The Express.
London, England, 1846-12-30 00:00:00

vention, all the interest due on the awards which had bees
made in favour of the claimants under the convention of the
11th of April, 18,39, was to be peel t ) them on the 30th of
April, 1843, and "the principal of tt'e said awards, and the
interest accruing thereon," was stipulated to " be paid is
five years, in equal instalments every three months." Note
withstanding this new convention was entered into at the
request of Mexico, and for the purpose of relieving
her from embarrassment, the claimants hare only re.
ceived the interest due on the 30th of April, 1813, and
three of the twenty instalments. Although the urgent
of the sum thus liquidated, and confessedly due by Mexico
to our citizens as indemnity for acknowledged acts of out-
rage and wrong, was secured by treaty, the ob'igations of
which are ever held sacred by all just nations, yet Mexico
has violated this solemn engagement by failing tied refusing
to make the payment. The two instalments due in Apra
and July, 1844, under the peculiar circumstances connected
with them, have been assumed by the United States,
and discharged to the claimants, but they are still
due by Mexico. But this is not all of which we
have just cause of complaint. To provide a remedy
for the claimants whose cave were not decided by
the joint commission under thu convention of Apnl
the 11th, 1839, it was expressly stipulated by the sixth
article of the convention of the 30th January, 1843, that "
new convention shall be entered into for the settlement of all
claims of the government and citizens of the United States
against Mexico which were not finally decided by the late
commission, which met in the city a Washington, and of all
claims of the government awl citizens of Mexico against the
United States."
In conformity with this stipulation, a third conventionwea
concluded and signed at the city of Mexico, on the 20th of
November, 1843, by the plenipotentiaries of the two govern_
meats, by which provision was made for !ascertaining sad
paying these claims. In January, 1844, this eouveution was
ratified by the Senate of the United States with two amend-
menta, which were manifestly reasonable in their character.
Upon a reference of the amendments proposed to the go.
vernment of Mexico, the same evasions, difficulties, bed
delays were interposed which have zo.long marked the policy
of that government towards the United St Us. It has net
even yet decided whether it would or would not accede to
them, although the subject has been repeatedly ',reseed upon
its consideration.
Such is the history of the wrongs which we have suffered
and patiently endured from Mexico throwsh a long series
of years. So far from affording reasonable satisfaction for
the injuries and insults we had Mime a great unreels=
of them consists in the fact, that while the United Stage,
anxious to preserve a good understanding with 3fexim, hare
been constantly, but vainly, employed in seeking rearm is
past wrongs, new outrages were constantly occurring, which
have continued to increase cur causes of catapleint, end to
swell the amount of our demands. While the citizens of the
United States were conducting a lawful commerce with
Mexico, under the guaranty of a treaty of " amity, C 0111•
merce, and navigation," many of them have suffered all
the injuries which would have resulted from open war.
This treaty, instead of affording protection to our citizens,
has been the means of inviting them into the ports of
Mexico, that they might be, as they have been in numerous
instances, plundered o' their property and deprived of their
personal liberty, if they dared insist on their rights. lid
the unlawful seizures of American property, and the viola-
tion of personal liberty of our citizens, to say nothing of the
insults to our flag, which have occurred in the ports of
Mexico, taken place on the high seas, they would themselves
long since have constituted a state of actual war between the
two countries. In so long suffering Mexico to violate her
most solemn treaty obligations, plunder our citizens of
their property, and imprison their pentane without
affording them any redress, we hare failed to per-
form one of the first and highest duties which every govern-
ment owes to its citizens; and the consequence has been,
that many of th• m have been reduced from a state of
affluence to bankruptcy. The proud name of American
citizen, which ought to protect all who hear it from insult
and injury throughout the world, has afforded no such pro-
tection to our citizens in Mexico. We had ample cause of
war against Mexico long before the breaking out of hostili-
ties. But even then we forbore to take redress into our own
hands, until Mexico herself became the aggressor by invad-
ing our soil in hostile array, and shedding the blood of our
citizens.

The annexation of Texas to the United States constituted
no just cause of offence to Mexico. The pretext that it did
so is wholly inconsistent and irreconcileable with well au-
thenticated facts connected with the revolution by which
Texas became independent of Mexico. That this may be
the more manifest, it may be proper to advert to the causes
and to thehistory of the principal events of that revolution.
Texas constituted a portion of the ancient province of
Louisiana, ceded to the United States by France, in the
year 1803. In the year 1819, the United States, by the Florida
treaty, ceded to Spain all that part of Louisiana within the
present limits of Texas ; and Mexico, by the revolution
which separated her from Spain, and rendered her an inde-
pendent nation, succeeded to the rights of the mother country
over this territory. In the year 1824, Mexico established a
federal constitution, under which the Mexican republic was
composed of a number of sovereign states, confed-
erated together in a federal union similar to our own. Each
of these states had its own executive legislature and judi-
ciary, and, for all except federal purposes, was as independent
of the general governmect and that of the other states, as
is Pennsylvania or Virginia under our constitution.
