"Mr. Haywood. 'Is the Vice-president to be the catechist?' "Mr. Hannegan. 'I put the question in the usual way, through the chair.'

"Mr. Haywood. 'I have already said what, for fear of mistake, I had previously written, and which I shall print. It would be unwise and impolitic for the President to authorize any senator to make such a declaration as that implied in the question of the senator from Indiana.'

"Mr. Allen [chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations]. 'I desire to say that I construe the answer of the senator from North Carolina into a negative.'

"Mr. Haywood. Then I desire to say that my friend from Ohio only proves what I have shown on a former occasion, that he is a very bad hand at construction.'

"Mr. Allen. 'Well, then, I will adopt the other construction, and consider his answer as an affirmative; and I put the question, and demand an answer to it as a public right. The senator here has assumed to speak for the President. His speech goes to the world; and I demand, as a public right, that he answer the question, and, if he won't answer it, I stand ready to deny that he has expressed the views of the President.'

"Mr. Haywood said that, had he occupied the station of chairman of a very important committee, placing him in very confidential intercourse with the President, and had attributed opinions to the President which he could not establish when interrogated, he would quit. But his constituents had not sent him here to answer questions which no one had a right to propound to him, What he had spoken, he had written-no, he had written it before he had spoken, and he should print it. "Mr. Westcott. 'I call the senator to order,'

6

"Mr. Haywood. You needn't be uneasy, sir. No senator has a right to make demands upon me on this floor, or any where else, unless I give him reason. I would do almost any thing in a kind way, out of doors, which could be done in reason and honor; and I confess I do a great many things that I look on as humiliating after they are done, rather than have discord in the Democratic party. I do not recognize the right of any one to make demands on me when I have submitted to the Senate what I had to say, what I wrote before I said it, and what I shall print afterward.'

VOL. I.-I

"Mr. Allen. 'I do not demand an answer as any personal right at all. I demand it as a public right. When a senator assumes to speak for the President, every senator possesses a public right to demand his authority for so doing. An avowal has been made that he is the exponent of the views of the President upon a great national question. He has assumed to be that exponent. And I ask him whether he has the authority of the President for the assumption?'

"Mr. Westcott. 'I call the honorable senator from Ohio to order. I object to the President's personal opinions or purposes being made the subject of inquiry on the floor.'

"Mr. Allen and Mr. Hannegan rose simultaneously.

"Mr. Hannegan yielded, observing that he was not so anxious to speak but that he could yield the floor to any body. "Mr. Allen. I have not asked what the opinions of the President are.'

"Mr. Haywood. Will the senator allow me to interrupt him. for one moment? I am not at all excited-not at all. I do not see any catechism in the rules of order. I deny the right of any senator to put questions to me in this way. I have not assumed to speak by authority of the President.'

"Mr. Allen. Then the senator takes back his speech?"

"Mr. Haywood. 'Not at all; but I am glad to see that my speech takes.

"Mr. Allen. With the British.'

"Mr. Hannegan. Well, the senator from North Carolina has not suffered his speech to get into print this morning, so as to give a fair opportunity of replying. All sketches even of his speech have been, by his "special request," withheld in the papers.'

"Mr. Haywood replied, that, as he had taken a very important and responsible position, he wished to avoid the possibility of misconstruction, and therefore desired to report his speech himself. For fear of mistake, he had taken that course; and he thought he was justified in it by the fact that one of the papers (the Times) had really been quite unable to make out the drift of his remarks yesterday, and had positively set him down as making a long speech in favor of settling the question by arbitration.

"Mr. Hannegan. I do not deem it material whether the

senator from North Carolina gives a direct answer to my question or not. It is entirely immaterial. He assumes-no, he says there is no assumption about it-that there is no meaning in language, no truth in man, if the President any where commits himself to 54° 40', as his flattering friends assume for him. Now, sir, there is no truth in man, there is no meaning in language, if the President is not committed to 54° 40', in as strong language as that which makes up the Holy Book. From a period antecedent to that in which he became the nominee of the Baltimore Convention, down to this moment, to all the world he stands committed for 54° 40'. I go back to his declaration made in 1844 to a committee of citizens of Cincinnati, who addressed him in relation to the annexation of Texas, and he there uses this language, being then before the country as the Democratic eandidate for the chair which he now fills,' "Mr. Crittenden. 'What is the date?"

"Mr. Hannegan. 'It is dated the 23d of April.'

"[Mr. Hannegan here read an extract from Mr. Polk's letter to the committee of the citizens of Cincinnati.]

