INTERNAL TRADE WITH NEW MEXICO.
The name of Mexico, the synonyme of gold and silver mines, possessed
always an invincible charm for the people of the western States.
Guarded from intrusion by Spanish jealousy and despotic power, and
imprisonment for life, or labor in the mines, the inexorable penalty
for every attempt to penetrate the forbidden country, still the
dazzled imaginations and daring spirits of the Great West adventured
upon the enterprise; and failure and misfortune, chains and labor,
were not sufficient to intimidate others. The journal of (the then
lieutenant, afterwards) General Pike inflamed this spirit, and
induced new adventurers to hazard the enterprise, only to meet
the fate of their predecessors. It was not until the Independence
of Mexico, in the year 1821, that the frontiers of this vast and
hitherto sealed up country, were thrown open to foreign ingress,
and trade and intercourse allowed to take their course. The State
of Missouri, from her geographical position, and the adventurous
spirit of her inhabitants, was among the first to engage in it; and
the "Western Internal Provinces"--the vast region comprehending
New Mexico, El Paso del Norte, New Biscay, Chihuahua, Sonora,
Sinaloa, and all the wide slope spreading down towards the Gulf of
California, the ancient "Sea of Cortez"--was the remote theatre of
their courageous enterprise--the further off and the less known, so
much the more attractive to their daring spirits. It was the work
of individual enterprise, without the protection or countenance of
the government--without even its knowledge--and exposed to constant
danger of life and property from the untamed and predatory savages,
Arabs of the New World, which roamed over the intermediate country
of a thousand miles, and considered the merchant and his goods
their lawful prey. In three years it had grown up to be a new and
regular branch of interior commerce, profitable to those engaged in
it, valuable to the country from the articles it carried out, and
for the silver, the furs, and the mules which it brought back; and
well entitled to the protection and care of the government. That
protection was sought, and in the form which the character of the
trade required--a right of way through the countries of the tribes
between Missouri and New Mexico, a road marked out and security in
travelling it, stipulations for good behavior from the Indians,
and a consular establishment in the provinces to be traded with.
The consuls could be appointed by the order of the government; but
the road, the treaty stipulations, and the substantial protection
against savages, required the aid of the federal legislative power,
and for that purpose a Bill was brought into the Senate by me in
the session of 1824-25; and being a novel and strange subject, and
asking for extraordinary legislation, it became necessary to lay a
foundation of facts, and to furnish a reason and an argument for
every thing that was asked. I produced a statement from those
engaged in the trade, among others from Mr. Augustus Storrs, late
of New Hampshire, then of Missouri--a gentleman of character and
intelligence, very capable of relating things as they were, and
incapable of relating them otherwise; and who had been personally
engaged in the trade. In presenting his statement, and moving to
have it printed for the use of the Senate, I said:
"This gentleman had been one of a caravan of eighty persons,
one hundred and fifty-six horses, and twenty-three wagons
and carriages, which had made the expedition from Missouri
to Santa Fé (of New Mexico), in the months of May and June
last. His account was full of interest and novelty. It sounded
like romance to hear of caravans of men, horses, and wagons,
traversing with their merchandise the vast plain which lies
between the Mississippi and the _Rio del Norte_. The story
seemed better adapted to Asia than to North America. But,
romantic as it might seem, the reality had already exceeded the
visions of the wildest imagination. The journey to New Mexico,
but lately deemed a chimerical project, had become an affair of
ordinary occurrence. Santa Fé, but lately the _Ultima Thule_ of
American enterprise, was now considered as a stage only in the
progress, or rather, a new point of departure to our invincible
citizens. Instead of turning back from that point, the caravans
broke up there, and the subdivisions branched off in different
directions in search of new theatres for their enterprise.
Some proceeded down the river to the _Paso del Norte_; some
to the mines of Chihuahua and Durango, in the province of New
Biscay; some to Sonora and Sinaloa, on the Gulf of California;
and some, seeking new lines of communication with the Pacific,
had undertaken to descend the western slope of our continent,
through the unexplored regions of the Colorado. The fruit of
these enterprises, for the present year, amounted to $190,000
in gold and silver bullion, and coin, and precious furs; a sum
considerable, in itself, in the commerce of an infant State,
but chiefly deserving a statesman's notice, as an earnest of
what might be expected from a regulated and protected trade. The
principal article given in exchange, is that of which we have
the greatest abundance, and which has the peculiar advantage
of making the circuit of the Union before it departs from the
territories of the republic--cotton--which grows in the South,
is manufactured in the North, and exported from the West.
"That the trade will be beneficial to the inhabitants of the
Internal Provinces, is a proposition too plain to be argued.
