Opinion ID: 8938355
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Particular Claims of Texas.

Text: Texas, the only one of the defendant States which had the status of an independent nation immediately prior to its admission, contends that it had a three-league maritime boundary which “existed at the time [it] became a member of the Union” in 1845. Whether that is so for the purposes of the Submerged Lands Act depends upon a proper construction of the Congressional action admitting the State to the Union. Texas declared its independence from Mexico on March 2, 1836, 1 Laws, Republic of Texas, 3-7, and on December 19, 1836, the Texan Congress passed an Act to define its boundaries, which were described in part as “beginning at the mouth of the Sabine river, and running west along the Gulf of Mexico three leagues from, land, to the mouth of the Rio Grande, thence up the principal stream of said river . . . .” Id., 133. (Emphasis added.) See diagram at p. 65, post. 61  In March 1837 this country recognized the Republic of Texas. 62 On April 25, 1838, the United States entered into a convention with the Republic to establish a boundary between the two countries and to provide for a survey of part of it. 63 On April 12, 1844, President Tyler concluded a Treaty of Annexation with the Republic, but on June 8, 1844, the Senate refused to ratify it. 64 On March-1, 1845, President Tyler signed a Joint Resolution of Congress for the annexation of Texas, which provided: “That Congress doth consent that the territory properly included within, and rightfully belonging to the Republic of Texas, may be erected into a new State, to be called the State of Texas .... Said State to be formed, subject to the adjustment by this government of all questions of boundary that may arise with other governments . . . .” 65 (Emphasis added.) Pursuant to this Resolution, the people of Texas adopted a constitution, which was submitted to Congress, and by Joint Resolution of December 29, 1845, Texas was admitted to the Union in accordance with the terms of the previous Joint Resolution. 66 The 1836 Texas Boundary Act remained in force up to the time of admission,  and the State Constitution expressly continued in force frota that time forward all laws of the Republic not repugnant to the Federal or State Constitution or the Joint Resolution of Annexation. 67 The Government, while conceding that Texas continuously asserted by statute a three-league seaward boundary, contends that at no time before, during, or after admission did the United States or any other country recognize the validity of that boundary. It follows, therefore, the Government says, that since Texas upon entering the Union became subject to the foreign policy of the United States with respect to the “three-mile limit,” the State’s seaward boundary became immediately and automatically fixed at three miles. Texas, on the other hand, argues that it effectively established, and that the United States repeatedly recognized, the State’s three-league boundary before, during, and after admission, and that therefore such a boundary existed “at the time” of its admission within the meaning of the Submerged Lands Act. For reasons already discussed, ante, pp. 24-36, we consider that the only relevant inquiry is what boundary was fixed for the State of Texas by virtue of the Congressional action admitting it to the Union in accordance with the terms of the Joint Resolution of March 1, 1845. This inquiry first takes us back to some earlier history. By the Treaty of Paris, signed April 30, 1803, 68 France ceded to the United States the Louisiana Territory. The extent of the territory thus conveyed was left uncertain, the description in the Treaty referring only to a previous treaty by which France had acquired the territory from Spain, which in turn described the area only as “the colony or province of Louisiana.” 69 It was asserted by  some that the territory acquired did not stop at the Sabine River — the present boundary between the States of Louisiana and Texas — but extended westward to the Rio Grande so as to include Texas. 70 However, by the Treaty of February 22,' 1819, between the United States and Spain, the boundary line between the two countries was established at the Sabine. 71 Those who had believed that the Louisiana Territory extended west of the Sabine decried this Treaty as a breach of faith by the United States in violation of the covenant in the 1803 Treaty which required the inhabitants of all the Louisiana Territory to be incorporated as soon as possible into the Union. 72 Subsequently, the United States attempted unsuccessfully on several occasions to acquire the territory west of the Sabine by purchase. 