BENJAMIN LUNDY.'

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3. Every vessel, whether national or foreign, in which slaves mav be transported and introduced into the Mexican territories, shall be confiscated with the rest of its cargo-and the owner, purchaser, captain, master, and pilot, shall suffer the punishment of ten years' confinement.

The Constitution of Coahuila and Texas, promulgated on the 11th of March, 1827, also contains this important article:

"13. In this state no person shall be born a slave after this Constitution is published in the capital of each district, and six months thereafter, neither will the introduction of slaves be permitted under any pretext."

[Translated from page 149, Vol. V, Mexican Laws.]

DECREE OF PRESIDENT GUERRERO.

Abolition of Slavery.

The President of the United Mexican States, to the inhabitants of the Republic

Be it known: That in the year 1829, being desirous of signalizing the anniversary of our Independence by an act of national Justice and Beneficence, which may contribute to the strength and support of such inestimable welfare, as to secure more and more the public tranquility, and reinstate an unfortunate portion of our inhabitants in the sacred rights granted them by nature, and may be protected by the nation, under wise and just laws, according to the provision in article 30 of the Constitutive act; availing myself of the extraordinary faculties granted me, I have thought proper to decree:

1. That slavery be exterminated in the republic.

2. Consequently those are free, who, up to this day, have been looked upon as slaves.

3. Whenever the circumstances of the public treasury will allow it, the owners of slaves shall be indemnified, in the manner which the laws shall provide.

Mexico, 15th Sept. 1829, A. D.

JOSE MARIA de BOCANEGRA.

[Translation of part of the law of April 6th, 1830, prohibiting the migration of citizens of the United States to Texas.]

ART. 9. On the northern frontier, the entrance of foreigners shall be prohibited, under all pretexts whatever, unless they be furnished with passports, signed by the agents of the republic, at the places whence they proceed.

AXT. 10. There shall be no variation with regard to the colonies already established, nor with regard to the slaves that may be in them; but the general government, or the particular state government, shall take care, under the strictest responsibility, that the colonization laws be obeyed, and that NO MORE SLAVES BE INTRODUCED.

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BENJAMIN LUNDY.

COLONIZATION LAWS OF COAHUILA AND TEXAS.

ART. 3. The new settlers, in regard to the introduction of slaves, shall be subject to laws which now exist, and which shall hereafter be made on the sunject.

ART. 36. The servants and laborers which, in future, foreign colonists shall introduce, shall not, by force of any contract whatever, remain bound to their servicé a longer space of time than ten years.

Given in the city of Leona Vicario, 28th April, 1832.

JOSE JESUS GRANDE, President.

In the course of my observations, I have several times asserted, that it was the intention of the insurrectionists to establish and perpetuate the system of slavery, by "constitutional" provision. In proof of this, I now quote several paragraphs from the "CONSTITUTION" which they lately adopted. This extract is taken from that part under the head of "General Provisions," and embraces all that relates to slavery.

TEXAS CONSTITUTION.

SEC. 8. All persons who shall leave the country for the purpose of evading a participation in the present struggle, or shall refuse to partici pate in it, or shall give aid or assistance to the present enemy, shall forfeit all rights to citizenship, and such lands as they may hold, in the republic.

SEC. 9. All persons of color, who were slaves for life previous to their emigration to Texas, and who are now held in bondage, shall remain in the like state of servitude, provided the said slave shall be the bona fide property of the person so holding said slave as aforesaid. Congress shall pass no laws to prohibit emigrants from the United States of America from bringing their slaves into the republic with them, and holding them by the same tenure by which such slaves were held in the United States; nor shall congress have the power to emancipate slaves; nor shall any slaveholder be allowed to emancipate his or her slave or slaves, without the consent of congress, unless he or she shall send his or her slave or slaves without the limits of the republic. No free person of African descent, either in whole or in part, shall be permitted to reside permanently in the republic, without the consent of congress; and the importation or admission of Africans or negroes into this republic, excepting from the United States of America, is for ever prohibited and declared to be piracy.

