384 WRIGHT— POWER TO MAKE POLITICAL DECISIONS. 



to Algiers in 1816, to Paraguay in the Water Witch incident of 

 1858, to Venezuela in 1890.^* 



A declaration or recognition of war of course automatically 

 gives full power to the President to authorize an attack upon the 

 military forces of the enemy. 



218. Seicure and Destruction of Private Property. 



Congress is expressly given power to " grant letters of marque 

 and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and 

 water." ^^ The President has no power to direct the capture of 

 private property without express authorization of statute, treaty, 

 or international law. Congress may authorize the grant of letters of 

 marque and reprisal in time of peace, but has never done so.**' 

 During the war of 1812 privateering commissions were issued and 

 in the Civil War they were authorized but not issued. Privateering 

 is prohibited by the Declaration of Paris of 1856, and though the 

 United States has never acceded, yet it has not resorted to the 

 practice in subsequent wars.^^ Congress may authorize naval 

 forces to make reprisal upon private property at sea in time of 

 peace. Thus President Jackson asked Congress to authorize him 

 to make reprisals against French vessels in view of the non-execu- 

 tion of the claims treaty of 1831 : ^^ 



" The laws of nations," said President Jackson, " provide a remedy for 

 such occasions. It is a well settled principle of the international code that 

 where one nation owes another a liquidated debt, which it refuses or 

 neglects to pay, the aggrieved party may seize on the property belonging to 

 the other, its citizens or subjects, sufficient to pay the debt, without giving 

 just cause of war. This remedy has been repeatedly resorted to, and 

 recently by France herself towards Portugal, under circumstances less un- 

 questionable." 



Clay, in his report from the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, 



wrote : ^^ 



" Reprisals do not of themselves produce a state of public war but they 

 are not unfrequently the immediate precursor of it. . . . The authority 



'* Moore, Digest, 7: 109-112. 



'>'U. S. Constitution, I, sec. 8, cl. 11. 



''« Mr. Sanford to Mr. Cass, Aug. 16, 1857, Moore, Digest, 7 : 122. 



^■i Ibid., 7: 544, 5S8, 5S8. 



^^ Ibid., 7: 124. 



'^^ Ibid., 7: 126-127. 



