Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
General Miramon maintains himself at the capital, and in some of the
distant Provinces there are military governors who pay little respect to
the decrees of either Government. In the meantime the excesses which always
attend upon civil war, especially in Mexico, are constantly recurring.
Outrages of the worst description are committed both upon persons and
property. There is scarcely any form of injury which has not been suffered
by our citizens in Mexico during the last few years. We have been nominally
at peace with that Republic, but "so far as the interests of our commerce,
or of our citizens who have visited the country as merchants, shipmasters,
or in other capacities, are concerned, we might as well have been at war."
Life has been insecure, property unprotected, and trade impossible except
at a risk of loss which prudent men can not be expected to incur. Important
contracts, involving large expenditures, entered into by the central
Government, have been set at defiance by the local governments. Peaceful
American residents, occupying their rightful possessions, have been
suddenly expelled the country, in defiance of treaties and by the mere
force of arbitrary power. Even the course of justice has not been safe from
control, and a recent decree of Miramort permits the intervention of
Government in all suits where either party is a foreigner. Vessels of the
United States have been seized without law, and a consular officer who
protested against such seizure has been fined and imprisoned for disrespect
to the authorities. Military contributions have been levied in violation of
every principle of right, and the American who resisted the lawless demand
has had his property forcibly taken away and has been himself banished.
From a conflict of authority in different parts of the country tariff
duties which have been paid in one place have been exacted over again in
another place. Large numbers of our citizens have been arrested and
imprisoned without any form of examination or any opportunity for a
hearing, and even when released have only obtained their liberty after much
suffering and injury, and without any hope of redress. The wholesale
massacre of Crabbe and his associates without trial in Sonora, as well as
the seizure and murder of four sick Americans who had taken shelter in the
house of an American upon the soil of the United States, was communicated
to Congress at its last session. Murders of a still more atrocious
character have been committed in the very heart of Mexico, under the
authority of Miramon's Government, during the present year. Some of these
were only worthy of a barbarous age, and if they had not been dearly proven
would have seemed impossible in a country which claims to be civilized. Of
this description was the brutal massacre in April last, by order of General
Marquez, of three American physicians who were seized in the hospital at
Tacubaya while attending upon the sick and the dying of both parties, and
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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