Indeed, our Revolutionary predecessors had precisely the same question before them in establishing an organic law, under which the States of Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Iowa have since come into the Union, and they solcmnly repudiated and excluded slavery from those States forever.

The Union, the creation of the necessities physical, moral, social, and political, endures by virtue of the same necessities; and these necessities are stronger than when it was produced, by the greater amplitude of territory now covered by it; stronger than the sixfold increase of the society living under its beneficent. protection; stronger by the augmentation ten thousand times of the fields, the workshops, the mines, and the ships of that society, of its productions of the sea, of the plow, of the loom, and of the anvil, in their constant circle of internal and international exchanges; stronger in the long rivers penetrating regions before unknown; stronger in all the artificial roads, canals, and other channels and avenues essential, not only to trade, but to defense; stronger in steam navigation, in steam locomotion on the land, and in telegraph communications unknown when the Constitution was adopted; stronger in the freedom and in the growing empire of the seas; stronger in the element of national honor in all lands, and stronger than all in the now settled habits of veneration and affection for institutions so stupendous and useful.

(Being part of a speech delivered in the United States Senate, March 11, 1850.)

Slavery and the Annexation of Cuba.

By JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS, of Ohio.

(Born 1795, died 1864.)

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ND here I wish to say to the friends of liberty that our cause is advancing rapidly, and with firmer and surer pace than at any former period. The old political organizations have lost their moral power. The election of the great Western statesman, Thomas H. Benton, in opposition to both the Whig and Democratic parties, shows the tendency of men to think and vote agreeably to the dictates of their own judgment, and not according to caucus dictation, or party rule. He, sir, was unconnected with all parties. He was the exponent of his own views; the people approved his sentiments, and, setting party dictation at defiance, they elected him. Nor was the election of the distinguished philanthropist from New York, Gerritt Smith, less a triumph of independent political thought and action. These distinguished gentlemen were connected with no political parties, but each was elected upon his own merits.

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Again, sir, we have enlisted the literati of our country on the side of truth, liberty, and justice. To my fair country women I would say that a lady with her pen has done more for the cause of freedom, during the past year, than any savant, statesman, or politician of our land. That inimitable work, "Uncle Tom's Cabin," is now carrying truth to the minds of millions, who, to this time, have been deaf to the cries of the downtrodden. It is arousing the sensibilities of this country and of Europe. It goes where no other anti-slavery work ever found its way, and quietly carries conviction to the hearts of its readers. It has been dramatized, and, both in this country and in Europe, the playgoing public listen with intense interest to the wrongs, the revolting crimes of slavery. Thus, the theater, that "school of vice," has been subsidized to the promulgation of truth, and the hearts of thousands have been reached, who were approachable in no other way.

The clergy of the North are awakening to duty, to the calls of humanity. No longer are we called to listen to "lower law" sermons, nor are the feelings

of our Christian communities shocked by reading discourses from doctors of divinity, intended to sanctify and encourage the most transcendent crimes which ever disgraced mankind. Churches and ecclesiastical bodies are beginning to move in behalf of truth, of Christian principles. They are purifying themselves from those who deal in God's image; they are withdrawing church fellowship from those pirates who deserve the gallows and halter, rather than a seat at the communion table of Christian churches.

I have glanced at these facts in answer to those who have spoken before me, and for the encouragement of our friends, in order to assure them that while Whigs and Democrats in this hall are discussing the propriety of protecting "cotton cloth" and "cut nails," the advocates of freedom have not forgotten the duty of protecting the rights of our common humanity.

But, Mr. Chairman, my principal object in rising was to call the attention of this body and of the country to the first of the series of resolutions presented by the honorable chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means (Mr. Houston). It refers to our "foreign relations." The position we hold toward the Governments of Spain, Great Britain, and France is unusually important at this time. The recent publication of the correspondence between our Executive and the Spanish Ministry has excited a deep and pervading interest throughout the country.

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This correspondence is highly important. It shows to the country and to the civilized world that for thirty years the Executive has exerted our national influence to maintain slavery in Cuba, in order that the institution may be rendered more secure in the United States. This policy stands out in bold relief; it pervades the whole correspondence, and was also incorporated into the instructions of our commissioners to the Congress of Panama, although those instructions are not embraced in the communication now before us.

Both Whig and Democratic administrations have adopted this policy; and although I have but little time to read extracts from this correspondence, I will give one from the letter of Mr. Webster, Secretary of State, marked "Private and Confidential," to our Consul at Havana, dated January 14, 1843, in which the author refers to reported intentions of British Abolitionists and the British Ministry to aid in the abolition of slavery and in the establishment of an independent government in Cuba. He says: "If this scheme should succeed, the influence of Britain in this quarter, it is remarked, will be unlimited. With six hundred thousand blacks in Cuba, and eight hundred thousand in her West India islands, she will, it is said, strike a blow at the existence of slavery in the United States." These, sir, are the words of a man who opposed all expression, by this Government, of sympathy with oppressed Hungary; who was so strongly