payment of the debts. He was a liberal constructionist, and yet did not consider the Constitution as a delegation of unlimited powers. He was, according to the vocabulary of the Richmond Enquirer, a latitudinarian ; and yet he found nowhere in the Constitution a power granted to Congress to make a whole foreign People citizens of the United States. He was, according to the correspondent of the Richmond Enquirer, by the generous imputation of an "it is said," not only a Semicolon-ite, but the fraudulent inventor of the semicolon, and falsifier of the Constitution. He trusted he had proved that neither the honor nor the shame of that invention belonged to him. But when Louisiana was purchased, he did believe that the annexation of the People of that province to this Union transcended the lawful power of Congress, and required the explicit assent both of the People of the United States and of the People of Louisiana. Under these impressions, he offered to the Senate of the United States the resolution recorded upon their Journal of the 25th of November, 1803; and, in offering it, assigned, more at large than he had done in his remarks of the preceding 25th of October, his reasons for believing an amendment to the Constitution indispensable for annexing the People of Louisiana to this Union. But his motion for the appointment of a committee was rejected. The Comma-ites, the strict constructionists, the most straitest sect of the Pharisees, passed an act for the temporary government of Louisiana, giving to the President of the United States, within that Territory, all the powers that had ever been exercised there by the King of Spain. Afterwards, during the same session of Congress, they extended the laws of the United States over the Territory, and among the rest the revenue laws. He then made one more, and a last effort to record his solemn dissent to all those proceed ings, as utterly unwarranted by the Constitution of the United States, by the following resolutions:`

"Resolved, That the People of the United States have never, in any manner, delegated to this Senate the power of giving its legislative concurrence to any act for imposing taxes upon the inhabitants of Louisiana without their consent.

"Resolved, That, by concurring in any act of legislation for imposing taxes upon the inhabitants of Louisiana without their consent, this Senate would assume a power unwarranted by the Constitution, and dangerous to the liberties of the People of the United States.

"Resolved, That the power of originating bills for raising revenue being exclusively vested in the House of Representatives, these resolutions be carried to them by the Secretary of the Senate: that, whenever they think proper, they may adopt such measures as to their wisdom may appear necessary and expedient for raising and collecting a revenue from Louisiana."

The resolutions were rejected by yeas and nays, 4 to 22.

Such then was the theory, and such was the practice of the Commaites, the strict constructionists, with Mr. Jefferson at their head, at the time of the acquisition of Louisiana. Mr. Jefferson's opinions appear in the letters from which extracts have been read; his acts appear upon the statute book. He signed the act giving to himself the powers of the King of Spain throughout the Territory of Louisiana. He signed the acts for taxing the inhabitants of Louisiana, and for extending the laws of the United States over the Territory. Mr. ADAMS voted against them all during that session. Afterwards, considering the acquiescence of the People of the United States and of Louisiana in the execution of those

laws, and their submission to them, as giving them, by tacit assent, a sanction equivalent to the popular voice, he has considered the constitutional question as settled, so far as the precedent extended; and, at a subsequent period, contributed, without hesitation, his official service to a course of measures precisely similar, to accomplish the acquisition of the two Floridas. The constitutional scruple has disappeared. He has considered that the treaty-making power, together with the power of admitting new States into the Union, and a very liberal construction of the power of levying taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare, are in their combination adequate to the annexation of a foreign Territory to this Union. But he still believes that the annexation of a foreign People cannot be effected but by their own consent, and the consent of the People of the United States. This latter consent Congress has no power to give. It must be by an act of the People themselves, represented in special conventions, as they gave their consent to the existing Constitution; and my heart's desire and prayer to God is that they never will consent to be united with a People whose first entrance into the world of independent nations is with the ignominious brand of freemen transformed to slaves upon their brow.

On the principle laid down in the resolutions he had offered to the Senate, he believed, and still believes, that it was perfectly competent for the People of the United States to have declared the Union then and thereby at an end; and he knew that there was, indeed, such a project at the time on foot. At that time it might have properly and consistently been carried into effect.

Mr. A. then adverted to another principle in the case of Louisiana, distinguishing it from that immediately under consideration. When the debates he had been describing took place, a reply had been given to some remarks of his own, to the effect that Louisiana was a province of a foreign Sovereign; that that Sovereign had absolute power over that province, and, by virtue thereof, had transferred to the United States his right to and power over the same; that, by the customary law of nations, among European Powers, the People were liable to be thus transferred without their consent; that the People of Louisiana had been thus transferred, and could only claim the rights stipulated for them by the treaty which were, that they should be incorporated into the Union, and thereby become entitled to the enjoyment of all the rights of citizens of the United States.

