from the Gulf of Mexico in the south, to the great inland seas of the north. To induce him to do so, I called on him to go up with me, in imagination, to the top of some lofty mountain of the west, there to look abroad upon the goodly inheritance which God had given us. I called on him to look toward the Gulf of Mexico, and gaze upon those beautiful constellations that were rising np there. But to my astonishment he would not look in that direction at all. I called upon him to look away toward Oregon-on all her bays, and rivers, and harbors; but I soon found that he would not look up in that direction. Baffled in this, I called upon him to turn his face to the east, where the morning sun first shines upon this land of liberty— to look at the old immortal thirteen who achieved our independence; but, to my utter amazement, he would not look even at these. Thereupon I turned to him and asked, in the name of conscience, what country is it that you want to see? "Oh, Governor, only show me some country where some day or other I can be a Governor!" There, now, I cried, you are too hard for me. Why, Moses and Aaron both put together can never show you such a sight as that.

The return of Santa Anna is the next theme of unmeasured censure against the President. Why, says he, was not his return prevented? I answer, because the President could not have prevented it. There were a dozen ports through which admittance could have been obtained. But why, again asks my competitor, did the President give orders to Com. Connor not to try to prevent his return? The President himself has answered the question. Parides had vowed that he never would make peace with the United States. A strong party in favor of peace was determined to turn him out, and sent to Santa Anna, at Cuba, to come home and assist them in the work. Now it would have been a strange sight to see the President shutting out from Mexico, by his blockade, the very man who had been sent for to come home, to depose Parides, and to make peace with this country. The public records and journals of Mexico all prove the fact that he was sent for expressly for thesc purposes. But again: no attempt was made to prevent his return, because Parides and many of the priests of that country had formed the plan of turning the government of Mexico into a

monarchy, and calling a prince, from either France or England, in order more effectually to prosecute the war against the United States. This great fact is proved by the proclamation of Gen. Taylor at the commencement of this war; it is confirmed by the proclamation of Gen. Scott to the Mexican people after the late battle of Cerro Gordo, and also by the correspondence of Mr. Slidell, our minister at Mexico, frequently read by my competitor. It is a great fact. A monarchy established on this continent! at the very door of our Republic! A monarchy sustained by an army of perhaps two hundred thousand men to fight against you in this war! Santa Anna was called for by the party opposed to this scheme, to come home and defeat it. Who did not then wish to see it defeated? All our Presidents, from Mr. Monroe down, with perhaps one exception, had solemnly declared, that such a step ought to be and would be opposed by our Republic at the very mouth of the cannon. Now if President Polk had prevented Santa Anna's return, and this monarchical scheme had been accomplished, who of his enemies would not have exclaimed, quite horror stricken, behold the short-sighted imbecility of your President! But my competitor objects to his return, because by it the war has been protracted. No, sir, no; not by his return. It has been protracted by the course and conduct of your own great leaders in politics. By Webster, Corwin, Severance, and a host of others, whose speeches and writings have been published throughout Mexico. Hear what the Mexican papers declare about Mr. Webster and others: "By the last arrival from New Orleans, we have been placed in possession of late papers from the United States, and a majority of them magnanimously denounce and condemn this war against this country (Mexico) as infamous, unholy, and unrighteous. Daniel Webster, the most liberal and enlightened statesman of the country, says that the expenses of the war are more than half a million a day, and he has introduced resolutions into the Senate to impeach the cowardly Jim Polk, and turn him out of office. These northern barbarians cannot carry on this war very long at this rate, and Mr. Webster deserves the thanks of the whole Mexican nation, for the noble stand he has taken on the side of right and justice. Arise, Mexicans, and drive the invaders

from our soil? Mexicans can derive comfort from the fact that the greater part of the people of the United States are opposed to this war, as their papers show, and the base man who is at the head of the government will be exiled from power." Here is the true cause why this war has been procrastinated. Now look at some of the newspapers doubtless referred to in this Mexican newspaper, (the Diario.) The Haverhill [Massachusetts] Journal says: "To volunteer or vote a dollar to carry on the war, is moral treason against the God of Heaven and rights of mankind."

