SPEECH OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, OF MASSACHUSETTS, UPON THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE, MEN AND WOMEN, TO PETITION; ON THE FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND OF DEBATE IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES; ON THE RESOLUTIONS OF SEVEN STATE LEGISLATURES, AND THE PETITIONS OF MORE THAN ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND PETITIONERS, RELATING TO THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS TO THIS UNION. Delivered in the House of Representatives of the United States, in fragments of the morn- WASHINGTON: PRINTED BY GALES AND SEATON. 1838. PREFACE. For the proper understanding of the following series of addresses to the House of Representatives of the United States, delivered in fragments of the morning hour from the 16th of June to the 7th of July, 1838, it is necessary to advert to certain previous proceedings of the House in relation to the annexation of Texas to this Union, and to some other subjects, having, or supposed to have, a close and inseparable connexion therewith. On the 26th of May, 1836, the House, under the screw of the previous question, had adopted a resolution reported by a select committee, of which HENRY L. PINCKNEY, of South Carolina, was the chairman: "That all petitions, memorials, resolutions, propositions, or papers, relating in any way or to any extent whatever to the subject of slavery, or the abolition of slavery, shall, without being either printed or referred, be laid upon the table, and that no further action whatever shall be had thereon." Petitions for the abolition of slavery and the slave trade in the District of Columbia and the Territories, for the prohibition of the internal traffic in slaves, and against the admission into the Union of any new slave State, to the number of about twenty thousand signers, had, at an early period of the session, been referred to the committee which reported this and two other congenial resolutions. The two others they had been instructed to report. Their motive for reporting the third was expressed by themselves to be, that it was "extremely important and desirable that the agitation of this subject should be finally arrested, for the purpose of restoring tranquillity to the public mind.” This tranquillizing resolution was adopted at so late a period of the session, that, excepting the convulsive movement by which it was carried through the House, it had little effect, and it expired with the session; but so conspicuous were its sedative properties, that at the ensuing session (that of 1836-'37) it multiplied fivefold the anti-slavery petitions. After one or two abortive attempts to elicit from the House a refusal to receive such petitions, they were, on the 19th of January, 1837, all disposed of by repeating the gag-resolution of the preceding session. The tranquillizing effect of this was not only to swell the flood of antislavery petitions, but to open the source of a new and abundant stream of remonstrances against the resolution itself; to which remonstrances were added, before the close of the session, resolutions severely reprobating it, adopted by the Legislature of Massachusetts. * In the mean time the conspiracy for the dismemberment of Mexico, the reinstitution of slavery in the dismembered portion of that Republic, and the acquisition, by purchase or by conquest, of the territory, to sustain, spread, and perpetuate, the moral and religious blessing of slavery in this Union, was in the full tide of successful experiment. The battle of San Jacinto had been nearly cotemporaneous with the gag-resolution of 26th May, 1836. It had prostrated the power of Mexico in Texas, and surrendered the President of the Mexican Confederacy a captive to the chief of the Texian insurrection. The grasping spirit of slaverestoring rapacity, far from being discouraged by the repugnance and disgust with which the Mexicans of all parties had repelled every proposition for the purchase of Texas, had enlarged the dimensions of the coveted territory, till it comprehended not only the whole course of the Rio del Norte, including Santa Fe, but had taken a sweep of five degrees of latitude across the continent, to include the convenient port of San Francisco, on the Pacific ocean. The constitution of the Republic of Texas had consecrated the blessing of ETERNAL SLAVERY, by interdicting even to their Legislature the power of emancipation. Mexico was amused with a new convention for surveying and marking the boundary line, and with promises of neutrality between her and Texas. General Gaines was authorized to invade the territory of Mexico. An Envoy Extraordinary was sent from Mexico in solemn mission to Washington, to complain of these proceedings; in return for which, after refusing all satisfaction for this act of war, a thundering message was on the 6th of February, 1837, sent by the President of the United States to Congress, trumping up a bundle of individual claims and petty vexations, well or ill founded, and most of them traceable to the popular resentment and hatred excited by this double-dealing policy on our own part, and recommending a last solemn mission to Mexico to demand satisfaction for these wrongs, and then an authority to the Executive to make reprisals. Simultaneous with this movement was another, by which, against the grave and cautious warnings of prudence, and justice, and neutrality, by repeated Executive messages, the recognition of the independence of Texas was, on the last day of the session and of the Jackson Administration, smuggled through both Houses of Congress, and approved by the President, in the form of an appropriation for a diplomatic func * See letter from Mr. Forsyth to Anthony Butler, of 6th August, 1835. tionary, who on that same midnight hour was nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate of the United States. This measure, thus precipitated for the purpose of hastening and facilitating the annexation of Texas to this Union, was, in the wise and just decrees of Providence, destined to raise, perhaps, the most effective obstacles to its consummation. Just before the warlike message of the 7th of February, the captive Mexican President had been released by his Texian conqueror, and sent to Washington, to negotiate in person the cession by Mexico of Texas to the United States of the North. This negotiation, which commenced by correspondence in writing, apparently failed only because the Mexican Congress had formally decreed and notified a total suspension of his official powers during his captivity. The acquisition of Texas by purchase from Mexico having thus become desperate, the next step towards obtaining it was by acknowledging the independence of Texas, and at the same time fretting the people of this Union into a war with Mexico, making with Texas a common cause against her, and thus extorting by conquest what it had been found impracticable to obtain by negotiation. And when once engaged with Texas against Mexico, the annexation of the new slave-ridden Republic to this Union was foreseen as bearing upon us with a pressure which nothing could resist. But it was essential to the success of this system of policy, that it should continue to be pursued by indirect means and with a double face. Immediately after the formal recognition of Texas as an independent State, the Legislature of that Republic, instructed by the People, directed their President (Houston) to make application to the Government of the United States for admission to this Union. This application was accordingly made, by a Minister Plenipotentiary, Mr. Memucan Hunt, precisely at the time of the meeting of Congress at their special session in September, 1837. The proposal had been made by a note from Mr. Hunt dated the 4th of August, and declined by the answer of the Secretary of State, Mr. Forsyth, on the 25th of that month, only one week before the meeting of Congress. No notice whatever of this transaction was taken by President Van Buren in his message to Congress of the 1st of September; nor would the nation have known that such a negotiation existed, but for a call by the House of Representatives, on the 13th of September, upon the President, for information whether a proposition had been made, on the part of the Republic of Texas, for annexation; and, if so, what answer had been returned thereto. By another call, on the same 13th of September, the House had required of the President, as far as might be consistent with the public interest, an exhibition of the correspondence with the Mexican Govern V |