man from the new states who desires its repeal, or who has the boldness to avow such desire if he feels it. Instead of limiting the right of the preemptor to one year or two years, I simply propose to perpetuate that right, and this is the measure which the astute gentleman from Louisiana says is unconstitutional. I shall not stop to vindicate the measure from such a charge. The government has full power to dispose of the public lands, and in the exercise of this power, it has from time to time reduced the price, and in many hundred instances given them away.

I ask the honorable gentleman if the act by which five hundred thousand acres of the public lands were given to the state of Louisiana was unconstitutional? Were the various acts giving lands to the states, Louisiana among the rest, for educational purposes, unconstitutional? Did the honorable gentleman violate the Constitution last year, when he voted to give to his own state five millions of the public lands for works of internal improvement? Did we all violate the Constitution the other day, when we voted bounty lands to the soldiers of the last war with Great Britain and all our Indian wars ?

No one knows better than the honorable gentleman, that this government has habitually given away the public lands-given them to the states for internal-improvement purposes; given them to establish colleges and primary schools; given them to railroad and canal companies given them to states and to soulless corporations, for almost every conceivable purpose; and all this has been done within the Constitution; but now, sir, when it is proposed to allow the humble citizen to reside on these lands, the gentleman starts up as though he had just descended from another world, and startles us with a declaration that we are violating the Constitution.

It has pleased the honorable member to denominate this as a villanous measure; and with great emphasis he declares, that its supporters are demagogues. It will not surprise you or others, Mr. Speaker, if I speak warmly in reply to language like this. The gentleman was pleased to extract the poison from his sting, by declaring that he used these words in no offensive sense. In reply, I shall speak plainly, but within the

rules of decorum.

66

Demagoguing,"-" demagoguing," says the honorable gentleman, "for the votes of the low, ill-bred vagrants and vagabonds." Sir, this is strange language, coming from that quarter. I know something of the gentleman's constituents. Many of the best of them are of this despised caste; many of them are the low, ill-bred vagabonds, of which the gentleman has been speaking. Many, very many, of them are squatters on the public lands. Sir, I should like to hear the honorable gentleman making the same speech in one of the upper parishes of Louisiana, which he has this day pronounced in the American Congress. I can well conceive how his honest constituents the squatters, would stare and wonder, to hear a gentleman, so bland and courteous last year, now so harsh and cruel. Yes, sir, the gentleman's squatter constituents would stand aghast to hear the representative denouncing them as a dirty, ill-bred set of vagabonds and scoundrels-when the candidate, with a face all wreathed in his blandest smile, had told them they were the cleverest fellows in the world!

It may do very well, Mr. Speaker, for gentlemen, when they come on to Washington, to get upon stilts and talk after this fashion. It may

sound beautiful in the ears that are here to catch the sound, thus to denounce a measure intended to relieve the poor man's wants as villanous, and its advocates as demagogues. But, sir, I take it upon myself to say there is not a congressional district in the West or Southwest where a candidate for Congress would dare to use such language.

Sir, I know very well how popular electioneering canvasses are conducted, and bold and valiant as the gentleman is, he would scarcely commit the indiscretion of saying to any portion of the voters in his district that they were an ill-bred set of vagabonds, "and if he did, they would hardly commission him to repeat the expression in Congress. Let me warn the gentleman, that if the speech made by him to-day shall ever reach his constituents, it will sound his political death-knell. If I owed the gentleman any ill-will, which I take this occasion to say I do not, it would be my highest hope that he would write out and print that speech just as he delivered it. I should at least have a comfortable assurance that the speech would be the last of its kind.

In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I have to repeat that, notwithstanding the maledictions of the gentleman from Louisiana, I am still for this proposition; and though that gentleman may continue to denounce the squatters on the public lands as a worthless, ill-bred set of vagabonds, I am still their friend. They are honest men, pure patriots, and upright citizens. They are worthy of our care. If the candidate can afford to flatter them for their votes, the representative should not skulk the responsibility of voting to protect their interests. I hold but one language, and it shall be the language of honest sincerity. I would scorn to flatter a poor squatter for his vote in the swamps of Louisiana, and then stand up before the American Congress as his representative, and denounce him as a worthless vagabond.

