1829. TEXAS WANTED. 543 to the mountains separating the waters of the Rio Grande from those flowing eastward to the Gulf, and along the mountains to the forty-second degree of north latitude, Mr. Poinsett might offer five million dollars. Should Mexico refuse to part with so much territory, he was to propose the west bank of the Rio de la Baca from mouth to source, a due north line to the Colorado, the west bank of the Colorado to its source, and a line around the head waters of the Arkansas and the Red rivers to the parallel of forty-two degrees. In lieu of this he might offer a third line along the west bank of the Colorado from its mouth to the source of its largest tributary, and thence around the head waters of the Arkansas and the Red rivers as before. Finally, could nothing else be had, he might accept the west bank of the Rio Brassos de Dios from its mouth to the source of its most westerly branch, and then to the parallel of forty-two degrees. The amount to be paid in each case should be proportionate to the area ceded, taking five millions as the maximum. The plan to buy Texas, or a part of it, having thus been started, the next step was to prepare the people for the cession, should one be made. With this in view, essays on the subject appeared suddenly and simultaneously in the leading Jackson newspapers in different parts of the country. Some writers were content with a single article. Others, as Benton, supplied a series.* One of the earliest of these papers, and it may be taken as a sample of the many, began with a long description of the physical geography, climate, soil, and productions of Texas; drew a parallel between that country and Louisiana, told of the mines, the river system, the wild animals, the population, and boldly declared that a land so highly favored ought to belong to the United States: First, because the Mexican Government was financially embarrassed, her navy gone, her army diminished, her people so ripe for revolution that she would now be more likely to listen to a proposition to part with Texas than in better times; and, in the second place, because the safety * Americanus in the St. Louis Beacon and in the Richmond Enquirer. of Arkansas and Louisiana required that our boundary should be moved farther west. With Texas in the hands of its present owners a foreign power could easily effect a landing in some of its many bays, take possession of some point on the Mississippi, and cut off Louisiana before assistance could arrive. Acquisition was necessary for economic reasons to prevent the country becoming what Florida once was a place of refuge for debtors, malefactors, and fugitive slaves from the United States; and for prudential reasons-in order to prevent Texas becoming British soil. The Republic of Mexico was on the brink of ruin. Her navy was broken up, recruiting had ceased, her officers and soldiers had long been on quarter pay, and the treasury so bankrupt and the people so miserably poor that she was utterly unable to pay the interest on her debt to Great Britain. Might not that grasping nation take Texas in satisfaction of the debt? We had already manifested our policy toward Cuba, and declared that it should not change hands. Ought we not to do the same for Texas, which touched our borders? It was necessary as an outlet for our negroes in the Southern States. Humanity shuddered at the thought of what must one day be the consequence of the great and increasing disproportion of whites and blacks in Louisiana. By the ordinary process of increase the negroes must in time become too numerous for safety. What, then, was to be done with them? By annexation we could secure our western possessions, get a more natural boundary, and open a new field of usefulness to the enterprising a field into which thousands of our fellow-citizens had already entered.* "We hazard very little," said another Administration paper, “in asserting that when the facts come out this Administration will be found vigilant in watching over the southwest border of our country. We have so much confidence in the sagacity and good sense which now presides over the Government that we shall not be surprised to see from the public documents that prompt attention has been paid to the situation in Mexico. We know that the invasion * Nashville Republican and Gazette, August 18, 1829. 1829. REASONS FOR BUYING TEXAS. 545 of that Republic has attracted the attention of Great Britain. Has our own Government been less on the alert? The statesmen at the head of our affairs are not the men we take them to be if they had not already prepared the way for obtaining a cession of Texas, long before the able numbers of Americanus saw the light."* A like opinion was expressed by an opposition journal. We have remarked, said the editor, that for some weeks past essays have appeared in the journals in different parts of the country strongly advocating the purchase of Texas. These articles, simultaneously promulgated, betoken a common purpose, if not a common origin, and their zeal a settled determination.