El Paso, above which the Texas boundary is now proposed to be placed by the committee, is one of the most ancient of the New Mexican towns, and to which the Spaniards of New Mexico retreated in the great Indian revolt in 1680, and made their stand, and thence recovered the whole province. It was the residence of the lieutenant-governor of New Mexico, and the most southern town of the province, as Taos was the most northern. Being on the right bank of the river, the dividing line between the United States and the Republic of Mexico leaves it out of our limits, and consequently out of the present limits of New Mexico; but New Mexico still extends to the Rio del Norte at the Paso; and therefore this beginning line proposed by the committee cuts into the ancient possession of New Mexico—a possession dating from the year 1595. That line in its course to the Red River, cuts the river and valley of the Puerco (called Pecos in the upper part) into two parts, leaving the lower and larger part to Texas; the said Rio Puerco and its valley, from head to mouth, having always been a part of New Mexico, and now in its actual possession. Putting together what is cut from the Puerco, and from the Del Norte above and below El Paso, and it would amount to about seventy thousand square miles, to be taken by the committee's line from its present and ancient possessor, and transferred to a new claimant. This is what the new line would do, and in doing it would raise the question of the extension of slavery, and of its existence at this time, by law, in New Mexico as a part of Texas.
To avoid all misconception, I repeat what I have already declared, that I am not occupying myself with the question of title as it may exist and be eventually determined between New Mexico and Texas; nor am I questioning the power of Congress to establish any line it pleases in that quarter for the State of Texas, with the consent of the State, and any one it pleases for the territory of New Mexico without her consent. I am not occupying myself with the questions of title or power, but with the question of possession only—and how far the possession of New Mexico is to be disturbed, if disturbed at all, by the committee's line; and the effect of that disturbance in rousing the slavery question in that quarter. In that point of view the fact of possession is every thing: for the possessor has a right to what he holds until the question of title is decided—by law, in a question between individuals or communities in a land of law and order—or by negotiation or arms between independent Powers. I use the phrase, possession by New Mexico; but it is only for brevity, and to give locality to the term possession. New Mexico possesses no territory; she is a territory, and belongs to the United States; and the United States own her as she stood on the day of the treaty of peace and cession between the United States and the Republic of Mexico; and it is into that possession that I inquire, and all which I assert that the United States have a right to hold until the question of title is decided. And to save inquiry or doubt, and to show that the committee are totally mistaken in law in assuming the consent of Texas to be indispensable to the settlement of the title, I say there are three ways to settle it; the first and best by compact, as I proposed before Texas was annexed, and again by a bill of this year: next, by a suit in the Supreme Court, under that clause in the constitution which extends the judicial power of the United States to all controversies to which the United States is a party, and that other clause which gives the Supreme Court original jurisdiction of all cases to which a State is a party: the third way is for the United States to give a government to New Mexico according to the territory she possessed when she was ceded to the United States. These are the three ways to settle the question—one of them totally dependent on the will of Texas—one totally independent of her will—and one independent of her will until she chooses to go into court. As to any thing that Texas or New Mexico may do in taking or relinquishing possession, it is all moonshine. New Mexico is a territory of the United States. She is the property of the United States; and she cannot dispose of herself, or any part of herself; nor can Texas take her or any part of her. She is to stand as she did the day the United States acquired her; and to that point all my examinations are directed.
And in that point of view it is immaterial what are the boundaries of New Mexico. The whole of the territory obtained from Mexico, and not rightfully belonging to a State, belongs to the United States; and, as such, is the property of the United States, and to be attended to accordingly. But I proceed with the possession of New Mexico, and show that it has been actual and continuous from the conquest of the country by Don Juan de Onate, in 1595 to the present time. That ancient actual possession has already been shown at the starting point of the line—at El Paso del Norte. I will now show it to be the same throughout the continuation of the line across the Puerco and its valley, and at some points on the left bank of the Del Norte below El Paso. And first, of the Puerco River. It rises in the latitude of Santa Fé, and in its immediate neighborhood, only ten miles from it, and running south, falls into the Rio del Norte, about three hundred miles on a straight line below El Paso, and has a valley of its own between the mountain range on the west, which divides it from the valley of the Del Norte, to which it is parallel, and the high arid table land on the east called El Llano Estacado—the Staked Plain—which divides it from the head waters of the Red River, the Colorado, the Brasos, and other Texian streams. It is a long river, its head being in the latitude of Nashville—its mouth a degree and a half south of New Orleans. It washes the base of the high table land, and receives no affluents, and has no valley on that side; on the west it has a valley, and many bold affluents, coming down from the mountain range (the Sierra Obscura, the Sierra Blanca, and the Sierra de los Organos), which divides it from the valley of the upper Del Norte. It is valuable for its length, being a thousand miles, following its windings—from its course, which is north and south—from the quality of its water, derived from high mountains—from its valley, timbered and grassy, part prairie, good for cultivation, for pasturage, and salt. It has two climates, cold in the north from its altitude (seven thousand feet)—mild in the south from its great descent, not less than five thousand feet, and with a general amelioration of climate over the valley of the Del Norte from its openness on the east, and mountain shelter on the west. It is a river of New Mexico, and is so classified in geography. It is an old possession of New Mexico and the most valuable part of it, and has many of her towns and villages upon it. Las Vegas, Gallinas, Tecolote Abajo, Cuesta, Pecos, San Miguel, Anton Chico, Salinas, Gran Quivira, are all upon it. Some of these towns date their origin as far back as the first conquest of the Taos Indians, about the year 1600, and some have an historical interest, and a special relation to the question of title between New Mexico and Texas. Pecos is the old village of the Indians of that name, famous for the sacred fire so long kept burning there for the return of Montezuma. Gran Quivira was a considerable mining town under the Spaniards before the year 1680, when it was broken up in the great Indian revolt of that year.
