heretofore been submitted to the Senate in its executive
sessions. The papers communicated embrace not only the series already
made public by orders of the Senate, but others from which the veil
of secrecy has not been removed by that body, but which I deem to be
essential to a just appreciation of the entire question. While the
treaty was pending before the Senate I did not consider it compatible
with the just rights of that body or consistent with the respect
entertained for it to bring this important subject before you. The
power of Congress is, however, fully competent in some other form of
proceeding to accomplish everything that a formal ratification of the
treaty could have accomplished, and I therefore feel that I should but
imperfectly discharge my duty to yourselves or the country if I failed
to lay before you everything in the possession of the Executive which
would enable you to act with full light on the subject if you should
deem it proper to take any action upon it.

I regard the question involved in these proceedings as one of vast
magnitude and as addressing itself to interests of an elevated and
enduring character. A Republic coterminous in territory with our own, of
immense resources, which require only to be brought under the influence
of our confederate and free system in order to be fully developed,
promising at no distant day, through the fertility of its soil, nearly,
if not entirely, to duplicate the exports of the country, thereby making
an addition to the carrying trade to an amount almost incalculable
and giving a new impulse of immense importance to the commercial,
manufacturing, agricultural, and shipping interests of the Union, and at
the same time affording protection to an exposed frontier and placing
the whole country in a condition of security and repose; a territory
settled mostly by emigrants from the United States, who would bring back
with them in the act of reassociation an unconquerable love of freedom
and an ardent attachment to our free institutions--such a question could
not fail to interest most deeply in its success those who under the
Constitution have become responsible for the faithful administration of
public affairs. I have regarded it as not a little fortunate that the
question involved was no way sectional or local, but addressed itself to
the interests of every part of the country and made its appeal to the
glory of the American name.

It is due to the occasion to