gress, be found to be in compliance with the
requisitions of the Constitution of the United States, I earnestly
recommend that it may receive the sanction of Congress.

The part of California not included in the proposed State of that name
is believed to be uninhabited, except in a settlement of our countrymen
in the vicinity of Salt Lake.

A claim has been advanced by the State of Texas to a very large portion
of the most populous district of the Territory commonly designated by
the name of New Mexico. If the people of New Mexico had formed a plan of
a State government for that Territory as ceded by the treaty of
Guadalupe Hidalgo, and had been admitted by Congress as a State, our
Constitution would have afforded the means of obtaining an adjustment of
the question of boundary with Texas by a judicial decision. At present,
however, no judicial tribunal has the power of deciding that question,
and it remains for Congress to devise some mode for its adjustment.
Meanwhile I submit to Congress the question whether it would be
expedient before such adjustment to establish a Territorial government,
which by including the district so claimed would practically decide the
question adversely to the State of Texas, or by excluding it would
decide it in her favor. In my opinion such a course would not be
expedient, especially as the people of this Territory still enjoy the
benefit and protection of their municipal laws originally derived from
Mexico and have a military force stationed there to protect them against
the Indians. It is undoubtedly true that the property, lives, liberties,
and religion of the people of New Mexico are better protected than they
ever were before the treaty of cession.

Should Congress, when California shall present herself for incorporation
into the Union, annex a condition to her admission as a State affecting
her domestic institutions contrary to the wishes of her people, and even
compel her temporarily to comply with it, yet the State could change her
constitution at any time after admission when to her it should seem
expedient. Any attempt to deny to the people of the State the right of
self-government in a matter which peculiarly affects themselves will
infallibly be regarded by them as an invasion of their rights, and, upon
the principles laid down in our own Declaration of Independence, they
will certainly be sustained by the great mass of the American people. To
assert that they are a conquere