cate herewith a letter received from the President of the
existing Government of the State of Texas, transmitting duplicate copies
of the constitution formed by the deputies of the people of Texas in
convention assembled, accompanied by official information that the said
constitution had been ratified, confirmed, and adopted by the people of
Texas themselves, in accordance with the joint resolution for annexing
Texas to the United States, and in order that Texas might be admitted as
one of the States of that Union.

JAMES K. POLK.

WASHINGTON, _December 10, 1845_.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

I transmit herewith a report of the Secretary of War, in answer to a
resolution of the Senate of the 4th instant, calling for information
"with respect to the practicability and utility of a fort or forts on
Ship Island, on the coast of Mississippi, with a view to the protection
of said coast."

JAMES K. POLK.

WASHINGTON, _December 15, 1845_.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

I herewith communicate to the Senate, for its consideration, a
convention signed on the 14th May of the present year by the minister
of the United States at Berlin with the minister of Saxony at the same
Court, for the mutual abolition of the _droit d'aubaine, droit de
detraction_, and taxes on emigration between the United States and
Saxony; and I communicate with the convention an explanatory dispatch
of the minister of the United States, dated on the 14th May, 1845, and
numbered 267.

JAMES K. POLK.

WASHINGTON, _December 16, 1845_.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

I herewith communicate to the Senate, for its consideration, a
convention concluded and signed at Berlin on the 29th day of January,
1845, between the United States and Prussia, together with certain other
German States, for the mutual extradition of fugitives from justice in
certain cases; and I communicate with the convention the correspondence
necessary to explain it.

In submitting this convention to the Senate I deem it proper to call
their attention to the third article, by which it is stipulated that
"none of the contracting parties shall be bound to deliver up its own
citizens or subjects under the stipulations of this convention."

No such reservation is to be found in our treaties of extradition with
Great Britain and France, the only two nations with whom we have
concluded such treaties. These provide for the surrender of all pers