which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee, that from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed, to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immoveable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and to speak of it as a palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned, and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.

"For this you have every inducement of sympathy and interest. Citizens by birth or choice of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections. The name of AMERICAN, which belongs to you in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism, more than any appellation derived from local discriminations. With slight shades of difference, you have the same religion, manners, habits, and political principles. You have, in a common cause, fought and triumphed together. The independence and liberty you possess are the work of joint councils and joint efforts, of common dangers, sufferings, and success. . . . . With such powerful and obvious motives to union, affecting all parts of our country, while experience shall not have demonstrated its impracticability, there will always be reason to distrust the patriotism of those who in any quarter may endeavor to weaken its bands.

"In contemplating the causes which may disturb our Union, it occurs as matter of serious concern that any ground should have been furnished for characterizing parties by geographical discriminations-Northern and Southern, Atlantic and Western; whence designing men may endeavor to excite a belief that there is a real difference of local interests and views. One of the expedients of party to acquire influence within particular districts, is, to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts. You can not shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and heart-burnings which spring from these misrepresentations. They tend to render alien to each other those who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection."

SPECIAL MESSAGE.

DECEMBER 27, 1848.

To the House of Representatives:

IN compliance with the resolution of the house of the eleventh instant, requesting the president to inform that body "whether he has received any information that American citizens have been imprisoned or arrested by British authorities in Ireland; and, if so, what have been the causes thereof, and what steps have been taken for their release; and, if

not in his opinion inconsistent with public interest, to furnish this house with copies of all correspondence in relation thereto," I communicate herewith a report of the secretary of state, together with the accompanying correspondence upon the subject.

SPECIAL MESSAGE.

JANUARY 29, 1849.

To the House of Representatives of the United States :

I COMMUNICATE, herewith, reports from the secretary of war, and the secretary of the navy, together with the accompanying documents, in answer to a resolution of the house of representatives of December 20th, 1848, requesting the president "to communicate to the house the amount of moneys and property received during the late war with the republic of Mexico at the different ports of entry, or in any other way within her limits, and in what manner the same has been expended or appropriated."

SPECIAL MESSAGE.

FEBRUARY 1, 1849.

To the Senate of the United States :

I COMMUNICATE herewith reports from the secretary of state, the secretary of the treasury, secretary of war, and the secretary of the navy, together with the accompanying documents, in answer to a resolution of the senate of the 15th of January, 1849, "that the petition and papers of John B. Emerson be referred to the president of the United States, and that he be requested to cause a report thereon to be made to the senate, wherein the public officer making such report shall state in what cases, if any, the United States have used or employed the invention of said Emerson contrary to law; and further, whether any compensation therefor is justly due to said Emerson, and if so, to what amount in each case."

SPECIAL MESSAGE.

FEBRUARY 8, 1849.

To the House of Representatives of the United States :

In reply to the resolutions of the house of representatives, of the 5th instant, I communicate herewith a report from the secretary of state, accompanied with all the documents and correspondence relating to the treaty of peace concluded between the United States and Mexico, at Guadalupe Hidalgo, on the 2d of February, 1848, and to the amendments of the senate thereto, as requested by the house in the said resolutions.

Among the documents transmitted will be found a copy of the instructions given to the commissioners of the United States who took to Mexico

the treaty as amended by the senate and ratified by the president of the United States. In my message to the house of representatives of the 29th of July, 1848, I gave as my reason for declining to furnish these instructions, in compliance with a resolution of the house, that, "in my opinion, it would be inconsistent with the public interests to give publicity to them at the present time." Although it may still be doubted whether giving them publicity in our own country, and, as a necessary consequence, in Mexico, may not have a prejudicial influence on our public interests, yet, as they have been again called for by the house, and called for in connexion with other documents, to the correct understanding of which they are indispensable, I have deemed it my duty to transmit them.

I still entertain the opinion expressed in the message referred to, "that, as a general rule, applicable to all our important negotiations with foreign powers, it could not fail to be prejudicial to the public interest to publish the instructions to our ministers, until some time had elapsed after the conclusion of such negotiations."

In these instructions of the 18th of March, 1848, it will be perceived "that the task was assigned to the commissioners of the United States of consummating the treaty of peace, which was signed at Guadalupe Hidalgo on the second day of February last, between the United States and the Mexican republic, and which, on the 10th of March last, was ratified by the senate with amendments."

They were informed "that this brief statement will indicate to you clearly the line of your duty. You are not sent to Mexico for the purpose of negotiating any new treaty, or of changing in any particular the ratified treaty which you will bear with you. None of the amendments adopted by the senate can be rejected or modified, except by the authority of that body. Your whole duty will then consist in using every honorable effort to obtain from the Mexican government a ratification of the treaty, in the form in which it has been ratified by the senate, and this with the least practicable delay." "For this purpose, it may, and most probably will, become necessary that you should explain to the Mexican minister for foreign affairs, or to the authorized agents of the Mexican government, the reasons which have influenced the senate in adopting these several amendments to the treaty. This duty you will perform, as much as possible, by personal conferences. Diplomatic notes are to be avoided unless in case of necessity. These might lead to endless discussions and indefinite delay. Besides, they could not have any practical result, as your mission is confined to procuring a ratification, from the Mexican government, of the treaty as it came from the senate, and does not extend to the slightest modification in any of its provisions."

The commissioners were sent to Mexico to procure the ratification of the treaty as amended by the senate. Their instructions confined them to this point. It was proper that the amendments to the treaty adopted by the United States should be explained to the Mexican government, and explanations were made by the secretary of state in his letter of the 18th of March, 1848, to the Mexican minister for foreign affairs, under my direction. This despatch was communicated to Congress with my message of the 6th of July last, communicating the treaty of peace, and published by their order. This despatch was transmitted by our commissioners, from the city of Mexico to the Mexican government, then at Queretaro, on the 17th of April, 1848, and its receipt acknowledged on the 19th of the same month. During the whole time that the treaty, as amended, was before

the Congress of Mexico, these explanations of the secretary of state, and these alone, were before them.

