DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE AND FOREIGN RELATIONS 



363 



tions into the platforms of the Radical Presi- 

 dential Convention at Cleveland and the Demo- 

 cratic Convention at Chicago. An able review 

 of the history and law of the case is summed 

 up in the Washington " National Intelligencer " 

 as follows : 



From the history we have given it appears that 

 while the obligation of nations not to grant asylum 

 to criminals, but to deliver them up for trial, receives 

 the general assent of civilized nations, it is one sub- 

 many limitations and modifications. It is 

 a duty of "imperfect obligation," so called, like 

 those interwoven with the private life of individuals, 

 and the neglect of which destroys the reputation of 

 the man without rendering him amenable for violating 

 the law. It is a duty resting upon the conscience of 

 the nation, to be discharged under such circum- 

 stances, in such cases, and in such manner as in the 

 judgment of the nation, expressed through the con- 

 stituted authorities, may seem best adapted to sub- 

 serve the cause of virtue and the interests of hu- 

 manity. 



In some political systems the monarch is the au- 

 thority who at once determines the question and exe- 

 cutes the judgment ; but in those countries where the 

 principles of constitutional government obtain in 

 other words, where the rights of the person are re- 

 cognized the maxims of law limit the otherwise 

 absolute power of the Executive authority, and in 



Eerforming their obligations to the human" race, the 

 egislature, in such countries, is careful not to over- 

 heir obligations to the individual. Thus in 

 Great Britain, while the sovereign may make treaties 

 he cannot fulfil a treatv binding him to surrender 

 fugitive criminals withdut the express sanction of 

 that part of the Government which is charged with 

 the guardianship of the life and liberty of the indi- 

 vidual. He may make war or conclude peace without 

 the consent of Parliament ; bat without its consent 

 he cannot deprive the humblest individual of liberty, 

 though that individual be charged with the deepest 

 crimes. 



In our-own political system we find the same care- 

 ful process for reaching the ends of justice. The 

 treaty-making power determines what offences the 

 nation will lend its aid to punish, and into what hands 

 it is willing to deliver offenders for punishment. The 

 tenth article of the Treaty of Washington, concluded 

 between the United States and Great" Britain on this 

 subject, shows by the catalogue of crimes it em- 

 braces that we are willing to trnst the enlightened 

 criminal jurisprudence of "England in a wider class 

 of offences than we would remand to some other 

 countries whose creeds are less conformed to the hu- 

 mane spirit of the age. When the treat v-making 

 power has ascertained~the extent of the obligation of 

 surrender and assumed the corresponding duty, the 

 legislative power comes forward to provide for the 

 fulfilment of that duty, and in so doing Congress has 

 thought proper to omit none of those safeguards 

 which have been found essential to protect the ac- 

 cused against baseless charges, and which, necessary 

 as they are in cases where the accused is to be tried 

 in the jurisdiction where he is found, are doublv and 

 trebly necessary where the charges are put forward, 

 not for trial here, but as the means of obtaining pos- 

 session of the accused and carrving him abroad. 



It is not improbable that factitious accusations 

 should be brought for the mere purpose of procuring 

 the arrest and surrender of a fugitive. Hence it is 

 that the careful provisions of the statute, regulating 

 3xtradition in this country, commit to the judici- 

 ary versed as that department already is in all the 

 proceedings preparatory to a trial the duty of ar- 

 resting the fugitive and of ascertaining whether 

 ii fact a crime has been committed, and whether 

 there is sufficient evidence to hold the accused for 

 trial. When these questions have been settled by 

 the judiciary, and not till then, does the nation con- 



sent to deny the right of asylum to the fugitive who 

 has sought its protection and deliver him into the 

 hands of the alien prosecutor. 



It is needless to add that in the case of Arguelles 

 the Executive has assumed all the authority which 

 by the Constitution is distributed among the treaty- 

 making power, the law-making power, and the ju- 

 diciary. Without treaty, without law, and without 

 judicial action, the Executive has assumed to do 

 what only all three combined could lawfully em- 

 power him to do. 



And in making this statement as a proposition of 

 law, we indulge in no personal crimination of the 

 President's motives. As he makes no legal defence 

 of his conduct, but bases that defence on his good 

 intentions, we make all due allowance for such good 

 intentions while bringing his proceedings to the bar 

 of the law he has transcended. It is one of the in- 

 conveniences which attach to such errors of judg- 

 ment, and which illustrate their practical dangers, 

 that all punishments visited on criminals outside of 

 the laws array a certain sympathy in favor of the 

 culprit, however guilty he 'may be. Col. Arguelles 

 may be the criminal he is represented to be bv the 

 Cuban authorities, but as these authorities are now 

 seized of his person in a way not authorized bv our 

 laws, the penalty he may be'called to pav for h*is al- 

 leged crime is one which concerns the honor of the 

 nation in the eyes of the civilized world. It is to be 

 hoped, for the sake of our own credit on the score 

 of humanity, that the proceedings of Spanish juris- 

 prudence in his case may be such as to show that 

 only justice has been done him in the forum to which 

 we have remitted him, even if something less than 

 justice, as justice is understood in this country, has 

 been done him by our authorities in the circum- 

 stances under which they have delivered him up for 

 trial. The civilized world sits in judgment not onlv 

 on the crimes of men, but on the processes by which 

 these crimes are redressed, and when redres's is in- 

 flicted against the received rules of justice, men 

 never fail to resent the wrong done to the latter, 

 whatever may be their abhorrence at the wickedness 

 of the criminal. It was thus that all Europe thrilled 

 with indignation and horror at the conduct of the 

 king of Saxony when, in the early part of the 16th 

 century, he delivered up the person of the unhappy 

 Patkul to the vengeance of his sovereign, Charle*3 

 the Xllth of Sweden, who broke him on the wheel. 

 Men refused to consider the provocations which that 

 nobleman had offered to his king, or the offences be 

 had committed against his country, in their resent- 

 ment at the wrong done to the "right of asylum " in 

 his person. And so, whatever may be the crimes of 

 Col. Arguelles (about which we know nothing person- 

 ally, as the President of the United States knows 

 nothing legally), the civilized world, in its respect 

 for the principles of public law and private right 

 violated by his clandestine arrest and deportation, 

 will not hesitate to deplore the process by which this 

 Spanish subject has been brought to justice. 



I*. S. Marshal Robert Murray, who effected 

 the arrest, was indicted by the Grand Jury 

 of New York for kidnapping Col. Arguelles, 

 and on May 20th was arraigned, pleaded not 

 guilty, and gave bail in the sum of 1.000 to 

 appear for trial. 



On the loth of August the seizure of the 

 privateer Georgia by the United States frigate 

 Niagara attracted much comment in England, 

 but the general impression of the English 

 press was to the effect that the seizure was 

 legal, and that the purchaser of an enemy's 

 vessel of war when said vessel is blockaded ir. 

 port without means of escape, must take the 

 risk of subsequent seizure. 



