" The former was the date of the declaration of war against 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.
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