WASHINGTON, _December 18, 1844_.
_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:
I transmit herewith copies of dispatches received from our minister at
Mexico since the commencement of your present session, which claim from
their importance, and I doubt not will receive, your calm and deliberate
consideration. The extraordinary and highly offensive language which
the Mexican Government has thought proper to employ in reply to the
remonstrance of the Executive, through Mr. Shannon, against the renewal
of the war with Texas while the question of annexation was pending
before Congress and the people, and also the proposed manner of
conducting that war, will not fail to arrest your attention. Such
remonstrance, urged in no unfriendly spirit to Mexico, was called for by
considerations of an imperative character, having relation as well to
the peace of this country and honor of this Government as to the cause
of humanity and civilization. Texas had entered into the treaty of
annexation upon the invitation of the Executive, and when for that act
she was threatened with a renewal of the war on the part of Mexico she
naturally looked to this Government to interpose its efforts to ward
off the threatened blow. But one course was left the Executive, acting
within the limits of its constitutional competency, and that was to
protest in respectful, but at the same time strong and decided, terms
against it. The war thus threatened to be renewed was promulgated by
edicts and decrees, which ordered on the part of the Mexican military
the desolation of whole tracts of country and the destruction without
discrimination of all ages, sexes, and conditions of existence. Over the
manner of conducting war Mexico possesses no exclusive control. She has
no right to violate at pleasure the principles which an enlightened
civilization has laid down for the conduct of nations at war, and
thereby retrograde to a period of barbarism, which happily for the world
has long since passed away. All nations are interested in enforcing an
observance of those principles, and the United States, the oldest of
the American Republics and the nearest of the civilized powers to the
theater on which these enormities were proposed to be enacted, could not
quietly content themselves to witness such a state of things. They had
through the Executive on another occasion, and, as was believed, with
the approbation of the whole country, remonstrated against outrages
similar but even less inhuman than those which by her new edicts and
decrees she has threatened to perpetrate, and of which the late inhuman
massacre at Tabasco was but the precursor.
The bloody and inhuman murder of Fannin and his companions, equaled only
in savage barbarity by the usages of the untutored Indian tribes, proved
how little confidence could be placed on the most solemn stipulations of
her generals, while the fate of others who became her captives in
war--many of whom, no longer able to sustain the fatigues and privations
of long journeys, were shot down by the wayside, while their companions
who survived were subjected to sufferings even more painful than
death--had left an indelible stain on the page of civilization. The
Executive, with the evidence of an intention on the part of Mexico to
renew scenes so revolting to humanity, could do no less than renew
remonstrances formerly urged. For fulfilling duties so imperative Mexico
has thought proper, through her accredited organs, because she has had
represented to her the inhumanity of such proceedings, to indulge in
language unknown to the courtesy of diplomatic intercourse and offensive
in the highest degree to this Government and people. Nor has she
offended in this only. She has not only violated existing conventions
between the two countries by arbitrary and unjust decrees against our
trade and intercourse, but withholds installments of debt due to our
citizens which she solemnly pledged herself to pay under circumstances
which are fully explained by the accompanying letter from Mr. Green, our
secretary of legation. And when our minister has invited the attention
of her Government to wrongs committed by her local authorities, not only
on the property but on the persons of our fellow-citizens engaged in
prosecuting fair and honest pursuits, she has added insult to injury
by not even deigning for months together to return an answer to his
representations. Still further to manifest her unfriendly feelings
toward the United States, she has issued decrees expelling from some
of her Provinces American citizens engaged in the peaceful pursuits of
life, and now denies to those of our citizens prosecuting the whale
fishery on the northwest coast of the Pacific the privilege, which has
through all time heretofore been accorded to them, of exchanging goods
of a small amount in value at her ports in California for supplies
indispensable to their health and comfort.
