I would move to postpone the further consideration of this bill to the next Congress, but that I do not wish to be voted down. I will therefore simply throw out the suggestion, that it will be for the advantage both of the government and the people that it should be so postponed.

THE MEXICAN WAR.*

MR. PRESIDENT, If my health had been better, and more time had remained to us, it was my purpose to address the Senate on the bill before us, and also on several topics with which it is connected. This purpose, under existing circumstances, I must necessarily forego. The true origin of the war with Mexico, and the motives and purposes for which it was originally commenced, however ably discussed already, are subjects not yet exhausted. I have been particularly desirous of examining them. I am greatly deceived, Mr. President, if we shall not ere long see facts coming to the light, and circumstances found coinciding and concurring, which will fix on the executive government a more definite and distinct purpose, intended to be effected by the coöperation of others, in bringing on hostilities with Mexico, than has as yet been clearly developed or fully understood.

At present, I should hardly have risen but to lay before the Senate the resolutions of the House of Representatives of Massachusetts, adopted on Thursday last. We have a great deal of commentary and criticism on State resolutions brought here. Those of Michigan particularly have been very sharply and narrowly looked into, to see whether they really mean what they seem to meán. These resolutions of Massachusetts, I hope, are sufficiently distinct and decided. They admit of neither doubt nor cavil, even if doubt or cavil were permissible in such a case. What the legislature of Massachusetts thinks, it has said,

* Remarks in the Senate of the United States, on the 1st of March, 1847, on the Bill commonly called the "Three Million Bill," by which that sum of money was appropriated for the purpose of discharging any extraordinary expenses which might be incurred in bringing the war to a conclusion.

and said plainly and directly. Mr. President, I have not, before any tribunal, tried my ingenuity at what the lawyers call a special demurrer for many years; and I never tried it here in the Senate. In the business of legislation, and especially in considering State resolutions and the proceedings of public assemblies, it is our duty, of course, to understand every thing according to the common meaning of the words used. Of all occasions, these are the last in which one should stick in the bark, or seek for loopholes, or means of escape; or, in the language of an eminent judge of former times, "hitch and hang on pins and particles." We must take the substance fairly, and as it is, and not hesitate about forms and phrases. When public bodies address us, whether we comply with their wishes or not, we are at least bound to understand them as they mean to be understood; to seek for no subterfuges, and to rely on no far-fetched and subtile difficulties or exceptions. All such attempts will be justly regarded only as so many contrivances resorted to in order to get rid of the responsibility of meeting the public voice directly and manfully, and looking our constituents boldly in the face.

Sir, we are in the midst of a war, not waged at home in defence of our soil, but waged a thousand miles off, and in the heart of the territories of another government. Of that war no one yet sees the end, and no one counts the cost.

It is not de

nied that this war is now prosecuted for the acquisition of territory; at least, if any deny it, others admit it, and all know it to be true.

Under these circumstances, and plainly seeing this purpose to exist, seven or eight of the free States, comprising some of the largest, have remonstrated against the prosecution of the war for such a purpose, in language suited to express their meaning. These remonstrances come here with the distinct and precise object of dissuading us from the further prosecution of the war, for the acquisition of territory by conquest. Before territory is actually obtained, and its future character fixed, they beseech us to give up an object so full of danger. One and all, they protest against the extension of slave territory; one and all, they regard it as the solemn duty of the representatives of the free States to take security, in advance, that no more slave States shall be added to the Union. They demand of us this pledge,

this assurance, before the purchase-money is paid, or the bargain concluded. And yet, Mr. President, ingenuity has been taxed to its utmost; criticisms both deep and shallow, and hypercriticisms quite incomprehensible, have all been resorted to, in the hope of showing that we do not understand the people; that their resolutions are not what they seem to be; that they do not require any immediate movement or present opposition; that they only look to some distant future, some emergencies yet to arise; that they only refer to a disposition in regard to territory, after it shall have been acquired and settled; and in one instance, I think, it was said that it did not appear that any thing was required of us for fifty years to come.

Mr. President, I understand all these things very differently. Such is not the voice of the free States, and of other States, as I receive it. Their trumpet gives forth no uncertain sound. Its tones are clear and distinct. I understand that a loud and imperative call is made upon us to act now; to take securities now; to make it certain, now, that no more slave States shall ever be added to this Union.

I will read, Sir, the Massachusetts resolutions:

"Resolved unanimously, That the legislature of Massachusetts views the existence of human slavery within the limits of the United States as a great calamity, an immense moral and political evil, which ought to · be abolished as soon as that end can be properly and constitutionally attained; and that its extension should be uniformly and earnestly opposed by all good and patriotic men throughout the Union.

"Resolved unanimously, That the people of Massachusetts will strenuously resist the annexation of any new territory to this Union, in which the institution of slavery is to be tolerated or established; and the legislature, in behalf of the people of this Commonwealth, do hereby solemnly protest against the acquisition of any additional territory, without an express provision by Congress that there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in such territory, otherwise than for the punishment of crime."

Sir, is there any possibility of misunderstanding this? Is there any escape from the meaning of this language? And yet they are hardly more explicit than the resolutions of other legislatures, Michigan, New York, Vermont, and all the rest.

The House of Representatives of Massachusetts is, I believe, the most numerous legislative body in the country. On this

occasion it was not full; but among those present there was an entire unanimity. For the resolutions there were two hundred and thirty-two votes; against them, none. Not one man stood up to justify the war upon such grounds as those upon which it has been, from day to day, defended here. Massachusetts, without one dissenting voice, and I thank her for it, and am proud of her for it, has denounced the whole object for which our armies are now traversing the plains of Mexico, or about to plunge into the pestilence of her coasts. The people of Massachusetts are as unanimous as the members of their legislature, and so are her representatives here. I have heard no man in the State, in public or in private life, express a different opinion. If any thing is certain, it is certain that the sentiment of the whole. North is utterly opposed to the acquisition of territory, to be formed into new slave-holding States, and, as such, admitted into the Union.

*

But here, Sir, I cannot but pause. I am arrested by occurrences of this night, which, I confess, fill me with alarm. They are ominous, portentous. Votes which have been just passed by majorities here cannot fail to awaken public attention. Every patriotic American, every man who wishes to preserve the Constitution, ought to ponder them well. I heard, Sir, the honorable member from New York, and with a great part of his remarks I agreed; I thought they must lead to some useful result. But then what does he come to, after all? He is for acquiring territory under the Wilmot Proviso; but, at any rate, he is for acquiring territory. He will not vote against all territory to form new States, though he is willing to say they ought not to be slave States. Other gentlemen of his party from the Northern and Eastern States vote in the same way, and with the same view. This is called "the policy of the Northern Democracy." I so denominate the party only because it so denominates itself. A gentleman from South Carolina,† if I understood him rightly, said he wanted no new territory; all he desired was equality, and no exclusion; he wished the South to be saved from any thing derogatory; and yet he does not vote against the acquisition of territory. Nor do other Senators from Southern States. They are therefore, in general, in favor

* Mr. Dix.

† Mr. Butler.