ld have been entirely in favor of the Texans. In
1844, when our Presidential election was made to turn upon the question
of the annexation of Texas to the United States, the grand argument of
the annexationists was drawn from the circumstance that the Mexicans had
abrogated the Federal Constitution, thereby releasing the Texans from
their obligations to Mexico. This was an argument to which Americans,
and especially democrats, those sworn foes of consolidation, were prone
to lend a favorable ear; and it is certain that it had much weight in
promoting the election of Mr. Polk. Had the Texan revolt been one of
ambition merely, and not justifiable on political grounds apart from the
Slavery question, the decision might have been different, if, indeed,
the question had ever been introduced into the politics of this country.
The sagacious men who managed the affairs of the Democratic party knew
their business too well to attempt the extension of slave-holding
territory in the gross and palpable form that is common in these
shameless days. But Texas, as an injured party that had valiantly
sustained its constitutional rights, was a very different thing from a
province that had revolted against Mexico because forbidden by Mexican
authority to allow the existence of slavery within its borders. There
was much deception in the business, but there was sufficient truth and
justice in the argument used to deceive honest men who do not trouble
themselves to look beyond the surface of things. For more than twenty
years our political controversies have all been colored by the triumph
of the Mexican Centralists in 1835-6; and but for that triumph, it is
altogether likely that our territory would not have been increased, and
that the Slavery question, instead of absorbing the American mind, would
have held but a subordinate place in our party debates. It may, perhaps,
be deemed worthy of especial mention, that the action of the Centralists
of Mexico, destined to affect us so sensibly, was initiated at the same
time that the modern phase of the Slavery question was opened in the
United States. The same year that saw the Federal Constitution of Mexico
abolished saw our government laboring to destroy freedom of the press
and the sanctity of the mails, by throwing its influence in favor of the
bill to prevent the circulation of "incendiary publications," that is,
publications drawn from the writings of Washington and Jefferson; and
the same yea