Westward extension, 1841-1850, by George Pierce Garrison.

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WESTWARD EXTENSION

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United States government assumed the debt the
claimants could not get their dues. But the settlement of the boundary question, which had been
reserved by the terms of annexation agreed on
with Texas, might be so directed as to place the
burden on that government without doing injury to
Mexico.
The history of the boundary controversy was
then recited, and an effort was made to show that
the Rio Grande was the proper line between Texas
and Mexico from its mouth to El Paso. This contention was based on the fact that the jurisdiction
of Texas had been extended beyond the Nueces,
and that the country west of that river had been
represented in the Texas congress and the convention which had acted on the subject of annexation. It was alleged also that ancient Louisiana
extended to the Rio Grande, but it was not claimed
that the jurisdiction of Texas had been established
up to that river. It was conceded that Mexico had
a better claim to New Mexico than to the disputed
part of the lower Rio Grande valley; but that province was far away from the Mexican capital and
difficult to defend from the Indians, and much of it
was within limits also claimed by Texas. It might,
therefore, if it remained Mexican, become a source
of ill-feeling between those who, it was hoped, were
destined to be friends. But this danger would be
removed, and Mexico would be saved expense and
trouble, by so fixing the boundary as to leave New