By making them, however, Mexico obtained further delay.
President Van Buren, in his annual message to Congress of the 5th of
December, 1837, states that "although the larger number" of our demands
for redress, "and many of them aggravated cases of personal wrongs, have
been now for years before the Mexican Government, and some of the causes
of national complaint, and those of the most offensive character,
admitted of immediate, simple, and satisfactory replies, it is only
within a few days past that any specific communication in answer to our
last demand, made five months ago, has been received from the Mexican
minister;" and that "for not one of our public complaints has
satisfaction been given or offered, that but one of the cases of
personal wrong has been favorably considered, and that but four cases of
both descriptions out of all those formally presented and earnestly
pressed have as yet been decided upon by the Mexican Government."
President Van Buren, believing that it would be vain to make any further
attempt to obtain redress by the ordinary means within the power of the
Executive, communicated this opinion to Congress in the message referred
to, in which he said:
On a careful and deliberate examination of their contents [of the
correspondence with the Mexican Government], and considering the spirit
manifested by the Mexican Government, it has become my painful duty to
return the subject as it now stands to Congress, to whom it belongs to
decide upon the time, the mode, and the measure of redress.
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