110 ORAL ARGUMENT OF JAMES C. CARTER, ESQ. 



Court of tlie United States. Nor did 1, in saying that tlie Government 

 of the United States was not responsible for the grounds stated by 

 judges in their opinions as the basis of their decision, intend to inti- 

 mate that the Government was not to a certain extent responsible to 

 other nations for the correctness of the judgments tliemselves. The 

 Government of the United States is, I suppose, responsible to other 

 nations that the citizens of other nations shall have justice done theiu 

 in the courts; but it is the correctness of the judgments for which they 

 are responsible, not the soundness of the opinions which are given as 

 the basis for them. 



My argument on Friday was directed in the main to the question of 

 the rights which had been acquired by Russia in the Bering Sea and 

 transmitted by lier to the United States by nieans of the cession of 1807. 

 I had made a brief historical sketch of what may be called the Russian 

 pretentions, closing that sketch with a statement of the Ukase of 1821 

 and of its real nature. I then came to consider the view which the 

 United States take in relation to the Ukase of 1821 and the rights 

 which might have been acquired under it; and I stated that, according 

 to the views of the United States, that Ukase never asserted a right of 

 sovereign dominion over any part of Bering Sea, but that its sole pur- 

 pose, intention and efi'ect were to assert a right to protect industries 

 connected with the shore by protective regulations operative over a 

 certain portion of the sea — a thing quite different from any assertion of 

 sovereign dominion. I said that that was the view taken by the United 

 States and which always had been taken by the United States; and it 

 was in that connection that I observed that although a somewhat difter- 

 ent view had been taken by the learned District Judge of Alaska, the 

 United States had never adopted that view in its diplomatic communica- 

 tions with Great Britain. 



I further said that there was an endeavor in the British Case to 

 impute to the United States the view that Russia had acquired a sover- 

 eign dominion over that sea, intimating that the United States had origi- 

 nally based its position upon that view and had afterwards shifted its 

 ground. That assertion 1 denied, and it was at that i)oint that the Tri- 

 bunal rose. It is my purpose now to su])port that denial, and to say 

 that, from the first, the United States took but one position in reference 

 to this matter and have retained it at all times during the controversy. 

 In order to show this I call the attention of the Tribunal to Lord Salis- 

 bury's complaint, which will be found at page 162 of the first volume of 

 the American Appendix. I have already referred to this letter, but it 

 is im])ortant that I should now refer to it again. It was not the first 

 time that the British Government protested against these seizures; but 

 it was the first time that that Government stated the grounds of its 

 conq)laint. Lord Salisbury had, prior to the writing of this letter, 

 received from the American Government copies of the records of the 

 United States I^istrict Court of Alaska, by which it appeared that the 

 condemnations in that court were founded upon libels filed for the pur- 

 pose of enforcing the American municipal law which forbade the taking 

 of seals and by which it ai)peared also that the seizures had been effected 

 ata greater distance than tliree miles from the shore. It is on this ground 

 that Lord Salisbury conceives that the seizures were not justified. He 

 explains that ground quite fully and closes his letter with these obser- 

 vations : 



Her Majesty's Government feel sure that, in view of the considerations which I 

 have set iinlli in this dispatch, which you will coniuiunicate to Mr. Bayard, the Gov- 

 cruineut of the United States will admit that the seizure and condemnation of these 



