28TH CONG.....2 SESS. on the contrary, we should increase the number of its securities, as in local resistance we should have twenty-six States against one, instead of twelve against one, as formerly. In the case of a corporation, could not new corporators be admitted without altering the charter? How would it hurt the people of Massachusetts, or of New Hampshire, to admit to a share in their privileges a people trained like themselves?—a people more than leavened by Americanism-a people possessing unity of birth and religion -unity of education-unity of social habits-unity of principles, throughout, with ourselves and our immortal fathers. They were numerous enough, likewise, to be a State at once, and none disputed that their territory was large enough to be a State; and their training to republican forms and self-government long enough and strong enough. Another reason which has been urged against this measure being within the spirit of the constitution, was, that the balance of power between the North and South would thus become deranged, and made unfavorable to the North. The effect of this resolution would be to extend our Union five degrees further south, or eight in some places; whereas, by the acquisition of Louisiana, we had stretched it north eighteen degrees at one stride beyond the compromise slave line, and were now running in width also at the South only to the Del Norte, but at the North already across the whole continent to the Pacific. Mr. W. thought the danger, if there was any, lay in the opposite direction. He was here to do justice as well to the South as to the North, and he did not believe in the danger of adding so little at the South, when such vast additions as Oregon were contemplated in the North and Northwest; and when the new States in these last quarters filled up much the fastest. Talk of danger to the North! It is hope-it is greatness to the North. Again, it had been said that the framers of the constitution never contemplated such a measure as this, nor ever expected that the Union was to be enlarged; yet, in the Madison Papers they might find, even at that early day, a proposition by a member from Massachusetts to limit the number of States that should be formed west of the mountains. But the limitation had been opposed by Roger Sherman, who, with his plain, good sense, avowed the desire to augment our population and spread our doctrines. There would be no danger if both people and territory should be doubled or tripled, provided they retained the same political principles and the same personal habits, and were filled up, as they always will be, chiefly by our children and grand children, seeking a livelihood and liberty wherever the indomitable enterprise of their Saxon blood may tempt them. As it was the chief argument on the other side against this measure not being within the spirit of the constitution, because it was assumed that no additions to our territory were contemplated or thought of, he would detain the Senate a moment longer concerning it. Why, sir, what is the design of a constitution in this view of the subject? To make a provision only for each particular case then talked of? So far from that, it is to make broad general rules for all subsequent cases coming within their letter and spirit, whether then thought of or not. Otherwise senators on the other side might object to the use of steamboats or railroads to carry the mail, because they were not in A. D. 1798 thought of or contemplated. So as to the magnetic telegraph: for public communications, in war or peace, never dreamed of in the convention. But were the safe course of construction different, is there not ample evidence, beside what has already been mentioned, to show that an enlargement of our Union beyond its original limits was often and seriously looked to. Mr. Madison, in the Federalist, looked to no limitation to the extent of the Union, except such distances as to prevent convenient meetings at the centre; and he uses another expression pregnant with the idea of going beyond our own bosoms: "Add to them such other States as may arise in their own bosoms or in their neighborhoods," &c. So Hamilton, though surrounded by politicians of a more narrow grasp of mind, writing in June, 1797, to Mr. McHenry, after speaking of ships and troops, says: "Besides eventual security against invasion, we ought to look certainly to the possession of the Floridas and Louisiana; and we ought to squint at South America." Even the old confederation had contemplated the admission of Canada and other colonies, British, Spanish, or French. Could all this have been in contemplation so early as 1776; and was it not so Annexation of Texas-Mr. Woodbury. much as to be heard of now, or in 1789? Would gentlemen say that no enlargement of the Union was contemplated by those hardy western settlers who were ready to fight for the possession of the mouth of the Mississippi? We had extensive northern regions yet unsettled, and every emigrant thither from our own firesides or abroad had a right to all these meditated expansions, whenever such additions of territory or States became useful to protect either their families from border butchery, or their property from pillage on its way to the ocean or to foreign markets. It was settled as early as in the old Congress, as well as in the convention, that the mighty West and Southwest should be protected; and as incident to that great decision, and to other constitutional duties devolved on us for preserving the domestic tranquillity and property of all, we were bound with the iron bands of both duty and policy to give that protection, whether by buying Louisiana, or Florida, or admitting Texas to unite her destinies with ours. We stood, then, fully justified in carrying out the present measure, not as one merely within the words of the constitution, but its legitimate object-one sanctioned by the spirit no less than the letter of the sacred charter formed by the great patriots and statesmen who made the decision before mentioned, and introduced the provision for admitting new States. Such a course and such an expansion of our limits accord well with the genius o our people and the genius of our government. All these considerations, with many more I have not time to enumerate, show the present measure to be within the spirit both of the clause we are considering and of all our institutions; the provision in the confederation shows it; the changes in phraseology in the convention show it; the remarks of Madison and Hamilton show it; the duty of progress and protection to our people shows it; and the statesman who, after all this, and the evidences of our growing destinies on the western continent, can be content to overlook all, and make a Chinese wall against our enlargement in the West and Southwest, must, in my apprehension, limp far behind the age. You may as well, sir, attempt to dam up the flow of the waters of the Mississippi to the ocean, as stop this advancement of our people. Disunion was another horror conjured up against this measure! But if it was right and just, no menaces nor fears should deter us from duty. Fiat justitia, ruit cœlum. But these were unreal fears-empty menaces. On this it had been argued, that if we first acquired the territory of Texas by treaty, there would be no difficulty in the case; but that if we so much as attempted it by legislation, there was danger of disunion. And yet the very gentleman who urged this argument had him. self, at the last session, voted against annexing Texas by treaty, and preferred it to be done by Congress. Now they offered him a proposition to annex it by legislation, and he was just as much opposed to that. Texas must not come in by treaty, and she must not come in by act of Congress; and yet such persons said they were friends of the admission of Texas; that they were actuated by feelings of fraternity towards her, and wished to see her in the Union. Mr. W. would put this question: If these gentlemen were friends to Texas, who were her foes?