Speech of Mr. Barrow, of Louisiana, on the resolutions from the House of Representatives, for the admission of Texas as a new state into the Union. Delivered in the Senate of the United States, February 19, 1845. Page: 3 of 16
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3
fiscal corporation at the extra session. The Senator's language then was: "Pass your
bill-create your corporation-and in three months the cry will be heard from one end
of this Union to the other-repeal ! repeal! We the Democracy will repeal it." The
Senator certainly denied the power of one Congress to control or pledge the action of a
future Congress respecting any thing. If that was the doctrine of the gentleman and
of his party, respecting charters, which, according to the old notion of vested rights,
could not be overthrown but for cause, then Mr. B. asked him, why could not another
Congress interpose its veto to the consummation of what was, after all, but an inchoate
act ; for this joint resolution, if passed, finished nothing. All it did was, to lay the
foundation for an unprecedented excitement all over the country, and open a question
which might shake this Union to its centre. When the bill did pass, then, possibly,
the people of the South might become one in regard to it.
The present act concluded nothing ; it required that, after the people of Texas should
have agreed on a Constitution, their application must be presented to Congress for its
final action. What if the next Congress should say, our predecessors were actuated by
patriotic motives, but if Congress has power to admit a State, it is for us to judge whe-
ther we will admit Texas or not ; the action of a former Congress in laying a founda-
tion for her admission has no binding authority over us. If they should hold language
like this, would not the present joint resolution amount to nothing ?
Mr. B. went on to say that, with all his objections to annexation, he would at once
agree to vote for it if the treaty-making power was invoked to effectuate the object, ra-
ther than stand by and see a violent infraction of our Constitution perpetrated by the
admission of Texas as a new State into the Union by virtue of a joint resolution of
Congress. He considered this the most daring and dangerous attempt to desecrate the
Constitution ever attempted, and he would now proceed to prove what he said.
If this was really a complicated question of law, he might not feel so strong a confi-
dence in his own judgment as to what Congress ought to do ; but really it seemed to
him that any impartial man of candor and common sense, (he did not mean a member
of Congress nor a politician of any kind, but a plain, intelligent, honest man,) who de-
sired to arrive at the truth, and honestly to ascertain whether Congress could admit
Texas under the clause insisted on by the gentleman on the other side, could not long
doubt on the question. He knew, indeed, that the judgments of men were apt to be warped
by prejudice, by party feeling, and, above all, by personal interest; but he would take
any intelligent, well-read gentleman, give him the debates of the Convention to read,
and then ask him to form an opinion as to the power of Congress to receive a foreign
government in the Union, and he hazarded nothing in saying, that such a man would
decide at once that Congress had no jurisdiction.
In interpreting any instrument, it was proper, and often necessary, to go back and to
look at contemporaneous history. He invited gentlemen for a moment to go back with
him to 1787, and ask what was the condition of the country when that immortal Con-
vention of patriotic men assembled to form a Constitution which was to govern the
should the bill become a law before our adjournment? Why, sir, from every hill and valley throughout
the land, from Georgia to Maine, and from the Atlantic to the Rocky mountains, the cry of ' repeal will
be sounded. The repeal of the bank will electrify the people of this country to as high a point as the
Repeal of the union has electrified the people of Ireland.
"Now, sir, whatever may be said in regard to the propriety of repealing the charter-and, for one,
I should never adopt this measure, unless driven to it in defence of the people against the hasty and vio-
lent conduct of the friends of the bank-I presume there can be but little doubt of the power, even if
Congress, like the States, had been expressly prohibited by the Constitution from passing any law im-
pairing the obligation of contracts.
" But it required no judicial decision to teach a freeman this doctrine. It never could be imagined for
a single moment that the Constitution of the United States intended to enable Congress, or a State Leg-
islature, to transfer forever, either to corporations or individuals, those great and general powers of Gov-
ernment with which they have been entrusted by the people. If Congress can deprive itself by contract
of any of those powers, it may dispose of them all, and that irrevocably ; and the National Legislature
might thus destroy itself, and transfer all its most important functions to corporations.
" I speak solely of the question of power under judicial decisions, and I merely glance at the subject
for the present. In the event of repeal, the private stockholders in such a bank may have an equitable
claim for indemnity on Congress, but nothing more. It is wholly unlike the case of a State bank char-
ter granted to inuividuals, which has been declared by the Judiciary to be a private corporation."
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Barrow, Alexander, 1801-1846. Speech of Mr. Barrow, of Louisiana, on the resolutions from the House of Representatives, for the admission of Texas as a new state into the Union. Delivered in the Senate of the United States, February 19, 1845., pamphlet, 1845; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth498767/m1/3/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Schreiner University.