73 Meanwhile, Mexico had revolted from Spain, had been recognized by this country in 1822, and had proclaimed a federal constitution in 1824. Texas was made part of the compound province of Coahuila-Texas, with the indication that it would eventually be given a separate constitution as a sovereign state. After a series of difficulties with the central government, however, Texas in  1836 proclaimed its own independence from Mexico. It immediately sent diplomatic representatives to the United States to negotiate for annexation, but nothing was consummated at that time. 74 Shortly thereafter, it promulgated the 1836 boundary statute referred to above. It was against this background that President Tyler negotiated and sent to the Senate the 1844 Treaty for the annexation of Texas. That document provided: “The Republic of Texas . . . cedes to the United States all its territories, to be held by them in full property and sovereignty . . . 75 One of the objections made to the Treaty on the floor of the Senate was that it purported to cede to the United States all the territory claimed by Texas under her 1836 Boundary Act, to large parts of which Texas allegedly had no title, those parts assertedly having always been under the domination and control of Spain and Mexico. 76 This objection was countered by several proponents of the Treaty who insisted that since it contained no delineation of boundaries and since the Republic of Texas was referred to by a general designation, the clause “all its  territories” ceded only that which properly and rightfully belonged to Texas, its Boundary Act notwithstanding. 77 The proponents pointed also to a letter of instructions written by Secretary of State Calhoun to the United States Charge d’ Affaires in Mexico a week after the Treaty was signed, which enjoined the latter, in making the Treaty known to Mexico, “to assure the Mexican Government that it is his [the President’s] desire to settle all questions between the two countries which may grow out of this treaty, or any other cause, on the most liberal and satisfactory terms, including that of boundary . . . . [The United States] has taken every precaution to make the terms of the treaty as little objectionable to Mexico as possible; and, among others, has left the boundary of Texas without specification, so that what the line of boundary should be might be an open question, to be fairly and fully discussed and settled according to the rights of each, and the mutual interest and security of the two countries.” 78 Despite these controversial aspects of the Treaty, it is quite apparent that its supporters desired to press Texas’ boundary claims to the utmost degree possible. President Tyler, in response to the Senate’s request, transmitted to it a map showing the western and southwestern boundaries of Texas, and according generally with the Texas Boundary Act. 79 Senator Walker of Mississippi, while insisting that the Treaty ceded “only . . . the country embraced within its [Texas’] lawful boundaries,”  asserted that in fact her lawful boundary extended to the Rio Grande, that it had extended that far when she was ceded away by the United States in 1819, that the United States had acquiesced in those boundaries when it recognized Texas in 1837, and that Mexico had never protested the Convention of 1838 which allegedly validated that boundary. 80 Senator Breese of Illinois, while assuring the Treaty’s opponents that the boundary was left open to future determination, avowed that the United States had acknowledged the Texas boundaries as asserted in her 1836 statute, and that he was in favor of the recovery not only of the old province of Texas as it existed in 1803 and 1819, but also “for as much more as the 'republic’ of Texas can lawfully claim.” 81 Senators Woodbury of New Hampshire and Buchanan of Pennsylvania, while expressing doubt about the validity of the Texas Boundary Act to the extent that it claimed portions of New Mexico, thought it was valid so far as it pressed beyond the Nueces to the Rio Grande and ought to be maintained. 82 After the failure of the Treaty, which would have annexed Texas as a territory of the United States, several proposals were introduced in the next session of Congress for the annexation of Texas by a Joint Resolution admitting it immediately as a State. 83 The doubts which  had been raised in 1844 as to the validity of certain Texan pretensions to territory on her western and southwestern frontiers were reiterated during consideration of the various Resolutions, and reference was made to the fact that the rejected Treaty had been assailed as purporting to embrace such territory. 84 In 1844, supporters of the Treaty had considered the general designation “all its territories” as ceding only territory which rightfully, properly, or lawfully belonged to Texas, and as leaving to the Executive the duty of settling the extent of that territory by amicable negotiation. 