professed devotion to their cause.* In their exasperation they, for the * In 1843, Mr. Buchanan, Senator from Pennsylvania, opposed the ral:ification of the treaty with Great Britain settling the North-East boundary, because it did not provide compensation for certain slaves liberated in the West Indies. He remarked : " All Christendom is leagued against the South, upon the question of domestic slavery. They have no other allies to sustain their constitutional rights, except the democracy of the NORTH. In my own State, we inscribe upon our party banners hostility to abolition. It is there one of the cardinal principles of the democratic party." * 188 REVIEW or THE MEXICAN WAR.
first time, avowed the real object of the war to be, the conquest of territory for the extension of slavery.
Mr. Seddon, of Virginia, declared the proviso a " gross and offensive proposition, outraging the whole scope and spirit of the Constitution. The South never would, never could prosecute conquests which were to be made the in- struments of direct