WASHINGTON, _January 23, 1850_.
_To the Senate of the United States:_
I transmit to the Senate, in answer to a resolution of that body
passed on the 17th instant, the accompanying reports of heads of
Departments, which contain all the official information in the
possession of the Executive asked for by the resolution.
On coming into office I found the military commandant of the Department
of California exercising the functions of civil governor in that
Territory, and left, as I was, to act under the treaty of Guadalupe
Hidalgo, without the aid of any legislative provision establishing a
government in that Territory, I thought it best not to disturb that
arrangement, made under my predecessor, until Congress should take some
action on that subject. I therefore did not interfere with the powers of
the military commandant, who continued to exercise the functions of
civil governor as before; but I made no such appointment, conferred no
such authority, and have allowed no increased compensation to the
commandant for his services.
With a view to the faithful execution of the treaty so far as lay in the
power of the Executive, and to enable Congress to act at the present
session with as full knowledge and as little difficulty as possible on
all matters of interest in these Territories, I sent the Hon. Thomas
Butler King as bearer of dispatches to California, and certain officers
to California and New Mexico, whose duties are particularly defined in
the accompanying letters of instruction addressed to them severally by
the proper Departments.
I did not hesitate to express to the people of those Territories my
desire that each Territory should, if prepared to comply with the
requisitions of the Constitution of the United States, form a plan of a
State constitution and submit the same to Congress with a prayer for
admission into the Union as a State, but I did not anticipate, suggest,
or authorize the establishment of any such government without the assent
of Congress, nor did I authorize any Government agent or officer to
interfere with or exercise any influence or control over the election of
delegates or over any convention in making or modifying their domestic
institutions or any of the provisions of their proposed constitution. On
the contrary, the instructions given by my orders were that all measures
of domestic policy adopted by the people of California must originate
solely with themselves; that while the Executive of the United States
was desirous to protect them in the formation of any government
republican in its character, to be at the proper time submitted to
Congress, yet it was to be distinctly understood that the plan of such a
government must at the same time be the result of their own deliberate
choice and originate with themselves, without the interference of the
Executive.
I am unable to give any information as to laws passed by any supposed
government in California or of any census taken in either of the
Territories mentioned in the resolution, as I have no information on
those subjects.
As already stated, I have not disturbed the arrangements which I found
had existed under my predecessor.
In advising an early application by the people of these Territories for
admission as States I was actuated principally by an earnest desire to
afford to the wisdom and patriotism of Congress the opportunity of
avoiding occasions of bitter and angry dissensions among the people of
the United States.
Under the Constitution every State has the right of establishing and
from time to time altering its municipal laws and domestic institutions
independently of every other State and of the General Government,
subject only to the prohibitions and guaranties expressly set forth in
the Constitution of the United States. The subjects thus left
exclusively to the respective States were not designed or expected to
become topics of national agitation. Still, as under the Constitution
Congress has power to make all needful rules and regulations respecting
the Territories of the United States, every new acquisition of territory
has led to discussions on the question whether the system of involuntary
servitude which prevails in many of the States should or should not be
prohibited in that territory. The periods of excitement from this cause
which have heretofore occurred have been safely passed, but during the
interval, of whatever length, which may elapse before the admission of
the Territories ceded by Mexico as States it appears probable that
similar excitement will prevail to an undue extent.
Under these circumstances I thought, and still think, that it was my
duty to endeavor to put it in the power of Congress, by the admission of
California and New Mexico as States, to remove all occasion for the
unnecessary agitation of the public mind.
It is understood that the people of the western part of California have
formed a plan of a State constitution and will soon submit the same to
the judgment of Congress and apply for admission as a State. This course
on their part, though in accordance with, was not adopted exclusively in
consequence of, any expression of my wishes, inasmuch as measures
tending to this end had been promoted by the officers sent there by my
predecessor, and were already in active progress of execution before any
communication from me reached California. If the proposed constitution
shall, when submitted to Congress, be found to be in compliance with the
requisitions of the Constitution of the United States, I earnestly
recommend that it may receive the sanction of Congress.
The part of California not included in the proposed State of that name
is believed to be uninhabited, except in a settlement of our countrymen
in the vicinity of Salt Lake.
A claim has been advanced by the State of Texas to a very large portion
of the most populous district of the Territory commonly designated by
the name of New Mexico. If the people of New Mexico had formed a plan of
a State government for that Territory as ceded by the treaty of
Guadalupe Hidalgo, and had been admitted by Congress as a State, our
Constitution would have afforded the means of obtaining an adjustment of
the question of boundary with Texas by a judicial decision. At present,
however, no judicial tribunal has the power of deciding that question,
and it remains for Congress to devise some mode for its adjustment.
Meanwhile I submit to Congress the question whether it would be
expedient before such adjustment to establish a Territorial government,
which by including the district so claimed would practically decide the
question adversely to the State of Texas, or by excluding it would
decide it in her favor. In my opinion such a course would not be
expedient, especially as the people of this Territory still enjoy the
benefit and protection of their municipal laws originally derived from
Mexico and have a military force stationed there to protect them against
the Indians. It is undoubtedly true that the property, lives, liberties,
and religion of the people of New Mexico are better protected than they
ever were before the treaty of cession.
Should Congress, when California shall present herself for incorporation
into the Union, annex a condition to her admission as a State affecting
her domestic institutions contrary to the wishes of her people, and even
compel her temporarily to comply with it, yet the State could change her
constitution at any time after admission when to her it should seem
expedient. Any attempt to deny to the people of the State the right of
self-government in a matter which peculiarly affects themselves will
infallibly be regarded by them as an invasion of their rights, and, upon
the principles laid down in our own Declaration of Independence, they
will certainly be sustained by the great mass of the American people. To
assert that they are a conquered people and must as a State submit to
the will of their conquerors in this regard will meet with no cordial
response among American freemen. Great numbers of them are native
citizens of the United States, not inferior to the rest of our
countrymen in intelligence and patriotism, and no language of menace to
restrain them in the exercise of an undoubted right, substantially
guaranteed to them by the treaty of cession itself, shall ever be
uttered by me or encouraged and sustained by persons acting under my
authority. It is to be expected that in the residue of the territory
ceded to us by Mexico the people residing there will at the time of
their incorporation into the Union as a State settle all questions of
domestic policy to suit themselves.
No material inconvenience will result from the want for a short period
of a government established by Congress over that part of the territory
which lies eastward of the new State of California; and the reasons for
my opinion that New Mexico will at no very distant period ask for
admission into the Union are founded on unofficial information which, I
suppose, is common to all who have cared to make inquiries on that
subject.
Seeing, then, that the question which now excites such painful
sensations in the country will in the end certainly be settled by the
silent effect of causes independent of the action of Congress, I again
submit to your wisdom the policy recommended in my annual message of
awaiting the salutary operation of those causes, believing that we shall
thus avoid the creation of geographical parties and secure the harmony
of feeling so necessary to the beneficial action of our political
system. Connected, as the Union is, with the remembrance of past
happiness, the sense of present blessings, and the hope of future peace
and prosperity, every dictate of wisdom, every feeling of duty, and
every emotion of patriotism tend to inspire fidelity and devotion to it
and admonish us cautiously to avoid any unnecessary controversy which
can either endanger it or impair its strength, the chief element of
which is to be found in the regard and affection of the people for each
other.