Burlington free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1827-1865, 1836-06-17

VI iSb utu
she VIII tell you that. i! you must have
member of your confederacy, it
must be without the faint or the trammels
slavery; and if you will woce a wal 80
and fetter your fellow. man, she
w'li wage The war against you to break his
cha'ns' Sir, what a figure. in the eyes Of
mankind would you make, in deadly conflict
with Gr. Britain: she fighting the battles Of
Emancipation, and you the battles OF slavery;
the oenefactress and you the oppressor
OF human Kind In such q war, the enthu.
s'asm OF emancipation, too, would unite
vast numbers Of her people in aid of the
national rivalry, aud all her natural jealousy
against your aggrandizement. No war
was ever so popular in England as that
war would ., against slavery. the slave
trade, and the Anglo.Saxon descendant
from her own loiDs.
AS to the annexation of Texas TO your
Confederation, for what do you want it ?
Are you not large and unwieldly enough
already Do not two millions Of square
miles cover surface enough for the insatiate
repacity ofyour land jobbers? hope there
are none Of them within the sound Of my
voice Have you not Indians enough to
excel from The land of their fathers sepul
SiiGos obu ~ CA'CItiIiudtc NVudlt III q
prudential nd military point Of view, would
be the addition of Texas to your domain ?
1t would be weakness, and not power. Is
your southern and southwestern frontier not
sufficiently extensive ? not sufficiently fee
BILE ? not sufficiently defenceless! Why
are you adding regiment after regiment OF
Dragons TO your standing army? Why
are you struggling, by direction and by IN
direction, to raise per saitum that army from
less than six to more than twenty thousand
men' Your commanding General, now
returning from his excursion to Florida,
openly recommends the increase of your
Army TO that number. Sir, the extension
of your sea.coast frontier from the SABINE
to the Rio Bravo would add to your weak
ness tenfold for it ia now only weakness
with reference to Mexico. 1t would then
be weakness with reference to Great Brit
ain. TO France, even perhaps to Russia, to
every naval European Power, which might
make a quarrel with Us for The sake OF set
thing a colony /; but, above all, 10 Great
Britain. She, by her naval power, and BY
her American colonies. holds the keys Of
the gulfof Mexico. What would be the
condition of your frontier from tho mouth Of
the Mississippi to that of the Rio del Norre,
in the event Of a wal with great Britain /!
Sir, the reasons of Mr.. Monroe for accept
ing the Sabine as the boundary were three.
FIRST, he had M confidence IN the strength
Of our claIm as far as the RIO Bravo Sec
ondiy, he thought it would make our union
so heavy that 1t would break into fragments
of its own weight; thirdly, he thought it
would protrude a long line Of sea coast.
which, in our first war with Great Britain,
she might take into her own POSSESSIONS,
and which we should be able neither to de
fend nor to recover. At that time there
was no question of slavery or Of abolition
involved in the controversy. The country
belonged to Spain; it was a wilderness,a and
slavery was the established law Of the land.
There was then no project for carving out
nine slave Safes. to hold eighteen seats in
the other wing Of the capitol, in the triangle
between the mouths and the sources of the
Mississippi and Bravo rivers. But what
was our claim! Why it was that La Sale,
having discovered the mouth of the MiSsis
sippl, and France having made a settlement
at New Orleans, France had a right to
one-half The sea coast from the mouth nfihe
Mississippi to the neXt spanish settlement,
which was Vera Cruz. The mouth Of the
RIO Bravo was about half way from the
BalizA to Vera Cruz and 80 as grantees,
from France Of L ,~uisiana, we claimed to
the RIO del Norre. though the spanish set
Element of San,e Fe was at the head of
that river. France, from whom we had
received Louisiana, utterly disclaimed ever
having even raised such a pretension. Still
we made the best of the claim tn 1t we could,
and finally yielded it for the Floridas, and
for the line Of the AID degree of latitude
from the source Of the Arkansas river to
the South sea. Such was our claim; and
| you may Judge how much confidence Mr.,
Monroe could have in it's validity The
great object and desire of the country Their
was to obtain tina FIorldas. 1t was Gener
al Jackson's desire; and in that conference
with me to which l la We heretofore alluded
and which it is said he does not recollect
he said to me that so long as the Florida
rivers were not in our possession. there
could be no safety for our whole Southern
country.
But, sir, suppose you should annex Texas
to these United States; another year wouIC
not pass before you would have to engage ir
a war for the conquest Of the Island of Cuba
What ia now the condition IF tina island
Still under the nominal protection nf Spain,
What is the condition OF Spain herself Con.
suming her own vitals 10 a civil war fol
the succession to the crown. Do you ex.
pect, that whatever may be the issue Of
that war, she can retain even the nominal
possession Of Cuba' After having lost all
her continental colonies in North and
South America. Cuba will stand in need of
more efficient protection and above all,
the protection of a naval power. Suppose
that naval power should be Great Brian.
There is Cuba at your very door; and il
you spread yourself along a naked coast,
from The Sabine TO the Rio Bravo. what
will be your relative position towards Grea,
Britain, with not only Jamaica, but Cuba,
and Porto Rico in her hands, and abolition
for the motto to her union cross Of ST
George End Saint Andrew Mr.. Chair,