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Show TERRITORY OF NEW MEXICO 281 all territory exterior to the same. The state of Texas was paid ten million dollars. The territory, as thus organized in 1850, included the New Mexico and Arizona of today with a small portion of Colorado. Texas was never justified in making the claims which she did as to her western boundary being the Rio Grande, but if the Texans really had no faith in the claim when first made, they asserted their ownership so frequently and with such vigor that they finally came to the conclusion that it was just. At any rate Texas was strong enough to compel a payment of ten million dollars by the general government, whether the claim was just or not. The demands of the creditors of the state of Texas had much to do with the acceptance of the act of congress.2°* By the compromise measures determined upon by congress after debates lasting more than six months, the ment at Washington he was notified that if Texas attempted a forcible possession of Santa Fé, the Texans would be treated as intruders. In the heat of the controversy some of our writers contended that if the delegate from New Mexico was admitted to his seat in congress, the Texas delegates should withdraw, and the state resume her separate nationality.’’ — Secretary of War — Letter — to Colonel Munroe — Cal. and N. M. Mess., 1850, p. 272. 208 The governor that New of Texas Mexico was was notified by the president a territory of the United of the United States States, with the same extent and the same boundaries which belonged to it while in the actual possession of Mexico before the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. ‘‘The executive government of the United States,’’ said Zachary Taylor, ‘‘has no power or authority to determine what was the true line of boundary between Mexico and the United States before the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, nor has it any such Power now, since the question has become a question between the State of Texas and the United States. So far as the boundary is doub‘ful, that doubt ran only be removed by some act of congress, to.which the assent. of the state of Texas may be necessary, or by some appropriate mode of legal adjudication; pes in the meantime, if disturbances or collisions arise or should be threatened, it 1s absolutely incumbent on the executive government, however painfnl the duty, to take care that the laws be faithfully maintained; and he can regard only the actual state of things as it existed at the date of the treaty, and is bourd to protect all the inhabitants who were then established and who now remain north and east of the line of demarcation, in the full enjoyment of their liberty the treaty. anid Property, according to the provisions of the ninth article of In other words, all must be now regarded as New Mexico which was possessed and oceupied as New Mexico, by citizens of Mexico at the date of the treaty, until a definite line of boundary shall be established by competent authority. . The importance of immediate action by the congress of the United States inlonsthe ofsettlement of this boundary question, was most apparent. All considera: justice, general expediency, and domestic tranquility demanded 1t. ¢ was seen that no government could be established for New Mexico, either State or territorial, until it was ascertained just what New Mexico was, and what were her rightful limits and boundaries, and the president recommended to congress that the general government ‘‘would be justified in ett AR iMdemnity to Texas not unreasonable or extravagant but fair and liberal, and awarded in a just spirit of accommodation.’’ |