No. 353.
Mr. Evarts
to Mr. Foster.
Washington, August 13, 1878.
Sir: Your dispatches numbered 740, 741, 742, 743, 744, 745, and 746 have been received and carefully read and considered.
[Page 573]The administration of President Diaz came into power on the 29th November, 1876. Its recognition as the established government of Mexico was delayed, as you are aware, for the reason among others that some doubt existed whether it possessed the ability and the disposition to check the raids and depredations upon American property in the vicinity of the Rio Grande. While you were assured, and so advised the Department, that the new government heartily desired the maintenance of peace and the preservation of order, and would exert its powers for that purpose, you were also informed that the Mexican administration found itself embarrassed in making any arrangements for that purpose because of its non-recognition by the United States. Desirous to remove every impediment to an adjustment of all disputed questions between the two governments, the President on the 23d March, 1878, instructed you to inform Mr. Vallarta that he deemed it no longer necessary or desirable to defer the resumption of diplomatic relations, and the official recognition of the authorities with whom you had so long held unofficial intercourse, and that thenceforth your communications would be official and in the usual form with recognized powers.
You were also instructed to follow the act of recognition by inviting the secretary of state for foreign affairs to enter with you upon a consideration of some permanent measures for the preservation of peace and the punishment of outlawry upon the frontier, the better protection of American citizens and their interests in Mexico, and the settlement of the various matters of complaint made by the Government of the United States. Since that period the administration of President Diaz has been recognized and dealt with as the established government of Mexico.
Nevertheless, the condition of affairs upon the Rio Grande frontier remains substantially the same. No effective step seems to have been taken on the part of Mexico to check the raids. The United States, instead of receiving redress, encounters delays, denials, and postponements at the capital, while in the disturbed localities its officers meet with active opposition.
The Government of the United States have never believed and do not now believe that the Government of Mexico approved or desired to encourage these marauding attacks; yet, as they continue to be made, they seem to show that the Mexican Government is unable to repress them. This inability may be pleaded as a reason for the failure to check the crimes complained of; but that only makes the stronger the duty of the United States to protect the lives and property of its citizens; for, assuredly, if the Government of Mexico cannot do it, that of the United States must, so far as it can.
The first duty of a government is to protect life and property. This is a paramount obligation. For this governments are instituted, and governments neglecting or failing to perform it become worse than useless. This duty the Government of the United States has determined to perform to the extent of its power toward its citizens on the border. It is not solicitous, it never has been, about the methods or ways in which that protection shall be accomplished, whether by formal treaty stipulation or by informal convention; whether by the action of judicial tribunals or that of military forces. Protection in fact to American lives and property is the sole point upon which the United States are tenacious. In securing it they have a right to ask the co-operation of their sister republic. So far, the authorities of Mexico, military and civil, in the vicinity of the border appear not only to take no steps to effectively check the raids or punish the raiders, but demur and object to steps taken by the United States. Extradition of offenders under [Page 574] the treaty is delayed or refused upon grounds more or less plausible. Amendments of the treaty are pronounced impracticable or sought to be encumbered with conditions that would render them nugatory. Military force gives no effectual co-operation in the pursuit of the thieves, and in many instances contents itself with assuming the attitude of watching United States troops as if they belonged to a hostile instead of a friendly power. You reported to the Department on the 24th April, 1877, that up to that time there was no record of any case in which any Mexican had been punished by the Mexican authorities for these crimes. If any such case has since occurred it has not been brought to the attention of this Department.
I am not unmindful of the fact that, as you have repeatedly reported, there is reason to believe that the Mexican Government really desires to check these disorders. According to the views you have presented, its statesmen are believed to be sagacious and patriotic, and well disposed to comply with all international obligations. But, as you represent, they encounter, or apprehend that they may encounter, a hostile public feeling adverse to the United States, especially in these border localities, thwarting their best intentions and efforts. It is greatly to be regretted that such a state of perverted public feeling should exist. But its existence does not exonerate the Mexican Government from any obligation under international law. Still less does it relieve this government from its duties to guard the welfare of the American people. The United States Government cannot allow marauding bands to establish themselves upon its borders with liberty to invade and plunder United States territory with impunity, and then, when pursued, to take refuge across the Rio Grande under protection of the plea of the integrity of the soil of the Mexican Republic.
You know, and the Mexican Government knows from your repeated assurances, that neither the United States Government nor the American people have any design or desire of conquest, or annexation, or forcible invasion of any part of Mexico. The pretense that the United States are plotting or executing invasions for conquest in Mexico is fallacious and absurd. “Invasions by United States troops” are spoken of in Mexican journals and public documents. There are no such invasions. Mexican cattle-thieves invade Texas. Mexican revolutionists, in violation of our laws, invade Mexico from this side of the Rio Grande, according to the exigencies of their desultory warfare. But no American force ever goes over the Rio Grande, except in pursuit of “invaders” who have already “invaded” the soil of the United States and are escaping with their booty. And when American troops are thus endeavoring to check both classes of marauders, under strict orders to guard every territorial right of Mexico, to invite co-operation of Mexican troops, and to make no pursuit when any Mexican force is found ready and willing to undertake it, they are stigmatized as “invaders of Mexican soil.”
The suggestions of the Mexican Government, adverted to in your dispatch No. 740, cannot now be entertained. In substance, they seem to be that the orders to General Ord should be revoked and the border left to the mercies of the marauders, in the hope that at some future day, or at some future session of the Mexican Congress, laws may be enacted or treaties ratified which might offer a solution of the difficulties.
The United States have not sought the unpleasant duty forced upon them of pursuing offenders who, under ordinary usages of municipal and international law, ought to be pursued and arrested or punished by Mexico. Whenever Mexico will assume and efficiently exercise that responsibility, the-United States will be very glad to be relieved from it. [Page 575] It is a source of constant regret to find that this Government does not receive the active or efficient help of that of Mexico in repressing disorders on the frontier, so fraught with serious consequences to both countries.
I am, &c.,