SEC. 10. All persons, (Africans, and the descendants of Africans, and Indians excepted,) who were residing in Texas on the day of the Declaration of Independence, [a great portion of the native Mexican citizens are, of course, excluded,] shall be considered citizens of the republic, and entitled to all the privileges of such. All citizens now living in Texas, who have not received their portion of land in like manner as colonists, shall be entitled to their land in the following proportion and manner: Every head of a family shall be entitled to one league and "labor" of land, and every single man of the age of seventeen and upwards, shall be entitled to one third part of one league of land.

BENJAMIN LUNDY.

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The period has indeed arrived-THE CRISIS IS NOW-when the wise, the virtuous, the patriotic, the philanthropic of this nation, must examine, and reflect, and deeply ponder the momentous subject under consideration. Already we see the newspaper press in some of the free states, openly advocating the system of slavery, with all its outrages and abominations. Individuals occupying influential stations in the community at large, also countenance and encourage it, and even instigate the vile rabble to oppose, maltreat, and trample on the necks of those who dare to plead the cause of the oppressed. At the ensuing session of our national congress, the great battle is to be fought, that must decide the question now at issue, and perhaps even seal the fate of this republic. The senators and representatives of the people will then be called on to sanction the independence of Texas, and also, to provide for its admission, as a SLAVEHOLDING STATE, into this Union. These measures will positively be proposed, in case the Mexican government fails to suppress the insurrection very soon, and to recover the actual possession of the territory. A few of our most eminent statesmen will resist the proposition with energy and zeal; but unless the PUBLIC VOICE be raised against the unhallowed proceeding, and the sentiments of the people be most unequivocally expressed in the loudest tones of disapprobation, they will be unable to withstand the influence and power of their antagonists. Arouse, then! and let your voice be heard through your primary assemblies, your legislative halls, and the columns of the periodical press, in every section of your country!

Citizens of the United States!-Sons of the Pilgrims, and disciples of Wesley and Penn!-Coadjutors and pupils of Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin!-Advocates of freedom and the sacred "rights of man!"-Will you longer shut your eyes, and slumber in apathy, while the demon of oppression is thus stalking over the plains consecrated to the genius of liberty, and fertilized by the blood of her numerous martyrs? Will you permit the authors of this gigantic project of national aggression, interminable slavery, and Heaven-daring injustice, to perfect their diabolical schemes through your supineness, or with the sanction of your acquiescence? If they succeed in the accomplishment of their object, where will be your guarantee for the liberty which you, yourselves enjoy? When the advocates of slavery shall obtain the balance of power in this confederation; when they shall have corrupted a few more of the aspirants to office among you, and opened an illimitable field for the operations of your heartless land-jobbers and slave-merchants, (to secure their influence in effecting the unholy purposes of their ambition,) how long will you be able to resist the encroachments of their tyrannical influence, or prevent them from usurping and exercising authority over you? ARISE IN THE MAJESTY OF MORAL POWER, and place the seal of condemnation upon this flagrant violation of national laws, of human rights, and the eternal, immutable principles of justice.-National Enquirer of Philadelphia.

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JOHN Q. ADAMS.

JOHN Q. ADAMS.

During the late war with Great Britain, the military and naval commanders of that nation, issued proclamations inviting the slaves to repair to their standards, with promises of freedom and of settlement in some of the British colonial establishments. This, surely, was an interference with the institution of slavery in the states. By the treaty of peace, Great Britain stipulated to evacuate all the forts and places in the United States, without carrying away any slaves. If the government of the United States had no authority to interfere, in any way, with the institution of slavery in the states, they would not have had the authority to require this stipulation. It is well known that this engagement was not fulfilled by the British naval and military commanders; that, on the contrary, they did carry away all the slaves whom they had induced to join them, and that the British government inflexibily refused to restore any of them to their masters; that a claim of indemnity was consequently instituted in behalf of the owners of the slaves, and was successfully maintained. All that series of transactions was an interference by congress with the institution of slavery in the states in one way-in the way of protection and support. It was by the institution of slavery alone, that the restitution of slaves enticed by proclamations into the British service could be claimed as property. But for the institution of slavery, the British commanders could neither have allured them to their standard, nor restored them otherwise than as liberated prisoners of war. But for the institution of slavery, there could have been no stipulation that they should not be carried away as property, nor any claim of indemnity for the violation of that engagement.

