"
This guaranty 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 Senate superadded the words
"without restriction" to the religious guaranty 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 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 13th of May, 1846, and in Texas up to the 2d of March,
1836.
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