The weekly Minnesotian. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1852-1858, 1856-01-12
PRESIDENTS :
MESSAGE.

MESSAGE.
Fsuow- Citizens Of the Senate and House Of
Representatives:
The Constitution of the United States pro-
vides that Congress shall assemble annually
on the first Monday of December, and 1t has
been usual for the President to make no
communication of a public characte TO the
Senate and House Of Representatives until
advised of their readiness to receive 1t.
have deferred to this usage until the close OF
the first month of the session, but my con-
victions of duty will not permit me longer
to postpone the discharge OF the obligation
enioined by the Constitution upon the Pres
ident to give to Congress information upon
the state of the Union, and to recommend to
their consideration such measures as he
shall Judge necessary and expedient.
1t is matter of congratulation that the
Republic is TRANQUILITY advancing in a career
of prosperity and peace. Whilst relations
of amity continue to exist between the U.
S. and all foreign powers with some of them
grave questions are depending, which may
require the consideration of Congress. OF
such questions the most important is that
which has arisen out of the negotiations
with Great Britain in reference to Central
America. By the convention concluded be-
tween the two Governments, ON tho 10th
Of April, 1850, both parties covenanted that
neither would ever occupy, or fortify, colo
nize or assume, or exercise any dominion
over Nicaragua, Costa Rica, the Mosquito
Coast, or any part of Central America. 1t
was the undoubted understanding of the L
| flo hat oil h,
present States of the former Republic of
Central America, and the entire territory Of
each, would thereupon enjoy complete indie
pendence, and that both contracting parties
engaged equally and to the same extent, for
the present and future, that if either of them
had any claim or right in Central America,
under it, were unreservedly relinquished by
the stipulations of the convention, and that
no dominion was thereafter to be exc cised
or assumed in any part of Central America
by Great Britain or the U. States.
This government consented to restrictions
in regard to region of country where we
had specific and peculiar interests, only upon
the conditions that the like restrictions were
in the same sense obligatory onGreatBritian
but for this understanding of the force and
effect of the convention, it would never have
been concluded by the U. S. So clear was
this understanding on the part of the U. S.
that, in correspondence contemporaneous
with the ratification of the convention, it
was distinctly expressed that the mutual
covenants of nori-uccupation were not inten-
ded to apply to the British establishment at
the Balize.
This qualification is to be ascribed to the
hot hu <,f IL,
previous sovereigns of the country, Great
Britain had obtained concession of the right
to cut mahogany, or dye-woods at the Ba-
lie, but with positive exclusion of all domain
or sovereignty; and thus it confirms the nat
ural construction and understood import of
the treaty as to all the rest of the region to
which the stipulation applied. 1t. however,
became apparent at an early day after enter
ing upon the discharge of my present func-
tons, that Great Britain still continued in
| in all that part ofCentral America, common
| ly called the Mosquito coast, and covering
the entire length of the State of Nicaragua
and part of Costa RIGA. That she regard
ed the Balize as her absolute domain, and
has gradually extended its limits at the ex-
pense of the State of Honduras, and that
she had formerly colonized considerable in
sular group known as the Bay Islands and
belonging Of right to that State. All these
acts or pretensions of Great Britain, being
contrary to the rights of the state of Central
America, and to the manifest tenor of her
| stipulations with the United States as un-
derstood by government, have been made
the subject of negotiations, through the
American Minister in London. l transmit,
herewith, the instructions to him on the
subject, and the correspondence between
him and the British Secretary for Foreign
Affairs. by which you will perceive that the
Governments differ widely and irreconcila-
| bly, as to the construction of the COnyen-
| ton and its effects on their respective rela-
tons to Central America. ~.
Great Britain so CONSTITUTES the convention
| as to maintain unchanged all her previous
| pretensions on the Mosquito Coast, and in
different parts of Central America. These
pretensions as to the Mosquito Coast are
| founded on the assumption of political re-
lations between Great Britain and the rem
nant of a tribe of Indians on the coast, en-
tered into at atime when the whole country
was colonial possession of Spain. 1t can
not be successfully controverted that, by the
public law of Europe and America, no posi-
BILE act of such Indians or their predecessors
could confer on Great Britain any political
rights. Great Britain does not allege the
assent Of Spaina as the origin of her claims on
the Mosquito coast. She has, on the
| contrary, by repeated and successive trea-
ties renowned and relinquished every
and all pretensions of her own, and has
| recognized the full and sovereign rights of
| Spain in the most unequivocal terms; yet these
pretentions, without sound foundation in the
beginning, and thus repeatedly ahjured. were
at a recent period revived by Great Britain,
| against the ntral American States, the legi-
innate successor to all the ancient jurisdiction
of Spain in that region. They were first ap-
piled only to defined part OF the coast of Nj
caragua; afterwards to the whole of its Allan
tic coast, and latterly to part of the coast of
Costa RIGA, and they are now asserted to this
extent, Notwithstanding the engagements to
he United States on the eastern coast of Nj
caragua and Costa Rica.
The Interference of Great Britain, though
exerted at one time in the form Of military &C.
cupation at the port of San Juan del Norte,
then IN the peaceful possession of the appro-
pirate authorities of the Central American
States, is now presented by her as the rightful
exercise OF protect0rship over the Mosquito
tribe of Indians but the establishment at the
Balize, now reaching far beyond it's true lin
its in the State OF Honduras and that of the
Bay Islands, appertaining of right to the same
State, are so distinctly q Colonia. Government
as those of Jamaica or Cana.a, and therefore
contrary to the letter as we'll as the spirit OF
the Convention with the U. S., as it was at the
time Qualification and is now understood by
the Cnvernmept The Instrumentation ,yh;cL