That it might be manifest, not only to Mexico, but to all other nations,
that the United States were not disposed to take advantage of a feeble
power by insisting upon wresting from her all the other Provinces,
including many of her principal towns and cities, which we had conquered
and held in our military occupation, but were willing to conclude a
treaty in a spirit of liberality, our commissioner was authorized to
stipulate for the restoration to Mexico of all our other conquests.

As the territory to be acquired by the boundary proposed might be
estimated to be of greater value than a fair equivalent for our just
demands, our commissioner was authorized to stipulate for the payment of
such additional pecuniary consideration as was deemed reasonable.

The terms of a treaty proposed by the Mexican commissioners were wholly
inadmissible. They negotiated as if Mexico were the victorious, and not
the vanquished, party. They must have known that their ultimatum could
never be accepted. It required the United States to dismember Texas by
surrendering to Mexico that part of the territory of that State lying
between the Nueces and the Rio Grande, included within her limits by her
laws when she was an independent republic, and when she was annexed to
the United States and admitted by Congress as one of the States of our
Union. It contained no provision for the payment by Mexico of the just
claims of our citizens. It required indemnity to Mexican citizens for
injuries they may have sustained by our troops in the prosecution of the
war. It demanded the right for Mexico to levy and collect the Mexican
tariff of duties on goods imported into her ports while in our military
occupation during the war, and the owners of which had paid to officers
of the United States the military contributions which had been levied
upon them; and it offered to cede to the United States, for a pecuniary