85 The two clauses of the 1845  Annexation Resolution (ante, p. 37) appear, against this background, to be an express formulation of precisely the same thing. The first makes it clear that the grant is of initially undefined scope, governed by the truism that only “the territory properly included within, and rightfully belonging to the Republic of Texas” is ceded. The second expressly contemplates future negotiation to settle the exact extent of such territory, by making it “subject to the adjustment by this government of all questions of boundary that may arise with other governments.” In short, it is clear that the “properly” and “rightfully” clause was intended neither as a legislative determination that the entire area claimed by Texas was legitimately hers, nor to serve, independently of the “adjustment” clause, as a self-operating standard for measuring Texas’ boundaries. Rather, the precise, fixation of the new State’s boundaries was left to future negotiations with Mexico. The circumstances surrounding the Resolution’s passage make it clear that this was the understanding of Congress. Congressional attention was focused primarily on the great political questions attending annexation— primarily the extent to which slavery would be permitted in the new territory and the possibility that annexation would embroil this country with Mexico — and the matter of boundary received little consideration except as it was related to the larger issues. Public agitation over annexation had become so great that some bills had proposed annexation virtually in the abstract, with all details to be worked out later. 86 Although the Resolution as ulti  mately passed did settle the details of certain matters— notably slavery, the Texan debt, and the mode of annexation — the manifest purport of it and all the many other annexation bills introduced was to postpone the fixing of boundaries for the sake of achieving immediate annexation, and no apparent importance was attached to the particular verbal formula used to achieve such postponement. 87 The general tenor of opposition to annexation  changed from a fear that the cession covered too much to criticisms of the indefinite treatment of boundary and concern over whether Texas really owned as much as some supporters asserted. 88 It is true that isolated statements were made which seem to indicate that the speaker thought the Resolutions would admit Texas with the boundary defined in her 1836 boundary statute, subject to possible subsequent readjustment. 89 However, read in  context, these statements may have meant no more than that the United States, in its negotiations with Mexico, would attempt to sustain the full extent of Texas’ declared boundaries, rather than that those boundaries were in fact proper. Be that as it may, in view of the overwhelming evidence of Congressional understanding and of the express language of the Annexation Resolution as ultimately passed, the conclusion is inescapable that Texas, at least as to its land area, was admitted with undefined boundaries subject to later settlement. While this conclusion appears unavoidable as regards Texas’ land boundaries, a question does exist as to whether it applies also to the State’s seaward boundary. For we are unable to find in the Congressional debates either on the 1844 Treaty or the 1845 Annexation Resolution a single instance of significant advertence to the problem of seaward boundaries. Furthermore, a series of other events manifests a total lack of concern with the problem. Prior to Texan independence, the United States had entered into successive treaties with Spain and Mexico, 90 which provided that “The boundary line between the two countries, west of the Mississippi, shall begin on the Gulph of Mexico, at the mouth of the river Sabine, in the sea, continuing north along the western bank of that river . . . .” (Emphasis added.)  Just after Texas had proclaimed its independence from Mexico, the two countries, on May 14, 1836, concluded “Articles of Agreement and Solemn Compact,” acknowledging Texan independence and setting its boundary as follows: “The line shall commence at the estuary or mouth of the Rió Grande, on the western bank thereof, and shall pursue the same bank up the said river . . . .” 91 (Emphasis added.) Thereafter a minister was sent to the United States to seek recognition and broach the subject of annexation. With respect to the latter, he was instructed on November 18,1836: “As regards the boundaries of Texas . . . [w]e claim and consider that we have possession to the Rio Bravo del Norte. Taking this as the basis, the boundary of Texas would be as follows. Beginning at the mouth of said River on the Gulf of Mexico, thence up the middle thereof . . . .” 92 (Emphasis added.) Yet a month later, on December 19, 1836, the Texan Congress passed the Boundary Act which inexplicably, so far as we can find, provided that the boundary should run along the Gulf of Mexico at three leagues from land. 93  Quite in contrast, in the subsequent Convention of 1838 to establish the boundary between the United States and Texas, Texas reaffirmed the 1819 and 1828 Treaties with Spain and Mexico regarding that boundary and agreed to the running and marking of “that portion of the said boundary which extends from the mouth of the Sabine, where that river enters the Gulph of Mexico, to the Red river.” 