San Miguel, twenty miles from Santa Fé, is the place where the Texian expedition, under Colonel Cooke, were taken prisoners in 1841.
To all these evidences of New Mexican possession of the Rio Puerco and its valley, is to be added the further evidence resulting from acts of ownership in grants of land made upon its upper part, as in New Mexico, by the superior Spanish authorities before the revolution, and by the Mexican local authorities since. The lower half was ungranted, and leaves much vacant land, and the best in the country, to the United States.
The great pastoral lands of New Mexico are in the valley of the Puerco, where millions of sheep were formerly pastured, now reduced to about two hundred thousand by the depredation of the Indians. The New Mexican inhabitants of the Del Norte send their flocks there to be herded by shepherds, on shares; and in this way, and by taking their salt there, and in addition to their towns and settlements, and grants of lands, the New Mexicans have had possession of the Puerco and its valley since the year 1600—that is to say, for about one hundred years before the shipwreck of La Salle, in the bay of San Bernardo, revealed the name of Texas to Europe and America.
These are the actual possessions of New Mexico on the Rio Puerco. On the Rio del Norte, as cut off by the committee's bill, there are, the little town of Frontera, ten miles above El Paso, a town begun opposite El Paso, San Eleazario, twenty miles below, and some houses lower down opposite El Presidio del Norte. Of all these, San Eleazario is the most considerable, having a population of some four thousand souls, once a town of New Biscay, now of New Mexico, and now the property of the United States by avulsion. It is an island; and the main river, formerly on the north and now on the south of the island, leaves it in New Mexico. When Pike went through it, it was the most northern town, and the frontier garrison of New Biscay; and there the then lieutenant-governor of New Mexico, who had escorted him from El Paso, turned him over to the authorities of a new province. It is now the most southern town of New Mexico, without having changed its place, but the river which disappeared from its channel in that place, in 1752, has now changed it to the south of the island.
I reiterate: I am not arguing title; I am only showing possession, which is a right to remain in possession until title is decided. The argument of title has often been introduced into this question; and a letter from President Polk, through Secretary Buchanan, has often been read on the Texian side. Now, what I have to say of that letter, so frequently referred to, and considered so conclusive, is this: that, however potent it may have been in inducing annexation, or how much soever it may be entitled to consideration in fixing the amount to be paid to Texas for her Mexican claim, yet as an evidence of title, I should pay no more regard to it than to a chapter from the life and adventures of Robinson Crusoe. Congress and the judiciary are the authorities to decide such claims to titles, and not Presidents and secretaries.
I rest upon the position, then, that the Rio Puerco, and its valley, is and was a New Mexican possession, as well as the left bank of the Del Norte, from above El Paso to below the mouth of the Puerco; and that this possession cannot be disturbed without raising the double question, first, of actual extension of slavery; and, secondly, of the present legal existence of slavery in all New Mexico east of the Rio Grande, as a part of Texas. These are the questions which the proposed line of the committee raise, and force us to face. They are not questions of my seeking, but I shall not avoid them. It is not a new question with me, this extension of slavery in that quarter. I met it in 1844, before the annexation of Texas. On the 10th day of June, of that year, and as part of a bill for a compact with Texas, and to settle all questions with her—the very ones which now perplex us—before she was annexed, I proposed, as article V. in the projected compact:
Art. V. "The existence of slavery to be for ever prohibited in that part of the annexed territory which lies west of the hundredth degree of longitude west from the meridian of Greenwich."