the public interest to publish the instructions to our ministers, until some time had elapsed after the conclusion of such negotiations."

In these instructions of the 18th of March, 1848, it will be perceived that the task was assigned to the commissioners of the United States of consummating the treaty of peace, which was signed at Guadalupe Hidalgo on the second day of February last, between the United States and the Mexican republic, and which, on the tenth of March last, was ratified by the Senate with amend`ments."

They were informed "that this brief statement will indicate to you clearly the line of your duty. You are not sent to Mexico for the purpose of negotiating any new treaty, or of changing in any particular the ratified treaty which you will bear with you. None of the amendments adopted by the Senate can be rejected or modified, except by the authority of that body. Your whole duty will then consist in using every honorable effort to obtain from the Mexican government a ratification of the treaty, in the form in which it has been ratified by the Senate, and this with the least practicable delay." "For this purpose, it may, and most probably will, become necessary that you should explain to the Mexican minister for foreign affairs, or to the authorized agents of the Mexican government, the reasons which have influenced the Senate in adopting these several amendments to the treaty. This duty you will perform, as much as possible, by personal conferences. plomatic notes are to be avoided unless in case of necessity. These might lead to endless discussions and indefinite delay. Besides, they could not have any practical result, as your mission is confined to procuring a ratification, from the Mexican government, of the treaty as it came from the Senate, and does not extend to the slighest modification in any of its provisions."

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The commissioners were sent to Mexico to procure the ratification of the treaty as amended by the Senate. Their instructions confined them to this point. It was proper that the amendments to the treaty adopted by the United States should be explained to the Mexican government, and explanations were made by the Secretary of State in his letter of the 18th of March, 1848, to the Mexican minister for foreign affairs, under my direction. This despatch was communicated to Congress with my message of the 6th of July last, communicating the treaty of peace, and published by their order. This depatch was transmitted by our commissioners, from the city of Mexico to the Mexican government, then at Queretaro, on the 17th of April, 1848, and its receipt acknowledged on the 19th of the same month. During the whole time that the treaty, as amended, was before the congress of Mexico, these explanations of the Secretary of State, and these alone, were before them.

The president of Mexico on these explanations, on the 8th day of May, 1848, submitted the amended treaty to the Mexican congress, and, on the 25th of May, that congress approved the treaty as amended without modification or alteration. The final action of the Mexican congress had taken place before the commissioners of

the United States had been officially received by the Mexican authorities, or held any conference with them, or had any other communication on the subject of the treaty except to transmit the letter of the Secretary of State.

In their despatch, transmitted to Congress with my message of the 6th of July last, communicating the treaty of peace, dated "City of Queretaro, May 25, 1848, 9 o'clock, p. m.," the commissioners say: "We have the satisfaction to inform you that we reached this city this afternoon at about 5 o'clock, and that the treaty, as amended by the Senate of the United States, passed the Mexican senate about the hour of our arrival, by a vote of 33 to 5. It having previously passed the house of deputies, nothing now remains but to exchange the ratifications of the treaty."

On the next day (the 26th of May) the commissioners were, for the first time, presented to the president of the republic, and their credentials placed in his hands. On this occasion the commissioners delivered an address to the president of Mexico, and he replied. In their despatch of the 30th of May, the commissioners say: "We enclose a copy of our address to the president, and also a copy of his reply. Several conferences afterwards took place between Messrs. Rosa, Cuevas, Conto and ourselves, which it is not thought necessary to recapitulate, as we enclose a copy of the protocol, which contains the substance of the conversations. We have now the satisfaction to announce that the exchange of ratifications was effected to-day." This despatch was communicated with my message of the 6th of July last, and published by order of Congress.