"Here,' Mr. Hannegan continued, Mr. Polk expressed the opinion that the Union ought never to have been "dismembered" by the separation of Texas. Did the speech of the senator from North Carolina sustain the principle of this declaration? Let the world judge.'

"[Mr. Hannegan went on to read another extract, where it was declared we ought to assert and hold our right of dominion over the whole territory of the republic.]

"Who, then,' asked Mr. Hannegan, 'defines the limits of Oregon? Has not the President himself defined them in his message?'

"Mr. Hannegan then quoted from the President's Message the following paragraph:

"The extraordinary and wholly inadmissible demands of the British government, and the rejection of the proposition made in deference alone to what had been done by my predecessors, and the implied obligation which their acts seemed to impose, afford satisfactory evidence that no compromise which the United States ought to accept, can be effected. With this conviction, the proposition of compromise which had been made. and rejected was, by my direction, subsequently withdrawn,

and our title to the whole Oregon Territory asserted, and, as is believed, maintained by irrefragable facts and arguments."

"What,' continued Mr. Hannegan, 'does the President here claim? Up to 54° 40', every inch of it. He has asserted that claim, and is, as he says, sustained "by irrefragable facts and arguments." But this is not all. I hold that the language of the Secretary of State is the language of the President of the United States; and has not Mr. Buchanan, in his last communication to Mr. Pakenham, named 54° 40' in so many words? He has. The President adopts this language as his own. He plants himself on 54° 40'. I well remember that the President was the choice neither of myself, nor-I beg his pardon, I should have named the senator first-neither of the senator from North Carolina nor of myself. Neither of us preferred him. Both of us had another choice. And I must confess I am most happy to see that, since his election, he has grown so much in favor with my friend from North Carolina as to induce him to come here with a valorous defense against attacks never made-never made, sir. But this I will say-and make it an attack, if you please-if the President has betrayed that standard which the Baltimore Convention put into his hands, and whereby he committed himself to the country, into the hands of the enemy, I will not do, as the senator from North Carolina threatens, turn my back upon him-I suppose he cares little whether both of us do that but I shall hold him recreant to the principles which he professed, recreant to the trust which he accepted, recreant to the generous confidence which a majority of the people reposed in him. I shall not abandon the principles of the Democratic party. I shall not abate one jot or tittle of the principles we gave to the country then; I shall sustain them; but I shall hold and exercise the privilege of speaking of him in the language of truth and fearlessness. The senator from North Carolina attempted to speak of the resolution of the Baltimore Convention. I ask him if he seriously meant his statement of it as a fair exhibition of its substance. If so, it was unworthy of the senator to'

"Mr. Haywood. I took the resolution from Mr. Breese's speech the only place, I believe, I ever saw it. Here it is: "Resolved, That our title to the whole of the Territory of Oregon is clear and unquestionable; that no portion of the same

ought to be ceded to England or any other power; and that the reoccupation of Oregon, and the reannexation of Texas at the earliest practicable period, are great American measures, which the Convention recommends to the cordial support of the democracy of the Union.'

"Mr. Hannegan. There is a great deal of difference between that and the statement of it given by the senator. The Democratic party is thus bound to the whole of Oregon-every foot of it; and let the senator rise in his place who will tell me in what quarter of this Union-in what assembly of Democrats in this Union, pending the presidential election, the names of Texas and Oregon did not fly together, side by side, on the Democratic banners. Every where they were twins every where they were united. Does the senator from North Carolina suppose that he, with his appeals to the democracy, can blind our eyes, as he thinks he tickled our ears? He is mistaken. "Texas and Oregon" can not be divided; they dwell together in the American heart. Even in Texas, I have been told, the flag of the lone star had inscribed on it the name of Oregon. Then it was all Oregon. Now, when you have got Texas, it means just so much of Oregon as you in your kindness and condescension think proper to give us. You little know us if you think the mighty West will be trodden on in this way. Let gentlemen look at their own recorded votes in favor of taking up the Oregon Bill at the close of the last session, and then let them look at the language of that bill, and see if it did not propose to take possession of Oregon up to 54° 40', after giving unqualified notice to Great Britain that the convention must cease. At that time we still held Texas in our hands; and this was a test question; and every man in the Senate voted for it save the senator who sat there (understood to refer to Mr. M'Duffie) and the peerless Huger. And that most excellent senator (Huger) had afterward told him that he had voted in the negative because it was suggested to him that, unless he did so, the Civil and Diplomatic Bill would fail which was then pending; but, on further conversation and consideration, he wished to move a reconsideration of the vote, but his friends would not consent that it should be done. In the House of Representatives but four out of fifty Southern Democrats had voted against the bill. These were the reasons