Part 21

Against the movement for contraction, which is commended by its simplicity and its tendency to a normal condition of things, we have two adverse policies,--one, the stand-still policy, and the other, worse yet, the policy of inflation. By the first the currency is left _in statu quo_,--stationary,--subject to the influence of other conditions, which may operate to reduce it. Better stand still than move in a wrong direction. By the latter the currency is enlarged at the expense of the people,--being at once a tax and a derangement of values. You pamper the morbid appetite for paper money, and play the discarded part of John Law. You blow up a bladder, without thinking that it is nothing but a bladder, ready to burst. As the volume of currency is increased, the purchasing power of each dollar is reduced in proportion. As you add to the currency, you take from the dollar. You do little more than mark your goods at higher prices, and imagine that they have increased in value. Already the price is too high. Do not make it higher. Already the currency is corrupted. Do not corrupt it more. The cream has been reduced to skimmed milk. Do not let it be reduced to chalk and water. Let there be national cream for all the people.

Obviously any contraction of the currency must be conducted with caution, so as to interfere as little as possible with existing interests. It should be understood in advance, so that business may adapt itself to the change. Once understood, it must be pursued wisely to the end. I call attention to a few of the expedients by which this contraction may be made.

1. Any holder may have liberty to fund his greenbacks in bonds, as he may desire; so that, as coin increases, they will be merged in the funded debt, and the currency be reduced in corresponding proportion.

2. Greenbacks, when received at the Treasury, may be cancelled, or they may be redeemed directly, so far as the coin on hand will permit.

3. Greenbacks may be converted into compound-interest notes, to be funded in monthly instalments, running over a term of years, thus reaching specie payments within a brief period.

4. Another expedient, more active still, is the application of the coin on hand to the payment of greenbacks at a given rate,--say $6,000,000 a month,--selecting for payment those holders who present the largest amount of five-twenties for conversion into the long bonds at a low rate of interest, or shall pay the highest premium on such bonds.

I mention these as expedients, having the authority of financial names, calculated to operate in the same direction, without violent change or spasmodic action. Under their mild and beneficent influence the currency would be gradually reduced, so that the final step, when taken, would be hardly felt. With so great an object in view, I do not doubt its accomplishment at an early day, if the Nation only wills it. “Where there is a will, there is a way”; and never was this proverb truer than on this occasion. To my mind it is clear, that, when the Nation wills a currency in coin, then must this victory over the Rebellion be won,--provided always that there is no failure in those other things on which I have also dwelt as the _conditions precedent_ of this final victory.

* * * * *

How vain it is to expect Financial Reconstruction until Political Reconstruction has been completed I have already shown. How vain to expect specie payments until the Nation has once more gained its natural vigor, and it has become _one_ in reality as in name! Let this be, and the Nation will be like a strong man, in the full enjoyment of all his forces, coping with the trials of life.

There must also be peace within our borders, so that there shall be no discord between President and Congress. Therefore, so long as Andrew Johnson is President, the return to specie payments is impossible. So long as a great party, called Democratic, better now called Rebel, wars on that Political Reconstruction which Congress has organized, there can be no specie payments. So long as any President, or any political party, denies the Equal Rights of the freedman, it is vain to expect specie payments. Whoso would have equity must do equity; and now, if you would have specie payments, you must do this great equity. The rest will follow. When General Grant said, “Let us have peace,” he said also, “Let us have specie payments.” Among all the blessed gifts of peace there is none more certain.

Nor must it be forgotten that there can be no departure in any way from the requirements of Public Faith. This is a perpetual obligation, complete in all respects, and just as applicable to the freedman as to the bond-holder. Repudiation in all its forms, direct or indirect, whether of the freedman or the bond-holder, must be repudiated. The freedman and bond-holder are under the same safeguard, and there is the same certain disaster from any repudiation of either. Unless the Public Faith is preserved inviolate, you cannot fund your debt at a smaller interest, you cannot convert your greenbacks, you cannot comply with the essential terms of Reconstruction. Amid all surrounding abundance you are poor and powerless, for you are dishonored. Do not say, as an apology, that all should have the same currency. True as this may be, it is a cheat, when used to cover dishonor. The currency of all should be coin, and you should lift all the national creditors to this solid platform rather than drag a single citizen down. A just Equality is sought by levelling up instead of levelling down. In this way the national credit will be maintained, so that it will be a source of wealth, prosperity, and renown.

