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which encouragement they have improved and flourished beyond example. The South The South has very peculiar interests to preserve, interests already violently assailed and boldly threatened.

"Your Committee are fully persuaded that this protection to her best interests will be afforded by the Annexation of Texas; an equipoise of influence in the halls of Con·gress will be secured, which will furnish us a permanent guarantee of protection."

Mr. Henry A. Wise, of Virginia, of the same political school with Gilmer, in a speech in the House, January 26, 1842, said:

"True, if Iowa be added on the one side, Florida will be added on the other. But there the equation must stop. Let one more Northern State be admitted, and the equilibrium is gone -gone forever. The balance of interests is gone-the safeguard of American property of the American Constitution of the American Union, vanished into thin air. This must be the inevitable result, unless, by a treaty with Mexico, the South can add more weight to her end of the lever. Let the South stop at the Sabine, while the North may spread unchecked beyond the Rocky Mountains, and the Southern scale must kick the beam."

The letter of Mr. Gilmer, when printed, was, by Mr. Aaron V. Brown, a Democratic member of Congress from Tennessee, inclosed in a letter to Gen. Jackson, asking the General's opinion thereon. That request promptly elicited the following

response:

"HERMITAGE, February 13, 1843. "MY DEAR SIR:-Yours of the 23d ultimo has been received, and with it The Madisonian, containing Gov. Gilmer's letter on the subject of the annexation of Texas to the United States.

"You are not mistaken in supposing that I have formed an opinion on this interesting subject. It occupied much of my time during my Presidency, and, I am sure, has lost none of its importance by what has since transpired.

"Soon after my election in 1829, it was made known to me by Mr. Erwin, formerly our minister to the Court of Madrid, that, whilst at that Court, he had laid the foundation of a treaty with Spain for the cession

of the Floridas and the settlement of the boundary of Louisiana, fixing the western limit of the latter at the Rio Grande, agreeably to the understanding of France; that he had written home to our Government for powers to complete and sign this negotiation; but that, instead of receiving such authority, the negotiation was taken out of his hands and transferred to Washington, and a new treaty was there concluded by which the Sabine, and not the Rio Grande, was recognized and established as the boundary of Louisiana.

Finding that these statements were true, and that our Government did really give up that important territory, when it was at its option to retain it, I was filled with astonishment. The right of the territory was obtained from France; Spain stood ready to acknowledge it to the Rio Grande; and yet the authority asked by our Minister to insert the true boundary was not only withheld, but, in lieu of it, a limit was adopted which stripped us of the whole of the vast country lying between the two rivers.

"On such a subject, I thought, with the ancient Romans, that it was right never to cede any land or boundary of the republic, but always to add to it by honorable treaty, thus extending the area of freedom; and it was in accordance with this feeling that I gave our Minister to Mexico instructions to enter upon a negotiation for the retrocession of Texas to the United States.

"This negotiation failed; and I shall ever regret it as a misfortune both to Mexico and the United States. Mr. Gilmer's letter presents many of the considerations which, in my judgment, rendered the step necessary to the peace and harmony of the two countries strongly impelled me to the course I pursued, but the point in it, at that time, which most was the injustice done to us by the surrender could have been retained, without increasing of the territory, when it was obvious that it

the consideration afterward given for the Floridas. I could not but feel that the surrender of so vast and important a territory was attributable to an erroneous estimate of the tendency of our institutions, in which there was mingled somewhat of jealousy as to the rising greatness of the South and West.

But I forbear to dwell on this part of the history of this question. It is past, and cannot now be undone. We can now only look at it as one of annexation, if Texas presents it to us; and, if she does, I do not hesitate to say that the welfare and happiness of our Union require that it should be accepted.

"If, in a military point of view alone, the question be examined, it will be found to be most important to the United States to be in possession of the territory.

PROTEST FROM CONGRESS AGAINST ANNEXATION.

“Great Britain has already made treaties with Texas; and we know that far-seeing nation never omits a circumstance, in her cxtensive intercourse with the world, which can be turned to account in increasing her military resources. May she not enter into an alliance with Texas? and, reserving, as she doubtless will, the North-Western Boundary question as the cause of war with us whenever she chooses to declare it, let us suppose that, as an ally with Texas, we are to fight her! Preparatory to such a movement, she sends her 20,000 or 30,000 men to Texas; organizes them on the Sabine, where supplies and arms can be concentrated before we have even notice of her intentions; makes a lodgment on the Mississippi; excites the negroes to insurrection; the lower country falls, and with it New Orleans; and a

servile war rages through the whole South

and West.

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"In the mean time, she is also moving an army along the western frontier from Canada, which, in cooperation with the army from Texas, spreads ruin and havoc from

the Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico.

"Who can estimate the national loss we

may sustain, before such a movement could be repelled with such forces as we could organize on short notice?

