THOMAS CORWIN.-JEFFERSON DAVIS. 79 slaughtered Americans, before these consecrated battle-fields of liberty should have been wrested from us? THOMAS CORWIN.* 58. THE EXPLOITS OF GEN. TAYLOR. MR. PRESIDENT, this whole country was thrown into one general burst of joy, our towns were illuminated when the little army on the Rio Grande repulsed, beat on two fields, a Mexican army three times their number, advantageously posted, and fighting with obstinacy proportionate to their numerical superiority; but why recount it? It was an army, according to the senator's dictum, which could have been held in check by two hundred and fifty Texan rangers. Is it true, sir, that those soldiers who had spent their lives in acquiring their profession, with an army of two thousand men, than which none was ever more favorably composed for desperate service, old soldiers and young leaders, performed only what two hundred and fifty Texan rangers could have done so much more effectually? Shades of Ringgold, McIntosh, Barbour, Ridgely, and Duncan, and thou, the hero of the Mexican war, let not your ashes be disturbed! The star of your glory will never be obscured by such fogs and fleeting clouds as that. It will continue to shine brighter and brighter as long as professional skill is appreciated, or bravery is admired, or patriotism has a shrine in the American heart. But, sir, it was not alone in the United States that the military movements and achievements on the Rio Grande were viewed with admiration. The greatest captain of the age, the Duke of Wellington, the moment he saw the positions taken and the combinations made upon the Rio Grande; the moment he saw the communication opened between the depot at Point Isabel and the garrison at Fort Brown, by that masterly movement of which the battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma were a part, exclaimed, that General Taylor is a general indeed. And yet, sir, all history is to be rewritten, all the rapture and pride of the country at the achievements upon those bloody fields are to disappear, and the light of science to pale before the criticism of that senator, by whom we are told that a little band of mounted riflemen could have done that which cost so many American lives and hecatombs of Mexicans. *U. S. Senator from Ohio. I have spoken thus as a simple duty, not from any unkindness to the senator, but that I might do justice to many of my comrades, whose dust now mingles with the earth upon which they fought, that I might not leave unredressed the wrongs of the buried dead. I have endeavored to suppress all personal feeling, though the character of the attack upon my friend and general might have pardoned its indulgence. It is true that sorrow sharpens memory, and that many deeds of noblest self-sacrifice, many tender associations, rise now vividly before me. I remember the purity of his character, his vast and varied resources; and I remember how the good and great qualities of his heart were equally and jointly exhibited when he took the immense responsibility under which he acted at the battle of Buena Vista, fought after he had been recommended by his senior general to retire to Monterey. Around him stood those whose lives were in his charge, whose mothers, fathers, wives, and children would look to him for their return; those were there who had shared his fortunes on other fields; some who, never having seen a battle, were eager for the combat, without knowing how direful it would be; immediately about him those loving and beloved, and reposing such confidence in their commander that they but waited his beck and will to do and dare. On him, and on him alone, rested the responsibility. It was in his power to avoid it by retiring to Monterey, there to be invested and captured, and then justify himself under his instructions. He would not do it, but cast all upon the die, resolved to maintain his country's honor, and save his country's flag from trailing in the dust of the enemy he had so often beaten, or close the conqueror's career as became the soldier. His purpose never wavered, his determination never faltered; his country's honor to be untarnished, his country's flag to triumph, or for himself to find an honorable grave, was the only alternative he considered. Under these circumstances, on the morning of the 23d of February, that glorious but bloody conflict commenced. It won for him a chaplet that it would be a disgrace for an American to mutilate, and which it were an idle attempt to adorn. I leave it to a grateful country which is conscious of his services, and possesses a discrimination that is not to be confounded by the assertions of any, however high their position. * U. S. Senator from Mississippi. JEFFERSON DAVIS.* 59. OBEDIENCE TO THE CONSTITUTION. OUR forefathers held that the people had an inherent right to establish such constitution and laws for the government of themselves and their posterity, as they should deem best calculated to insure the protection of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and that the same might be altered and changed as experience should satisfy them to be necessary and proper. Upon this principle the constitution of the United States was formed, and our glorious Union established. All acts of congress passed in pursuance of the constitution are declared to be the supreme laws of the land, and the Supreme Court of the United States is charged with expounding the same. All officers and magistrates, under the federal and state governments-executive, legislative, judicial, and ministerial-are required to take an oath to support the constitution, before they can enter upon the performance of their respective duties. Every person born under the constitution owes allegiance to it; and every naturalized citizen