The President pro tempore. The special order was fixed for half-past twelve o'clock yesterday; but it is for one o'clock to-day.
Mr. Houston. I hope I may be allowed to conclude my remarks; they are limited.
Mr. Hunter. The Senator from Texas tells me that he will not occupy more than an hour, and as I am anxious to go on with the deficiency bill, perhaps it would be better that he should commence now. It will only postpone the consideration of that bill for half an hour. I hope the Senate will consent to let him take up his resolution.
Mr. Houston. I move to take up the resolution for the purpose of offering a substitute, and proposing that it be referred to a special committee to consist of seven. I do not suppose that will lead to any argument whatever. I wish to offer some views explanatory of the object of the resolution.
The motion was agreed to; and the Senate proceeded to consider the resolution submitted by Mr. Houston in regard to establishing a protectorate over Mexico and other Central American States.
Mr. Houston. Mr. President, it will be recollected that a few weeks ago I offered a resolution to instruct the Committee on Foreign Relations to inquire into the expediency of establishing a protectorate over Mexico and the Central American States by this Government. That resolution, without being amply discussed, was laid upon the table. I have risen for the purpose of proposing a substitute for it, by which the inquiry shall be confined to Mexico, and submitted to a select committee.
It is, perhaps, nothing more than respectful to Great Britain, inasmuch as we have been negotiating with her for several years in relation to Honduras and the Mosquito shore, that the differences between the two countries should be amicably adjusted, if possible, before we proceed to intervene for the regulation of the affairs of the five puny States beyond Mexico, Moreover, the condition of most of those States, bad as it is, is incalculably better than that of our poor, distracted, adjoining neighbor. Their public demoralization, too, affects us less injuriously.
The State, sir, which I have enjoyed the honor of representing in this chamber, in part, with my lost but unforgotten colleague, since the emblem of her national independence took its place among the galaxy of stars which is unfurled over our heads, has a paramount interest in the establishment of orderly government in Mexico. It is as essential to her public morality and general prosperity as is that of any one State in the Union to another. The line of partition between the United States and Mexico stretches nearly two thousand miles—one thousand of which is Texan. Along a considerable portion of that line, on our side, savages abound, over whose propensities for the commission of crime on the inhabitants on the other side we can exercise, although obligated by solemn treaty stipulations to do so, no effectual restraint. On account of the depredations incessantly perpetrated by the Comanches and other tribes upon the Mexicans, the border population is steadily receding into the interior; and instead of progressive civilization, the chances multiply, from day to day, that the country will be turned over to barbarism—to the savages now within our own limits. Mexico can not prevent it, because she is never free from civil war or other intestine commotions; and we can not, at any cost, short of hermetically sealing our frontier. Thus good neighborhood on either part, as matters
