ecause the question was neither local nor sectional, but made its
appeal to the interests of the whole Union, and of every State in the
Union, that the negotiation, and finally the treaty of annexation, was
entered into; and it has afforded me no ordinary pleasure to perceive
that so far as demonstrations have been made upon it by the people they
have proceeded from all portions of the Union. Mexico may seek to excite
divisions amongst us by uttering unjust denunciations against particular
States, but when she comes to know that the invitations addressed to our
fellow-citizens by Spain, and afterwards by herself, to settle Texas
were accepted by emigrants from all the States, and when, in addition to
this, she refreshes her recollection with the fact that the first effort
which was made to acquire Texas was during the Administration of a
distinguished citizen from an Eastern State, which was afterwards
renewed under the auspices of a President from the Southwest, she will
awake to a knowledge of the futility of her present purpose of sowing
dissensions among us or producing distraction in our councils by attacks
either on particular States or on persons who are now in the retirement
of private life.

Considering the appeal which she now makes to eminent citizens by name,
can she hope to escape censure for having ascribed to them, as well as
to others, a design, as she pretends now for the first time revealed, of
having originated negotiations to despoil her by duplicity and falsehood
of a portion of her territory? The opinion then, as now, prevailed with
the Executive that the annexation of Texas to the Union was a matter
of vast importance. In order to acquire that territory before it
had assumed a position among the independent powers of the earth,
propositions were made to Mexico for a cession of it to the United
States. Mexico saw in these proceedings at the time no cause of
complaint. She is now, when simply reminded of them, awakened to the
knowledge of the fact, which she, through her secretary of state,
promulgates to the whole world as true, that those negotiations were
founded in deception and falsehood and superinduced by unjust and
iniquitous motives. While Texas was a dependency of Mexico the United
States opened negotiations with the latter power for the cession of her
then acknowledged territory, and now that Texas is independent of Mexico
and has maintained a separate existence for nine years, during whic