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Show 19 therefore to be executed and observed, !1 or that you consider it as to derive its completion and obligation from the silent approbation and ratification which my proclamation may be construed to imply. Although I am inclined to think that the latter is your intention, yet it certainly is best that all doubts respecting it be removed. Permit me to observe that it will be proper for me to be informed of your sentiments relative to the treaty with the Six Nations previous to the departure of the governor of the Western territory, and therefore I recommend it to your early consideration (Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Presidents, p. 53). Another method that the Congress used to safeguard the Indians against undesirable actions on the part of the states was to require that protective language be included in the state constitutions before they could secure ratification by the Congress. We will examine the case of New Mexico, whose territory became part of the United States as a result of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, but which did not become a state until 1912. In the interim period, there was considerable adjustment necessary to accommodate Spanish, Mexican, and Indian laws and customs to those prevailing in the rest of the United States. In the decades after the United States occupation of New Mexico, much was made of the difference in the nature of the title held by the\ Pueblo Indians and that held by Indian tribes under treaties with the United States. It was argued that the latter did not have actual title, according to Vitoria's doctrine, but merely the right of occupancy, and that actual title was in the United States, since Indian tribes could not dispose of their lands to third parties without |