they should be, or for party purposes. I am
compelled, by experience, to distrust all such reliances. If we cannot
rely on ourselves, when we have the clear constitutional authority
competent to carry us through, and the motives intensely powerful, I beg
to know how we can rely on others. Have we more reliance on the
patriotism, the firmness, of others, than on our own?

Besides, experience shows us that things of this sort may be _sprung_
upon Congress and the people. It was so in the case of Texas. It was so
in the Twenty-eighth Congress. The members of that Congress were not
chosen to decide the question of annexation or no annexation. They came
in on other grounds, political and party, and were supported for reasons
not connected with that question. What then? The administration sprung
upon them the question of annexation. It obtained a _snap_ judgment upon
it, and carried the measure of annexation. That is indubitable, as I
could show by many instances, of which I shall state only one.

Four gentlemen from the State of Connecticut were elected before the
question arose, belonging to the dominant party. They had not been here
long before they were committed to annexation; and when it was known in
Connecticut that annexation was in contemplation, remonstrances,
private, public, and legislative, were uttered, in tones that any one
could hear who could hear thunder. Did they move them? Not at all. Every
one of them voted for annexation! The election came on, and they were
turned out, to a man. But what did those care who had had the benefit of
their votes? Such agencies, if it be not more proper to call them such
instrumentalities, retain respect no longer than they continue to be
useful.

Sir, we take New Mexico and California; who is weak enough to suppose
that there is an end? Don't we hear it avowed every day, that it would
be proper also to take Sonora, Tamaulipas, and other provinces of
Northern Mexico? Who thinks that the hunger for dominion will stop here
of itself? It is said, to be sure, that our present acquisitions will
prove so lean and unsatisfactory, that we shall seek no further. In my
judgment, we may as well say of a rapacious animal, that, if he has made
one unproductive hunt, he will not try for a better foray.

But further. There are some things one can argue against with temper,
and submit to, if overruled, without mortification. There are other
things that seem to affect one's consciousness o