Volume 16 — NO REPRISALS ON INNOCENT PERSONS.

Speech in the Senate, on the Bill concerning the Rights of American Citizens, July 18, 1868.

The Senate had under consideration the Bill concerning the Rights of American Citizens in Foreign States, which had already passed the House of Representatives. As it came from the House it contained the following section:—

“Sec. 3. And be it further enacted, That, whenever it shall be duly made known to the President that any citizen of the United States has been arrested and is detained by any foreign Government, in contravention of the intent and purposes of this Act, upon the allegation that naturalization in the United States does not operate to dissolve his allegiance to his native sovereign, or if any citizen shall have been arrested and detained, whose release upon demand shall have been unreasonably delayed or refused, the President shall be, and hereby is, empowered to suspend, in part or wholly, commercial relations with the said Government, or, in case no other remedy is available, to order the arrest and to detain in custody any subject or citizen of such foreign Government who may be found within the jurisdiction of the United States, and who has not declared his intention to become a citizen of the United States, except ambassadors and other public ministers and their domestics and domestic servants; and the President shall without delay give information to Congress of any proceedings under this Act.”

Mr. Sumner reported an amendment, to strike out the words in Italic authorizing the suspension of commercial relations and reprisals on persons, and substitute therefor these words:—

“It shall be the duty of the President forthwith to report to Congress all the circumstances of any such arrest and detention, and any proceedings for the release of the citizen so arrested and detained, that Congress may take prompt action to secure to every citizen of the United States his just rights.”

On this amendment Mr. Sumner spoke as follows.

MR. PRESIDENT,—Before entering upon this discussion, I wish to read a brief telegram, which came by the cable last evening, as follows:—

“London, July 17.—In the House, last evening, Stanley, the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, made an important statement in answer to a question asking for information. In reply, he said he had already sent to the United States Government a note on the matter of Naturalization, the substance of which was, that the British ministry was ready to accept the American views of the question. He therefore thought a misunderstanding between the two nations impossible.”

Add to this important information the well-known fact, that the United States have already ratified treaties with North Germany and Bavaria, and that we are engaged in negotiating treaties with other powers, for the settlement of this vexed question, and we may surely approach this discussion without any anxiety, except for the honor of our country.

Permit me to say, at the outset, that the declared object of the present bill is all lost in certain special features, which are nothing less than monstrous, and utterly unworthy of a generous Republic hoping to give an example to mankind. Surely, Sir, it is noble to reach out and protect the rights of the citizen at home and abroad; but no zeal in this behalf should betray us into conduct which cannot be regarded without a blush.

This bill proposes to confer upon the President prodigious powers, such as have never been lavished before in our history. They are without precedent. On this account alone they should be considered carefully; and they should not be granted, unless on good reason. If it be shown that they are not only without precedent, but that they are inconsistent with the requirements of modern civilization, that they are of evil example, and that they tend directly to war,—then, on this account, we should hesitate still more before we venture to grant them. Not lightly can a nation set itself against the requirements of civilization; not lightly can a nation do an act of evil example; not lightly can a nation take any step toward war. The whole business is solemn. Nothing graver could challenge the attention of the Senate.

Two powers are conferred upon the President: first, to suspend commercial relations with a foreign government, and, secondly, to arrest and detain in custody any subject of a foreign government found within the jurisdiction of the United States. The suspension of commercial relations, and the arrest of innocent foreigners, simply at the will of the President,—these are the two powers. It would be difficult to imagine greater.

We have had in our own history the instance of an embargo, when all our merchant ships were kept at home and forbidden to embark in foreign commerce. That measure was intended to save our commerce from insult and our sailors from impressment. This was done by Act of Congress. I am not aware of any instance, in our own history or in the history of any other country, where there has been a suspension of commercial relations with any foreign power, unless as an act of war. The moment war is declared, there is, from the fact of war, a suspension of commercial relations with the hostile power. Commerce with that power is impossible, and there can be no contract even between the citizens or subjects of the two powers. But this is war. It is now proposed to do this same thing and to call it peace. The proposition is new, absolutely new. Not an instance of history, not a phrase in the Law of Nations, sanctions it. I need not say how little congenial it is with the age in which we live. The present object of good men is to make war difficult, if not impossible. Here is a way to make war easy. To the President is given this alarming power. In Europe war proceeds from the sovereign: in England, from the Queen in Council; in France, from Louis Napoleon. This is according to the genius of monarchies. By the Constitution of our Republic it is Congress alone that can declare war. And yet by this bill One Man, in his discretion, may do little short of declaring war. He may hurl one of the bolts of war, and sever the commercial relations of two great powers. Consider well what must ensue. Suppose the bolt is hurled at England. All that various commerce on which so much depends, all that interchange of goods which contributes so infinitely to the wants of each, all that shipping and all those steamers traversing the ocean between the two, all the multitudinous threads of business by which the two peoples are woven together, warp and woof, as in a mighty loom,—all these must be severed.

