slave States upon one side, and the free States on the other. Sir there is not - I may express myself too strongly perhaps - but some things, some moral things, are almost as impossible as other natural, or physical things; and I hold the idea of a separation of these States, those that are free to form one government, and those that are slaveholding to form another, as a moral impossibility. We could not separate the States by any such line, if we were to draw it. We could not sit down here to-day, and draw a line of separation that would satisfy any five men in the country. There are natural causes that would keep and tie us together and there are social and domestic relations which we could not break if we would, and which we should not if we could. Sir, nobody can look over the face of this country at the present moment - nobody can see where its population is the most dense and growing, without being ready to admit, and compelled to admit, that ere long America will be in the valley of the Mississippi.:

Well, now, sir, I beg to inquire what the wildest enthusiast has to say on the possibility of cutting off that river and leaving free States at its source and its branches, and slave States down near its mouth? Pray, sir, pray, sir, let me say to the people of this country that these things are worthy of their pondering and of their consideration. Here, sir, are five millions of freemen in the free States north of the river Ohio: can any body suppose that this population can be severed by a line that divides them from the territory of a foreign and an alien Government, down somewhere, the Lord knows where, upon the lower banks of the Mississippi? What would become of Missouri? Will she join the arrondissement of the slave States? Shall the man from the Yellow Stone and the Platte River be connected in the new Republic with the man who lives on the southern extremity of the Cape of Florida? Sir, I am ashamed to pursue this line of remark. I dislike it - I have an utter disgust for it. I would rather hear of natural blasts and mil dews, war, pestilence and famine, than to hear gentlemen talk of secession. To break up! to break up this great Government - to dismember this great country- to astonish Europe with an act of folly such as Europe for two centuries has never beheld in any Government! No, sir; no, sir! There will be no secession. Gentlemen are not serious when they talk of secession.

Sir, I hear there is to be a Convention held at Nashville. I am bound to believe that if worthy gentlemen meet at Nashville in Convention, their object will be to adopt counsels conciliatory - to advise the South to forbearance and moderation, and to advise the North to forbearance and moderation; and to inculcate principles of brotherly love and affection, and attachment to the constitution of the country as it now is. I believe, if the Convention meet at all,

it will be for this purpose; for certainly, if they meet for any purpose hostile to the Union, they have been singularly inappropriate in their selection of a place. I remember, sir, that when the treaty was concluded between France and England at the peace of Amiens, a stern old Englishman and an orator, who disliked the terms of the peace as ignominious to England, said in the House of Commons that if King William could know the terms of the treaty he would turn in his coffin. Let me commend the saying of Mr. Windham, in all its emphasis and in all its force, to any persons who shall meet at Nashville for the purpose of concerting measures for the overthrow of the Union of this country over the bones of Andrew Jackson.

Sir, I wish to make two remarks, and hasten to a conclusion. I wish to say, in regard to Texas, that if it should be hereafter at any time the pleasure of the Government of Texas to cede to the United States a portion, larger or smaller, of her territory which lies adjacent to New Mexico and north of the 34° of north latitude, to be formed into Free States, for a fair equivalent in money or in the payment of her debt, I think it an object well worthy the consideration of Congress, and I shall be happy to concur in it myself, if I should be in the public councils of the country at the time.

I have one other remark to make. In my observations upon slavery as it has existed in the country, and as it now exists, I have expressed no opinion of the mode of its extinguishment or amelioration. I will say, however, though I have nothing to propose on that subject, because I do not deem myself so competent as other gentlemen to consider it, that if any gentleman from the South shall propose a scheme of colonization, to be carried on by this Government upon a large scale, for the transportation of free colored people to any colony or any place in the world, I should be quite disposed to incur almost any degree of expense to accomplish that object. Nay, sir, following an example set here more than twenty years ago by a great man, then a Senator from New York, I would return to Virginia - and through her for the benefit of the whole South - the money received from the lands and territories ceded by her to this Government, for any such purpose as to relieve, in whole or in part, or in any way to diminish or deal beneficially with, the free colored population of the Southern States. I have said that I honor Virginia for her cession of this territory. There have been received into the treasury of the United States eighty millions of dollars. the proceeds of the sales of public lands ceded by Virginia. the residue should be sold at the same rate, the whole aggregate will exceed two hundred millions of dollars. If Virginia and the South see fit to adopt any proposition to relieve themselves from the free people of color among them, they have my free consent that the Govern

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ment shall pay them any sum of money out of its proceeds which may be adequate to the purpose.

