Renewal of Negotiations

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a desire to have inserted an additional article declaring the treaty of 1819 to be binding upon the two countries.38 Poinsett considered the sum much too small, and decided not to submit the

39

proposal at this time. In May he urged that the boundary question be settled, but he did not suggest the idea of sale.10

Nothing more was done toward a settlement of the boundary question until the fall of 1827, when the Mexican government appropriated fifteen thousand dollars toward defraying the expenses of General Terán. The commission had not yet set out for want of funds and Poinsett tried to dissuade the government from sending it, but to no avail."1

On January 8, 1828, Poinsett reported that "The negotiations were renewed this day, and, from the disposition manifested by the Mexican plenipotentiaries, in the first conference, I have every expectation of concluding the treaty of friendship, navigation, and commerce, favorably and promptly." He then stated again that the Chamber of Deputies would not consider the treaty without an article recognizing the validity of the agreement of 1819. He further observed:

The plenipotentiaries, in reply to all my observations on the subject, and to my proposals to alter the limits, insisted that Mexico had a right to consider that treaty binding upon the United States, as being invested with all the rights of Spain, and bound by all the obligations of the mother country . . . I withdrew my opposition, but observed that, as the treaty of navigation and commerce was for a limited period, and that of limits perpetual, it would be better to make them distinct conventions; to which proposal the Mexican plenipotentiaries consented.+2

38 Poinsett to Clay, April 10, 1827, Congressional Debates, XIV, Pt. 2, App., 134.

39 Rives, The United States and Mexico, I, 169.

40 Manning, in The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, XVII, 238. 41 Poinsett to Clay, October 6, 1827, Congressional Debates, XIV, Pt. 2, App.. 134.

42 Poinsett to Clay, January 8, 1828, ibid., 134. The text of the protocol of the conference of January 8 is printed in House Ex. Docs., 25 Cong., 1 Sess., Doc. 42, p. 27. The Mexican representatives were Sebastian Camacho and José Ignacio Esteva. Reeves (Diplomacy under Tyler and Polk, 64) gives Poinsett's letter as authority that the treaty was

A second conference was held on the tenth, a protocol being drawn up in which were embodied the principles of the previous one, the obligations of the treaty of 1819 being accepted by the representatives of both governments. The preamble and first article of the treaty were also drawn.13 Other conferences followed and on the twelfth the document was signed. It provided that the portion of the treaty of 1819 which fixed the limits should have the same force between Mexico and the United States as it had with Spain, and that each government should appoint a commissioner and a surveyor, who should meet at Natchitoches before the termination of a year from the ratification of the treaty, and run and mark the boundary line. It was further provided that the ratifications were to be exchanged at Washington within four months or sooner.**

The Mexican government attended at once to the appointment of the boundary commission. On March 19 Obregon informed Clay that the commission would consist of General Mier y Terán, Lieutenant Colonels Tarnaba and Batres, SubLieutenant of Artillery Sanchez R. Chovel as mineralogist, and Luis Berlandier, botanist.*5

On the twenty-fourth of April, Poinsett was able to inform his government that the Mexican lower house had ratified the treaty and that it was then before the Senate. He deplored the fact that it would be impossible to send the document in time for the ratification to take place within the designated term. The delay he blamed upon the Mexican Secretary of State, who, he claimed, kept it in his office upwards of two months without

concluded. The Mexican commissioners were assisted in their work by two boundary reports; one was that of Puelles, the other extracts from that of Pichardo. See Manning, in The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, XVII, 240.

43 House Ex. Docs., 25 Cong., 1 Sess., Doc. 42, p. 28; Poinsett to Clay, February 7, 1828, Congressional Debates, XIV, Pt. 2, App., 134–135. 44 Treaties, Conventions (Malloy, ed.), I, 1082-1084.

45 Obregón to Clay, March 19, 1828, Congressional Debates, XIV, Pt. 2, App., 140.

Treaty fails of Ratification

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submitting it to Congress. On the following day the treaty was ratified by the Senate, and Poinsett sent it to the United States with the full knowledge that it could not arrive within the time limit and that it would have to be submitted a second time to the United States Senate.47

On April 30 Clay informed the Mexican representative at Washington that the treaty had been ratified by the United States Senate and asked that the ratifications be exchanged, 48 but Obregón was forced to confess that he had not yet received the treaty from his government." On August 2 he informed Clay that he had the ratified treaty in hand and that he was ready to exchange ratifications,50 but he was informed that, as the time limit had expired, the matter would have to be referred again to the Senate. Soon after, Obregón was taken seriously ill and died on September 10. J. M. Montoya, chargé d'affaires, conducted the Mexican legation,52 until the arrival of José María Tornel, who was appointed envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary on November 27, 1829.53 Adams' administration closed without an exchange of ratifications. It was for Jackson's administration to complete the work of his predecessor.