Nor will it escape the observation of Congress that in conducting a
correspondence with a minister of the United States, who can not and
does not know any distinction between the geographical sections of the
Union, charges wholly unfounded are made against particular States, and
an appeal to others for aid and protection against supposed wrongs. In
this same connection, sectional prejudices are attempted to be excited
and the hazardous and unpardonable effort is made to foment divisions
amongst the States of the Union and thereby imbitter their peace. Mexico
has still to learn that however freely we may indulge in discussion
among ourselves, the American people will tolerate no interference in
their domestic affairs by any foreign government, and in all that
concerns the constitutional guaranties and the national honor the people
of the United States have but one mind and one heart.
The subject of annexation addresses itself, most fortunately, to every
portion of the Union. The Executive would have been unmindful of its
highest obligations if it could have adopted a course of policy dictated
by sectional interests and local feelings. On the contrary, it was
because the question was neither local nor sectional, but made its
appeal to the interests of the whole Union, and of every State in the
Union, that the negotiation, and finally the treaty of annexation, was
entered into; and it has afforded me no ordinary pleasure to perceive
that so far as demonstrations have been made upon it by the people they
have proceeded from all portions of the Union. Mexico may seek to excite
divisions amongst us by uttering unjust denunciations against particular
States, but when she comes to know that the invitations addressed to our
fellow-citizens by Spain, and afterwards by herself, to settle Texas
were accepted by emigrants from all the States, and when, in addition to
this, she refreshes her recollection with the fact that the first effort
which was made to acquire Texas was during the Administration of a
distinguished citizen from an Eastern State, which was afterwards
renewed under the auspices of a President from the Southwest, she will
awake to a knowledge of the futility of her present purpose of sowing
dissensions among us or producing distraction in our councils by attacks
either on particular States or on persons who are now in the retirement
of private life.
Considering the appeal which she now makes to eminent citizens by name,
can she hope to escape censure for having ascribed to them, as well as
to others, a design, as she pretends now for the first time revealed, of
having originated negotiations to despoil her by duplicity and falsehood
of a portion of her territory? The opinion then, as now, prevailed with
the Executive that the annexation of Texas to the Union was a matter
of vast importance. In order to acquire that territory before it
had assumed a position among the independent powers of the earth,
propositions were made to Mexico for a cession of it to the United
States. Mexico saw in these proceedings at the time no cause of
complaint. She is now, when simply reminded of them, awakened to the
knowledge of the fact, which she, through her secretary of state,
promulgates to the whole world as true, that those negotiations were
founded in deception and falsehood and superinduced by unjust and
iniquitous motives. While Texas was a dependency of Mexico the United
States opened negotiations with the latter power for the cession of her
then acknowledged territory, and now that Texas is independent of Mexico
and has maintained a separate existence for nine years, during which
time she has been received into the family of nations and is represented
by accredited ambassadors at many of the principal Courts of Europe, and
when it has become obvious to the whole world that she is forever lost
to Mexico, the United States is charged with deception and falsehood in
all relating to the past, and condemnatory accusations are made against
States which have had no special agency in the matter, because the
Executive of the whole Union has negotiated with free and independent
Texas upon a matter vitally important to the interests of both
countries; and after nine years of unavailing war Mexico now announces
her intention, through her secretary of foreign affairs, never to
consent to the independence of Texas or to abandon the effort to
reconquer that Republic. She thus announces a perpetual claim, which
at the end of a century will furnish her as plausible a ground for
discontent against any nation which at the end of that time may enter
into a treaty with Texas as she possesses at this moment against the
United States. The lapse of time can add nothing to her title to
independence. A course of conduct such as has been described on the part
of Mexico, in violation of all friendly feeling and of the courtesy
which should characterize the intercourse between the nations of the
earth, might well justify the United States in a resort to any measures
to vindicate their national honor; but, actuated by a sincere desire
to preserve the general peace, and in view of the present condition
of Mexico, the Executive, resting upon its integrity, and not fearing
but that the judgment of the world will duly appreciate its motives,
abstains from recommending to Congress a resort to measures of redress
and contents itself with reurging upon that body prompt and immediate
action on the subject of annexation. By adopting that measure the United
States will be in the exercise of an undoubted right; and if Mexico,
not regarding their forbearance, shall aggravate the injustice of her
conduct by a declaration of war against them, upon her head will rest
all the responsibility.