Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1845-01-18
SIXTH WEEK OF THE sEAoN.

lrRox THE IsrELIrsEscElsr JANUARY l3l
The history of the past week in he House Of
Representatives $50 largely thar Of he Texas de-
bate, that we know not how we canbetter shape
our usual summary than By devoting lpch of it to
adduced in favor of Annexation
Itwould appear that the Southern gelemen urge
the measure as one necessary to the prbervaton Of
slavery and its institutions among the5elyes; and
that the Northern supporters Of the poly advocate
i on the ground Of It's being certain topring about
better than any other device, the stincton Of
slavery.
The Free Trade party--inspired wit sudden
tenderness for the manufacturing nlrestss and
alarmed at the idea Of the free intr03ucis az Br-
fish rop.sr,~irs ist that
protect that Tariff which they are threatening at
home to nullify and, in spite of the old warning,
" Ismeo Da,aaos ct doaa jerentes," (sI fear the
Greeks and those their gifts who bring') the sup
posed democratic friends Of home industry join in
1.-THE notion and the argument.
4 The President, the Secretary Of State, and the
FTexian Commissioners assure us, that, besides its
%ols and climate admirably suited 10 the production
Of cotton and sugar, Texas has still wider regions
that afford the grain crops in profusion and can
Craze herds of every sort almost without end. But
OHIO Indiana, and Illinois are, throughout their de-
mocratic representation, struck with the magnificent
mart which this land of plenty will offer for their
bread stnffs and sailed meats. In like manner, we
may possibly in the progress Of the discussion hear
the cotton planters maintain that it will present
great outlet for that staple, and the sugar planters
enlarge on the increased consumption for sugar and
molasses.
All on that side extol the wise, the bene6cent the
purely republican institutions of Texas, modelled
upon our own, and rivalling them in their excel
lence but to enlarge the Of freedom is one
of the most jealous purposes of the entire plan.
all appear to agree that, while we stretch across
to the Pacific, and possess in waste fertility, do
main that will scarcely be sold in hundred and
fifty years. nor reduced to general cultivation in FIVE
hundred, we are yet greatly in want of territory.
Already we rival those Germanc nations descrbedby
Cesar in his Commentaries, who made it their
highest national boast to exceed all their neighbors
in the extent of desoation upon their frontiers al
ready our people like objects all charged with the
same nsgliiso olaatrcity, fly off from each other,
till each escapes beyond the sphere of another's
repulsion. Less sociable than many of the animal
creation, they seem, like the young bred from the
eggs Of forest turkey, to have natural propen-
sity to grow wild again; and it is the polite ncli-
nation Of statesmen and Legislators to noursh,
by new acquisitions, this tendency.
Meantime, who are they that, by appeals to our
nationality. would stimulate this vast and loose
extent of dominion! Those precisely, all whose
theories deny the use of whatever public powers
can bind remote regions together. Within our pre-
sent extent they the enemies Of every thing Ma
tona. If they thus stretch out this Union and
invite its thin population to scatter yet more widely
what. public improvements, either general or local.
will any longer be practicable? And as to these
already made (by the State Governments and IN
paid for or those only begun, what must become Of
themi To iquidate " debt contracted for them,
heavy tayes must be laid upon lands diminished in
value upon industrial pursuits checked by the with
drawa Of laborers or the ruin of manufactures under
free trade policy; and the weight of taxation in
the States thus improved will act fresh cause of
migration.
These, however, are arguments Of our own: let
us rather return to those Of others, which we set
out with.
These gentlemen reason, as if, to aggrandiEe a
country, you have but to add to its enormous wilds
fresh ones as vast and as if to dispense people
and to confound their tongues, as God did in his
wrath to the presumptuous race on Shinar, were a
blessing instead Of curse. In this manner they
talk sectonaly, against sectional feelings, in mat
ter VIGOROUSLY meant to strengthen one section at
the expense OF another; and while dilatng against
local feelings and local interests, aim to multiply
both, by including within limits regions of new
soil and climate, people partly of hostile race, and
language and faith, and partly emgrants from our
own who, in the mere wantonness Of self-expatria.
ton, have preferred the wilderness Of foreign cour-
try to the vast and fertile wids Of our own.
They speak much also Of the moneyed value Of
the Texas lands--forgetting or emitting to notice
the fact that, first those lands have probably area-
dy, for every acre, two claims at least under titles
as lawful as any that can again be given; secondly,
that there WILL therefore, be fund to pay the debt
Of Texas to be assumed; thirdly, that the wastes Of
Texas will nevertheless be brought, by the adven-
tnrers and spectators who hold them, into market
against own, and thus ruin the sale Of our own
present public domain fourthly, that we shall thus
have TO pay the debts Of Texas (if ever paid from
diminished public income, and perhaps 10 tax
lands at home to pay Them and, filthy, that those
very lands, over all the rest Of the Union, must be