takes an oath to support it. Fidelity to the constitution is the only passport to the enjoyment of rights under it. When a senator elect presents his credentials, he is not allowed to take his seat until he places his hand upon the holy evangelist, and appeals to his God for the sincerity of his vow to support the constitution. He who does this with a mental reservation or secret intention to disregard any provision of the constitution, commits a double crime-is morally guilty of perfidy to his God and treason to his country! If the constitution of the United States is to be repudiated upon the ground that it is repugnant to the divine law, where are the friends of freedom and Christianity to look for another and a better? Who is to be the prophet to reveal the will of God and establish a theocracy for us? I will not venture to inquire what are to be the form and principles of the new government, or to whom is to be intrusted the execution of its sacred functions; for, when we decide that the wisdom of our revolutionary fathers was foolishness, and their piety wickedness, and destroy the only system of selfgovernment that has ever realized the hopes of the friends of freedom, and commanded the respect of mankind, it becomes us to wait patiently until the purposes of the Latter Day Saints shall be revealed unto us. For my part, I am prepared to maintain and preserve invio. late the constitution as it is, with all its compromises, to stand or fall by the American Union, clinging with the tenacity of life to all its glorious memories of the past and precious hopes of the future. STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS.* 60. THE DEATH OF O THERE is sad news from Genoa. An aged and weary pilgrim, who can travel no further, passes beneath the gate of one of her ancient palaces, saying with pious resignation as he enters its silent chambers, "Well, it is God's will that I shall never see Rome. I am disappointed. But I am ready to die. It is all right." The superb though fading queen of the Mediterranean holds anxious watch, through ten long days, over that majestic stranger's wasting frame. And now death is therethe Liberator of Ireland has sunk to rest in the Cradle of Columbus. Coincidence beautiful and most sublime! It was the very day set apart by the elder daughter of the Church for prayer and sacrifice throughout the world, for the children of the sacred island, perishing by famine and pestilence in their homes and in their native fields, and on their crowded paths of exile, on the sea and in the havens, and on the lakes, and along the rivers of this far distant land. The chimes rung out by pity for his countrymen were O'Connell's fitting knell; his soul went forth on clouds of incense that rose from altars of Christian charity; and the mournful anthems which recited the faith, and the virtue, and the endurance of Ireland, were his becoming requiem. It is a holy sight to see the obsequies of a soldier, not only of civil liberty, but of the liberty of conscience-of a soldier, not only of freedom, but of the Cross of Christ-of a benefactor, not merely of a race of people, but of mankind. The vault lighted by suspended worlds is the temple within which the great solemnities are celebrated. The nations of the earth are mourners; and the spirits of the just made perfect, descending from their golden thrones on high, break forth into songs. Behold now a nation which needeth not to speak its melancholy precedence. The lament of Ireland comes forth from palaces deserted, and from shrines restored; from Boyne's dark water, witness of her desolation, and from Tara's lofty hill, ever * U. S. Senator from Illinois. WILLIAM H. SEWARD.-E. A. HANNEGAN. 83 echoing her renown. But louder and deeper yet that wailing comes from the lonely huts on mountain and on moor, where the people of the greenest island of all the seas are expiring in the midst of insufficient though world-wide charities. Well indeed may they deplore O'Connell, for they were his children; and he bore them "A love so vehement, so strong, so pure, That neither age could change nor art could cure." WILLIAM H. SEWARD,* 61. THE OREGON TERRITORY. THE honorable senatort has arrayed before us the mighty naval power of England, the number of her ships of war, her sailors, and her guns, and the comparatively diminutive force we present. If that senator by this intended to awe us into a compromise, by the surrender of our own territory, it was certainly both ill-timed and ill-planned; that would have better become a secret session. The idea of surrendering without an effort, because of the numerical superiority of the enemy, whether in guns or men, is new to me in military history. I admit that it is right and proper to examine the force of Great Britain, but at the same time we ought not to forget or undervalue our own. The American people cannot be alarmed; they are not to be awed by any such representations. But the senator of South Carolinat is wedded to a different plan-a plan which avoids all action. He is for leaving the whole matter to the silent, quiet, noiseless operation of time, and the gradual encroachments of our hardy and enterprising settlers, who have gone, and are going, into the territory. But do gentlemen flatter themselves that we can thus take Oregon, and England know nothing of it? Will the English not understand this policy as well as we? And when they perceive the plan likely to take effect, will they not be on their guard? If we press our population upon them, will they not, in turn, press their pauper population upon us? Which of the two plans will most consult the honor of this country? Which story shall we rather have on record as a heritage to our posteritythe plan of the honorable senator to get the territory by silent |