Page:Complete history of the late Mexican war.djvu/127

Rh, retaining the property which they possess in the said territories, or disposing thereof, and removing the proceeds wherever they please, without their being subjected, on this account to any contribution, or tax whatever.

Those who shall prefer to remain in said territories, may either retain the title and rights of Mexican citizens, or acquire those of citizens of the United States. But they shall be under the obligation to make their selection within one year from the date of the exchange of ratifications of this Treaty; and those who shall remain in the said territories, after the expiration of that year, without having declared their intention to retain the character of Mexicans shall be considered to have elected to become citizens of the United States.

In the said territories, property of any kind, now belonging to Mexicans not established there shall be inviolably respected. The present owners, the heirs of these, and all Mexicans who may hereafter acquire said property by contract, shall enjoy, with respect to it, guaranties equally ample as if the same belonged to citizens of the United States.

[In place of the following Article, the Senate has inserted the third Article of the Treaty between France and the United States, for the cession of Louisiana, which provides that the inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be admitted to all the rights and privileges of citizenship, in accordance with the principles of the Constitution, as soon as Congress shall determine; and that in the meantime, they shall be protected in the enjoyment of their liberty, property and religious belief.]

The 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 admitted 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. In the meantime they shall be maintained and protected in the enjoyment of their liberty, their property, and the civil rights now vested in them, according to the Mexican laws. With respect to political rights, their condition shall be on an equality with that of the inhabitants of the other territories of the United States, and at least equally good as that of the inhabitants of Louisiana and the Floridas, when these provinces, by transfer from the French Republic, and the Crown of Spain, become territories of the United States.

The most ample guaranty shall be enjoyed by all ecclesiastics and religious corporations, or communities, as well in the discharge of the offices of their ministry, as in the enjoyment of their property of every kind whether individual or corporate. This guaranty shall embrace all temples, houses and edifices dedicated to the Roman Catholic worship; as well as all property destined to its support, or to that of schools, hospitals or other foundations for charitable or beneficent purposes. No property of this nature shall be considered as having become the property of the American Government, or as subject to be by it disposed of, or diverted to other causes.

Finally, the relations and communications between Catholics living in the territories aforesaid, and their respective ecclesiastic authorities, shall he open, free and exempt from all hindrance whatever, even although such authorities should reside within the limits of the Mexican republic, as defined by this Treaty; and this freedom shall continue so long as a new debarcation of ecclesiastical districts shall not have been made, conformably with the aws of the Roman Catholic Church.

All grants of land made by the Mexican Government, or by the competent authorities, in Territories previously appertaining to Mexico, and remaining for the future within the limits of the United States, shall be respected as valid, to the same extent that the same grants would be valid if the Territories had remained within the limits of Mexico. But the grantees of land in Texas put in possession thereof, who by reason of the circumstances of the country, since the beginning of the troubles between Texas and the Mexican Government, may have been prevented from fulfilling all the conditions of their grants, shall be under the obligation to fulfil the said conditions within the periods limited in the same respectively, such periods to be now counted from the date of the exchange of ratifications of this Treaty; in default of which, said grants shall not be obligatory on the State of Texas, in virtue of the stipulations contained in this Article.

The foregoing stipulation in regard to grantees of land in Texas, is extended to all grantees of land in the territories aforesaid, elsewhere than in Texas, put in possession under such grants; and in default of the fulfillment of the conditions of any such grant, within the new period which, as is above stipulated, begins with the day of the exchange of ratifications of this treaty, the same shall be null and void.