indemnity, it ought to be exacted, sometimes, perhaps, even to the extent of force. And where it is exacted, and where it is secured, the Government ought to pay it over to those to whom it belongs, as Mr. Polk has refused to do in the case of the French spoliations prior to 1800. But a war for extorting payment from a poor debtor! Why, Sir, the day has gone by when we endure the practice of coercing individuals who are unable to meet their obligations. The imprisonment of poor debtors is rapidly disappearing from the refined codes of civilized society. The abolition of that system is among the highest triumphs of modern civilization. But this policy of the Administration would seem to carry us back to the barbarous provisions of the laws of the Twelve Tables of ancient Rome, which, according to some constructions, allowed the creditors to dismember their debtors, and distribute among themselves the severed limbs and mutilated trunks!

Yes, Mr. Chairman, the dismemberment of Mexico for debts which she cannot pay, is the humane and Christian policy proposed to us by the Executive. Money, we all know, cannot be wrung from her in any large sums. What little she might have had to pay to "our much-injured citizens," we are daily exhausting by compelling her to employ it in defending her own soil. Why, Sir, this attempt to extort indemnities from Mexico by force of arms, reminds one of an old story of ancient Greece. Themistocles, it seems, besieged the island of Andros, and called upon the inhabitants to pay tribute. He told them that the Athenians had two great gods, to whom they ought to yield immediate submission. One of these gods was Persuasion, and the other Compulsion. But the Andrians answered that they, also, had two gods-that one of them was Poverty, and the other Impracticability; and that they could not and would not pay him any tribute-money. They added that his power could never surpass their powerlessness.

Now, this seems to be about the state of things between us and Mexico, so far, at least, as money is concerned. I do not know but that we might regard her as having at least three of these heathen deities, and add the Fever-el Vomito-to Poverty, and Impracticability.

But she has territory, and this is the sort of indemnity which is sought. This, indeed, it is now quite too evident, has been the one great object of the whole Executive movement. Nobody can read the documents connected with this war, and especially those transmitted to us in answer to the call of my honorable friend from Kentucky, (Mr. Davis,) without seeing that, from first to last, before the war and since, Mexican territory has been the great object of the Administration. It is hardly too much to say that, had there been no California, there would have been As far back as June 24, 1845, we find the purpose of securing this possession, as the result of a possible war, plainly disclosed in the confidential correspondence of the Navy Depart ment. After the war had once commenced, it is thus boldly avowed in a despatch of July 12, 1846:

no war.

"The object of the United States is, under its rights as a belligerent nation, to possess itself entirely of Upper California.”

And again:

"The object of the United States has reference to ultimate peace with Mexico; and if, at that peace, the basis of the uti possidetis shall be established, the Government expects, through your forces, to be found in actual possession of Upper California."

Now, Sir, I am not about to depreciate the desirableness to the commerce of our country of a good harbor or two on the Pacific Ocean. If a strip of California could be added to our Oregon possessions, under proper circumstances, and with the general consent of the country, I should be one of the last persons to object to it. But the idea that it is worthy of us to take advantage of this war to wrest it from Mexico by force of arms, and to protract the war until she will consent to cede it to us by a treaty of peace, I utterly repudiate.

It is this lust of territory, Mr. Chairman, which has given occasion to this war, and which now proposes to prosecute hostilities with renewed vigor. It is an appetite which grows by what it feeds on. Texas seems only to have furnished a whet for our voracity. It was but the stimulating lunch to prepare us for a more substantial meal. Sheridan, in the Rivals, I think-my classical friend from South Carolina (Mr. I. E. Holmes) will correct me if I am wrong— thought it a very good joke to make

Mrs. Malaprop say, that "she would have the young lady instructed in geometry, in order that she might know something of the contagious countries." Ah, Sir, the joke has lost its point for us. It seems as if all contiguous countries were going to be contagious to us, and as if we should soon be ready to adopt the language of another character in the same celebrated play, who said to his son, "Don't enter the same hemisphere with me; don't dare to breathe the same air or use the same light; but get an atmosphere and a sun of your own!"

