Speech of Hon. Daniel Webster

39 to Massachusetts and proclaimed the existence of that purpose, but I could get no audience, and but little attention. Some did not believe it, and some were too much engaged in their own pursuits to give it any heed. They had gone to their farms, or to their merchandise, and it was impossible to arouse any sentiments in New England or in Massachusetts, that should combine the two great political parties against this annexation; and indeed there was no hope of bringing the Northern Democracy into that view, for their leaning was all the other way. But, sir, even with Whigs, and leading Whigs, I am ashamed to say, there was a great indifference towards the admission of Texas, with slave territory into this Union. The project went on. I was then out of Congress. The annexation resolutions passed the 1st of March, 1845; the Legislature of Texas complied with the conditions and accepted the guaranties ; for the phraseology of the language of the resolution is, that Texas is to come in “ upon the conditions and under the guaranties herein prescribed.” I happened to be returned to the Senate in March, 1845, and was here in December, 1845, when the acceptance by Texas of the conditions proposed by Congress was communicated to us by the President, and an act for the consummation of the connexion was laid before the two Houses. The connexion was then not completed. A final law doing the deed of annexation, ultimately, had not been passed; and when it was put upon its final passage here, I expressed my opposition to it, and recorded my vote in the negative; and there that vote stands, with the observations that I made upon that occasion. It has happened that between 1837 and this time, on various occasions and opportunities,

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