Pardon me, if now, by way of recapitulation, I call your attention to three things in which all others centre. The first is the _Public Faith_. The second is the _Public Faith_. The third is the _Public Faith_. Let these be sacredly preserved, and there is nothing of power or fame which can be wanting. All things will pay tribute to you, even from the uttermost parts of the sea. All the sheaves will stand about, as in the dream of Joseph, and make obeisance to your sheaf. Good people, especially all concerned in business, whether commerce, banking, or labor, our own compatriots or the people of other lands, will honor and uphold the nation which, against all temptation, keeps its word.

NO REPRISALS ON INNOCENT PERSONS.

SPEECH IN THE SENATE, ON THE BILL CONCERNING THE RIGHTS OF AMERICAN CITIZENS, JULY 18, 1868.

The Senate had under consideration the Bill concerning the Rights of American Citizens in Foreign States, which had already passed the House of Representatives. As it came from the House it contained the following section:--

“SEC. 3. _And be it further enacted_, That, whenever it shall be duly made known to the President that any citizen of the United States has been arrested and is detained by any foreign Government, in contravention of the intent and purposes of this Act, upon the allegation that naturalization in the United States does not operate to dissolve his allegiance to his native sovereign, or if any citizen shall have been arrested and detained, whose release upon demand shall have been unreasonably delayed or refused, _the President shall be, and hereby is, empowered to suspend, in part or wholly, commercial relations with the said Government, or, in case no other remedy is available, to order the arrest and to detain in custody any subject or citizen of such foreign Government who may be found within the jurisdiction of the United States, and who has not declared his intention to become a citizen of the United States, except ambassadors and other public ministers and their domestics and domestic servants; and the President shall without delay give information to Congress of any proceedings under this Act_.”

Mr. Sumner reported an amendment, to strike out the words in Italic authorizing the suspension of commercial relations and reprisals on persons, and substitute therefor these words:--

“It shall be the duty of the President forthwith to report to Congress all the circumstances of any such arrest and detention, and any proceedings for the release of the citizen so arrested and detained, that Congress may take prompt action to secure to every citizen of the United States his just rights.”

On this amendment Mr. Sumner spoke as follows.

MR. PRESIDENT,--Before entering upon this discussion, I wish to read a brief telegram, which came by the cable last evening, as follows:--

“LONDON, _July 17_.--In the House, last evening, Stanley, the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, made an important statement in answer to a question asking for information. In reply, he said he had already sent to the United States Government a note on the matter of Naturalization, the substance of which was, that the British ministry was ready to accept the American views of the question. He therefore thought a misunderstanding between the two nations impossible.”

Add to this important information the well-known fact, that the United States have already ratified treaties with North Germany and Bavaria, and that we are engaged in negotiating treaties with other powers, for the settlement of this vexed question, and we may surely approach this discussion without any anxiety, except for the honor of our country.

Permit me to say, at the outset, that the declared object of the present bill is all lost in certain special features, which are nothing less than monstrous, and utterly unworthy of a generous Republic hoping to give an example to mankind. Surely, Sir, it is noble to reach out and protect the rights of the citizen at home and abroad; but no zeal in this behalf should betray us into conduct which cannot be regarded without a blush.

This bill proposes to confer upon the President prodigious powers, such as have never been lavished before in our history. They are without precedent. On this account alone they should be considered carefully; and they should not be granted, unless on good reason. If it be shown that they are not only without precedent, but that they are inconsistent with the requirements of modern civilization, that they are of evil example, and that they tend directly to war,--then, on this account, we should hesitate still more before we venture to grant them. Not lightly can a nation set itself against the requirements of civilization; not lightly can a nation do an act of evil example; not lightly can a nation take any step toward war. The whole business is solemn. Nothing graver could challenge the attention of the Senate.

Two powers are conferred upon the President: first, to suspend commercial relations with a foreign government, and, secondly, to arrest and detain in custody any subject of a foreign government found within the jurisdiction of the United States. The suspension of commercial relations, and the arrest of innocent foreigners, simply at the will of the President,--these are the two powers. It would be difficult to imagine greater.

