Before the treaty can be fully executed on the part of the United States legislation will be required.

It will be proper to make the necessary appropriations for the payment of the $12,000,000 stipulated by the twelfth article to be paid to Mexico in four equal annual installments.  Three million dollars were appropriated by the act of March 3, 1847, and that sum was paid to the Mexican Government after the exchange of the ratifications of the treaty.

The fifth article of the treaty provides that—­

In order to designate the boundary line with due precision upon authoritative maps, and to establish upon the ground landmarks which shall show the limits of both Republics as described in the present article, the two Governments shall each appoint a commissioner and a surveyor, who, before the expiration of one year from the date of the exchange of ratifications of this treaty, shall meet at the port of San Diego and proceed to run and mark the said boundary in its whole course to the mouth of the Rio Bravo del Norte.

It will be necessary that provision should be made by law for the appointment of a commissioner and surveyor on the part of the United States to act in conjunction with a commissioner and surveyor appointed by Mexico in executing the stipulations of this article.

It will be proper also to provide by law for the appointment of a “board of commissioners” to adjudicate and decide upon all claims of our citizens against the Mexican Government, which by the treaty have been assumed by the United States.

New Mexico and Upper California have been ceded by Mexico to the United States, and now constitute a part of our country.  Embracing nearly ten degrees of latitude, lying adjacent to the Oregon Territory, and extending from the Pacific Ocean to the Rio Grande, a mean distance of nearly 1,000 miles, it would be difficult to estimate the value of these possessions to the United States.  They constitute of themselves a country large enough for a great empire, and their acquisition is second only in importance to that of Louisiana in 1803.  Rich in mineral and agricultural resources, with a climate of great salubrity, they embrace the most important ports on the whole Pacific coast of the continent of North America.  The possession of the ports of San Diego and Monterey and the Bay of San Francisco will enable the United States to command the already valuable and rapidly increasing commerce of the Pacific.  The number of our whale ships alone now employed in that sea exceeds 700, requiring more than 20,000 seamen to navigate them, while the capital invested in this particular branch of commerce is estimated at not less than $40,000,000.  The excellent harbors of Upper California will under our flag afford security and repose to our commercial marine, and American mechanics will soon furnish ready means of shipbuilding and repair, which are now so much wanted in that distant sea.