e treaty of Guadalupe
Hidalgo, without the aid of any legislative provision establishing a
government in that Territory, I thought it best not to disturb that
arrangement, made under my predecessor, until Congress should take some
action on that subject. I therefore did not interfere with the powers of
the military commandant, who continued to exercise the functions of
civil governor as before; but I made no such appointment, conferred no
such authority, and have allowed no increased compensation to the
commandant for his services.

With a view to the faithful execution of the treaty so far as lay in the
power of the Executive, and to enable Congress to act at the present
session with as full knowledge and as little difficulty as possible on
all matters of interest in these Territories, I sent the Hon. Thomas
Butler King as bearer of dispatches to California, and certain officers
to California and New Mexico, whose duties are particularly defined in
the accompanying letters of instruction addressed to them severally by
the proper Departments.

I did not hesitate to express to the people of those Territories my
desire that each Territory should, if prepared to comply with the
requisitions of the Constitution of the United States, form a plan of a
State constitution and submit the same to Congress with a prayer for
admission into the Union as a State, but I did not anticipate, suggest,
or authorize the establishment of any such government without the assent
of Congress, nor did I authorize any Government agent or officer to
interfere with or exercise any influence or control over the election of
delegates or over any convention in making or modifying their domestic
institutions or any of the provisions of their proposed constitution. On
the contrary, the instructions given by my orders were that all measures
of domestic policy adopted by the people of California must originate
solely with themselves; that while the Executive of the United States
was desirous to protect them in the formation of any government
republican in its character, to be at the proper time submitted to
Congress, yet it was to be distinctly understood that the plan of such a
government must at the same time be the result of their own deliberate
choice and originate with themselves, without the interference of the
Executive.

I am unable to give any information as to laws passed by any supposed
government in California or of any census taken in eith