de facto and de jure.  She was an independent State of the Confederation of Mexican Republics.  When by violent revolution Mexico declared the Confederation at an end, Texas owed her no longer allegiance, but claimed and has maintained the right for eight years to a separate and distinct position.  During that period no army has invaded her with a view to her reconquest; and if she has not yet established her right to be treated as a nation independent de facto and de jure, it would be difficult to say at what period she will attain to that condition.

Nor can we by any fair or any legitimate inference be accused of violating any treaty stipulations with Mexico.  The treaties with Mexico give no guaranty of any sort and are coexistent with a similar treaty with Texas.  So have we treaties with most of the nations of the earth which are equally as much violated by the annexation of Texas to the United States as would be our treaty with Mexico.  The treaty is merely commercial and intended as the instrument for more accurately defining the rights and securing the interests of the citizens of each country.  What bad faith can be implied or charged upon the Government of the United States for successfully negotiating with an independent power upon any subject not violating the stipulations of such treaty I confess my inability to discern.

The objections which have been taken to the enlargement of our territory were urged with much zeal against the acquisition of Louisiana, and yet the futility of such has long since been fully demonstrated.  Since that period a new power has been introduced into the affairs of the world, which has for all practical purposes brought Texas much nearer to the seat of Government than Louisiana was at the time of its annexation.  Distant regions are by the application of the steam engine brought within a close proximity.

With the views which I entertain on the subject, I should prove faithless to the high trust which the Constitution has devolved upon me if I neglected to invite the attention of the representatives of the people to it at the earliest moment that a due respect for the Senate would allow me so to do.  I should find in the urgency of the matter a sufficient apology, if one was wanting, since annexation is to encounter a great, if not certain, hazard of final defeat if something be not now done to prevent it.  Upon this point I can not too impressively invite your attention to my message of the 16th of May and to the documents which accompany it, which have not heretofore been made public.  If it be objected that the names of the writers of some of the private letters are withheld, all that I can say is that it is done for reasons regarded as altogether adequate, and that the writers are persons of the first respectability and citizens of Texas, and have such means of obtaining information as to entitle their statements to full credit.  Nor has anything occurred to weaken, but, on the contrary, much to confirm, my confidence in the statements of General Jackson, and my own statement, made at the close of that message, in the belief, amounting almost to certainty, “that instructions have already been given by the Texan Government to propose to the Government of Great Britain, forthwith on the failure [of the treaty], to enter into a treaty of commerce and an alliance offensive and defensive.”