questions of boundary and indemnity should be treated of together, as naturally and inseparably blended, and they ought to have seen that this course was best calculated to enable the United States to extend to them the most liberal justice." In other words, as we read this language, Mexico ought to have known that we should insist, at all events, on a very liberal boundary for Texas, and want probably some independent slices of her territory besides, and that we should be able to allow her a more liberal consideration for all this by trading off our claims to her by way of compensation, while she would find on her part, this mode of payment to us, much less onerous than the heavy drain which would otherwise be imposed on her slender territory.

We cannot, in our notice of that part of the President's Message relating to these claims, consent to pass by, without comment, the extraordinary tone of exaggeration in which he indulges on this whole subject. It is a small compliment which he pays to the intelligence and general information of those whom he is addressing when he ventures on a broad assertion like this: "The wrongs which we have suffered from Mexico almost ever since she became an independent power, and the patient endurance with which we have borne them, are without a parallel in the history of modern civilized nations." This was very bold language for the President of the United States to hold in the face of a history so recent and so well known as ours. One would really suppose, from reading this sentence, followed up, as it is, with every choice term and epithet that could well be select ed to give intensity to the character of enormity and outrage which is charged on the acts of Mexico, that this was the only instance in which American citizens had suffered in their persons and property by the unjust and lawless proceedings of foreign governments; least of all would any one suppose that the President could be aware that our short history is full of just such cases. Or did he suppose that few persons in the country would probably recollect, just now, what our experience had been in this respect, and that he could, therefore, venture, with impunity, to treat the wrongs which Mexico had done us, as if nobody had ever heard of such wrongs before, from any other quarter.

If there is any one thing more remarkable than another in our relations with

foreign countries, it is the extraordinary number of instances which have occurred in our short term of national existence, of outrage and injury committed on the persons and property of American citizens by foreign powers, and the extraordinary patience we have exhibited under these injuries, in deference, and steady adherence, to the policy of our government from the beginning, in favor of peace, as long as war could be avoided with honor. During the wars which followed the French Revolution, and which involved at one time or another, nearly every considerable power in Europe, the United States, as the most important maritime, neutral nation, became the subject of every species of illegal exaction and depredation, in their trade and commerce, which the wit and rage of the belligerent powers could devise. These outrages continued through a series of years. England, France, Spain, Holland, Naples, Denmark, all engaged in the commission of these offences. Nor have such acts been confined to the Continental governments; we have been subjected to similar outrages in our own hemisphere, and from other quarters besides Mexico. We settled this business with England by a war, because of the peculiar nature of her depredations, particularly on the high seas, and the doctrines she set up and maintained in their justification. But we settled with all the rest by treaty-not, however, generally without great difficulty, and very great delay. The claims which we had on the European Governments for spoliation and illegal seizure of property, dated, some of them, as far back as 1805 or 6, and the injuries complained of ran through several years. The claims on Spain were settled through the cession of Florida to the United States in 1819. Those on the Danish Government were not settled till 1830; the Treaty of indemnity with Naples was concluded in 1832. Mr. Rives' Treaty with France was in 1831. If Mr. Polk would take the trouble to look a little into the nature and character of the various acts of spoliation, insult and injury committed under the authority, and often by the special direction, of the French Government, on the persons and property of American citizens, through a series of years, he would find that the wrongs we have suffered from Mexico are not altogether without a parallel. And yet in that case a quarter of a century passed away, counting from the

commencement of these outrages, before redress was obtained. Every possible difficulty was thrown in the way of their adjustment; and it was not till that government passed, at length, into the hands of the present sovereign, that satisfaction was obtained. France then acknowledged herself indebted to citizens of the United States, in the sum of 25,000,000 francs, which was probably about one-third of the amount really and justly due. If ever a war could be justified for injuries of this nature, it might have been against France-not only on account of the aggravated character of the acts complained of, but on account also of the frivolous pretexts set up, at various times, to evade the claims, and finally to get rid of them altogether. Indeed, in every one of the cases referred to, the United States might have found occasion to go to war, if it had not been much better to remain at peace-quite as much occasion, indeed, in nearly every instance, as anybody could find for war against Mexico on the same account. Some of the claims against Mexico were for injuries of a very outrageous character-never, however, for one moment attempted to be justified by the government. But others, among the very largest in amount, and helping, more than all the rest together, to make up that round sum of three millions and a third which the President is so fond of parading before the country as having been left undecided by the Commission at Washington in 1842, are claims of a very different character. We are not aware upon what principle it is that the government is called on to take cognizance of a claim founded on a mere breach of contract for land, between a citizen of the United States and the Republic of Mexico. We are quite sure that our government has never listened to any claim of this sort against any other power; and we should think it well enough to take care that it do not set an awkward precedent against itself in this matter. At any rate, whatever may be said of other claims on Mexico, these certainly are not exactly the sort of cases to make a war out of; and we are sorry to see them so carefully brought in by the President on all occasions, to swell the amount which Mexico is charged with holding back from us, and for which he insists we ought to have gone to war long ago. Claims of the nature of these even those the least admitting of excuse or apology-have, in