They are a people among whom all the arts are lost--the ample
catalogue of whose wants may be inferred from the lamentable
details of Mr. Storrs. No books! no newspapers! iron a dollar
a pound! cultivating the earth with wooden tools! and spinning
upon a stick! Such is the picture of a people whose fathers wore
the proud title of "_Conquerors_;" whose ancestors, in the time
of Charles the Fifth, were the pride, the terror, and the model
of Europe; and such has been the power of civil and religious
despotism in accomplishing the degradation of the human species!
To a people thus abased, and so lately arrived at the possession
of their liberties, a supply of merchandise, upon the cheapest
terms, is the least of the benefits to be derived from a
commerce with the people of the United States. The consolidation
of their republican institutions, the improvement of their moral
and social condition, the restoration of their lost arts, and
the development of their national resources, are among the grand
results which philanthropy anticipates from such a commerce.
"To the Indians themselves, the opening of a road through their
country is an object of vital importance. It is connected with
the preservation and improvement of their race. For two hundred
years the problem of Indian civilization has been successively
presented to each generation of the Americans, and solved
by each in the same way. Schools have been set up, colleges
founded, and missions established; a wonderful success has
attended the commencement of every undertaking; and, after some
time, the schools, the colleges, the missions, and the Indians,
have all disappeared together. In the south alone have we seen
an exception. There the nations have preserved themselves, and
have made a cheering progress in the arts of civilization. Their
advance is the work of twenty years. It dates its commencement
from the opening of roads through their country. Roads induced
separate families to settle at the crossing of rivers, to
establish themselves at the best springs and tracts of land, and
to begin to sell grain and provisions to the travellers, whom,
a few years before, they would kill and plunder. This imparted
the idea of exclusive property in the soil, and created an
attachment for a fixed residence. Gradually, fields were opened,
houses built, orchards planted, flocks and herds acquired, and
slaves bought. The acquisition of these comforts, relieving
the body from the torturing wants of cold and hunger, placed
the mind in a condition to pursue its improvement.--This, Mr.
President, is the true secret of the happy advance which the
southern tribes have made in acquiring the arts of civilization;
this has fitted them for the reception of schools and missions;
and doubtless, the same cause will produce the same effects
among the tribes beyond, which it has produced among the tribes
on this side of the Mississippi.
"The right of way is indispensable, and the committee have
begun with directing a bill to be reported for that purpose.
Happily, there are no constitutional objections to it. State
rights are in no danger! The road which is contemplated will
trespass upon the soil, or infringe upon the jurisdiction of
no State whatsoever. It runs a course and a distance to avoid
all that; for it begins upon the outside line of the outside
State, and runs directly off towards the setting sun--far away
from all the States. The Congress and the Indians are alone
to be consulted, and the statute book is full of precedents.
Protesting against the necessity of producing precedents for an
act in itself pregnant with propriety, I will yet name a few in
order to illustrate the policy of the government, and show its
readiness to make roads through Indian countries to facilitate
the intercourse of its citizens, and even upon foreign territory
to promote commerce and national communications."
Precedents were then shown. 1, A road from Nashville, Tennessee,
through the Chicasaw and Choctaw tribes, to Natchez, 1806; 2, a
road through the Creek nations, from Athens, in Georgia, to the
31st degree of north latitude, in the direction to New Orleans,
1806, and continued by act of 1807, with the consent of the Spanish
government, through the then Spanish territory of West Florida to
New Orleans; 3, three roads through the Cherokee nation, to open an
intercourse between Georgia, Tennessee, and the lower Mississippi;
and more than twenty others upon the territory of the United States.
But the precedent chiefly relied upon was that from Athens through
the Creek Indian territory and the Spanish dominions to New Orleans.
It was up to the exigency of the occasion in every particular--being
both upon Indian territory within our dominions, and upon foreign
territory beyond them. The road I wanted fell within the terms of
both these qualifications. It was to pass through tribes within our
own territory, until it reached the Arkansas River: there it met
the foreign boundary established by the treaty of 1819, which gave
away, not only Texas, but half the Arkansas besides; and the bill
which I brought in provided for continuing the road, with the assent
of Mexico, from this boundary to Santa Fé, on the Upper del Norte.
I deemed it fair to give additional emphasis to this precedent, by
showing that I had it from Mr. Jefferson, and said:
"For a knowledge of this precedent, I am indebted to a
conversation with Mr. Jefferson himself. In a late excursion
to Virginia, I availed myself of a broken day to call and pay
my respects to that patriarchal statesman. The individual
must manage badly, Mr. President, who can find himself in
the presence of that great man, and retire from it without
bringing off some fact, or some maxim, of eminent utility to the
human race. I trust that I did not so manage. I trust that, in
bringing off a fact which led to the discovery of the precedent,
which is to remove the only serious objection to the road in
question, I have done a service, if not to the human family,
at least to the citizens of the two greatest Republics in the
world. It was on the evening of Christmas day that I called upon
Mr. Jefferson. The conversation, among other things, turned upon
roads. He spoke of one from Georgia to New Orleans, made during
the last term of his own administration. He said there was a
manuscript map of it in the library of Congress (formerly his
own), bound up in a certain volume of maps, which he described
to me. On my return to Washington, I searched the statute book,
and I found the acts which authorized the road to be made: they
are the same which I have just read to the Senate. I searched
the Congress Library, and I found the volume of maps which he
had described; and here it is (presenting a huge folio), and
there is the map of the road from Georgia to New Orleans, more
than two hundred miles of which, marked in blue ink, is traced
through the then dominions of the King of Spain!"
