The daily union. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1845-1857, 1847-03-25


well as by many OF the best and most enlightened
| tsatesmen OF our ANTl-TARlFF
For the Union.
Hon. John s. Pendleton of Virginia.
Ii would be considered an idle task to attempt to cor
rect errors in public speeches made for Buncombe blu
when any distinguished gentleman, party zeal, ia
fogets himself in the halls OF Congress, either by design
accident speaking on grave and important subject as
there TO mispesen the truth and to msrePresent the pub
lie records, nurousy oprvae individuals their char
cte and perhaps to the widow the fatheress, and The
orphan 1t then becomes duty so lar to expose sucf
speaking as to prevent the evil effects of its publication
and spread among the people Individual private rights
and character too dear TO every citizen to allow them
TO be Knocked sported with by any one, whateye
be his privileges station in society.
The honorable gentleman whose name heads this com
nunicaton, IN his remarkable speech the army dppfo
pTadtion bill delivered in the House OF Representative
the 22d February last and published in the National
lntegencer OF the 9th nst after assing the President
the war, manner OF conducting II, &c, travels from tina
bill to the claims Mexico presented in the tabular
statement In the report OF the American commissioners
appointed to settle those claims under the convention
with Mexico of the 18th of April, 1899, and by the Pres
dent transmitted TO the House of Representatives, in
10 Its resolution of the It'll june 1872 to which
the honorable gentleman NIr P) refers for the truth
(See Ex. Doc, vol. 5, for 1sll-I2 H. r. Doc No. POI
9th Cong. I'd sess
by the clerks of the board with much labor, in cacula
ting interest &c, under the supervision of OF the
commissioners, is presented condensed view OF the
character of each claim, with the names OF the claimants
Abbreviated rs this statement is, and only intended 10 fur
nsh idea of the nature and grounds of the claims the
honorable gentleman makes abstract of it, and gives
the amount OF each award (omthng the names and 1t
processes TO give the true character OF each claim to show
how far the government OF the United States had rgh
to interfere therein and ''tha they not, any
spec the cause OF the war; or could not have been al
any time properly and reasonably made OF
Leaving the impeaching Of the President &c, and pro-
visions Of the army BILL the honorable gentleman has
lens to the poor claims and claimants Mexico,
ported in the above document, NO 29 and says Le
us examine these claims and what their character
and what has been the conduct of Mexico about them "
and to present his with facility he presents
these two PLAIN propositions OF national law:
''ist citizen of the United States has no right claim
Of n pana fd a p s
and foreign government any citizen of foreign gov
ed When citizen OF the United States leaves his
country and becomes resident and citizen of another
country he cannot rgAt claim the lorcible interference
OF the OF the United States project him, c,
With the commissioners report before him, the honor
able gentleman enters upon the task of careful exami-
nation OF each OF the claims, soemny adudcaed by the
mixed board OF commissioners according to the treaty,
and he finds that 81 o26oo0 have been awarded to Amer
citizens, and that $92S 627 submitted the umpire
returned undecided by him. for want of time Ac-
cording TO his examination of the claims and abstract
of the record of them, the honorable gentleman afIims,
on his veracity that of the 81 026 900 of claims
awarded only S63S 900 Tor, by precisely cal
cuation, it would fall probably under $60oooo) is the
whole amount of that sort of claims for which the gov
eminent OF the United States could rightfuy have in
terered by force under any sort of obligation to
interfere at all" 81 mean' he adds, "such demands
(caims( as, by the laws of nations, this government
would have the right to enforce payment Of
can learn from Mc eUldence submitted to The mLred
MISSION" According to this, it would appear that the
honorable gentleman had also TO the evidence sub
med TO that board wei their report, and therefore
could make his abstract with great correctness and he
says, at rs correct as far as 1t goes"
In the exposition which he makes of the claims the
honorable gentleman that 81 1857 1929, awarded
the claimants, (belng about twohrds OF the whole
OF S2,o26,oool come under the other of the two
propositions OF national law above quoted, that olsen
title the claimants the interference OF the government
except by lis "fr1endy offices
Knowing the character of the distinguished gentlemen
who acted on behalf of the United States as commission
ers under the late convention with Mexico TO settle the
claims OF American citizens, we induced TO ques-
ton the statements of the honorable gentleman and
believe that he had misrepresened the facts altogether
to the character OF the claims and the right of the govern
ment to enforce their payment
They too numerous, and would require too much
time for us to enter into examination of all of them;
but we are familiar with one of those claims, and which
the honorable gentleman has characterized coming
under the aforesaid rules of law that ustes the govern
mcn to enforce the payment Of ana reported in full in
document No. 800 in the volume, No. and sup
posing the honorable gentleman to be equally correct in
his abstract of all and each of the claims we shall
content ourselves with referring to this af
fordng evidence of his general accuracy, and of the
character of his speech altogether
This claim, TO which we shall conine remarks,
the honorable gentleman, in his abstract of the record,
says for seiZure of steamboat employed in river Ia
basco by contract with Mexican governments 500 4s7"
We have the record before of this particular case and
all the which the Hon. Mr. Pendleon refers his
speech, 6 vol Elk Docs for 1S4lI2O and have search
ed it in vain 10 find anything like contract nth Mer-
icdn government in the whole record-indeed it is not
there But will suspend our remarks upon this dis
crepancy, and follow the honorable gentleman to the
''epience submitted 10 the Mcricun commission" and
in our next will communicate the result.
For the Union