2D SESS.]

The President's Message.

[DECEMBER, 1846.

two instalments due in April and July, 1844, under the peculiar circumstances connected with them, have been assumed by the United States and discharged to the claimants, but they are still due by Mexico. But this is not all of which we have just cause of complaint. To provide a remedy for the claimants whose cases were not decided by the joint commission under the convention of April the eleventh, 1839, it was expressly stipulated by the sixth article of the convention of the thirtieth of January, 1843, that "a new convention shall be entered into for the settlement of all claims of the Government and citizens of the United States against the republic of Mexico which were not finally decided by the late commission, which met in the city of Washington, and of all claims of the Government and citizens of Mexico against the United States."

within eighteen months from that time. Four of | by failing and refusing to make the payment. The the eighteen months were consumed in preliminary discussions on frivolous and dilatory points raised by the Mexican commissioners; and it was not until the month of December, 1840, that they commenced the examination of the claims of our citizens upon Mexico. Fourteen months only remained to examine and decide upon these numerous and complicated cases. In the month of February, 1842, the term of the commission expired, leaving many claims undisposed of for want of time. The claims which were allowed by the board, and by the umpire authorized by the convention to decide in case of disagreement between the Mexican and American commissioners, amounted to two million twenty-six thousand one hundred and thirty-nine dollars and sixty-eight cents. There were pending before the umpire when the commission expired, additional claims, which had been examined and awarded by the American commissioners, and had not been allowed by the Mexican commissioners, amounting to nine hundred and twenty-eight thousand six hundred and twenty-seven dollars and eighty-eight cents, upon which he did not decide, alleging that his authority had ceased with the termination of the joint commission. Besides these claims, there were others of American citizens amounting to three million three hundred and thirty-six thousand eight hundred and thirty-seven dollars and five cents, which had been submitted to the board, and upon which they had not time to decide before their final adjournment.

In conformity with this stipulation, a third convention was concluded and signed at the city of Mexico on the twentieth of November, 1843, by the plenipotentiaries of the two Governments, by which provision was made for ascertaining and paying these claims. In January, 1844, this convention was ratified by the Senate of the United States, with two amendments, which were manifestly reasonable in their character. Upon a reference of the amendments proposed to the Government of Mexico, the same evasions, difficulties, and delays were interposed which have so long marked the policy of that Government towards the United States. It has not even yet decided whether it would or would not accede to them, although the subject has been repeatedly pressed upon its consideration.

Mexico has thus violated a second time the faith of treaties, by failing or refusing to carry into effect the sixth article of the convention of January, 1843.

The sum of two million twenty-six thousand one hundred and thirty-nine dollars and sixty-eight cents, which had been awarded to the claimants, was a liquidated and ascertained debt due by Mexico, about which there could be no dispute, and which she was bound to pay according to the terms of the convention. Soon after the final awards for this amount had been made, the Mexi- Such is the history of the wrongs which we can Government asked for a postponement of the have suffered and patiently endured from Mexico time of making payment, alleging that it would be through a long series of years. So far from affordinconvenient to make the payment at the time ing reasonable satisfaction for the injuries and instipulated. In the spirit of forbearing kindness sults we have borne, a great aggravation of them towards a sister republic, which Mexico has so consists in the fact, that while the United States, long abused, the United States promptly complied anxious to preserve a good understanding with with her request. A second convention was ac- Mexico, have been constantly, but vainly, emcordingly concluded between the two Governments ployed in seeking redress for past wrongs, new on the thirtieth of January, 1843, which upon its outrages were constantly occurring, which have face declares that, "this new arrangement is en- continued to increase our causes of complaint, and tered into for the accommodation of Mexico." to swell the amount of our demands. While the By the terms of this convention, all the interest citizens of the United States were conducting a due on the awards which had been made in favor lawful commerce with Mexico under the guarantee of the claimants under the convention of the of a treaty of "amity, commerce, and navigation," eleventh of April, 1839, was to be paid to them on many of them have suffered all the injuries which the thirtieth of April, 1843, and "the principal of would have resulted from open war. This treaty, the said awards, and the interest accruing thereon," instead of affording protection to our citizens, has was stipulated to "be paid in five years, in equal been the means of inviting them into the ports of instalments every three months." Notwithstand- Mexico, that they might be, as they have been in ing this new convention was entered into at the re- numerous instances, plundered of their property, quest of Mexico, and for the purpose of relieving and deprived of their personal liberty if they dared her from embarrassment, the claimants have only insist on their rights. Had the unlawful seizures received the interest due on the thirtieth of April, of American property, and the violation of the per1843, and three of the twenty instalments. Al-sonal liberty of our citizens, to say nothing of the though the payment of the sum thus liquidated, and confessedly due by Mexico to our citizens as indemnity for acknowledged acts of outrage and wrong, was secured by treaty, the obligations of which are ever held sacred by all just nations, yet Mexico has violated this solemn engagement