The next power conferred on the President is like unto the first in its abnormal character. It is nothing less than authority, in his discretion, to make reprisals, by seizing innocent foreigners happening to be in the United States. The more this is considered, the more it must be regarded with distrust.

Reprisals belong to the incidents of war in the earlier ages, before civilization had tempered the rudeness of mankind. All reprisals are of doubtful character. Reprisals on persons are barbarous. I do not say, that, according to the received rights of war, some terrible occasion may not arise even for this barbarous agency; but I insist that it is frowned upon by all the best authorities even in our own country, that it is contrary to enlightened reason, and that it is utterly without any recent example. Admitting that such reprisals are not entirely discarded by writers on the Law of Nations, they are nevertheless condemned. By the rights of war, as once declared, the lives of prisoners taken on the field of battle were forfeit. Early history attests the frequency of this bloody sacrifice. Who now would order the execution of prisoners of war? The day has passed when any such outrage can be tolerated. But it is hardly less barbarous to seize innocent persons whom business or pleasure has brought within your peaceful jurisdiction, under the guaranty of the Public Faith.

I am unwilling to occupy time on a matter which is so clear in the light of modern civilization, and of that enlightened reason which is the handmaid to civilization. And yet the present effort will justify me in exposing the true character of reprisals, as seen in the light of history.

Reprisals were recognized by the Greeks, but disowned by the Romans. According to Bynkershoek, who is so much quoted on the Law of Nations, “there is no instance of such wickedness in the history of that magnanimous people; neither do their laws exhibit the least trace of it.”[239] This is strong language, and is in itself a condemnation of this whole agency. It is of the more weight, as the author is our austerest authority on questions of the Law of Nations, giving to the rights of war the strongest statement. According to him, reprisals are nothing less than “wickedness” (improbitas), and unworthy of a magnanimous people. During the Middle Ages, and afterwards, reprisals were in vogue; but they never found favor. They have been constantly reprobated. Even when formally sanctioned, they have been practically excluded by safeguards and conditions. In a treaty between Cromwell and the States-General there was a stipulation against reprisals, “unless the prince whose subject shall conceive himself to have been injured shall first lay his complaint before the sovereign whose subject is supposed to have committed the tortious act, and unless that sovereign shall not cause justice to be rendered to him within three months after his application.”[240] This stipulation was renewed under Charles the Second.[241] The same principle was declared by the Grand Pensionary, De Witt, who, in the name of the United Provinces, protested, “that reprisals cannot be granted, except in case of an open denial of justice,” and “that, even in case of a denial of justice, a sovereign cannot empower his subjects to make reprisals, until he has repeatedly demanded justice for them.”[242] A similar rule was also declared in the famous letter to the King of Prussia, in the case of the Silesian loan, written by Murray, afterward Lord Mansfield, and much praised by Montesquieu and by Vattel.[243] Here it is said: “The Law of Nations, founded upon justice, equity, convenience, and the reason of the thing, and confirmed by long usage, does not allow of reprisals, except in case of violent injuries, directed or supported by the State, and justice absolutely denied, in re minime dubia, by all the tribunals, and afterwards by the prince.”[244] This is clear and strong. I might quote authorities without end to the same point. I content myself with adding the words of General Halleck, who, after saying, in his admirable manual, that “reprisals bring us to the awful confines of actual war,” proceeds to lay down the rule, that reprisals, even on property, can be only “where justice has been plainly denied or most unreasonably delayed.”[245] This rule commends itself as proper and just. It is your duty to apply it on the present occasion. But, in the face of the authorities in our own country, judges, jurists, publicists, and commentators, in long array, according to whom our own claim of allegiance is coincident with that of England,—and then, again, in face of the well-known and much-heralded disposition of foreign powers, including England, to settle this whole question by treaty, is it not absurd to say that here is a case for reprisals of any kind?

