rejection was, that Mexico not having yet acknowledged the independence of Texas, it would be a violation of our treaty of amity and peace with that pow. er to receive Texas into the Union. It is at least a question, whether the United States has not a claim to Texas paramount to any to which Mexico can pretend. It may also be questioned, whether the terms on which Texas united with the Mexican Republic, and formed a Department of it, did not entitle her of right to withdraw whenever she saw proper. Be that as it may, she has in fact dissolved the connexion, and has been recognized as an Independent Power, by the United States, England, France, Belgium, and Holland. A jury of nations has pronounced a divorce, and Mexico has abstained for eight years from attempting to revive the union by the ordinary means of force of arms. Her claims cannot now be regarded as anything short of frivolous. That the political sensibility of the United States should now hang a point of honor on these claims, and thereby throw away an empire, must appear to all the world extremely romantic, if not ridiculous. While Russia is by incessant war extending her overgrown dominion into the rugged steppes of Tartary; while France sheds torrents of blood, and spends millions of treasure, to conquer a foothold on a sterile coast of Africa, and, stretching across two oceans, opens her batteries on the female sovereign of a petty island at the antipodes, to establish her supremacy there; and while England with rapacious hand despoils Eastern princes of province after province, and even condescends to accept a kingdom on the Musquito shore, as a legacy from a barbarian chief; that the United States should, from mere delicacy, refuse a proffered territory of three hundred thousand square miles, embracing the most fertile soil on the globe, and peopled by her own children, cannot be otherwise regarded than as absolutely Quixotic. Europe, while rejoicing at such an unexpected event, is so utterly incapable of appreciaiing these subli. mated notions of national faith, as not to hesitate to ascribe it solely to the influence of party spirit, and note it as a fresh evidence of the instability of our institutions. That party spirit may have had some influence in the rejection of this treaty, is probable. But the main, and most powerful reason, undoubtedly was the deadly animosity of a portion of this Union to our domestic slavery and the fear of extending and perpetuating it. This reason has been openly avowed by nearly the whole press of the non-slaveholding States; by their public lecturers, by their most distinguished orators, and by the Legislatures of several States--particularly that of Massachusetts-whose resolutions I transmit you, in which is strongly intimated the expediency of dissolving the Union of these States, on this very ground, if Texas is annexed.

Scarcely any circumstance could have furnished so striking a proof of the deep-seated hostility of every portion, and almost every individual, of the North, to our system of Slavery, and their fixed determination to eradicate it, if possible, as the rejection of this treaty, and the arguments by which they justify it. In every point of view, save one, the acquisition of Texas was of more consequence to the North than to the South. To them it gave an increase of commerce; a fresh market for their manufactures; another vent for population; new subjects on whom to levy tribute. To us, security, only; and security at an immense sacrifice in the value of our lands and of our staples. But the pride of increased dominion, the thirst of wealth; ambition, and avarice-long supposed to be the two strongest passions of our nature-have sunk before their fanatical zeal to uproot an institution with which is linked forever, and inseparably, the welfare, and almost the existence, of five millions of their fellow-citizens.

Nor is the refusal to ratify this treaty, so vitally important to the South, the only extraordinary proof which the past year has furnished, of the exube. rant and rancorous hostility of the North to our domestic slavery. At a meeting in May last, of the General Conference of the Methodist denomina. tion, whose ecclesiastical constitution and government bear, in some respects, a striking resemblance to the political Constitution and Government of this Confederacy, a pious Bishop of the South was virtually deposed from his sacred office, because he was a slaveholder. It was openly and distinctly sta ted, that the Methodist congregations in the non-slaveholding States, embracing a much larger proportion of the masses than any others, would no longer tolerate a slave-holder in their pulpits; a fact which has been since exemplified. With becoming spirit, the patriotic Methodists of the South dissolved all connexion with their brethren of the North. And for this they are enti tled to lasting honor and gratitude from us. Other instances might be cited, not so striking, but equally decisive of the fact, that the abolition phrenzy is no longer confined to a few restless and daring spirits, but has seized the whole body of the people in the non-slaveholding States, and is rapidly superseding all other excitements, and trampling on all other interests. It has even been thought that the organized Abolition vote might decide the pending Presidential election; and both parties at the North have been charged with endeavoring to conciliate it for their candidate. While England, encour aged by these movements, and exasperated by our Tariff laws, is making avowed war on us, that she may strike a blow at those who are more our enemies than her's.

