The Avalon Project at Yale Law School provides a transcription of the Laws for the Government of the Territory of New Mexico dated September 22, 1846 also known as the Kearny Code. An explanation of the international law at the time relating to conquest of land through war and treaties that follows are in two U.S. Supreme Court cases: Leitensdorfer v. Webb 61 U.S. 176 (1857) and Fleming v. Page, 50 U.S. 603 (1850).