In the early days reprisals were directed against persons as well as property. Even against property it was done with hesitation, only in cases free from all doubt, and after ample appeal to the sovereign for justice. Against persons it was done very rarely. Grotius, our greatest master, who brought the rules of International Law to the touchstone of reason, asserts that all reprisals are vindicated by custom rather than by Nature. His language is, that this rule “is not indeed authorized by Nature, but generally received by custom.”[246] Since then the tendency has been to a constant mitigation of this pretension, even as regards property. Without burdening this discussion with cases, which are numerous, I give a summary of Wheaton in these words: “It appears to be the modern rule of international usage, that property of the enemy found within the territory of the belligerent state, or debts due to his subjects by the Government or individuals, at the commencement of hostilities, are not liable to be seized and confiscated as prize of war.”[247] This rule, which is applicable to the condition of things on the breaking out of war, attests the care with which the modern Law of Nations watches the rights of individuals, and how it avoids making them suffer. Thus even debts are not liable to seizure. How much more should an innocent person be exempt from any such outrage!

It is when we consider the modern rule with regard to persons, instead of property, that we are impressed still more by its benignity. Here I quote, first a British authority, and then an American. Mr. Phillimore, the author of the very elaborate and candid treatise on the Law of Nations, so full of various learning, after admitting that reprisals, “strictly speaking, affect the persons as well as the goods,” proceeds to say, that, “in modern times, however, they have been chiefly confined to goods”; and then adds, in words worthy of consideration now, that “it is to be hoped that the reprisal of persons has fallen, with other unnecessary and unchristian severities, into desuetude; and certainly, to seize travellers, by way of reprisal, is a breach of the tacit faith pledged to them by the State, when they were allowed to enter her borders.”[248] The same enlightened conclusion is expressed by Dana, in his excellent notes to Wheaton, as follows: “The right of making reprisals is not limited to property, but extends to persons; still, the practice of modern times discountenances the arrest and detention of innocent persons strictly in the way of reprisal.”[249] Thus do British and American publicists concur in homage to a common civilization.

If we look at the reason of the modern rule which spares persons, we shall find it in two different considerations, each of controlling authority: first, that an innocent person cannot be seized in a foreign country without a violation of the Public Faith; and, secondly, that no private individual can be justly held responsible for the act of his Government. On the first head Vattel speaks as follows: “The sovereign who declares war can no more detain the subjects of the enemy who are found in his states at the time of the declaration than he can their effects. They have come into his dominions on the Public Faith. In permitting them to enter his territories and continue there he tacitly promised them full liberty and full security for their return.”[250] In the same sense Halleck says, “Travellers and passing guests are in general excepted from such liability.”[251] Here again Grotius speaks with the authority of a Christian lawgiver, saying that by the Law of Nations there can be no reprisals “on travellers or sojourners.”[252] The other reason was assigned by Mr. Webster, in his correspondence with the British Government in relation to the “Caroline.” The British Government having acknowledged the act of McLeod in burning this vessel as their act, Mr. Webster at once declared, that, after this avowal, the individuals engaged in it could not be held personally responsible, and he added words worthy of memory at this juncture: “The President presumes that it can hardly be necessary to say that the American people, not distrustful of their ability to redress public wrongs by public means, cannot desire the punishment of individuals, when the act complained of is declared to have been an act of the Government itself.”[253] Weighty words, by which our country is forever bound. The same principle is adopted by Halleck, in his text-book, when he says, “No individual is justly chargeable with the guilt of a personal crime for the act of the community of which he is a member.”[254] All these authorities furnish us the same lesson, and warn against the present proposition. Shall we at the same time violate the Public Faith and wreak a dishonorable vengeance on an innocent traveller or sojourner, making him the scapegoat of his country? Shall we do this outrage to the stranger within our gates?

Another argument may be found in the extent to which reprisal on persons has been discarded by modern precedents. It is denounced, not only by authority, but also by practice. I have already said that the proposition to suspend commercial relations is without an example in history. The other proposition is without example since the hateful act of the first Napoleon, condemned afterward by himself, when, at the breaking of the short-lived Peace of Amiens, he seized innocent Englishmen who happened to be in France, and detained them as prisoners, precisely as is now proposed under the present bill. Among the numerous victims of this tyrannical decree was Lord Elgin, the father of the late Sir Frederick Bruce, on his return from Constantinople, where he had been ambassador. There was also an ingenious scholar, of feeble health, but exquisite attainments, Joseph Forsyth, author of one of the best books ever written on Italy.[255] He, too, was seized. In the preface to his admirable work his family have recorded the outrage. Read it, if you would know the judgment that awaits such a transaction. There is also another record in the pages of the English historian who has pictured the events of that time.

