In this message the President appeals to the purity of his motives, and makes the strongest possible apology for the exercise of the veto power, and sets forth the general work and results of his Administration without any great effort to defend any of its measures. The message carries the general impression that Mr. Polk felt his Administration to be in no need of defense, that a little time would determine its value to the country beyond all chance of dispute. He again takes occasion to hold up to the country the paramount importance of the Union undivided, above all other considerations; and urges Congress to support the Missouri Compromise in disposing of the territorial questions before it. The message also shows the great success of the new independent Treasury (Van Buren Sub-Treasury). The extraordinary test of war on the Treasury and the specie currency had disappointed the remaining advocates of the old bank and paper system. War with Mexico was hardly necessary, however, to prevent the re-enactment of the former banking system of the Government. The question of providing governments for the newly acquired territory became the most important and difficult work before Congress at this session. Here again the slavery issue took a new form, and the contest became fierce and alarming. This extreme movement did not, however, arise until the last of February. The now common filibustering trick of attaching some incongruous and mischievous appendage to appropriation bills was then not in vogue, nor was it considered reputable legislation. When the civil and diplomatic or general appropriation bill came to the Senate, Isaac P. Walker, of Wisconsin, moved that what he termed an amendment, having nothing whatever to do with the subject of the bill, should be attached to the bill providing for a form of government for the acquired territory, and for "extending the Constitution over" that territory. It appeared that Walker was only the instrument of Mr. Calhoun in regard to this new doctrine and the novel way of bringing it forward. At all events Mr. Calhoun, at once, stood out as its champion and defender. Mr. Webster led in combating the doctrine and the mode of presenting it. Of this new turn in Mr. Calhoun's tactics Mr. Benton has made this statement: "The question took a regular slavery turn, Mr. Calhoun avowing his intent to be to carry slavery into the territories under the wing of the Constitution, and openly treated as enemies to the South all that opposed it. Having taken the turn of a slavery question, it gave rise to all the dissension of which that subject had become the parent since the year 1835. By a close vote, and before the object had been understood by all the Senators, the amendment was agreed to in the Senate, but immediately disagreed to in the House, and a contest brought on between the two Houses by which the great appropriation bill, on which the existence of the Government depended, was not passed until after the Constitutional expiration of the Congress at midnight of the 3d of March, and was signed by Mr. Polk (after he had ceased to be President) on the 4th of March, the law and his approval being antedated of the 3d, to prevent its invalidity from appearing on the face of the act. Great was the heat which manifested itself, and imminent the danger that Congress would break up without passing the general appropriation bill; and that the Government would stop until a new Congress could be assembled-many of the members of which remained still to be elected. Many members refused to vote after midnight, which it then was. "The House of Representatives had ceased to act, and sent to the Senate the customary message of adjournment. The President who, according to the usage, had remained in the Capitol till midnight to sign bills, had gone home. It was four o'clock in the morning of the 4th, and the greatest confusion and disorder prevailed. Finally, Mr. Webster succeeded in getting a vote, by which the Senate receded from the amendment it had adopted, extending the Constitution to the territories; and that recession leaving the appropriation bill free from the incumbrance of the slavery question, it was immediately passed. "This attempt, pushed to the verge of breaking up the Government in pursuit of a newly invented slavery dogma, was founded in errors too gross for misapprehension. In the first place, as fully shown by Mr. Webster, the Constitution was not made for territories, but for States. In the second place, it can not operate anywhere, not even in the States for which it was made, without acts of Congress to enforce it. This is true of the Constitution in every particular. Every part of it is inoperative until put into action by a statute of Congress." The sequel to this matter was the production of an address in secret meeting of Southern members of Congress, an address written by Mr. Calhoun mainly, setting forth the paramount importance of the slavery issue to that section of the Union. All, of course, only serving to continue the excitement, and widen the chasm opening between these two great sections. Amidst these scenes of sectional strife closed the Administration of Mr. Polk. It had been an exciting and interesting period in the country's history, although the people were greatly divided as to the benefits of its measures and events, and the South was disappointed as to the results of territorial acquisition in the establishment and extension of slavery. CHAPTER XXVIII. GREAT EVENTS OF POLK'S ADMINISTRATION-A BRIEF OST of the Whigs, and not a few Dem MOST ocrats, believed the war with Mexico unjust and unnecessary on the part of the United States. Most Whigs and many Democrats believed that all that was gained in the way of territory, etc., by the war, would in the course of time, have come by persistent, friendly negotiation. They believed, too, that the President had entered upon a war unconstitutionally, in sending an army into Mexico, or into disputed territory, and, therefore, bringing on hostilities without the sanction of Congress. It was not necessary to station the army west of the Nueces, if it was necessary to send an army to Texas at all. With all the bluster of the Mexicans, it is clear enough that they never would have ventured into a conflict with this country, if the "army of occupation" had been kept to the east of the Nueces River. But perhaps several of the sixteen Congressmen who voted against the declaration of war, when war had actually begun, would not have done so, had it not been for the preamble in the bill, that war existed "by the act of |