insults to our flag which have occurred in the ports of Mexico, taken place on the high seas, they would themselves long since have constituted a state of actual war between the two countries. In so long suffering Mexico to violate her most solemn treaty obligations, plunder our citizens of

The President's Message.

their property, and imprison their persons without | that in their new home they would be governed by affording them any redress, we have failed to per- laws enacted by representatives elected by themform one of the first and highest duties which selves, and that their lives, liberty, and property, every Government owes to its citizens; and the would be protected by constitutional guarantees consequence has been, that many of them have similar to those which existed in the republic they been reduced from a state of affluence to bankrupt- had left. Under a Government thus organized cy. The proud name of American citizen, which they continued until the year 1835, when a military ought to protect all who bear it from insult and revolution broke out in the city of Mexico, which injury throughout the world, has afforded no such entirely subverted the Federal and State constituprotection to our citizens in Mexico. We had tions, and placed a military dictator at the head ample cause of war against Mexico long before of the Government. the breaking out of hostilities. But even then we forbore to take redress into our own hands, until Mexico herself became the aggressor, by invading our soil in hostile array, and shedding the blood of our citizens.

2D SESS.]

The President's Message.

[DECEMBER, 1846.

or reconquer Texas, still stubbornly refused to recognize her as an independent nation, she was none the less so on that account. Mexico herself had been recognized as an independent nation by the United States, and by other powers, many years before Spain, of which, before her revolution, she had been a colony, would agree to recognize her as such; and yet Mexico was at that time, in the estimation of the civilized world, and in fact, none the less an independent power because Spain still claimed her as a colony. If Spain had continued until the present period to assert that Mexico was one of her colonies, in rebellion against her, this would not have made her so, or changed the fact of her independent existence. Texas, at the period of her annexation to the United States, bore the same relation to Mexico that Mexico had borne to Spain for many years before Spain acknowledged her independence, with this important difference-that, before the annexation of Texas to the United States was consummated, Mexico herself, by a formal act of her Government, had acknowledged the independence of Texas as a nation. It is true, that in the act of recognition she prescribed a condition, which she had no power or authority to impose, that Texas should not annex herself to any other power; but this could not detract in any degree from the recognition which Mexico then made of her actual independence. Upon this plain statement of facts, it is absurd for Mexico to allege, as a pretext for commencing hostilities against the United States, that Texas is still a part of her territory.