We have had in our own history the instance of an embargo, when all our merchant ships were kept at home and forbidden to embark in foreign commerce. That measure was intended to save our commerce from insult and our sailors from impressment. This was done by Act of Congress. I am not aware of any instance, in our own history or in the history of any other country, where there has been a suspension of commercial relations with any foreign power, unless as an act of war. The moment war is declared, there is, from the fact of war, a suspension of commercial relations with the hostile power. Commerce with that power is impossible, and there can be no contract even between the citizens or subjects of the two powers. But this is war. It is now proposed to do this same thing and to call it peace. The proposition is new, absolutely new. Not an instance of history, not a phrase in the Law of Nations, sanctions it. I need not say how little congenial it is with the age in which we live. The present object of good men is to make war difficult, if not impossible. Here is a way to make war easy. To the President is given this alarming power. In Europe war proceeds from the sovereign: in England, from the Queen in Council; in France, from Louis Napoleon. This is according to the genius of monarchies. By the Constitution of our Republic it is Congress alone that can declare war. And yet by this bill One Man, in his discretion, may do little short of declaring war. He may hurl one of the bolts of war, and sever the commercial relations of two great powers. Consider well what must ensue. Suppose the bolt is hurled at England. All that various commerce on which so much depends, all that interchange of goods which contributes so infinitely to the wants of each, all that shipping and all those steamers traversing the ocean between the two, all the multitudinous threads of business by which the two peoples are woven together, warp and woof, as in a mighty loom,--all these must be severed.

The next power conferred on the President is like unto the first in its abnormal character. It is nothing less than authority, in his discretion, to make reprisals, by seizing innocent foreigners happening to be in the United States. The more this is considered, the more it must be regarded with distrust.

Reprisals belong to the incidents of war in the earlier ages, before civilization had tempered the rudeness of mankind. All reprisals are of doubtful character. Reprisals on persons are barbarous. I do not say, that, according to the received rights of war, some terrible occasion may not arise even for this barbarous agency; but I insist that it is frowned upon by all the best authorities even in our own country, that it is contrary to enlightened reason, and that it is utterly without any recent example. Admitting that such reprisals are not entirely discarded by writers on the Law of Nations, they are nevertheless condemned. By the rights of war, as once declared, the lives of prisoners taken on the field of battle were forfeit. Early history attests the frequency of this bloody sacrifice. Who now would order the execution of prisoners of war? The day has passed when any such outrage can be tolerated. But it is hardly less barbarous to seize innocent persons whom business or pleasure has brought within your peaceful jurisdiction, under the guaranty of the Public Faith.

I am unwilling to occupy time on a matter which is so clear in the light of modern civilization, and of that enlightened reason which is the handmaid to civilization. And yet the present effort will justify me in exposing the true character of reprisals, as seen in the light of history.

Reprisals were recognized by the Greeks, but disowned by the Romans. According to Bynkershoek, who is so much quoted on the Law of Nations, “there is no instance of such wickedness in the history of that magnanimous people; neither do their laws exhibit the least trace of it.”[239] This is strong language, and is in itself a condemnation of this whole agency. It is of the more weight, as the author is our austerest authority on questions of the Law of Nations, giving to the rights of war the strongest statement. According to him, reprisals are nothing less than “wickedness” (_improbitas_), and unworthy of a magnanimous people. During the Middle Ages, and afterwards, reprisals were in vogue; but they never found favor. They have been constantly reprobated. Even when formally sanctioned, they have been practically excluded by safeguards and conditions. In a treaty between Cromwell and the States-General there was a stipulation against reprisals, “unless the prince whose subject shall conceive himself to have been injured shall first lay his complaint before the sovereign whose subject is supposed to have committed the tortious act, and _unless that sovereign shall not cause justice to be rendered to him within three months after his application_.”[240] This stipulation was renewed under Charles the Second.[241] The same principle was declared by the Grand Pensionary, De Witt, who, in the name of the United Provinces, protested, “that reprisals cannot be granted, _except in case of an open denial of justice_,” and “that, even in case of a denial of justice, a sovereign cannot empower his subjects to make reprisals, _until he has repeatedly demanded justice for them_.”[242] A similar rule was also declared in the famous letter to the King of Prussia, in the case of the Silesian loan, written by Murray, afterward Lord Mansfield, and much praised by Montesquieu and by Vattel.[243] Here it is said: “The Law of Nations, founded upon justice, equity, convenience, and the reason of the thing, and confirmed by long usage, does not allow of reprisals, except in case of violent injuries, directed or supported by the State, and justice absolutely denied, _in re minime dubia_, by all the tribunals, and afterwards by the prince.”[244] This is clear and strong. I might quote authorities without end to the same point. I content myself with adding the words of General Halleck, who, after saying, in his admirable manual, that “reprisals bring us to the awful confines of actual war,” proceeds to lay down the rule, that reprisals, even on property, can be only “where justice has been plainly denied or most unreasonably delayed.”[245] This rule commends itself as proper and just. It is your duty to apply it on the present occasion. But, in the face of the authorities in our own country, judges, jurists, publicists, and commentators, in long array, according to whom our own claim of allegiance is coincident with that of England,--and then, again, in face of the well-known and much-heralded disposition of foreign powers, including England, to settle this whole question by treaty, is it not absurd to say that here is a case for reprisals of any kind?

