points which it involves. My adversary | ought to be bound by her decision. offered to prove that the constitution And she has decided it. was adopted by a majority of the people of Rhode Island; by a large majority, as he alleges. What does this offer call on your honors to do? Why, to ascertain, by proof, what is the number of citizens of Rhode Island, and how many attended the meetings at which the delegates to the convention were elected; and then you have to add them all up, and prove by testimony the qualifications of every one of them to be an elector. It is enough to state such a proposition to show its absurdity. As none such ever was sustained in a court of law, so none can be or ought to be sustained. Observe that minutes of proceedings can be no proof, for they were made by no authentic persons; registers were kept by no warranted officers; chairmen and moderators were chosen without authority. In short, there are no official records; there is no testimony in the case but parol. Chief Justice Durfee has stated this so plainly, that I need not dwell upon it. But, again, I say you cannot look into the facts attempted to be proved, because of the certainty of the continuance of the old government till the new and legal constitution went into effect on the 3d of May, 1843. To prove that there was another constitution of two days' duration would be ridiculous. And I say that the decision of Rhode Island herself, by her legislature, by her executive, by the adjudication of her highest court of law, on the trial of Dorr, has shut up the whole case. Do you propose, -I will not put it in that form, - but would it be proper for this court to reverse that adjudication? That declares that the judges of Rhode Island know nothing of the "People's Constitution." Is it possible, then, for this court, or for the court below, to know any thing of it? It appears to me that, if there were nothing else in the case, the proceedings of Rhode Island herself must close everybody's mouth, in the court and out of it. Rhode Island is competent to decide the question herself, and everybody else And it is but a branch of this to say, according to my second proposition, 2. That if every thing offered had been proved, if in the nature of the case these facts and proceedings could have been received as proof, the court could not have listened to them, because every one of them is regarded by the State in which they took place as a criminal act. Who can derive any authority from acts declared to be criminal? The very proceedings which are now set up here show that this pretended constitution was founded upon acts which the legis lature of the State had provided punishment for, and which the courts of the State have punished. All, therefore, which the plaintiff has attempted to prove, are acts which he was not allowed to prove, because they were criminal in themselves, and have been so treated and punished, so far as the State gov ernment, in its discretion, has thought proper to punish them. 3. Thirdly, and lastly, I say that there is no evidence offered, nor has any distinct allegation been made, that there was an actual government established and put in operation to displace the Charter government, even for a single day. That is evident enough. You find the whole embraced in those two days, the 3d and 4th of May. The French revolution was thought to be somewhat rapid. That took three days. But this work was accomplished in two. It is all there, and what is it? Its birth, its whole life, and its death were accomplished in forty-eight hours. What does it appear that the members of this gov ernment did? Why, they voted that A should be treasurer, and C, secretary, and Mr. Dorr, governor; and chose officers of the Supreme Court. But did ever any man under that authority attempt to exercise a particle of official power? Did any man ever bring a suit? Did ever an officer make an arrest? Did any act proceed from any member of this government, or from any agent of it, to touch a citizen of Rhode Island in his person, his safety, or his property, so as to make the party answerable upon | except that it might perhaps have dis an indictment or in a civil suit? Never. It never performed one single act of government. It never did a thing in the world! All was patriotism, and all was paper; and with patriotism and with paper it went out on the 4th of May, admitting itself to be, as all must regard it, a contemptible sham! I have now done with the principles involved in this case, and the questions presented on this record. In regard to the other case, I have but few words to say. And, first, I think it is to be regretted that the court below sent up such a list of points on which it was divided. I shall not go through them, and shall leave it to the court to say whether, after they shall have disposed of the first cause, there is any thing left. I shall only draw attention to the subject of martial law; and in respect to that, instead of going back to martial law as it existed in England at the time the charter of Rhode Island was granted, I shall merely observe that martial law confers power of arrest, of summary trial, and prompt execution; and that