Real and Personal Estate-Value in the U. 220 52 ...... 199 205 256 Sugar-Value of, received at New-Orleans 426 82 147 Red Sweet Springs.. Analysis of.... 169 So. Carolina, Memphis and Charleston 408 502 617 Sugar Region-Extension of, northward... 618 Statistics-Crime.... Statistics-Real and Personal Estate.... 28 219 219 220 223 223 227 256 Statistics-Improved and Unimproved Land 222 80 294 391 397 398 294 332 336 396 St. Louis-Receipts of Produce at....... 392-6 397 DE BOW'S REVIEW, A MONTHLY JOURNAL OF COMMERCE, AGRICULTURE, MANUFACTURES, INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT, STATISTICS, VOL. XIV. ETC., ETC. ESTABLISHED JANUARY 1, 1846. JANUARY, 1853. ART. 1.-TEHUANTEPEC AND ITS TITLE. As the great problem of a direct transit to the South Sea approaches solution, it has encountered political obstacles more formidable perhaps than the natural barriers which have so long impeded its completion. The Whitney scheme, indorsed by more than twenty states, seems to have been superseded by a new design, founded upon somewhat the same basis. No. I. tened by exactions upon the world, there must be various ways of communication affording facilities adequate to any degree of intercourse, and a salutary competition promoting the common prosperity. To effect the construction of these principal connections with the Pacific, will require the co-operation of every influence, social, moral and political. Some of them are stupendous structures and must encounter great physical difficulties. They will require time, labor, and money. But by harmonious perseverance they can all be executed. They should be favored by the government in every legitimate manThe Southwestern Rail-road to Cali- ner; for their completion will assure to fornia, projected to unite an important the United States an easy supremacy in system at El Paso, has found embarrass- the great contest for the control of the ment in the right of "agreement" re- Pacific trade, and a perpetual union beserved by Mexico, and in the physical obstacles interposed by the initial point proposed by the boundary commis The St. Louis and Pacific Rail-road protests against the partiality of Congress, in bestowing upon Atlantic interests that patronage which should be rather applied to interior enterprises. sion. The Nicaragua transit route has been impeded by the intrigues of its enemies and the dissensions of its friends. The Tehuantepec enterprise, having encountered foreign and domestic opposition of the most formidable character, has received the sanction of its own government, and an appreciation at the hands of the American people, which will secure its successful prosecution. There ought plainly to be no rivalry amongst the Isthmian and Continental crossings referred to-they will all be temporarily or permanently necessary. They are so distant from each other that the commercial intercourse between distant regions cannot be condemned to employ any one of them to the exclusion of the rest. The foreign and interior commerce will be sufficient to furnish employment for them all. Instead of one arrogant monopoly, fat tween the Atlantic and Pacific states. To the South the construction of some of these works will be of the highest political and commercial consequence. The Tehuantepec and Gila routes will turn through the southern states the precious commodities of Pacific commerce that now go around their coast. They will place them in comparative juxtaposition with the common territory, and insure a participation in the influences that govern it. The position of the Tehuantepec enterprise having been placed by the recent action of the government beyond the pale of negotiation, and an alternative of the most serious character having been presented to the consideration of Mexico, it becomes important to review the historical progress of a measure of such importance, and to place the American public in possession of the points involved in controversy. It is proposed to consider the following propositions: 1. The character and value of the Garay grant. 2. That Mexico has unjustly confiscated the rights of American citizens. 3. That the United States ought to enforce the specific.execution ofthe Garay grant. For this purpose.a short recital of preliminary events will become necessary. The government of Mexico on the 1st of of March, 1812, måde a grant of the right of way across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec to Don Jose de Garay. It also granted certain public lands and personal franchises to colonists of nations in amity with Mexico. This grant was by various deeds of assignment transferred to John Schneider & Co., and Manning & McKintosh, subjects of Great Britain. It was during the year 1849 conveyed by absolute deeds to Peter A. Hargous, of New-York. It was subsequently conveyed by Peter A. Hargous to an association, the members of which resided principally in NewOrleans. In 1851, the governments of Mexico and the United States signed a convention upon the subject of a right of way across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. This convention having been submitted, according to its terms, to the holder of the Garay grant, P. A. Hargous, received his assent and the signature of both governments in February, 1851. In May, 1851, the Congress of Mexico declared the title of Garay void, for want of authority in the administration of Salas, which, by decree of 5th November, 1846, granted its extension. In April, 1852, the Convention was submitted to the Congress of Mexico, and rejected. In July, 1852, the President of the United States, in obedience to a resolution of the Senate, communicated to Congress the documents of title, and the accompanying correspondence; and on the 30th of August, the Committee of Foreign Relations reported in favor of the validity of the Garay grant. The most authentic exposition of the Mexican argument will be found in a document entitled, "A Statement of the rights and just reasons, on the part of the Government of the United Mexican States, for not recognizing either the subsistence of the privilege granted Don Jose de Garay for the opening of a line of communication between the Atlantic and Pacific seas, across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, or the legality of the cessions which he made of said privilege to citizens of the United States of North America." The Government of Mexico, having signed the Tehuantepec Treaty, published this Statement as an appeal addressed to the