WASHINGTON, _August 6, 1850_.
_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:
I herewith transmit to the two Houses of Congress a letter from his
excellency the governor of Texas, dated on the 14th day of June last,
addressed to the late President of the United States, which, not
having been answered by him, came to my hands on his death; and I also
transmit a copy of the answer which I have felt it to be my duty to
cause to be made to that communication.
Congress will perceive that the governor of Texas officially states
that by authority of the legislature of that State he dispatched a
special commissioner with full power and instructions to extend the
civil jurisdiction of the State over the unorganized counties of El
Paso, Worth, Presidio, and Santa Fe, situated on its northwestern
limits.
He proceeds to say that the commissioner had reported to him in an
official form that the military officers employed in the service of
the United States stationed at Santa Fe interposed adversely with
the inhabitants to the fulfillment of his object in favor of the
establishment of a separate State government east of the Rio Grande,
and within the rightful limits of the State of Texas. These four
counties, which Texas thus proposes to establish and organize as being
within her own jurisdiction, extend over the whole of the territory
east of the Rio Grande, which has heretofore been regarded as an
essential and integral part of the department of New Mexico, and
actually governed and possessed by her people until conquered and
severed from the Republic of Mexico by the American arms.
The legislature of Texas has been called together by her governor
for the purpose, as is understood, of maintaining her claim to the
territory east of the Rio Grande and of establishing over it her own
jurisdiction and her own laws by force.
These proceedings of Texas, may well arrest the attention of all
branches of the Government of the United States, and I rejoice that
they occur while the Congress is yet in session. It is, I fear, far
from being impossible that, in consequence of these proceedings of
Texas, a crisis may be brought on which shall summon the two Houses of
Congress, and still more emphatically the executive government, to an
immediate readiness for the performance of their respective duties.
By the Constitution of the United States the President is constituted
Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, and of the militia of the
several States when called into the actual service of the United
States. The Constitution declares also that he shall take care that
the laws be faithfully executed and that he shall from time to time
give to the Congress information of the state of the Union.
Congress has power by the Constitution to provide for calling forth
the militia to execute the laws of the Union, and suitable and
appropriate acts of Congress have been passed as well for providing
for calling forth the militia as for placing other suitable and
efficient means in the hands of the President to enable him to
discharge the constitutional functions of his office.
The second section of the act of the 28th of February, 1795, declares
that whenever the laws of the United States shall be opposed or their
execution obstructed in any State by combinations too powerful to be
suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings or the power
vested in the marshals, the President may call forth the militia, as
far as may be necessary, to suppress such combinations and to cause
the laws to be duly executed.
By the act of March 3, 1807, it is provided that in all cases of
obstruction to the laws either of the United States or any individual
State or Territory, where it is lawful for the President to call forth
the militia for the purpose of causing the laws to be duly executed,
it shall be lawful for him to employ for the same purposes such part
of the land or naval force of the United States as shall be judged
necessary.
These several enactments are now in full force, so that if the laws of
the United States are opposed or obstructed in any State or Territory
by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the judicial or civil
authorities it becomes a case in which it is the duty of the President
either to call out the militia or to employ the military and naval
force of the United States, or to do both if in his judgment the
exigency of the occasion shall so require, for the purpose of
suppressing such combinations. The constitutional duty of the
President is plain and peremptory and the authority vested in him by
law for its performance clear and ample.
Texas is a State, authorized to maintain her own laws so far as they
are not repugnant to the Constitution, laws, and treaties of the
United States; to suppress insurrections against her authority, and to
punish those who may commit treason against the State according to the
forms provided by her own constitution and her own laws.
But all this power is local and confined entirely within the limits
of Texas herself. She can possibly confer no authority which can be
lawfully exercised beyond her own boundaries.
All this is plain, and hardly needs argument or elucidation. If Texas
militia, therefore, march into any one of the other States or into any
Territory of the United States, there to execute or enforce any law of
Texas, they become at that moment trespassers; they are no longer
under the protection of any lawful authority, and are to be regarded
merely as intruders; and if within such State or Territory they
obstruct any law of the United States, either by power of arms or mere
power of numbers, constituting such a combination as is too powerful
to be suppressed by the civil authority, the President of the United
States has no option left to him, but is bound to obey the solemn
injunction of the Constitution and exercise the high powers vested in
him by that instrument and by the acts of Congress.
Or if any civil posse, armed or unarmed, enter into any Territory of
the United States, under the protection of the laws thereof, with
intent to seize individuals, to be carried elsewhere for trial for
alleged offenses, and this posse be too powerful to be resisted by the
local civil authorities, such seizure or attempt to seize is to be
prevented or resisted by the authority of the United States.
The grave and important question now arises whether there be in
the Territory of New Mexico any existing law of the United States
opposition to which or the obstruction of which would constitute a
case calling for the interposition of the authority vested in the
President.