power, and a compact, or treaty, is pro- posed to be made. In the careful par- tition of powers under the Constitution, the duty of negotiating and making- trea- ties is assigned to the President, with the advice and consent of two-thirds of the Senate. But in this case, the Congress — not inappropriately, perhaps, consider- ing the novelty of the object — took tiie matter in hand, and commenced the for- mal negotiation by a projet or proposi- tion, in the shape of a joint resolution, which was passed by a majority in each House, and received the approval and sig- nature of the President. In this pro- ceeding, Congress might be considered as having resolved itself into a conven- tion of delegates, with assumed authori- ty from the people to enter on this e.xtra- ordinary negotiation. It is idle to think of it as a proceeding of Congress, acting under the Constitution. Here was a compact between two sovereign nations by which they agreed to unite and form one nation out of the two, on certain terms. Can there be any one bold enough to assert that the Constitution authorizes Congress to make such a com- pact in behalf of the United States? It seems to be thought by some that this particular compact w^as well enough made through the agency of Congress, because, in this case, Texas, yielding up her nationality, consented to take a posi- tion in the new union somewhat below the point of equality, in dignity and pow- er, with the nation to which she joined herself. But the question of authority cannot be affected by the particular terms, or conditions on which a league for in- corporating this nation with another may be formed. Had Congress, or had the government, through any or all its func- tionaries. Constitutional authority on any terms whatever, to melt down and fuse the American nation with another inde- pendent nation, and so, out of the amal- gam to form a new nation? That is the true question; for the true nature of the transaction was such as we have here stated it. Two independent States, or sovereignties, were incorporated into one by a compact formed between the two while thus independent and sovereign. The uniting of Holland and Belgium, by the treaties of Vienna, was not more an incorporating of two States into one. And if this incorporation between the United States and Texas could be effect- ed on the particular terms of the present compact, it could be effected on other terms as well. It might have been agreed just as well, that the President of Texas should be President of the new incorpo- rated nation. It was just as competent, so far as the question of authority is con- cerned, for Congress to have agreed that the sovereignty of Texas, instead of that of the quondam United States, should pre- vail in the new union. We are speak- ing of the question of power under the written Constitution. If Congress could incorporate the United States with Texas, it could do the same thing with England or France; and in such a case the sov- ereignty ovf>r the new incorporated king- dom, would doubtless be somewhat differ- ently disposed of. So far as authority is concerned Congress could just as well have undertaken to re-incorporate the States of this Union with the British Em- pire, on the old terms of colonial de- pendence.
Now we know, all the while, that this measure must be, as it has been, submit- ted to and acquiesced in. We cannot probably escape from our new po'-ition, if we would. And this is therefore ex- actly one of those alarming cases to which we have b'>fore adverted, where a new and extraordinary power has been usurped by the goven.uient, and that usurpation acquiesced in and confirmed, almost from the necessity of the case, by the deliberate voice of the nation, so as in efl^ect to clothe the govenunent with this new power in all lime to come — the written Constitution to the contrary not- withstanding — to be employed by it again and again, if it should see any occasion for its exercise. A very important pro- vision this in the unwritten portion of the Constitution of the United States. Perhaps the most serious, certainly the most immediate and pressing of the evils which could not fail to follow in the train of this high-handed measure, are seen and felt in that series of bold acts, each one another instance of assumed author- ity, into which this original measure has hurried the government, as if by an in- exorable fate, and whii;h it is the main purpose of this article to record and illustrate.
The first of these acts was one to which the government was moved by an apparent necessity, even before Annexa- tion was consununated. Tiiis was the employment of the army of the United States by the unauthorized direction of the President, for the defence of Texas against all her enemies, while she was
