A PROCLAMATION by the President of the United States of
America declaring act of 1850, respecting the boundaries of Texas, to be in
force.
Whereas, by an act of the Congress of the United States of
the ninth of September, one thousand eight hundred and fifty, entitled “An act
proposing to the State of Texas the establishment of her northern and western
boundaries, the relinquishment by the said State of all territory claimed by
her exterior to said boundaries, and of all her claims upon the United States,
and to establish a Territorial government for New Mexico,” it was provided,
that the following propositions should be, and the same were thereby, offered
to the State of Texas, which, when agreed to by the said State, in an act
passed by the general assembly, should be binding and obligatory upon the
United States and upon the said State of Texas: Provided, The said agreement
by the said general assembly should be given on or before the first day of
December, eighteen hundred and fifty; namely:
“First. The State of Texas will agree that her boundary on
the north shall commence at the point at which the meridian of one hundred
degrees west from Greenwich is intersected by the parallel of thirty-six
degrees thirty minutes north latitude, and shall run from said point due west
to the meridian of one hundred and three degrees west from Greenwich; thence
her boundary shall run due south to the thirty-second degree of north
latitude; thence on the said parallel of thirty-two degrees of north latitude
to the Rio Bravo del Norte, and thence with the channel of said river to the
Gulf of Mexico.”
“Second. The State of Texas cedes to the United States all
her claim to territory exterior to the limits and boundaries which she agrees
to establish by the first article of this agreement.”
“Third. The State of Texas relinquishes all claim upon the
United States for liability of the debts of Texas, and for compensation or
indemnity for the surrender to the United States of her ships, forts, arsenals,
custom-houses, custom-house revenues, arms and munitions of war, and public
buildings with their sites, which became the property of the United States at
the time of the annexation.”
“Fourth. The United States, in consideration of said
establishment of boundaries, cession of claim to territory, and relinquishment
of claims, will pay to the State of Texas the sum of ten millions of dollars in
a stock bearing five per cent. interest, and redeemable at the end of four£
years, the interest payable half-yearly at the Treasury of the United States.”
“Fifth. Immediately after the President of the United States
shall have been furnished with an authentic copy of the act of the general
assembly of Texas accepting these propositions, he shall cause the stock to be
issued in favor of the State of Texas, as provided for in the fourth article of
this agreement: Provided also, That no more than five millions of said
stock shall be issued until the creditors of the State holding bonds and other
certificates of stock of Texas for which duties on imports were specially
pledged, shall first file at the Treasury of the United States releases of all
claim against the United States for or on account of said bonds or certificates
in such form as shall be prescribed by the Secretary of the Treasury and
approved by the President of the United States. Provided. That nothing
herein contained shall be construed to impair or quality any thing contained in
the third article of the second section of the joint resolution for annexing
Texas to the United States,” approved March first, eighteen hundred and
forty-five, either as regards the number of States, that may hereafter be
formed out of the State of Texas, or otherwise.”
And whereas it was further provided, by the eighteenth
section of the same act of Congress, “That the provisions of this act be, and
they are hereby, suspended until the boundary between the United States and the
State of Texas shall be adjusted, and when such adjustment shall have been
effected, the President of the United States shall issue his proclamation
declaring this act to be in full force and operation:
And whereas the legislature of the State of Texas, by an act
approved the twenty-fifth of November last, entitled “An act accepting the
propositions made by the United States to the State of Texas, in an act of the
Congress of the United States approved the ninth day of September, A. D. one
thousand eight hundred and fifty, and entitled ‘An act proposing to the State
of Texas the establishment of her northern and western boundaries, the
relinquishment by the said State of all territory claimed by her exterior to
said boundaries, and of all her claims upon the United States, and to establish
a Territorial government for New Mexico,”— of which act a copy authenticated
under the seal of the State has been furnished to the President, — enacts “that
the State of Texas hereby agrees to and accepts said propositions, and it is
hereby declared that the said State shall be bound by the terms thereof,
according to their true import and meaning:”
Now, therefore, I, Millard Fillmore, President of the United
States of America, do hereby declare and proclaim that the said act of the
Congress of the United States of the ninth of September last, is in full force
and operation.
Given under my hand, at the city of Washington, this
thirteenth day of December, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred
and fifty, and the seventy-fifth of the Independence of these United States.
MILLARD FILLMORE.
By the President:
DAN'L WEBSTER,
Secretary of State.
SOURCE: Laws of the
United States of a Local Or Temporary Character, and Exhibiting the Entire
Legislation of Congress Upon Which the Public Land Titles in Each State and
Territory have Depended. December 1, 1880, Volume 2, p. 1099-1100
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