since 1835, and as still continuing, a rebellious | standing all this, and her utter inability to subdue province; but the world has been obliged to take a very different view of the matter. From the time of the battle of San Jacinto, in April, 1836, to the present moment, Texas has exhibited the same external signs of national independence as Mexico herself, and with quite as much stability of Government. Practically free and independent, acknowledged as a political sovereignty by the principal powers of the world, no hostile foot finding rest within her territory for six or seven years, and Mexico herself refraining for all that period from any further attempt to re-establish her own authority over that territory, it cannot but be surprising to find Mr. de Bocanegra [the Secretary of Foreign Affairs of Mexico] complaining that for that whole period citizens of the United States, or its Government, have been favoring the rebels of Texas, and supplying them with vessels, ammunition, and money, as if the war for the reduction of the province of Texas had been constantly prosecuted by Mexico, and her success prevented by these influences from abroad." In the same despatch, the Secretary of State affirms, that "since 1837, the United States have regarded Texas as an independent sovereignty, as much as Mexico; and that trade and commerce with citizens of a Government at war with Mexico cannot, on that account, be regarded as an intercourse by which assistance and succor are given to Mexican rebels. The whole current of Mr. de Bocanegra's remarks runs in the same direction, as if the independence of Texas had not been acknowledged. It has been acknowledged-it was acknowledged in 1837, against the remonstrance and protest of Mexico; and most of the acts of any importance, of which Mr. de Bocanegra complains, flow necessarily from that recognition. He speaks of Texas as still being an integral part of the territory of the Mexican Republic; but he cannot but understand that the United States do not so regard it. The real complaint of Mexico, therefore, is, in substance, neither more nor less than a complaint against the recognition of Texan independence. It may be thought rather late to repeat that complaint, and not quite just to confine it to the United States, to the exemption of England, France, and Belgium, unless the United States, having been the first to acknowledge the independence of Mexico herself, are to be blamed for setting an example for the recognition of that of Texas." And he added, that "the constitution, public treaties, and the laws, obliged the President to regard Texas as an independent State, and its territory as no part of the territory of Mexico." Texas had been an independent State, with an organized Government, defying the power of Mexico to overthrow or reconquer her, for more than ten years before Mexico commenced the present war against the United States. Texas had given such evidence to the world of her ability to maintain her separate existence as an independent nation, that she had been formally recognized as such, not only by the United States, but by several of the principal powers of Europe. These powers had entered into treaties of amity, commerce, and navigation Down to the conclusion of the Florida treaty, with her. They had received and accredited her in February, 1819, by which this territory was ministers, and other diplomatic agents at their ceded to Spain, the United States asserted and respective courts; and they had commissioned maintained their territorial rights to this extent. ministers and diplomatic agents on their part to In the month of June, 1818, during Mr. Monroe's the Government of Texas. If Mexico, notwith-administration, information having been received

But there are those who, conceding all this to be true, assume the ground that the true western boundary of Texas is the Nueces, instead of the Rio Grande; and that, therefore, in marching our army to the east bank of the latter river, we passed the Texan line, and invaded the territory of MexiCo. A simple statement of facts, known, to exist, will conclusively refute such an assumption. Texas, as ceded to the United States by France in 1803, has been always claimed as extending west to the Rio Grande, or Rio Bravo. This fact is established by the authority of our most eminent statesmen at a period when the question was as well, if not better understood, than it is at present. During Mr. Jefferson's administration, Messrs. Monroe and Pinckney, who had been sent on a special mission to Madrid, charged, among other things, with the adjustment of boundary between the two countries, in a note addressed to the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, under date of the twenty-eighth of January, 1805, assert that the boundaries of Louisiana, as ceded to the United States by France, "are the river Perdido on the east, and the river Bravo on the west;" and they add, that "the facts and principles which justify this conclusion are so satisfactory to our Government, as to convince it that the United States have not a better right to the island of New Orleans, under the cession referred to, than they have to the whole district of territory which is above described."

DECEMBER, 1846.]

