s become a
question between the State of Texas and the United States. So far as
this boundary is doubtful, that doubt can 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; but
in the meantime, if disturbances or collisions arise or should be
threatened, it is absolutely incumbent on the executive government,
however painful 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 bound to protect all
inhabitants who were then established and who now remain north and
east of the line of demarcation in the full enjoyment of their liberty
and property, according to the provisions of the ninth article of the
treaty. In other words, all must be now regarded as New Mexico which
was possessed and occupied 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.

This assertion of duty to protect the people of New Mexico from
threatened violence, or from seizure to be carried into Texas for
trial for alleged offenses against Texan laws, does not at all include
any claim of power on the part of the Executive to establish any civil
or military government within that Territory. _That power_ belongs
exclusively to the legislative department, and Congress is the sole
judge of the time and manner of creating or authorizing any such
government.

The duty of the Executive extends only to the execution of laws and
the maintenance of treaties already in force and the protection of all
the people of the United States in the enjoyment of the rights which
those treaties and laws guarantee.

It is exceedingly desirable that no occasion should arise for
the exercise of the powers thus vested in the President by the
Constitution and the laws. With whatever mildness those powers might
be executed, or however clear the case of necessity, yet consequences
might, nevertheless, follow of which no human sagacity can foresee
either the evils or the end.

Having thus laid before Congress the communication of his excellency
the governor of Texas and the answer thereto, and having made such
observations as I have thought the occasion called for respecting
constitutional obligations which may arise in the further progress of
things and may devolve on me to be perf