when it has been proclaimed, the land becomes a camp, and the law of the camp is the law of the land. Mr. Justice Story defines martial law to be the law of war, a resort to military authority in cases where the civil law is not sufficient; and it confers summary power, not to be used arbitrarily or for the gratification of personal feelings of hatred or revenge, but for the preservation of order and of the public peace. The officer clothed with it is to judge of the degree of force that the necessity of the case may demand; and there is no limit to this, except such as is to be found in the nature and character of the exigency. I now take leave of this whole case. That it is an interesting incident in the history of our institutions, I freely admit. That it has come hither is a subject of no regret to me. I might have said, that I see nothing to complain of in the proceedings of what is called the Charter government of Rhode Island, creetly taken measures at an earlier period for revising the constitution. If in that delay it erred, it was the error into which prudent and cautious men would fall. As to the enormity of freehold suffrage, how long is it since Virginia, the parent of States, gave up her freehold suffrage? How long is it since nobody voted for governor in New York without a freehold qualification? There are now States in which no man can vote for members of the upper branch of the legislature who does not own fifty acres of land. Every State requires more or less of a property qualification in its officers and electors; and it is for discreet legislation, or constitutional provisions, to determine what its amount shall be. Even the Dorr constitution had a property qualification. According to its provisions, for officers of the State, to be sure, anybody could vote; but its authors remembered that taxation and representation go together, and therefore they declared that no man, in any town, should vote to lay a tax for town purposes who had not the means to pay his portion. It said to him, You cannot vote in the town of Providence to levy a tax for repairing the streets of Providence; but you may vote for governor, and for thirteen representatives from the town of Providence, and send them to the legislature, and there they may tax the people of Rhode Island at their sovereign will and pleasure. I believe that no harm can come of the Rhode Island agitation in 1841, but rather good. It will purify the political atmosphere from some of its noxious mists, and I hope it will clear men's minds from unfounded notions and dangerous delusions. I hope it will bring them to look at the regularity, the order, with which we carry on what, if the word were not so much abused, I would call our glorious representative system of popular government. Its principles will stand the test of this crisis, as they have stood the test and torture of others. They are exposed always, and they always will be exposed, to dangers. There are deference is paid to the regular and anthentic declarations of the public will; when assembled masses put themselves above the law, and, calling themselves the people, attempt by force to seize on the government; when the social and political order of the state is thus threatened with overthrow, and the spray of the waves of violent popular commotion lashes the stars, our political pilots may well cry out: "Nimirum hæc illa Charybdis!" The prudence of the country, the sober wisdom of the people, has thus far enabled us to carry this Constitution, and all our constitutions, through the perils which have surrounded them, without running upon the rocks on one side, or being swallowed up in the eddying whirlpools of the other. And I fervently hope that this signal happiness and good fortune will continue, and that our children after us will exercise a similar prudence, and wisdom, and justice; and that, under the Divine blessing, our system of free government may continue to go on, with equal prosperity, to the end of time. OBJECTS OF THE MEXICAN WAR. A SPEECH DELIVERED IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, ON THE 23D OF MARCH, 1848, ON THE BILL FROM THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTA TIVES FOR RAISING A LOAN OF SIXTEEN MILLIONS OF DOLLARS. [ON the 2d of February, 1848, the treaty | execution of that design. The bill now called a "treaty of peace, friendship, limits, and settlement, between the United States In of America and the Mexican Republic," before the Senate is a measure for raising money to meet the exigencies of the government, and to provide the means, as well as for other things, for the pay and support of these thirty regiments. Sir, the scenes through which we have passed, and are passing, here, are various. For a fortnight the world supposes we have been occupied with the ratification of a treaty of peace, and that within these walls, "the world shut out," notes of peace, and hopes of peace, nay, strong assurances of peace, and indications of peace, have been uttered to console and to cheer us. Sir, it has been over and over stated, and is MR. PRESIDENT, On Friday a bill public, that we have ratified a treaty, passed the Senate for raising ten