Having seen and examined the said treaty and the modifications made by the Senate of the United States of America, and having given an account thereof to the General Congress, conformably to the requirement in the fourteenth paragraph of the one hundred and tenth article of the federal constitution of these United States, that body has thought proper to approve of the said treaty, with the modifications thereto, in all their parts; and in consequence thereof, exerting the power granted to me by the constitution, I accept, ratify, and confirm the said treaty with its modifications, and promise, in the name of the Mexican Republic, to fulfill and observe it, and to cause it to be fulfilled and observed.

Upon an examination of this protocol, when it was received with the ratified treaty, I did not regard it as material or as in any way attempting to modify or change the treaty as it had been amended by the Senate of the United States.

The first explanation which it contains is: 

That 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 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.

The ninth article of the original treaty stipulated for the incorporation of the Mexican inhabitants of the ceded territories and their admission into the Union “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.”  It provided also that in the meantime they should be maintained in the enjoyment of their liberty, their property, and their civil rights now vested in them according to the Mexican laws.  It secured to them similar political rights with the inhabitants of the other Territories of the United States, and at least equal to the inhabitants of Louisiana and Florida when they were in a Territorial condition.  It then proceeded to guarantee that ecclesiastics and religious corporations should be protected in the discharge of the offices of their ministry and the enjoyment of their property of every kind, whether individual or corporate, and, finally, that there should be a free communication between the Catholics of the ceded territories and their ecclesiastical authorities “even although such authority should reside within the limits of the Mexican Republic as defined by this treaty.”