all the practice of the government, been deemed much more fitly satisfied by appropriate sums of money, though obtained with extreme difficulty, and after many years of patient solicitation, than redressed by war. And there has been nothing to take the claims against Mexico out of this category. In truth, as we have seen, they were all in the way of amicable adjustment, when the measure of Annexation came in to break up, for the time, our friendly relations with that power; and we have not a doubt that in due time, with a becoming patience on our part, and some judicious treatment of the case, the obstructions which that event threw in the way might have been removed, and full satisfaction for every just claim peaceably obtained, to the last dollar.

war.

But let us be allowed now to recur once more to the fact, that after all this show of brave indignation, which we have in the Message on account of these unsatisfied claims, we do not yet find in them "the causes which have led to the ." How, indeed, could we? It is for Congress to make any war that is begun on the part of this nation for any cause; and certainly Congress did not make this war, nor was it ever asked to do so by the Executive, whether for this cause or any other. So far from all this, the President insists that the war was begun by Mexico, when Congress, of course, had nothing to do but to recognize its existence, and provide the means for its prosecution on our part. It is true, we do not agree-we wish we could, since we are in the war-that hostilities were begun by Mexico. They were begun by the Executive; and still, confessedly, without the slightest reference to these claims. Under this state of facts, we think they are made to occupy quite too large a space, and figure too conspicuously, in a grave State Paper, which professed to be about to give us causes which led to the war.'

"the

But we turn now to that part of the Message which does in reality treat of the "causes which led to the war. The object of the President is to shift the responsibility of the war, in its inception, from himself, and fasten it upon Mexico. The mode is easily described. The first actual collision of arms took place on the left bank of the Bravo, by an attack of the Mexican forces on a detachment of United States troops. This the President, of course, holds to be the com

mencement of hostilities; here the war began. To this view, however, he is aware, a serious difficulty has been interposed. What was our army doing on the left bank of the Rio Grande? Was not this the proper soil of Mexico, at any rate occupied by her citizens, governed by her laws, dotted with her waters and cities, and with her military posts? And this brings the President in earnest to the task which he had imposed on himself, and bravely indeed does he encounter the difficulties and perils of his position. Nothing daunts him-nothing stays his march. He now deals with the familiar history of his country, and with current events, just as he had already dealt with the Constitution; they are cast aside, or trampled beneath his feet. Having shown by an elaborate argument that Texas belongs to the United States by the process of Annexation-a point on which he might have spared himself all argument-he proceeds to maintain, with all gravity and earnestness, that Texas -the Texas thus annexed to the United States has its western boundary-its historical, well-defined and indisputable boundary-on the Rio Grande, from its mouth to its source! The army of the United States, then, was in its proper place on the left bank of that river, and so Mexico did begin this war, by invading our territory, and "shedding the blood of American citizens on American soil!"

In the earnest desire which we constantly feel to treat President Polk with the respect due to the Chief Magistrate of the nation, our commentary on this part of his manifesto shall be confined as strictly as possible to his allegations, and the conclusions he draws from them. In the first place the President goes back to the Treaty of 1803, by which France ceded to the United States "the Colony or province of Louisiana," notoriously without any expression of limits or boundary whatever, for the professed purpose of finding a definite boundary for the Spanish or Mexican province of Texas. "Texas," he says, as ceded to the United States by France in 1803," has been always claimed as extending west to the Rio Grande." It is difficult to conceive at the first blush that the President is here speaking of the treaty which ceded the mighty province of Louisiana to the United States; and yet he could not refer to any other. If he had said that Louisiana, as ceded to the United States, had been sometimes claimed as extending

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to the Rio Grande, we could have understood such an allegation as at least approaching historical truth. Louisiana, ceded as a vast province principally of primeval forest, without an attempt at naming a single line or even point of boundary, was subsequently claimed as extending to the Rio Grande-feebly claimed, for diplomatic objects, as the President must very well know. It was rather a pretension than a claim ; while, on the other hand, Spain never ceased to claim the country east of the Rio Grande, and to the Sabine, as belonging to her and not at all within the province of Louisiana; and she did not hesitate, as she had occasion, to back her claims by military possession.

