manity and justice, and that both his and dignity of the country that it should Majesty and the United States are desirous of continuing their efforts to promote its entire abolition; and it is thereby agreed that both the contracting parties shall use their best endeavors to accomplish so desirable an object. The government of the United States has by law declared the African slave-trade piracy, and at its suggestion other nations have made similar enactments. It has not been wanting in honest and zealous efforts made in conformity with the wishes of the whole country, to accomplish the entire abolition of the traffic in slaves upon the African coast, but these efforts and those of other countries directed to the same end have proved to a considerable degree unsuccessful. Treaties are known to have been entered into some years ago between England and France by which the former power, which usually maintains a large naval force on the African Station, was authorized to seize and bring in for adjudication vessels found engaged in the slave-trade under the French flag. execute its own laws and perform its own obligations by its own means and its own power. The examination or visitation of the merchant vessels of one nation by the cruisers of another for any purpose except those known and acknowledged by the law of nations, under whatever restraints or regulations it may take place, may lead to dangerous results. It is far better by other means to supersede any supposed necessity or any motive for such examination or visit. Interference with a merchant vessel by an armed cruiser is always a delicate proceeding, apt to touch the point of national honor as well as to effect the interests of individuals. It has been thought, therefore, expedient, not only in accordance with the stipulations of the treaty of Ghent, but at the same time as removing all pretext on the part of others for violating the immunities of the American flag upon the seas, as they exist and are defined by the law of nations, to enter into the articles now submitted to the Senate. The treaty which I now submit to you proposes no alteration, mitigation, or modification of the rules of the law of nations. It provides simply that each of It is known that in December last a treaty was signed in London by the representatives of England, France, Russia, Prussia, and Austria, having for its professed object a strong and united effort of the five powers to put an end to the the two governments shall maintain on traffic. This treaty was not officially communicated to the government of the United States, but its provisions and stipulations are supposed to be accurately known to the public. It is understood to be not yet ratified on the part of France. No application or request has been made to this government to become party to this treaty, but the course it might take in regard to it has excited no small degree of attention and discussion in Europe, as the principle upon which it is founded and the stipulations which it contains have caused warm animadversions and great political excitement. In my message at the commencement of the present session of Congress, I endeavored to state the principles which this government supports respecting the right of search and the immunity of flags. Desirous of maintaining those principles fully, at the same time that existing obligations should be fulfilled, I have thought it most consistent with the honor the coast of Africa a sufficient squadron to enforce separately and respectively the laws, rights, and obligations of the two countries for the suppression of the slavetrade. Another consideration of great importance has recommended this mode of fulfilling the duties and obligations of the country. Our commerce along the western coast of Africa is extensive, and supposed to be increasing. There is reason to think that in many cases those engaged in it have met with interruptions and annoyances caused by the jealousy and instigation of rivals engaged in the same trade. Many complaints on this subject have reached the government. respectable naval force on the coast is the natural resort and security against further occurrences of this kind. A The surrender to justice of persons who, having committed high crimes, seek an asylum in the territories of a neighboring nation would seem to be an act due to the cause of general justice and properly be longing to the present state of civilization and intercourse. The British provinces of North America are separated from the States of the Union by a line of several thousand miles, and along portions of this line the amount of population on either side is quite considerable, while the passage of the boundary is always easy. the occurrence had ceased to be fresh and recent, not to omit attention to it on the present occasion. It has only been so far discussed in the correspondence now submitted, as it was accomplished by a violation of the territory of the United States. The letter of the British minister, while he attempts to justify that violation upon the ground of a pressing and overruling necessity, admitting, nevertheless, that even if justifiable an apology was due for it, and accompanying this Offenders against the law on the one side transfer themselves to the other. Sometimes with great difficulty they are brought to justice, but very often they acknowledgment with assurances of the wholly escape. A consciousness of immunity from the power of avoiding justice in this way instigates the unprincipled and reckless to the commission of offences, and the peace and good neighborhood of the border are consequently often disturbed. In the case of offenders fleeing from Canada into the United States, the governors of States are often applied to for their surrender, and questions of a very embarrassing nature arise from these applications. It has been thought highly important, therefore, to