- Wolf Elbert
“Why should I grieve, when grieving I must bear.” Mr Elbert
Wolf belongs to Baltimore, and he came to solicit
Lecturers for the erection of a school, or schoolhouse in that city
which I was of course under the necessity of declining— He asked me if
there were other persons accustomed to lecturing whom I could recommend.
I named Mr
Woodbury, Alexander H.
Everett, Joseph R.
Ingersoll and Daniel D.
Barnard— At the house, as soon as the journal was read, I
asked the permission of the house to make an explanation of an
expression which I had used yesterday, and which had been by some
persons misunderstood— No objection was made— I had said that if Slavery
were totally abolished, forever in Texas and the voluntary consent of
Mexico could be obtained I would vote for the annexation of Texas
to-morrow— This expression had been snap’d up by the slave-mongers, that
it admitted the Constitutional power of Congress
to annex Texas—the whole drift of my speech had been exactly the
reverse— I had not been three minutes speaking, and was referring to my
argument of yesterday, founded on my whole course on the Louisiana
purchase in 1803. in the Senate, when Saunders of North-Carolina, interrupted me; said I had
made my explanation, and objected to my proceeding further.— The
Speaker would have put me down—
I did not give him time, but concluded, and Saunders moved to go into
Committee of the whole on the state of the Union, and Hopkins took the chair. Stephens of the Georgia made a
sophistical speech for and against the annexation, and Woodward of South-Carolina, who got
the floor unfairly, made a stupid speech for annexation— I say stupid
for so he insolently called a speech made by a member from Vermont—
Douglass of Illinois was in
the chair— Rathbun rose and
asked if that epithet of Woodward’s was in order. Douglass said it was
not strictly in order, but that so much latitude of reflection had been
allowed throughout the whole of this debate, that he had forborne to
notice it in this particular case.— Rayner complained that by the management of the chairman
none of the Southern whigs had been allowed to explain their reasons for
opposition to the annexation, which Hopkins resented— Causin closed the debate, and at 2 came
the hour of doom— All the propositions were successively rejected, till
that offered simultaneously by Milton
Brown in the House and Foster in the Senate, which was carried in Committee 107
to 102. and by yeas and nays in the house 120 to 98.