The foreign part of the road was the difficulty and was not entirely
covered by the precedent. That was a road to our own city, and no
other direct territorial way from the Southern States than through
the Spanish province of West Florida: this was a road to be, not
only on foreign territory, but to go to a foreign country. Some
Senators, favorable to the bill, were startled at it, and Mr. Lloyd,
of Massachusetts, moved to strike out the part of the section which
provided for this ex-territorial national highway; but not in a
spirit of hostility to the bill itself providing for protection to
a branch of commerce. Mr. Lowrie, of Pennsylvania, could not admit
the force of the objection, and held it to be only a modification of
what was now done for the protection of commerce--the substitution
of land for water; and instanced the sums annually spent in
maintaining a fleet in the Mediterranean Sea, and in the most
remote oceans for the same purpose. Mr. Van Buren, thought the
government was bound to extend the same protection to this branch
of trade as to any other; and the road upon the foreign territory
was only to be marked out, not made. Mr. Macon thought the question
no great matter. Formerly Indian traders followed "_traces"_ now
they must have roads. He did not care for precedents: they are
generally good or bad as they suit or cross our purposes. The case
of the road made by Mr. Jefferson was different. That road was made
among Indians comparatively civilized, and who had some notions of
property. But the proposed road now to be marked out would pass
through wild tribes who think of nothing but killing and robbing a
white man the moment they see him, and would not be restrained by
treaty obligations even if they entered into them. Col. Johnson, of
Kentucky, had never hesitated to vote the money which was necessary
to protect the lives or property of our sea-faring men, or for
Atlantic fortifications, or to suppress piracies. We had, at this
session voted $500,000 to suppress piracy in the West Indies. We
build ships of war, erect light-houses, spend annual millions for
the protection of ocean commerce; and he could not suppose that the
sum proposed in this bill for the protection of an inland branch
of trade so valuable to the West could be denied. Mr. Kelly, of
Alabama, said the great object of the bill was to cherish and foster
a branch of commerce already in existence. It is carried on by land
through several Indian tribes. To be safe, a road must be had--a
right of way--"_a trace_," if you please. To answer its purpose,
this road, or "_trace_," must pass the boundary of the United
States, and extend several hundred miles through the wilderness
country, in the Mexican Republic to the settlements with which the
traffic must be carried on. It may be well to remember that the
Mexican government is in the germ of its existence, struggling with
difficulties that we have long since surmounted, and may not feel
it convenient to make the road, and that it is enough to permit us
to mark it out upon her soil; which is all that this bill proposes
to do within her limits. Mr. Smith, of Maryland, would vote for the
bill. The only question with him was, whether commerce could be
carried on to advantage on the proposed route; and, being satisfied
that it could be, he should vote for the bill. Mr. Brown, of Ohio
(Ethan A.), was very glad to hear such sentiments from the Senator
from Maryland, and hoped that a reciprocal good feeling would
always prevail between different sections of the Union. He thought
there could be no objection to the bill, and approved the policy of
getting the road upon Mexican territory with the consent of the
Mexican government. The bill passed the Senate by a large vote--30
to 12; and these are the names of the Senators voting for and
against it:
YEAS.--Messrs. Barton, Benton, Bouligny, Brown, D'Wolf, Eaton,
Edwards, Elliott, Holmes of Miss., Jackson (the General), Johnson of
Kentucky, Johnston of Lou., Kelly, Knight, Lanman, Lloyd of Mass.,
Lowrie, McIlvaine, McLean, Noble, Palmer, Parrott, Ruggles, Seymour,
Smith, Talbot, Taylor, Thomas, Van Buren, Van Dyke--30.
NAYS.--Messrs. Branch, Chandler, Clayton, Cobb, Gaillard, Hayne,
Holmes of Maine, King of Ala., King of N. Y., Macon, Tazewell,
Williams--12.
It passed the House of Representatives by a majority of
thirty--received the approving signature of Mr. Monroe, among
the last acts of his public life--was carried into effect by his
successor, Mr. John Quincy Adams--and this road has remained a
thoroughfare of commerce between Missouri and New Mexico, and all
the western internal provinces ever since.