OCR Text |
Show 454 LEADING FACTS OF NEW MEXICAN SPANISH HISTORY AND MEXICAN LAND GRANTS 455 ernment, at the last moment, before it would exchange ratifications of the treaty, insisted upon a formal representation on the subject by The meaning of this protocol was plain. Rationaly interpreted it declared that the nullification of the 10th article of the treaty the American commissioners. was The result of this was the execution, on May 26th, 1848, of a supplemental document, which to all intents and purposes became a part of the treaty. It was called a protocol,*"* in which were recorded the explanations which their excellencies, the commissioners of the United States of America, gave in the name of their government, in regard to the amendments made by the senate.’’ 878 James K. Polk, president of the United States, Message from, to the House of Representatives, February 8, 1849: ‘‘The protocol asserts that ‘the American government, by suppressing the tenth article of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, did not in any way intend to annul the grants of lands made by Mexico in the ceded territories;’ that ‘these grants, notwithstanding the suppression of the article of the treaty, preserve the legal value which they may possess; and the grantees may cause their legitimate titles to be acknowledged before the American tribunals;’ and then proceeds to state that, ‘conformably to the law of the United States, legitimate titles to every description of property, personal and real, existing in the ceded territories, are those which were legitimate titles under the Mexican law in California and New Mexico up to the thirteenth of May, 1846, and in Texas up to the second of March, 1836.’ The former was the date of the declaration of war with Mexico, and the latter that of the declaration of independence by Texas. ‘“The objection to the tenth article of the original treaty was not that it protected legitimate titles, which our laws would have equally protected without it; but that it most unjustly attempted to resuscitate grants which had become a mere nullity, by allowing the grantees the same period after the exchange of the ratifications of the treaty to which they had been originally entitled after the date of their grants, for the purpose of performing the conditions on which they had been made. In submitting the treaty to the Senate, I had recommended the rejection of this article. That portion of it in regard to lands in Texas did not receive a single vote in the Senate. This information was communicated by the letter of the Secretary of State to the minister for foreign affairs of Mexico, and was in possession of the Mexican government during the whole period the treaty was before the Mexican congress, and the article itself was reprobated in that letter in the strongest terms. Besides, our commissioners to Mexico had been instructed that neither the President, nor the Senate of the United States, can ever consent to ratify any treaty containing the tenth article of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in favor of grantees of land in Texas or elsewhere.’ And again: ‘Should the Mexican government persist in retaining this article, then all prospects of immediate peace is ended; and of this you may give them an absolute assurance.’ _ **On this point the language of the protocol is free from ambiguity; but, if it were otherwise, is there any individual American or Mexican who would place such a construction upon it as to convert it into a vain attempt to revive this article which had been so often and go solemnly condemned? Surely person could for one moment suppose that either the commissioners of theno United States or the Mexican minister for foreign affairs ever entertained the purpose of thus setting at naught the deliberate decision of the President and Senate, which had been communicated to the Mexican government with the assurance that their abandonment of this obnoxious article was essential to the restoration of peace.,’’ not intended to destroy valid, legitimate titles to land which existed, and were in full force independently of the provisions and without the aid of the article in question. Notwithstanding the fact that the 10th article had been expunged from the treaty, these grants were to ‘‘preserve the legal value which they may possess.’’ The refusal to revive grants which had become extinct was not to invalidate those which were in full force and vigor. That such was the clear understanding of the United States senate, and this in perfect accordance with the protocol, is manifest from the fact that, whilst they struck from the treaty this unjust article, they at the same time sanctioned and ratified the last paragraph of the eighth article of the treaty, which declares that, ‘‘in the said territories, property of every kind, now belonging to Mexicans not established there, shall be inviolably respected. The present owners, the heirs of these, and all Mexicans, who may hereafter acquire said property by contract, shall enjoy, with respect to it, guarantees equally ample as if the same belonged to citizens of the United States.’ 374 Without any stipulation in the treaty to this effect all such valid titles, under the Mexican government, were entitled to protection under the constitution and laws of the American government. At any rate the statements made by the American commissioners, Sevier and Clifford, as embodied in the protocol, were accepted by the Mexican minister, and the Mexican government *’° ratified the treaty as modified by the senate and government of the United States. On May 30, 1848, the ratifications of the treaty were exchanged. After the lapse of a few years, owing to the great tide of immigration to the state of California and the consequent acquisition of lands by the American homeseeker, prospector, miner, and stockraiser, the courts had before them questions involving the validity of titles to lands in that state. These questions finally came before 874 Hz. Doc. No. 50, H. of R., 30th cong., 2d sess. 875 Twelve days after the ratification of the treaty by Mexico, the American flag was taken down from the national palace in the City of Mexico and the colors of the Mexican republic were hoisted. : de la Pefia The provisional president of the Mexican republic, Don Manuel 1848. 30, May y Pejia, signed the ratification of the treaty, at Querétaro, |