ceived until yesterday. Accompanying your letter you transmit to me, as you state, "a copy of the proceedings of a very large meeting of the citizens of Cincinnati, assembled on the 29th ult., to express their settled opposition to the annexation of Texas to the United States." You request from me an explicit expression of opinion upon this question of annexation. Having at no time entertained opinions upon public subjects which I was unwilling to avow, it gives me pleasure to comply with the request. I have no hesitation in declaring, that I am in favor of the immediate reännexation of Texas to the territory and government of the United States. I entertain no doubts as to the power or expediency of the reännexation. The proof is fair and satisfactory to my own mind, that Texas once constituted a part of the territory of the United States, the title to which I regard to have been indisputable as that to any portion of our territory. At the time the negotiation was opened with a view to acquire the Floridas, and the settlement of other questions, and pending that negotiation, the Spanish Government itself was satisfied of the validity of our title, and was ready to recognize a line far west of the Sabine as the true western boundary of Louisiana, as defined by the treaty of 1803 with France, under which Louisiana was acquired. This negotiation, which had at first opened at Madrid, was broken off and transferred to Washington, where it was resumed, and resulted in the treaty with Florida, by which the Sabine was fixed on as the western boundary of Louisiana. From the ratification of the treaty of 1803 with France, until the treaty of 1819, with Spain, the territory now constituting the Re

public of Texas, belonged to the United States. In 1819 the Florida treaty was concluded at Washington, by Mr. John Q. Adams, (the Secretary of State,) on the part of the United States, and Don Luis de Onis on the part of Spain; and by that treaty this territory lying west of the Sabine, and constituting Texas, was ceded by the United States to Spain. The Rio del Norte, or some more western boundary than the Sabine, could have been obtained, had it been insisted on by the American Secretary of State, and by increasing the consideration paid for the Floridas. In my judgment, the country west of the Sabine, and now called Texas, was most unwisely ceded away. It is a part of the great valley of the Mississippi, directly connected by its navigable waters with the Mississippi river and having once been a part of our Union, it should never have been dismembered from it. The Government and people of Texas, it is understood, not only give their consent, but are anxiously desirous to be reunited to the United States. If the application of Texas for a reünion and admission into our Confederacy, shall be rejected by the United States, there is imminent danger that she will become a dependency if not a colony of Great Britain-an event which no American patriot, anxious for the safety and prosperity of this country, could permit to occur without the most strenuous resistance. Let Texas be reännexed, and the authority and laws of the United States be established and maintained within her limits, as also in the Oregon Territory, and let the fixed policy of our Government be, not to permit Great Britain or any other foreign power to plant a col ony or hold dominion over any portion of the people o territory of either.

I

These are my opinions; and without deeming it necessary to extend this letter, by assigning the many reasons which influence me in the conclusions to which I come, regret to be compelled to differ so widely from the views expressed by yourselves, and the meeting of citizens of Cincinnati whom you represent. Differing, however, with you and with them as I do, it was due to frankness that I should be thus explicit in the declaration of my opinions.

I am, with great respect,

Your obedient servant,

JAMES K. POLK.

To Messrs. S. P. CHASE, THOMAS HEATON, &c., &c.,
Committee, Cincinnati.

Mr. Polk concurred in the opinion entertained, and expressed on various occasions, by the most distinguished statesmen and diplomatists of the United States-by Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Livingston, Clay, Adams, Jackson, and Van Buren—that Texas formed part of Louisiana, and was included in the territory ceded to the American government by France in 1803. La Salle, a Frenchman, was the first white man that descended the Mississippi river to its mouth, and "the first to display the lily of France to the winds of that imperial valley." The first white colony, too, planted in Texas, was established by the French, under La Salle, on the bay of St. Bernard, or Matagorda, in the year 1685.* The Spaniards, indeed, claimed that the country formed part of the conquest of Cortés, and in 1690 they drove out the

*Marbois' History of Louisiana, p. 107.

French colony, and made their first permanent settlement at San Francisco; but the French always insisted upon their prior right of discovery, and the early Spanish geographers seemed more than half disposed to concede it.* Texas was included in the grant made by Louis XIV. to Crozat, Marquis du Châtel, in 1712.† It was subsequently ceded to Spain, in 1761, and in 1800 retroceded to France, as a part of Louisiana, by the treaty of San Ildefonso. Such, at least, was the understanding of the French government, and of the American plenipotentiaries, when the treaty of 1803 was concluded, by which the United States acquired all "the rights and appurtenances" belonging to France under or by virtue of the treaty of San Ildefonso.§ The Spanish government, with the tenacity peculiar to their national character, still urged their claims, and were desirous of limiting the United States to the valley of the Mississippi proper. A protracted negotiation ensued between them and Spain. The latter was inclined to surrender all her pretensions to the territory extending westward from the Mississippi to the Rio Grande ; but this was rendered unnecessary, as the government of the United States consented to renounce its rights west of the Sabine river, in consideration of the cession of the Floridas, by the treaty of 1819. And, what is a remarkable feature in this ne

* Diccionario Geográfico-Historico de las Indias Occidentales ó América, (Madrid, 1789,) v. " Louisiana."

† 1 Laws, 439.

+ Marbois' History of Louisiana, p. 107, et seq.

§ Lyman's Diplomacy, vol. i, p. 399.

|| Exposé of Hon. George W. Erving, American Minister to Spain.

T Elliott's Diplomatic Code, vol. i., p. 417.

gotiation, when the Spanish minister, Don Luis de Onis, who had concluded the treaty on the part of his government, returned home, he boasted that he had obtained a great advantage, by his superior tact and ability.

The cession of Texas, or the renunciation of the American claim, in 1819, was, in the opinion of Mr. Polk, most unwisely made; and he heartily approved of the efforts of John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson, during their respective administrations, to recover the territory thus surrendered. He therefore favored the reäcquisition, or reännexation of Texas, when the measure was first proposed. It was desirable, in his estimation, in a geographical point of view, because the territory formed a most valuable part of the valley of the Mississippi; and highly important, in a military aspect, for the security of New Orleans, the great commercial mart in the southwestern part of the Union, which would be endangered, in time of war, by a hostile power being in such close proximity, and having the control of the upper waters of the Red river, by which it could be approached, or seriously menaced, in the rear.

There was but one question of doubt connected with the proposition for the annexation of Texas; and that was, in what manner, and to what extent, it would affect the relations of the United States with Mexico, already on a most unfriendly footing. But the difficulty which this question presented, was rather apparent than real. Under the Spanish colonial government, Texas was a separate and distinct province, having a separate and distinct local organization; and it remained in that condition until its temporary union with Coahuila, with which it formed the "State of Coahuila y Tejas."