432 HISTOEY OF CALIFORNIA. 



tivc citizens of the United States not inferior to the 

 rest of our countrymen in intelligence and patriotism ; 

 and no language of menace, to restrain them in the 

 exercise of an undoubted right, guarantied to them 

 by the treaty of cession itself, shall ever be uttered 

 by me, or encouraged and sustained by persons acting 

 under my authority. It is to be expected that, in the 

 residue of the Territory ceded to us by Mexico, the 

 people residing there will, at the time of their incor 

 poration into the Union as a State, settle all questions 

 of domestic policy to suit themselves. No material 

 inconvenience will result from the want, for a short 

 period, of a government established by Congress over 

 that part of the Territory which lies eastward of the 

 new State of California ; and the reasons for my 

 opinion that New Mexico will, at no very distant pe 

 riod, ask for admission into the Union, are founded on 

 un-official information, which, I suppose, is common to 

 all who have cared to make inquiries on that subject. 

 Seeing, then, that the question which now excites 

 such painful sensations in the country will, in the end, 

 certainly be settled by the silent effect of causes inde 

 pendent of the action of Congress, I again submit to 

 your wisdom the policy recommended in my annual 

 message, of awaiting the salutary operation of those 

 causes, believing that we shall thus avoid the creation 

 of geographical parties, and secure the harmony of 

 feeling so necessary to the beneficial action of our 

 political system. Connected as the Union is with the 

 remembrance of past happiness, the sense of present 

 blessings, and the hope of future peace and prosperity, 

 every dictate of wisdom, every feeling of duty, and 

 every emotion of patriotism, tend to inspire fidelity 

 and devotion to it, and admonish us cautiously to avoid 



