COXGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



209 



dent, nothing but what I consider to be the 

 demands of justice and, to my apprehension, 

 a regard for the national honor, would induce 

 me to say one word on this subject. With the 

 general scope of this bill I fully concur. If 

 my amendment prevails, I can cheerfully vote 

 for it. I prefer it to any other bill on the sub- 

 ject that I have seen, if this amendment of 

 mine prevails. Indeed, I have no serious ob- 

 jection to any part of it except to that which 

 I move to strike out. 



" This bill proceeds upon the theory of pay- 

 ing precisely the claims in respect of which 

 the award was made by the tribunal at Gene- 

 va, except such of those claims as are owned 

 by insurance companies. It proceeds precisely 

 upon the theory and principles upon which 

 that tribunal proceeded in ascertaining the 

 amount to be paid by Great Britain to the 

 United States, excepting one singular partic- 

 ular; that is, it rejects claims in respect of 

 which that tribunal made up its award, and 

 says that those persons whose claims entered 

 into the computation of that tribunal, and in 

 respect of which they awarded millions of 

 dollars, shall be utterly rejected and cast aside 

 and the money given to some other persons, 

 or to some other purpose, or retained by the 

 United States. 



" Now, sir, as I believe that the claims which 

 this bill proposes to reject are as valid as any 

 claims that were laid before that tribunal or 

 will be laid before the board of commissioners 

 that will be established by this bill, my sense 

 of justice requires me to oppose the proposed 

 exclusion of those claims, and what I regard 

 as the national honor requires the same thing. 

 'With due respect to those who differ with me 

 in opinion, I cannot consent to get money by 

 the award of that tribunal of Geneva from 

 Great Britain upon the ground that A B and 

 1) nnd E F, citizens of the United States, 

 had been injured, and that a sum of money 

 ought to be awarded to the United States suf- 

 ficient to indemnify them, and having thus ob- 

 tained the money, through the virtue and the 

 agency of their claims, say that they shall 

 have not one dollar of it, but that we will ap- 

 propriate it to some other purpose. 



" I listened with the utmost attention to the 

 very able nnd ingenious argument of the Sen- 

 ator from Vermont (Mr. Edmunds), the chair- 

 man of the committee that reported this bill. 

 It nil rests upon one postulate which, in my 

 judgment, is utterly unsound. It rests upon a 

 theory unknown to public law. It rests upon 

 a nomenclature that is known only in muni- 

 cipal criminal law. It rests upon the theory 

 that the public law recognizes such a thing as 

 a principal nnd an accessory; that in this case 

 the Confederacy was the princip.il nnd Great 

 Britain the accessory a nomenclature, I re- 

 peat, wholly unknown to public law, and 

 known only to municipal criminal law ; and 

 the principles therefore which the Senator has 

 applied have no application whatsoever to a 



VOL. XIII. 14 A. 



case of public international law. The Con- 

 federacy was a belligerent, it is true, but Great 

 Britain was not an accessory in the sense in 

 which a private individual is an accessory to 

 the principal who commits a crime. There is 

 not one word in the negotiations between the 

 parties, not one word in the treaty, not one 

 word in the debates before the Geneva tribu- 

 nal, not one word in its award, not one word 

 in public international law that makes Great 

 Britain any thing in the world in this whole 

 transaction but a neutral nation that violated 

 her obligations of neutrality. By this very 

 treaty itself, she is declared to have been a 

 neutral nation, and not an accessory to a bel- 

 ligerent principal. 



" Why, sir, if you apply the doctrine of prin- 

 cipal and accessory to a case like this, as the 

 accessory before the fact is equally guilty with 

 the principal, so Great Britain would have to 

 be regarded as a belligerent. There is no 

 principal belligerent and accessory belligerent. 

 Great Britain was either a belligerent, or she 

 was a neutral, one or the other. This treaty 

 says that she was a neutral who disregarded 

 the duties and obligations resting upon her in 

 that capacity. The argument says she was not 

 a neutral, but an accessory of a belligerent 

 principal, which in public law means a belliger- 

 ent too. If that be the case, if Great Britain 

 were a belligerent, and in the language of the 

 Senator from Vermont no citizen could have 

 any claim upon her because what she did was 

 a belligerent act, if she stands in precisely the 

 same shoes as the Confederacy, and quoad her, 

 as well as quoad the Confederacy, every cap- 

 tare was a lawful capture, in the language of 

 the Senator from Vermont, then what fol- 

 lows? It follows that every contract made 

 between a citizen of the United States and a 

 subject of her Majesty during the four long 

 years of the war was a void contract ; not one 

 of them could be enforced in a court of jus- 

 tice. It follows further that every citizen of 

 the United States who traded with Great Brit- 

 ain during that time was guilty of a criminal 

 offense under our statute, for which he is liable 

 to conviction and punishment. Why, sir, that 

 will not do at all. 



"It will not do to say that Great Britain 

 was a neutral nation nnd at peace with us, so 

 that all the trade and intercourse that could 

 take place between the citizens of the United 

 States and the citizens of any other country 

 could take place between our citizens and the 

 subjects of her Majesty, and then turn around 

 in the next breath and say that she was acces- 

 sory to a belligerent, in other words, a belli- 

 gerent herself, and that, therefore, no citizen 

 of the United States could by any possibility 

 have any claim upon her. And yet thnt is the 

 argument. The argument is that the acces- 

 sory can be no more guilty than the principal ; 

 that the Confederacy was the principal ; and 

 that ns every capture by the Confederacy was 

 lawful, which gave no individual and could 



