The Whig standard. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1843-1844, 1844-08-15
MR.. BENTON-ANoTHER SPEECH AGAINST
TEXAS.

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TEXAS.
Let every body read the following able and un-
answerable speech against annexation, recently
made by Colonel Benton to his constituents.
We think it the most conclusive argument against
the treaty that we have yet seen. 1t is quite
clear that Tyler and Calhoun, from sinister, self
ish and unworthy motives. endeavored to saddle
upon this nation debt of ten millions of dollars,
,cuhom consideration. The ,ohole of the wild
lands in Texas have been granted away to ind-
viduals and companies, and would not have been
worth "peppercorn to the national treasury.
We repeat let every body read this short speech
Of Colonel Benton.
"Disunion was primary object of the treaty
an intrigue for the Presidency was its secondary
object; land speculation and stock-jobbing were
auxiliary objects; and the four objects together
brought it forward at the time and in the manner
in which it came forward, just forty days before
the Baltimore Convention, and at the exact mo-
ment 10 mix with the Presidential election, and
to make dissenson, dscord, and mischief between
the North aud the South. Mr.. B. said he meant
this for the prime movers and negotators of the
treaty, and not for those who supported the treaty
without participating in the views of its makers.
He had in various speeches exposed the disunion
scheme, and the intrigue for the Presidency; he
had not shown the part which land speculation
and stock Jobbing acted in connecting the treaty,
and pressing its ratification. He had not noticed
this part but it was conspicuous one, and was
seen by every body at Washington. The city
was buzzard roost the Presidential mansion
and Department of State were buzzard roosts
defled and polluted by the foul and voracous
birds, in the shape of land spectators and stock
lOhhprS w "a in frpa nd
spared no effort to secure it. Their own work
was to support the treaty and its friends-to assail
its opponents-to abuse the Senators who were
against ito Willy them, and lie upon them in
speech and in wrting-and to establish CON-
mittee, still sitting at Washington. to promote
and protect their interest. The treaty assumed
ten millions of debt, and confirmed all the land
claims under the laws OF Texas. The treaty cor
respondence claimed two hundred millions of
acres of land in Texas, of which two-thirds were
represented as vacant and claimed as fund out
of which the debt assumed was to be paid. Vain
and impotent attempt at deception Open and
fraudulent attempt to assume bubble debt for
the benefit of stockholders without any adequate
consideration either to Texas or the United States
Texas in all its proper extent-n its whole
length and breadth, from the Sabine to the west
of the Nueces, and from the Gulf of Mexico to
the Red rver-contans but $4,000 square
the remainder of the quantity of 200 millions of
acres they have to count the wild country under
the dominion of Camanche Indians, and the left
bank of the Rio Grande from head to mouth all
of which is under Mexican dominion and great
part of which has been settled and granted above
two hundred years 1t is nonsense to talk OF
Texas possessing vacant land. If there is any
thing vacant, it is because it is not worth having.
Texas itself has been settled at San Antonio, Ma
pnn N haco 10th MA oh hnnA brad
years, ard has been under the dominion of three
different Governments, each of which has been
granting away its lands, and that not by 40 acre
and 30 acre tracts, but by leagues and parallels
of latitude and longitude and by hundreds of thou
sands and millions of acres at time. The Kings
Government made grants there from l72O to 1920;
then the States of Coahuila and Texas, united as
one State, made grants from 1920 to 1885, when
the Texan revolution broke out and since that,
Texas has been granting by wholesale and retail,
hsving General Land Office at the seat Of Gov
eminent, and local one in every county, all en-
ployed in granting land, and that to the Anglo
Saxon race, whose ayidity for land is Unsuitable.
After all this, what vacant land can there be in
Texas Not an acre worth having so that the
assumption of her debt by the treaty was gratuI-
tous, and without consideration. And what
debt created upon scrip and certificates at every
imaginable degree of depreciation, and now held
ny JUuUeIs, ilOoI VI WHOM nave puICHdbeu dL LWO
cents, and five cents, and seven cents in the dol
lar, and would have seen their scrip, where it
| bore six per cent worth upwards of one hundred
cents to the dollar the day the treaty ratified
| and where 1t bore ten per cent interest, as three
millions of it did, would have been worth upwards
of two hundred cents in the dollar on the day of
the ratification of the treaty. And all this to 90
TO the benefit, not even of Texas, but of specu-
lators and that while the United States refuse,
/ and oh fI 10 LIZ 81
own States. These scrip.holders were among
the most furious treaty men at Washington, and
can not bear the idea of having their scrip scaled
| as the continental bills of the American Revolu-
| ton ISSUED under the same circumstances were
scaled, SO as to give them back their outlay and
| interest; but they want them funded, as the SOL
| diers' certificates were in the year l79l not for
not for the benefit of soldiers, but for the BEN
eft of jobbers and members of Congress, who,
by law, turned two and sxpence into thirty
shillngs in their own pockets, and that to the
amount of millions of dollars. The Yazoo land