The treaty, as amended by the Senate of the United States, with the accompanying papers, and the evidence that in that form it had been ratified by Mexico, was received at Washington on the 4th day of July, 1848, and immediately proclaimed as the supreme law of the land. On the 6th of July, I communicated to Congress the ratified treaty, with such accompanying documents as were deemed material to a full understanding of the subject, to the end that Congress might adopt the legislation necessary and proper to carry the treaty into effect. Neither the address of the commissioners, nor the reply of the president of Mexico, on the occasion of their presentation, nor the memorandum of conversations embraced in the paper called a protocol, nor the correspondence now sent, were communicated, because they were not regarded as, in any way, material; and in this I conformed to the practice of our government. It rarely if ever happens that all the correspondence, and especially the instructions to our ministers, is communicated. Copies of these papers are now transmitted, as being within the resolutions of the House calling for all such "correspondence as appertains to said treaty."

When these papers were received at Washington, peace had been restored, the first instalment of three millions paid to Mexico, the blockades were raised, the city of Mexico evacuated, and our troops on their return home. The war was at an end, and the treaty, as ratified by the United States, was binding on both par

ties, and already executed in a great degree. In this condition of things it was not competent for the President alone, or for the President and Senate, or for the President, Senate, and House of Representatives combined, to abrogate the treaty, to annul the peace and restore a state of war, except by a solemn declaration of war.

Had the protocol varied the treaty, as amended by the Senate of the United States, it would have had no binding effect.

It was obvious that the commissioners of the United States did not regard the protocol as in any degree a part of the treaty, nor as modifying or altering the treaty as amended by the Senate. They communicated it as the substance of conversations held after the Mexican congress had ratified the treaty, and they knew that the approval of the Mexican congress was as essential to the validity of a treaty in all its parts as the advice and consent of the Senate of the United States. They knew, too, that they had no authority to alter or modify the treaty in the form in which it had been ratified by the United States, but that, if failing to procure the ratification of the Mexican government otherwise than with amendments, their duty, imposed by express instructions, was to ask of Mexico to send, without delay, a commissioner to Washington to exch. nge ratifications here, if the amendments of the treaty proposed by Mexico, on being submitted, should be adopted by the Senate of the United States.

I was equally well satisfied that the government of Mexico had agreed to the treaty as amended by the Senate of the United States, and did not regard the protocol as modifying, enlarging, or diminishing its terms or effect. The president of that republic, in submitting the amended treaty to the Mexican congress, in his message on the 8th day of May, 1848, said: "If the treaty could have been submitted to your deliberation precisely as it came from the hands of the plenipotentiaries, my satisfaction, at seeing the war at last brought to an end, would not have been lessened as it this day is in consequence of the modifications introduced into it by the Senate of the United States, and which have received the sanction of the President." "At present it is sufficient for us to say to you that if, in the opinion of the government, justice had not been evinced on the part of the Senate and government of the United States, in introducing such modifications, it is presumed, on the other hand, that they are not of such importance that they should set aside the treaty. I believe, on the contrary, that it ought to be ratified upon the same terms in which it has already received the sanction of the American government. My opinion is also greatly strengthened by the fact that a new negotiation is neither expected or considered possible. Much less could another be brought forward upon a basis more favorable for the republic." The deliberations of the Mexican congress, with no explanation before that body from the United States, except the letter of the Secretary of State, resulted in the ratification of the treaty, as recommended by the president of that republic, in the form in which it had been amended and ratified by the United States. The con

versations embodied in the paper called a protocol, took place after the action of the Mexican congress was complete; and there is no reason to suppose that the government of Mexico ever submitted the protocol to the congress, or ever treated or regarded it as in any sense a new negotiation, or as operating any modification or change of the amended treaty. If such had been its effect, it was a nullity until approved by the Mexican congress; and such approval was never made or intimated to the United States. In the final consummation of the ratification of the treaty by the president of Mexico no reference is made to it. On the contrary, this ratification, which was delivered to the commissioners of the United States, and is now in the State Department, contains a full and explicit recognition of the amendments of the Senate just as they had been communicated to that government by the Secretary of State, and been afterwards approved by the Mexican congress. It delares that, "having seen and examined the said treaty, and the modifications made by the Senate of the United States of America, and having given an account thereof to the general congress, conformably to the requirement in the XIVth paragraph of the 110th article of the federal constitution of these United States, that body has thought proper to approve of the said treaty, with the modifications thereto in all their parts; and, in consequence thereof, exerting the power granted to me by the constitution, I accept, ratify, and confirm the said treaty with its modifications, and promise, in the name of the Mexican republic, to fulfil and observe it, and to cause it to be fulfilled and observed."

