"
This was the form in which the resolution was finally adopted, passing
by a vote of thirty-six to eight. Here, then, was fully and broadly
asserted the danger resulting from the interference in the question of
slavery in the District of Columbia, as trenching upon the rights of the
slaveholding States. Twelve years only have elapsed, yet this brief
period has swept away even the remembrance of principles then deemed
sacred and necessary to secure the safety of the Union. Now, an
honorable and distinguished Senator, to whom the country has been
induced to look for something that would heal the existing dissensions,
instead of raising new barriers against encroachment, dashes down those
heretofore erected and augments the existing danger. A representative
from one of the slaveholding States raises his voice for the first time
in disregard of this admitted right. Nor, Mr. President, did he stop
here. The boundary of a State, with which we have no more right to
interfere than with the boundary of the State of Kentucky, is encroached
upon. The United States, sir, as the agent for Texas, had a right to
settle the question of boundary between Texas and Mexico. Texas was not
annexed as a Territory, but was admitted as a State, and, at the period
of her admission, her boundaries were established by her Congress. She,
by the terms of annexation, gave to the United States the right to
define her boundary by treaty with Mexico; but the United States, in the
treaty made with Mexico subsequent to the war with that country,
received from Mexico not merely a cession of the territory that was
claimed by Texas, but much that lay beyond the asserted limits.
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