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14
ment, and inasmuch as the fact has been very much relied
upon by Mr. Walker, and other friends of the annexation of
Texas, as a justification of the extraordinary series of measures
since taken, it may be well to explain precisely to what
it amounts.
In the year 1824, or three years after Mexico threw off
the Spanish domination, she adopted a constitution, wherein
it was provided that "no person should thereafter be born or
introduced as a slave into the Mexican nation." At this
time the territory of Texas was comparatively a desert.
There were but a few settlements, and none of them had
shown any disposition to resist the policy thus declared. In
1825, Mr. Clay proposed the cession of the territory, for
such a reasonable sum of money as to Mexico would be perfectly
satisfactory. It was the land that was in question, and
not the institutions established in it, for none had been then
established. It was an open bargain with a neighbor, which
that neighbor was perfectly at liberty to agree to or to reject
-and which it did reject in such a manner as to put an end
to the negotiation. 'here was no fraud, no false play, no
open profession and secret treachery. We may disapprove
of the policy which sought for an enlargement of territory in
this quarter, if we please, but we have nothing to be ashamed
of in it. We may blame Mr. Adams and Mr. Clay for setting
a precedent in this instance, so likely to be abused, and
which in fact has been abused, but we cannot make them
justly responsible for not foreseeing the train of evils which
only the policy of the last fifteen years has brought to light.
In short, Texas is not, and never was ours. We had a
claim upon it, believed by us to be good, which we sold for
more than it was worth. We have not, therefore, had a
shadow of right to it since, and this pretence of getting round
a solemn treaty for the sake of reviving a disputed title, settled,
advantageously to us, long ago, is only one of many
movements which reflect no credit upon the advocates of the
annexation. Six years afterwards, it is true that the administration
of Mr. Adams offered to buy the territory from
Mexico, before it was seriously encumbered with "the domestic
institution," and before citizens of the United States
had gone into it for the purpose of exciting disaffection, but it
did not pretend that Mexico was not fully possessed of all the
rights to it which Spain held under the Treaty of 1819, up to
the period of the overthrow of her domination. The offer
was made-it was declined, and there was an end of the business.
In making it, the United States conceded the validity
of the title by which Mexico held it. It would have been
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Adams, Charles Francis. Texas and the Massachusetts Resolutions, book, January 1, 1844; Boston, Massachusetts. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth2355/m1/14/?rotate=90: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.