+ The arguments of those who urged annexation may be briefly stated. The acquisition of Texas, they would say, relinquished by the Government of the United States to the magnanimous Ferdinand VII by the Florida treaty of 1819, is now a subject of much interest to the Western States. This large fragment of the Mississippi Valley, affording sufficient room for four or five slave-holding States, was unceremoniously sacrificed, with scarcely a pretext, to a demand for it on the part of Spain. The time of the negotiation was during the heat of the debate on the Missouri question, the place was Washington, and the negotiator was John Quincy Adams, the friend and associate of the most thoroughgoing restrictionists. "Americanus " Americanus" exposes the evils of the surrender of this territory under twelve heads. Two of thesc, of particular interest to the South, are that it brings a non slave-holding empire in juxtaposition with the slaveholding Southwest, and lessens the outlet for the Indians inhabiting Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee. But this valuable territory has since 1819 devolved on Mexico, and because of the condition of that country, suffering under invasion and civil war, and with scanty finances, it is now believed a retrocession of Texas might be obtained for a reasonable sum. Great confidence is expressed that the * Richmond Enquirer, September 12, 1829. + National Intelligencer, September 12, 1829. Administration will embrace the present favorable occasion for regaining an extensive and fertile region within the natural limits of the United States.* Some of its best soil is washed by rivers that flow into the Mississippi. There is no hill, mountain, or desert between us and Texas to form a good natural barrier. Repeated revolutions in Mexico make good order and stable government in Texas out of the question, and has already turned that province into a place of refuge for unclean birds of every sort-runaway slaves, fugitives from justice, debtors fleeing from their creditors, and men who respect no government and know no law. Texas is like an abandoned ship at sea-the prize of any captor, and the captors are ready. Spain has begun anew her attempts at reconquest. Great Britain is by no means a disinterested spectator. Mexico owes her a great debt. She bears us no good will, and would gladly set bounds to us on the southwest by acquiring Texas. Already wild stories are afloat to arouse her people. They are told that, excited by the invasion of Mexico by Spain, we are to loan the Republic fifty million dollars, and take Texas and California as security for a term of years. Should the money not then be paid, both provinces will be ours forever; * that it is against the welfare of Great Britain to allow this to come about; that while she checks the power of Russia she must not forget to stop the aggrandizement of the United States. With the Rio Grande as our boundary-and Heaven seems to rule it shall be-the whole valley of the noblest of rivers would be ours, and a vast stream, with a desert as barren as the sands of Sahara a hundred miles wide on each side of it, would separate us from Mexico.^ # The Custom-House of New Orleans has paid the purchase money of Louisiana. If there is any man in the Union who has felt himself straitened in his private affairs in consequence of this payment, let him proclaim his name, and he shall have redress-but there is not one. The customs of * Edgefield Carolinian. Nashville Banner. # London Gazette, August 18, 1829. Δ New York Courier and Enquirer. A National Intelligencer, October 1, 1829. 1829. ISSUES OF THE DAY. 547 Texas would do the same thing. The Mexicans, steeped to the lips in poverty, threatened with a powerful invasion by the mother country, will part with this property or anything else for the sake of money. Now is the time and this is the hour to strike for our country's weal. Commercial men, every way qualified to form an estimate and give an opinion, have said that Texas, in the hands of the British, would be of as much importance to them as the island of Jamaica. Let us for a moment imagine this delightful region in the hands of that proud and overbearing nation, flinging bones of discord to the two sister Republics, and then imagine, if you can, the deep-toned imprecations that would pervade this nation from Maine to the Sabine, from the sources of the Missouri to the mouth of the Chesapeake! To all this the opponents of expansion replied: Our country is large enough; beware lest it become so bulky that it fall to pieces of its own weight.* In a Republic such as ours all the members should be firmly united, but each extension of territory tends to destroy this union and weaken the administration of government. Monarchs and despots may rule widely spread countries, but not presidents. The Northern States must preserve what little influence they still have in the affairs of the country. But expansion in the South will surely utterly destroy the weight of the North. Even now the South believes her interests are opposed to those of the Eastern and Middle States, and because it cannot rule the nation threatens secession.† The great and unjust preponderance of the slave States in our union may well cause the people of the free States to pause and consider the effects of the addition of half a dozen more slave-holding States bound together by one common bond of peril, profit, and power. We cannot longer disguise the fact that the advocates of slavery are determined to get Texas for the sole purpose of adding five or six more slave States to this Union.# * Virginia Free Press; also Newark Sentinel. + Rhode Island Journal. New York American. # Genius of Universal Emancipation, September 16, 1829. |