-whose sympathies for a gallant people were mesmerized?in a kind of magnetic sleep? In other aspects of the measure, disunion, disunion, had been rung long and loud. Yes, and it had been sounded just as loudly in 1812, when the State of Louisiana was admitted; and in 1803, when the territory of Louisiana was acquired. The same threats had been made then. It had been admitted by both sides, at that time, that if Louisiana ever came in as a State, it must be by act of Congress. She did come in by an act signed by Mr. Madison's own hand. The Northern States did not acquiesce, but used very angry language then, as now; but at both times alike, without any echo from the great public voice of the country at large. It was a sort of monomania, in trouble, for all of us to talk loudly of DISUNION and RUIN. The worst threat of disunion ever heard in the halls of Congress was uttered by a member from New England in 1812, on the admission of Louisiana, and it was then even said that all the States which had been admitted from territory not within the Union at the adoption of the constitution were not lawfully members of the confederacy. Yes, sir, instead of general assent and acclamation then, as the senator from Virginia [Mr. RIVES] supposes, the same threats we now hear Senate. muttered in certain parts of our country had then been heard, over and over again. It was held just as illegal and unconstitutional as the admission of Texas was now. The proceedings of the Hartford convention related in part to this very subject. Their report now before me questioned the constitutionality as well as the propriety of the admission of Louisiana.-(See 7 Niles's Register.) One of their resolutions proposed also to change the clause for the admission of new States; and Justice Story very frankly says in substance that the views of that convention as to the admission of Louisiana were untenable and unsound.-(3 Story on Con.) Yet after all this, it was now, as then, insisted by some that an act of the people only could legitimate the admission of Arkansas and Missouri, because they had not been first admitted by the treaty power, and Massachusetts denounced both as not lawfully coming into the Union, although purchased first by treaty. She was difficult to suit. In 1812, what came in first by treaty was unlawful. Now, what is admitted first without treaty is, with her, equally if not more unlawful. This is maintained by her, too, though several of the strongest opponents of the Louisiana purchase in 1803 admitted that if foreign territory was to be introduced at all as a State, it must be by Congress, and not by treaty. Gentlemen will, in reading the debates of that day, find them full of these admissions. In order that the Senate may see I do not misapprehend the extent and grounds of objection now urged by Massachusetts to the admission of Texas by this resolution, I will read some proceedings which have just passed one branch of her legislature by a large majority. RESOLVES CONCERNING THE ADMISSION OF TEXAS. 1. Resolved, That Massachusetts has never delegated the power to admit into the Union States or Territories without or beyond the original territory of the States and Territories belonging to this Union at the adoption of the constitution of the United States; and that, in whatever manner the consent of Massachusetts may have been given or inferred to the admission of the States already, by general consent, forming a part of the Union, from such territory, the admission of such States, in the judgment of Massachusetts, forms no precedent for the admission of Texas, and can never be interpreted to rest on powers granted in the constitution. 2. Resolved, That there has hitherto been no precedent of an admission of a foreign State or foreign territory into the Union by legislation, And as the powers of legislation granted in the constitution of the United States to Congress, do not embrace a case of the admission of a foreign State or foreign territory, by legislation, into the Union, such an act of admission would have no binding force whatever on the people of Massachusetts. 3. Resolved, That the power never having been granted by the people of Massachusetts, to admit into the Union, States and Territories not within the same when the constitution was adopted, remains with the people; and can only be exercised in such way and manner as the people shall hereafter designate and appoint. 4. Resolved, That the people of Massachusetts will never consent to use the powers reserved to themselves, to admit Texas, or any other State or Territory, now without the Union, on any other basis than the perfect equality of freemen; and that while slavery or slave representation forms any part of the claims or conditions of admission, Texas, with their consent, can never be admitted. These resolves were adopted in the House of Representatives on Tuesday last-yeas 188, nays 41. The recent anti-Texas convention there, whose members and speakers embraced the Garrisons as well as the Philipses and Grinnells and Adamses, leaders of the opposition, came to like conclusions. In their report now before me, in the Liberator, one of the propositions is this: "1. There is no constitutional power in any branch of the government, or all the branches of the government, to annex a foreign State to this Union." But enough of this. There was another argument pressed in favor of action by a treaty rather than by Congress, which was somewhat extraordinary, coming from a large State, and one formerly very sensitive and jealous of executive power. The last senator who had spoken from Virginia, [Mr. RIVES,] had insisted that the security of the South would be incomparably greater if Texas should be admitted with the treaty power, than if she should come in by a simple act of Congress, because there was such a great conservative influence in the Senate. The Senate represented States alone, and was thus secure to small States. Does she not act on this resolution, and thus give the same security? Is there not a greater barrier to wrong in a majority of the representatives of the people than in the difference between a majority of the Senate and two-thirds of the Senate? Were small or large bodies most exposed to cor 28TH CONG.....2D SESS. ruption, or other sinister influences? "Casar with a Senate at his heels," or they, checked by a numerous body of representatives, fresh from the people? It is, likewise, strange that any of the South should engage in this kind of reasoning against a measure -so favorable to the security of their own peculiar interests. Our opponents talk about uniting with St. Domingo. Who wished to fraternize with St. Domingo? Who avowed opinions which run in that channel, and abolished the laws against intermarriages between blacks and whites? Not the