II.--INDEMNITIES TO CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES. The United States had, and continue to have, an indubitable right to demand a full indemnity, for any wrongs inflicted on our citizens by the Government of Mexico, in violation of treaties or of the acknowledged law of nations. The negotiations for satisfying those just demands, had been interrupted by the annexation of Texas. When an attempt was subsequently made to renew them, it was therefore just and proper, that both subjects should be discussed at the same time: and it is now absolutely necessary, that those just claims should be fully provided for, in any treaty of peace that may be concluded, and that the payment should be secured against any possible contingency. I take it for granted that no claims have been, or shall be sustained by our Government, but such as are founded on treaties or the acknowledged law of nations. Whenever a nation becomes involved in war, the manifestoes, and every other public act issued for the purpose of justifying its conduct, always embrace every ground of complaint which can possibly be alleged. But admitting, that the refusal to satisfy the claims for indemnity of our citizens might have been a just cause of war, it is most certain, that those claims were not the cause of that in which we are now involved. It may be proper, in the first place, to observe, that the refusal of doing justice, in cases of this kind, or the long delays in providing for them, have not generally produced actual war. Almost always long protracted negotiations have been alone resorted to. This has been strikingly the case with the United States. The claims of Great Britain for British debts, secured by the treaty of 1783, were not settled and paid till the year 1803; and it was only subsequent to that year, that the claims of the United States, for depredations committed in 1793, were satisfied. The very plain question of slaves, carried away by the British forces in 1815, in open violation of the treaty of 1814, was not settled and the indemnity paid till the year 1826. The claims against France for depredations, committed in the years 1806 to 1813, were not settled and paid for till the year 1834. In all those cases, peace was preserved by patience and forbearance. With respect to the Mexican indemnities, the subject had been laid more than once before Congress, not without suggestions that strong measures should be resorted to. But Congress, in whom alone is vested the power of declaring war, uniformly declined doing it.