Now, sir, (argued Mr. A.,) this principle, whether applicable or not in the other case, can have no application to the present case. Texas is not now the province of an absolute Sovereign. The People thereof have formed a Republic. They have declared themselves independent. This Government has distinctly recognised them as such. Now it is alleged that this People, thus independent, have acted for themselves in this matter; they have expressed their wish, and made their application, to become a part of this Union. They have done their part. Mr. A. admitted it. He had no authentic announcement of the fact. He found it conceded, and referred to as a fact, in the Texian legislative debates. So far, every thing had been consistent with the proper principle; the principle that he (Mr. A.) had always contended for. But, as the appli

cation for admission into the Union had been made by the People of Texas, so only could it be entertained by the People of the United States. It was a question to be settled by the representatives of the People, in special conventions of the several States, for that purpose assembled. This seemed to him a very plain and simple principle; and, to his mind, presented very distinctly the exact difference between the Louisiana and Florida cases and that immediately under consideration.

Thus far (continued Mr. A.) we have been considering the constitutional principles involved in this case. There are, however, other objections with me to the annexation of Texas to this Union-objections, the discussion of which I feel some embarrassment in approaching. I wish to proceed with this argument without giving offence to any one, and without intrenching upon the order of debate. But the petition which I first presented to this House, and which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and read here by me during this discussion, protests against this annexation; not on the ground of constitutional principles; not on the ground that such annexation, if it take place at all, must be by the action of the People; but the memorial protests against the annexation to this Union of Texas as a slave State; as a Republic, in which slavery, having once been destroyed, has been reinstituted, and in which it is perpetuated beyond the reach of the Legislature itself. In the resolutions of the State Legislatures, which had been presented, with regard to this subject, and which had been referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and by them returned, unread, to the House, this was the point on which, upon both sides, the chief stress was laid. One side memorialized Congress to admit Texas to the Union as a slave State; this was the ground on which it was asked; this the motive which, it is hoped, would impel Congress to sanction it. The other side resisted such annexation on precisely the converse ground; that it would add more slave territory to the Union, and would extend the institution of slavery within its limits. The terms of these petitions, memorials, and resolutions, it would be seen, had thus explicitly brought the whole question of slavery before Congress upon its merits: slavery, as an institution ; as affecting the morals and the policy of the nation. And the question, which, when asked a few months ago, on that floor, by the gentleman from Vermont, [Mr. SLADE,] produced such a convulsion in that body, had now come up fairly and distinctly before the House for its consideration; and no definitive settlement of this matter could be had until that question-What is slavery? should be fairly examined and answered. And yet (Mr. A. said) it was his wish to avoid that subject, as much as possible, in this discussion. He had always declared such to be his wish and intention; and he had now been forced into the discussion of it by what had fallen from different gentlemen during the debate. One of these [Mr. ELMORE] had designated his remarks as "insane ravings," in his place; a gentleman distinguished, generally, for politeness, courtesy, and urbanity; and that gentleman, too, the minister plenipotentiary of the Southern conventicle, which

[Here Mr. ELMORE rose and disclaimed any intention of hurting the feelings of the gentleman from Massachusetts by the hasty remark to which the latter had adverted. That remark fell from him in a mo

mentary feeling of irritation, and was regretted as much by himself as it could be by any other member on that floor.]

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Mr. ADAMS was satisfied with the explanation, and was glad to be spared the necessity of commenting on the appropriateness and good taste of such an imputation as the member from South Carolina had permitted himself to make upon remarks which had been uttered, in order, in debate. He had known instances before in which madness was imputed to the zealous opponent of erroneous principles. He remembered to have read the story of a discussion, not dissimilar in principle to the present, in which such an imputation had been made against the 'ravings" of one whose shoe's latchet he himself was unworthy to loose, for his zealous advocacy of the truth. Had the honorable member ever heard of that case? Paul stood before Festus, the Roman Governor, and King Agrippa, and delivered one of those eloquent discourses which have won the admiration of ages, and, in the midst thereof, he was interrupted by the Roman Governor, who "said, with a loud voice, Paul, thou art beside thyself! Much learning doth make thee mad." The apostle contented himself with simply responding, "I am not mad, most noble Festus, but speak forth the words of truth and soberness ;" and Mr. A. would beg the gentleman from South Carolina to receive from him the same answer, not as "insane ravings," but as "the words of truth and soberness."