“This declaration of war was immediately followed by an act as unnecessary as it was barbarous, and which contributed more, perhaps, than any other circumstance to produce that strong feeling of animosity against Napoleon which pervaded all classes of the English during the remainder of the contest. Two French vessels had been captured, under the English letters of marque, in the Bay of Audierne, and the First Consul made it a pretence for ordering the arrest of all the English then travelling in France between the ages of eighteen and sixty years. Under this savage decree, unprecedented in the annals of modern warfare, above ten thousand innocent individuals, who had repaired to France in pursuit of business, science, or amusement, on the faith of the Law of Nations, which never extended hostilities to persons in such circumstances, were at once thrown into prison, from whence great numbers of them were never liberated till the invasion of the Allies in 1814.”[256]

Napoleon himself, at a later day, when reason resumed its sway, condemned the act. In his conversations at St. Helena with Las Cases, he said: “The greater part of these English were wealthy or noble persons, who were travelling for their amusement. The more novel the act was, the more flagrant its injustice, the more it answered my purpose.”[257] Here, then, was an admission that the act was at once novel and unjust. The generals that surrounded him at the time most reluctantly enforced it. From the Memoirs of the Duchess D’Abrantès, we learn how poignantly her gallant husband, Junot, took it to heart and protested. He was unwilling to have anything to do with such an infamy. Recovering at last from the stupor caused by the order, the brave soldier said: “My General, you know not only my attachment to your person, but my absolute devotion to everything which concerns you. It is that devotion which induces me to hesitate at obeying your orders, before imploring you to take a few hours to reflect on the measure which you have now commanded.… Demand my blood; demand my life; I will surrender them without hesitation; but to ask a thing which must cover us with—— … I am sure, that, when you come to yourself, and are no longer fascinated by those around you, who compel you to violent measures, you will be of my opinion.”[258] Every word of this earnest expostulation may now be justly addressed to the Senate. You, too, Senators, should you unhappily yield to those who now insist upon violent measures, will regret the surrender. You will grieve that your country has been permitted through you to fall from the great example which it owes to mankind. Save your country; save yourselves.

Suppose the law is passed, and the authority conferred upon the President. Whom shall he seize? What innocent foreigner? What trustful traveller? What honored guest? It may be Mr. Dickens, or Mr. Trollope, or Rev. Newman Hall; or it may be some merchant here on business, guiltless of any wrong and under the constant safeguard of the Public Faith. Permit me to say, Sir, that, the moment you do this, you will cover the country with shame, of which the present bill will be the painful prelude. You will be guilty of a barbarism kindred to that of the Abyssinian king Theodorus. You will degrade the national name, and make it a byword of reproach. Sir, now is the time to arrest this dishonor. See to it by your votes that it is impossible forever.

Sir, it is hard to treat this pretension with composure. Argument, denunciation, and ridicule are insufficient. It must be trampled under foot, so as to become a hissing and a scorn. With all the granting of legislation, it is solemnly proposed that good men shall suffer for acts in which they had no part. Innocence is no excuse against the present pretension. The whole attempt is out of time; it is an anachronism, no better than the revival of the Prügel-knabe, who was kept at the German courts of former days to receive the stripes which the prince had merited for his misdeeds. Surely, if anybody is to suffer, let it be the offending Government, or those who represent it and share its responsibilities, instead of private persons, who in no way represent their Government, and may condemn it. Seize the ambassador or minister. You will then audaciously violate the Law of Nations. The absurdity of your act will be lost in its madness. In the seizure which is now proposed there will be absurdity to make the world shake with laughter, if for a moment it can cease to see the flagrant cruelty and meanness of your conduct.

A debate ensued, which ran into the next day, in the course of which Mr. Conness, of California, insisted that the striking out of the reprisals clause would impair the efficiency of the bill, and make it nothing but “air.” At the close of the debate, immediately before the vote on the amendment, Mr. Sumner summed up his objection as follows:—

My objection to the text of the bill which it is proposed to strike out is, that it is a proposal of unutterable barbarism, which, if adopted, would disgrace this country.

