ex-President of Texas, General Lamar, addressed a letter to his friends in Georgia, urging the necessity of annexation, lest the anti-slavery party in Texas should change the Constitution, and abolish slavery. He added that though the anti-slavery party were now a minority, yet the majority of the people of Texas were not slaveholders. The clamor of the South for annexation was now revived. A false alarm, without the least shadow of foundation, was got up, that England intended in some way, to interfere in the affairs of Texas, and insist on the abolition of slavery. The British Government disclaimed any such intention.* Yet President Tyler negotiated with Texas a treaty of annexation, in the face of earnest remonstrances from the Mexican Minister at Washington, and the instrument was signed by the Secretary of State, Mr. Calhoun. The Senate of the United States, however, refused its ratification of the treaty. This was in April, 1844, and it was not until March 1st, 1845, just before the close of Mr. Tyler's administration, that the measure was carried by joint resolution of both Houses of Congress, after a severe struggle, and in direct violation of the Federal Constitution, which invests the treaty-making power in the President and Senate. Texas assented July 4th, and was formally received the 22d of December.

Hostilities with Mexico soon followed; but we must, in a way of digression, go back and give some account of an attempt of the slaveholders upon that country, about forty years previous.

* Mr. Calhoun, while Secretary of State, in April, 1844, officially declared, in a letter to the American Agent at Mexico, that the annexation of Texas had been "forced on the Government of the United States in self-defense, in consequence of the policy adopted by Great Britain in reference to the abolition of slavery in Texas." The accusation was false-the confession was true. Slavery was at the bottom of the matter. Eight years before this (May 27, 1836), long before there was any pretense of British interference, Mr. Calhoun had said in the Senate, "There are powerful reasons why Texas should be a part of this Union. The Southern States, owning a slave population, were deeply interested in preventing that country from having the power to annoy them." On the 19th of February, 1847, General Houston, under whose directions the treaty between Texas and Mexico had been negotiated, declared, in the Senate, "England never proposed the subject of slavery or of abolition, to Texas.”

CHAPTER XXV.

CONSPIRACY FOR THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO AND THE DISRUPTURE OF THE FEDERAL UNION IN 1806-CONTROLLING POWER OF THE CONSPIRATORS OVER THE FEDERAL JUDICIARY.

Arrest of Colonel Aaron Burr, 1807-His previous history-Detection of the plot by Gen. Wm. Eaton-Sketch of his history-Object of the conspiracy-A SouthWestern Empire, including slaveholding Mexico and the American slave StatesExtent and power of the conspiracy-Prominent men-Trial of Burr-Sympathy of the South-Arts successfully employed for his acquittal.

WE shall venture to fix here an earlier date than is commonly given, to the machinations and attempts of prominent citizens, statesmen, capitalists, and military men, chiefly, (though not exclusively,) of the South and Southwest, for the conquest or dismemberment of Mexico, and with a special view to the security and expansion of the slave system. The time, we think, has now fully come, when, upon a full review of the past, connecting nearer and more familiar events with those more remote and obscure, and reading the more distant in the light of the more recent, we may better understand the secret springs of certain movements which caused no little excitement and surprise, in their day, presenting a riddle which few Northern statesmen then on the stage appeared fully to comprehend.

The arrest and trial of Col. Aaron Burr, under Mr. Jefferson's administration, in 1807, fills a brief paragraph or two in our popular histories. But a well-digested manual and review of the facts that came out on the trial, and that occupied the political journals of that day, could they now be collected and published, would make a thrilling and highly

instructive volume. The details were altogether astound

ing.

Colonel Burr, as a politician, as a statesman, and as a military man, held rank among the first men of the country. As a competitor with Mr. Jefferson for the Presidency, he received from the people precisely the same number of electoral votes. In the House of Representatives, in 1801, it required thirtyfive ballotings to decide between the two, when a change of one vote resulted in the election of Mr. Jefferson; but, as the Constitution then stood, Colonel Burr was, of course, invested with the Vice-Presidency for four years.*