94 (Emphasis added.) Again, as previously mentioned (note 79, ante), during its consideration of the unratified Treaty of April 12, 1844, the Senate requested President Tyler to transmit any information he possessed concerning the southern, southwestern, and western boundaries of Texas. On April 26, 1844, he sent a map and a memoir by its compiler. The memoir flagrantly misquoted the 1836 Boundary Act by  describing the Texas boundary as “ ‘Beginning at the mouth of the Rio Grande, thence up the principal stream of said river . . . ” 95 The foregoing circumstances make it abundantly plain that at the time Texas was admitted to the Union, its seaward boundary, though expressly claimed at three leagues in the 1836 Texas Boundary Act, had not been the subject of any specific concern in the train of events leading to annexation. Given this state of affairs, we must initially dispose of an argument made by Texas. The State urges, in effect, that whether or not its maritime boundary was actually considered by the Congress or the Executive during the course of the annexation proceedings, it was incumbent upon the United States to protest or reject in some manner Texas’ claim in this regard, and that failure to do so constituted in law a validation or ratification of that boundary claim upon admission. Whatever the merit of this proposition may be in the abstract, the controlling factor for purposes of this case must be the terms of the Joint Resolution of Annexation. There is, indeed, a strong argument that the “properly,” “rightfully,” and “adjustment” clauses of that Resolution should be read as applying only to the land boundaries disputed with Mexico, which gave rise to those qualifications, and that the Resolution was meant to validate any boundary asserted by Texas without protest. However, in light of the fact that the language employed in the Resolution is of general applicability, we should hesitate to limit its effect by reading into it such an additional unexpressed test respecting the extent of Texas’ boundaries. We think that its language must be taken as applying to Texas’ maritime boundary as well as to its land boundary.  On this basis an argument of the Government must now be met. It is contended that since Texas was admitted to the Union with its maritime boundary not yet settled, United States foreign policy on the extent of territorial waters, to which Texas was admittedly subject from the moment of admission, automatically upon admission operated to fix its seaward boundary at three miles. This contention must be rejected. As we have noted, the boundaries contemplated by the Submerged Lands Act are those fixed by virtue of Congressional power to admit new States and to define the extent of their territory, not by virtue of the Executive power to determine this country's obligations vis-á-vis foreign nations. Ante, pp. 30-36. It may indeed be that the Executive, in the exercise of its power, can limit the enjoyment of certain incidents of a Congressionally conferred boundary, but it does not fix that boundary. If, as in the case of Texas, Congress employs an uncertain standard in fixing a State’s boundaries, we must nevertheless endeavor to apply that standard to the historical events surrounding admission. We are brought back, then, to a twofold inquiry: First, whether the three-league maritime boundary asserted by the Republic of Texas embraced an area which was “properly included within, and rightfully belonging to” the Republic. Second, whether such a boundary was ever fixed for the State of Texas pursuant to the power reserved by Congress to adjust “all questions of boundary that may arise with other governments.” As we have observed, it is evident that the first clause, independently of the second, was not intended to operate as a self-executing standard for determining the disputed western and southwestern boundaries of Texas. To attempt to apply that clause as fixing the extent of Texas’ maritime boundary, immediately upon admission to the Union, no less than in so fixing its land boundaries, would be illusory at best. The parties devote consider  able discussion to the validity or invalidity of the asserted three-league maritime boundary under international law. It is true that the propriety of a nation’s seaward boundary must be viewed in the context of its obligations vis-á-vis the family of nations. But surely the Joint Resolution of Annexation could not have been meant to import such an elusive inquiry into the determination of Texas’ maritime boundary, especially when that question was never even considered and when the Resolution was expressly drawn to leave undefined the land boundaries which did receive consideration. And we are unable to say that Congress might have deemed the three-league maritime boundary “proper” or “rightful” in some other sense. It is necessary, therefore, to look to other events to ascertain where the Texan maritime boundary was fixed pursuant to the Joint Resolution of Annexation. Congress’ failure to carry into the Annexation Resolution the boundaries fixed by the 1836 Texas Boundary Act did not, of course, foreclose the possibility that the State’s boundary might ultimately be fixed in accordance ' with that statute. It is significant in this regard to note the opinions ventured in Congress on the probable settlement of the boundary with Mexico which would occur subsequent to annexation. One group asserted that the Texan claims to the Rio Grande, particularly the portion which encompassed New Mexico, could not possibly be maintained. 