upon us to extend this authority. We now propose to give him thirty millions of dollars without limitation or condition, and to bid him ride on, conquering and to conquer, for a year and a half, unless in the mean time he shall want more money! Once more I ask, is this Democracy? Mr. Chairman, I have intimated on another occasion that I do not go so far as some of my friends in regard to the propriety or expediency of withholding all supplies from the Executive. While a foreign nation is still in arms against us, I would limit the supplies to some reasonable scale of defence, and not withhold them altogether. I would pay for all services of regulars or volunteers already contracted for. I would provide ample means to prevent our army from suffering, whether from the foe or from famine, as long as they are in the field under constitutional authority. Heaven forbid that our gallant troops should be left to perish for want of supplies because they are on a foreign soil, while they are liable to be shot down by the command of their own officers if they refuse to remain there! But I cannot regard it as consistent with constitutional or republican principles to pass this bill as it now stands. Even if I approved the war, I should regard such a course of legislation as unwarrantable. Disapproving it, as I unequivocally and unqualifiedly do, I am the more induced to interpose these objections to its adoption. Sir, this whole Executive policy of overrunning Mexico to obtain territorial indemnities for pecuniary claims and the ex penses of the war, is abhorrent to every idea of humanity and of honor. For one, I do not desire the acquisition of one inch of territory by conquest. I desire to see no fields of blood annexed to this Union, whether the price of the treachery by which they have been procured shall be three million pieces of silver or only thirty! I want no more areas of freedom. Area, if I remember right, signified threshing-floor, in my old school dictionary. We have had enough of these areas, whether of freedom or slavery; and I trust this war will be brought to a close without multiplying or extending them. I repeat this the more emphatically, lest my vote in favor of the Three Million bill should be misinterpreted. Nothing was further from my intention, in giving that vote, than to sanction the policy of the Executive in regard to the territories of Mexico. If he insists, indeed, on pursuing that policy, and if a majority of Congress insist on giving him the means, I prefer purchase to conquest; and had rather authorize the expenditure of three millions to pay Mexico, than of thirty millions to whip her. But everybody must have understood that the proviso was a virtual nullification of the bill, for any purpose of acquiring territory, in the hands of a Southern administration. It was for that proviso that I voted. I wished to get the great principle which it embodied fairly on the statute-book. I believe it to be a perfectly constitutional principle, and an eminently conservative principle. Sir, those who undertake to dispute the constitutionality of that principle must rule out of existence something more than the immortal ordinance of 1787. My honorable friend from South Carolina (Mr. Burt) reminded us the other day that Mr. Madison, in the Federalist, had cast some doubt on the authority of the Confederation Congress to pass that ordinance. He did so. But with what view, Sir? Not to bring that act into discredit, but to enforce upon the people of the United States the importance of adopting a new system of government, under which such acts might henceforth be rightfully done. This new system of government was adopted. The Constitution was established. In the very terms of that Constitution is found a provision recognizing the authority of Congress to prevent the extension of slavery, after a certain number of years, "in the existing States," and to prevent its introduction into the territories immediately. What more? During the first session of the first Congress of the United States, under this new Constitution, this same Northwestern ordinance, with its anti-slavery clause, was solemnly recognized and reënacted. This is a fact never before noticed, to my knowledge, and one to which I beg the attention of the House. Here is the eighth act of the first session of the first Congress. Listen to the preamble: "Whereas, in order that the ordinance of the United States, in Congress assembled for the government of the territory northwest of the river Ohio, may continue to have full effect, it is requisite that certain provisions should be made, so as to adapt the same to the present Constitution of the United States: "Be it enacted," &c. Then follow a few formal changes in regard to the Governor and other officers. The sixth article of the ordinance remains untouched. Mr. Madison was a member of this first Congress, as were many others of those most distinguished in framing the new Constitution. And this bill passed both branches without objection, and without any division, except upon some immaterial amendments. Here, then, we find the very framers of the Constitution themselves, in the first year of its adoption, applying the principle of the Wilmot proviso to all the territories which the General Government then possessed, without compromise as to latitude or longitude. These territories were as much the fruit of the common sacrifices, common toils, and common blood of all the States, as any which can now be conquered from Mexico. They were the joint and common property of the several States. The ordinance was unanimously adopted in 1787, and was reenacted