Nothing remains to consummate the event but the passage of an act by Congress to admit the State of Texas into the Union upon an equal footing with the original states. * As soon as the act to admit Texas as a state shall be passed, the union of the two Republics will be consummated by their own voluntary consent. "This accession to our territory has been a bloodless achievement. No arm of force has been raised to produce the result. The sword has had no part in the victory. We have not sought to extend our territorial possessions by conquest, or our Republican institutions over a reluctant people. It was the deliberate homage of each people to the great principle of our federative Union. "Since that time Mexico has, until recently, occupied an attitude of hostility toward the United States; has been marshalling and organizing armies, issuing proclamations, and avowing the intention to make war on the United States, either by an open declaration, or by invading Texas. Both the Congress and Convention of the people of Texas invited this government to send an army into that territory, to protect and defend them against the menaced attack. Our army was ordered to take position in the country between the Nueces and the Del Norte, and to repel any invasion of the Texan territory which might be attempted by the Mexican forces. Our squadron in the Gulf was ordered to co-operate with the army. But though our army and navy were placed in a position to defend our own and the rights of Texas, they were ordered to commit no act of hostility against Mexico unless she declared war, or was herself the aggressor by striking the first blow. The result has been, that Mexico has made no aggressive movement, and our military and naval commanders have executed their orders with such discretion that the peace of the two Republics has not been disturbed. "Texas had declared her independence, and maintained it by her arms for more than nine years. She has had an organized government in successful operation during that period. Her separate existence as an independent state had been recognized by the United States and the principal powers of Europe. Treaties of commerce and navigation had been concluded with her by different nations, and it had become manifest to the whole world that any further attempt on the part of Mexico to conquer her, or overthrow her government, would be vain. Even Mexico herself had become satisfied of this fact, and while the question of annexation was pending before the people of Texas during the past summer, the government of Mexico, by a formal act, agreed to recognize the independence of Texas, on condition that she would not annex herself to any other power." Such was the state of affairs in December, 1845. Early in the session of Congress, the Constitution of the "State of Texas" was approved, and the annexation was finally consummated in the formal admission of the new state as an equal and independent member of the Federal Union. [A.D. 1846.] The new state government was organized by the election of a governor and General Assembly, which convened on the 20th of February following. General Henderson, who was elected first governor by an overwhelming vote, in his inaugural address congratulated the people of Texas upon the reunion of their country to the sovereignty of the United States, as the result of the extending influence of Republican freedom in America. "We again," he observes, "hail the incorporation of Texas into our Union as one of the most remarkable events of the age. It was accomplished by no violence of the sword, no effusion of blood, no corruption of the people, no constraint upon their inclinations, but in the best spirit of the age, according to the purest principles of free government, by the free consent of the people of the two Republics. It was left for the Anglo-American inhabitants of the Western Continent to furnish a new mode of enlarging the bounds of empire by the more natural tendency of free principles." It was about the middle of March when the American troops, under General Taylor, took up the line of march for the east bank of the Rio del Norte, and on the 28th they pitched their camp opposite the city of Matamoros, where they erected strong field-works, comprising a fortified camp extending nearly three miles along the river. 1HE END. |