friends of the resolution. The great advocates of such amalgamation were among those opposed to us-some with whom it seemed "madness ruled the hour." What party in this country has always railed most at the compromises in the constitution, giving in this respect some stable protection to certain great interests in the South? If any one doubts, let him read, among numerous other evidences, the very first and foremost resolution of the Hartford convention now before me, and which formally proposes an entire abolition of the slave representation in Congress; and in which convention Massachusetts, as a State, was represented as fully and deliberately through her legislature as she is now in this chamber. But more than all this. Who now were they that wanted to abolish the constitution? The friends of Texas? No; some of those who were on the other side of the question. It was among them that the constitution was called a league with hell. It was they who insisted that the constitution itself ought to be abolished as soon as possible. He would read, for the benefit of southern gentlemen opposed to Texas, a little of the language of one of their friends in this case, and co-laborers: Liberator-the Mr. EVANS. What paper is it? Mr. WOODBURY. It is the highest authority of some of the opponents of annexation. Mr. DAYTON. We do not recognise that authority to speak for us. Mr. WOODBURY. But do you refuse their cooperation? Speaking of the statement of Mr. Hubbard, the agent of the governor of Massachusetts to Louisiana, the editor says it demonstrates "what we have reiterated so long and so often, that freemen and slaveholders can never coalesce under the same government, but must be in eternal collision with each other; and therefore that none but the betrayers of liberty will be in favor of striking hands politically with southern slaveholders, or remaining with them one hour in any union or compact. They are a race of monsters, unique, horribly distinct from all others, and more unappeasable, as a body, than hyenas." He knew that there were other gentlemen as much opposed to the measure who were constitutional lawyers. He brought no railing accusation against them; yet it was certain that, in this matter of annexation, they and such men as Garrison, the editor of the Liberator, acted together. Gentlemen raised the outcry about disunion on account of annexation; while people by their side, acting with them against Texas, were openly for disunion on other grounds as well as that-were in favor of burying this Capitol in ruins, and all the emblems and evidences of our confederation, and causing the ploughshare of a wild fanaticism to pass over the seat of this federal government, and, as such a government, leave the spot where its foundations were laid as desolate a Nineveh or Palmyra. Surely it was things like these that should be rebuked and scouted, and put down. When he said put down, he meant by argument only; for he thanked God that in this country the opinions of men were not to be put down by any other force, however wild or disorganizing. Gentlemen talked about the stability of our government being endangered by this measure. Had it been rendered unstable by the admission of Louisiana and Florida against all the wishes and remonstrances of Massachusetts? Or did it not stand firmer from that extension of our boundaries? Had we ever brought in any State or people by force? Had any one ever come into our Union unwillingly? State after State had come, yet what revolution had taken place in half a century of our history? Could the governments of Europe say as much? Within that tract of time Catholic emancipation, and the extension of representation and suffrage, and other great questions of a kindred nature had made vast inroads into the government of Great Britain. France had quite changed her government, and had Navy Appropriation Bill-Mr. Wright. become first a democracy, then an empire, and then a kingdom under a citizen, king. Spain had again and again been reyolutionized and drenched in blood; and in Mexico we heard of a new government by almost every mail; and yet gentlemen talked about instability here, and the danger of revolution here! All we asked was to quietly unite with the people near us who desired to link their fortunes with ours. Mr. W. observed, in conclusion, that a great argument in favor of passing this act now was the avoidance of political excitement and turmoil, which was already inflaming the public mind, and entering one of the legislatures in the Union, to the extent of denunciatory resolutions, some of which he had read. If gentlemen wanted to quench this flame before it spread further, let them immediately act on this proposition. Delay, also, not only tempted to agitation at home, but endangered our gallant neighbors by marauding invasions from Mexico and by foreign intrigues and foreign alliances as fatal to our future interests as to hers.* Nor was procrastination necessary for any other legitimate object. Texas herself was ready; her assent had been given at the very adoption of her constitution; it had been repeated since by her executive government. They were a people trained in the principles of our system. They were not such as the population of Louisiana had once been, but consisted in a large proportion of our own citizens. They had no idea of coming into the Union as a Territory, as it had once been proposed the people of Louisiana should do, and remain a Territory forever. It had actually been proposed to keep these people within our limits as a sort of white slaves, and worse than Roman colonization and conquests, never to be admitted to an equality with ourselves, and the blessings of self-government. But the Texians desired to come in as a State, and to stand on the same footing with the other sovereign States of this confederacy. They were a people who worshipped like ourselves; and held the same faith; possessed the same feelings and habits; spoke the same language; held in general the same principles, and admired and venerated the same pure patriots of the revolution. They had among them their chivalrous Lamars and their gallant Houstons-men who had fought our battles, risked their lives, and spilled their blood in a kindred cause. Were Zenophon and the ten thousand Greeks, after penetrating into the heart of Asia, unworthy to associate again politically with the Spartans and Athenians? There are many more points for argument, and numerous illustrations, which I should like to refer to, if time permitted. ["Go on, go on," said several senators.] No, sir. Our few days left of the session are precious. Enough has already been said to show the resolution to be not only expedient, but constitutional, and its passage to be desirable at the earliest day practicable. There is another consideration connected with this deserving a minutes notice. I am free to confess that a wish of my heart co-operates with my sense of duty on this subject. There dwells at this moment in the shades of the Hermitage, an aged and hallowed veteran in his country's service, whose lamp of life is fast burning out, while we tarry.. He looks anxiously to this great consummation of his patriotic hopes. Confidently do I trust it may not be his lot to pass "that bourne whence no traveller returns," till his waiting eyes behold the lone star of Texas mingling its light with that bright galaxy which adorns the glorious flag