Part 64

Given under my hand, at the city of Washington, the 28th day of May, A.D. 1856, and of the Independence of the United States of America the eightieth.

FRANKLIN PIERCE.

By the President: W.L. MARCY, Secretary of State.

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas, pursuant to the first article of the treaty between the United States and the Mexican Republic of the 30th day of December, 1853, the true limits between the territories of the contracting parties were declared to be as follows:

Retaining the same dividing line between the two Californias as already defined and established according to the fifth article of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the limits between the two Republics shall be as follows:

Beginning in the Gulf of Mexico 3 leagues from land, opposite the mouth of the Rio Grande, as provided in the fifth article of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo; thence, as defined in the said article, up the middle of that river to the point where the parallel of 31° 47' north latitude crosses the same; thence due west 100 miles; thence south to the parallel of 31° 20' north latitude; thence along the said parallel of 31° 20' to the one hundred and eleventh meridian of longitude west of Greenwich; thence in a straight line to a point on the Colorado River 20 English miles below the junction of the Gila and Colorado rivers; thence up the middle of the said river Colorado until it intersects the present line between the United States and Mexico.

And whereas the said dividing line has been surveyed, marked out, and established by the respective commissioners of the contracting parties, pursuant to the same article of the said treaty:

Now, therefore, be it known that I, Franklin Pierce, President of the United States of America, do hereby declare to all whom it may concern that the line aforesaid shall be held and considered as the boundary between the United States and the Mexican Republic and shall be respected as such by the United States and the citizens thereof.

In testimony whereof I have caused the seal of the United States to be hereunto affixed.

Given under my hand, at the city of Washington, this 2d day of June, A.D. 1856, and of the Independence of the United States the eightieth.

FRANKLIN PIERCE.

By the President: W.L. MARCY, Secretary of State.

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas whilst hostilities exist with various Indian tribes on the remote frontiers of the United States, and whilst in other respects the public peace is seriously threatened, Congress has adjourned without granting necessary supplies for the Army, depriving the Executive of the power to perform his duty in relation to the common defense and security, and an extraordinary occasion has thus arisen for assembling the two Houses of Congress, I do therefore by this my proclamation convene the said Houses to meet in the Capitol, at the city of Washington, on Thursday, the 21st day of August instant, hereby requiring the respective Senators and Representatives then and there to assemble to consult and determine on such measures as the state of the Union may seem to require.

In testimony whereof I have caused the seal of the United States to be hereunto affixed and signed the same with my hand.

Done at the city of Washington, the 18th day of August, A.D. 1856, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-first.

FRANKLIN PIERCE.

By order: W.L. MARCY, Secretary of State.

SPECIAL SESSION MESSAGE.

WASHINGTON, August 21, 1856.

Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives:

In consequence of the failure of Congress at its recent session to make provision for the support of the Army, it became imperatively incumbent on me to exercise the power which the Constitution confers on the Executive for extraordinary occasions, and promptly to convene the two Houses in order to afford them an opportunity of reconsidering a subject of such vital interest to the peace and welfare of the Union.

With the exception of a partial authority vested by law in the Secretary of War to contract for the supply of clothing and subsistence, the Army is wholly dependent on the appropriations annually made by Congress. The omission of Congress to act in this respect before the termination of the fiscal year had already caused embarrassments to the service, which were overcome only in expectation of appropriations before the close of the present month. If the requisite funds be not speedily provided, the Executive will no longer be able to furnish the transportation, equipments, and munitions which are essential to the effectiveness of a military force in the field. With no provision for the pay of troops the contracts of enlistment would be broken and the Army must in effect be disbanded, the consequences of which would be so disastrous as to demand all possible efforts to avert the calamity.

It is not merely that the officers and enlisted men of the Army are to be thus deprived of the pay and emoluments to which they are entitled by standing laws; that the construction of arms at the public armories, the repair and construction of ordnance at the arsenals, and the manufacture of military clothing and camp equipage must be discontinued, and the persons connected with this branch of the public service thus be deprived suddenly of the employment essential to their subsistence; nor is it merely the waste consequent on the forced abandonment of the seaboard fortifications and of the interior military posts and other establishments, and the enormous expense of recruiting and reorganizing the Army and again distributing it over the vast regions which it now occupies. These are evils which may, it is true, be repaired hereafter by taxes imposed on the country; but other evils are involved, which no expenditures, however lavish, could remedy, in comparison with which local and personal injuries or interests sink into insignificance.

A great part of the Army is situated on the remote frontier or in the deserts and mountains of the interior. To discharge large bodies of men in such places without the means of regaining their homes, and where few, if any, could obtain subsistence by honest industry, would be to subject them to suffering and temptation, with disregard of justice and right most derogatory to the Government.