ngly, silently, in disguise, into that land. Their purpose of
dismembering Mexico, and attaching her distant province to this country,
was not wrapt in mystery. It was proclaimed in our public prints.
Expeditions were openly fitted out within our borders for the Texan war.
Troops were organised, equipped, and marched for the scene of action.
Advertisements for volunteers, to be enrolled and conducted to Texas at
the expense of that territory, were inserted in our newspapers. The
Government, indeed, issued its proclamation, forbidding these hostile
preparations; but this was a dead letter. Military companies, with
officers and standards, in defiance of proclamations, and in the face of
day, directed their steps to the revolted province. We had, indeed, an
army near the frontiers of Mexico. Did it turn back these invaders of a
land with which we were at peace? On the contrary, did not its presence
give confidence to the revolters? After this, what construction of our
conduct shall we force on the world, if we proceed, especially at this
moment, to receive into our Union the territory, which, through our
neglect, has fallen a prey to lawless invasion? Are we willing to take
our place among robber-states? As a people have we no self-respect?
Have we no reverence for national morality? Have we no feeling of
responsibility to other nations, and to Him by whom the fates of nations
are disposed?"

Dr Channing then proceeds:--

"Some crimes by their magnitude have a touch of the sublime; and to this
dignity the seizure of Texas by our citizens is entitled. Modern times
furnish no example of individual rapine on so grand a scale. It is
nothing less than the robbery of a realm. The pirate seizes a ship.
The colonists and their coadjutors can satisfy themselves with nothing
short of an empire. They have left their Anglo-Saxon ancestors behind
them. Those barbarians conformed to the maxims of their age, to the
rude code of nations in time of thickest heathen darkness. They invaded
England under their sovereigns, and with the sanction of the gloomy
religion of the North. But it is in a civilised age, and amidst
refinements of manners; it is amidst the lights of science and the
teachings of Christianity; amidst expositions of the law of nations and
enforcements of the law of universal love; amidst institutions of
religion, learning, and humanity, that the robbery of Texas has found
its instruments. It is from a fre