of our Union. When treating of the objection to the admission of Texas -that it evinced a spirit of aggrandizement, it was intended to be stated that the annexation of that country was no new ambitious design, but a mere restoration of what was claimed to be ours, not only in 1819, (as fully proved to be correct at the last session from various sources, and as we contended, was ours for sixteen years, and then relinquished to Spain,) but was claimed as ours as early as 1903, in the very year Louisiana was purchased. It was claimed, also, so as to cover the whole extent now included by the Texian laws, *By the last arrival from Europe, the Siecle of Paris has this notice: "It is said that England was disposed, for the sake of M. Guizot, to make some concessions relative to the right of search, on condition that qur cabinet should join that of London to obtain a European declaration against the annexation of Texas to the United States: in other words, on condition that France should eventually make common cause with England against the American Union." H. of Reps. and ceded by Santa Anna in 1836, quite on the west from the mouth to the source of the Del Norte, and claimed by a statesman singularly accurate in all his geographical data. It is curious, also, that in debate, at that early day, three years before the secret resolves in the House of Representa tives, to exchange all west of the sources of the Mississippi for Florida-was flung out that very idea by Mr. John Randolph-an idea which has been since so severely censured, and created so many heart-burnings. These were, his words: From the National Intelligencer, November 21, 1903. "He asked if the country west of the Mississippi were not valuable, according to the gentleman's own statement, since it afforded the means of acquiring Florida, which he prized so highly, from Spain. He had no doubt of the readiness of that power to relinquish Florida, in itself a dead expense to her-only valuable as an outwork to her other possessions, and now insulated by those of the United States-for a very small portion of the country which we claimed in virtue of the treaty under discussion. He said that he stated early in the debate, and had stated truly, that the limits of Louisiana were not accurately defined; but, nevertheless, we were not without some light on this interesting subject. Thirty years before the Spaniards made their settlement of the Adais, the French had established themselves on the bay of St. Bernard, or St. Louis: the nearest Spanish colony being then on the river Panuco, 100 leagues to the west. The great river of the North as nearly equi-distant between the Panuco and bay of St. Bernard was, on the principle generally admitted by European nations forming establishments in savage countries, considered by France as the boundary between French and Spanish Amer ica; and, accordingly, we find it so laid down in many of the old maps. This boundary would embrace within the limits of Louisiana some very valuable dominions of Spain, including the rich mines of St. Barbe, and the city of Santa Fe, the capitol of New Mexico. On the other hand, in virtue of her settlement of the Adais, Spain might claim the country as tar east as the river Mexicana, and to the highlands dividing the waters of the North river from those of the Mississipp Beyond them she could have no color of claim. In settling this important barrier there were ample materials for the acquisition of Florida, still retaining to ourselves all the country watered by the Mississippi." REMARKS OF MR. WRIGHT, OF INDIANA. In the House of Representatives, March 3, 1845-In Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union, on the navy appropriation bill. Mr. CHAIRMAN: I have looked into the statistics of England, to see upon what articles she collects her immense revenue, and I find, by a report made by Mr Hume, in 1840, that she collects her revenue from imposts upon the following articles: The net produce of the revenue of the customs (inwards) of Great Britain, for the year ending 5th January, 1840, amounted to £20,956,551 2,006,059 £22,962.610 £22,881,850 80,760 £22,962,610 3,659,763 2,615,413 1,849,308 3,495,686 794,818 462,002 1.668,584 1,131,075 368,560 £20,871,136 It will be seen from this table, that on ten articles of prime necessity, used by the mass of her popu lation, (and the most of them taxed for revenue without regard to protection,) that these ten articles produces more than ninety millions of revenue out of a hundred millions! This has not always been so; but the effect of high duties in England-her contest with France during the last fifty years, in a war with the restrictive system-has been to throw the taxes of the country upon her labor, and to exempt capital from taxation; and she has reached that point, that more than two-thirds of her revenue from customs is raised upon articles consumed by her laboring millions, while her overgrown capitalist is exempt from taxation. Such will be the effect of high duties in this country. During the last thirty years there has been a gradual increase of the amount of duties collected on articles of prime necessity, and a decrease, in proportion to the amount received, of the duties collected on what are denominated articles of luxu ry. I have had made out, at the Treasury Depart Leather manufactures, not specified boots and shoes Hats and bonnets, leghorn, &c. Molasses Sugar, brown 1 Raisins, Muscatel Pepper Nutmegs Ginger, ground Cloves E Cassia Pimento Camphor, crude Indigo Bleaching powder Whiting - Cordage, tarred : Hemp Pins, solid headed pound Salt Coal Bar iron, rolled Iron, cables and parts Now it will be seen that twenty-three articles of prinie necessity, pay, on sixteen millions of imports, more than nine millions of duties. If the whole imports into this country had paid the same proportion of revenue, we should have realized upwards of forty-six millions of duties, instead of twenty-nine millions. Can any man doubt the truth of the statement, that our system of high duties is gradually throwing the burden of taxation upon the labor of the country, when we have collected on the present tariff more than five and a half millions of dollars on such articles as sugar and molasses? Just think of it: near one-fifth of your revenue is collected on sugar! While your articles of prime necessity are paying about 70 per cent. duty, articles of luxury are paying less than 25 per cent. A farmer in the West, who consumes a barrel of sugar per year, pays more for the support of government than John Jacob Astor, of New York, on the celebrated Astor-house, worth three hundred thousand dollars. What will be the result of this system? The consequence will be, that the whole amount of our .2,989,757.........2,158,602 Thus, while British tonnage has increased about a million in the last forty years-one hundred per cent.