Litchfield enquirer., 1844-09-12

MR. BENToNS SPEECH AT BooNvfEtE.
 Tn. Roonville Union" contains the substonee .e .,o .peeches made by MT. Benton, in BOOnville, [ns;.,ourio on the l7th and 18th ut., written out bv himsels The following extract from one Oi them is copied from the St. Louis Republican:
 Mfr Renton proceeded to "the subject on which .,l ,,srs anxious to hear him speak, namely, the snnexation of Texas" Much of the first part of fhis speech was taken up in establishing the posi- lions which he had maintained upon the negocIa- tion of the first treaty, by which Texas was lost to us through the instrumentalty of Calhoun anu o!1- er Southern members of Mr. Monroe's Cabinet He read the bill introduced by him at the last session of Congress, giving authority to the President to open negotiations with Mexico ana iexas Ior tue adjustment of boundaries and the quesnon ct lex oe and proceeded to explain and defend 1t. "Let those who want Texas sUith the Union," he said go for the bill let those who want Texas ecath0m tbe Union. adhere to the dead treaty.. MT. Benton proceeded
 xDisunion was primary object of the treaty;- an intrigue for the Presidency its secondary oo- feet; and speculation and stock-jobbing were aux. iary obects and the four objects together brought it forward at the time and in the manner m winch ii came forward just forty days before the Baltimore Convention, and at the exact moment to max with the Presidential election, and to make dIssenslon discord, and mischief between the North and the South. MT. B. said he meant this for the prime mn those who supported the treaty without partic!pa| fling in the view of its makers. He had Tn various speeches exposed the disunion scheues and the ln- tripue for the Presidency; he had not shown the mart which land speculation and stock Johblng act ed in concocting the treaty, and pressing lts Iaun conspicuous one, and was seen by every body at Washington. The city was huzzard roost ! the Presidential mansion and Department of State were buzzard roosts de6led and polluted by the foul and voracous birds, in the shape of land spectators and stock obbers who saw their prey Tn the treaty. and snared no effort to secure it. Their own work was to support the treaty and its friends-to assa
 its opuonents-to abuse the Senators who were against tito vilify them, and lie upon them m writng-and to establish committee, still sitting at Washington, to promote and protect tneir inter- est, The treaty assumed ten millions of debt and confirmed all the land claims under the laws ot Texas. The treaty correspondence claimed two hundred millions of acres of land Tn Texas oi 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 as. sume bubble debt for the benefit of stockjobbers without any adeauate consideration either to Texas or the United States. Texas in all its proper ex tent-in its whole length and breadth, from tht Sabine to the west of the Nueces and from the Gul of Mexico to the Red river-contans but l3S, ,00( square miles, equal s4 millions of acres and tc get the remainder of the quantity of 200 millions acres, they have to count the wild country under fhe dominion of Camanche Indians and the left bank of the Rio Grandc from head to mouth, all oi which is under Mexican dominion. and great part of which has been settled and granted above two hundred years. .e
 It is nonsense to talk of Texas possessing vacant land. If there is any thing vacant. 1t is because Il is not worth having Texas itself has been settled at San Antonio, Nacogdoches, and other place: above one hundred years, and has been under tho dominion of three different Governments, each O which has been granting away its lands, and tha not by 40 acre and 80 acre tracts, but by leagues and parallells of latitude and longitude, and b, hundreds of thousands and millions of acres at { time The Kings Government made grants ther' from 172O to 1920; then the States of Coahuila ant Texas united as one State, made grants from 1S2( to 1895, when the Texan revolution broke out ,ant since that Texas has been granting by wholesale and retail, having General Land Oihce at thu seat of Government, and local one in every coun ty,s all employed in granting land, and that tt tho Anglo.Saxon race whose ayidity for land i: insat fable. After all this, what vacant land car there be in Texasl Not one acre worth having ;-- so the assumption of her debt by the treaty was gratutious, and without consideration. And what debt created upon scrip and certificates at every imaginable decree of depreciation and now held by iobbers, most of whom have purchased at cents and cents, and cents9in the dollar, 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 was ratified; and where it bore ten per cent. interest three millions of it did, would have been worth upwards of two hundred cents in the dollar the day of the ratification of treaty. And all this to go to the benefit not even of Texas, but of spectators; and that while the United States refuse, and rghtfully refuse, to sume the debts of their States.
 These scrip-holders were among the most furl. ous treaty men at Washington. and cannot bear the idea of having their scrip sealed the continental bills of the American Revolution (issued under the same crcumstances) were seGled, as to give them back their outlay and interest; but they want them funded, as the soldiers certificates were in the year 1701, not for the benefit of soldiers, but for the benefit of iobbers and members of Congress, who, by law, turned two and sxpence into thirty shillings in their own pockets, and that to the amount of millions of dollars. The Yazoo land spcculations and the soldiers certificate specula. tion were grains of mustard to the mountain, onn- pared to the Texas land and scrip speculation which the rejection of the treaty bauiked. Under the bill justice will be done. The scrip Will b' sealed, and void grants of land annulled.
 To show the extent of these land grants, and tt expose the fraudulent statements in the treaty cor respondence that only sixty-seven millions of acre had been granted. MT. B. produced and exhibited to all present, large pamphlet with map attach ed to it. containing the claims of single individu a and all of which were asserted to be valid unde the treaty. They were grants derived from thu second of the Governments which had granted land in Texas, to wit: the States ot CoahuiIa and Tex as when united as one State, which .was'their con dition from 1920, when the Mexican revolution broke out, to 1895, when Texas revolted, Th' srants were made to MT. John Charles Beales an Engiishman, married to Mexican woman ..1. Tso.;oons Sond ns,rchaaed hw him .,i Anf