Mr. A. added, that he had felt more sensibly the force of such an expression, proceeding, as it had, from a gentleman whom the House would do himself the justice to say he drew with a graphic hand, as an accomplished gentleman, a cultivated scholar, and a man of strong mind and judgment. This was a tribute due to that honorable member from all who had read the correspondence which he had had, as the minister plenipotentiary of the Southern conventicle that recommended "the gag" to be applied to members of that House, upon certain subjects, with a gentleman, [Mr. Birney,] his equal in mind, and in the power of cool deliberate investigation of the high principles involved in that discussion. He (Mr. A.) was happy that that correspondence had been spread before the nation, to be judged of as it deserved, on both sides.

But all this (Mr. A. remarked) was but incidental to what he had set out with asserting, that the discussion of this part of the subject had been forced upon him by the remarks of others. When the gentleman from South Carolina, [Mr. PICKENS,] who was now absent from his place for a cause which he most deeply lamented, [illness in his family at home,] had declared his wish, at a former session, to open this debate, upon the issue of slavery upon its merits, Mr. A. said he had given that honorable member notice that, when that issue was opened upon that floor, the advocates of slavery would most surely find that there were two sides to the debate, and that they would not be permitted to be the only parties who should be heard thereupon. And he trusted that the gentleman who had now tendered this issue, by the resolution he had offered, and which was then under consideration, [Mr. THOMPSON,] did not indulge the idea that it would be decided until both sides should be heard thereon. And when his friend by his side [Mr. CAMPBELL, of South Carolina,] had interrupted him in a former part of his argument, for the purpose of explanation, and had taken that opportunity to enter at large into the

argument, he [Mr. C.] had forced upon him (Mr. A.) this discussion; he had plainly made the issue intimated by his colleagues at former periods of the discussion, and had been answered as well as the occasion permitted. More, much more, might have been said, and would be said, perhaps, at another time, by himself, and others much more able than himself to do it with effect, in reply to the philosophical argument of the gentleman from South Carolina, [Mr. CAMPBELL,] that slavery was not a political or moral evil. Mr. A. hoped that that question would be discussed. But it should not be, by himself, at that time. There were arguments enough against the annexation of Texas to this Union without that. One thing he would, however, add. He would beg gentlemen, whenever this issue should be deliberately tried, now or hereafter, not to consider this question of slavery in its connexion with Texas as a question simply whether a new slave State shall be added to the Union, but whether a foreign State, in which slavery, having once been abolished, was reinstituted, and by law made a permanent institution forever, and in which laws had been enacted that slaveholders should not, if they would, emancipate their slaves, should be received as a member of this Union. This was a very different question from the other. Texas had been a free province, by the absolute decree of the Mexican Government, to which it belonged; entirely free; and they who had made the law which reinstituted slavery there, had usurped a power which did not belong to them in so doing. Where they got that power he hoped the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. CAMPBELL] would show, when he should come to argue this question.

[Here the hour expired, and Mr. ADAMS suspended his remarks.]

THURSDAY, JULY 5, 1838.

The report of the Committee on Foreign Affairs in relation to Texas being again under consideration as the unfinished business of the morning hour

Mr. ADAMS resumed. I was saying yesterday, when cut short by the expiration of the hour, that it was not my wish to introduce the general discussion of the subject of slavery, either as it exists in this country or in Texas; and that, so far as I had introduced it, it had been forced upon me. It is still my intention to keep aloof from that subject at the present time, having no doubt that it will hereafter be discussed as it ought to be, and as it ought to have been for these last three years, with that freedom of speech which belongs to every member of this House. I do not wish that it should be discussed prematurely; much less is it my desire to repress any thing that the gentleman from Maryland and the other gentlemen of the Committee on Foreign Affairs may wish to say for themselves, for slavery, or for the annexation of Texas to this Union; and that for a very good reason: I believe that what they shall say will go further to promote the cause I wish to advance than all I can urge in its favor. As to the consumption of time, the chairman of the committee is not the man to urge here any objection or complaint on that score, when he has been shutting my mouth on this subject for these three years past.

Mr. HOWARD here interposed, and said that he had not desired to stop the honorable gentleman.