-American tonnage has increased in the same time rather more than a million-over one hundred per cent.; but what is very remarkable is that, within the seven years from 1837 to 1843, their increase was six hundred and fifty-six thousand tons, while ours was but two hundred and fifty-one thousand: that is, their increase was four hundred thousand more than ours. Those better versed in the subject than I pretend to be, must explain this comparative disadvantage or stagnation of American tonnage. I call public attention to it, without attempting to explain. Steam navigation by sea, which is exclusively theirs, our extremely detrimental reciprocity-treaties with many small navigating States, and with England, depriving us of her colonial trade, dearer ship-building in this country than some others, amounting, it is said, to from five to eight dollars a ton, the false measurement of our vessels, in order to evade duties, and a false currency, which substitutes nominal 28TH CONG.....2D SESS. creased of wines, spirits, hemp, cordage, and perhaps specie. I mean to keep these crude-still, I hope, accurate and important-elementary views of commerce clear of the vexed questions of American manufactures, and even of the coasting trade. My object is to lay the mere rudiments of foreign commerce before practical men for their consideration. One thing I think certain: that vicious currency is the great cause why all the world is not tributary to this country in commerce; why the balances of trade are not in our favor generally; why all parts of the United States are not constantly supplied with gold and silver; why our commerce, manufactures, and agriculture, are not more progressive, flourishing, and commanding than they are. Our staples, enterprise, and other faculties, would accomplish and maintain this, if fiction were not substituted for fact in the measurement of value between foreign countries and ours. A single staple has saved our commerce-maintains our navigation, especially that of the northern and eastern States-sustains our exchanges-preserves the American Union-and, if duly developed, will establish American maritime supremacy beyond all control or contest: cotton, the great fulcrum of commerce, navigation, and manufactures. The product of slave labor, the South, which alone can produce it-mostly from the new region acquired with Louisiana-bears all the universal odium and assaults, English, French, and North American, of furnishing this immense reliance of commerce, regulator of national intercourse, and bond of international peace. Without any help from legislation or negotiation, cotton has surpassed iron-hitherto always the primary staple and metal, and the greatest material of civilization. Woollen is far behind it in usefulness and importance, though the applications and uses of cotton are yet not fully discovered; for, extremely cheap as it is, it will probably supplant wool in many of its present employments. Tobacco has for many years had its envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary from the United States of America-the Austrian mission, which originated in a convention of the tobacco-growing States, and has been kept up for that purpose. But cotton has had no political aid. Yet it is now two-thirds, if not three-fourths, of our exports, without which they would hardly exceed twenty millions. The export of grain is inconsiderable; that of tobacco repressed by excessive duties; timber, flesh, rice, all of them far behind cot The export of cotton may be, I conceive, largely increased by good government. France, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Russia, China, the nineteen states of the German trades' union known as the Zoll Verein-all these may easily be induced to take much larger quantities than now of American cotton. But till very lately government has done nothing, attempted nothing for it. Absorbed in bank and tariff controversies, administration after administration has passed away without, as far as I know or believe, a single effort to add to the export of this inestimable succedaneum. The late Chinese treaty opens to us the three hundred millions of that wonderful empire as customers. The Chinese treaty is a diplomatic, a commercial-for diplomacy is but the handmaid of commerce and peace-a commercial achivement signalizing what we may do, if we will but try to do it, Those prodigious regions, with their teeming, pullulating peoples, thrown wide open to the commercial and industrial enterprise of this country. Much nearer than England, more.enterprising, more intelligent, more gain-seeking. Lead, which our last tariff covers by a prohibitory duty, is already exported from the United States in large quantities to China; cotton goods too. Other articles will follow. We may, perhaps, send cotton even to India, if our government will do what it should. The Zoll Verein treaty-the treaty of Berlin, if not rejected, at least procrastinated by the Senate presents another and most encouraging opportunity for American commerce, particularly by means of cotton. Waiving, for the present, the question of the right of the treaty-making power to regulate a tariff of duties that question put out of view the advantages of our increased and intimate commercial connection with all parts of the great German Empire, are such that it is amazing how statesmen, or any one considering the subject, can for an instant hesitate to seize upon them; to get and to keep, to embrace and extend them. The exports of the United States to the Zoll Verein States are twelve millions of dollars a year; Appropriation Bill-Mr. C. J. Ingersoll. while our imports from those States, direct and indirect-I mean through France and Belgium as well as Germany, from Havre and Antwerp, as well as the German ports proper-are but four millions. They take of us twelve millions in exchange for four millions we get of them— an excess of eight millions in our favor every year, three times more consumption by the Zoll Verein States of our products, than by the American States of theirs. With how many other countries is our advantage such? And this is but the beginning of what it may be, and must be, if government does its duty. The admission of raw cotton duty free, as the treaty stipulates, is a boon for the commerce and navigation; and, if this boon be but developed as it may be, also for the manufactures of the United States. But it is a great omission of this Berlin treaty that it contains no provision for the reception favorably of American cotton yarn. Why not? Why should we send the raw cotton to England, to be there wrought into yarn, and thence sold to Germany? Why shall not we work our own cotton into yarn, and sell it to the Germans? It will be cheaper to them, without the cost of intermediate transportation from here to England, and thence to Germany. Germany desires to be independent of Great Britain-desires more intercourse with this country. Two hundred thousand bales of American cotton are every year wrought into yarn in England, and thence shipped to Germany, at a gain of at least twenty millions to England. Why cannot we gain those millions? The export of cotton yarn from England to Germany has increased, from 1832 to 1841-from one million two hundred thousand pounds sterling in value, to two million and a half-nearly one hundred per cent. Is not all this thirteen millions of dollars, like the other twenty millions, just so much English gain, which ought to be Amerisan? which, with very little amicable and perfectly feasible international arrangement, may be rendered ours. An overpowering system of British monopoly and supremacy, founded on nothing but delusion, and thus baseless rearing itself aloft, is the only obstacle in our way. No war, no hostility, is necessary to overcome it. We have but to preserve intelligibly our natural rights, our national rights, our true and the only American system. We have but to be independent to acquire most of