96 But such remarks were made primarily by opponents of annexation and were intended as warnings against assuming that enough land would be included in the cession to pay the Texan debt or to form free States. Much more significant than opinions as to where the boundary might ultimately be fixed are observations made  regarding the basis on which the boundary question might be pressed against Mexico. Supporters and opponents alike acknowledged that the United States would probably negotiate on the basis of the Texan boundaries as declared in her own boundary statute, even though some parts of that boundary might not be maintainable. Some thought this was so because those boundaries were in fact her proper and rightful boundaries. 97 Others thought it was so because the United States, having acquiesced in the Boundary Act after receiving notice of it, was bound, upon admitting Texas to the Union, to maintain those claims on her behalf. 98 Whatever the reasons given, it is  clear that Congress, although it purposely refused to settle the question, anticipated that the Texas Boundary Act should and would be insisted on to the greatest degree possible in negotiations with Mexico. This prediction was borne out by subsequent events. After the Annexation Resolution had been passed and transmitted to Texas for its assent, the Mexican army threatened to cross the Rio Grande and invade Texas. On June 15, 1845, President Polk wrote an informal and confidential letter to the United States Chargé d’Affaires in Texas which indicated that Polk intended to repel such an invasion and to maintain the Texan claim at least to the lower portion of the Rio Grande: “In the contingency . . . that a Mexican army should cross — the Rio Grande . . . then in my judg  ment, — the public necessity for our interposition— will be such, — that we should not stand — quietly by — and permit — an invading foreign enemy — either to occupy or devastate any portion of the Texian territory. Of course I would maintain the Texan title to the extent which she claims it to be, and_not permit an invading enemy — to occupy a foot of the soil East of the Rio GrandeAndrew Donelson Papers (Library of Congress), Yol. 10, folios 2068-2070. Nine days before, Polk had manifested a similar intention in a letter to Sam Houston, former President of the Republic of Texas and an influential spokesman for annexation: “You may have no apprehensions in regard to your boundary. Texas once a part of the Union and we will maintain all your rights of territory and will not suffer them to be sacrificed.” Polk Papers (Library of Congress) (1845), Yol. 84. The attitude of the Executive at this time toward the Texan boundary is made even more explicit by an account of an interview between the United States Chargé d’Affaires in Texas and Sam Houston, written by the former to his superior, the Secretary of State : “I stated at large the general policy of the United States as justifying no doubt of the tenacity with which they would maintain not only the present claim of Texas, but reenforce it with the preexisting one derived from France in 1803 .... “I brought also to his view the fact that this latter feature of the proposals did not interfere with the right of Texas to define her limits as she claimed them, in her statutes — that the specification of the Rio Grande as the western boundary would be proper enough as shewing the extent to which the United States would maintain her claim as far as it could be  done without manifest injustice to Mexico, and to the portion of the inhabitants of Mexico that had never yet acknowledged the jurisdiction of Texas — that practically the United States would take the place of Texas, and would be obligated to do all, in this respect, that Texas could do, were she to remain a separate nation.” 