Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1852-10-09

binding force of the universal law of nations and of
the express prohibitions Of our own statute, is acknow
lodged, and their violation deplored If these
questions be answered negatively, then there has
been no indignity," no Outrage" no trailing
Of the American flag in the dust" But, on the
contrary, the dignity, the faith, the honor of the
country, have been preserved precisely because the
name and the power Of the American People have
not been prosttuted to the adoption and defence of
an act of sheer piracy* and plumber. No! Thank
Heaven the time has not yet come, if it is to
come, when the National Administration is to take
share in Cuban or Kossuth bonds or speculate in
the overheated blood of g Young America"
But Mr. DOUGLAS proceeds:
81 speak not of the proprety the improperly Of the
expedition Cuba but do say that American citizen
is entitled to the protection Of his Government, in
formiy with treaty stpulatons, wherever he may be,
and whatever his conduct may have been. prolonged
cheerngl And assert furthermore that the butcher
les which took place in the Island of Cuba in direct
and palpable violation of solemn treaty spuations which
GUARANTEED to every American whether guilty Of crime
not regular trial according to certain rules therein
prescribed"
If this means any thing-ifi it was not intended
simply to cheat the ear with sounds, (Which we
cannot SUPPOSE it means, that conceding the Lopez
Expedition to be altogether indefensible, and the
parties therein concerned to be voators alike of the
public and Of the municipal law, taken in the fact
on Spanish territory, it nevertheless the duty
of this Government to espouse their QUARREL and to
rescue them from the consequences Of their crime
And this is gravely alleged as forfeiting for the
Wing party the confidence Of the country
| Will any man endowed with common reason de-
sire to hear an argument upon such question If
so, will Mr.. DOUGLAS favor the public with an in
dication Of the sources from which he has derived
these ideas of international law and the duty of
Government to its citizens? Will he, can he
satisfy any honest and dspassionate man, not that
it was matter of obligation, but that it would have
been consistent with a decent respect for the
opinions of mankind" or reconcileable with the
maintenance of the doctrine of national soye-
reignty and independence, and the obligations of
international law, that this Government should
have interviewed for the defence of American cit-
zens, "whatever their conduct might have been y
that is, however fagrantly and undeniably they
may have trampled upon the laws of their own
country, and outraged the laws of nations to the
injury and invasion of friendly Power We
hazard nothing in saying, not only that such pro-
position is without any foundation in principle or
authority, but that it is monstrous and shocking to
the moral sense itself.
The allusion to the stpulations of treaties assumed
to have been violated and disregarded in what are
called the butcheries" in the Island of Cuba, is
as unfounded and delusiye as the rest of the
harangue on this subject There is no stipulation
of any Treaty between civilized Powers which exists
on the face of the earth, recognising an immunity
in foreign citizens subjects greater than those
which may belong to the citizens or subjects of the
Power granting such immunity. This equality of
right under the law is all that we ourselves have
ever dreamed of conceding to the subjects of any
foreign Power and all that we have ever asked, or
can decently ask, of them for our own citizens In
the Treaty of 1875 with Spain Cart XXX this
equality is stipulated for, and it is provided, in re-
gard to suits in the courts Of the contracting parties
respectively, that "the proceedings and sentences
of the said courts shall be the same as if the con-
tending parties had been subjects or citizens of the
said country" Does any body, who knows any
thing Of the facts, pretend that any other or differ
ent proceedings or sentences were applied to the
misguided American followers of Lopez than by
the laws of Spain were due to Lopez himself and
those of his train who like himself were Spanish
subjects? This was all that the citizens whom he
led from the United States had any color of right
to require. IL this is what Mr. DOUGLAS means
by treaty spulations," is it not, to say the least
most unjust and disingenuous to speak as he has
spoken in the passage last quoted? Did not Mr..
DOUGLAS know, expert lawyer as he is, that the
present Administration, without furnishing the
American name BY any such rash and indefensible
Intervention as he declares to have been required,
took immediate steps to ascertain whether those
treaty stipulations" had been observed, and that
the clearest and most satisfactory assurances and
proofs that they had been we're promptly furnished
by the Spanish Government? Severe and awful as
was the sentence Of the violated law, no impartial
man will affirm that it was either unmerited or exc
cuted without the most exact regard all the forms
as well as the substance Of justice. What Mr.
DOUGLAS means by ga regular trial according to
certain rules therein prescribed we are at loss to
conjecture, il he refers to any thing more than we
have seen was duly and scrupulously accorded; and
that, too, under circumstances which might well
have led to some departure from strict and regular
proceedings in the midst Of excited soldiery and