nywhere! It
has no _belongings_ about it! At this moment it is absolutely more
retired and shut out from communication with the civilized world than
Hawaii or any of the other islands of the Pacific sea. In seclusion and
remoteness, New Mexico may press hard on the character and condition of
Typee. And its people are infinitely less elevated, in morals and
condition, than the people of the Sandwich Islands. We had much better
have Senators from Oahu. They are far less intelligent than the better
class of our Indian neighbors. Commend me to the Cherokees, to the
Choctaws; if you please, speak of the Pawnees, of the Snakes, the
Flatfeet, of any thing but the _Digging_ Indians, and I will be
satisfied not to take the people of New Mexico. Have they any notion of
our institutions, or of _any_ free institutions? Have they any notion of
popular government? Not the slightest! Not the slightest on earth! When
the question is asked, What will be their constitution? it is farcical
to talk of such people making a constitution for themselves. They do not
know the meaning of the term, they do not know its import. They know
nothing at all about it; and I can tell you, Sir, that when they are
made a Territory, and are to be made a State, such a constitution as the
executive power of this government may think fit to send them will be
sent, and will be adopted. The constitution of our _fellow citizens_ of
New Mexico will be framed in the city of Washington.

Now what says in regard to all Mexico Colonel Hardin, that most lamented
and distinguished officer, honorably known as a member of the other
house, and who has fallen gallantly fighting in the service of his
country? Here is his description:--

"The whole country is miserably watered. Large districts have no
water at all. The streams are small, and at great distances apart.
One day we marched on the road from Monclova to Parras thirty-five
miles without water, a pretty severe day's marching for infantry.

"Grass is very scarce, and indeed there is none at all in many
regions for miles square. Its place is supplied with prickly-pear
and thorny bushes. There is not one acre in two hundred, more
probably not one in five hundred, of all the land we have seen in
Mexico, which can ever be cultivated; the greater portion of it is
the most desolate region I could ever have imagined. The pure
granite hills of New England are a paradise