Sir, if the men are worthless the women are not, and I could appeal to the well-known gallantry of the honorable member to interpose in their behalf. If you will do nothing for the ruder sex, interpose the strong arm of the law to shield the women and children, at least, from the rude grasp of the avaricious speculator. If a man be worthless, let the appeal go up for his wife and little children. Secure them a home, and that wife will make that home her castle. It will shelter her and her little children from the rude blasts of winter, and the rude blows of a wicked world. She will toil there for bread, and with her own hand plant a shrub, perchance a flower. She will make it useful by her industry, and adorn it by her ingenuity. Give it to her, sir, and she will invoke such blessings on your head as a pious woman alone can ask.

I thank the gentleman from Louisiana, not for his speech, but for his courtesy in giving me a part of his time in which to reply.

TEXAS AND NEW MEXICO.

SPEECH IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, AUGUST 8, 1850, ON PRESIDENT FILLMORE'S MESSAGE CONCERNING THE TEXAN BOUNDARY.

MR. BROWN said:-When the President's message was read at the clerk's desk on Wednesday, it struck me as the most extraordinary paper which had ever emanated from an American President. I have since read it carefully, and my first impressions have been strengthened and confirmed.

The document is extraordinary for its bold assumptions; extraordinary for its suppression of historical truth; extraordinary for its warlike tone; and still more extraordinary for its supercilious defiance of southern sentiment.

The President assumes that to be true which covers the whole ground in controversy, and to do this he has been driven to the necessity of suppressing every material fact; and having thus laid the basis of the message, he proceeds to tell us what are the means at his disposal for maintaining his positions; and winds up with a distinct threat, that if there is not implicit obedience to his will, these means will be employed to insure the obedience which he exacts.

Kings and despots have thus talked to their subjects and their slaves, but this is the first instance when the servant of a free people, just tossed by accident into a place of power, has turned upon his masters, and threatened them with fire and sword if they dared to murmur against his imperial will.

The President sits down to address his first important message to Congress, and, as if forgetful of his position, and mistaking this for a military, instead of a civil government, he tells us he is commander-inchief of the army and navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states when called into actual service. He next proceeds to inform us that all necessary legislation has been had to enable him to call this vast military and naval power into action. No further interposition of Congress is asked for or desired. His duties are plain, and his means clear and ample, and we are told with emphasis, that he intends to enforce obedience to his decrees.

A stranger, who knew nothing of our institutions, might well have supposed, from the reading of the message, that the President was a military despot; and to have seen him striding into the House of Representatives with a drawn sword, pointing first to the army, and then to the navy, and then to the militia, one, by a very slight transition, might have supposed himself in the presence of Oliver Cromwell, instead of Millard Fillmore. Why, sir, this redoubtable military hero, who "never set a squadron in the field, nor does the division of a battle know more than a spinster," talks as flippantly to Congress and the people about commanding the army and navy and militia of the United States, as if he were a conquering hero addressing his captives, instead of a civil magistrate making his first obeisance to his superiors.

Am I to be told by the friends of the President, that no threat was

implied in his late insolent and insulting message-that he did not mean to threaten or menace Texas or the South, by the language employed in that paper? Then why inform us that he is commander-in-chief of the naval and military power of the government? Why buckle on his armor? Why present himself here panoplied, as if for war, if his mission was one of peace? Was it necessary for the information of Congress, or of the country, that the President should tell us that he is the constitutional commander-in-chief of the army and navy? Why tell us with so much of precise detail, what laws were in force amplifying his powers under the Constitution, if he did not mean to intimidate us? Why, sir, did he inform us that his duty was plain, and his authority clear and ample, if he did not mean to close the argument, and rely upon the sword? The whole scope and purpose of the message is clear and palpable. It was intended to drive Texas and the South into meek submission to the executive will. Instead of entering into a calm and statesman-like review of the matters in controversy, he leaps at one bound to his conclusions-asserts at once that Texas has no rightful claim to the territory in dispute. He plants his foot, brandishes his sword, and, in true Furioso style, declares that

"Whoso dares his boots displace,

Shall meet Bombastes face to face."

