FIRST AND ONLY ANNUAL MESSAGE OF PRESIDENT TAYLOR.
This only message of one of the American Presidents, shows that he comprehended the difficulties of his position, and was determined to grapple with them—that he saw where lay the dangers to the harmony and stability of the Union, and was determined to lay these dangers bare to the public view—and, as far as depended on him, to apply the remedies which their cure demanded. The first and the last paragraphs of his message looked to this danger, and while the first showed his confidence in the strength of the Union, the latter admitted the dangers to it, and averred his own determination to stand by it to the full extent of his obligations and powers. It was in these words:
"But attachment to the Union of the States should be habitually fostered in every American heart. For more than half a century, during which kingdoms and empires have fallen, this Union has stood unshaken. The patriots who formed it have long since descended to the grave; yet still it remains the proudest monument to their memory, and the object of affection and admiration with every one worthy to bear the American name. In my judgment its dissolution would be the greatest of calamities, and to avert that should be the study of every American. Upon its preservation must depend our own happiness, and that of countless generations to come. Whatever dangers may threaten it, I shall stand by it, and maintain it in its integrity, to the full extent of the obligations imposed and the power conferred upon me by the constitution."
This paragraph has the appearance where it occurs of being an addition to the message after it had been written: and such it was. It was added in consequence of a visit from Mr. Calhoun to the Department of State, and expressing a desire that nothing should be said in the message about the point to which it relates. The two paragraphs were then added—the one near the beginning, the other at the end of the message; and it was in allusion to these passages that Mr. Calhoun's last speech, read in the Senate by Mr. Mason, of Virginia, contained those memorable words, so much noted at the time:
"It (the Union) cannot, then, be saved by eulogies on it, however splendid or numerous. The cry of 'Union, Union, the glorious Union!' can no more prevent disunion than the cry of 'Health, Health, glorious Health!' on the part of the physician can save a patient from dying that is lying dangerously ill."
President Taylor surveyed the difficulties before him, and expressed his opinion of the remedies they required. California, New Mexico, and Utah had been left without governments: Texas was asserting a claim to one half of New Mexico—a province settled two hundred years before Texian independence, and to which no Texian invader ever went except to be killed or taken, to the last man. Each of these presented a question to be settled, in which the predominance of the slavery agitation rendered settlement difficult and embarrassing. President Taylor frankly and firmly presented his remedy for each one. California, having the requisite population for a State, and having formed her constitution, and prepared herself for admission into the Union, was favorably recommended for that purpose to Congress:
"No civil government having been provided by Congress for California, the people of that territory, impelled by the necessities of their political condition, recently met in convention, for the purpose of forming a constitution and State government, which the latest advices give me reason to suppose has been accomplished; and it is believed they will shortly apply for the admission of California into the Union as a sovereign State. Should such be the case, and should their constitution be conformable to the requisitions of the constitution of the United States, I recommend their application to the favorable consideration of Congress."
New Mexico and Utah, without mixing the slavery question with their territorial governments, were recommended to be left to ripen into States, and then to settle that question for themselves in their State constitutions—saying:
"By awaiting their action, all causes of uneasiness may be avoided, and confidence and kind feeling preserved. With the view of maintaining the harmony and tranquillity so dear to all, we should abstain from the introduction of those exciting topics of a sectional character which have hitherto produced painful apprehensions in the public mind; and I repeat the solemn warning of the first and most illustrious of my predecessors, against furnishing 'any ground for characterizing parties by geographical discriminations!'"
This reference to Washington was answered by Calhoun in the same speech read by Mr. Mason, denying that the Union could be saved by invoking his name, and averring that there was "nothing in his history to deter us from seceding from the Union should it fail to fulfil the objects for which it was instituted:" which failure the speech averred—as others had averred for twenty years before: for secession was the off-shoot of nullification, and a favorite mode of dissolving the Union. With respect to Texas and New Mexico, it was the determination of the President that their boundaries should be settled by the political, or judicial authority of the United States, and not by arms.
In all these recommendations the message was wise, patriotic, temperate and firm; but it encountered great opposition, and from different quarters, and upon different grounds—from Mr. Clay, who wished a general compromise; from Mr. Calhoun, intent upon extending slavery; and holding the Union to be lost except by a remedy of his own which he ambiguously shadowed forth—a dual executive—two Presidents: one for the North, one for the South: which was itself disunion if accomplished. In his reference to Washington's warnings against geographical and sectional parties, there was a pointed rebuke to the daily attempts to segregate the South from the North, and to form political parties exclusively on the basis of an opposition of interest between the Southern and the Northern States. As a patriot, he condemned such sectionalism: as a President, he would have counteracted it.
After our duty to ourselves the President spoke of our duty to others—to our neighbors—and especially the Spanish possession of Cuba. An invasion of that island by adventurers from the United States had been attempted, and had been suppressed by an energetic proclamation, backed by a determination to carry it into effect upon the guilty. The message said:
"Having been apprised that a considerable number of adventurers were engaged in fitting out a military expedition, within the United States, against a foreign country, and believing, from the best information I could obtain, that it was destined to invade the island of Cuba, I deemed it due to the friendly relations existing between the United States and Spain; to the treaty between the two nations; to the laws of the United States; and, above all, to the American honor, to exert the lawful authority of this government in suppressing the expedition and preventing the invasion. To this end I issued a proclamation, enjoining it upon the officers of the United States, civil and military, to use all lawful means within their power. A copy of that proclamation is herewith submitted. The expedition has been suppressed. So long as the act of Congress of the 20th of April, 1818, which owes its existence to the law of nations and to the policy of Washington himself, shall remain on our statute book, I hold it to be the duty of the Executive faithfully to obey its injunctions."
This was just conduct, and just language, worthy of an upright magistrate of a Republic, which should set an example of justice and fairness towards its neighbors. The Spanish government had been greatly harassed by expeditions got up against Cuba in the United States, and put to enormous expense in ships and troops to hold herself in a condition to repulse them. Thirty thousand troops, and a strong squadron, were constantly kept on foot to meet this danger. A war establishment was kept up in time of peace in the island of Cuba to protect the island from threatened invasions. Besides the injury done to Spain by these aggravations, and the enormous expense of a war establishment to be kept in Cuba, there was danger of injury to ourselves from the number and constant recurrence of these expeditions, which would seem to speak the connivance of the people, or the negligence of the government. Fortunately for the peace of the countries during the several years that these expeditions were most undertaken, the Spanish government was long represented at Washington by a minister of approved fitness for his situation—Don Luis Calderon de la Barca: a fine specimen of the old Castilian character—frank, courteous, honorable, patriotic—whose amiable manners enabled him to mix intimately with American society, and to see that these expeditions were criminally viewed by the government and the immense majority of the citizens; and whose high character enabled him to satisfy his own government of that important fact, and to prevent from being viewed as the act of the nation, what was only that of lawless adventurers, pursued and repressed by our own laws.