A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Volume 4, part 3: James Knox Polk
History
A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Volume 4, part 3: James Knox Polk
Polk, James K. (James Knox), 1795-1849; Presidents -- United States; United States -- History -- Sources; United States -- Politics and government
In the month of May, 1836, Santa Anna acknowledged by a treaty with the
Texan authorities in the most solemn form "the full, entire, and perfect
independence of the Republic of Texas." It is true he was then a
prisoner of war, but it is equally true that he had failed to reconquer
Texas, and had met with signal defeat; that his authority had not been
revoked, and that by virtue of this treaty he obtained his personal
release. By it hostilities were suspended, and the army which had
invaded Texas under his command returned in pursuance of this
arrangement unmolested to Mexico.
From the day that the battle of San Jacinto was fought until the present
hour Mexico has never possessed the power to reconquer Texas. In the
language of the Secretary of State of the United States in a dispatch to
our minister in Mexico under date of the 8th of July, 1842--
Mexico may have chosen to consider, and may still choose to consider,
Texas as having been at all times since 1835, and as still continuing,
a rebellious province; but the world has been obliged to take a very
different view of the matter. From the time of the battle of San
Jacinto, in April, 1836, to the present moment, Texas has exhibited the
same external signs of national independence as Mexico herself, and with
quite as much stability of government. Practically free and independent,
acknowledged as a political sovereignty by the principal powers of the
world, no hostile foot finding rest within her territory for six or
seven years, and Mexico herself refraining for all that period from any
further attempt to reestablish her own authority over that territory,
it can not but be surprising to find Mr. De Bocanegra [the secretary
of foreign affairs of Mexico] complaining that for that whole period
citizens of the United States or its Government have been favoring the
rebels of Texas and supplying them with vessels, ammunition, and money,
as if the war for the reduction of the Province of Texas had been
constantly prosecuted by Mexico, and her success prevented by these
influences from abroad.
In the same dispatch the Secretary of State affirms that--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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