1826.

DEBATE IN THE HOUSE.

457

any pledge to foreign nations? Did we commit the faith of the nation to all or any of the southern republics? Certainly not. The declaration contained no pledge. It left us perfectly free, but it had since been converted into a pledge by the administration.

"Because of this pledge, which was a dangerous departure from the time-honored policy of Washington, a step toward the entangling alliances against which Mr. Jefferson had warned his countrymen, Buchanan was in favor of the amendments. They would enable the administration to relieve itself from a pledge it had no right to give. They would enable the President to say that, strong as was his inclination to fulfil it, the House of Representatives had declared it should never have their sanction."

Webster replied. He was convinced that the House must appropriate the money, and he was opposed to the amendments. The appointment of the ministers was a clear and unequivocal exercise of executive power. It was less connected with the duties of the House than almost any other executive act, because the office of Public Minister was not created by any statute or law of Congress. It existed under the law of nations, and was recognized as existing by the Constitution. Indeed, it was only because Ministers, like other officers, must have salaries, and because no salaries can be paid without consent of the House that the subject was referred to it at all.

Webster disapproved of the amendments because they prescribed what the Ministers should and should not discuss at Panama, because the House had no right to instruct Ministers, and because, even if it had, the instruction in question was not proper.

With this he might well, he said, be content to stop; but the discussion had extended over a broader field, and, following where others led, he would make some observations on the general topics of the debate. In the course of discussion the declaration of Mr. Monroe in 1823 had been described as loose and vague. "Not only as a member of the House, but as a citizen of the country I have an anxious desire that this part of our history should stand in its proper light. In my

judgment, the country had a very high honor connected with this occurrence. I look upon it as a part of its treasures of reputation, and, for one, I intend to guard it. It was, I believe, sufficiently studied. I have understood, from good authority, that it was considered, weighed, and distinctly and decidedly approved by every one of the President's advisers at that time. Our Government could not follow precisely the course which Great Britain had taken. She threatened the immediate recognition of the provinces if the Allies should take part with Spain against them. We had already recognized them. Nothing remained but for our Government to say how we should consider a combination of the allied powers to effect objects in America which concerned ourselves, and the message was intended to say what it does say—that we should regard such combinations as dangerous to us. I agree with those who maintain the proposition, and I contend against those who deny it, that the message did mean something, that it meant much; and I maintain against both that the declaration effected much good, answered the end designed by it, did great honor to the foresight and spirit of the Government, and that it cannot now be taken back, retracted, or annulled without disgrace. I look on the message of December, 1823, as forming a bright page in our history. I will neither help to erase it nor tear it out, nor shall it be, by any act of mine, blurred or blotted. It did honor to the sagacity of the Government. It elevated the hopes and gratified the patriotism of the people. Over those hopes I will not bring a mildew, nor will I put that gratified patriotism to shame.

"But how does it happen that there is now a new-born fear on the subject of this declaration? The crisis is over. The danger is past. When made there was real ground for apprehension. Now there is none. And yet we are vehemently warned against the sentiments of the declaration. To avoid this inconsistency it is contended that new force has been given to the words of Mr. Monroe. Do gentlemen mean to say that the communication made to France was improper? Do they mean to repel and repudiate the declaration that we could not see Cuba transferred from Spain to any other

1826.

FATE OF THE PANAMA CONGRESS.

459

European power? If the House intends to contradict that, be it so. But I pray gentlemen to review their opinions. A member has said that if Spain chose to transfer the island to any other power she has a right to do so, and we here cannot interfere to prevent her. I must dissent from this opinion. The rights of nations in matters of this kind are much modified by circumstances. Because France or Great Britain could not rightfully complain of the transfer of Florida to us, it does not follow that we could not complain of the cession of Cuba to one of them. The transfer of Florida to us was not dangerous to the safety of either of these nations, nor fatal to any of their great and essential interests. Proximity of position, neighborhood, whatever augments the power of injuring and annoying, very properly belong to the consideration of all cases of this kind. What might otherwise never be thought of is justified for these reasons and on these grounds."

When at last the long debate ended the Committee of the Whole reported the resolution of the Committee on Foreign Relations without amendment. But the House added that of Mr. McLean, and, having done so, rejected the resolution as amended and passed the Appropriation Bill.

