e Congress failed to authorize the establishment of custom-houses
or the appointment of officers for that purpose.

The Secretary of the Treasury, by a circular letter addressed to
collectors of the customs on the 7th day of October last, a copy of
which is herewith transmitted, exercised all the power with which he
was invested by law.

In pursuance of the act of the 14th of August last, extending the
benefit of our post-office laws to the people of California, the
Postmaster-General has appointed two agents, who have proceeded, the
one to California and the other to Oregon, with authority to make the
necessary arrangements for carrying its provisions into effect.

The monthly line of mail steamers from Panama to Astoria has been
required to "stop and deliver and take mails at San Diego, Monterey, and
San Francisco." These mail steamers, connected by the Isthmus of Panama
with the line of mail steamers on the Atlantic between New York and
Chagres, will establish a regular mail communication with California.

It is our solemn duty to provide with the least practicable delay for
New Mexico and California regularly organized Territorial governments.
The causes of the failure to do this at the last session of Congress are
well known and deeply to be regretted. With the opening prospects of
increased prosperity and national greatness which the acquisition of
these rich and extensive territorial possessions affords, how irrational
it would be to forego or to reject these advantages by the agitation of
a domestic question which is coeval with the existence of our Government
itself, and to endanger by internal strifes, geographical divisions, and
heated contests for political power, or for any other cause, the harmony
of the glorious Union of our confederated States--that Union which binds
us together as one people, and which for sixty years has been our shield
and protection against every danger. In the eyes of the world and of
posterity how trivial and insignificant will be all our internal
divisions and struggles compared with the preservation of this Union
of the States in all its vigor and with all its countless blessings!
No patriot would foment and excite geographical and sectional divisions.
No lover of his country would deliberately calculate the value of the
Union. Future generations would look in amazement upon the folly of such
a course. Other nations at the present day would look upon it with
astonishment, and