238 DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE AND FOREIGN RELATIONS. 



lished, cannot be entertained, and will^not bar 

 the fine or sentence, even where treaties with 

 the United States apply ; but the fact of nat- 

 uralization must be brought to the attention 

 of the Foreign Office at Berlin, when the Minis- 

 ters for War and for Foreign Affairs will jointly 

 decide, as a diplomatic question, whether the 

 accused is entitled to the benefit of the treaty. 



In respect to the military service of those 

 persons barn in Germany who are apparently 

 residing there, but claiming the protection of 

 American certificates of naturalization, Mr. 

 Davis says : 



The very stringent laws respecting military service 

 in Germany are about to be made still more strin- 

 gent. The authorities to -whom their execution is 

 intrusted look, not unnaturally, with suspicion upon 

 every person of German birth of a requisite age for 

 military service whom they see residing in Germany 

 as a citizen ? with no apparent purpose of leaving it, 

 and not claiming exemption as a foreigner from du- 

 ties required of Germans by German laws. It is to 

 be remembered that Congress has declared in the 

 statute the right of all persons to expatriate them- 

 selves and elect a new nationality, and that the nat- 

 uralization treaties with the German powers have 

 provided that this right may be regarded as exercised 

 by a German, who has been naturalized in the United 

 States, when he returns to the land of his nativity 

 and dwells there for two years. The treaties do not 

 provide that such a residence shall work an expatri- 

 ation. and I understand that both Governments are 

 agreed that the Imperial Government is not, by an 

 ex-parte decision, to determine that the facts in any 

 particular case constitute such an expatriation with- 

 out affording to the United States an opportunity to 

 inquire into them. 



But the most interesting part at the present 

 time of the correspondence of Mr. Bancroft 

 Davis with the State Department is that in 

 which he relates the proceedings of the Ger- 

 man Government on the questions which now 

 agitate Prussia, and in fact all Germany. As 

 it presents a most complete summary of the 

 action of the German Government, it is inserted 

 here: 



LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, ) 

 BEBLIN, March 13, 1875. j 



SIB: The relation between the Eoman Catholic 

 Church and the state, which now agitates Prussia, 

 and, in fact, all Germany, is no new question. It 

 early attracted the attention of that acute political ob- 

 server, my distinguished predecessor, Mr. Wheaton, 

 from whose dispatches I venture to make one or two 

 extracts, in order to elucidate more clearly what I 

 have to say about the present condition of affairs. 

 Writing from Berlin on the 6th of December, 1837 

 (No. 55), he said : 



The disputes which have recently taken place between the 

 Mjan Government and the Archbishop of Cologne have 

 at last been terminated by the forcible removal of the prelate 

 Th^nJ 8 ? 8 f to . the fortress of Minden in Westphalia ____ 

 The principal points in dispute between this prelate and the 

 Government relate to the following subjects 

 v P J^f^"""r A SS*^ facult y a nexed to the Uni- 

 HS5 fn P f P vlded , for tne education of the Catholic 

 &L. ?. 8/S*5 matter of education, in all its 



branches, is monopolized by Government, and suonorted bv 

 nZt A Wmen ?>; ex *f n r* its benefits to all da5 of the 



n A> 



CT V H T,? g th u tQ ? r ol S ica l Professors of Bonn was the 

 el3brated philosopher Hermes, who died in 1832, and who 

 asserted for the Catholics the right of free examination for 

 the purpose of confirming them in the faith; a docSine Sovel 

 and alarming to the Church of Borne, and which was accord- 

 ingly condemned by the Pope as heretical Prom this source 

 arose various disputes, a minute detail of which wouS Mte 

 ted.ous, respecting the right of the Catholic prelates refuse 



confirmation to candidates for holy orders who had been ed- 

 ucated in the schools of Bonn, and many other intricate ques- 

 tions growing out of this anomalous union between a Catholic 

 Church and a heretical state. 