In the early days reprisals were directed against persons as well as property. Even against property it was done with hesitation, only in cases free from all doubt, and after ample appeal to the sovereign for justice. Against persons it was done very rarely. Grotius, our greatest master, who brought the rules of International Law to the touchstone of reason, asserts that all reprisals are vindicated by custom rather than by Nature. His language is, that this rule “is not indeed authorized by Nature, but generally received by custom.”[246] Since then the tendency has been to a constant mitigation of this pretension, even as regards property. Without burdening this discussion with cases, which are numerous, I give a summary of Wheaton in these words: “It appears to be the modern rule of international usage, that property of the enemy found within the territory of the belligerent state, or debts due to his subjects by the Government or individuals, at the commencement of hostilities, are not liable to be seized and confiscated as prize of war.”[247] This rule, which is applicable to the condition of things on the breaking out of war, attests the care with which the modern Law of Nations watches the rights of individuals, and how it avoids making them suffer. Thus even debts are not liable to seizure. How much more should an innocent person be exempt from any such outrage!

It is when we consider the modern rule with regard to persons, instead of property, that we are impressed still more by its benignity. Here I quote, first a British authority, and then an American. Mr. Phillimore, the author of the very elaborate and candid treatise on the Law of Nations, so full of various learning, after admitting that reprisals, “strictly speaking, affect the persons as well as the goods,” proceeds to say, that, “in modern times, however, they have been chiefly confined to goods”; and then adds, in words worthy of consideration now, that “it is to be hoped that the reprisal of persons has fallen, with other unnecessary and unchristian severities, into desuetude; _and certainly, to seize travellers, by way of reprisal, is a breach of the tacit faith pledged to them by the State, when they were allowed to enter her borders_.”[248] The same enlightened conclusion is expressed by Dana, in his excellent notes to Wheaton, as follows: “The right of making reprisals is not limited to property, but extends to persons; _still, the practice of modern times discountenances the arrest and detention of innocent persons strictly in the way of reprisal_.”[249] Thus do British and American publicists concur in homage to a common civilization.

If we look at the reason of the modern rule which spares persons, we shall find it in two different considerations, each of controlling authority: first, that an innocent person cannot be seized in a foreign country without a violation of the Public Faith; and, secondly, that no private individual can be justly held responsible for the act of his Government. On the first head Vattel speaks as follows: “The sovereign who declares war can no more detain the subjects of the enemy who are found in his states at the time of the declaration than he can their effects. _They have come into his dominions on the Public Faith._ In permitting them to enter his territories and continue there he tacitly promised them full liberty and full security for their return.”[250] In the same sense Halleck says, “Travellers and passing guests are in general excepted from such liability.”[251] Here again Grotius speaks with the authority of a Christian lawgiver, saying that by the Law of Nations there can be no reprisals “on travellers or sojourners.”[252] The other reason was assigned by Mr. Webster, in his correspondence with the British Government in relation to the “Caroline.” The British Government having acknowledged the act of McLeod in burning this vessel as their act, Mr. Webster at once declared, that, after this avowal, the individuals engaged in it could not be held personally responsible, and he added words worthy of memory at this juncture: “The President presumes that it can hardly be necessary to say that the American people, not distrustful of their ability to redress public wrongs by public means, _cannot desire the punishment of individuals, when the act complained of is declared to have been an act of the Government itself_.”[253] Weighty words, by which our country is forever bound. The same principle is adopted by Halleck, in his text-book, when he says, “No individual is justly chargeable with the guilt of a personal crime for the act of the community of which he is a member.”[254] All these authorities furnish us the same lesson, and warn against the present proposition. Shall we at the same time violate the Public Faith and wreak a dishonorable vengeance on an innocent traveller or sojourner, making him the scapegoat of his country? Shall we do this outrage to the stranger within our gates?