that lucrative German commerce which England has monopolized with our staples-with American cotton. Germany and the United States are equally interested, equally able, by fair, open, and natural means, to break the sceptre of English monopoly. We can, we should, emancipate two great nations who are natural as well as commercial allies, from the preposterous exclusiveness of British trade and manufactures. Germany and this country are these two great nations. Nearly all America, South and North, are deeply interested in this peaceable, prac tical, admirable revolution. Brazil and Cuba, with their great indigenous contributions to the comforts of man and the commerce of nations, are almost excluded from Great Britain and from France by prohibitory tariffs. Brazil and Cuba find in Germany their best markets; and if the United States be joined with them in the good will of such excellent customers, raw cotton, cotton yarns, even coarse cotton cloths, may be shipped by this country to Germany to an amount incalculable: all by reciprocated intercourse; none of it by force, fraud, wrong, or violence of any kind. Eventually iron in its first state may be sent from the United States to Germany. England now supplies Germany with not less than fifteen millions of dollars worth of iron yearly. By what natural or national right? None-none at all. The raw material is ours in quantities inexhaustible, of qualities much superior to the English. The capital and the art of its rapid and perfect fabrication are not yet ours. In these England is in advance of But the time cannot be far off when American ingenuity, working with American products, with cotton and iron, the greatest of all the world's natural productions, and the greatest of all American productions; the time cannot be distant when this country will fairly, openly, peaceably, naturally, sup plant the English monopoly of these prodigious elements of national prosperity and greatness. us. Such an arrangement as the Zoll Verien treaty (the treaty of Berlin) is the beginning of this consummation. The time should be soon when the Austrian empire, which is now no member of the German trades' union, may be made to see their obvious interest in cultivating American commerce more than English. For this purpose the Austrian H. of Reps. mission becomes highly important: much more as a cotton than it ever was as a tobacco agency. To the twenty-eight millions of German people in the Zoll Verien we may add the thirty millions in the Austrian empire. There is indeed no end to the markets, immediate for cotton and its fabrics, ultimate for iron and other American products, of which the supply is inexhaustible, and fair trade would bring forth. I pass over flesh, rice, lumber, and other teeming articles of American mother earth: each and all of which, however, may be exported in much larger than the present quantities, if our government at home, and our foreign ministers, do their duty. The Chinese and German treaties are earnest of what may be done, if we go to work in earnest. If the same ardent and strenuous exertions are bestowed on commerce which the last sixteen years have extorted from American efforts for banks and tariffs, the exports of this country may be doubled, and the balance of trade be turned everywhere in our favor. Indeed, we have much more surplus to sell than foreign nations can pay for. After paying as much as they can in commodities exchanged for commodities, our drafts of their money-I mean gold and silver-would be continual. This ought to be, and soon may become, the most hard-money country in the world, if it will but develop its capacities for foreign commerce. I have spoken of the cotton exports to Germany. France, also, can take and pay us for a much larger quantity of cotton than at present. There may be difficulty in removing or reducing French duties on cotton; but the capacities of the French people for the manufacture of cotton are fully equal to those of the English, their climate superior, and living much cheaper. Great advantages to our commerce await a more extensive intercourse between France and the United States. At present the French use a good deal of inferior Egyptian and Brazilian cotton; and their impost on American cotton is an item of the budget too important to be readily relinquished. But there is reason to believe that no insuperable obstacle will be found in satisfying the French government that it is as much their interest as ours to extend the industry of France by a large purchase of the raw materials of this country, particularly cotton and coal. For this reason I opposed the increase of the duties on French wines and silks, when enacted by an act of Congress, treading so close upon the heels of our treaty with France as to be almost a perfidious infringement of that treaty. For the same reason I attempted this session to gain the attention of this House by an inquiry into the expediency of reducing the duties on silks and wines, so as to conform with policy and with treaties. But certain honorable gentlemen, not far from me, laughed down as foolish that resolution, as other equally honorable gentlemen have, to-day, interrupted and disconcerted the outset of my argument by insisting that my statements of facts are erroneous. Carefully collected as they were, having shown that they are correct, I have no doubt that the increase of our duties on the wines and silks of France was a most injudicious and unfortunate interference with the growing commerce between that country and this, which, duly cultivated and developed, may be rendered much more profitable than it ever has been. Most of it always has been and must be transported by American navigators, very advantageously to us; and if we can induce the French to take a much larger quantity than they now do of the cotton, the rice, the flesh, and the timber of the United States, besides other things which I need not enumerate, in exchange for their wines, brandies, silks, olive oils, madders, jewelries, porcelain, looking-glass, and whatever else besides specie they may pay us with, surely it will be for the manifest benefit of both countries. We do not want the increased duties on wines and silk for the support of our government. Without them, the tariff act of 1842, even modified in some respects, will produce more revenue than we require; and if the French government had not been disinclined to that worst of all wars, a war of prohibitory duties, our sudden and impolitic increase of the duties on wines and silk, might have provoked their retaliation on cotton or something else extremely detrimental to us. I hold it to be obviously the policy of this country to cultivate the good will of that by liberal commercial intercourse. It has so happened that ever since the first treaty the United States ever made, that of Verseilles, negotiated by Franklin in 1778, owing to British influence and other untoward causes, there never have been ten 28TH CONG.....2D SESS. years together of that free and just trade between ears together France and this country which that treaty, the first of all our reciprocity treaties, so nobly vouchsafes. I must be excused for here mentioning, very summarily, another American staple, the exportation of which to France, I believe, might easily be accomplished with great advantages to both countries-I mean anthracite coal. That mineral, inexhaustibly produced in several