Resolved, That the President of the United States be requested to furnish this House with a correct copy of the original treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, entered into on the 2d day of February, 1848, by Nicholas P. Trist, on the part of the United States, and Luis G. Cuevas, Barnado Couto, and Miguel Atristain, on the part of the republic of Mexico; and particularly those articles in said original treaty which were stricken out or amended by the Senate of the United States.

Resolved, further, That the President be requested to inform this House whether there is any evidence in the Department of State of an agreement and assurance made by our Commissioners with the Mexican Government, before the ratification by said Government of said amendments, substantially in the following words, to wit:

“PROTOCOL

In the city of Queretaro, on the 26th of the month of May, 1848, at a conference between their Excellencies Nathan Clifford and Ambrose H. Sevier, Commissioners of the United States of America, with full powers from their Government to make to the Mexican republic suitable explanations in regard to the amendments which the Senate and Government of the United States have made in the treaty of peace, friendship, limits, and definitive settlement between the two republics, signed in the city of Guadalupe Hidalgo on the 2d day of February of the present year, and his Excellency Don Luis de la Rosa, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the republic of Mexico, it was agreed, after adequate conversation respecting the changes alluded to, to record in the present protocol the following explanations, which their aforesaid Excellencies the Commissioners gave in the name of their Government, and in fulfilment of the commission conferred upon them near the Mexican republic:

1st 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]1 . . .privileges and guaranties, 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.

2d. 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. These grants, notwithstanding the suppression of this 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.

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 are 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.

3d. The Government of the United States, by suppressing the concluding paragraph of article twelfth of the treaty, did not intend to deprive the Mexican republic of the free and unrestrained faculty of ceding, conveying, or transferring at any time (as it may judge best) the sum of twelve millions of dollars, which the same Government of the United States is to deliver in the places designated by the amended article.

And these explanations having been accepted by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Mexican republic, he declared in the name of his Government that, with the understanding conveyed by them, the same Government would proceed to ratify the treaty of Guadalupe, as modified by the Senate and Government of the United States.

In testimony of which, their Excellencies, the aforesaid Commissioners, and the Minister, have signed and sealed, in quintuplicate, the present protocol.

NATHAN CLIFFORD. (L. S)
AMBROSE H. SEVIER. (L. S)
LUIS DE LA ROSA.” (L. S.)

And be it further resolved, That if such paper is in the Department of State, the President be requested to inform this House whether said Commissioners, or Plenipotentiaries, were empowered to make said explanations and give said guaranties, and by what authority they were so empowered; and whether the said protocol has been submitted to the consideration of the Senate of the United States, and been sanctioned by a constitutional majority of that body.

And be it further resolved, That the President inform this Ho^o^use whether he was aware of the existence of such protocol at the time of his proclamation of the final exchange of ratifications of said treaty on the 4th day of July, 1848.