foreign diplomatic circle. This occasioned an indignant remonstrance from the American Minister, as "an act unprecedented in the annals of diplomacy." The Statement was then re-published in New-York, and circulated throughout the United States. It displays neither the dignity nor justice of a state paper; an ex-parte apology for a pre-determinate conclusion, it appeals to prejudice rather than reason. It assumes for Mexico absolute integrity. It imputes to those who resist her purposes systematic fraud. It avows the most abject weakness, and implores the aid of others, yet contends that those who have expended money in developing the confiscated property, deserve no mercy for their misfortunes, and no indemnity for their loss. To fulfil the universal philanthropy of its professions, Mexico offers all mankind crossing the isthmus to the highest bidder; and to mark her detestation of "speculators" and "mercenary traders," seizes without compensation the property of others, and applies its results to replenish her exhausted coffers. If we add, that the Statement professes an exclusive knowledge of facts, with a peculiar purity of purpose, it requires but the signature of Ambrose De Lamela to make it a homily every way worthy that accomplished divine. Before replying to the positions maintained in this document, it is proper to state that the American holders of the grant have never admitted that the validity of their title depended upon the legality of any specific administration of the Government of Mexico. They have never permitted themselves to be enticed or driven from the impregnable ground taken by Mr. Webster: That their title having been granted by a de facto government, as citizens of a foreign country they were not responsible for the consistency of that government with the principles upon which it had been ostensibly founded. In support of this position, they cited the policy of the American Government, announced in the celebrated letter of Mr. Jefferson to Governeur Morris, quoted Mr. Buchanan's instructions to Mr. Trist, to treat even with "a dictator who had subverted the constitution of 1824, and acquired supreme power, whose ratification Tehuantepec and its Title. of the treaty, without the previous approbation of the general Congress, would be sufficient." They argued that they were purchasers without notice of the title alleged to be defective, and that the example of their government was sufficient for their pro tection. The reply to the arguments of the Mexican Government is not therefore admitted to be material to the validity of American title, but is intended to show that the confiscation of the property, by the Mexican Government, is unjustifiable upon any grounds whatsoever. It will, we think, result from the consideration of the whole controversy: 1. That the grant to Garay is valid and binding upon Mexico. 2. That it has been legally acquired by American citizens. 3. That the confiscation of the grant by Mexico was mercenary and unjust. 4. That private right, and the interest of the American people, require the specific enforcement of the grant. The first proposition advanced by the Mexican argument is That the charter of 1st of March, 1842, was granted by the provisional government, under the Bases of Tacubaya, subject to the right of Congress to revise it. To maintain this proposition, the argument represents that the administration of the Mexican Government, which intervened between the grant of the charter and its repeal, in May, 1851, was continuous and legal. To our reading, no period of Mexican history is more marked with misrule and anarchy. There was scarcely a stable never, according to republican doctrine, a constitutional government. A civil war broke out in the year 1841. Valencia, Minon, Bassadre, Paredes, Lombardini, headed the insurgents. General Valencia, with 1200 men, and nearly all the heavy artillery, bombs, and munitions of war, held the castle of Mexico. President Bustamente defended the palace with a body of troops, whilst Arista and other partisan officers sustained the Government in the provinces. Paredes marched on Mexico from Guadalajara, and Santa Anna advanced from Vera Cruz as a mediator between the belligerents. The American Minister, Mr. Ellis, represents, in his dispatches, that these factionaries fought in the streets of Mexico, 3 until the destruction of life and property compelled the citizens to interpose. This was effected by the convention of Estanzuela, and soon after the Bases of Tacubaya was adopted by the officers. The truce between the combatants thus terminated in a treaty. On the 7th October, 1841, General Santa Anna appointed a representative council, composed of two members from each department. On the 10th October, 1841, he took the oath of office under the Bases of Tacubaya. During the year 1842, an extraordinary Congress assembled. "In December, 1842," says the historian, "after the assembly had made two efforts to form a constitution, suitable to the country and to the cabinet, President Santa Anna, in spite of his professed submission to the national will, suddenly and unauthorizedly dissolved Congress. "The event, (the dispersion of Congress,) says the American minister, was celebrated by a grand military procession through the streets of Mexico. It marched by my door, and I cannot express my feelings when I saw the ignorant and debased soldiery, headed by their officers, who, as to the true principles of a government calculated to secure the liberties of the people, were little better informed. Thus celebrating the triumph of brute force over the will of the people fairly expressed."* Santa Anna was then "clothed with a. power without limit, and was sustained by a powerful army." A dispute subsequently arose about the extent of his powers. The 6th article of the Bases directed the Provisional President to answer for his acts before the first constitutional Congress. Santa Anna subsequently published in a decree his version of his own authority: he declared that his responsibility was merely "one of opinion"—that "the contracts made by the Provisional Government were inviolable, and, in short, could be only derogated in the terms and requisites established in the Organic Bases." But the American minister says: "A provisional government was organized by the chiefs of the army, assembled at Tacubaya, a village three miles from Mexico." By the 7th article of the Provisional *Hon. W. Thompson. + Report of Minister of State, Lafragua. |