If, as is
probably true, Texas was exercising jurisdiction along the western bank
of the Nueces, and Mexico was exercising it along the eastern bank of the
Rio Grande, then neither river was the boundary: but the uninhabited
country between the two was. The extent of our territory in that region
depended not on any treaty-fixed boundary (for no treaty had attempted
it), but on revolution. Any people anywhere being inclined and having the
power have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government,
and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a
most sacred right--a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the
world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of
an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such
people that can may revolutionize and make their own of so much of the
territory as they inhabit. More than this, a majority of any portion of
such people may revolutionize, putting down a minority, intermingled with
or near about them, who may oppose this movement. Such minority was
precisely the case of the Tories of our own revolution. It is a quality
of revolutions not to go by old lines or old laws, but to break up both,
and make new ones.
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