constituent member thereof, the foreign province or territory
of Texas.

Resolved, That, although we are fully aware of the consequences
which must follow the accomplishment of such a project, could it be
accomplished--aware that it would lead speedily to the conquest and
annexation of Mexico itself, and its fourteen remaining provinces or
intendencies--which, together with the revolted province of Texas,
would furnish foreign territories and foreign people for at least
twenty members of the new Union; that the government of a nation so
extended and so constructed would soon become radically [changed] in
character, if not in form--would unavoidably become a military
government; and, under the plea of necessity, would free itself from
the restraints of the Constitution and from its accountability to
the people. That the ties of kindred, common origin and common
interests, which have so long bound this people together, and would
still continue to bind them: these ties, which ought to be held
sacred by all true Americans, would be angrily dissolved, and
sectional political combinations would be formed with the newly
admitted foreign states, unnatural and adverse to the peace and
prosperity of the country. The civil government, with all the
arbitrary powers it might assume, would be unable to control the
storm. The usurper would find himself in his proper element; and,
after acting the patriot and the hero for a due season, as the only
means of rescuing the country from the ruin which he had chiefly
contributed to bring upon it, would reluctantly and modestly allow
himself to be declared 'Protector of the Commonwealth.'

We are now fully aware of the deep degradation into which the
republic would sink itself in the eyes of the whole world, should it
annex to its own vast territories other and foreign territories of
immense though unknown extent, for the purpose of encouraging the
propagation of slavery, and giving aid to the raising of slaves
within its own bosom, the very bosom of freedom, to be esported and
sold in those unhallowed regions. Although we are fully aware of
these fearful evils, and numberless others which would come in their
train, yet we do not here dwell upon them; because we are here
firmly convinced that the free people of most, and we trust of all
these stat