The president of Mexico, on these explanations, on the 8th day of May, 1848, submitted the amended treaty to the Mexican Congress, and, on the 25th of May, that Congress approved the treaty as amended without modification or alteration. The final action of the Mexican Congress had taken place before the commissioners of the United States had been officially received by the Mexican authorities, or held any conference with them, or had any other communication on the subject of the treaty except to transmit the letter of the secretary of state.

In their despatch, transmitted to Congress with my message of the 6th of June last, communicating the treaty of peace, dated "City of Queretaro, May 25, 1848, 9 o'clock, P. M.," the commissioners say: "We have the satisfaction to inform you that we reached this city this afternoon about 5 o'clock, and that the treaty as amended by the senate of the United States, passed the Mexican senate about the hour of our arrival, by a vote of 33 to 5. It having previously passed the house of deputies, nothing now remains but to exchange the ratifications of the treaty."

On the next day (the 26th of May) the commissioners were, for the first time, presented to the president of the republic, and their credentials placed in his hands. On this occasion the commissioners delivered an address to the president of Mexico, and he replied. In their despatch of the 30th of May, the commissioners say: "We enclose a copy of our address to the president, and also a copy of his reply. Several conferences afterward took place between Messrs. Rosa, Cuevas, Conto, and ourselves, which it is not thought necessary to recapitulate, as we enclose a copy of the protocol, which contains the substance of the conversations. have now the satisfaction to announce that the exchange of ratifications was effected to-day." This despatch was communicated with my message of the 6th of July last, and published by order of Congress.

We

The treaty, as amended by the senate of the United States, with the accompanying papers, and the evidence that in that form it had been ratified by Mexico, was received at Washington on the 4th day of July, 1848, and immediately proclaimed as the supreme law of the land. On the 6th of July, I communicated to Congress the ratified treaty, with such accompanying documents as were deemed material to a full understanding of the subject, to the end that Congress might adopt the legislation necessary and proper to carry the treaty into effect. Neither the address of the commissioners, nor the reply of the president of Mexico, on the occasion of their presentation, nor the memorandum of conversations embraced in the paper called a protocol, nor the correspondence now sent, was communicated, because they were not regarded as in any way material; and in this I conformed to the practice of our government. It rarely if ever happens that all the correspondence, and especially the instructions to our ministers, is communicated. Copies of these papers are now transmitted, as being within the resolutions of the house calling for all such "correspondence as appertains to said treaty."

When these papers were received at Washington, peace had been restored, the first instalment of three millions paid to Mexico, the blockades were raised, the city of Mexico evacuated, and our troops on their return home. The war was at an end, and the treaty, as ratified by the United States, was binding on both parties, and already executed in a great degree. In this condition of things it was not competent for the president

alone, or for the president and senate, or for the president, senate, and house of representatives, combined, to abrogate the treaty, to annul the peace and restore a state of war, except by a solemn declaration of war. Had the protocol varied the treaty, as amended by the senate of the United States, it would have had no binding effect.

It was obvious that the commissioners of the United States did not regard the protocol as in any degree a part of the treaty, nor as modifying or altering the treaty as amended by the senate. They communicated it as the substance of conversations held after the Mexican Congress had ratified the treaty, and they knew that the approval of the Mexican Congress was as essential to the validity of a treaty in all its parts, as the advice and consent of the senate of the United States. They knew, too, that they had no authority to alter or modify the treaty in the form in which it had been ratified by the United States, but that, if failing to procure the ratification of the Mexican government otherwise than with amendments, their duty, imposed by express instructions, was to ask of Mexico to send, without delay, a commissioner to Washington to exchange ratifications here, if the amendments of the treaty proposed by Mexico, on being submitted, should be adopted by the senate of the United States.

I was equally well satisfied that the government of Mexico had agreed to the treaty as amended by the senate of the United States, and did not regard the protocol as modifying, enlarging, or diminishing, its terms or effect. The president of that republic, in submitting the amended treaty to the Mexican Congress, in his message on the 8th day of May, 1848, said: "If the treaty could have been submitted to your deliberation precisely as it came from the hands of the plenipotentiaries, my satisfaction, at seeing the war at last brought to an end, would not have been lessened as it this day is in consequence of the modifications introduced into it by the senate of the United States, and which have received the sanction of the president."-"At present it is sufficient for us to say to you that if, in the opinion of the government, justice had not been evinced on the part of the senate and government of the United States, in introducing such modifications, it is presumed, on the other hand, that they are not of such importance that they should set aside the treaty. I believe, on the contrary, that it ought to be ratified upon the same terms in which it has already received the sanction of the American government. My opinion is also greatly strengthened by the fact that a new negotiation is neither expected nor considered possible. Much less could another be brought forward upon a basis more favorable for the republic."

The deliberations of the Mexican Congress, with no explanation before hat body from the United States, except the letter of the secretary of state, resulted in the ratification of the treaty, as recommended by the president of that republic, in the form in which it had been amended and ratified by the United States. The conversations imbodied in the paper called a protocol, took place after the action of the Mexican Congress was complete; and there is no reason to suppose that the government of Mexico ever submitted the protocol to the Congress, or ever treated or regarded it as in any sense a new negotiation, or as operating any modification or change of the amended treaty. If such had been its effect, it was a nullity until approved by the Mexican Congress; and such approval was never made or intimated to the United States. In the final consummation of the ratification of the treaty by the president of Mexico no reference is made to it. On the contrary, this ratification, which was delivered to the