[Footnote 10: Sent under the same date, _mutatis mutandis_, to the
United States ministers in the Argentine Republic, Bolivia, Brazil,
Central America, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Paraguay and Uruguay, Peru,
and Venezuela: also directly to the minister of foreign relations of
Ecuador, in which country the United States had no diplomatic
representative.]
EXECUTIVE MANSION, _April 18, 1882_.
_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:
I transmit herewith, for the consideration of Congress, a note addressed
by the minister plenipotentiary of Mexico to the Secretary of State,
proposing the conclusion of a convention between the two countries for
defining the boundary between the United States and Mexico from the
Rio Grande westward to the Pacific Ocean by the erection of durable
monuments. I also lay before Congress a letter on the same subject, with
its accompaniment, from the Secretary of War, to whom the proposition
was referred by the Secretary of State for the expression of his views
thereon.
I deem it important that the boundary line between the two countries,
as defined by existing treaties and already once surveyed, should
be run anew and defined by suitable permanent monuments. By so doing
uncertainty will be prevented as to jurisdiction in criminal and
municipal affairs, and questions be averted which may at any time in
the near future arise with the growth of population on the border.
Moreover, I conceive that the willing and speedy assent of the
Government of the United States to the proposal thus to determine the
existing stipulated boundary with permanence and precision will be in
some sense an assurance to Mexico that the unauthorized suspicion which
of late years seems to have gained some credence in that Republic that
the United States covets and seeks to annex neighboring territory is
without foundation. That which the United States seeks, and which the
definite settlement of the boundary in the proposed manner will promote,
is a confiding and friendly feeling between the two nations, leading to
advantageous commerce and closer commercial relations.
I have to suggest that in accepting this proposal suitable provision
be made for an adequate military force on the frontier to protect the
surveying parties from hostile Indians. The troops so employed will at
the same time protect the settlers on the border and help to prevent
marauding on both sides by the nomadic Indians.