im loose his servile horde,
and yet send no minister to remonstrate or to threaten. Our citizens had
claims on that government to the amount of twelve or thirteen millions.
Ten or a dozen of our citizens--of our own native citizens--were in
degrading bondage in the mines of Mexico, or sweeping its streets; and
yet a minister to Mexico was opposed because the President and a party
in this country wished to annex Texas to the Union. It was not only the
duty of this government to demand the liquidation of our claims and the
liberation of our citizens, but to go further, and demand the
non-invasion of Texas. We should at once say to Mexico, "If you strike
Texas, you strike us." And if England, standing by, should dare to
intermeddle and ask, "Do you take part with Texas?" his prompt answer
would be, "Yes, and against you."

Mr. Ingersoll, of Pennsylvania, followed on the same side, maintaining
that Texas ought to be annexed to the Union, even at the risk of a war
with Great Britain. He said that he was a man of peace, and was not
insensible to the evils of war, but he contended that they were greatly
exaggerated. He wished the British minister to understand that war would
not do us so much harm as it would his own country. In the first place,
if we chose to apply the principles of war, it paid all the state debts
at once,--two hundred millions of dollars. At all events, it suspended
the interest during the war. We had a sufficient population, the
capacity of drilling that population, and all the materials for war.
There were two vessels now within the sound of his voice to which there
was nothing in a British or French navy to be compared. Our lakes were
covered with transporting steamboats, which could easily be made
effective for harbor defence. We lived in a republican country, in an
armed nation; and he would rather take this nation as it was than the
most completely armed nation in the world. Having proceeded at great
length in this strain, stating various particulars, some of which may be
gathered from Mr. Adams' reply, he concluded by challenging opposition
to the opinion that there was no right of search in time of war, and
that such a claim was a monstrosity. The greatest question in the world,
which now agitated nearly all Christendom, was this mixed question of
the slave-trade and the right of visit and search. To statements and
arguments of this force and nature Mr. Adams made a scrutinizing and
unanswerable rep