parts of the United States, more especially Pennsylvania, is now shipped at Richmond, in the district I represent, at $3 12 per ton, and can no doubt be shipped at $3 00 per ton. It may be taken from Philadelphia, New York, or Baltimore, to France for $2 00 per ton, by colliers, stout bulky vessels built on purpose, like those used for the British collieries. Thus American fuel might be put down in France at $5 a ton, say $6 at any rate; a better fuel, at onethird of the price, than almost the only fuel used in the northern parts of France, where nearly the only fuel is very inferior wood, something like our faggots, costing about $16 a cord. Nearly all the factories, mills, and other such works in France, go by water power. Steam power is, I believe, almost, if not quite, unknown. Inferior cotton is transported from the shores of the Mediterranean to the northern French factories on the backs of mules. The great public edifices of France, churches, palaces, court-houses, hotels, and other places of general resoit, barracks, prisons, even the private dwellings, are strangers to the comforts which, in this country, we enjoy from well-warmed apartments. Even the French locomotives use coke to prevent sparks. Let us suppose, then, the prisons, the barracks, the factories, the churches, the great hotels, and all the other large establishments of Northern France, warmed by the use of an extremely cheap fuel, which can be carried from this country to that, even as ballast to our shipping, and that by means of it, steam power is substituted for water power and horse power in the industrial operations of that great kingdom. What contribution to the wealth, to the industry, to the comfort, to the general amelioration of the French people would be found in the supply of this single article! If I am told that it already exists in France, I answer that if it does, it is not in places to which either canals or railroads reach, and is, therefore, further off than our coal, as regards the expense of its transportation to market. If told that Wales can supply anthracite coal to France, I reply that that remains to be proved, though it has been asserted, and at all events national non-intercourse between France and England is so inveterate, the emulation of those. two great rival nations is so intense, that the United States, of whom the French have no jealousy or apprehension, are nearer to them over the Atlantic than England across the British channel. If twelve years ago, when 1 broached this notion respecting coal in the legislature of Pennsylvania, it had not been neglected, we might now be constantly supplying the French with large quantities of that fuel, and with three times as much cotton as they now take from us; for without plenty of cheap fuel, it is impossible for them to extend their manufacturing establishments. In a word, there might be no limit to the French demand for American cotton and coal, but their capacity to pay for it. Timber, especially ship timber, lead, now exported to England and France, and in large quantities to China, cotton cloth to China, South America, and many parts of Europe; beef, pork, cheese, and fruits, rice in much larger quantities than at present; together with many other American products which this enumeration of some is only intended to intimate the suggestion of to others more familiar with the subject, may all be added to the list of American exports. I shall not dwell on tobacco, an important export, but requiring too much notice for the brief survey I submit, of American staples. And to these I shall join in the last place another principal staple, of which I believe we are at this time considerable importers, when we certainly may become the exporters of it-wool. Wool must be most easily produced where land is cheapest and labor dearest, which is the case in this country. Our cheap lands will nourish any number of sheep, and they would require but little labor to tend them. This is the country to superadd wool to coal and coal to cotton, as supplies to be exported to other countries. England once supplied with wool from Spain and Germany, now I believe raises large quantities of it in her Australasian colony, parcels of which I have seen in a cloth factory in the neigh [16] Appropriation Bill-Mr. C. J. Ingersoll. borhood of Philadelphia. And this great change in the supply of wool Great Britain has accomplished in much less time than it has taken this country to produce two millions of bales of cotton a year. Though wool growing is an agricultural, not commercial occupation, yet the same view which looks to cotton and coal as American exports, and the same course of reasoning, apply to wool. It is not my intention, as I have said before, to present any merdy manufacturing or agricultural arguments, or allude at all to manufactures or agriculture, except as they minister to foreign commerce. In like manner I exclude all notice of the internal and coasting trade of the United States, immense as they both are, upon the rivers, lakes, and seashores of this extensive confederacy. It is to foreign commerce alone that I invite attention, under strong, and certainly not hasty, but long-cherished impressions that the maritime progress and power of this country have been neglected, and may be easily rendered capable of much greater than their present devlopment. The advantages of the United States are that they produce all the great staples from more diversified soils, enjoy greater freedom ever sine the treaty of Versailles first proclaimed the advantages of unshackled commerce, and are actuated by a spirit of individual enterprise that has always-ever since the colonial state of this country-surpased that of all others in adventures by sea. The deign and the destiny of this great republican empie, in the fine thought of Thompson's Liberty, ar "Instead otreasure robbed by ruffian war, It is for commrce that all the nations of the world are now contendng, not in arms, but by other means of contention, thich, if carried to the extreme of prohibitory dutis, become wars, scarcely less injurious in their efects than those waged by battles and bloodshed. The Oregon question-by too many deemed a mre matter of land or territorial acquisition-is, in its larger and better estimate, a commercial questia. To express the ideas I have always entertained on the subject in language more forcible and eloquent than mine, I read from a newspaper which has ben sent to me the sentiments of a gentleman whose high appreciation of the importance of our hold onOregon is by no means beyond its merits. "The Oregon question is one of great national and should engage the early, earnest attention of Congrent, The public mind has not fully appreciated its transcendent importance. It embraces consequences to the republic, equal if not superior to any question of acquisition or annexation which has arise, whether it be contrasted with the purchase of the Louisima Territory, the treaty acquir ing Florida, the present movement in reference to Texas, or the steadily pursued policy of extinguishing the Indian title. We have but to take aglance at the map to assure ourselves of the truth of these opinions. The American continent, washed in its entire length by the two great highways of nations,' presents extraordinary advantages to its popula tion for commercial intercourse. Its position is one of nature's monopolies. From its