Removing to St. Louis in 1813, he
established the Missouri Inquirer there, and practiced his profession.
He took an active part in favoring the admission of Missouri as a State
of the Union, and was one of its first representatives in the United
States Senate, which post he held for thirty consecutive years, where he
was ever the peculiar exponent and guardian of "
The
West." He was an early and untiring advocate of a railway from the
Mississippi to the Pacific Ocean. He warmly opposed the repeal of the
MISSOURI COMPROMISE in 1854. His free-labor sentiments caused his
defeat as a candidate for the Senate by the ultra-slavery men of his
party in 1850, and in 1852 he was elected to the House of
Representatives. By a combination of his old opponents with the AMERICAN
PARTY, he was defeated in 1854, and failed of an election for governor
in 1856. He had then begun to devote himself to literary pursuits; and
he completed his Thirty Years' View of the United States Senate in 1854.
He prepared an Abridgment of the Debates of Congress, from 1789 to 1856,
in 16 volumes 8vo. They contain a complete political history of the
country during that period, so far as the national legislature is
concerned. He died in
Washington, D. C., April 10, 1858.
The
Annexation of Texas.—On May 16, 17, and 20, 1844, Senator Benton
delivered a remarkable and characteristic speech in the debate, while
the Senate was in secret session, on the ratification of the treaty for
the annexation of Texas. He had vigorously opposed the measure, and on
the 13th offered the following resolutions, in support of which his
great speech was delivered:
1. That the ratification of the treaty
would be the adoption of the Texan
War with
Mexico, and would devolve its conclusion upon the United States.
2. That the treaty-making power does not
extend to the power of making war, and that the President and Senate
have no right to make war, either by declaration or adoption.
3. That Texas ought to be reunited to the
American Union, as soon as it can be done with the consent of a majority
of the people of the United States and of Texas, and when
Mexico
shall either consent to the same, or acknowledge the independence of
Texas, or cease to prosecute the war against her (the armistice having
expired) on a scale commensurate to the conquest of the country.
Senator Benton's Speech on the Annexation of Texas
The
President upon our call sends us a map to show the Senate the boundaries
of the country he proposes to annex. This memoir is explicit in
presenting the Rio Grande del Norte in its whole extent as a boundary of
the Republic of Texas, and that in conformity to
the law of the Texan Congress establishing its boundaries. The
boundaries on the map conform to those in the memoir; each takes for the
western limit the Rio Grande from head to mouth; and a law of the Texan
Congress is copied into the margin of the map, to show the legal, and
the actual, boundaries at the same time. From all this it results that
the treaty before us, besides the incorporation of Texas proper, also
incorporates into our Union the left bank of the Rio Grande, in its
whole extent, from its head spring in the Sierra Verde, near the South
Pass in the Rocky Mountains, to its mouth in the Gulf of Mexico, 4°
south of
New Orleans, in lat. 26°. It is a " grand and solitary river,"
almost without affluents or tributaries. Its source is in the region of
eternal snow; its outlet in the clime of eternal flowers. Its direct
course is 1,200 miles; its actual run about 2,000 miles. This immense
river, second on our continent to the Mississippi only, and but little
inferior to it in length, is proposed to be added in the whole extent of
its left bank to the American Union; and that by virtue of a treaty for
the reannexation of Texas. Now, the real Texas, which we acquired by the
treaty of 1803, and flung away by the treaty of 1819, never approached
the Rio Grande except near its mouth; while the whole upper part was
settled by the Spaniards, and a great part of it in the year 1694—nearly
100 years before La Salle first saw Texas. All this upper part was then
formed into provinces, on both sides of the river, and has remained
under Spanish or Mexican authority ever since. These former provinces of
the Mexican viceroyalty, now departments of the Mexican Republic, lying
on both sides of the Rio Grande from its head to its mouth, we now
propose to incorporate, so far as they lie on the left bank of the
river, into our Union, by virtue of a treaty of reannexation with Texas.
