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ceeding. I cannot but think the time will come when all wil be convinced that there is no reason, political or moral, for increasing the number of the states, and increasing, at the same time, the obvious inequality which exists in the representation of the people in congress by extending slavery and slave representation.

"On looking at the proposition further, I find that it imposes restraints upon the legislature of the state as to the manner in which it shall proceed (in case of a desire to proceed at all) in order to the abolition of slavery. I have perused that part of the constitution of Texas, and, if I understand it, the legislature is restrained from abolishing slavery at any time, except on two conditions; one, the consent of every master, and the other, the payment of compensation. Now I think that a constitution thus formed ties up the hands of the legislature effectually against any movement, under any state of circumstances, with a view to abolish slavery; because, if anything is to be done, it must be done within the state by general law, and such a thing as the consent of every master cannot be obtained; though I do not say that there may not be an inherent power in the people of Texas to alter the constitution, if they should be inclined to relieve themselves hereafter from the restraint under which they labor. But I speak of the constitution now presented to us.

"Mr. President, I was not in congress at the last session, and of course had no opportunity to take part in the debates upon this question; nor have I before been called upon to discharge a public trust in regard to it. I certainly did, as a private citizen, entertain a strong feeling that, if Texas were to be brought into the Union at all, she ought to be brought in by diplomatic arrangement, sanctioned by treaty. But it has been decided otherwise by both houses of congress; and, whatever my own opinions may be, I know that many who coincided with me feel themselves, nevertheless, bound by the decision of all

branches of the government. My own opinion and judginent have not been at all shaken by anything I have heard. And now, not having been a member of the government, and having, of course, taken no official part in the measure, and as it has now come to be completed, I have believed that I should best discharge my own duty, and fulfill the expectations of those who placed me here, by giving this expression of their most decided, unequivocal, and unanimous dissent and protest; and stating, as I have now stated, the reasons which have impelled me to withhold my vote.

"I agree with the unanimous opinion of the legislature of Massachusetts; I agree with the great mass of her people; I reäffirm what I have said and written during the last eight years, at various times, against this annexation. I here record my own dissent and opposition; and I here express and place on record, also, the dissent and protest of the state of Massachusetts."

The joint resolution, however, which had been originally reported to the house by Mr. Douglas, representative from the state of Illinois, passed; and the very next event in the history of the country, as had been foreseen and foretold by Mr. Webster, was a war with Mexico. Having labored to bring the republic of Texas into the confederacy, as well as for official reasons, Mr. Polk felt bound to defend the new state against the Mexican forces, which were hovering along its south-western border. General Taylor, with a small army, was at once sent to Texas for this purpose. He was ordered to take up his position between the Rio del Norte and the Neuces. Here, in spite of his uncommon abilities as a commander, he was soon threatened with destruction; and the president was compelled, in all haste, to send on reënforcements. This, therefore, without any declaration by congress, and in a manner rendering it impossible for congress to interfere, was the origin of the war.

The war having been begun, and the lives of American sol

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diers and American citizens being in great hazard, Mr. Web ster could not do otherwise than vote for all the supplies de manded to carry the war on, till peace could be honorably concluded. The same principle by which he had been actuated in 1812 again controlled his course in 1845; and he carried his patriotism, or moderation, to such a pitch, that he per'mitted his son Edward, a very promising young man, to enter the army as a volunteer, and sacrifice his life before the walls of Mexico. Mr. Webster never failed to submit with grace, and, if possible, to use with advantage, what he could not prevent.

