Gentlemen, proposing to express opinions on the principal subjects of interest at the present moment, it is impossible to overlook the delicate question which has arisen from events which have happened in the late Mexican province of Texas.  The independence of that province has now been recognized by the government of the United States.  Congress gave the President the means, to be used when he saw fit, of opening a diplomatic intercourse with its government, and the late President immediately made use of those means.

I saw no objection, under the circumstances, to voting an appropriation to be used when the President should think the proper time had come; and he deemed, very promptly, it is true, that the time had already arrived.  Certainly, Gentlemen, the history of Texas is not a little wonderful.  A very few people, in a very short time, have established a government for themselves, against the authority of the parent state; and this government, it is generally supposed, there is little probability, at the present moment, of the parent state being able to overturn.

This government is, in form, a copy of our own.  It is an American constitution, substantially after the great American model.  We all, therefore, must wish it success; and there is no one who will more heartily rejoice than I shall, to see an independent community, intelligent, industrious, and friendly towards us, springing up, and rising into happiness, distinction, and power, upon our own principles of liberty and government.

But it cannot be disguised, Gentlemen, that a desire, or an intention, is already manifested to annex Texas to the United States.  On a subject of such mighty magnitude as this, and at a moment when the public attention is drawn to it, I should feel myself wanting in candor, if I did not express my opinion; since all must suppose that, on such a question, it is impossible that I should be without some opinion.

I say then, Gentlemen, in all frankness, that I see objections, I think insurmountable objections, to the annexation of Texas to the United States.  When the Constitution was formed, it is not probable that either its framers or the people ever looked to the admission of any States into the Union, except such as then already existed, and such as should be formed out of territories then already belonging to the United States.  Fifteen years after the adoption of the Constitution, however, the case of Louisiana arose.  Louisiana was obtained by treaty with France, who had recently obtained it from Spain; but the object of this acquisition, certainly, was not mere extension of territory.  Other great political interests were connected with it.  Spain, while she possessed Louisiana, had held the mouths of the great rivers which rise in the Western States, and flow into the Gulf of Mexico.  She had disputed our use of these rivers already, and with a powerful nation in possession of these outlets to the sea, it is obvious that the commerce of all the West was in danger of perpetual vexation.  The command of these rivers to the sea was, therefore, the great object aimed at in the acquisition of Louisiana.  But that acquisition necessarily brought territory along with it, and three States now exist, formed out of that ancient province.