The line of the Rio Norte is one, from which Mexico would be perpetually threatened, and from which their adjacent town on the eastern bank may be bombarded. Such an intolerable nuisance would perpetuate most hostile feelings. With such a narrow river as the Rio del Norte, and with a joint right of navigation, repeated collisions would be unavoidable.
Among these, when there was nothing but a fordable river to cross, slaves would perpetually escape from Texas: and where would be the remedy? Are the United States prepared to impose by a treaty on Mexico, where slavery is unknown, the obligation to surrender fugitive slaves?
Mexico is greatly the weaker power, and requires a boundary, which will give her as much security as is practicable. It is not required, either for the preservation of peace, or for any other legitimate purpose, that the United States should occupy a threatening position. It cannot be rationally supposed, that Mexico will ever make an aggressive war against them; and even in such case, the desert would protect them against an invasion. If a war should ever again take place between the two countries, the overwhelming superiority of the Navy of the United States will enable them to carry on their operations wherever they please. They would, within a month, re-occupy the left bank of the Rio Norte, and within a short time, effect a landing and carry the war to any quarter they pleased.
Must the war be still prosecuted for an object of no intrinsic value, to which the United States have no legitimate right, which justice requires them to yield, and which even expediency does not require?
VI.—RECAPITULATION.
It is an indisputable fact, that the annexation of Texas, then at war with Mexico, was tantamount to a declaration of war, and that the comparative weakness of Mexico alone prevented its Government from considering it as such.
Under these circumstances, it was evidently the duty of the United States to use every means to soothe and conciliate the Mexicans, and to wait with patience for an unconditional recognition of the independence of Texas, till the feelings excited by our aggression had subsided.
It has been shown that after Mexico had resorted, as a substitute for war, to the harmless suspension of the ordinary diplomatic intercourse, the attempt to make it retract that measure, before any negotiations for the restoration of harmony between the two countries should be entered into, was neither countenanced by the acknowledged law of nations, nor necessary for any useful purpose, nor consistent with a proper and just sense of the relative position in which the aggressive measure of the United States had placed the two countries. But that the refusal of Mexico to submit to that additional contumely, should have been considered as an insult to the United States, betrays the pride of power, rather than a just sense of what is due to the true dignity and honor of this nation.
It has been demonstrated, that the republic of Texas had not a shadow of right to the territory adjacent to the left bank of the lower portion of the Rio Norte; that though she claimed, she never had actually exercised jurisdiction over any portion of it; that the Mexicans were the sole inhabitants; and in actual possession of that district; that therefore its forcible occupation by the army of the United States was, according to the acknowledged law of nations, as well as in fact, an act of open hostility and war: that the resistance of the Mexicans to that invasion was legitimate; and that therefore the war was unprovoked by them, and commenced by the United States.