provide for the whole case by a proper treaty stipulation. The article on the subject in the proposed treaty is carefully confined to such offences as all mankind agree to regard as heinous and destructive of the security of life and property. In this careful and specified enumeration of crimes the object has been to exclude all political offences or criminal charges arising from wars or intestine commotions. Treason, misprision of treason, libels, desertion from military service, and other offences of similar character are excluded. And lest some unforeseen inconvenience or unexpected abuse should arise from the stipulation rendering its continuance in the opinion of one or both of the parties not longer desirable, it is left in the power of either to put an end to it at will. sacred regard of his government for the inviolability of national territory, has seemed to me sufficient to warrant forbearance from any further remonstrance against what took place as an aggression on the soil and territory of the country. On the subject of the interference of the British authorities in the West Indies, a confident hope is entertained that the correspondence which has taken place, showing the grounds taken by this government, and the engagements entered into by the British minister, will be found such as to satisfy the just expectation of the people of the United States. The impressment of seamen from merchant vessels of this country by British cruisers, although not practised in time of peace, and therefore not at present a productive cause of difference and irritation, has, nevertheless, hitherto been so prominent a topic of controversy, and is so likely to bring on renewed contentions at the first breaking out of a European war, that it has been thought the part of wisdom now to take it into serious and earnest consideration. The letter from the Secretary of State to the British minister explains the ground which the government has assumed and the principles which it means to uphold. For the defence of these grounds and the maintenance of these principles the most perfect reliance is placed on the intelligence of the American people and on their firmness and patriotism in whatever touches the honor of the country or its great and essential interests. The destruction of the steamboat Caroline at Schlosser four or five years ago occasioned no small degree of excitement at the time, and became the subject of correspondence between the two governments. That correspondence, having been suspended for a considerable period, was renewed in the spring of the last year, but no satisfactory result having been arrived at, it was thought proper, though and Texas: The Treaty with Texas.-On April 22, 1844, President Tyler sent the following special message to the Congress concerning the treaty between the United States WASHINGTON, April 22, 1844. To the Senate of the United States, I transmit herewith, for your approval and ratification, a treaty which I have caused to be negotiated between the United States and Texas, whereby the latter, on the conditions herein set forth, has transferred and conveyed all its right of separate and independent sovereignty and jurisdiction to the United States. In taking so important a step I have been influenced by what appeared to me to be the most controlling considerations of public policy and the general good, and in having accomplished it, should it meet your approval, the government will have succeeded in reclaiming a territory which formerly constituted a portion, as it is confidently believed, of its domain under the treaty of cession of 1803 by France to the United States. under the protecting care of this government, if it does not surpass, the combined production of many of the States of the confederacy. A new and powerful impulse will thus be given to the navigating interest of the country, which will be chiefly engrossed by our fellow-citizens of the Eastern and Middle States, who have already attained a remarkable degree of prosperity by the partial monopoly they have enjoyed of the carrying-trade of the Union, particularly the coastwise trade, which this new acquisition is destined in time, and that not distant, to swell to a magnitude which cannot easily be computed; while the addition made to the boundaries of the home market thus secured to their mining, manufacturing, and mechanical skill and industry will be of a character the most commanding and im portant. Such are some of the many adThe country thus proposed to be an- vantages which will accrue to the Eastern nexed has been settled principally by per- and Middle States by the ratification of sons from the United States, who emi- the treaty-advantages the extent of grated on the invitation of both Spain and which it is impossible to estimate with Mexico, and who carried with them into accuracy or properly to appreciate. Texthe wilderness which they have par- as, being adapted to the culture of cottially reclaimed the laws, customs, and ton, sugar, and rice, and devoting most of political and domestic institutions of her energies to the raising of these protheir native land. They are deeply in- ductions, will open an extensive market doctrinated in all the principles of civil to the Western States in the important liberty, and will bring along with them articles of beef, pork, horses, mules, etc., in the act of reassociation devotion to as well as in breadstuffs. At the same our Union and a firm and inflexible reso- time, the Southern and Southeastern lution to assist in maintaining the pub- States will find in the fact of annexation lic liberty unimpaired-a consideration protection and security to their peace and which, as it appears to me, is to be re- tranquillity, as well against all domestic garded as of no small moment. The coun- as foreign efforts to disturb them, thus try itself thus obtained is of incalculable consecrating anew the