Meantime, while we are pursuing this wild career of national extension and aggrandizement, what has become of that peace which we were to have "conquered" three months ago! Sir, it seems to be further off from us at this moment than ever before. Whatever gallant arms and brave generals could do to secure it, has been done already. Cities have been captured; fortresses have been stormed; plains have been strewed with the dying and the dead; rivers have been reddened with blood! But where is peace? At the end of what vista, however distant, do we see that promised and precious blessing? If I believed that any amount of military force were necessary to establish peace at this moment, I should be half inclined to give the Executive all, and more than all, that he could ask. But, in my judgment, no peace is to be acquired in the way this bill proposes to acquire it. We may conquer more armies; we may overrun more territory; we may "make a solitude and call it peace;" but peace, in any true sense of that term, will still elude our pursuit. We shall find no government to make peace with, and no people who will conform to the stipulations of any government. The peace which such bills as this will give us, will be like that which France has conquered in Algiers. That war commenced in 1829, and France has now a hundred thousand soldiers on the Algerine soil to secure her barren conquest. This may do very well for France, who desires a training-field for her standing armies; but it will never, never, do for this Republic.

And where, too, is to be our domestic peace, if this policy is to be pursued? According to the President's plan of obtaining "ample indemnity for the expenses of the war," the longer the. war lasts, and the more expensive it is made, the more territory

we shall require to indemnify us. Every dollar of appropriation for this war is thus the purchase-money of more acres of Mexican soil. Who knows how much of Chihuahua, and Coahuila, and New Leon, and Durango, it will take to remunerate us for the expenses of these ten regiments of regulars, who are to be enlisted for five years? And to what end are we thus about to add acre to acre and field to field? To furnish the subject of that great domestic struggle, which has already been foreshadowed in this debate!

Mr. Chairman, I have no time to discuss the subject of slavery on this occasion, nor should I desire to discuss it in this connection, if I had more time. But I must not omit a few plain words on the momentous issue which has now been raised. I speak for Massachusetts- I believe I speak the sentiments of all New England, and of many other States out of New England-when I say, that, upon this question, our minds are made up. So far as we have power-constitutional or moral power— to control political events, we are resolved that there shall be no further extension of the territory of this Union, subject to the institutions of slavery. This is not a matter to argue about with

us.

My honorable friend from Georgia (Mr. Toombs) must pardon me if I do not enter into any question with him whether such a policy be equal or just. It may be that the North does not consider the institution of slavery a fit thing to be the subject of equal distribution or nice weighing in the balances. I cannot agree with him that the South gains nothing by the Constitution but the right to reclaim fugitives. Surely he has forgotten that slavery is the basis of representation in this House.

But I do not intend to argue the case. I wish to deal with it calmly, but explicitly. I believe the North is ready to stand by the Constitution, with all its compromises, as it now is. I do not intend, moreover, to throw out any threats of disunion, whatever may be the result. I do not intend, now or ever, to contemplate disunion as a cure for any imaginable evil. At the same time I do not intend to be driven from a firm expression of purpose, and a steadfast adherence to principle, by any threats of disunion from any other quarter. The people of New England, whom I have any privilege to speak for, do not desire, as I under

stand their views-I know my own heart and my own principles, and can at least speak for them—to gain one foot of territory by conquest, and as the result of the prosecution of the war with Mexico. I do not believe that even the abolitionists of the North-though I am one of the last persons who would be entitled to speak their sentiments-would be unwilling to be found in combination with Southern gentlemen, who may see fit to espouse this doctrine. We desire peace. We believe that this war ought never to have been commenced, and we do not wish to have it made the pretext for plundering Mexico of one foot of her lands. But if the war is to be prosecuted, and if territories are to be conquered and annexed, we shall stand fast and forever to the principle that, so far as we are concerned, these territories shall be the exclusive abode of freemen.

Mr. Chairman, peace, peace is the grand compromise of this question between the North and the South. Let the President abandon all schemes of further conquest. Let him abandon his plans of pushing his forces to the heart of Mexico. Now, before any reverses have been experienced by the American arms, he can do so with the highest honor. Let him exhibit a spirit of magnanimity towards a weak and distracted neighbor. Let him make distinct proclamation of the terms on which he is ready to negotiate; and let those terms be such as shall involve no injustice towards Mexico, and engender no sectional strife among ourselves. But, at all events, let him tell us what those terms are to be. A proclamation of Executive purposes is essential to any legislative or any national harmony. The North ought to know them; the South ought to know them; the whole country ought to understand for what ends its blood and treasure are to be expended. It is high time that some specific terms of accommodation were proclaimed to Congress, to Mexico, and to the world. If they be reasonable, no man will hesitate to unite in supplying whatever means may be necessary for enforcing them.

And now, Sir, what is the precise bill before us? It is a bill to increase the standing army of the country by the addition of ten new regiments of a thousand men each. It has no relation to the present support or relief of our army and volunteers now