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While the war with Mexico was in progress, the president raised another question, which, almost at once, threatened to excite hostilities between us and England. Mr. Polk, whose supporters in the canvass had claimed the whole of Oregon, and made 54 degrees 40 minutes a watchword of the party, and a by-word with the people, in his inaugural address, and afterwards in his first and second annual messages to congress, had stated that our right to the whole of Oregon was clear and unquestionable." This opinion, of course, was given in his official character as president of the United States; and ac cordingly, in the first of the above messages, he recommended that the United States should give notice to Great Britain of their intention "to terminate the convention between the two countries," concluded in 1827, for the joint occupation of the territory. A joint resolution was, therefore, introduced into the senate by Mr. Allen, of Ohio, and referred to the committee on foreign relations, who reported it back with amendments; and while the second time before the senate, it received several additional amendments and alterations. Fearing that an unqualified notice of separation would needlessly alarm the pub lic, and embarrass the settlement of the question, Mr. Critten den, of Kentucky, moved a new amendment, the purport of which was, that, in order to afford ample time for the amicable

adjustment of the question, said notice ought not to be given till after the termination of the current session of congress. On this amendment, Mr. Webster addressed the senate, and this speech, delivered on the 24th of February, 1846, was one of the very few which he was ever known to read in congress. He took the position, in opposition to the extreme language of the president, that if the Oregon dispute was ever settled, it would be settled on the forty-ninth degree of latitude. This idea was immediately scouted by the leading friends of the administration, in both houses; but the result justified the prediction, and illustrated the sagacity of Mr. Webster. The fortyninth parallel was accepted by that very president, who had asserted our right to the whole of Oregon, in such emphatic terms, " as clear and unquestionable; and after all was over, and over to the satisfaction of the country, Mr. Webster could not fail to draw some amusement from the fact, that the very persons and the party who, in 1842 and afterwards, had threatened him with a political crucifixion for having alienated a worthless strip of disputed territory," which he and they had always looked upon not only as disputed, but as doubtful, should now surrender to the same government a section of country, to which our title was asserted by them as incontestable, which, in width, would cover the space lying between Lake Erie and North Carolina, and in length would extend nearly or quite all the way from Massachusetts to the Mississippi!

However inconsistent for Mr. Polk to settle the Oregon controversy in this way, in the face of his extreme and uncompromising assertions, the same settlement would have been proper enough for Mr. Webster, who had never taken the untenable position. The truth is, indeed, this is the very settlement which he was prepared to offer to Lord Ashburton, and which, had the noble diplomatist been instructed by his government upon this subject, would undoubtedly have constituted a portion of the treaty of Washington. In the absence of such instructions

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nothing could be accomplished, and nothing was accomplished, at that time, by Mr. Webster, in the arrangement of this question; but the merit of the settlement, nevertheless, when the settlement was in fact made, belonged, after all, not to Mr. Polk, nor to his cabinet, but to Mr. Webster, who, doubtless, would never have taken the pains to bring out the evidence of his services, in this particular, to the peace of nations and the best good of the human family. The evidence, however, came forth in an accidental manner. The London Examiner, in an article touching the relations of Great Britain and the United States, furnished the proof that it was Mr. Webster, and not the current administration, that was chiefly instrumental in bringing this vexed controversy to a peaceful and happy termination : "In reply to a question put to him in reference to the present war establishments of this country, and the propriety of applying the principle of arbitration in the settlement of disputes arising among nations, Mr. McGregor, one of the candidates for the representation of Glasgow, took occasion to narrate the following very important and remarkable anecdote, in connection with our recent, but now happily terminated differences with the United States on the Oregon question. At the time our embassador at Washington, the Hon. Mr. Pakenham, refused to negotiate on the forty-ninth parallel of north latitude as the basis of a treaty, and when, by that refusal, the danger of a rupture between Great Britain and America became really imminent, Mr. Daniel Webster, formerly secretary of state to the American government, wrote a letter to Mr. McGregor, in which he strongly deprecated Mr. Pakenham's conduct, which, if persisted in, and adopted at home, would, tc a certainty, embroil the two countries, and suggested an equi table compromise, taking the forty-ninth parallel as the basis of an adjustment. Mr. McGregor agreeing entirely with Mr. Webster in the propriety of a mutual giving and taking tc avoid a rupture, and the more especially as the whole territory