Come now nearer home, and read from the speech of Senator Corwin, three or four hundred of which I found franked to one county in Tennessee: "You must call your army back! you must! unless you are willing to be thought a robber-an invader of your neighbors-and if your President asks me for men and money to carry it on, he shall have neither." Read now from "the Roman," one of Mr. Corwin's Ohio papers I think: "The volunteers-these jackasses are going off to loaf, prowl, murder and steal in Mexico, while the orderly part of the community, are to take care of their wives and children," &c. So much for Ohio; now look still nearer, to Kentucky, your next door neighbor. The Louisville Journal, speaking of the fall of the Mexican Capital, says: "fallen in one of the most iniquitous wars ever recorded in the dark and bloody annals of mankind." Yes, sirs, here is the true cause of the procrastination of this war, the publication of all such things as these amongst the bigoted, ignorant and degraded people of Mexico-worse a thousand times worse than the return of Santa Anna! But my competitor is filled with utter horror and amazement, that Congress did not sustain a call for information, as to who was sent to Cuba by the President, to inform him that he might return, &c. Sirs, the President never sent any body there he never wrote a line to Santa Anna, in all his life, nor did he ever receive one from him; the whole insinuation was a vile slander on the President, and an insult to the American people. The resolution was so intended and was voted down accordingly. If my competitor was ever to become a Governor, would his friends sustain a resolution in the Legislature, calling upon him to state what sum or sums of money, he distributed among the delegates at Nashville in

order to secure his nomination, over his competitor? It would be an infamous slander on him, and an insult to the people of the State, and they would vote it down accordingly. No, in both these cases, the only way would be to introduce a resolution, raising a committee, with power to send for persons and papers, to investigate the charges, and if found true to bring forward an impeachment against the President, or the Governor. I repeat that this would be the only regular and proper mode of proceeding in either case.

My competitor next raises complaint against the democratic party in Congress, for not raising the pay of the volunteers in this Mexican war. Not raising their pay! why every democrat from Tennessee, when the bill raising their pay was finally on its passage, voted for it-every one, I repeat every one. But he answers that they did not vote so at the preceding session. Well, I answer they did, with only one exception. My competitor has spread a wrong opinion on this subject, nearly all over the State. I now tell him to look to House Journal of 1846, May the 11th, page 793. There in the very bill declaring the war, a motion was made by Mr. Chapman of Alabama, to amend the bill as follows: "In the 10th section of the bill strike out the word $8 and insert $10," so that the bill might read, "privates of infantry, artillery and riflemen, shall receive $10 per month; for this every whig voted except one, and every democrat also except one, and both these could doubtless give satisfactory explanations of their votes not implying opposition to increased pay at all, so that both parties ought to be fairly put down as equally in favor of raising the monthly pay of these gallant men.

But the volunteers were not allowed to elect their Brigadier and Major Generals. Well, who is to blame for that? Not the President surely! He appointed them precisely because the law commanded him to do it. But who passed the law? Congress of course. My competitor must therefore hurl his thunder against that body-against his own party friends there, too, as well as the democrats. Did his friends want to enlarge the rights of volunteers, by giving them the privilege of electing Brigadier and Major Generals ?-no such thing-let me read to you from the journals of 1846, page 1008, June 26:

Mr. Cocke moved to amend bill (211) by striking out all of the same that related to Brigadier Generals, and inserting the following: "and when the number of volunteer regiments from any one State offered and accepted, under the said act of 13th May, 1846, shall be sufficient to compose a brigade, a Brigadier, General for the command of the same shall be appointed (not elected) by the authority of the State to which they belong, in the manner prescribed by the laws of said State." Sirs, you see this amendment did not apply to Major Generals at all; they were left by the admission of all parties in Congress, to be appointed by the President. It was confined to Brigadier Generals, and these were to be appointed, not elected, taken away from the President, who is responsible for this war, and transferred, not to the volunteers, oh no not to them, but the Governors of States, of North Carolina, of Kentucky and others. In Tennessee, we had no law to cover such an amendment, and to have had the benefit of it, we must have had a called session of the Legislature. Besides this, look to the date of the amendment, the 26th June, 1846. Where were our volunteers then? One regiment was almost on the theatre of their gallantry and glory, a second one was on its way, whilst the third one, (cavalry) were wending their way through the State of Arkansas. When and where did they meet, when they could have elected their Brigadier General? Never, if at all, until the period of their service was almost expired.

He next objects to the appointments made by the Presidentthat they were made from the shades of private life-that they were mere partisans who had never heard a hostile cannon roar. No special complaints have been made-no individual cases are mentioned of partisan or incompetent appointments. I must therefore meet the charge in its general aspect; and here I call for the oldest and most learned man of this assembly: Come forward, you who have read the history of all the wars of ancient and modern times, and tells us whether you ever heard or read of any war, where every legion and every officer had so completely filled up the just and high expectations of their country! Every man seems to have proved himself a