ries.

All this is plain, and hardly needs argument or elucidation. If Texas
militia, therefore, march into any one of the other States or into any
Territory of the United States, there to execute or enforce any law of
Texas, they become at that moment trespassers; they are no longer
under the protection of any lawful authority, and are to be regarded
merely as intruders; and if within such State or Territory they
obstruct any law of the United States, either by power of arms or mere
power of numbers, constituting such a combination as is too powerful
to be suppressed by the civil authority, the President of the United
States has no option left to him, but is bound to obey the solemn
injunction of the Constitution and exercise the high powers vested in
him by that instrument and by the acts of Congress.

Or if any civil posse, armed or unarmed, enter into any Territory of
the United States, under the protection of the laws thereof, with
intent to seize individuals, to be carried elsewhere for trial for
alleged offenses, and this posse be too powerful to be resisted by the
local civil authorities, such seizure or attempt to seize is to be
prevented or resisted by the authority of the United States.

The grave and important question now arises whether there be in
the Territory of New Mexico any existing law of the United States
opposition to which or the obstruction of which would constitute a
case calling for the interposition of the authority vested in the
President.

The Constitution of the United States declares that--

This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be
made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or which shall be
made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme
law of the land.

If, therefore, New Mexico be a Territory of the United States, and if
any treaty stipulation be in force therein, such treaty stipulation
is the supreme law of the land, and is to be maintained and upheld
accordingly.

In the letter to the governor of Texas my reasons are given for
believing that New Mexico is now a Territory of the United States,
with the same extent and the same boundaries which belonged to it
while in the actual possession of the Republic of Mexico, and before
the late war. In the early part of that war both California and New
Mexico were conquered by the arms of the United States, and were
in the military possession of the United States at the