2. Mixed Marriages. By the civil law of Prussia, the 

 children born of a marriage between Protestants and Catho- 

 lics are to be educated in the faith of the father, or in such as 

 he may prefer. The archUishop requires them all to be ed- 

 ucated in the Catholic faith whenever either of the parents 

 is Catholic. 



3. The Publication of the Papal Butts. In every Prot- 

 estant country of Europe which maintains relations with the 

 See of Eome for the benefit of its Catholic subjects, every 

 bull of the Pope must be submitted to the inspection of the 

 Government of the country before its publication, in order to 

 guard against the possible abuses ol such an intercourse. 

 The Archbishop of Cologne makes a distinction in this respect 

 between bulls which relate merely to dogmas and matters of 

 faith and those which relate to matters of civil legislation, 

 and the connection of the Church with the state. He asserts 

 his right to receive, publish, and execute the former without 

 submitting them to the inspection of the local Government. It 

 is easy to see that under this pretext the Catholic clergy might 

 interfere with and defeat the execution of the laws of the 

 country respecting education, marriage, divorce, and, in 

 short, all the relations of life which are ordinarily regulated 

 by the civil magistrate. In the course of these discussions 

 the Prussian Government has proceeded with great modera- 

 tion and circumspection. 



And in a dispatch (92) dated the 2d of January, 

 1839, -in speaking of "the conduct of the Prussian 

 Government in its intercourse with the Papal See 

 and its proceedings toward the Catholic prelates," 

 Mr. Wheaton said : 



This question still continues to be a constant source of un- 

 easiness and debility to Prussia. . . . The Austrian Govern- 

 ment is more successful in managing the clergy in its domin- 

 ions. Being a Catholic power, its measures are not viewed 

 with such jealousy by that body, while its influence at Borne 

 enables it to control them through the head of the Church. 

 Measures which on the part of a Protestant sovereign are 

 regarded as proofs of the spirit of proselytism and perse- 

 cution, may be, and in fact are, accepted with docility when 

 proceeding from the house of Austria. . . . This fact tends 

 to confirm the suspicion indulged by many persons here, that 

 the religious dissensions in Prussia have been, if not fo- 

 mented, at least regarded with no unfavorable eye by Prince 

 Metternich, who seeks to weaken the increasing influence in 

 Germany obtained by Prussia through the commercial union, 

 by opposing moral to material interests, and engaging Prus- 

 sia, which, ever since the Thirty Years' War, has continued to 

 be the representative of the Protestant party in Germany, in 

 an embarrassing conflict with a religious faction from which 

 Austria has not only nothing to fear, but upon whom she 

 might count as her natural ally in a struggle for political in- 

 fluence and power. 



The contest described in these graphic and well- 

 considered periods was still undetermined when 

 King Frederick William III. died on the 7th day of 

 June, 1840. His eldest son succeeded him as Fred- 

 erick William IV. This monarch, through the in- 

 termediary of the late Chevalier Bunsen, succeeded 

 in adjusting, or rather suspending, the differences 

 between Berlin and Rome. Among other things, 

 he gave up the right of the royal " placet," by virtue 

 of which all the correspondence between the Vati- 

 can and the Prussian bishops of the Komaii Church 

 passed through the Foreign Office, and under the 

 control of the Minister of Foreign Affairs. He also 

 continued the arrangement made by his father 

 (Frederick William III.) for the sanctioning of the 

 dispositions of the Papal bull known as u de salute 

 ammarum," and for the dotation of the Roman 

 Catholic clergy. 



In 1850, a new fundamental or constitutional law 

 was enacted, that the ecclesiastical organizations 

 named in the law, among which was the Roman 

 Catholic Church, should have the right of managing 

 their own affairs. This law continued in force until 

 1873, and under it the Roman Catholic Church in 

 the Rhine provinces prospered greatly. It increased 

 its religious organizations, and gathered to itself 

 great wealth. A Roman Catholic friend estimates 

 the increase at the incredible sum of two million 

 thalers a year. 



Meanwhile, the antagonism between Berlin and 