unanimously in 1789. Madison, who had questioned the authority of the Congress of the Confederation to pass it originally, voted for it himself in the Congress of the Constitution, and all his colleagues from the slaveholding States voted for it with him. Sir, if the constitutionality of such an act can now be disputed, I know not what principle of the Constitution can be considered as settled. I have said that I regarded this principle as eminently conservative, as well as entirely constitutional. I do believe, Sir, that whenever the principle of this proviso shall be irrevocably established, shall be considered as unchangeable as the laws of the Medes and Persians, then, and not till then, we shall have permanent peace with other countries, and fixed boundaries for our own country. It is plain that there are two parties in the free States. Both of them are opposed, uncompromisingly opposed, as I hope and believe, to the extension of slavery. One of them, however, and that the party of the present Administration, are for the widest extension of territory, subject to the antislavery proviso. The other of them, and that the party to which I have the honor to belong, are, as I believe, content with the Union as it is, desire no annexation of new States, and are utterly opposed to the prosecution of this war for any purpose of dismembering Mexico. Between these two parties in the free States, the South holds the balance of power. It may always hold it. If now, therefore, it will join in putting an end to this war, and in arresting the march of conquest upon which our armies have entered, the limits of the Republic as well as the limits of slavery may be finally established. It is in this view that I believe the principle of the Wilmot proviso to be the great conservative principle of the day, and it is in this view that I desire to place it immutably upon our statutebook. The South has no cause to be jealous of such a movement from our side of the House. The South should rather welcome it the whole country should welcome it as an overture of domestic peace. Sir, much as I deplore the war in which we are involved deeply as I regret the whole policy of annexation-if the result of these measures should be to ingraft the policy of this proviso permanently and ineradicably upon our American system, I should regard it as a blessing cheaply purchased. Good would, indeed, have been brought out of evil; and we should be almost ready to say, with the great dramatist of old England: "If after every tempest comes such calm, Let the winds blow till they have wakened death." Yes, Sir, in that event, instead of indulging in any more jeers and taunts upon the lone Star of Texas, we might rather hail it as the star of hope, and promise, and peace, and might be moved to apply to it the language of another great English poet: "Fairest of Stars! last in the train of night, If we could at last lay down permanently the boundaries of our Republic; if we could feel that we had extinguished forever the lust of extended dominion in the bosoms of the American people; if we could present that old god, Terminus, of whom we have heard such eloquent mention elsewhere, not with outstretched arm still pointing to new territories in the distance, but with limbs lopped off, as the Romans sometimes represented him, betokening that he had reached his very furthest goal; if we could be assured that our limits were to be no further advanced, either by purchase or conquest, by fraud or by force; then, then, we might feel that we had taken a bond of fate for the perpetuation of our Union. It is in this spirit that I voted for the proviso in the Three Million bill. It is in this spirit that I offer the third proviso to the Thirty Million bill before us. Pass them both; cut off, by one and the same stroke, all idea both of the extension of slavery and the extension of territory; and we shall neither need the three millions nor the thirty millions, for securing peace and harmony, both at home and abroad. I perceive, however, Mr. Chairman, that this result is not yet to be accomplished. The bill before us will become a law, without proviso or condition of any kind. The tremendous power of purse and sword combined, is to be conferred on the President, and he is to be left to wield it upon his own responsibility for a full year to come. O, Sir, let him remember that, though “it is excellent to have a giant's strength, it is tyrannous to use it like a giant!" Let him remember that, though we may relieve him from all responsibility to us, his responsibility to his country and to his God remains. The President can make peace with Mexico, if he pleases to do so. He has proved that he can usurp authority to make war; let him show that he is willing to employ the authority constitutionally conferred upon him, to make peace. I repeat, Sir, he can make peace if he will. He can stop fighting. He can agree to an armistice. He can signify to Mexico that he has no design to dismember her domain or destroy her independence. He can withdraw his armies to the 'Rio Grande. Peace would follow these steps, as surely as the day the night. Two occasions, Mr. Chairman, have already occurred, when the President might have put an end to this war with the highest honor to himself and to the country. If, after the battles of the Rio Grande, he had forborne from all further invasion, contented himself with the triumphs already achieved and the territory already acquired, and placed himself entirely on the defensive, the war could not have survived the summer. If, again, after the successful storming of Monterey-an exploit which |