51

46 Poinsett to Clay, April 24, 1828, Congressional Debates, XIV, Pt. 2, App., 135.

47 Poinsett to Clay, April 26, 1828, ibid., 135. 48 Clay to Obregón, April 30, 1828, ibid., 140.

49 Obregón to Clay, May 1, 1828, ibid., 140.

50 Obregón to Clay, August 2, 1828, ibid., 140.

51 Brent to Obregón, August 2, 1828, ibid., 140.

52 Obregón to Clay, August 14, 1828; Montoya to Clay, September 11, 1828, House Ex. Docs., 25 Cong., 2 Sess., XII, Doc. 351, pp. 633–635. 53 Guerrero to Jackson, November 17, 1829, ibid., 639–640.

CHAPTER V

DIPLOMACY RELATIVE TO THE MEXICAN BOUNDARY AND EFFORTS TO PURCHASE TEXAS, 1829–1835

On March 4, 1829, Andrew Jackson took the oath of office as President of the United States and two days later Martin Van Buren was appointed Secretary of State. On April 16 Montoya, the Mexican chargé, addressed a note to Van Buren in which he informed the secretary that he had been given full power to effect the exchange of ratifications of the treaty of limits. He observed that Adams' objection to the treaty was caused by the expiration of the time limit, which made it necessary to submit it again to the Senate; this he supposed had been done at the recent session and he now desired to know if Van Buren were ready to make the exchange. Van Buren informed him that no action had yet been taken, and that when the commercial treaty was received, both would be submitted to the Senate.2

Poinsett remained in Mexico for a time under the Jackson administration. A few days after the President's inauguration. he wrote that the Mexican President and Alamán had formed a plan to negotiate a new treaty by which the United States would be reduced to the margin of the Mississippi, on the grounds that Spain had been unjustly deprived of a large part of her territory. He said that the line of the treaty of 1819 had been secured only by the threat that, if the Sabine were not agreed upon, the United States would assume the Rio Grande

1 Montoya to Van Buren, April 16, 1829, House Ex. Docs., 25 Cong.. 1 Sess., Doc. 42, p. 49.

2 Van Buren to Montoya, April 22, 1829, ibid., 49-50.

Butler Suggests the Neches Boundary

3

87

boundary. He said that Congress was wiser than the executive and had compelled the President to confirm the treaty. He again addressed Van Buren in similar vein in July.*

Anthony Butler, an old friend of Jackson, who had been interested in Texas lands, appeared in Washington soon after the inauguration as an applicant for office. He talked freely with the President and Van Buren regarding Texan affairs and eventually drew up a statement regarding the geography and productions of the province, and another paper setting forth arguments for the sale of Texas to the United States. In the latter he suggested that the Neches was the stream called the Sabine in the treaty of 1819. The ideas of Butler became the basis of the policy of the Jackson administration.5

The American minister was informed that he was to open negotiations for the purchase of a part or practically all of Texas. The reasons assigned were that the frontier and New Orleans must be protected and the inhabitants of the Mississippi Valley must be forever secure in the undisputed and undisturbed possession of the navigation of the great river. It was proposed that the United States purchase all that portion of Texas lying east of a line which should begin at the gulf,

in the centre of the desert or Grand prairie, which lies west of the Rio Nueces, and is represented to be nearly two hundred miles in width, and to extend north to the mountains. The proposed line following the . . . centre of that desert . . ., north, to the mountains dividing the waters of the Rio Grande del Norte from those that run eastward to the Gulf, and until it strikes our present boundary at the 42d degree of north latitude.

For this territory Poinsett was authorized to offer four million dollars, and, if indispensably necessary, five millions.

3 Poinsett to the Secretary of State, March 10, 1829, Congressional Debates, XIV, Pt. 2, App., 135.

4 Poinsett to Van Buren, July 22, 1829, ibid., 135–136.

5 Rives, The United States and Mexico, I, 235-238; Barker, in The American Historical Review, XII, 790.