The Government of the United States, by suppressing the concluding
paragraph of article 12 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
the $12,000,000 which the same Government of the United States is to
deliver in the places designated by the amended article.
The concluding paragraph of the original twelfth article, thus
suppressed by the Senate, is in the following language:
Certificates in proper form for the said installments, respectively,
in such sums as shall be desired by the Mexican Government, and
transferable by it, shall be delivered to the said Government by that
of the United States.
From this bare statement, of facts the meaning of the protocol is
obvious. Although the Senate had declined to create a Government stock
for the $12,000,000, and issue transferable certificates for the amount
in such sums as the Mexican Government might desire, yet they could not
have intended thereby to deprive that Government of the faculty which
every creditor possesses of transferring for his own benefit the
obligation of his debtor, whatever this may be worth, according to his
will and pleasure.
It can not be doubted that the twelfth article of the treaty as it
now stands contains a positive obligation, "in consideration of the
extension acquired by the boundaries of the United States," to pay to
the Mexican Republic $12,000,000 in four equal annual installments of
three millions each. This obligation may be assigned by the Mexican
Government to any person whatever, but the assignee in such case would
stand in no better condition than the Government. The amendment of the
Senate prohibiting the issue of a Government transferable stock for the
amount produces this effect and no more.
The protocol contains nothing from which it can be inferred that the
assignee could rightfully demand the payment of the money in case the
consideration should fail which is stated on the face of the obligation.
With this view of the whole protocol, and considering that the
explanations which it contained were in accordance with the treaty, I
did not deem it necessary to take any action upon the subject. Had it
varied from the terms of the treaty as amended by the Senate, although
it would even then have been a nullity in itself, yet duty might have
required that I should make this fact known to the Mexican Government,
This not being the case, I treated it in the same manner I would have
done had these explanations been made verbally by the commissioners to
the Mexican minister for foreign affairs and communicated in a dispatch
to the State Department.