It was private property under a grant made long before our war with Mexico.  When the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo came to be ratified—­at the very moment when Mexico was feeling the sorest pressure that could be applied to her by the force of our armies, and the diplomacy of our statesmen—­she utterly refused to cede her public property in California unless upon the express condition that all private titles should be faithfully protected.  We made the promise.  The gentleman sits on this bench who was then our Minister there.[1] With his own right hand he pledged the sacred honor of this nation that the United States would stand over the grantees of Mexico and keep them safe in the enjoyment of their property.  The pledge was not only that the government itself would abstain from all disturbance of them, but that every blow aimed at their rights, come from what quarter it might, should be caught upon the broad shield of our blessed Constitution and our equal laws.”

“It was by this assurance thus solemnly given that we won the reluctant consent of Mexico to part with California.  It gave us a domain of more than imperial grandeur.  Besides the vast extent of that country, it has natural advantages such as no other can boast.  Its valleys teem with unbounded fertility, and its mountains are filled with inexhaustible treasures of mineral wealth.  The navigable rivers run hundreds of miles into the interior, and the coast is indented with the most capacious harbors in the world.  The climate is more healthful than any other on the globe:  men can labor longer with less fatigue.  The vegetation is more vigorous and the products more abundant; the face of the earth is more varied, and the sky bends over it with a lovelier blue.—­That was what we gained by the promise to protect men in the situation of Justo Larios, their children, their alienees, and others claiming through them.  It is impossible that in this nation they will ever be plundered in the face of such a pledge.”—­(2 Wallace, 703.)

Actuated by this principle—­that fidelity to a nation’s pledge is a sacred duty, and that justice is the highest interest of the country, I endeavored, whenever the occasion presented itself, and my associates heartily co-operated with me, to protect the Mexican grantees.  Their grants contained a stipulation for the possession of the lands granted, inasmuch as they were subject to the conditions of cultivation and occupancy, and a failure to comply with the conditions was considered by the tribunals of the United States as a most material circumstance in the determination of the right of the grantees to a confirmation of their claims.  I held, therefore, with the concurrence of my associates, that the grantees, whether they were to be considered as having a legal or an equitable right to the lands, were entitled to their possession until the action of the government upon their claims, and, therefore, that they could recover in ejectment.  And when the grant was