The question, being taken by yeas and nays, resulted,—Yeas 30, Nays 7; as follows:—

Yeas,—Messrs. Anthony, Buckalew, Cattell, Chandler, Cole, Conkling, Corbett, Cragin, Davis, Fessenden, Harlan, Harris, Henderson, Howe, Kellogg, McDonald, Morgan, Morrill of Vermont, Osborn, Patterson of New Hampshire, Patterson of Tennessee, Pomeroy, Rice, Sumner, Trumbull, Van Winkle, Vickers, Willey, Williams, and Wilson,—30.

Nays,—Messrs. Conness, Nye, Sprague, Stewart, Thayer, Tipton, and Whyte,—7.

For the section thus amended, Mr. Williams, of Oregon, moved a substitute; whereupon the debate was resumed, and Mr. Sumner spoke again.

The amendment of the Senator, and the remarks that he has made, it seems to me, go on a mistaken hypothesis. They accept the idea that there has been some failure on the part of our Government with reference to citizens abroad.

Mr. Wilson [of Massachusetts]. Is not that true?

Mr. Sumner. I think it is not true; and if time would allow now, I could go into the evidence and show that it is not true. I have the documents here. But we are entering upon this question to-night with an understanding, almost a compact, that there shall be no debate. I do not wish to break that compact. But here are documents lying on my table containing all the facts of record with regard to every American citizen who has been taken into custody abroad. Examine that record, and you will see how strenuous and steadfast our Government has been.

Permit me to say that the argument of the Senator from Oregon [Mr. Williams] proceeds on a misunderstanding of the facts. There is no occasion now for any such legislative prompting to the Government of the United States.

Mr. Williams. I should like to ask the Senator a question.

Mr. Sumner. Certainly.

Mr. Williams. Why is it, if everything has been so smooth and so placid upon this subject, that both of the political parties of this country have seen proper to put in their platforms resolutions in reference to the rights of American citizens abroad?

Mr. Sumner. I have not said that things were placid or smooth; but I have said that our Government has been strenuous and steadfast in the maintenance of the rights of American citizens, whether native-born or naturalized; and the record will show the truth of what I say. Where has there been a failure? Has it been in Germany? Read the correspondence, running now over several years, between the United States and the different powers of Germany, and see the fidelity with which the rights of our naturalized citizens have been maintained there.

I wish to be as brief as possible. If the Senator will take the trouble to read the documents on the table, he will see that among all the numerous applications made by the United States to the Government of Prussia, the leading power of Germany, there is hardly an instance where this power did not meet us kindly and generously. I speak according to the record. I have been over every one of these cases; and I must say, as I read them I felt a new gratification in the power of my country, which made itself felt for the protection of its citizens in those distant places, and also a new sense of the comity of nations. A letter went forth from one of our ministers, and though at that time this difficult question of expatriation was still unsettled, yet, out of regard to our country, or out of regard, it might be, sometimes, to the personal character of our minister, the claim was abandoned. You can hardly find an instance——

Mr. Conness rose.

Mr. Sumner. Will the Senator let me finish my sentence?

Mr. Conness. Certainly.

Mr. Sumner. You can hardly find an instance in that voluminous correspondence where the claim has been persisted in on the part of the Prussian Government. The abstract question was left unsettled; but the individual was left free, without claim of allegiance or military service. All this was anterior to the treaty, by which this whole question is happily settled forever.

But it is not my purpose to discuss the conduct of foreign Governments. My simple aim is to show the conduct of our own. That was the point with which I began. I said that it needed no quickening such as the Senator from Oregon proposes to apply. There is no evidence that our Government has not been persistent and earnest for the protection of its citizens abroad, whether native-born or naturalized, and I alluded to Prussia only by way of illustration. Pass that by. We have then the greater and more complex case of England. But I would rather not enter upon this. Here are the documents on my table, the passages all marked, which would illustrate the conduct of the British Government and the British tribunals toward every one of these persons whose names have been brought in question. I do not wish to go into this question. I should be misunderstood; and it is not necessary. I am speaking now of the conduct of our own Government, rather than of the conduct of any other Government. Mark, Sir, my reply to the Senator from Oregon was, that our Government did not need any additional power or any additional impulse to activity in this behalf. Already it has the power to do everything permitted by the Law of Nations, and it ought not to do anything else.