Atlantic ports it can grasp the commerce of Europe-fron those on the Pacific it may seize the trade of the East Indies and China. Seat the United States firmly in Oregon, and the commercial enterprise and wealth of the world wil centralize within our limits. The trade of the Indian ocean has enriched every nation in succession that has enjoyed it Tyre, Phenicia, Venice, the Italian States, Portugal, and Spain, found it a mine of wealth. Great Britain, at the present moment, owes much of her supremacy in commerce manufactures, and wealth, to the fact that she participates more largely than any other power in its possession. The tropical circle, in no portion of its belt around the globe, presents such extensive, varied and valuable productions as are found in Southern Asia, and in the islands of the Indian ocean. Cotton, indigo, teas, coffee, sugar, spices, are here in their native climate, and constitute the staples of its teeming soil. The exuberant products of this region of the earth cause those distant waters to be whitened with the sails of commerce from civilized Europe and America, so intimately connected are they with the manufactures, luxuries, or comforts of their people. It is the fear that her ships may be driven from this mart, and her pre-eminence endangered, that causes Great Britain to look with an eye of extreme jealousy, upon the advance of the Russian power into Afghanistan, the French into Egypt, the United States into Oregon They are steps upon the route to the Indies, and she is aware of the historical lesson that naval supremacy has followed a monopoly of the trade in this clime. Let it be wrestel from her, and the trident of Neptune must pass into other hands. No nation is or has been so favorably situated to divert this stream of wealth into its lap, as will be the population occupying Oregon. The Pacific seas are free from those storms which rage on the Atlantic, and are the theatre for the triumphs of steam. Commerce might be conducted across this expanse of wa ters, from coast to coast, with the certainty, safety, and speed of railroad travelling. It would diffuse its stores throughout the Union-the long and dangerous passage round the Capes would be given up-and Europe would seek in our Allantic ports the products of this tropical gar den. No question has yet arisen in our history, so closely connected with the extension of American power and greatness. To permit Great Britain, by pertinacity, finesse or H. of Reps. bullying, to secure a footing there, would be to resign full one-half of the advantages which Providence has allotted to us, in the position of our continent. Let Congress, the State legislatures, the press and the people, awake to a sense of the real importance of this Oregon question. The recommendation of the Secretary of War is judicious in connection with this subject. An immediate organization of the territorial government of Nebraska, extending from Missouri to the Rocky mountains, and the making of a good road throughout its whole extent, together with the erection of military posts, would hasten the growth of our transmontane power, and enable us to sustain our title. That is just and righteous, and before it is surrendered to the encroachment or ambition of any nation, let the cannon of the republic be heard among the peaks and crags of the Rocky mountains, and its stars and stripes be displayed along the coast, to the breezes of the Pacific Ocean." The Texas question, too, what is it but a question of commerce-a question of cotton? As such England regards it. The question is, whether we shall hold what nature has given to us, all the best cotton country in the world, or let England take a part of it from us now, as thirty years ago she attempted to take the whole by the invasion of Louisiana? I do not mean to renew any of the political considerations of the Texas controversy. This House has passed upon it, as I have no doubt the other will before this session of Congress closes; and, before long, the whole country, the whole world, will be satisfied that it is not for mere territorial aggrandisement that we insist on withholding Texas from British or any other European sway. I cannot, however, deny myself the reflection-which, may I not say, patriotism and philosophy combine?to suggest, that the European power which, within the life time of some upon this floor, refused to surrender the ground where Cincinnati now stands to the United States, and insisted on confining them to the east of the Ohio-the same European power is now intriguing, not warring, to keep Texas from becoming a part of this republic. I am speaking not as one of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, or from any official knowledge, but on my individual responsibility. The two greatest maritime powers of Europe unite to protest against the United States accepting the proffered reannexation of Texas. One of those powers, at the same time, is accidentally detected in a clandestine attempt to get California from Mexico, and offers to the other to resign her usurpation as high constable of the seas, provided that other will unite in an endeavor to frustrate the union of Texas with this, its mother country. The ministers of theee great powers, anxiously watch debates in another part of this building, and superintend constitutional arguments against the power of our government to accomplish the wise resolution of President Monroe, more than twenty years since, that European possessions and principles must be no further extended on this continent. About that time the ministers of those great European kingdoms are said to have drawn their swords upon each other in that President's ante-chamber; but now the giant enmity of the two greatest empires of Europe which, for centuries, maddened their subjects to prodigies of bitter warfare, are all at once hushed in the nightmare dream "Dulcis et alta quies similima morti" of ministerial or royal repose; and they do not lie in the same bed of protest against our recovery of Texas, cunningly and wisely, lest it should unite all parties in the United States, Boston with Orleans, to resist such interference. Vice regal ministers tender vicarious congratulations to members in the Capitol for speeches against Texas. They openly display in Washington the insolent diplomatic superintendence common in Mexico, where, not long ago, according to the lively narrative of a lady of their corps, the English minister with his own hand pulled down the flag which he took umbrage at in a public place. It is to me one of the most gratifying attendants of our recovery of Texas, that nearly all the ministers of European governments here opposed it; confronted, and, I believe, confounded, as the most forward were, by the decided tone of the expiring administration. President Monroe used to say that this country has an arm in reserve more formidable than any yet employed to repel European invasion or encroachment-the power of propagandism. Till now, its onward career has been guardedly inoffensive; its influence abroad has only been example. It has never interfered, even in Mexic or South America-where England and France are perpetually fomenting intestine troubles. What will be their case when the ministers of the United States are instructed to protest, to intrigue, and to manœuvre against English dominion in Ireland and India, French in Algeria, or Russian in Poland Cambridge |