Let us pause and look at our new and important proposed acquisitions in
this quarter. First, there is the department, formerly the province, of
New Mexico, lying on both sides of the river from its headspring to near
the Paso del Norte—that is to say, half down the river. This department
is studded with towns and villages—is populated—well cultivated and
covered with flocks and herds. On its left bank (for I only speak of the
part which we propose to reannex) is, first, the frontier village Taos,
3,000 souls, and where the custom-house is kept at which the Missouri
caravans enter their goods. Then comes Santa Fe, the capital, 4,000
souls; then Albuquerque, 6,000 souls; then some scores of other towns
and villages, all more or less populated, and surrounded by flocks and
fields. Then come the departments of Chihuahua, Coahuila, and Tamaulipas,
without settlements on the left bank of the river, but occupying the
right bank, and commanding the left. All this—being part, of four
Mexican departments—now under Mexican governors and governments, is
permanently reannexed to this Union, if this treaty is ratified; and is
actually reannexed from the moment of the signature of the treaty,
according to the President's last message, to remain so until the
acquisition is rejected by rejecting the treaty. The one-half of the
department of New Mexico, with its capital, becomes a territory of the
United States; an angle of Chihuahua, at the Paso del Norte, famous for
its wine, also becomes ours; a part of the department of Coahuila, not
populated on the left bank, which we take, but commanded from the right
bank by Mexican authorities; the same of Tamaulipas, the ancient Nuevo
San Tander (New St. Andrew), and which covers both sides of Mexico,
2,000 miles long and some hundred miles up, and all the left bank of
which is in the power and possession of Mexico. These, in addition to
the old Texas, these parts of four states, these towns and villages,
these people and territory, these flocks and herds, this slice of the
Republic of Mexico, 2,000 miles long and some hundred broad, all this
our President has cut off from its mother empire, and presents to us,
and declares it is ours till the Senate rejects it. He calls it Texas;
and the cutting off he calls reannexation. Humboldt calls it New Mexico,
Chihuahua, Coahuila, and Nuevo San Tander (now Tamaulipas) ; and the
civilized world may qualify this reannexation by the application of some
odious and terrible epithet. Demosthenes advised the people of Athens
not to take, but to retake a certain city; and in that relay the virtue
which saved that act from the character of spoliation and robbery. Will
it be equally potent with us? And will the reprefixed to the annexation
legitimate the seizure of 2,000 miles of a neighbor's dominion, with
whom we have treaties of peace, and friendship, and commerce? Will it
legitimate this seizure, made by virtue of a treaty with Texas, when no
Texan force—witness the disastrous expeditions to Mier and to Santa
Fe—have been seen near it without being killed or taken, to the last
man?
The treaty, in all that relates to the
boundary of the Rio Grande, is an act of unparalleled outrage on Mexico.
It is the seizure of 2,000 miles of her territory without a word of
explanation with her, and by virtue of a treaty with Texas, to which she
is no party. Our Secretary of State (Mr. Calhoun), in his letter to the
United States charge in Mexico, and seven days after the treaty was
signed, and after the Mexican minister had withdrawn from our seat of
government, shows full well that he was conscious of the enormity of the
outrage, knew it was war, and proffered volunteer apologies to avert the
consequences which he knew he had provoked.
The President, in his special message of
Wednesday last, informs us that we have acquired a title to the ceded
territories by his signatures to the treaty, wanting only the action of
the Senate to perfect it; and that, in the mean time, he will protect it
from invasion, and for that purpose has detached all the disposable
portions of the army and navy to the scene of action. This is a caper
about equal to the mad freaks with which the unfortunate Emperor Paul of
Russia was accustomed to astonish Europe about forty years ago. By this
declaration the 30,000 Mexicans in the left half of the valley of the
Rio del Norte are our citizens, and standing, in the language of the
President's message, in a hostile attitude towards us, and subject to be
repelled as invaders. Taos, the seat of the custom-house, where our
caravans enter their goods, is ours; Santa Fe, the capital of New
Mexico, is ours; Governor Armijo is our governor, and subject to be
tried for treason if he does not submit to us; twenty Mexican towns and
villages are ours; and their peaceful inhabitants, cultivating their
fields and tending their flocks, are suddenly converted, by a stroke of
the President's pen, into American citizens, or American rebels. This is
too bad; and, instead of making themselves party to its enormities, as
the President invites them to do, I think rather that it is the duty of
the Senate to wash its hands of all this part of the transaction, by a
special disapprobation. The Senate is the constitutional adviser of the
President, and has the right, if not the duty, to give him advice when
the occasion requires it. I, therefore, propose, as an additional
resolution, applicable to the Rio del Norte boundary only, the one which
I will read and send to the secretary's table—stamping as a spoliation
this seizure of Mexican territory, and on which, at the proper time, I
shall ask the vote of the Senate:
" Resolved, that the incorporation of the
left bank of the Rio del Norte into the American Union, by virtue of a
treaty with Texas, comprehending, as the said incorporation would do, a
part of the Mexican departments of New Mexico, Chihuahua, Coahuila, and
Tamaulipas, would be an act of direct aggression on Mexico; for all the
consequences of which the United States would stand responsible." |