Mr. Conness followed in support of the bill, and to a correction from Mr. Sumner retorted:—

“The honorable Senator would be very quick to demand the interference of all the powers of this Government in behalf of an arrested American citizen, if he were black. But, Sir, those arrested happen to be of another color,—not a color which appeals to his sympathies, but a color that allows him to belittle their arrest and incarceration,—that enables him to say here in the Senate that our Government have done everything that they could do, all that was necessary. It is true in his judgment, I have no doubt; for, if you only write letters, if you only publish and utter productions of the brain, if you only present views, the honorable Senator is satisfied. Those are his means, except when the progress through the thoroughfares of the city or the country of an American citizen of African descent is involved. Then views are at once thrown to the dogs, and he demands the interference of the Government, the police authority; if it be a railroad company, repeal their acts of incorporation! No matter how much capital stands in the way,—it may be $10,000,000 that is affected,—repeal their acts at once! How dare they impiously set up their tyranny over one human being who is stamped with American citizenship?… The law as proposed to be passed under the direction of the honorable Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations amounts to nothing.… I hope, without detaining the Senate any longer, that we shall not add to our too great delay upon these questions the offence and insult that the passage of this Act would be as proposed by the Committee.[259]

To this attack Mr. Sumner replied as follows:—

I hesitate very much to say another word; and yet I think the Senate will pardon me, if I make a brief reply to the charge, so absolutely unjust, of the Senator from California. He throws upon me the reproach of indifference to foreigners. Sir, I deny the imputation, and challenge comparison on this head with any Senator on this floor. Here I know that I am without blame. Sir, you do not forget that more than ten years ago there was a storm that passed over this country which had a name more familiar than polite: I mean Know-nothing-ism. It was everywhere, and enveloped my own State. At that time I had the honor of holding the position which I now hold. Did I yield to this storm, when it was carrying all before it? Sir, at that time I went down to Faneuil Hall, and in the presence of one of the largest audiences ever there assembled, and knowing well the prevailing sentiment, I made a speech vindicating the rights of emigrants to our country and promising them welcome. I have that speech here now, and I will read a few sentences from it. This was on the 2d of November, 1855,—nearly thirteen years ago. Pardon me for reading this record of other days; but I am justified by the attacks to which I have been exposed. If any foreign-born citizen is disposed to hearken to the Senator from California impeaching me, I ask him to bear in mind how I stood for his rights at another time, when there were fewer ready to stand for them than now. I read from this forgotten speech, as reported at that time.

Mr. Sumner read the first two paragraphs on the thirteenth page of the pamphlet edition.[260]

Such was my argument for the rights of the foreign-born among us. To all of them I offered such welcome as I could:—

“There are our broad lands, stretching towards the setting sun; let them come and take them. Ourselves children of the Pilgrims of a former generation, let us not turn from the Pilgrims of the present. Let the home founded by our emigrant fathers continue open in its many mansions to the emigrants of to-day.”[261]

Sir, those were the words which I uttered in Faneuil Hall at a time when the opposition to foreigners was scouring over the whole country. Others yielded to that tempest, but I did not yield. All my votes in this Chamber, from the first day that I entered it down to this moment, have been in the same direction, and for that welcome which I thus early announced. Never have I missed an occasion to vote for their protection; never shall I miss any such occasion. I was the first in the Senate to announce the essential incompatibility between the claim of perpetual allegiance and the license of unlimited emigration which we had witnessed, saying that every Irishman or German leaving with the consent of his Government was a living witness to the hollowness of the original pretension. And now I am most anxious to see expatriation a law as well as a fact. If I do not adopt the expedients proposed, it is because I regard them as less calculated to produce the much-desired result than other means equally at hand, to the end that the rights of our naturalized citizens may find adequate safeguard everywhere. The present bill can do little good, and may do harm. It will not protect a single citizen; but it may be a drag on those pending negotiations by which the rights of all will be secured. Too studious of the Law of Nations, perhaps, to be willing to treat it with distrust or neglect, I look to that prevailing agency rather than to the more limited instrumentality of Municipal Law. It is the province of Municipal Law to determine rights at home,—how a foreign-born person may be naturalized in our country,—how he may be admitted to all the transcendent privileges of American citizenship; but it belongs to another system of law to determine what shall be his privileges, should he return to the country which gave him birth. We may, by our declarations, by our diplomacy, by our power, do much; but it is by our treaties that we shall fix all these rights in adamant. The Senator seems to have no higher idea than to write them in the fleeting passions of party. My vote will never be wanting to elevate them above all such fitful condition, and to place them under the perpetual sanction of International Law,—the only law which can bind two different powers. Sir, the Senator from California shall not go before me; he shall not be more swift than I; he shall not take one single step in advance of me. Be the person Irish or German or African or Chinese, he shall have from me the same equal protection. Can the Senator say as much?