conclusion was almost unavoidable that when Texas came into the Union,
her actual sovereignty extended to the Rio Grande. But further
examination would have shown Douglas, that the only inhabited portion
of the so-called counties were the towns on the right bank of the
Nueces: beyond, lay a waste which was still claimed by Mexico. Was he
misinformed, or had he hastily selected the usable portion of the
evidence? Once again, in his eagerness to show that Mexico, so
recently as 1842, had tacitly recognized the Rio Grande as a boundary
in her military operations, he controverted his own argument that
Texas had been in undisturbed possession of the country. He
corroborated the conviction of those who from the first had asserted
that, in annexing Texas, the United States had annexed a war. This
from the man who had formerly declared that the danger of war was
remote, because there had been no war between Mexico and Texas for
nine years!

Before a vote could be reached on the Ten Regiments bill, the draft
of the Mexican treaty had been sent to the Senate. What transpired in
executive session and what part Douglas sustained in the discussion of
the treaty, may be guessed pretty accurately by his later admissions.
He was one of an aggressive minority who stoutly opposed the provision
of the fifth article of the treaty, which was to this effect: "The
boundary-line established by this article shall be religiously
respected by each of the two republics, and no change shall ever be
made therein except by the express and free consent of both nations,
lawfully given by the general government of each, in conformity with
its own Constitution." This statement was deemed a humiliating avowal
that the United States had wrongfully warred upon Mexico, and a solemn
pledge that we would never repeat the offense. The obvious retort was
that certain consciences now seemed hypersensitive about the war.