiated by corruption, and he calls that injustice which opposes him. Yes, Santa A.nna too well knew that there was no crime, however dreadful, that the sys- tem of slavery did not tolerate and generate, and that a nation, how- ever prosperous and wealthy, would fall into anarchy under its deadly influence. When Congress had not declared war with Mexico, what folly was it for the troops of this nation to assume the power of commit, ting hostilities ? So far have men been swallowed up in iniquity, that their return for benevolence is foul revelry and devastating destruc- tion. These things cannot continue long in such a state, where the fundamental principles of human unalienable rights are so impetu- ously opposed. As christians, we cannot but believe, that such conduct will ere long, call down the irresistable wrath and judg- ment of an immutable and offended God. — Woonsocket Patriot. Much exultation is manifested by certain editors at the Texian success of arms, as an advance of civil liberty. We could most cordi- ally respond to their rejoicings did we believe that such would be the result. We have a totally different opinion of the subject. We believe it will be to extend and perpetuate Slavery — to rivet more firmly the shackles of the oppressed African, and that the hue and cry for Texian liberty, means in fact no more than liberty to hold slaves, and that the Constitution of the United States, should it ev- er be extended over them, guaranteeing to them, in letter, " life, lib- erty, and property," would be to all but the lordly master, " a rheto- rical flourish." — Hampshire Republican. ANTI-TEXAS. WILLIAM H. BURLEIGH. Ho ! for the rescue ! ye who part Parents from children — heart from heart — Up ! " patriarchs" — and gather round, Ye who sell infants by the pound ! The land of chivalry and chains, Whose priests have sanctified pollution, Pours in her ruffians from her plains, And Houston still with them, maintains Our " patriarchal institution !" Shout for the onset ! till the North, Startled, shall quit her little knavery, And pour her choicest scoundrels forth To fight for Texas lands and — slavery ! Shout for our homes and household altars, Where justice comes not with her halters! Where proudly walk our ranks among, The forger and the " great unhung !" Where Houston, chief of San Jacinto, Arrayed in Presidential dignity, Reckless, remorseless, plunges into Crimes which " Old Nick" would scarce begin to, With all his lust and dire malignity ! These be thy Gods, oh Texas ! — these ! — Tried heroes, dipped in lust and blood — From justice sturdy refugees, And outcasts from the wise and good I Then fling abroad our glorious star, And gather for victorious war — Led on by such, our arms shall be Bulwarks and walls for slavery ! Ho ! Texians ! for the battle cry — 44 Alamo ! vengeance to the foeman I" Fling out your banner to the sky, Maintain — or in the struggle die ; The glorious right of— flogging woman. August 25th, 1837. Oppressed by Britain, we threw off the chain : A worse oppression we ourselves maintain, Texas has sins for which she should atone : Shall we take her's, and thus increase our own ? Shall we pursue a course which Heaven abhors, And bind our freemen, slaves to unjust laws ? Forbid it, Heaven ! nor let it e'er be said, That 'twas for this our fathers fought and bled ; Let not their sons erase their well earned fame, Eclipse their glory in a nation's shame. — Louis. Jour, ANTI-TEXAS. RHODE ISLAND. Whereas this limited Government possesses no power to extend its jurisdiction over any foreign nation ; and no foreign nation, country, or people, can be admitted into this Union but by the sov- ereign will and act of the free people of all and each of these United States ; nor without the formation of a new compact of union, and another frame of government radically different in objects, principles and powers, from that which was framed for our own self-govern- ment, and deemed to be adequate to all the exigencies of our own free Republic : Therefore, Resolved, That we have witnessed with deep concern the indi- cations of a disposition to bring into this Union, as a constituent member thereof, the foreign province or territory of Texas. Resolved, That although we are fully aware of the consequences which must follow the accomplishment of such a project, could it be accomplished — aware that it would lead speedily to the conquest and annexation of Mexico itself, and its fourteen remaining provin- ces or intendencies, which, together with the revolted province of Texas, would furnish foreign territories and foreign people for at least twenty members of the new Union. That it would load the nation with debt and taxes, and, by involving it in perpetual war and commotions, both foreign and internal, would furnish a pretence (which a state of war never fails to furnish) for the assumption and exercise of powers incompatible with our free republican institu- tions, and subversive of the liberties of the People. That the gov- ernment of a nation so extended and so constructed would soon be- come radically changed in character, if not in form ; would una- voidably become a military government, and, under the plea of ne- cessity, would free itself from the restraints of the Constitution, and from its accountability of the People. That we are fully aware of the deep