And now, Mr. President, I draw these observations to a close. I have spoken freely, and I meant to do so. I have sought to make no display; I have sought to enliven the occasion by no animated discussion; nor have I attempted any train of elaborate argument; I have sought only to speak my sentiments fully and at large, being desirous once and for all to let the Senate know, and to let the country know, the opinions and sentiments which I entertain on all these subjects. These opinions are not likely to be suddenly changed. If there be any future service that I can render to the country consistently with these sentiments and opinions, I shall cheerfully render it. If there be not, I shall still be glad to have had an opportunity to disburden my conscience from the bottom of my heart, and to make known every political sentiment that therein exists.

And now, Mr. President, instead of speaking of the possibility or utility of secession, instead of dwelling in these caverns of darkness, instead of groping with those ideas so full of all that is horrid and horrible, let us come out into the light of day; let us enjoy the fresh airs of liberty and union; let us cherish those hopes which belong to us; let us devote ourselves to those great objects that are fit for our consideration and our action; let us raise our conceptions to the magnitude and the importance of the duties that devolve upon us; let our comprehension be as broad as the country for which we act, our aspirations as high as its certain destiny; let us not be pigmies in a case that calls for men. Never did there devolve on any generation of men higher trusts than now devolve upon us for the preservation of this constitution, and the harmony and peace of all who are destined to live under it. Let us make our generation one of the strongest, and the brightest link in that golden chain which is destined, I fondly believe, to grapple the people of all the States to this Constitution, for ages to come. It is a great popular Constitutional Government, guarded by legislation, by law, by judicature, and defended by the whole affections of the people. No monarchical throne presses these States together; no iron chain of despotic power encircles them; they live and stand upon a Government popular in its form, representative in its character, founded upon principles of equality, and calculated, we hope, to last forever. In all its history it has been beneficent; it has trodden down no man's liberty; it has crushed no State. Its daily respiration is liberty and patriotism, its yet youthful veins are full of enterprise, courage and honorable love of glory and renown. Large before, the country has now, by recent events, become vastly larger. This republic now extends with a vast breadth, across the whole continent. The two great seas of the world wash the one and the other shore. We realize on a mighty scale the beautiful description of the ornamental edging of the buckler of Achilles

"Now the broad shield complete the artist crowned,
With his last hand, and poured the ocean round;
In living silver seemed the waves to roll,
And beat the buckler's verge, and bound the whole."

MR. CALHOUN. I rise to correct what I conceive to be an error of the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts as to the motives which induced the acquisition of Florida, Louisiana, and Texas. He attributed it to the great growth of cotton, and the desire of the Southern people to get an extension of territory, with the view of cultivating it with more profit than they could in a compact and crowded settlement. Now, Mr. President, the history of these acquisitions I think was not correctly given. It is well known that the acquisition of Florida was the result of an Indian war. The Seminole Indians residing along the line attacked one of our fortresses; troops were ordered out, they were driven back; and, under the command of General Jackson, Pensacola and St. Marks were seized. It was these acts, and not the desire for the extended cultivation of cotton, which led to the acquisition of Florida. I admit that there had been for a long time a desire on the part of the South, and of the Administration I believe, to acquire Florida, but it was very different from the reason assigned by the honorable Senator. There were collected together four tribes of Indians - the Creeks, the Choctaws, the Chickasaws, and the Cherokees, about thirty thousand warriors - who held connexion, almost the whole of them, with the Spanish authorities in Florida, and carried on a trade perpetually with them. It was well known that a most pernicious influence was thus exercised over them; and it was the desire of preventing conflict between the Indians and ourselves in the South, as I believe, which induced the acquisition of Florida. I come now to Louisiana. We well know that the immediate cause for the acquisition of Louisiana was the suspension of our right of deposit at New Orleans. Under a treaty with Spain we had a right to the navigation of the river as far as New Orleans, and a right to make deposits in the port of New Orleans. The Spanish authorities interrupted that right, and that interruption produced a great agitation at the West, and I may say throughout the whole United States. The gentlemen then in opposition, a highly respectable party - the old Federal party, which I have never said a word of disrespect in regard to - if I mistake not, took the lead in a desire to resort to arms to acquire that territory. Mr. Jefferson, more prudent, desired to procure it by purchase. A purchase was made, in order to remove the difficulty and to give an outlet to the West to the ocean. That was the immediate cause of the acquisition of Louisiana. Now, sir, we come to Texas. Perhaps no gentleman had more to do with the acquisition of Texas than myself; and I aver, Mr. President, that I would have been among the very last individuals in the United States to have made any movement at that time for the acquisition of Texas; and I go further, if I know myself, I was incapable of acquiring any territory simply on the ground that it was to be an enlargement of slave territory. I would just as freely have acquired it if it had been on the Northern as on the Southern side. No, sir, very different motives actuated me. I knew at a very early period - I will not go into the history of it - the British Government had given encouragement to the abolitionists of the United States, who were represented at the World's Convention. The question of the abolition of slavery was agitated in that Convention. One gentleman stated that Mr. Adams informed him that if the British Government wished to abolish slavery in the United States they must begin with Texas. A commission was sent from this World's Convention to the British Secretary of State, Lord Aberdeen; and it so happened that a gentleman was present when the interview took place between Lord Aberdeen and the Committee, who gave me a full account of it shortly after it occurred. Lord Aberdeen fell into the project, and gave full encouragement to the abolitionists.

