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 conquered 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