degradation into which this young Republic would sink itself, in the eyes of the whole world, should it annex to its own vast territories other and foreign territo- ries of immense though unknown extent, for the purpose of encourag- ing the propagation of slavery, and promoting the raising of slaves within its own bosom — the very bosom of freedom — to be exported and sold in those unhallowed regions. Although we are fully aware of these fearful evils, and numberless others which would come in their train, yet we do not here dwell upon them, because we are firm ]y convinced that the free People of most, and we trust of all these States, will never suffer the admission of the foreign territory of Tex- as into this Union as a constituent member thereof; will never suf- fer the integrity of this Republic to be violated, either by the intro- duction and addition to it of foreign nations or territories, one or ma- ny, or by the dismemberment of it by the transfer of any or more of its members to a foreign nation. The People will be aware, that, should one foreign State or country be introduced, another and an- other may be, without end, whether situated in South America, in the West India islands, or in any other pare of the world ; and that ANTI-TEXAS. a single foreign State thus admitted, might have in its power, by holding the balance between contending parties, to wrest their own Government from the hands and control of the People by whom it was established for their own benefit and self-government. We are firmly convinced that the free People of these States will look upon any attempt to introduce the foreign territory of Texas, or any other foreign territory or nation, into this Union, as a constituent member or members thereof, as manifesting a willingness to prostrate the Constitution and dissolve the Union. Resolved, That his excellency the Governor be requested to for- ward a copy of the foregoing resolutions to each of our Senators and Representatives in Congress, and to each of the Executives of the several States, with a request that the same may be laid before the respective Legislatures of said States. A true copy — witness : HENRY BOWEN, Sec. of State. LEGISLATURE OF MICHIGAN. "Whereas propositions have been made for the annexation of Tex- as to the United States, with a view to its ultimate incorporation in- to the Union : " And whereas the extension of this General Government over so large a country on the Southwest, between which and that of the original States there is little affinity, and les3 identity of interests, would tend, in the opinion of this Legislature, greatly to disturb the' safe and harmonious operations of the Government of the United States, and put in imminent danger the continuance of this happy Union : Therefore, « Be it resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Michigan, That in behalf, and in the name of, the State of Michigan, this Legislature doth hereby dissent from, and solemnly protest against, the annexation, for any purpose, to this Union, of Texas, or any territory or district of country heretofore constituting a part of the dominions of Spain in America, lying west or southwest of Louisiana." TO THE PEOPLE OF THE FREE STATES OF THE UNION. We, the undersigned, in closing our duties to our constituents and our country, as members of the 27th Congress, feel bound to call your attention, very briefly, to the project long entertained by a por- tion of the people of these United States, still pertinaciously adher. ed to, and intended soon to be consummated — the annexation of Texas to the Union. The open and repaeted enlistment of troops in several States of this Union in aid of the Texan revolution ; the intrusion of an American army, by order of the President, far into the territory of the Mexican Government, at a moment critical to the fate of the in. surgents, under pretence of preventing Mexican soldiers from fo- ANTI-TEXAS. menting Indian disturbances, but in reality in aid of, and acting in singular concert and coincidence with, the army of the revolution ists; the entire neglect of our Government to adopt any efficient measures to prevent the most unwarrantable aggressions of bodies of our own citizens, enlisted, organized, and officered within our own borders, and marched in arms and battle array upon the territory, and against the inhabitants of a friendly Government, in aid of free- booters and insurgents ; and the premature recognition of the in- dependence of Texas, by a snap vote, at the heel of a session of Congress, and that, too, at the very session when President Jackson had, by special message, insisted that " the measure would be con- trary to the policy invariably observed by the United States, in all similar cases, would be marked with great injustice to Mexico, and peculiarly liable to the darkest suspicions, inasmuch as the Texans were almost all emigrants from the United States, and sought the re- cognition ot their independence with the avowed purpose of obtain- ing their annexation to the United States ;" these occurrences are too well known and too fresh in the memory of all to need more than a passing notice. These have become matters of history. For fur- ther evidence on all these and other important points, we refer to the memorable speech of John Quincy Adams, delivered in the House of Representatives