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. If any doubt should remain of the correctness of these statements, let them be tested by the divine and undeniable precept, "Do unto others as you would be done by." If at this moment France was to contract a treaty of defensive and offensive alliance with Mexico, a treaty taking effect immediately, and pending the war between the United States and Mexico, and binding herself to defend it with all her forces against any and every other Power, would not the United States at once consider such a treaty as a declaration of war against them? If, in lieu of declaring war against Great Britain, in the year 1812, the United States had only suspended the ordinary diplomatic relations between the two countries; and Great Britain had declared that she would not enter into any negotiation for the settlement of all the subjects of difference between the two countries, unless the United States should, as a preliminary condition, restore those relations; would not this have been considered as a most insolent demand, and to which the United States never would submit? If the United States were, and had been for more than a century, in possession of a tract of country, exclusively inhabited and governed by them, disturbed only by the occasional forays of an enemy; would they not consider the forcible military invasion and occupation of such a district by a third Power, as open and unprovoked war, commenced against them? And could their resistance to the invasion render them liable to the imputation of having themselves commenced the war? Yet it would seem as if the splendid and almost romantic successes of the American arms had, for a while, made the people of the United States deaf to any other consideration than an enthusiastic and exclusive love of military glory; as if, forgetting the origin of the war, and with an entire disregard for the dictates of justice, they thought that those successes gave the nation a right to dismember Mexico, and to appropriate to themselves that which did not belong to them.