Volume 9 — PRIZE-MONEY AND ITS POLICY.

Remarks in the Senate, June 30, 1862.

The pending bill, providing that property taken by the Rebels and then retaken under national authority should be restored to the former loyal owner without salvage, was opposed by Mr. Grimes.

Mr. Sumner said:—

I take it that the policy of prize-money is always open to question. It has been handed down from other generations, but I cannot doubt, that, in proportion as nations advance in civilization and refinement, it is more and more drawn into doubt.

Mr. Grimes. I will ask the Senator, whether, under the law as it now exists, our officers and sailors have not certain vested rights? This bill is retrospective, as well as prospective.

Mr. Sumner. But these vested rights, according to existing law, are acquired in war with foreign enemies. And here is the precise point of principle. Certain property of fellow-citizens is taken, not by foreign enemies, but by rebels, and afterwards it is retaken. Several vessels are in this predicament. Even if the recapture were from a foreign enemy, English and American statutes treat it as a case of salvage, and not of prize. But the claim now made involves nothing less than the extension of the ancient rule of war to a new class. I am against such extension. I would have no amplification of such a rule.

I am disposed to go still further, and to reconsider the whole policy of prize-money in any case. Even if not ready for this larger question, the Senate will not hesitate to apply the limitation now proposed. Besides the hardship of prize-money at the expense of our own fellow-citizens, there is the uncivilized character of the whole system, which should make us pause.

The bill was passed,—Yeas 25, Nays 12.