Well, sir, we shall see how successful this display of military power on the part of the illustrious "commander-in-chief of the army and navy" will be in bringing the South to a humiliating surrender.

If there be any one here or elsewhere, Mr. Chairman, who supposes that the President has acted properly in this matter, let me speak to him calmly. Is there an instance on record where a friendly power has gone with arms in his hands to treat with another friendly power? Texas is not only a friendly power, but she is a state of this Union, allied to us by every tie, political, social, and religious, which can bind one people to another. Her chief magistrate has witnessed with pain and sorrow, an attempt on the part of this government to wrest from his state a portion of her territory. He thinks the President may not be cognisant of these transactions. He knows it is being done without authority of law; and what course does he take? He writes to the President a respectful note, informing him, in substance, that an officer of the army, stationed in Santa Fé, had interposed adversely to the authority of Texas, and was fomenting discord, and exciting the inhabitants to rebellion. He made a respectful inquiry, as to whether this officer was acting in obedience to the will or wishes of the President. Now, sir, how was this inquiry answered? Did the President make a respectful answer to a respectful inquiry? No, sir. He goes off in a blaze of military fire; points to his military trappings--" Here is my army, here is my navy, and there is the militia; my mind is made up; I do approve of the conduct of my civil and military governor in Santa Fé; and if you attempt to displace him, or question his authority, war, war, war to the knife, will be the consequence." Such, sir, is my reading of the President's message. Was there ever such a beginning to a friendly negotiation? Suppose Great Britian had sent a military force to take possession of our northeastern territory or of Oregon, and the British officer in command had issued his proclamation calling the

Her

inhabitants together to make and establish a government adverse to the United States, and in total disregard of her claim; suppose that, on seeing this, the President of the United States had addressed a respectful inquiry to the British government, to know if this proceeding was approved; and then, sir, suppose the British Minister had replied, "Her majesty has so many ships of the line, so many war-steamers. military resources are thus and so. She approves of the conduct of her officer in Oregon or in Maine. Her duty is plain, and her means ample for maintaining the authority she has assumed." What, let me ask you, men and patriots, would have been thought of conduct like this? Would the American President have dared to outrage the sentiment of his country by pocketing such an insult, and then proceeding with the negotiation? If he had, is there one man in all this broad land who would not, with his last gasp, have heaped curses and imprecations upon his head? And shall this government force an insult upon Texas, a sister of the confederacy, which she would not and dare not take from any power on God's earth?

I know not what course Texas may think it her duty to take in this emergency. But, sir, if she strike for her honor-if she strike for her altars and her firesides-if she strike for liberty and law, I warn her oppressors that she will not strike alone.

But, Mr. Chairman, I have said that the President has virtually taken this question of the disputed boundary between Texas and the United States out of the hands of Congress, and has assumed, by an executive pronunciamiento, to settle the whole matter adversely to Texas; and I will show that he means this, if he means anything.

As for anything which appears in the message, Texas never had a shadow of claim to any part of the country in dispute. The President is particular in stating that the country was a part of New Mexico prior to the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and recites at full length the fifth, eighth, and ninth articles of that treaty, to show that the country belongs to the United States, and that he is bound to protect it by military power. But he wholly omits to say anything of the grounds on which Texas bases her claim; not one word of her revolutionary rights; nothing of her treaties with Mexico; not a syllable about her boundary as defined in her constitution of 1836; no reference to the negotiations which led to her annexation; nothing of the opinions of his predecessors and their cabinets, recognising the rights of Texas within the boundary as prescribed by her constitution; and lastly, no mention of the crowning act of annexation-the resolutions of March 1, 1845, by which the star of her existence was blotted out and her political institutions buried in those of the United States.

If Mr. Fillmore had thought it worth his while to look into these matters, he would have found his duty not quite so plain, nor the obligation quite so imperative to use the naval and military power of this government to crush Texas, if she dared to assert her rightful claim to the country in dispute.

I commend the history of this transaction to the President and his advisers before they commence hanging the Texans for treason. haps it may be found that Texas acquired some rights by her revolution and by her treaty with Santa Anna. It may turn out that she placed the evidence of her rights on record in the enduring form of a written.