"Remember that Texas borders upon us, on our west to 42° of north latitude, and is our southern boundary to the Pacific. Remember also, that, if annexed to the United

States, our Western boundary would be the Rio Grande, which is of itself a fortification, on account of its extensive, barren, and uninhabitable plains. With such a barrier on our west, we are invincible. The whole European world could not, in combination against us, make an impression on our Union. Our population on the Pacific would rapidly increase, and soon be strong enough for the protection of our eastern whalers, and, in the worst event, could always be sustained by timely aids from the intermediate country.

"From the Rio Grande, overland, a large army could not march, or be supplied, unless from the Gulf by water, which, by vigilance, could always be intercepted; and to march an army near the Gulf, they could be harassed by militia, and detained until an organ

ized force could be raised to meet them.

“But I am in danger of running into unnecessary details, which my debility will not enable me to close. The question is full of interest also as it affects our domestic relations, and as it may bear upon those of Mexico to us. I will not undertake to follow it out to its consequences in those respects; though I must say that, in all aspects, the annexation of Texas to the United States promises to enlarge the circle of free insti

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tutions, and is essential to the United States, particularly as lessening the probabilities of future collision with foreign powers, and giving them greater efficiency in spreading the blessings of peace.

"I return you my thanks for your kind letter on this subject, and subscribe myself, with great sincerity, your friend and obedient servant, ANDREW JACKSON.

"Hon. A. V. BROWN."

This letter was secretly circulated, but carefully withheld from the press for a full year, and finally appeared in The Richmond Enquirer, with its date altered from 1843 to 1844, as if it had been written in immediate support of the Tyler-Calhoun nego

tiation.

Col. Benton, in his "Thirty Years' View," directly charges that the letter was drawn from Gen. Jackson expressly to be used to defeat Mr. Van Buren's nomination, and secure, if possible, that of Mr. Calhoun instead; and it doubtless exerted a strong influence adverse to the former, although Gen. Jackson was among his most unflinching supporters to the last.

Mr. John Quincy Adams had united with Mr. William Slade, Joshua R. Giddings, and ten other anti-Slavery Whig members of the XXVIIth Congress (March 3, 1843), in a stirring address to the people of the Free States, warning them against the Annexation intrigue, as by no means abandoned, but still energetically, though secretly, prosecuted. In that address, they recited such of the foregoing facts as were then known to them, saying:

"We, the undersigned, in closing our duties to our constituents and our country as members of the Twenty-Seventh Congress, feel bound to call your attention, very briefly, to the project, long entertained by a portion of the people of these United States, still pertinaciously adhered to, and intended soon to be

consummated: The Annexation of Texas to this Union. In the press of business incident to the last days of a session of Congress, we have not time, did we deem it necessary, to enter upon a detailed statement of the reasons which force upon our minds the conviction that this project is by no means abandoned; that a large portion of the country, interested in the continuance of Domestic Slavery and the Slave-Trade in these United States, have solemnly and unalterably determined that it shall be speedily carried into execution; and that, by this admission of new Slave territory and Slave States, the undue ascendency of the Slaveholding Power in the Government shall be secured and riveted beyond all redemption.

"That it was with these views and intentions that settlements were effected in the province, by citizens of the United States, difficulties fomented with the Mexican Government, a revolt brought about, and an independent government declared, cannot now admit of a doubt; and that, hitherto, all attempts of Mexico to reduce her revolted province to obedience have proved unsuccessful, is to be attributed to the unlawful aid and assistance of designing and interested individuals in the United States; and the direct and indirect coöperation of our own Government, with similar views, is not the less certain and demonstrable.

"The open and repeated 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 for the fate of the insurgents, under pretense of preventing Mexican soldiers from fomenting Indian disturbances, but in reality in aid of, and acting in singular concert and coincidence with, the army of the Revolutionists; 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 freebooters and insurgents; and the premature recognition of the Independence 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 contrary 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 recognition of their independence with the avowed purpose |

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"The open avowal of the Texans themselves selves the frequent and anxious negotiations of our own Government-the resolutions of various States of the Union — the numerous declarations of members of Congress-the tone of the Southern press-as well as the direct application of the Texan Government-make it impossible for any man to doubt that Annexation, and the formation of several new Slaveholding States, were originally the policy and design of the Slaveholding States and the Executive of the Nation.

"The same references will show very conclusively that the particular objects of this new acquisition of Slave territory were the perpetuation of Slavery and the continued ascendency 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 constitutional 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 Union 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, would 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 institution and a power of a nature so unjust in themselves, so injurious to 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 dissolution of 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 subtle contrivance for the irremediable perpetuation of an institution, which the wisest and best men who formed our Federal Constitution, as well from the Slave 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 influence of the principles of the Revolution.

To prevent the success of this nefarious project-to preserve from such gross viola

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