The Arkansas banner., 1844-06-05

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 l. The annexation is opposed to by some. on the ground that 1t will make our territory too large; but experience has cyinced that a representative republic can, with convenience and efficiency, extend over limits far wider than from the St. Croix to the Rio del Norte. Indeed, by the aid of railroads and steam, the Union, with Texas included, will be fur more accessible i'll all its parts, either for business or government, than 1t was at the Revolution with only l3 States, and those all situated on the narrow belt of the Eastern dec!iyifv of the Alieghanies. And this objection. if ten able, should have been urged, and prevailed. before we purchased either Louisiana or the Floridas
 2 The annexation has been opposed. as
 ncllnng the balance of political power in our system too much in favor of the West and south But the same course of reasoning would strip us of all our great domain on the racine ocean-a country never to be surren- dered while all American whaler visits its waters, or an American cmigrant chooses to iish, hunt or plant, on the banks of the Co., lnmbn. It would also, from like apprehen- sIons as to the balance of powerin the North. prevent any future peaceabIe annexation of the Canadas, so ardenty contemplated by our fathers from the commencement of the Revolution; and it would heretofore have de- ieated the purchase of the Floridas by Mr. Monroe, and ol Louisiana, including Texas, by Mir. Jefferson; and would not only cast censure on them and their venerable eoadIu- tors, for thus deranging the balance of power then, but would add reproach on Messrs. Adams and Clay for attempting toregain Tex as Ill 1925 and 1927, and on Gen. Jackson and MT. Van Buren fora like attempt in 1929: and, what Is still worse, by thls course of reasoning, for seeking, as was done in 1885 by Gsn. Jackson and AIr. Forsyth, to obtain vast tract of additional country still farther South and West, from the forty-second de- gree of latitude to the thirty-seventh, and stretching towards the setting sun over that degree across the entire continent. But, in truth, the durable interests of the whole Union are believed to have been looked to on these occasions as now; and the theoreti- cal balance of power, if adverted to at all, can never endanger the practical workings of our system, which will always be most at tractiye, strongest, and most fourishing, where freest-unless liberty and progress are mere phantoms of the imagination-and will always produce greatest harmony when least in1uencedby any sectional jealousies or local prejudices
 3. The annexation has been deprecated by some as likely to cause disunion, when its legitimate object is to secure the great inte- rests and compromises of the Union; and when such must be its consequence, and per- petSte that Union, trust, forever, unles thwarted by disregard of plighted faith, and by fanatical violation of those solemn com promises.
 1. It is opposed by ot..--#=ae 44e11at of the badness of some of the reasons assigned for 1t; as if a good measure ought to be re- jected because any one may please to urge some weak reasons forit By others, because few of its advocates are suspected of being interested in the question, and if that could impair the usefulness of the annexation it- self, or was not always an incident to almost every question of great magnitude. And by others still, because the auspices under which the measure is now proposed arc dislked; as if the necessity or value of a gift or purchase depended upon the character of the agents employed,
 ,. It Is resisted by many for the reason that slavery exists in Texas. That is an in- sttrtion, to be sure, which most people, born at the North, are, like myself, ayerse to. But those who respect the Constitution and the Union, remember thatit is an institution which our parent country, before the Revolution, tl., ,,,T, after bApg more deeply interwoven through the social and political systems of the latter, the rest of the States did not hesitate to con- federate with her in fighting the battles of in- nor to counsel with her heroes, patriots and statesmen, in forming the present Constitution; nor to associate with them in carrying out its great destinies; nor in guar antying their property and rights in common with the rest, then and during the half century since, in peace and war, and in veal or wo.
 However deprecated by many of Us, we know that none can legally abolish the in- stitution but those who possess it; and that while this has already been done since the Revolution by nearly half of the old States, 1t may continue to be done by Texas herself, as well as others, sooner or later, when their sense of duty and safety may permit it, if left tranquilly to the exercise of their own rights What effect the annexation of Texas will really have on this measure, seems to be doubted by some of its opponents, among whom the most distinguished think it will add more free than slave States. But how ever that may be, the friends of annexation believe that, while rejection of il must leave the institution of slavery just as it is, with out mitigation, the acceptance of 1t cannot add to the whole number of slaves now in Texas and the United States together; and, fl dispersing the number over wider space, will gradually tend to make their freedom less expensive and more easy in any one State; or, if concentrating them further South than now will render voluntary emancipation more northwardly still speedief and sater- Whether such considerations have prepon- dered before in overcoming this objection with many of our most eminent friends ol liberty and philanrophy, l know not; but certain it is, that it did not prevent MT. Jeller