ington this ---- day of ---- A.D. 1842, and of
the Independence of the United States the sixty-sixth.

[L.S.] JOHN TYLER.

By the President:
DANL. WEBSTER,
_Secretary of State_.

WASHINGTON, _April 22, 1844_.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

I transmit herewith, for your approval and ratification, a treaty which
I have caused to be negotiated between the United States and Texas,
whereby the latter, on the conditions therein set forth, has transferred
and conveyed all its right of separate and independent sovereignty and
jurisdiction to the United States. In taking so important a step I have
been influenced by what appeared to me to be the most controlling
considerations of public policy and the general good, and in having
accomplished it, should it meet with your approval, the Government will
have succeeded in reclaiming a territory which formerly constituted a
portion, as it is confidently believed, of its domain under the treaty
of cession of 1803 by France to the United States.

The country thus proposed to be annexed has been settled principally
by persons from the United States, who emigrated on the invitation
of both Spain and Mexico, and who carried with them into the wilderness
which they have partially reclaimed the laws, customs, and political
and domestic institutions of their native land. They are deeply
indoctrinated in all the principles of civil liberty, and will bring
along with them in the act of reassociation devotion to our Union and
a firm and inflexible resolution to assist in maintaining the public
liberty unimpaired--a consideration which, as it appears to me, is to be
regarded as of no small moment. The country itself thus obtained is of
incalculable value in an agricultural and commercial point of view. To a
soil of inexhaustible fertility it unites a genial and healthy climate,
and is destined at a day not distant to make large contributions to the
commerce of the world. Its territory is separated from the United States
in part by an imaginary line, and by the river Sabine for a distance
of 310 miles, and its productions are the same with those of many of
the contiguous States of the Union. Such is the country, such are its
inhabitants, and such its capacities to add to the general wealth of the
Union. As to the latter, it may be safely asserted that in the magnitude
of its productions it will equal in a short time, under the protecting
care of this Government, if it do