Raftsman's journal. [volume] (Clearfield, Pa.) 1854-1948, 1856-02-06
PROTECTION TO AMERICANS ABROAD
From the Harrisburg Telegraph, Feb. l.

tion looking to the protection OF American
citizens whilst travelling or sojourning in for
cign lands, in the enjoyment of the right OF
religious worship and the privilege of burying
their dead, should bereavement befall them,
according to the customary rites of their par
tcular faith, and with such solemnities as they
might deem proper. The resolution, after it
had been moulded by its author, so as to make
it as unohjectionabc as possible, assumed the
form of simple request to our Senators and
Representatives in Congress to use their eff
forts to have incorporated in treaties made
with foreign nations, stipulation ample c.
nough te secure the object contemplated. On
Friday last it was reached in the order of pub
lie bills, and coming before the House for con-
sideration, was negatived, on second reading,
after a brief debate, by vote of 46 to Al.
We read the report, which announced this
extraordinary result, with surprise. We did
not deem it possible that forty-slx Pennsylva-
MIA Representatives could be found, who would
be willing to record their names upon the
journal of the House voting in the negative
upon a proposition like this, which should
commend itself upon the first glance to every
truly American heart. Of the forty-one who
voted in favor of the resolution, to their honor
be it said, were twelve gentlemen acting with
the Democratic party, who were willing to
view the measure in the light of its own in
trinsic merit, without reference to the party
with which the member introducing it hap
pened to be connected, and regardless of the
taint OF s'Amcrcanism'' with which it might
be supposed to be infected. The forty-six
negative votes were thrown, we believe, by the
majority party in the House, in solid column.
What valid objection could be urged against
the passage of q resolution of this character,
we are at a loss to imagine. 1t is nothing
more than simple request to those who rep
resent the Commonwealth upon the floor of
the National Legislature, and particularly in
that body in which, in conjunction with the
President, the rcaty-making power is vested.
to see to it that the American citizen whom
business or pleasure may chance to carry to
foreign land, shall be secure wherever his feet
may happen to stray, in the enjoyment Of the
same rights and privileges which our own Re-
public tenders freely to the veriest outcast
whom destiny may fling upon her shores Our
whether Jew or Gentle, Christian or Turk,
whom the winds Of despotsm or misfortune
may watt hithcr, and the moment his feet touch
our soil he is free to worship the God of his
fathers in whatsoever mode and with whatSo-
ever rites his conscience may dictate. If, too,
the shaft of the unerring archer should strike
down at his side the friends or kindred who
how Slo hn ,I,n;,
forms, without fear Of molestaton, to the bo-
som of the earth, and celebrate their obsequies
as he may deem most fitting, either with the
pompous rights of Holy Mother Church, or
with the simpler solemnties of less gorgeous
ritual. Nay, we offer him still more. a few
years residence upon American soil, and he is
admitted to all the privileges of citizenship,
may move among his fellows in all the glory of
his manhood, and WELD equally with the ma
tive born, the lever of political power.
What then, we would demand for the Amer |
lean citizen when he enters the confines of |
foreign sovereignty, is reciprocity of privi- |
legc. We care not that the Governments of |
the Old World should confer upon those who |
are aliens to their soil the rights of citizenship
to which we admit the refugee who flies from |
the shadow of their crumbling thrones God |
forbid that any man who has drawn his first |
breath in a republican atmosphere should |
ever be found willing to swear allegiance to
any of Europe's fading dynastics. But we hold |
it to be the duty of our own Government to
insist upon it that the rights of conscience
shall be held sacred in the persons of her own
citizens wherever the flag of the Repub-
lie floats upon the air, or her name inspires
respect and fear. The American citizen should
feel free to exercise the rights pertaining to
his religious faith, whether in the quiet Will
age church of his own peaceful land, amid the
swine clad hills'' of sunny France, or on the
plains of beautiful but misgoverned Italy
even in the seven hiled city itself, and at the
very base of the Vatican. He should be pro-
ectcd, too, in the day of his sad bereavement,
when those who had braved with him the per-
lis of the deep, and borne him company in all
his wandcrings upon alien soil, are suddenly
called to their eternal home, leaving to him
he mournful duty of securing for them a qui-
IT grave. As he lays them down to slumbcr
beneath the soil of a stranger land he should
be permitted to breathe over them the accents
which would have burdcned the air had they
lied in the places of their nativity, and the
ears which fall upon the sods which cover
hem should not be embittered By the thought
hat on the morrow, when he is far away,
fandal hands may perchance be busy with
he precious remains.
These are the rights and privileges which
he resolution asked should be secured by
reaty stipulations to those of our fellow citl-
ems who, every year, in increasing numbers,