astonishing successes of the
American arms have at least put it in the power of the United States to
grant any terms of peace, without incurring the imputation of being
actuated by any but the most elevated motives. It would seem that the
most proud and vain must be satiated with glory, and that the most
reckless and bellicose should be sufficiently glutted with human gore.

A more truly glorious termination of the war, a more splendid spectacle,
an example more highly useful to mankind at large, cannot well be
conceived, than that of the victorious forces of the United States
voluntarily abandoning all their conquests, without requiring anything
else than that which was strictly due to our citizens.

VIII.--TERMS OF PEACE.

I have said that the unfounded claim of Texas to the territory between
the Nueces and the Rio Norte, was the greatest impediment to peace. Of
this there can be no doubt. For if, relinquishing the spirit of military
conquest, nothing shall be required but the indemnities due to our
citizens, the United States have only to accept the terms which have
been offered by the Mexican Government. It consents to yield a territory
five degrees of latitude, or near 350 miles in breadth, and extending
from New Mexico to the Pacific. Although the greater part of this is
quite worthless, yet the portion of California lying between the Sierra
Neveda and the Pacific, and including the port of San Francisco, is
certainly worth much more than the amount of indemnities justly due to
our citizens. It is only in order to satisfy those claims, that an
accession of territory may become necessary.

It is not believed that the Executive will favor the wild suggestions of
a subjugation, or annexation of the whole of Mexico, or of any of its
interior provinces. And, if I understand the terms offered by Mr. Trist,
there was no intention to include within the cessions required, the
Province of New Mexico. But the demand of both Old and New California,
or of a sea-coast of more than thirteen hundred miles in length (lat.
23 deg. to 42 deg.), is extravagant and unnecessary. The Peninsula is
altogether worthless, and there is nothing worth contending for South
of San Diego, or about lat. 32 deg.

In saying that, if conquest is not the object of the war, and if the
pretended claim of Texas to the Rio del Norte shall be abandoned, there
cannot be any insuperable obstacle to the restoration of peace, it is by
no means int