Upon an examination of this protocol, when it was received with the ratified treaty, I did not regard it as material, or as in any way attempting to modify, or change the treaty as it had been amended by the Senate of the United States.

The first explanation which it contains is "that the American government by suppressing the ninth article of the treaty of Guadalupe, and substituting the third article of the treaty of Louisiana, did not intend to diminish, in any way, what was agreed upon by the aforesaid article (ninth) in favor of the inhabitants of the territories ceded by Mexico. Its understanding is that all of that agreement is contained in the third article of the treaty of Louisiana. In consequence, all the privileges and guarantees, civil, political and religious, which would have been possessed by the inhabitants of the ceded territories, if the ninth article of the treaty had been retained, will be enjoyed by them, without any difference, under the article which has been substituted."

The ninth article of the original treaty stipulated for the incorporation of the Mexican inhabitants of the ceded territories, and their admission into the Union "as soon as possible, according to the principles of the federal constitution, to the enjoyment of all the rights of citizens of the United States." It provided, also, that in the mean time, they should be maintained in the enjoyment of their liberty, their property and their civil rights, now vested in them according to the Mexican laws. It secured to them similar political rights with the inhabitants of the other territories of the

United States, and at least equal to the inhabitants of Louisiana and Florida when they were in a territorial condition. It then proceeded to guarantee that ecclesiastics and religious corporations should be protected in the discharge of the offices of their ministry, and the enjoyment of their property of every kind, whether individual or corporate, and finally, that there should be a free communication between the Catholics of the ceded territories and their ecclesiastical authorities, "even although such authorities. should reside within the limits of the Mexican republic, as defined by this treaty."

The ninth article of the treaty, as adopted by the Senate, is much more comprehensive in its terms and explicit in its meaning, and it clearly embraces, in comparatively few words, all the guarantees inserted in the original article. It is as follows: "Mexicans who, in the territories aforesaid, shall not preserve the character of citizens of the Mexican republic, conformably with what is stipulated in the preceding article, shall be incorporated into the Union of the United States and be admitted at the proper time (to be judged of by the Congress of the United States) to the enjoyment of all the rights of citizens of the United States, according to the principles of the constitution; and in the mean time shall be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty and property, and secured in the free exercise of their religion without restriction." This article, which was substantially copied from the Louisiana treaty, provides equally with the original article for the admission of these inhabitants into the Union; and in the mean time, whilst they shall remain in a territorial state, by one sweeping provision, declares that they "shall be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty and property and secured in the freeexercise of their religion without restriction."

This guarantee embraces every kind of property, whether held by ecclesiastics or laymen, whether belonging to corporations or individuals. It secures to these inhabitants the free exercise of their religion without restriction, whether they choose to place themselves under the spiritual authority of pastors resident within the Mexican republic or the ceded territories. It was, it is presumed, to place this construction beyond all question that the Sen-. ate superadded the words "without restriction" to the religious guarantee contained in the corresponding article of the Louisiana treaty. Congress itself does not possess the power under the constitution to make any law prohibiting the free exercise of religion.

If the ninth article of the treaty, whether in its original or amended form, had been entirely omitted in the treaty, all the rights and privileges which either of them confers would have been secured to the inhabitants of the ceded territories by the constitution and laws of the United States.

The protocol asserts that "the American government, by suppressing the tenth article of the treaty of Guadalupe, 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