union of the States value in an agricultural and commercial and holding out the promise of its perpetpoint of view. To a soil of inexhaus- ual duration. Thus at the same time that tible fertility it unites a genial and the tide of public prosperity is greatly healthy climate, and is destined at a day swollen, an appeal of what appears to the not distant to make large contributions executive to be of an imposing, if not of to the commerce of the world. Its ter- a resistless, character is made to the ritory is separated from the United States interests of every portion of the country. in part by an imaginary line, and by the Agriculture, which would have a new and river Sabine for a distance of 310 miles, extensive market opened for its produce; and its productions are the same with commerce, whose ships would be freighted those of many of the contiguous States with the rich productions of an extensive of the Union. Such is the country, such and fertile region; and the mechanical are its inhabitants, and such its capaci- arts, in all their various ramifications, ties to add to the general wealth of the would seem to unite in one universal deUnion. As to the latter, it may be safely mand for the ratification of the treaty. asserted that in the magnitude of its pro- But important as these considerations ductions it will equal in a short time, may appear, they are to be regarded as but secondary to others. Texas, for rea- more wisdom to their own interests, sons deemed sufficient by herself, threw would, it is fairly to be presumed, readily off her dependence on Mexico as far back adopt such expedients; or she would hold as 1936, and consummated her indepen- out the proffer of discriminating duties dence by the battle of San Jacinto in the in trade and commerce in order to sesame year, since which period Mexico has cure the necessary assistance. Whatever attempted no serious invasion of her ter- step she might adopt looking to this obritory, but the contest has assumed feat- ject would prove disastrous in the highures of a mere border war, characterized est degree to the interests of the whole by acts revolting to humanity. In the Union. To say nothing of the impolicy year 1836 Texas adopted her constitution, of our permitting the carrying-trade and under which she has existed as a sovereign home market of such a country to pass out power ever since, having been recognized of our hands into those of a commercial as such by many of the principal powers rival, the government, in the first place, of the world; and contemporaneously with would be certain to suffer most disasits adoption, by a solemn vote of her peo- trously in its revenue by the introduction ple, embracing all her population but of a system of smuggling upon an extenninety-three persons, declared her anxious sive scale, which an army of custom-house desire to be admitted into association with officers could not prevent, and which would the United States as a portion of their operate to affect injuriously the interterritory. This vote, thus solemnly taken, ests of all the industrial classes of this has never been reversed, and now by the country. Hence would arise constant colaction of her constituted authorities, sus- lisions between the inhabitants of the two tained as it is by popular sentiment, she countries, which would evermore endanreaffirms her desire for annexation. This ger their peace. A large increase of the course has been adopted by her without military force of the United States would the employment of any sinister measures inevitably follow, thus devolving upon the on the part of this government. No in- people new and extraordinary burdens in trigue has been set on foot to accomplish order not only to protect them from the it. Texas herself wills it, and the execu- danger of daily collision with Texas hertive of the United States, concurring with self, but to guard their border inhabitants her, has seen no sufficient reason to avoid against hostile inroads, so easily excited the consummation of an act esteemed to on the part of the numerous and warlike be so desirable by both. It cannot be tribes of Indians dwelling in their neighdenied that Texas is greatly depressed in borhood. Texas would undoubtedly be unher energies by her long-protracted war able for many years to come, if at any with Mexico. Under these circumstances time, to resist unaided and alone the milit is but natural that she should seek itary power of the United States; but it for safety and repose under the protection is not extravagant to suppose that nations of some stronger power, and it is equally reaping a rich harvest from her trade, so that her people should turn to the secured to them by the advantageous United States, the land of their birth, treaties, would be induced to take part in the first instance, in the pursuit with her in any conflict with us, from the of such protection. She has often strongest considerations of public policy. before made known her wishes, but her Such a state of things might subject advances have to this time been repelled. to devastation the territory of contigu The executive of the United States sees ous States, and would cost the country no longer any cause for pursuing such a in a single campaign more treasure, course. The hazard of now defeating her thrice told over, than is stipulated to be wishes may be of the most fatal tendency. paid and reimbursed by the treaty now It might lead, and most probably would, proposed for ratification. I will not perto such an entire alienation of sentiment mit myself to dwell on this view of the and feeling as would inevitably induce her subject. Consequences of a fatal characto look elsewhere for aid, and force her ter to the peace of the Union, and even either to enter into dangerous alliances to the preservation of the Union itself, with other nations, who, looking with might be dwelt upon. They will not, |