ier. The laws are a dead letter
and life and property wholly insecure. For this reason the settlement of
Arizona is arrested, whilst it is of great importance that a chain of
inhabitants should extend all along its southern border sufficient for
their own protection and that of the United States mail passing to and
from California. Well-founded apprehensions are now entertained that
the Indians and wandering Mexicans, equally lawless, may break up the
important stage and postal communication recently established between
our Atlantic and Pacific possessions. This passes very near to the
Mexican boundary throughout the whole length of Arizona. I can imagine
no possible remedy for these evils and no mode of restoring law and
order on that remote and unsettled frontier but for the Government of
the United States to assume a temporary protectorate over the northern
portions of Chihuahua and Sonora and to establish military posts within
the same; and this I earnestly recommend to Congress. This protection
may be withdrawn as soon as local governments shall be established in
these Mexican States capable of performing their duties to the United
States, restraining the lawless, and preserving peace along the border.

I do not doubt that this measure will be viewed in a friendly spirit by
the governments and people of Chihuahua and Sonora, as it will prove
equally effectual for the protection of their citizens on that remote
and lawless frontier as for citizens of the United States.

And in this connection permit me to recall your attention to the
condition of Arizona. The population of that Territory, numbering, as is
alleged, more than 10,000 souls, are practically without a government,
without laws, and without any regular administration of justice. Murder
and other crimes are committed with impunity. This state of things calls
loudly for redress, and I therefore repeat my recommendation for the
establishment of a Territorial government over Arizona.

The political condition of the narrow isthmus of Central America,
through which transit routes pass between the Atlantic and Pacific
oceans, presents a subject of deep interest to all commercial nations.
It is over these transits that a large proportion of the trade and
travel between the European and Asiatic continents is destined to pass.
To the United States these routes are of incalculable importance as a
means of communication between their Atlantic and Pacific possessions.