430 HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA. 



Under these circumstances, I thought, and still 

 think, that it was my duty to endeavor to put it in 

 the power of Congress, by the admission of California 

 and New Mexico as States, to remove all occasion for 

 the unnecessary agitation of the public mind. 



It is understood that the people of the western part 

 of California have formed a plan of a State Constitu 

 tion, and will soon submit the same to the judgment 

 of Congress, and apply for admission as a State. 

 This course on their part, though in accordance with, 

 was not adopted exclusively in consequence of, 

 any expression of my wishes inasmuch as measures 

 tending to this end had been promoted by the officers 

 sent there by my predecessor, and were already in 

 active progress of execution before any communica 

 tion from me reached California. If the proposed 

 Constitution shall, when submitted to Congress, be 

 found to be in compliance with the requisitions of the 

 Constitution of the United States, I earnestly recom 

 mend that it may receive the sanction of Congress. 



The part of California not included in the proposed 

 State of that name is believed to be uninhabited, ex 

 cept in a settlement of our countrymen in the vicinity 

 of Salt Lake. 



A claim has been advanced by the State of Texas 

 to a very large portion of the most populous district 

 of New Mexico. If the people of New Mexico had 

 formed a plan of a State government for that Terri 

 tory as ceded by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, 

 and had been admitted by Congress as a State, our 

 Constitution would have afforded the means of obtain 

 ing an adjustment of the question of boundary with 

 Texas by a judicial decision. At present, however, 

 no judicial tribunal has the power of deciding that 