99 After Texas consented to annexation and Congress had finally admitted her to statehood, the Mexican army crossed the Rio Grande and declared war upon the United States. On May 11, 1846, President Polk called on Congress to declare war against Mexico. He said in part: “Texas, by the final action of our Congress, had become an integral part of our Union. The Congress of Texas, by its act of December 19, 1836, had declared the Rio del Norte to be the boundary of that republic. Its jurisdiction had been extended and exercised beyond the Nueces. The country between that river and the Del Norte had been represented in the congress and in the convention of Texas; had thus taken part in the act of annexation itself; and is now included within one of our congressional districts. Our own Congress had, moreover, with great unanimity, by .the act approved December 31, 1845, recognized the country beyond the Nueces as a part of our territory, by including it within our own revenue system; and a revenue officer, to reside within that district, has been appointed, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. It became, therefore, of urgent necessity to provide for the defence of that portion of our country.” H. R. Exec. Doc. No. 60, 30th Cong., 1st Sess. 4, 7.  In a later message to Congress on December 8, 1846, Polk manifested the same disposition. H. R. Exec. Doc. No. 4, 29th Cong., 2d Sess. 13-14. And on December 7, 1847, he explained that the United States had rejected a treaty proposal by Mexico because “It required the United States to dismember Texas, by surrendering to Mexico that part of the territory of that State lying between the Nueces and the Rio Grande, included within her limits by her laws when she was an independent republic, and when she was annexed to the United States and admitted by Congress as one of the States of our Union.” H. R. Exec. Doc. No. 8, 30th Cong., 1st Sess. 9. However, there is absolutely nothing to indicate that the Executive, any more than the Congress, was interested in, or was at all aware of any problem presented by, the seaward boundary of Texas as claimed in its 1836 Boundary Act. The Government urges, by way of explanation, that the United States had, by this time, firmly established a policy of claiming no more than three miles of territorial waters. But the Executive’s responsibility for fixing the Texan boundary derived from a delegation of Congressional power to admit new States, not from the Executive’s own power to fix the extent of territorial waters. As we have already pointed out, the two powers can operate independently, and only the first is determinative in this case. To the extent it may be argued that the Executive would naturally take account of its own policy toward territorial waters in fixing the Congres-sionally mandated boundary, the data presented to us are utterly devoid of any suggestion that such was the case. On the contrary, it is evident that the overwhelming concern of the President and his subordinates was to maintain to the greatest extent possible the land boundaries claimed by Texas and disputed with Mexico,  as anticipated by Congress. The settlement of that matter remained for future events, to which we now turn. On April 15, 1847, Nicholas P. Trist was appointed Commissioner to Mexico to negotiate a peace treaty. Among his instructions was a pro jet of the proposed treaty, which provided: “The boundary line between the two Republics shall commence in the Gulf of Mexico three leagues from land opposite the mouth of the Rio Grande, from thence up the middle of that river . . . 5 Miller, Treaties and Other International Acts of the United States of America (1937), 265. (Emphasis added.) This language was incorporated verbatim into Article V of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo as finally signed on February 2, 1848, 9 Stat. 922, which fixed the boundary between the United States and Mexico from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific coast. 100 While there was con  siderable disagreement in the negotiations over the various land boundaries, the proposals of both parties never departed from the three-league provision. See 5 Miller, op. cit., supra, at 270, 288, 299, 315, 317, 325. Trist stated in his notes that one object of instructions given to his predecessor, substantially identical in relevant part to those given him, was to get Mexico to agree to a boundary which “would throw within the territory of the United States the country lying east of the Rio Grande. Or,  as said object stands in said instructions, specifically stated & expressed, it was the object of prevailing upon Mexico ‘to agree that the line shall be established along the boundary defined by the act of Congress of Texas, approved December 19, 1836, to wit: beginning at “the mouth of the Rio Grande; thence up the principal stream of said river 101 While this misquotation of the Texas Boundary Act again demonstrates total insensitivity to any problem of a seaward boundary, the passage does indicate that the United States was attempting to follow the Texan statute in negotiating the boundary. 