The sudden arrest of so prominent a statesman for high treason, and in a time of general quiet, was like a clap of thunder out of a clear sky. It produced a sensation the most profound and extensive. Except for his slaughter of Gen. Alexander Hamilton, in a duel, in July, 1804, Col. Burr, though of loose private morals, had stood before the country in general, unsuspected of crime. The occasion of the duel was this: Col. Burr, having been supplanted in the affections of the democratic party by his only rival, Mr. Jefferson, became cool in his party attachments, and was apparently in the attitude of changing sides. At this crisis, a portion of the Federal party in the State of New York pro posed him as their candidate for Governor. Gen. Hamilton, as a leading member of that party, strongly opposed the nomination, denouncing Col. Burr as an unprincipled aspirant and "dangerous to the country." Col. Burr sent him a challenge, which Gen. Hamilton accepted, and fell. His strong declaration concerning Col. Burr excited wonder at that time, but it was afterwards conjectured that he entertained secret suspicions, or had received intimations, of his treasonable designs. It appeared at the trial, and afterwards, that Burr had made secret overtures to several prominent men who had

* Willson's American History, p. 443. The votes were given only for a President, and after electing the President, the candidate having the next greatest number of votes was Vice-President.

declined co-operation with him, but who had considered themselves bound by Masonic obligations or otherwise to observe silence. He had carried on a very extensive correspondence in "the Cypher of the Royal Arch Masons," and it was believed, during and after the trial, that his connection with that fraternity did much to shield and acquit him.

Be this as it may, to Gen. William Eaton, of Massachusetts, was reserved the honor of detecting the dangerous conspiracy, and lodging information with the Government. Gen. Eaton had been American Consul at Tunis, during our war with the piratical Barbary powers, and had concerted with Hamet, the legitimate but exiled sovereign of Tripoli, an expedition against the usurper who had dethroned him, and with whom this country was at war. Communicating this project to his Governnent, and obtaining due authority from it, he had embarked in the perilous expedition with a few followers of Hamet and some Egyptian troops. He had marched, with incredible fatigue and suffering, over a desert of a thousand miles in extent, had taken Derne, a Tripolitan city, by assault, had fought two battles with the reigning Bashaw, and had obtained terms of peace which had been accepted by our agent, Mr. Lear, thus suddenly and successfully closing our long and expensive naval war of five years in the Mediterranean.* He returned to America, the military idol of his times. The whole northern country was resounding with his exploits against the barbarians who had captured and enslaved so many American citizens! But Gen. Eaton was a New Englander and a Federalist. The South could never permit such an one to wear military laurels. Worse than all this-Gen. Eaton, while residing at Tunis, had written letters home to his wife, which had, somehow, appeared in print, in which he described the horrors of Tunisian plavery, but had declared, that he blushed at the remembrance of having witnessed worse scenes in his own country! This

sealed the fate of Gen. Eaton. Not only was he coldly received at the seat of Government, but the most mean and frivolous cavils were raised and charges preferred against him. His accounts of necessary expenditures were disputed and disallowed, reducing him to bankruptcy, and attempts were made to cashier and disgrace him. Triumphantly vindicating himself, at every point, but literally plundered by his Government, he retired, in deep disgust, from its service, carrying with him the sympathies of his New England fellow-citizens, who found in his wrongs, fresh aliment for their hatred of Mr. Jefferson and his administration.

Then it was that Col. Burr conceived the idea of adding Gen. Eaton to the long list of his military adventurers, and approached him accordingly. But he mistook his man. The General listened silently till he had unfolded the whole scheme. A new Southern and Western Empire was to be established, with New Orleans for its capital, and extending, if possible, over Mexico. The extreme Southern with the South Western States were confidently calculated upon to oppose no serious obstacle to the measure, and in fact, to come into it, quite greedily. As many of the southern states as possible were to be drawn into it. To the question, what disposition was to be made of the existing Federal Government, the ready answer was, "They can probably be managed easily enough, but if not, we will assassinate the President, and turn Congress, neck and heels, into the Potomac." General Eaton declined the overture, and, nobly forgetting his own personal grievances, lost no time in communicating the particulars to the Government that had wronged him. Col. Burr and several others were arrested. Col. Burr was charged, first, with high treason; second, with a high misdemeanor, in attempting an invasion of Mexico, a province of Spain. The single testimony of Gen. Eaton was thought sufficient to have convicted him, but it was only a tithe of what could be brought forward. So extensive and so powerful was the conspiracy found to be, and so wide-spread appeared to be the sympathy of the South with the prisoners, that it was feared, at one time during the