Though all these efforts may fail to coerce Congress to pass an Act of Emancipation, and can hardly succeed in organizing an extensive insurrection among our slaves, it cannot be disguised that they are doing mischief here, and may soon effect irreparable injury. They must be arrested. It is indispensably necessary that they should be arrested in the shortest possible period of time. The question is, How is this to be done? Argument and re. monstrance are clearly useless. All appeals to sympathy, to interest, and to the guarantees of the Bond of Union, have failed, as yet, and will, I have no doubt, continue to fail. Seeing, as we of the South do, the naked impossibility of emancipation, without the extermination of one race or the other, through crimes and horrors too shocking to be mentioned-leaving a devasted land covered with ashes, tears, and blood-I cannot doubt that you will be justified by God and future generations, in adopting any measures, however startling they may appear, that will piace your rights and property exclusively under your own control, and enable you to repel all interference with them, whatever shape it may assume. And as you incur a danger of no ordinary character-one so subtle and insidious in its approaches that there is no ascertaining how soon it may be too late to resist it-I believe you will be equally justified in taking these measures as early and decisively as in your judgment you may deem proper.

The State of South-Carolina has been charged, and sometimes from high quarters, with entertaining a desire to dissolve the Union of these States; and the expression of a sentiment looking that way, by any of her citizens, is widely denounced as treasonable, if not blasphemous. There is no State which has given, in its times of trial, a more ardent or effective support to the Union than our own. There is no State which has less to gain by anarchy and revolution, or that is less disposed to plunge into them wantonly. Nei

ther her fundamental institutions, nor her legislation, betray a love of change. Her people are steady in their principles, and loyal to their customs, laws, and constitutions. But their devotion is not blind. They are not to be defrauded of their rights under prostituted forms, however sacred in their origin, nor deterred, either by obloquy or danger, from maintaining them. They are by no means insensible of the advantages of the Union. They are not wanting in those sentiments which teach them to venerate the institutions founded, in part, by their own wise and heroic ancestors; nor in that pride which would lead them to appreciate the glory of continuing members of a republic extending over two millions and a half of square miles, and which might one day number five hundred millions of enlightened citizens. But the Union was a compact for justice, liberty, and security. When these fail, its living principles are gone. South-Carolina can have no respect for an empty namestill less for one which becomes synonymous to her with oppression, vassalage and danger. It is vain to sound it in our ears, and claim for it our alle. giance. Our ancestors of the old world, waged a successful war against the divine right of Kings; and our fathers of the Revolution broke the yoke of Lords and Commons. Little has been gained for us, by these two noblest struggles which history records, if we are now to be overawed by the divinc right of Union, and steeped in wretchedness under its violated charter. The illustrious man who has been called, by universal consent, the Father of our Country, did indeed leave it to us, as his parting admonition, that we should cling to the Union as our ark of safety. But, much as we reverence his precept, his example is still dearer to us. Sacred as we hold his last words, we cannot throw them into the scale against the history of his life; and that teaches us to resist oppressisn, from whatever quarter it may come, and whatever hazard is incurred.

Coming for the first time together, having duties to perform which to some of you are new, and holding in your hands the destinies of South-Carolina, you cannot be too strongly impressed with the necessity of reflecting maturely on the important questions that devolve upon you, and of reverentially invoking to your aid that Almighty Power, who searches all hearts, weighs all motives, and metes out to all human efforts a just measure of success.

J. H. HAMMOND.

On motion of Mr. MEMMINGER, Ordered, That the Message be made the special order of the day for to-morrow, 1 o'clock, P. M., and be printed.

The SPEAKER then announced the appointment of the following Standing Committees of this House:

COMMITTEE ON PRIVILEGES AND ELECTIONS.