been more urgently pressed upon us, not only to maintain, but to
increase, our military means; not only to continue the war, but to press
it still more vigorously than at present.

Pray, what does all this mean? Is it, I ask, confessed, then,--is it
confessed that we are no nearer a peace than we were when we snatched up
this bit of paper called, or miscalled, a treaty, and ratified it? Have
we yet to fight it out to the utmost, as if nothing pacific had
intervened?

I wish, Sir, to treat the proceedings of this and of every department of
the government with the utmost respect. The Constitution of this
government, and the exercise of its just powers in the administration of
the laws under it, have been the cherished object of all my unimportant
life. But, if the subject were not one too deeply interesting, I should
say our proceedings here may well enough cause a smile. In the ordinary
transaction of the foreign relations of this and of all other
governments, the course has been to negotiate first, and to ratify
afterwards. This seems to be the natural order of conducting intercourse
between foreign states. We have chosen to reverse this order. We ratify
first, and negotiate afterwards. We set up a treaty, such as we find it
and choose to make it, and then send two ministers plenipotentiary to
negotiate thereupon in the capital of the enemy. One would think, Sir,
the ordinary course of proceeding much the juster; that to negotiate, to
hold intercourse, and come to some arrangement, by authorized agents,
and then to submit that arrangement to the sovereign authority to which
these agents are responsible, would be always the most desirable method
of proceeding. It strikes me that the course we have adopted is strange,
is even _grotesque_. So far as I know, it is unprecedented in the
history of diplomatic intercourse. Learned gentlemen on the floor of the
Senate, interested to defend and protect this course, may, in their
extensive reading, have found examples of it. I know of none.

Sir, we are in possession, by military power, of New Mexico and
California, countries belonging hitherto to the United States of Mexico.
We are informed by the President that it is his purpose to retain them,
to consider them as territory fit to be attached to these United States
of America; and our military operations and designs now before the
Senate are to enforce this claim of the executive of the United States.
We are to compel Mexico t