But the war power of congress over the institution of slavery in the states is yet far more extensive. Suppose the case of a servile war, complicated, as to some extent it is even now, with an Indian war; suppose congress were called to raise armies; to supply money from the whole Union to suppress a servile insurrection: would they have no authority to interfere with the institution of slavery? The issue of a servile war may be disastrous. By war, the slave may emancipate himself; it may become necessary for the master to recognise his emancipation, by a treaty of peace; can it, for an instant, be pretended that congress, in such a contingency, would have no authority to interfere with the institution of slavery, in any way, in the states? Why, it would be equivalent to saying, that congress have no constitutional authority to make peace.

I suppose a more portentous case, certainly within the bounds of possibility. I would to God I could say not within the bounds of probability. You have been, if you are not now, at the very point of a war with Mexico-a war, I am sorry to say, so far as public rumor is credited, stimulated by provocations on our part from the very commencement of this Administration down to the recent authority given to General Gaines to invade the Mexican territory. It is said, that one of the earliest acts of this Administration, was a proposal made at a time when there was already much ill-humor in Mexico against the

United States, that she should cede to the United States a very large portion of her territory-large enough to constitute nine states equal in extent to Kentucky. It must be confessed, that, a device better calculated to produce jealousy, suspicion, ill-will, and hatred, could not have been contrived. It is further affirmed, that this overture, offensive in itself, was made precisely at the time when a swarm of colonists from these United States were covering the Mexican border with land-jobbing, and with slaves, introduced in defiance of the Mexican laws, by which slavery had been abolished throughout that republic. The war now raging in Texas is a Mexican civil war, and a war for the re-establishment of slavery where it was abolished. It is not a servile war, but a war between slavery and emancipation, and every possible effort has been made to drive us into the war, on the side of slavery.

And again I ask, what will be your cause in such a war? Aggression, conquest, and the re-establishment of slavery, where it has been abolished. In that war, sir, the banners of freedom will be the banners of Mexico; and your banners, I blush to speak the word, will be the banners of slavery.

And how complicated? Your Seminole war is already spreading to the Creeks, and, in their march of desolation, they sweep along with them your negro slaves, and put arms into their hands to make common cause with then against you, and how far will it spread, sir, should a Mexican invader, with the torch of liberty in his hand, and the standard of freedom floating over his head, proclaiming emancipation to the slave, and revenge to the native Indian, as he goes, invade your soil? What will be the condition of your states of Louisiana, of Mississippi, of Alabama, of Arkansas, of Missouri, and of Georgia? Where will be your negroes? Where will be that combined and concentrated mass of Indian tribes, whom, by an inconsiderate policy, you have expelled from their widely distant habitations, to embody them within a small compass on the very borders of Mexico, as if on purpose to give that country a nation of natural allies in their hostilities against you? Sir, you have a Mexican, an Indian, and a negro war upon your hands, and you are plunging yourself into it blindfold; you are talking about acknowledging the independence of the republic of Texas, and you are thirsting to annex Texas, ay, Coahuila, and Tamaulipas, and Santa Fe, from the source to the mouth of the Rio Bravo, to your already over-distented dominions. Five hundred thousand square miles of the territory of Mexico would not even now quench your burning thirst for aggrandizement.

Great Britain may have no serious objection to the independence of Texas, and may be willing enough to take her under her protection, as a barrier both against Mexico and against you. But, as aggrandizement to you she will not readily suffer it; and, above all, she will not suffer you to acquire it by conquest and the re-establishment of slavery. Urged on by the irresistible, overwhelming torrent of public opinion, Great Britain has recently, at a cost of one hundred millions of dollars, which her people have joyfully paid, abolished slavery throughout all her colonies in the West Indies. After setting such an example, she will