of this "Northern Democracy," and in this "Liberty Party" too, probably, are those, at this moment, who profess themselves ready to meet all the consequences, to stand the chance of all convulsions, to see the fountains of the great deep broken up, rather than that new slave States should be added to the Union; but who, nevertheless, will not join with us in a declaration against new States of any character, thereby shutting the door for ever against the further admission of slavery.

Here, Sir, is a chapter of political inconsistency which demands the consideration of the country, and is not unlikely to attract the attention of the age. If it be any thing but party attachment, carried, recklessly, to every extent, and party antipathy maddened into insanity, I know not how to describe it.

Sir, I fear we are not yet arrived at the beginning of the end. I pretend to see but little of the future, and that little affords no gratification. All I can scan is contention, strife, and agitation. Before we obtain a perfect right to conquered territory, there must be a cession. A cession can only be made by treaty. No treaty can pass the Senate, till the Constitution is overthrown, without the consent of two thirds of its members. Now who can shut his eyes to the great probability of a successful resistance to any treaty of cession, from one quarter of the Senate or another? Will the North consent to a treaty bringing in territory subject to slavery? Will the South consent to a treaty bringing in territory from which slavery is excluded? Sir, the future is full of difficulties and full of dangers. We are suffering to pass the golden opportunity for securing harmony and the stability of the Constitution. We appear to me to be rushing upon perils headlong, and with our eyes wide open. But I put my trust in Providence, and in that good sense and patriotism of the people, which will yet, I hope, be awakened before it is too late.

THE TEN REGIMENT BILL.*

ALTHOUGH laboring under deep depression,† I still feel it my duty, at as early a moment as I may be able, to address the Senate upon the state of the country, and on the further prosecution of the war. I have listened, Sir, silently, but attentively, to the discussion which has taken place upon this bill, and upon other connected subjects; and it is not my purpose to enter into the historical narrative, or the historical argument which has accompanied its discussion, on the one side or on the other. New events have arisen, bringing new questions; and since the resumption of the discussion upon this measure, two or three days ago, these events have been alluded to, first by the honorable Senator who conducts this bill through the Senate, and again by the Senator before me from South Carolina. By both these honorable members these events have been declared to be well known to all the world, and by one of them ‡ it was remarked that there need be no affectation of mystery. Since these state. ments were made, I have heard the gentleman from South Carolina § express his views on the question. I have heard him on various and momentous subjects, on many interesting occasions, and I desire to say, Sir, that I never heard him with more unqualified concurrence in every word he uttered. The topics which he discussed were presented, it appears to me, in their just light, and he sustained his views in regard to them with that

Remarks in the Senate of the United States, on the 17th of March, 1848, on the Bill to raise for a limited time an additional Military Force, commonly called the "Ten Regiment Bill."

† Intelligence had lately been received of the death, in Mexico, of Major Edward Webster, an officer in the Massachusetts Regiment of Volunteers.

Mr. Cass.

Mr. Calhoun.

clearness and power of argument which always characterize his efforts in debate. I thank him.

I thank him especially for the manly stand he took upon one point, which has not been so much discussed here as others; I mean the plain, absolute unconstitutionality and illegality of the attempt of the executive to enact laws by executive authority in conquered territories out of the United States. Sir, whether the power exists in the President or not may be inferred by answering another question, Does he wear a crown? That is the only question. If he wears a crown, if he is the king of the country, if we are his subjects, and they who are conquered by the arms of the country become his subjects also and owe him allegiance, why, then, according to well-established principles, until the interference of the legislature, but no longer even then, he may conquer, he may govern, he may impose laws, he may lay taxes, he may assess duties. The king of England has done it, in various cases, from the conquest of Wales and Ireland down to the conquest of the West India Islands, in the war of 1756, and in the wars growing out of the French Revolution. The king of England has done it; done it by royal prerogative; done it in the government of his own subjects, existing in or inhabiting territories not under the protection of English law, but governed by him until Parliament puts them under that protection.

