Eng by AH. Ritchie NY

Roby Minchrop. Speaker.

CALHOUN'S SPEECH AGAINST THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO.

(SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, JAN. 4, 1848.)

THE Whig Party hold at present a bet- | opposed the annexation of Texas because

er position than they have ever held; and r the following reasons :

They occupy, as a party, a ground peretly defensible by the usual arguments ↑ morality, such as are common to all ations and ages:

They argue, also, from the Constitution self, and from the Declaration of Equality d Liberty:

of the difficulties it was to bring with it. When those difficulties were realized, they opposed the policy which aggravated them; and always upon moral and constitutional grounds. First, on the common instinct and prejudice against inhumanities and wrongs of every description; and second, because it is their settled conviction that free institutions cannot be maintained by any but a just and equitable policy. They

They are in the van of progress, while e opposite party are falling back upon | believe, with certain politicians, that "suc

e barbarous and exploded notions of tiquity:

They defend our own rights and libers, in defending those of a neighbor :

They endeavor to legislate for the future well as for the present, and foresee dants which threaten the existence of our e institutions :

They have predicted successfully the isequences of the policy pursued by the posite party; their predictions being fairly recorded.

cess is the test of merit," and that this nation will have success in proportion to its deserts. The success of our armies in Mexico has proved that our "merit" in military and other matters is greatly superior to that of the Mexicans; but justice, and not military prowess only, is the safeguard of the nation. Posterity, reading on the one page the history of our wars, will exclaim, "Providence is always on the side of courage and discipline; it favors the strongest battalion:" and on the other, reading of the decline of liberty and the increase of private and public corruption, it will add, "Providence is also on the side of order and equity; it favors the strong constitution, and deserts the uncer

The first of these enumerated advantaof the Whig Party, in its present posi1, need not be dwelt upon in this article. They have opposed the whole policy of the Administration, from the annexation of the war down to the present time. The Whigs | tain and the corrupt." The Americans are a warlike people, and know how to | American people, inferior to any nation

join action with obedience. Where the aim and purpose of a discipline is clear to every man, they organize themselves and pursue the common purpose with the greatest energy: be their aim political or military, organization is their forte, and success follows them. But, on the other hand, separate the American from his laws, his religion, and his Constitution, and who more harsh and inexorable; his native energy, converted into a destroying power, directed against humanity, makes him the most irresistible of pirates and the most unscrupulous of oppressors. He is the only man that dares, in defiance of all the world, proclaim doctrines peculiarly harsh and aggressive, and with his native insolence mock Heaven itself, claim evil for his good, and instinct for his god. Constitutions of the most severe and conservative character are therefore necessary to the American, not only in military but in civil and religious matters; his freedom is conditional, and requires heavy barriers and severe laws; as the force of the impetuous tide that moves in his veins, so must be the laws that restrain it: conscious of this, he is a lover of law, an organizer, and takes a pride in obeying laws of his own enactment.

Fearful of nothing but the excess of his own passions, he is a respecter of sincere opinion, and the consent of great minds; he listens to antiquity, and venerates the voice of age and of wisdom. His favorite characters are those Statesmen, who have risen by the force of a real, God-given energy, to be the repositories, or the sources, of true opinion. He never inquires about their birth, or their office, but only of their ability and native grandeur of character; he does not worship them, he only respects them for what they can do and say: and they, on their part, when they speak, address, not the passions nor the ignorance, but the courage, the knowledge, and reason of their hearers. When they rise to speak, they consider in their minds that they are addressing free citizens, who know and can judge their sentiments, however heroic, and never appeal to the meanness, the conceit or the avarice of a rabble which they despise.

that has ever existed, in referring the principles of our laws and social rights for their validity back to the common conscience and common reason of humanity, to that law which the Creator has planted in the hearts of all men. It is in this original law that we have based our free institutions. We refer back for the grounds of the Constitution or rather for those rights about which it is erected as a convenient barrier to the sovereignty of Reason, or as we are accustomed to name it, the sovereignty of the People. We, the whole people, minority and majority, sustain the government. It protects us all, legislates for us all, and represents us all. Our only differences are on questions of opinion, as to what men shall be chosen, and what measures be pursued-who can best represent the whole, and what are the best modes of benefitting the whole. Hence, under the Constitution, and expected by it, parties arise, sustaining opposite men and measures, each party esteeming its own measures the best for the good of both: the choice is thrown, by our fundamental laws, upon the vote of a majority.

Such at least is the ideal system of our government; but the organization of this system, from various causes, some inherent in our common nature, and some accidental and temporary, is imperfect. At this very moment, a party in power have formed within themselves another party, which is rapidly corrupting the whole body in which it formed: this inner party, being opposed, not to certain measures of their opposites, but to the spirit of the fundamental laws, their men and measures are alike inimical to the fundamental law, giver by the Declaration of Rights and the Constitution of the Union, under which ar parties are supposed to exist.

The intentions and principles of th party within a party-of this rotten com -are sufficiently well known, and have been sufficiently explained by the journals of the Whig Party. That party, as w have already said, occupies a superior pos tion, as the defender not only of the Cou stitution, but of the principles of popul liberty, and of all law and organization whatsoever.

If ever the consent of great minds shou Nor, in another particular, are we, the ❘ be permitted to sway us in a question