regi- of course a treaty of peace, and, as the ments of new troops for the further country has been led to suppose, not prosecution of the war against Mexico; of an uncertain, empty, and delusive and we have been informed that that peace, but of real and substantial, a measure is shortly to be followed, in this gratifying and an enduring peace, a branch of the legislature, by a bill to peace which would stanch the wounds raise twenty regiments of volunteers for of war, prevent the further flow of the same service. I was desirous of human blood, cut off these enormous expressing my opinions against the ob- expenses, and return our friends, and ject of these bills, against the supposed | our brothers, and our children, if they necessity which leads to their enact- be yet living, from the land of slaughment, and against the general policy | which they are apparently designed to promote. Circumstances personal to myself, but beyond my control, compelled me to forego, on that day, the ter, and the land of still more dismal destruction by climate, to our firesides and our arms. Hardly have these halcyon notes ceased upon our ears, when, in resumed public session, we are summoned to fresh warlike operations; to create a new army of thirty thousand men for the further prosecution of the war; to carry the war, in the language of the President, still more dreadfully into the vital parts of the enemy, and to press home, by fire and sword, the claims we make, and the grounds which we insist upon, against our fallen, prostrate, I had almost said, our ignoble enemy. If we may judge from the opening speech of the honorable Senator from Michigan, and from other speeches that bave been made upon this floor, there has been no time, from the commencement of the war, when it has been more urgently pressed upon us, not only to maintain, but to increase, our military means; not only to continue the war, but to press it still more vigorously than at present. Pray, what does all this mean? Is it, I ask, confessed, then, is it confessed that we are no nearer a peace than we were when we snatched up this bit of paper called, or miscalled, a treaty, and ratified it? Have we yet to fight it out to the utmost, as if nothing pacific had intervened? I wish, Sir, to treat the proceedings of this and of every department of the government with the utmost respect. The Constitution of this government, and the exercise of its just powers in the administration of the laws under it, have been the cherished object of all my unimportant life. But, if the subject were not one too deeply interesting, I should say our proceedings here may well enough cause a smile. In the ordinary transaction of the foreign relations of this and of all other governments, the course has been to negotiate first, and to ratify afterwards. This seems to be the natural order of conducting intercourse between foreign states. We have chosen to reverse this order. We ratify first, and negotiate afterwards. We set up a treaty, such as we find it and choose to make it, and then send two ministers plenipotentiary to negotiate thereupon in the capital of the enemy. One would think, Sir, the | It ordinary course of proceeding much the juster; that to negotiate, to hold intercourse, and come to some arrangement, by authorized agents, and then to submit that arrangement to the sovereign authority to which these agents are responsible, would be always the most desirable method of proceeding. strikes me that the course we have adopted is strange, is even grotesque. So far as I know, it is unprecedented in the history of diplomatic intercourse. Learned gentlemen on the floor of the Senate, interested to defend and protect this course, may, in their extensive reading, have found examples of it. I know of none. Sir, we are in possession, by military power, of New Mexico and California, countries belonging hitherto to the United States of Mexico. We are informed by the President that it is his purpose to retain them, to consider them as territory fit to be attached to these United States of America; and our military operations and designs now before the Senate are to enforce this claim of the executive of the United States. We are to compel Mexico to agree that the part of her dominions called New Mexico, and that called California, shall be ceded to us. We are in possession, as is said, and she shall yield her title to us. This is the precise object of this new army of thirty thousand men. Sir, it is the identical object, in my judgment, for which the war was originally commenced, for which it has hitherto been prosecuted, and in furtherance of which this treaty is to be used but as one means to bring about this general result; that general result depending, after all, on our own superior power, and on the necessity of submitting to any terms which we may prescribe to fallen, fallen, fallen Mexico! Sir, the members composing the other house, the more popular branch of the legislature, have all been elected since, I had almost said the fatal, I will say the remarkable, events of the 11th and 13th days of May, 1846. The other house has passed a resolution affirming that "the war with Mexico was begun |