to form a part of our Confederacy and enjoy with us the blessings of
liberty secured and guaranteed by our Constitution. Texas was once a
part of our country - was unwisely ceded away to a foreign power - is
now independent, and possesses an undoubted right to dispose of a part
or the whole of her territory and to merge her sovereignty as a
separate and independent state in ours. I congratulate my country that
by an act of the late Congress of the United States the assent of this
Government has been given to the reunion, and it only remains for the
two countries to agree upon the terms to consummate an object so
important to both.

I regard the question of annexation as belonging exclusively to the
United States and Texas. They are independent powers competent to
contract, and foreign nations have no right to interfere with them or
to take exceptions to their reunion. Foreign powers do not seem to
appreciate the true character of our Government. Our Union is a
confederation of independent States, whose policy is peace with each
other and all the world. To enlarge its limits is to extend the
dominions of peace over additional territories and increasing millions.
The world has nothing to fear from military ambition in our Government.
While the Chief Magistrate and the popular branch of Congress are
elected for short terms by the suffrages of those millions who must in
their own persons bear all the burdens and miseries of war, our
Government can not be otherwise than pacific. Foreign powers should
therefore look on the annexation of Texas to the United States not as
the conquest of a nation seeking to extend her dominions by arms and
violence, but as the peaceful acquisition of a territory once her own,
by adding another member to our confederation, with the consent of that
member, thereby diminishing the chances of war and opening to them new
and ever-increasing markets for their products.