the propriety of wheedling the Mexican people to desert the counsels of their own leaders, and, trusting in our protestations, to set up a government from which we can secure a satisfactory peace; telling us that “this may become the only mode of obtaining such a peace.”  But soon he falls into doubt of this too; and then drops back on to the already half-abandoned ground of “more vigorous prosecution.”  All this shows that the President is in nowise satisfied with his own positions.  First he takes up one, and in attempting to argue us into it he argues himself out of it, then seizes another and goes through the same process, and then, confused at being able to think of nothing new, he snatches up the old one again, which he has some time before cast off.  His mind, taxed beyond its power, is running hither and thither, like some tortured creature on a burning surface, finding no position on which it can settle down and be at ease.

Again, it is a singular omission in this message that it nowhere intimates when the President expects the war to terminate.  At its beginning, General Scott was by this same President driven into disfavor if not disgrace, for intimating that peace could not be conquered in less than three or four months.  But now, at the end of about twenty months, during which time our arms have given us the most splendid successes, every department and every part, land and water, officers and privates, regulars and volunteers, doing all that men could do, and hundreds of things which it had ever before been thought men could not do—­after all this, this same President gives a long message, without showing us that as to the end he himself has even an imaginary conception.  As I have before said, he knows not where he is.  He is a bewildered, confounded, and miserably perplexed man.  God grant he may be able to show there is not something about his conscience more painful than his mental perplexity.

The following is a copy of the so-called “treaty” referred to in the speech: 

“Articles of Agreement entered into between his Excellency David G. Burnet, President of the Republic of Texas, of the one part, and his Excellency General Santa Anna, President-General-in-Chief of the Mexican army, of the other part: 

“Article I. General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna agrees that he will not take up arms, nor will he exercise his influence to cause them to be taken up, against the people of Texas during the present war of independence.

“Article II.  All hostilities between the Mexican and Texan troops will cease immediately, both by land and water.

“Article III.  The Mexican troops will evacuate the territory of Texas, passing to the other side of the Rio Grande Del Norte.

“Article IV.  The Mexican army, in its retreat, shall not take the property of any person without his consent and just indemnification, using only such articles as may be necessary for its subsistence, in cases when the owner may not be present, and remitting to the commander of the army of Texas, or to the commissioners to be appointed for the adjustment of such matters, an account of the value of the property consumed, the place where taken, and the name of the owner, if it can be ascertained.