that a number of foreign adventurers had landed | elected to the Congress of the republic, and served at Galveston, with the avowed purpose of forming as such before the act of annexation took place. In a settlement in that vicinity, a special messenger both the Congress and Convention of Texas, which was despatched by the Government of the United gave their assent to the terms of annexation to the States, with instructions from the Secretary of United States, proposed by our Congress, were repState, to warn them to desist, should they be found resentatives residing west of the Nueces, who took there, or any other place north of the Rio Bravo, part in the act of annexation itself. This was the and within the territory claimed by the United Texas which, by the act of our Congress of the States." He was instructed, should they be found twenty-ninth of December, 1845, was admitted as in the country north of that river, to make known one of the States of our Union. That the Congress to them "the surprise with which the President of the United States understood the State of Texas has seen possession thus taken, without authority which they admitted into the Union to extend befrom the United States, of a place within their yond the Nueces is apparent from the fact, that on territorial limits, and upon which no lawful set- the thirty-first of December, 1845, only two days tlement can be made without their sanction." after the act of admission, they passed a law "to He was instructed to call upon them to "avow establish a collection district in the State of Texas,” under what national authority they profess to by which they created a port of delivery at Corpus act," and to give them due warning "that the Christi, situated west of the Nueces, and being place is within the United States, who will suffer the same point at which the Texas custom-house, no permanent settlement to be made there, under under the laws of that republic, had been located, any authority other than their own." As late and directed that a surveyor to collect the revenue as the eighth of July, 1842, the Secretary of State should be appointed for that port by the President, of the United States, in a note addressed to our by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. Minister in Mexico, maintains that, by the Florida A surveyor was accordingly nominated, and contreaty of 1819, the territory as far west as the Rio firmed by the Senate, and has been ever since in Grande was confirmed to Spain. In that note he the performance of his duties. All these acts of states that, "by the treaty of the twenty-second the republic of Texas, and of our Congress, preof February, 1819, between the United States and ceded the orders for the advance of our army to Spain, the Sabine was adopted as the line of the east bank of the Rio Grande. Subsequently, boundary between the two powers. Up to that Congress passed an act "establishing certain post period, no considerable colonization had been routes," extending west of the Nueces. effected in Texas; but the territory between the country west of that river now constitutes a part Sabine and the Rio Grande being confirmed to of one of the congressional districts of Texas, Spain by the treaty, applications were made to and is represented in the House of Representathat power for grants of land, and such grants, tives. The Senators from that State were chosen or permissions of settlement, were in fact made by a Legislature in which the country west of that by the Spanish authorities in favor of citizens of river was represented. In view of all these facts, the United States proposing to emigrate to Texas it is difficult to conceive upon what ground it in numerous families, before the declaration of can be maintained that, in occupying the country independence by Mexico." west of the Nueces with our army, with a view solely to its security and defence, we invaded the territory of Mexico. But it would have been still more difficult to justify the Executive, whose duty it is to see that the laws be faithfully executed, if in the face of all these proceedings, both of the Congress of Texas and of the United States, he had assumed the responsibility of yielding up the territory west of the Nueces to Mexico, or of refusing to protect and defend this territory and its inhabitants, including Corpus Christi, as well as the remainder of Texas, against the threatened Mexican invasion.

The Texas which was ceded to Spain by the Florida treaty of 1819 embraced all the country now claimed by the State of Texas between the Nueces and the Rio Grande. The republic of Texas always claimed this river as her western boundary, and in her treaty made with Santa Anna, in May, 1836, he recognized it as such. By the constitution, which Texas adopted in March, 1836, senatorial and representative districts were organized extending west of the Nueces. The Congress of Texas, on the nineteenth of December, 1836, passed "an act to define the boundaries of the republic of Texas," in which they declared the Rio Grande from its mouth to its source to be their boundary, and by the said act they extended their "civil and political jurisdiction " over the country up to that boundary. During a period of more than nine years, which intervened between the adoption of her constitution and her annexation as one of the States of our Union, Texas asserted and exercised many acts of sovereignty and jurisdiction over the territory and inhabitants west of the Nueces. She organized and defined the limits of counties extending to the Rio Grande. She established courts of justice, and extended her judicial system over the territory. She established a custom-house, and collected duties, and also post-offices and post roads in it. She established a land office, and issued numerous grants for land, within its limits. Senator and a Representative residing in it were

A

The

But Mexico herself has never placed the war which she has waged upon the ground that our army occupied the intermediate territory between the Nueces and the Rio Grande. Her refuted pretension that Texas was not in fact an independent State, but a rebellious province, was obstinately persevered in; and her avowed purpose in commencing a war with the United States was to reconquer Texas, and to restore Mexican authority over the whole territory-not to the Nueces only, but to the Sabine. In view of the proclaimed menaces of Mexico to this effect, I deemed it my duty, as a measure of precaution and defence, to order our army to occupy a position on our frontier as a military post, from which our troops could best resist and repel any attempted invasion which Mexico might make.

Our army had occupied a position at Corpus Christi west of the Nueces, as early as August

1845, without complaint from any quarter. Had the Nueces been regarded as the true western boundary of Texas, that boundary had been passed by our army many months before it advanced to the eastern bank of the Rio Grande. In my annual message of December last I informed Congress that, upon the invitation of both the Congress and Convention of Texas, I had deemed it proper to order a strong squadron to the coasts of Mexico, and to concentrate an efficient military force on the western frontier of Texas, to protect and defend the inhabitants against the menaced invasion of Mexico. In that message I informed Congress that the moment the terms of annexation offered by the United States were accepted by Texas, the latter became so far a part of our own country as to make it our duty to afford such protection and defence; and that for that purpose our squadron had been ordered to the Gulf, and our army to "take a position between the Nueces and the Del Norte," or Rio Grande, and "to repel any invasion of the Texan territory which might be attempted by the Mexican forces."

