Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/614

 by the United States, she might, without any other equivalent, relinquish any claim she has beyond the proposed boundary; that is, any claim to any part of New Mexico. But, under the influence of sentiments of justice and great liberality, the bill proposes to Texas, for her relinquishment of any such claim, a large pecuniary equivalent. As a consideration for it, and considering that a portion of the debt of Texas was created on a pledge to her creditors of the duties on foreign imports, transferred by the resolution of annexation to the United States, and now received and receivable in her treasury, a majority of the committee recommend the payment of the sum of  [sic]millons of dollars to Texas, to be applied in the first instance to the extinction of that portion of her debt for the reimbursement of which the duties on foreign imports were pledged as aforesaid, and the residue in such manner as she may direct. The sum is to be paid by the United States, in a stock, to be created, bearing live per cent, interest annually, payable half-yearly, at the treasury of the United States, and the principal reimbursable at the end of fourteen years.

"According to an estimate which has been made, there are included in the territory to which it is proposed that Texas shall relinquish her claim, embracing that part of New Mexico lying east of the Rio Grande, a little less than 124,933 square miles, and about 79,957,120 acres of land. From the proceeds of the sale of this land, the United States may ultimately be reimbursed a portion, if not the whole, of the amount of what is thus proposed to be advanced to Texas.

"It cannot be anticipated that Texas will decline to accede to these liberal propositions; but if she should, it is to be distinctly understood that the title of the United States to any territory acquired from Mexico, east of the Rio Grande, will remain [sic]unimpared, and in the same condition as.if the proposals of adjustment now offered had never been made.

"A majority of the committee recommend to the senate that the section containing these proposals to Texas shall be incorporated into the bill embracing the admission of California as a state, and the establishment of territorial governments for Utah and New Mexico. The definition and establishment of the boundary between New Mexico and Texas have an intimate and necessary connection with the establishment of a territorial government for New Mexico. To form a territorial government for New Mexico, without prescribing the limits of the territory, would leave the work imperfect and incomplete, and might expose New Mexico to serious controversy, if not dangerous collisions, with the state of Texas. And most, if not all, of the considerations which unite in favor of combining the bill for the admission of California as a state and the territorial bills, apply to the boundary question of Texas. By the union of the three measures, every question of difficulty and division which has arisen out of the territorial acquisition from Mexico, will, it is hoped, be adjusted, or placed in a train of satisfactory adjustment. The committee, availing themselves of the arduous and valuable labors of the committee on territories, report a bill, herewith annexed, (marked A,) embracing those three measures, the passage of which, uniting them together, they recommend to the senate.