Unhappily, however, the constitutional Government has not been able to establish its power over the whole Republic.

It is supported by a large majority of the people and the States, but there are important parts of the country where it can enforce no obedience.

General Miramon maintains himself at the capital, and in some of the distant Provinces there are military governors who pay little respect to the decrees of either Government.  In the meantime the excesses which always attend upon civil war, especially in Mexico, are constantly recurring.  Outrages of the worst description are committed both upon persons and property.  There is scarcely any form of injury which has not been suffered by our citizens in Mexico during the last few years.  We have been nominally at peace with that Republic, but “so far as the interests of our commerce, or of our citizens who have visited the country as merchants, shipmasters, or in other capacities, are concerned, we might as well have been at war.”  Life has been insecure, property unprotected, and trade impossible except at a risk of loss which prudent men can not be expected to incur.  Important contracts, involving large expenditures, entered into by the central Government, have been set at defiance by the local governments.  Peaceful American residents, occupying their rightful possessions, have been suddenly expelled the country, in defiance of treaties and by the mere force of arbitrary power.  Even the course of justice has not been safe from control, and a recent decree of Miramon permits the intervention of Government in all suits where either party is a foreigner.  Vessels of the United States have been seized without law, and a consular officer who protested against such seizure has been fined and imprisoned for disrespect to the authorities.  Military contributions have been levied in violation of every principle of right, and the American who resisted the lawless demand has had his property forcibly taken away and has been himself banished.  From a conflict of authority in different parts of the country tariff duties which have been paid in one place have been exacted over again in another place.  Large numbers of our citizens have been arrested and imprisoned without any form of examination or any opportunity for a hearing, and even when released have only obtained their liberty after much suffering and injury, and without any hope of redress.  The wholesale massacre of Crabbe and his associates without trial in Sonora, as well as the seizure and murder of four sick Americans who had taken shelter in the house of an American upon the soil of the United States, was communicated to Congress at its last session.  Murders of a still more atrocious character have been committed in the very heart of Mexico, under the authority of Miramon’s Government, during the present year.  Some of these were only worthy of a barbarous age, and if they had not been clearly proven would have seemed impossible in a country which claims to