116 ORAL ARGUMENT OF JAMES C. CARTER, ESQ. 



fleuts of their relation to the island, give to the United States a property interest 

 therein; that this property interest was claimed and exercised by Russia during the 

 whole period of its sovereignty over the land and waters of Alaska; that England 

 recognized this property interest so far as recognition is implied by abstaining from 

 all interference with it during the whole period of Russia's ownership of Alaska, 

 and during the hrst nineteen years of tlie sovereignty of the United States. It is 

 yet to be determined whether the lawless intrusion of Canadian vessels in 1886 and 

 subsequent years has changed the law aud equity of the case theretofore prevailing. 



And with tliat extract I conclude my observations concerning the 

 attitude taken by the United States. From first to last it was based 

 upon the assertion of a property interest in these seals, strengthened 

 indeed by the allegation tlint that property interest had been origi- 

 nally held by Russia, and while held by Kussia bad been recognized by 

 both Great JJritain and the United States, and that the possession of 

 this property interest by the United States gave it the right — a right 

 which every Government has — to i)rotect its property wherever that 

 l)roi)erty has the right to be, and by such measures as are necessary 

 for the purposes of such protection. 



Now then we have out of this case, as far as I am capable of putting 

 out of it, any argument as to whether liussia ever acquired a sovereign 

 jurisdiction over any part of Bering Sea, or whether she ever trans- 

 mitted to tlie United States any sovereign jurisdiction over any part 

 of it. We make no assertion of that character. We put no part C)f 

 our case upon any such assertion. We do not suppose that any such 

 assertion of jurisdiction was ever made by Kussia. But do I mean that 

 this matter of Kussian pretentions in Bering Sea, the rights which she 

 may have asserted and acquired in those remote waters and which the 

 United States may have accjuired from her, have no place or impor- 

 tance in this controversy "? No ; I do not mean that. These pretensions 

 do liave a place, and an important place, which I am now about, so far 

 as 1 am able, to vindicate for them. That is this: It could be hardly 

 better expressed thau Mr. Blaine has expressed it in the passage from 

 which I last read : 



That this property interest was claimed and exercised by Russia during the whole 

 period of its sovereignty over the land aud waters of Alaska; that England recog- 

 nized this jiroperty interest so far as recognition is implied, by abstaining from all 

 interfereuce witli it during the whole period of Russia's ownership of Alaska, aud 

 during the lirst nineteen years of the sovereignty of the United States. 



Now, I am going to deal with this subject but very briefly. The ques- 

 tion mainly turns upon what rights Bussia did originally assume in 

 Beiing Sea, and whether those rights were ever displaced or modified 

 by the subsequent treaties between her and the United States and 

 between her and Great Britain in 1824 and 1825, aud if displaced, or 

 modi tied, to what extent. I am going to deal, I say very briefly, with 

 that argument, and for two reasons: First, as I have already intimated, 

 I do not coiu'eive that it plays any vital part whatever in this contro- 

 versy, and therefore I should do injustice to the general argument of the 

 question if I should assign a disproportionate si)ace to it; and I could 

 not go through with the argument and refer to all the diplomatic com- 

 munications and occasional acts of the various countries which have a 

 bearing upon it without employing several days in the discussion. I 

 have neither time nor strength for that and am not going into it. If I 

 did do it, I could not implant such an impression of the particular inci- 

 dents of the controversy as would enable you to remember it for any 

 succession of days. It will be inevitable — it will be a task which the 

 learned arbitrators will find it necessary to go through with — to exam- 

 ine this diplomatic correspondence and to examine the grounds taken 