Texas and Coanuila united and formed one of these
Mexican States. The state constitution which they
adopted, and which was approved by the Mexican
confederacy, asserted that they were " free and in-
dependent of the other Mexican United States, and of every
other power and dominion whatsoever ;" and prodaimeet
the great principle of human liberty, that " the sovereignty
of the state resides originally and essentially in the general
mass of the individuals who compose it." To the govern-
ment under this constitution, as well as to that under the
federal constitution, the people of Texas owed allegiance.
By a sweeping decree of a Congress, subservient to the will
of the dictator, the several State constitutions were abolished,
and the States themselves converted into mere depart-
ment.s of the central government. The people of Texas were
unwilling to submit to this usurpation. Resistance to such
tyranny became a high duty. Texas was fully absolved from
all allegiance to the central government of Mexico from the
moment that government had abolished her State constitu-
tion and in its place substituted an arbitrary and despotic
central government.
In the month of May, 1836, Santa Anna acknowledged,
by a treaty with the Texan authorities, in the most solemn
form, " the full, en. ire, and perfect independence of the
republic of Texas." It is true he was then a prisoner of
war, but it is equally true that he had failed to reconquer
Texas, and had met with signal defeat ; that his authority
had net been revoked, and that by virtue of this treaty he
obtained his personal release. By it hostilities N 1 ere sus-
pended, and the army which had invaded Texac und,r his
command returned, in pursuance of this arrangement, un-
molested to Mexico.
The Texas, which was ceded to Spain by the Florida treaty
of 1819, embraced all the country now claimed by the state
of Texas between the Nueces and the Rio Grande. The
republic of Texas always claimed this river as her western
boundary, and in her treaty made with Santa Anna in May,
1836, he recognised it as such. By the constitution which
Texas adopted in March, 1836, senatorial and re-
presentative districts were organised, extending west
of the Nueces. The Congress of the republic of
Texas, OR the 19th of December, 1836, passed "An
Act to define the Boundaries of the Republic of Texas,"
in which they declared the Rio Grande from its mouth
to its source to be their bound try, and by the said act they
extended their "civil and political jurisdiction" over the
country up to that boundary. During a period of more
than nine years which intervened between the adoption of
her constitution and her annexation as one of the states of
our Union, Texas asserted and exercised many acts of sove-
reignty and jurisdiction over the territory and inhabitants
west of the Is, ueces. She organised and defined the limits of
counties extending to the Rio Grande. She established courts
of justice and extended her judicial system over the ter-
' ritory. She established a custom-house, and collected
duties, and also post-oflices and post•roads in it. She
established a land office, and issued numerous grants for
land within its limits. A senator and a representative
residing in it were elected to the Congress of the Republic,
and served as such before the act of annexation took place.
In both the congress and the convention of Texas, which pee
their assent to the terms of annexation to the United States
proposed by our congress, were representatives residing west
of the Nueces, who took part in the act of annexation itself.
This was the Texas which, by the act of our congress of the
29th of December, 1865, was admitted as one of the States
of our Union. That the congress of the United States
understood the State of Texas which they admitted
into the Union to extend beyond the Nueces is apparent from
the fact, that on the 31st day of December, 184.5, only two
days after the act of admission, they passed a law "to es-
tablish a collection district in the state of Texas," by which
they created a port of delivery at Corpus Christi, situated
west of the Nuecee, and being the same point at which the
Texas custom-house, under the laws of that republic, bad
been located, and directed that a surveyor, to collect the
revenue, should be appointed for that port by: the President.
by and with the advice and consent of the senate. A 'surveyor
was accordingly nominated, and confimed bythc senate, and
has been ever since in the performance of his duties. All
these acts of the Republic of Texas and of our Congest,
preceded the orders for the advance of our army to the
bank of tha Rio Grande. Subsequently,' Congrem passed test
an
act, " establishing certain post routes, • extending west of
the Nueces. The country west of that river now constitutes
a part of one of the congressional districts of Texas, and is re-
presented in the House of Representatives. The senators from
that state were chosen by a legislature in which the country
west of that river was represented. In view of all these facts,
it is difficult to conceive upon what ground it can he
maintained that, in occupying the country west of the
Nueces with our army, with a view solely. to its security and
defence, we invaded the territory of Mexico. But it would
have been still more difficult to justify the Executive,. whirs
duty it is to see that the laws be faithfully executed, if in
the face of all these proceedings, both of the Congress of
Texas and of the United States, he had assumed the respon-
eibility of yielding up the territory west of the Nuecee
do
Mexico, or of refusing to protect and defend this territory
and its inhabitants, including Corpus Christi, as well as the
remainder of Texas, against the threatened Mexican in-
vasion.
Our army had occupied a position at Corpus Christi, wen
of the Nueces, early as August, 1815 without complaint
from any quarter. lied the Nueces been regarded as the
true western boundary of Texas that boundary had been
passed by our army many months it advanced to the
eastern bank of the Rio Gra,pde. In my annual message
of December last, I informed Congress that upon
the invitation of both the Congress and Con-
vention of Texas, I had deemed it proper to order a strong
squadron to the coasts of Mexico, and to concentrate an
efficient military force on the western frontier of 'feces. to
protect and defend the iehatiltants against the inen.l.:ei ... a-
Mon of Mexico. In that mossagol infonned Cowes Ws