Page:History of the War between the United States and Mexico.djvu/56

44 Under these circumstances the diplomatic intercourse between the two republics was interrupted, and a quasi state of war existed from the spring of 1845, until the commencement of actual hostilities.

The acknowledgment of the independence of Texas, admitted merely the fact of her separate existence as a nation; but in annexing her territory, the American government went one step further. It was assumed that she was independent of right, and, therefore, capable of treating, and being treated with, like all other powers. In October, 1843, Mr. Thompson, the minister in Mexico, was instructed by Mr. Upshur, to inform that government, that the United States regarded Texas as an independent and sovereign power, and that, as she had "shaken off the authority of Mexico, and successfully resisted her power for eight years," they would "not feel themselves under any obligation to respect her former relation with that country." The hostile demonstrations made by Mexico, for nine years after the battle of San Jacinto, were conﬁned, with two exceptions — when Urrea and Woll crossed the Rio Grande but were forced to retire — to the clandestine forays of rancheros and Indians. Distracted by her intestine