ws."

"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 not a mere float, but was of land
within defined boundaries, which embraced a greater quantity than that
specified in it, with a provision that the surplus should be measured
off by the government, I held that until such measurement the grantee
could hold the whole as against intruders, and until then he was a
tenant in common with the government. As I said in one of my opinions,
speaking for the court, until such measurement no individual c