Excerpt from Speech of Mr. Winthrop, of Massachusetts, on the Annexation of Texas: Delivered in the House of Representatives of the United States, Jan, 6, 1845

House of Representatives of the United States, January 6, 1845. - The Joint Resolution for the Annexation of Texas being under consideration in the Committee of the Whole on the State of the Union -

Mr Winthrop said:

I have very little hope, Mr. Chairman, of saying any thing new on the question before us, or of giving any new interest or force to the views which have already been presented, both to Congress and the Country, by the master minds of the nation. Certainly, I have not risen to attempt any formal response to the challenge which was tendered me a few days since by the chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, (Mr. C. J. Ingersoll.) That gentleman was pleased to call on me emphatically for an argument. He was particular in warning me against declamation. He would he contented with nothing short of an argument. Now, sir, I must be allowed to say that such a call, and such a caution, would have come with something of a better grace from the honorable member, if he had given me thee example as well as the precept. If he had "reck'd his own rede, " and had given to the House something better than a desultory string of bald assertions and balder assumptions, he might have thrown down the gauntlet to whom he pleased. But I must protest that it was a little ungracious in the honorable member, to urge upon me the steep and thorny way of arguing a negative, after sauntering along the primrose path of dalliance himself, with the burden of the affirmative fairly upon his own shoulders.

The honorable member from Alabama, (Mr. Payne, ) who spoke last, was somewhat in the same vein. "He would not entertain the House with a mere Fourth of July oration." He, too, wanted nothing but an argument. Now, with all deference to the better judgment of the honorable member, I must be allowed to express a doubt, whether a good Fourth of July oration would not be one of the best arguments that could be framed for this precise occasion.

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