The Minneapolis journal., 1901-09-27

upon seeding from Mexico, gained her
independence and annexed herself to the
United States.
A very few extracts from the messages
OF President Polk, the speeches of Presi-
dent Buchanan and Thomas H. Benton,
will show the claims upon which our gov
ernment has always stood with reference
to these boundary and title questions.
The Gulf boundary.
In speech for the annexation of Texas
(U. S. senate, June 10, 1844), Senator Ben
ton is thus reported by himself in his
abridgement:
Texas and the country between the Red
river and the Arkansas had been dismem-
bered from the United States in the year 1919,
and had since remained under foreign nonlin-
ion. He had denounced that parricidaI act
in the moment of its preparation and had
sought to undo it ever since.
From President Polk's anual message
December 1S46:
Texas constituted a portion OF the ancient
province of Louisiana ceded to the United
States by France in 1903. In the year 1919
the United States, by the Florida treaty.
ceded to Spain all that part of Louisiana
within the present limits of Texas. =
Texas, as ceded to the United States by
France in 1903, had been always claimed as
extending west to the Rio Grande or Rio
Bravo. This fact is established by the au-
thority of our most eminent statesmen at
a period when the question was as we'll if not
better, understood than it is at present Dur
ing MIR. Jefferson's administration. Messrs.
Monroe and PiDckrey, who had been sent out
on a special mission to Madrid, charged
among other things with the adjustment
of boundary between the two countries. in a
note addressing the Spanish minister of for
elgn affa1rs, under date of the 28th of Janu-
ary, 1905, assert that the boundaries OF
Louisiana, as coded to the United States bv
France are the river Perido on the east and
the river Bravo on the west; and they add
that the facts and principles which Justify
this conclusion are so satisfactory TO our
government as to convince it that the United
States have not better right to the Island
of New Orleans. under the cession referred
to, than they have to the whole district of
territory which is above described. Down
to the conclusion of the Florida treaty in
February, 1919. by which this territory was
ceded. the United States asserted and main
tanned their territorial rights to this extent.
Instances of such assertions are then
given in the message.
The Pacific boundary.
The following is from Benton's abridge-
ment Of Senator Buchanan's speech on the
resolution to give notice of the abroga-
t1on of the Joint occupation clause of Oct
20, 1918, between the United States and
Great Britain:
Mexico has an undisputed claim and is in
undisputed possession of the country up to
latitude AZ degrees north. BY treaty be-
tween Russia and the United States and
afterwards between Russia and England the
dominions Of Russia were limited to 54 de-
gress 40 minutes Of north latitude SO that
the territory in dispute between the two
nations (England and the United States) en-
braced the whole northwest coast of America
from AZ degrees to 54 degrees 40 minutes
north, extending east to the Rocky mountains
Now to the whole of this territory-to every
foot OF it from latitude AZ degrees north to
latitude "a degrees 40 minutes north. he be-
lieved most firmly we had a clear and con
elusive title. Under the public law of Chris
tendon, which had existed since the estab-
lishment of the continent of North America
he thought it could be demonstrated that
we had this clear and conclusive title He
himself intended on future occasion. when
the bill should come before the senate for
establishing territorial government if no
one else roses tc establish such claim as
no power on earth could gainsay =
From the time when Lewis and Clarke crossed
the mountains in 1905. until the present day.
we have been always agitating this question
We were in possession Of this terri
tory before the war. but in fatal moment
we agreed to this joint occupation treaty in
1878 The useful and honorable life
of the senator Linn Of Missouri who had sat
SO many years near him (Mr. Buehanan) was