It was now late in April, and summer came before Anderson and Sergeant set out to attend the Congress from which Clay expected such great results. But he was doomed to disappointment. Anderson died on the way, and Sergeant reached Panama to find that the delegates had assembled and adjourned to meet again at Tacubaya, in Mexico. But when the appointed day arrived the little republics were once more the scene of domestic violence, this meeting was never held, and Sergeant came home without accomplishing anything.

Quite as futile was the attempt to move the boundary of our country farther southward into Texas. The independence of Mexico left with her the duty of executing the treaty of amity, settlement, and limits concluded with Spain in 1819. But it was in many respects so unsatisfactory that a proposal was offered to put it aside and make another. As defined, the line of demarcation between the United States and the Mexican provinces of Spain passed up the west bank

of the Sabine river to thirty-two degrees, due north to the Red river, west along its south bank to the one hundredth degree of longitude west from London, then north again to the south shore of the Arkansas river, westward along the river to its source, thence due north or south, as occasion might require, to latitude forty-two north, and thence west along this parallel to the Pacific.

That it was the best line obtainable at the time admits of no doubt. Yet it was objectionable for two reasons. It brought the possessions of Mexico along the Sabine too near what Clay called our great Western mart, and left a large part of the Red river and many tributaries of the Arkansas wholly within the Mexican domain. When the country adjacent to these waters came to be thickly settled disputes would be sure to arise from the community of interests in their navigation. Now was the time to prevent this-now, when the country was a wilderness, and not by and by, when it was well settled.

Clay suggested, therefore, that the Rio Brazos, or the Rio Colorado, or even the Rio Grande, be substituted for the Sabine, and that a new line be so drawn as to head all the waters flowing into the Arkansas and the Red rivers. Mexico would hear nothing of such a proposition. Her Government was, her representatives held, invested with all the former rights of Spain in Mexico, and bound by all the old obligations of the late mother country, and the treaty of 1819 must stand. Clay then proposed two lines and two prices. If Mexico would accept as the boundary the Rio Grande from its mouth to the Rio Puerco, that river to its source, and thence a line due north to the Arkansas, the United States would pay one million dollars for the country ceded. Should Mexico decline to part with all of Texas, the United States would give five hundred thousand dollars for so much as lay east of the Rio Colorado from its mouth to its source, and a line thence due north to the Arkansas.

There were two things to be considered, Clay remarked. The ease with which citizens of the United States obtained land grants of vast extent showed what little value Mexico placed on the possession of Texas. No sort of equivalent had

1828.

BOUNDARY NEGOTIATIONS WITH MEXICO.

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been received for the land. But, what was far more important, was the condition that the country should be settled by people from the United States. These emigrants had carried with them our ideas, customs, usages, principles of law, liberty, and religion. To Mexicanize such settlers, to amalgamate them with the old inhabitants, was impossible. Collisions would surely arise-nay, had already arisen. Others might well be expected in time to come, and if the sympathies of the two republics were enlisted, serious misunderstandings would surely follow. In plain language,

Mexico would lose Texas sooner or later. It was better to part with it now voluntarily and receive a million dollars than to part with it later against her will and get nothing. Poinsett, however, did not venture to obey his instructions. He knew that it was idle to expect to buy; he was sure that such a proposition at that time would increase the irritation already existing on matters in dispute between the two countries, and wisely did nothing.* When, therefore, Mexico insisted on the boundary as agreed to by Spain and the United States in 1819, Poinsett yielded, and a treaty of limits, confirming and restating the old line and binding the two parties to mark it on the ground, was concluded in January, 1828, but four years elapsed before ratifications were exchanged and the treaty proclaimed to be law.

During this interval the term of Adams expired and Jackson was raised to the presidency. He, too, was convinced that the territory of the United Mexican states came too near the Mississippi, and one of his earliest acts was to instruct Van Buren to negotiate for a boundary farther away than the Sabine. For the country north and east of a line starting at a point on the coast between the Nueces and the Rio Grande and so drawn to the forty-second degree of north latitude as to run along the crest of the divide parting the waters that enter the Rio Grande from those flowing into the Gulf, Jackson was ready to pay five million dollars. For Texas east of a line along the west bank of the Rio de la Blanco from its mouth to the source of its most westerly

* Statement made by Poinsett to Clay, Niles's Register, vol. lxvi, p. 152.