But the President does not stop with the allegation that Texas, eo nomine, was ceded to the United States by France, with its western limits on the Bravo-for so he means, at least, the casual reader shall understand him; but in order to forge his chain of title in unbroken links, he next refers to "the Texas which was ceded to Spain by the Florida treaty of 1819," as embracing the country up to the Rio Grande, and precisely as if this same Texas, eo nomine, had been ceded to Spain by the United States. Just how much historical truth is here exhibited will appear from a very simple statement.

The Treaty referred to, after ceding to the United States the two Floridas-not from the Perdido merely, to which on the east the United States had claimed for their province of Louisiana, but from the Mississippi up to which Spain had pushed her pretensions-proceeds to establish a boundary line between the respective countries of the two contracting parties west of the Mississippi; that is to say, between the colonial possessions of Spain, on the one side, and the province of Louisiana as now owned by the United States on the other. This line begins on the Gulf of Mexico, at the mouth of the river Sabine, and follows the western bank of that river towards its source. Having described the boundary," the two high contracting parties," says the treaty

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agree to cede and renounce all their rights, claims and pretensions to the territories described by the said line;" the United States renouncing all pretensions to the territories west and north of that line, and Spain renouncing all pretensions to the territories east and north of that line. As to all the territories on the one side and the other of the Sabine,

this was just the common case of defining, by treaty, a boundary line between two countries, by mutual agree ment, where no definite line positively described had been fixed before, and where there had been mutual and conflicting claims and pretensions. And this plain and simple proceeding is made to figure in the Message as if a specific cession of Texas, eo nomine, had been made by the United States to Spain! Having carried his work forward thus far, no doubt to his own entire satisfaction, the President next proceeds to exhibit the various acts of the Republic of Texas, in minute and particular detail, which go to prove, as he seems to think, that she "always claimed this river (the Rio Grande) as her western boundary.' These acts of the Republic of Texas were quite familiar to all who had ever taken the trouble to make themselves acquainted with her history; and we very much doubt if there be another man of any considerable standing in the whole country besides Mr. Polk, who would have risked his reputation by being the first to affirm that he regarded any or all of these acts together, as establishing any just claim whatever, in that Republic, to the whole country between the Nueces and the Rio Grande, and from the mouth to the source of the latter river. In the same circumstantial way the Message recites the acts of the Congress of the United States since the measure of Annexation, as showing that that body has claimed the Rio Grande as the western boundary of Texas-and here, too, we repeat our solemn belief that no public man of any repute in the whole country, besides Mr. Polk, could be found, who would have been the first to venture on such an assertion. Of course, there will not now be wanting those, both of high and low degree, who will not be afraid or ashamed to follow where the President of the United States has dared to lead.

The juggle, for we cannot call it less, which the President has here attempted to play off on unpracticed minds, is but repeated, a little more at large, from his special message to Congress of the 14th of May last. It consists in the adroit employment of terms and phrases when giving locality and application to certain acts of the Republic of Texas, and of our own Congress, by which all distinction is confounded in the mind of the common reader, between a mere narrow strip of country lying along the west bank and

lower portion of the Nueces, and a broader belt of country, separated from the other by a wide expanse of chapparel and desert, situated along the east bank of the Rio Grande, and extending up that river to its source in the mountains, 2,000 miles distant. Let any one run over this part of the Message with the distinction we have now indicated in his mind, and he will see exactly what we mean, and exactly what the President means. Let it be enough to say that in reference to the whole country on the Rio Grande here adverted to, there is not the slightest ground or pretence for saying, what the President means should be understood, that the Republic of Texas ever asserted or exercised a single act of sovereignty and jurisdiction over this territory or its inhabitants; that she ever extended her judicial system over it, or established a custom-house, a post-office, or post-road, or land-office, within its limits, or ever attempted anything of the sort; or that any senator or representative residing in it was ever elected to the Congress of the Republic, or to the Convention which gave its consent to annexation. Just as little ground or pretence is there for saying, what the President also means should be understood, that the Congress of the United States ever established a collection district in this country on the Rio Grande; or that a surveyor of the revenue was ever appointed to hold his office within its limits; or that Congress ever established a post-route in it; or that it practically constitutes a part of one of the Congressional districts of Texas, or is represented, in any way, either in the House of Representatives or in the Senate of the United States. The whole foundation on which the President has reared up this compound of monstrous and absurd pretension, is found in the fact, which nobody has ever denied or disputed, that Texas had succeeded in pushing her settlements, few indeed in number and extremely feeble, across the Nueces, the ancient, well-known boundary on the west of the state and department of Mexico of that name. A lodgment had been effected at Corpus Christi, on the immediate bank of that river, near its mouth; and altogether, of village and rural population, scattered up and down that stream, on its west bank, confined to its valley, and at no great distance from its mouth, there might have been found, at the period of annexation, 500, possibly a thousand, souls. But what, in the name