Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/543

 passed In this opinion he differed, perhaps, from the executive. The negotiation had been declined by the secretary of state, because it would involve our relations with Mexico. Admitting that the executive had more extensive and exact information upon this question than he (Mr. Preston) could have, the resolution therefore expressed an opinion in favor of the annexation only when it could be done without disturbing our relations with Mexico.

The acquisition of territory, Mr. Preston said, had heretofore been effected by treaty; and this mode of proceeding had been proposed by the Texan minister, General Hunt. But he believed it would comport more with the importance of the measure, that both branches of the government should concur; the legislature expressing a previous opinion; which being done, all difficulties might be avoided by a treaty tripartite, between Mexico, Texas, and the United States, in which the consent and confirmation of Mexico (for a pecuniary consideration, perhaps,) might be had without infringing the acknowledged independence and free agency of Texas.

Mr. P. proceeded to show that "the Texan territory was once a part of the United States. In 1762, France ceded Louisiana to Spain. In 1800, Spain re-ceded it to France. In 1804, France ceded it to the United States. The extent of the French claim, therefore, determined ours, and included Mississippi and all the territories drained by its western tributaries. It rested upon the discovery of La Salle, in 1683, who penetrated from Canada by land, descended the Mississippi, and established a few posts on its banks. Soon afterwards, endeavoring to enter the mouth of that river from the gulf, he passed it unperceived, and sailing westward, discovered the bay of St. Bernard, now called Matagorda, whence, a short distance in the interior, he established a military post on the bank of the Guadaloupe, and took possession of the country in the name of his sovereign. The western limits of the territory, enuring to the French crown by virtue of this discovery, was determined by the application of a principle recognized by European powers making settlements in America, viz: that the dividing line should be established at a medium distance between their various settlements. At the time of La Salle's settlement, the nearest Spanish possession was a small post called Panuco, at the point where a river of that name falls into the bay of Tampico. The medium line between Panuco and the Guadaloupe was the Rio Grande, which was assumed as the true boundary between France and Spain. France asserted her claim to that boundary from 1685, the period of La Salle's discovery, up to 1762, when, by the cession of Louisiana to Spain, the countries were united and the boundaries obliterated."

Mr. P. referred to Mr. Adams' letter to Don Onis, of March, 1818, in which he recapitulated the testimony in favor of the French title. Mr. Jefferson expressed the same opinion. Messrs. Monroe and Pinckney, in 1805, in obedience to instructions from Mr. Madison, then secretary of state, asserted our claim west to the Rio Grande, in their correspondence with the Spanish commissioner. Mr. Monroe, when president, held equally strong language, through