insurgents, and that an armed schooner had sailed for Texas from New Orleans, without papers from the Mexican consul. Our Secretary, Mr. Forsyth, thereupon addressed circulars to the several District Attorneys, directing them, in general terms, to prosecute violations of treaties with foreign nations, but no efficient measures were taken, and no offenders were punished. A District Attorney in Ohio, soon after, made an address at a Texan meeting, in favor of assisting the Texans! To a second remonstrance of the Mexican Minister, Mr. Forsyth very coolly and mendaciously replied that the Government had done all in its power to prevent interference!

A few days before this assurance, General Gaines was di rected by the President to take a position near the frontier, ostensibly to prevent the contending parties from entering our territory, of which there was no danger. He was not directed to prevent regiments raised in the United States from invading Texas! Under pretense of defending our frontiers, he next marched his troops into Texas, against the remonstrances of the Mexican Minister, with the evident object of affording countenance to the insurgents, and, if necessary, assist them against the Mexican forces, under pretense of defending our frontier. Some hundreds of his soldiers deserted and joined the Texans. There they remained and served while they were wanted. General Gaines then offered them a full pardon on condition of their return.

Thus encouraged and aided, the Texans, or rather the American armed emigrants, fought the decisive battle of San Jacinto, and defeated Santa Anna, in May, 1836. The intelligence was transmitted to our American President, Jackson, by the American General, Gaines, who indulged the anticipation that, in consequence of the victory, "THIS MAGNIFICENT ACQUISITION TO OUR UNION " would grace his administration.Jay's Mexican War, p. 30.

And all this is said to have been done without violating our relations of peace with Mexico!

On the opening of Congress in December, 1836, President Jackson recommended a prudent delay in acknowledging the

independence of Texas, till "the lapse of time or the course of events" should have proved her ability to maintain her posi tion. This proved to have been a ruse to allay the fears of the friends of freedom. Not long after, the President urged Congress to put at his disposal a naval force to act against Mexico in case she failed to make prompt arrangements for satisfying our pecuniary claims against her. With such a force he could easily get into a war with Mexico, and then "the course of events" would soon lead to the acknowledgment of Texan independence. "This proposition was coldly received." "The session was to close the third of March, 1837." By the most dexterous management of the House of Repre sentatives, and the concurrence of the Senate, near the close of the session, the independence of Texas was acknowledged, and a salary provided a Minister to the new nation! A Minister was immediately nominated by the President, and confirmed by the Senate, the last day of that administration.— Jay's View, p. 153.

Nothing was now wanting to complete the drama of Texas, but her admission into the Union. The strong opposition, at the North, against this measure, delayed it for about eight years, and until near the close of Mr. Tyler's administration, in March, 1845.

The Texan Congress took measures, as early as 1836, (before our government had acknowledged their independence,) for proposing a union with the United States, but on the express condition of the "FREE AND UNMOLESTED AUTHORITY OVER their slave population." In 1837 the negotiation was opened by the Texan Minister at Washington. Mr. Van Buren prudently declined on the ground that the United States were, at present, at peace with Mexico, and that power had not acknowledged the independence of Texas. As the excitement against annexation increased in the free States, the proposition of Texas was formally withdrawn, and the apprehension of annexation was, by this movement, allayed.

In the mean time, the emigration to Texas from the free States began to alarm the guardians of slavery. In 1842 the

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-Iis 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 astounding.

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.