ade provision for the prosecution of the war is obvious.
Congress could not have meant when, in May, 1846, they appropriated
$10,000,000 and authorized the President to employ the militia and naval
and military forces of the United States and to accept the services of
50,000 volunteers to enable him to prosecute the war, and when, at their
last session, and after our Army had invaded Mexico, they made
additional appropriations and authorized the raising of additional
troops for the same purpose, that no indemnity was to be obtained from
Mexico at the conclusion of the war; and yet it was certain that if no
Mexican territory was acquired no indemnity could be obtained. It is
further manifest that Congress contemplated territorial indemnity from
the fact that at their last session an act was passed, upon the
Executive recommendation, appropriating $3,000,000 with that express
object. This appropriation was made "to enable the President to conclude
a treaty of peace, limits, and boundaries with the Republic of Mexico,
to be used by him in the event that said treaty, when signed by the
authorized agents of the two Governments and duly ratified by Mexico,
shall call for the expenditure of the same or any part thereof." The
object of asking this appropriation was distinctly stated in the several
messages on the subject which I communicated to Congress. Similar
appropriations made in 1803 and 1806, which were referred to, were
intended to be applied in part consideration for the cession of
Louisiana and the Floridas. In like manner it was anticipated that in
settling the terms of a treaty of "limits and boundaries" with Mexico a
cession of territory estimated to be of greater value than the amount of
our demands against her might be obtained, and that the prompt payment
of this sum in part consideration for the territory ceded, on the
conclusion of a treaty and its ratification on her part, might be an
inducement with her to make such a cession of territory as would be
satisfactory to the United States; and although the failure to conclude
such a treaty has rendered it unnecessary to use any part of the
$3,000,000 appropriated by that act, and the entire sum remains in the
Treasury, it is still applicable to that object should the contingency
occur making such application proper.
The doctrine of no territory is the doctrine of no indemnity, and if
sanctioned would be a public acknowledgment that our country was wrong
and that
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