the choice of any member to represent it in Congress.  Sir, that body of Northern and Eastern men who gave those votes at that time are now seen taking upon themselves, in the nomenclature of politics, the appellation of the Northern Democracy.  They undertook to wield the destinies of this empire, if I may give that name to a republic, and their policy was, and they persisted in it, to bring into this country and under this government all the territory they could.  They did it, in the case of Texas, under pledges, absolute pledges, to the slave interest, and they afterwards lent their aid in bringing in these new conquests, to take their chance for slavery or freedom.  My honorable friend from Georgia,[11] in March, 1847, moved the Senate to declare that the war ought not to be prosecuted for the conquest of Territory, or for the dismemberment of Mexico.  The whole of the Northern Democracy voted against it.  He did not get a vote from them.  It suited the patriotic and elevated sentiments of the Northern Democracy to bring in a world from among the mountains and valleys of California and New Mexico, or any other part of Mexico, and then quarrel about it; to bring it in, and then endeavor to put upon it the saving grace of the Wilmot Proviso.  There were two eminent and highly respectable gentlemen from the North and East, then leading gentlemen in the Senate, (I refer, and I do so with entire respect, for I entertain for both of those gentlemen, in general, high regard, to Mr. Dix of New York and Mr. Niles of Connecticut,) who both voted for the admission of Texas.  They would not have that vote any other way than as it stood; and they would have it as it did stand.  I speak of the vote upon the annexation of Texas.  Those two gentlemen would have the resolution of annexation just as it is, without amendment; and they voted for it just as it is, and their eyes were all open to its true character.  The honorable member from South Carolina who addressed us the other day was then Secretary of State.  His correspondence with Mr. Murphy, the Charge d’Affaires of the United States in Texas, had been published.  That correspondence was all before those gentlemen, and the Secretary had the boldness and candor to avow in that correspondence, that the great object sought by the annexation of Texas was to strengthen the slave interest of the South.  Why, Sir, he said so in so many words—­

     MR. CALHOUN.  Will the honorable Senator permit me to interrupt him
     for a moment?

Certainly.

MR. CALHOUN.  I am very reluctant to interrupt the honorable gentleman; but, upon a point of so much importance, I deem it right to put myself rectus in curia.  I did not put it upon the ground assumed by the Senator.  I put it upon this ground:  that Great Britain had announced to this country, in so many words, that her object was to abolish slavery in Texas, and, through Texas, to accomplish the abolition of slavery in the United States and the world.