during the morning hours of June and Ju- ly, 1838, and to his address to his constituents, delivered at Brain- tree, September 17, 1842. Tne open avowal of the Texans themselves, the frequent and anx- ious negotiations of our own Government, the resolutions of vari- ous States of the Union, the numerous declarations of members of Congress, the tone of the Southern press, as well as the direct ap- plication of the Texan Government, make it impossible for any man to doubt that annexation and the formation of several new slave- holding States and the Executive of the nation. The same references will show, very conclusively, that the par- ticular objects of this new acquisition of slave territory were the per- petuation of slavery and the continued ascendancy of the slave power. We hold that there is not only " no political necessity" for it, " no advantages to be derived from it," but that there is no constitution- al power delegated to any department of the National Government, to authorize it ; that no act of Congress, or treaty for annexation, can impose the least obligation upon the several States of this Un- ion to submit to such an unwarrantable act, or to receive into their family and fraternity such misbegotten and illegitimate progeny. We hesitate not to say, that annexation, effected by any act or proceeding of the Federal Government, or any of its departments, w r ould be identical with dissolution. It would be a violation of our national compact, its objects, designs, and the great elementary principles which entered into its formation, of a character so deep and fundamental, and would be an attempt to eternize an institu- tion and a power of nature so unjust in themselves, so injurious to ANTI-TEXAS. the interests and abhorrent to the feelings of the people of the free States, as, in our opinion, not only inevitably to result in a dissolu tionof the Union, but fully to justify it; and we not only assert that the people of the free States " ought not to submit to it," but we say, with confidence, they would not submit to it. We know their present temper and spirit on this subject too well to believe for a moment that they would become particeps criminis in any such subtle contrivance for the irremediable perpetuation of an institu- tion which the wisest and best men who formed our Federal Con- stitution, as well from the slaves as the free States, regarded as an evil and a curse, soon to become extinct under the operation of laws to be passed prohibiting the slave-trade, and the progressive influ- ence of the principles of the Revolution. Washington, March 3, 1843. John Quincy Adams, Seth M. Gates, William Slade, William B. Calhoun, Joshua R. Giddings, Sherlock J. Andrews, Nathaniel B. Borden, Thos. C. Chittenden, John Mattocks, Christopher Morgan, Joshua M. Howard, Victory Birdseye, Thomas A. Tomlinson, Staley N. Clark, Charles Hudson, Archibald L. Linn, Thomas W. Williams, Truman Smith, David Bronson, George N. Briggs. THE SLAVES OF SLAVERY. HENRY A. WISE. 41 Let Texas once proclaim a crusade against the rich States to the Bouth of her, and in a moment, volunteers would flock to her stand- ard in crowds, from all the States in the great valley of the Missis- sippi — men of enterprise and valor before whom no Mexican troops could stand for an hour. They would leave their own towns, arm themselves, and travel on their own cost, and would come up in thousands, to plant the lone star of the Texan banner, on the Mexi- can capitol. They would drive Santa to the South, and the bound- less wealth of captured towns, and rifled churches, and a lazy, vic- ious and luxurious priesthood, would soon enable Texas to pay her soldiery, and redeem her State debt, and push her victorious arms to the very shores of the Pacific. And would not all this extend the bounds of slavery ? Yes, the result would be, that before another quarter of a century, the extension of slavery would not stop short of the Western Ocean. We had but two alternatives before us; either to receive Texas into our fraternity of States, and thus make her our own, or to leave her to conquer Mexico, and become our most dangerous and formidable rival. " To talk of restraining the people of the great Valley from emi- grating to join her armies, was all in vain ; and it was equally vain to calculate on their defeat by any Mexican forces, aided by Eng- land or not. They had gone once already ; it was they that con- quered Santa Anna, at San Jacinto ; and three fourths of them, af- ter winning that glorious field, had peaceably returned to their homes. But once set before them the conquest of the rich Mexican provin- ces, and you might as well attempt to stop the wind. This Gov- ernment might send its troops to the frontier, to turn them back, and they would run over them like a herd of buffalo. " Nothing could keep these booted loafers from rushing on, till they kicked the Spanish priests out of the temples they profaned." — Speech in Congress, April, 1842. THE EAGLE OF LIBERTY. THE FREE EAGLE OF MEXICO GRAPPLING THE COLD BLOODED VIPER, TYRANNY OR TEXAS. ,/VMffli l^^i^P aaas®^?' io&afiflaiPs&Hs is^vssjiss MmS*!^^ M /•naaw iW^ Ma^ j*AA*S4 «A/^' ^mm^m i^AAaA^ lei^«AfiSiii ife> wH*m P«W^; Aaa.A/V^^ wmmmm twwmwk, ftAfiftAA smffiffi' fttomw nnA^Ai */V^ ^^siinai wimm LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 011 899 519 3