Now, Sir, there was laid before us, at the commencement of the session, a system of legislation for Mexico as for a conquered country. Let us not confound ideas that are in themselves separable and necessarily distinct. It is not the question, whether he who is in an enemy's country at the head of an army may not supply his daily wants; whether he may not, if he choose so to conduct the war, seize the granaries and the herds of the enemy in whose country he is. That is one thing; but the question is here, whether, sitting in the Presidential house, by an act of mere authority, when the country is conquered and subdued, the President of the United States may, by, and of, and through his own power, establish in Mexico a system of civil law. We have read, Sir, and some of us have not forgotten it, in books of authority treating of the law of nations, that, when a country is conquered or ceded, its existing laws are not changed till the competent authority of the conquering power

changes them. That I hold to be the universal doctrine of public law. Well, here is a system of levying taxes, repealing old laws, and making new ones, and a system behind that, of which I read with pain and mortification; for I find in this communication of the Secretary, sanctioned by the President, that our brave troops (as they are always called, ten times in ev ery page) were directed to lay hold on all the little municipal treasures, all the little collections for social purposes, that supported the interior, the municipal, what we should call the parish concerns of Mexico! they were directed to seize them all! The War Department issued orders to chase the government of Mexico like a partridge on the mountain, from place to place, to give it no rest for the sole of its foot; and another order issued from the Treasury Department at the same time directed this seizure of all these small and petty sums of public money. I am obliged, therefore, to the gentleman from South Carolina, for having brought this subject to the attention of the Senate.

I am happy in having an opportunity of expressing my repugnance to all the doctrine and all the practice. Where will it lead to? What does the President do with this money? Why, he supports the army! But this money never passes under any appropriation of law. The Constitution of the United States says that the executive power shall have no appropriations for military purposes for more than two years. But here there is a standing appropriation, put at the disposal and discretion of the President of the United States, of all the money he can collect by this system of personal executive legislation over seven millions of people, and that under the Constitution of the United States! If the statement of this case does not attract the attention of the community, in short, if the question is not argued before an American Senate when it is stated, it is beyond my power to illustrate it by any further argument.

Sir, while I rejoice that the honorable member from South Carolina has done so important a service as to put this question in a proper and clear light before the community and the Senate; and while I agree, as I have said, in all that he has uttered on the topics which he has treated; that topic which weighs upon my mind and my conscience more than all the rest is one which he did not treat, and in regard to which I fear I may not expect (would to God that I might!) his

concurrence, and the strength of his arm; I mean the object, plain and manifest, original in the inception of this war, not always avowed, but always the real object; the creation of new States on the southern border of the United States, to be formed out of the territory of Mexico, and the people inhabiting that territory. If, after a service of thirty years in these councils, he could have taken a lead; if his convictions of duty, I mean to say, could have allowed him to take a lead and make a stand for the integrity of the United States, even with these large recent accessions, which I am willing to consider as brotherly accessions that I have no disposition to reject, discourage, or discountenance, in the existing circumstances of the case; if, I say, Sir, at the end of our common service, now for thirty years, the honorable member could have seen his line of duty to lie in such a direction that he could take a stand for the integrity of the United States, these United States into whose service he and I entered in early life, with warm and equally warm patriotic affections, the love of a known country, a defined country, an American country; if he had found it consistent with his duty to take such a stand, and I had perished in supporting him in it, I should feel that I had perished in a service eminently connected with the prosperity and true honor of the country.

Mr. President, I am obliged to my friend from Georgia* for having taken that view of some topics in this case, with his usual clearness and ability, which will relieve me from the necessity of discussing those subjects which he has treated. I feel, Sir, the great embarrassment which surrounds me, brought about by those events which have taken place and been adverted to in the Senate. It has been stated by the gentleman already alluded to,† that the whole world knows that a treaty has come hither from Mexico, that it has been acted upon here, and is sent back; that a member of this body, occupying an eminent position in its deliberations and conduct, has been sent out as a minister, with full powers to make explanations; of course, not explanations of what was done in Mexico, but explanations of what has been done here. There has been such a paper here. I allude to none of its particulars, although, fol† Mr. Cass.

VOL. V.

* Mr. Berrien.

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