Page:History of the War between the United States and Mexico.djvu/62

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CLAIM TO THE LOWER RIO GRANDE.

returned in 1681, and after a long struggle succeeded in establishing their authority on a ﬁrm foundation. The French government did not claim any part of New Mexico, and the royal charter declared that province to be the western boundary of Louisiana. Texas never occupied the country, nor exercised any acts of sovereignty there, and her claim could only have been founded upon the convention made with Santa Anna, which was hardly sufficient to support it. The government of the United States appears to have taken this view of the question. The same Congress that adopted the joint resolutions, passed a law allowing a drawback on foreign merchandise re-exported in the original packages to "Santa Fé, in New Mexico," one of the towns situated east of the Rio Grande, and the capital of the province. The instructions given to General Kearny, and the proceedings of that ofﬁcer, are conclusive evidence that this portion of New Mexico was not regarded as forming a part of Texas. She was treated as a conquered province, and President Polk in his annual message, in December, 1846, referred to Santa Fe as a captured town.^[1]

The claim of Texas, and subsequently of the United States, to the country lying between the Nueces and the

↑ There is one fact, which deserves to be noticed in this connection. The joint resolutions of annexation contained a proviso relating to all that portion of the territory lying above the parallel of 36° 30' north latitude; Texas proper did not extend above that parallel; and hence it is urged, that Congress intended to claim the whole country east of the Rio Grande. Perhaps a majority of those who voted for the proviso had not examined the question with reference to that fact, and the line was intended rather to apply to the territory, if it should be obtained by negotiation, than to confirm a claim which had never been supported by possession or occupation. It may be doubted, whether Texas herself designed to insist upon her title to any part of New Mexico, in a negotiation for peace. It was the lower Rio Grande, from the

[D62-1] There is one fact, which deserves to be noticed in this connection. The joint resolutions of annexation contained a proviso relating to all that portion of the territory lying above the parallel of 36° 30' north latitude; Texas proper did not extend above that parallel; and hence it is urged, that Congress intended to claim the whole country east of the Rio Grande. Perhaps a majority of those who voted for the proviso had not examined the question with reference to that fact, and the line was intended rather to apply to the territory, if it should be obtained by negotiation, than to confirm a claim which had never been supported by possession or occupation. It may be doubted, whether Texas herself designed to insist upon her title to any part of New Mexico, in a negotiation for peace. It was the lower Rio Grande, from the

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