Mr. Rusk here rose, and said that he disliked to interrupt the Senator, and therefore he had said nothing while he was describing the country between the Nueces and the Rio Grande; but he wished now to say, that, when that country comes to be known, it will be found to be as valuable as any part of Texas.  The valley of the Rio Grande is valuable from its source to its mouth.  But he did not look upon that as indemnity; he claimed that as the right of Texas.  So far as the Mexican population is concerned, there is a good deal of it in Texas; and it comprises many respectable persons, wealthy, intelligent, and distinguished.  A good many are now moving in from New Mexico, and settling in Texas.

I take what I say from Major Gaines.  But I am glad to hear that any part of New Mexico is fit for the foot of civilized man.  And I am glad, moreover, that there are some persons in New Mexico who are not so blindly attached to their miserable condition as not to make an effort to come out of their country, and get into a better.

Sir, I would, if I had time, call the attention of the Senate to an instructive speech made in the other house by Mr. Smith of Connecticut.  He seems to have examined all the authorities, to have conversed with all the travellers, to have corresponded with all our agents.  His speech contains communications from all of them; and I commend it to every man in the United States who wishes to know what we are about to acquire by the annexation of New Mexico.

New Mexico is secluded, isolated, a place by itself, in the midst and at the foot of vast mountains, five hundred miles from the settled part of Texas, and as far from anywhere else!  It does not belong anywhere!  It has no belongings about it!  At this moment it is absolutely more retired and shut out from communication with the civilized world than Hawaii or any of the other islands of the Pacific sea.  In seclusion and remoteness, New Mexico may press hard on the character and condition of Typee.  And its people are infinitely less elevated, in morals and condition, than the people of the Sandwich Islands.  We had much better have Senators from Oahu.  They are far less intelligent than the better class of our Indian neighbors.  Commend me to the Cherokees, to the Choctaws; if you please, speak of the Pawnees, of the Snakes, the Flatfeet, of any thing but the Digging Indians, and I will be satisfied not to take the people of New Mexico.  Have they any notion of our institutions, or of any free institutions?  Have they any notion of popular government?  Not the slightest!  Not the slightest on earth!  When the question is asked, What will be their constitution? it is farcical to talk of such people making a constitution for themselves.  They do not know the meaning of the term, they do not know its import.  They know nothing at all about it; and I can tell you, Sir, that when they are made a Territory, and are to be made a State, such a constitution as the executive power of this government may think fit to send them will be sent, and will be adopted.  The constitution of our fellow citizens of New Mexico will be framed in the city of Washington.