Every
measure adopted on our part had for its object the furtherance of these
desired results. In communicating to Congress a succinct statement of
the injuries which we had suffered from Mexico, and which have been
accumulating during a period of more than twenty years, every expression
that could tend to inflame the people of Mexico or defeat or delay a
pacific result was carefully avoided. An envoy of the United States
repaired to Mexico with full powers to adjust every existing difference.
But though present on the Mexican soil by agreement between the two
Governments, invested with full powers, and bearing evidence of the most
friendly dispositions, his mission has been unavailing. The Mexican
Government not only refused to receive him or listen to his
propositions, but after a long-continued series of menaces have at last
invaded our territory and shed the blood of our fellow-citizens on our
own soil.
It now becomes my duty to state more in detail the origin, progress, and
failure of that mission. In pursuance of the instructions given in
September last, an inquiry was made on the 13th of October, 1845, in the
most friendly terms, through our consul in Mexico, of the minister for
foreign affairs, whether the Mexican Government "would receive an envoy
from the United States intrusted with full powers to adjust all the
questions in dispute between the two Governments," with the assurance
that "should the answer be in the affirmative such an envoy would be
immediately dispatched to Mexico.
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