A claim has been advanced by the State of Texas to a very large portion of the most populous district of New Mexico. If the people of New Mexico had formed a plan of a State government for that Territory as ceded by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and had been admitted by Congress as a State, our Constitution would have afforded the means of obtaining an adjustment of the question of boundary with Texas by a judicial decision. At present, however, no judicial tribunal has the power of deciding that question, and it remains for Congress to devise some mode for its adjustment. Meanwhile, I submit to Congress the question whether it would be expedient, before such adjustment, to establish a territorial government, which, by including the district so claimed, would practically decide the question adversely to the State of Texas or, by excluding it, would decide it in her favor. In my opinion, such a course would not be expedient, especially as the people of this Territory still enjoy the benefit and protection of their municipal laws, originally derived from Mexico, and have a military force stationed there to protect them against the Indians. It is undoubtedly true that the property, lives, liberties, and religion of the people of New Mexico are better protected than they ever were before the treaty of cession. Should Congress, when California shall present herself for incorporation into the Union, annex a condition to her admission as a State affecting her domestic institutions, contrary to the wishes of her people, and even compel her temporarily, to comply with it, yet the State, could change her Constitution at any time after admission, when to her it should seem expedient. Any attempt to deny to the people of the State the right of self-government, in a matter which peculiarly affects themselves, will infallibly be regarded by them as an invasion of their rights; and, upon the principles laid down in our own Declaration of Independence, they will certainly be sustained by the great mass of the American people. To assert that they are a conquered people, and must, as a State, submit to the will of their conquerors in this regard, will meet with no cordial response among American freemen. Great numbers of them are native citizens of the United States not inferior to the rest of our countrymen in intelligence and patriotism; and no language of menace, to restrain them in the exercise of an undoubted right, guarantied to them by the treaty of cession itself, shall ever be uttered by me, or encouraged and sustained by persons acting under my authority. It is to be expected that, in the residue of the Territory ceded to us by Mexico, the people residing there will, at the time of their incorporation into the Union as a State, settle all questions of domestic policy to suit themselves. No material inconvenience will result from the want, for a short period, of a government established by Congress over that