d people and must as a State submit to
the will of their conquerors in this regard will meet with no cordial
response among American freemen. Great numbers of them are native
citizens of the United States, not inferior to the rest of our
countrymen in intelligence and patriotism, and no language of menace to
restrain them in the exercise of an undoubted right, substantially
guaranteed to them by the treaty of cession itself, shall ever be
uttered by me or encouraged and sustained by persons acting under my
authority. It is to be expected that in the residue of the territory
ceded to us by Mexico the people residing there will at the time of
their incorporation into the Union as a State settle all questions of
domestic policy to suit themselves.

No material inconvenience will result from the want for a short period
of a government established by Congress over that part of the territory
which lies eastward of the new State of California; and the reasons for
my opinion that New Mexico will at no very distant period ask for
admission into the Union are founded on unofficial information which, I
suppose, is common to all who have cared to make inquiries on that
subject.

Seeing, then, that the question which now excites such painful
sensations in the country will in the end certainly be settled by the
silent effect of causes independent of the action of Congress, I again
submit to your wisdom the policy recommended in my annual message of
awaiting the salutary operation of those causes, believing that we shall
thus avoid the creation of geographical parties and secure the harmony
of feeling so necessary to the beneficial action of our political
system. Connected, as the Union is, with the remembrance of past
happiness, the sense of present blessings, and the hope of future peace
and prosperity, every dictate of wisdom, every feeling of duty, and
every emotion of patriotism tend to inspire fidelity and devotion to it
and admonish us cautiously to avoid any unnecessary controversy which
can either endanger it or impair its strength, the chief element of
which is to be found in the regard and affection of the people for each
other.

Z. TAYLOR.

[A similar message, dated January 21, 1850, was sent to the House of
Representatives, in answer to a resolution of that body.]

WASHINGTON, _January 23, 1850_.

_To the Senate of the United States:_

I transmit to the Senate a copy of the convention between the United
Stat