ARGUMENT OF MR. ROOT 185 



his proposition, and power was sent to the American Minister in 

 London to negotiate for joint regulations. 



Sm Charles Fitzpateick: May I ask you whether or not the 

 claim of an independent state, which you have just referred to, has 

 reference to the first paragraph of the same letter on p. 273? 



Senator Root: Undoubtedly. 



Sm Charles Fitzpatrick: He is answering the grounds ad- 

 vanced in the letter of the United States Minister. Let me carry 

 you back further, to p. 272, and ask you whether or not you think 

 that the claim spoken of by Lord Bathurst is that set forth by Mr. 

 John Quincy Adams in these words : 



"Upon this foundation, my lord, the government of the United States 

 consider the people thereof as fully entitled, of right to all the liberties in 

 the North American fisheries which have always belonged to them; which 

 in the treaty of 1783 were, by Great Britain, recognized as belonging to them; 

 and which they never have, by any act of theirs, consented to renounce." 



Would that be the claim that he speaks of ? 



Senator Root: Very likely. What he says of it is not that 

 that is not what the United States has, but that that right can rest 

 only upon a conventional stipulation. He accepts the view of 

 the right, he denies the origin of the right, and he ascribes to the 

 right, which he describes in these words, an origin which is the basis 

 of his argument. 



Judge Gray: It was conventional. 



Senator Root: It was conventional. Now, a view not so 

 narrow as these specific utterances, but which does furnish the 

 reason for them; there is an inherent, essential, ineradicable, generic 

 difference between the two kinds of right, the kind of right which 

 was granted in the treaty of 181 5, that treaty which was continued 

 by the treaty of 1818, and which, I may observe, was again con- 

 tinued in 1827, and is the treaty under which we five to-day, to 

 travel and reside, and upon which these British negotiators had 

 imposed the express reservation of the right of municipal legislation, 

 and the kind of right which was granted under this treaty with 

 respect to fishery. I have to acknowledge hospitality and courtesy 



