Vermont Watchman And State Journal

Mr. Editor,—You have given us the circular signed by J. Q. Adams and others, warning us against the annexation of Texas to the Union, and I hope it will receive that serious attention which it deserves. Those, who dread such an event, should take speedy and active measures to prevent it. And the Legislatures of the free states should express their views in opposition, as fully as the Legislatures of the slave states do in favor of the annexation.

The 12th article of the amendments of the Constitution says, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people." Now it is perfectly evident that the Constitution gives no power to Congress to buy up foreign possessions; no power to take foreign states into the Union. If they have so done, they have done it without any constitutional authority, and the only pretext for so doing is expediency. This is always dangerous ground, and should be approached with caution. For if expediency may ride over the Constitution in one case, it may in all cases, and we may as well have no written Constitution.

Foreign territory might be acquired by conquest constitutionally under the law making power; but not by purchase, or compact. Our Congress is not elected to speculate for the nation, but to make laws, and support the rights of their constituents; and they have no more authority to annex Texas to the Union, than they have to annex Canada to the Union. A state, before joining the confederacy, might have received a foreign state, at their request, as a constituent part of her territory ; but after joining she could have no right so to do without the consent of all the contracting states. And should Maine take New Brunswick, at the request of that people, under her protection, or Louisiana receive Texas as an integral part of her territory, the other states would have just ground of complaint, and might exclude them from the Union. Now if Louisiana cannot receive Texas, then Louisiana and Alabama cannot do it. And if two states cannot do it in their sovereign capacity, then fifteen cannot do it. The act would have an essential bearing on the confederation, and might be highly injurious to the rights and interests of the other states, and they would have a right to protest and withdraw from the confederation. Should the state governments or the people in the several states authorize their representatives to act in their name, they might agree to receive a foreign state into the confederacy, or the states might express their willingness to have Congress do the act. In that case Congress would act, not under any power granted by the Constitution, but as the accredited agent of the states : so that if even one state refused to delegate to them such power, they could not act for such state, and the state might resist all such foreign alliance.

I am not a nullifier; but I am for maintaining state rights, even all those rights which have not been delegated to Congress. Let the federal government have all the powers granted, but nothing more. The great fish eat up the little fish. The national government has vast patronage, will accumulate power, and eventually swallow up the states, if they do not watch, resist her aggressions, and maintain their state rights. Here is extreme danger, and if the states are not watchful, the national government will, at no distant day, become a consolidated mass.

The question, then, whether Texas shall be annexed to the Union is one on which Congress has no power to act. It is usurpation. This is the ground which every independent state in the Union should take and maintain. If the South want Texas, they can request the North to accept that territory. If all the states, which are parties to the compact, agree, they can take into the firm another partner; but if one or more of the states refuse, no body can compel them to receive a new party to the compact. If the majority will have new partners, they must leave the old firm and form a new one. They have no right to compel sovereign states to receive new allies to enslave them; and if they attempt it, the compact is violated, and the injured party may withdraw. Here the states should take their stand, and maintain their sovereign rights at all events.

AN OLD MAN.