It was deemed proper to issue this order, because, soon after the President of Texas, in April, 1845, had issued his proclamation convening the Congress of that republic, for the purpose of submitting to that body the terms of annexation proposed by the United States, the Government of Mexico made serious threats of invading the Texan territory.

These threats became more imposing as it became more apparent, in the progress of the question, that the people of Texas would decide in favor of accepting the terms of annexation; and, finally, they had assumed such a formidable character, as induced both the Congress and Convention of Texas to request that a military force should be sent by the United States, into her territory for the purpose of protecting and defending her against the threatened invasion. It would have been a violation of good faith towards the people of Texas | to have refused to afford the aid which they desired against a threatened invasion, to which they had been exposed by their free determination to annex themselves to our Union, in compliance with the overtures made to them by the joint resolution of our Congress.

Accordingly, a portion of the army was ordered to advance into Texas. Corpus Christi was the position selected by General Taylor. He encamped at that place in August, 1845, and the army remained in that position until the eleventh of March, 1846, when it moved westward, and on the twenty-eighth of that month reached the east bank of the Rio Grande opposite to Matamoras. This movement was made in pursuance of orders from the War Department, issued on the thirteenth of January, 1846. Before these orders were issued, the despatch of our Minister in Mexico, transmitting the decision of the Council of Government of Mexico, advising that he should not be received, and also the despatch of our consul residing in the city of Mexico-the former bearing date on the seventeenth, and the latter on the eighteenth of December, 1845, copies of both of which accompanied my message to Congress of the eleventh of May last-were received at the Department of State. These communications rendered it highly probable, if not absolutely certain, that our Minister would

[DECEMBER, 1846.

not be received by the Government of General
Herrera. It was also well known that but little
hope could be entertained of a different result from
General Paredes, in case the revolutionary move-
ment which he was prosecuting should prove suc-
cessful, as was highly probable. The partisans of
Paredes, as our Minister, in the despatch referred
to, states, breathed the fiercest hostility against
the United States, denounced the proposed nego-
tiation as treason, and openly called upon the
troops and the people to put down the Government
of Herrera by force. The reconquest of Texas,
and war with the United States, were openly
threatened. These were the circumstances exist-
ing, when it was deemed proper to order the army
under the command of General Taylor to advance
to the western frontier of Texas, and occupy a
position on or near the Rio Grande.
The apprehensions of a contemplated Mexican
invasion have been since fully justified by the
event. The determination of Mexico to rush into
hostilities with the United States was afterwards
manifested from the whole tenor of the note of the
Mexican Minister of Foreign Affairs to our Min-
ister, bearing date on the twelfth of March, 1846.
Paredes had then revolutionized the Government,
and his Minister, after referring to the resolution
for the annexation of Texas, which had been adopt-
ed by our Congress in March, 1845, proceeds to
declare that "a fact such as this, or, to speak with
greater exactness, so notable an act of usurpation,
created an imperious necessity that Mexico, for her
own honor, should repel it with proper firmness
and dignity. The supreme Government had before-
hand declared that it would look upon such an act
as a casus belli; and, as a consequence of this dec-
laration, negotiation was, by its very nature, at
an end, and war was the only recourse of the
Mexican Government."

It appears, also, that on the fourth of April following, General Paredes, through his Minister of War, issued orders to the Mexican general in command on the Texan frontier to "attack" our army "by every means which war permits." To this General Paredes had been pledged to the army and people of Mexico during the military revolution which had brought him into power. On the eighteenth of April, 1846, General Paredes addressed a letter to the commander on that frontier, in which he stated to him, "at the present date Í suppose you at the head of that valiant army, either fighting already, or preparing for the operations of a campaign;" and "supposing you already on the theatre of operations, and with all the forces assembled, it is indispensable that hostilities be commenced, yourself taking the initiative against the enemy.'

The movement of our army to the Rio Grande was made by the commanding general under positive orders to abstain from all aggressive acts towards Mexico, or Mexican citizens, and to regard the relations between the two countries as peaceful, unless Mexico should declare war, or commit acts of hostility indicative of a state of war; and these orders he faithfully executed. Whilst occupying his position on the east bank of the Rio Grande, within the limits of Texas, then recently admitted as one of the States of our Union, the commanding general of the Mexican forces, who, in pursuance of the orders of his Government, had collected a