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amount? They were passed soon after the Texan revolution, and they profess to lay out the whole country to the east bank of that river into counties. But Texas never was in possession of this country, and these counties and their lines were only imaginary. They were merely counties in the statute book a—system of paper blockades, which every one knows to be illegal, and of no binding force. The gentlemen from Texas have attempted to sustain their claim by the same argument; but, when pressed, they have been compelled to acknowledge that they never had any settlements in the valley of the Rio Grande. One of the gentlemen has said that they raised a company of rangers, which had made incursions into the country west of the desert, and in this way they established their jurisdiction. But the absurdity of such a position is manifest.
[Mr. Pillsbury here rose and said, that Texas had maintained permanent military possession as far west as she had any settlements.]
I have no disposition to dispute that; she may have held possession as far as she had any population, but that population never extended west of Corpus Christi. Texas never had any settlements in the valley of the Rio Grande.
[Mr. Pillsbury. The same is true of Mexico. Neither Texas nor Mexico inhabited the country on the east side of that river.]
The gentleman is right, so far as Texas is concerned; but Mexico had settlements there. The documents submitted by the President himself prove that Mexico had military posts in that country; that she had a customhouse at Brasos Santiago, and that the Mexicans at Point Isabel fired the town, and fled across the river, at the approach of our army. These documents prove beyond controversy that the Texan claim was invalid; that Mexico was in possession, and hence that the march of our army to the Rio Grande was aggressive on our part, and fully justified the Mexican sin resistance. This is the true state of the case, and I defy any gentleman to refute it.
But, Mr. Chairman, we are pointed to the war of 1812, and to the sentence which has been passed upon those who opposed it. I admit that that war was declared for just cause. I thought so then, and I think so now; and if the war in which we are now engaged was of the same character, it would have my cordial support. I am not among those who believe that war is never justifiable. Great as the evil is, war may justly be resorted to in self-defence or self-preservation. But why point to the war of 1812? If the present war with Mexico can be justified on its merits, why bring the war of 1812 to its aid? The fact is, that the flatterers of the President, who attempt to sustain this war, are conscious of their inability to justify it on its merits, and hence they attempt to associate it with the war of 1812. But what was that war? It was one of defence, declared to protect our trade, to defend our seamen, and sustain our character as a free people. It has justly been denominated, the second war of independence.
Mr. Madison, in his message recommending the war of 1812, among other things, sets forth the following as causes of the war:
