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their presence in the politics of the land, indications of something yet future. It was a rash movement of the party, this changing their leader and their line on the very brink of battle, under the guns of their opponent, already put in battery and ready to fire; but they were confident in their strength, and were so well drilled that they only needed the word of command to perform any political evolution or revolution.

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It is a little curious to look back. On the 3rd of March, 1843, twenty-one members of Congress solemnly declared that "annexation would be identical with dissolution; would be an attempt to eternize an institution and a power of a nature so unjust not only to result in a dissolution of the Union, but fully to justify it." Five of the twenty-one were from Massachusetts. "A good memory is " not so "needful to a " politician, as to another class of persons not named among gentlemen. The protest of March 3rd was not very distinctly remembered at a later date by every one of the signers thereof.

At the other extreme was the State of South Carolina. This is a very remarkable State, and her doings-we mean the doings of her lips-deserve a special notice. Before the Baltimore convention, it was necessary for that Empire State to speak out, her trumpet giving no uncertain sound. So, on the 15th of May, the people of Charleston, who had "forborne to give any public declaration of

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opinions and wishes, and patiently waited," at length and solemnly "resolved" that annexation is "an American and national measure, antagonistic to foreign interference ["still harping on my daughter"] and domestic abolitionism;" "if the treaty for the recovery (!) of Texas be defeated because of the increase it will give to the slave-holding States, it will be the denial of a vital right to them."

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Even after the convention the danger of the patriarchal institution is so great that there must be " a Southern convention." The South Carolinian," of May 30th, said, annexation is "a question not of party, but of country, and to the South one of absolute self-preservation; "“under the subtle encroachments of our old enemy of Britain, aided by the traitorous abolitionists at home,

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a union with Texas; " "England once firmly seated in Texas, and there is an end of all power or safety for the South, which would soon be made another St Domingo." A convention of Slave States was to be called "to take into consideration the question of annexing Texas to the Union, if the Union will accept it; or if the Union will not accept it, then of annexing Texas to the Southern States." The convention was to offer the Union this "alternative : "either to admit Texas into the Union, or to proceed peaceably and calmly to arrange the terms of a dissolution of the Union." Annexation must be had at all costs. A meeting "in the Williamsburg district" declared, quite "in the Ercles" dialect of that region, that "the doom of the South is sealed and the dirge of our fair republic will ere long be sung by liberty's last minstrel, if she does not arise in her might and effect a union with Texas."

Here are some of the "sentiments" of South Carolina; the time and place are the 4th of July, and "Marion CourtHouse: " "The annexation of Texas-the great measure of deliverance to the South-though defeated now by the bitterness and faction of party, come what may we will never give her up." "The protective tariff and abolition -the one, under the form of law, seeks the profits of our labour; the other, under the guise of philanthropy, to wrest our property from us. South Carolina is ready to resist the one and repel the other."

An " unsuspected nullifier" of 1832 came out to assure the people that "the political Moses [to wit, Mr MosesCalhoun] is neither lost nor dead, but that he is ready to follow the pillar of cloud by day, or fire by night." "True," he says, "there is a Joshua [Mr Joshua-Polk, meaning], full of the spirit of wisdom, for that Moses has laid his hands on him;" but "there is still no prophet in Israel [inuendo the United States of America] like Moses," [to wit, Mr Moses-Calhoun]. But somehow it seemed Moses had been so long talking with his Lord, that the Baltimore convention, sorely to seek for a prophet of some mark and likelihood, for there was no open vision in those days,could not steadfastly look upon the face of this Moses and make him their President; and so as for this Moses, the people of South Carolina wot nct what would become of

him, nor even what would become of themselves without Texas. A writer in the Charleston Mercury asked, "What is the remedy for the evils which afflict the South?" and is thus replied to by a far-sighted man in the same journal, who does not sign himself "Captain Bobadil," though he is certainly of that military family: "I answer, unreservedly, Resistance-combined Southern resistance, if you can procure it [if emphaticum]; if not, then State resistance."