102 More important for the purposes of this case are the circumstances that the three-league provision was made an express part of the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, that such boundary was reaffirmed five years later in the Gadsden Treaty of December 30, 1853 103 and subsequently in a long line  of international conventions, 104 and that it has never been repudiated. The Treaty unquestionably established the Rio Grande from New Mexico to the Gulf as the land boundary not only of the United States but also of Texas, since the Executive, acting pursuant to the power given by Congress to “adjust” Texas’ boundaries in dealings with other nations, pressed that boundary against Mexico on the theory that it embraced territory rightfully belonging to the State of Texas. There is nothing to indicate that the extension of that boundary three leagues into the Gulf, pursuant to the very same Boundary Act, was treated on any different basis. The portion of the boundary extending into the Gulf, like the rest of the line, was intended to separate the territory of the two countries, and to recognize that the maritime territory of Texas extended three leagues seaward. Whether the Treaty be deemed to constitute an exercise of the power to adjust the boundaries left unsettled by the 1845 Joint Resolution of Annexation, or a post hoc recognition of a seaward boundary which was actually fixed for Texas upon its admission in 1845, or a fixation of boundaries which related back to the time of admission, is of no moment. Although the Submerged Lands Act requires that a State’s boundary in excess of three miles must have existed “at the time” of its admission, that phrase was intended, in substance, to define a State’s present boundaries by reference to the events surrounding its admission. As such, it clearly includes a boundary which was  fixed pursuant to a Congressional mandate establishing the terms of the State’s admission, even though the final execution of that mandate occurred a short time subsequent to admission. The Government contends that the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is of no significance in this case because the line drawn three leagues out to sea was not meant to separate territory of the two countries, but only to separate their rights to exercise certain types of “extraterritorial” jurisdiction with respect to customs and smuggling. We believe the conclusion is clear that what the line, denominated a “boundary” in the Treaty itself, separates is territory of the respective countries. No reference to “extraterritorial” jurisdiction is made in the Treaty, and no such concept can be gleaned from the context of the negotiations. Being based on the three-league provision of the 1836 Texas Boundary Act, which itself denotes a territorial boundary, the obvious and common-sense meaning of the analogous treaty provision is that it separates the maritime territory of the United States and Mexico. The Government relies on certain diplomatic correspondence as evidencing a subsequent construction of the Treaty contrary to this conclusion. In 1848, when Great Britain protested the three-league provision of the Treaty, both the United States and Mexico replied that the Treaty defined rights only as between the two countries and was not intended to impair the rights of any other nation in the marginal sea. 105 In 1875, Secretary of State Hamilton Fish made a similar explanation to Lord Derby of Eng  land, but added a new contention that the boundary provision was “probably” suggested by the Acts of Congress permitting revenue officials to board vessels bound for the United States within four leagues of the coast. 106 And in 1936, after Mexico had asserted a three-league belt of territorial water along its entire coast, the United States, in denying that the Treaty gave Mexico such a right, adopted both rationales relied on in 1875, and in addition contended that the boundary provision did recognize the territory of the two countries as extending three leagues from the coast, but only in the “one area” adjacent to the international boundary. 107 It seems evident from the  shifting and uncertain grounds upon which these pronouncements relied that they should be taken as reflecting no more than after-the-fact attempts to limit the effect of a provision which patently purported to establish a three-league territorial boundary, so as to bring it into accord with this country’s international obligations. Undoubtedly the Executive has the right to limit the effect to be accorded a treaty provision in its dealings with other countries. But where, as here, that Treaty touches upon relationships between the Nation and a State created pursuant to a Congressional mandate, the original purport of the Treaty must control, and the dealings of the Executive with other nations cannot affect the State’s rights in any way as a domestic matter. We conclude, therefore, that pursuant to the Annexation Resolution of 1845, Texas’ maritime boundary was established at three leagues from its coast for domestic purposes. Of course, we intimate no view on the effectiveness of this boundary as against other nations. Accordingly, Texas is entitled to a grant of three leagues from her coast under the Submerged Lands Act.  BOUNDARIES CLAIMED BY TEXAS.