Well, sir, it is well known that Lord Aberdeen was a very direct, and, in my opinion, a very honest and worthy man; and when Mr. Pakenham was sent here to negotiate with regard to Oregon, and incidentally with respect to Texas, he was ordered to read a declaration to this Government stating that the British Government was anxious to put an end to slavery all over the world, commencing at Texas. It is well known, further, that at that very time a negotiation was going on between France and England to accomplish that object, and our Government was thrown by stratagem out of the negotiation, and that object was first to incline Mexico to acknowledge the independence of Texas upon the ground that she would abolish it.

All these are matters of history; and where is the man so blind - I am sure the Senator from Massachusetts is not so blind - as not to see that if the project of Great Britian had been successful, the whole frontier of the States of Louisiana and Arkansas and the adjacent States, would have been exposed to the inroads of British emissaries. Sir, so far as I was concerned, I put it exclusively upon that ground. I never would run into the folly of re-annexation which I always held to be absurd. Nor, sir, would I put it upon the ground which I might well have put it - of commercial and manufacturing considerations, because those were not my motive principles, and I chose to assign what were. So far as commerce and manufactures were concerned, I would not have moved in the matter at that early period.

The Senator objects that many Northern gentlemen voted for annexation. Why, sir, it was natural that they should be desirous of fulfilling the obligations of the constitution; and, besides, what man at that time doubted that the Missouri compromise line would be adopted, and that the territory would fall entirely to the South? All that Northern men asked for at that time was the extension of that line. Their course, in my opinion, was eminently correct and patriotic.

Now, Mr. President, having made these corrections, I must go back a little further and correct a statement which I think the Senator has left very defective, relative to the ordinance of 1787. He states very correctly that it commenced under the Old Confederation; that it was afterwards confirmed by Congress; that Congress was sitting in New York at the time, while the Convention sat in Philadelphia; and that there was concert of action. I have not looked into the ordinance very recently, but my memory will serve me thus far, that MR. JEFFERSON introduced his first proposition to exclude slavery in 1784. There was a vote taken upon it, and I think on that vote every Southern Senator voted against it; but I am not certain of it. One thing I am certain of, that it was three years before the ordinance could pass. It was sturdily resisted, down to 1787; and when it was passed, as I had good reason to believe, it was upon a principle of compromise; first, that the ordinance should contain a provision similar to the one put in the constitution with respect to fugitive slaves; and next, that it should be inserted in the constitution; and this was the compromise upon which the prohibition was inserted in the ordinance of 1787. We thought we had an indemnity in that, but we made a great mistake. Of what possible advantage has it been to us? Violated faith has met us on every side, and the advantage has been altogether in their favor. On the other side, it has been thrown open to a Northern population to the entire seclusion of the Southern. This was the leading measure which destroyed the compromise of the constitution, and then followed the Missouri compromise which was carried mainly by Northern votes, although now disavowed and not respected by them. That was the next step, and between these two causes the equilibrium has been broken.

Having made these remarks, let me say that I took great pleasure in listeniug to the declarations of the honorable Senator from Massachusetts upon several point. He puts himself upon the fulfilment of the contract of Congress in the resolutions of Texas annexation, for the admission of the four new States