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A Virginia writer, we forget who, said there was "a big screw loose somewhere in South Carolina ;" we shall presently see his mistake. This resistance was seriously meant; South Carolina was apparently arming for the fight, mustering that "small infantry" of hers. How shall we relate her deeds, and in what well-becoming words essay our venturous task? O Muse, author of bombast and of fustian, who, from the heights of Gascony,—where thou presidest over founts of froth and brooks of foam,didst once descend to inspire the soul of Bavius and of Mævius, bards of vast renown and parents of a never-ending, never-silent line,-come and inspire some of their mighty kin to sing the horrid internecine war, bidding him tell who first, who last, came forth to fight. 'Twas Quattlebum! so is he known to fame. Alas, the muse of Gascony will not again inspire a bard with verse fitting such mighty themes. So let the muse of history record it with pedestrian pen. General Quattlebum, the renowned commander-in-chief, commissioned, epauletted, the admiration of negro slaves, mounted on his war-horse, went round, sonorous metal blowing martial sounds," full of dignity, state-valour, "reserved rights," and nullification an eye like Mars to threaten and command;”—went round to stir up the spirit of fight, "reviewing his regiments." O reader, gentle or simple, this is history which we record; the veracious Niles has registered the deeds. One newspaper says that General Quattlebum addressed every regiment "in a speech for annexation. The men all go for annexation,-right off the reel, now or never." The Charleston Mercury exclaimed, "Thus it will be seen that two thousand eight hundred and thirty-two men, with arms in their hands, in the drill-field, have expressed their decided determination to sustain the mea

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sure." The forty-third regiment" resolved "that it would be more for the interest of the States [the South and South-west], that they should stand out of the Union with Texas, than in it without her." This was the thing -"combined Southern resistance if it could be had; if not, then State resistance "the resistance of South Carolina and her "two thousand eight hundred and thirty-two men with arms in their hands." What if South Carolina had "resolved" not to wait, but to annex Texas at once, leaving her eight-and-twenty sisters to their fate? What would have been the fate of the North? Already does affrighted fancy picture to our eye the South Carolinian general-the terrible Quattlebum, himself a war, his words battles, his forty-third regiment leading the way, and his "two thousand eight hundred and thirty-two men, with arms in their hands," reaching o'er many a yard of solid ground, and marching north, as when a cloud" with thunder fraught comes rattling o'er the Caspian!" Town after town falls into his hands; State after State; Baltimore is his; Philadelphia has surrendered to Quattlebum; the Palmetto waves over New York; New-England "is not a circumstance" in his way. What avails the memory of Lexington and Bunker Hill? Vain is the skill of General Scott and General Taylor; Commodore Stewart is taken captive; even General Thumb is reduced to despair. Texas would be not merely annexed, but actually spread over the whole land, and the mouths of our fanatical brethren of the North" literally stopped with Texan dirt. But no -this is fiction, O gentle reader, not fact. There is this peculiarity of South Carolinian valour: it is very valorous before the time of danger and after the time of danger, but in the time of danger, all at once it loses its identity, statical and dynamical, and becomes-DISCRETION. It is the better part of valour. He was a wise man who bid his legs, which were cowards, carry his brave heart out of danger. In the times of nullification in 1832, the great oath of Andrew Jackson laid South Carolinian valour low in the dust; to accomplish that in 1844 it took only the common swearing of John Tyler. It was needless to shoot at such an adversary; it was not worth the shot, for the poor little thing fell of itself and died of the fall. The coast of South Carolina is said to be windy, and the characteristic

of the seashore has been communicated to the politicians of the State her politics, indeed, are like a bag of wind, and we think there was not "a big screw loose" in the State, but only a big string had slipped off. The only aggressive act committed by the petulant little commonwealth,spite of the resolutions of its forty-third regiment, of the "decided determination" of the "two thousand eight hundred and thirty-two men with arms in their hands," and the scheme of "combined Southern resistance," or "at any rate, State resistance, the only aggressive act of South Carolina was the expulsion of an unarmed gentleman on the 5th of December, who had been sent from Massachusetts to look after her own citizens. Thus was 66 abolition repelled. After that the valour of South Carolina flattened away as the wind had blown out, and for a long time allwas quiet, not a general stirring. There are noble elements in the State, and some noble men. If ever it becomes a democracy and not an oligarchy, if the majority ever rule there, we shall see very different things, and South Carolina will not be a proverb in the nation.

Mr Polk was elected. On the 25th of Jan., 1845, the Joint Resolution for annexation passed the House of Representatives, by a vote of 120 to 98, and soon after the Whig Senate by a majority of two votes; it was signed by the President on the 1st of March. So the work of annexation was completed before Mr Polk came into power, though by no means without his aid. If this could have been done justly, without extending Slavery, few men at the North would have had cause to complain. We do not blame the Texans for desiring independence, or achieving it; we find no fault with extending the area of freedom over the whole world. We rejoice to extend the institu-. tions of liberty over all North America, and should be glad to see the "honourable Senator" from Labrador or the Lake of the Woods, in the American Congress. We cannot think that Mexico had just cause of war in the bare act of annexation. But when we remember that America colonized Texas for the sake of wresting it from Mexico, who would not sell it; that Americans got up the Texan revolution, and fought it through, and did all this for the sake of getting nine Slave "States as large as Kentucky;" that this was done secretly, fraudulently, with a lie on the

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