Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1858-06-07
WASHINGTON NEWS AND GOSSIP.

isthmus tTansts having been often interrupted,
the GoveiSosnent of the United States has been
embarrassed as to the mode it should adopt to
keep them open and preserve their freedom to
the world. This embarrassment has resulted
not from any want of disposition to preserve
their freedom, but from the often communi-
Gated and generally received principle of inter
national law, that no Government can interfere
by force for the preservation OF rights which
any OF its citizens may acquire by virtue OF
contracts made between them and any foreign
Government The justice of this principle is
evident; since, if the contrary were the rule,
one Government might by force interfere to
control the decisions of another, and thus the
latter would lose its nationality by ceasing to
be a sovereign Power. Every State, to be SOW
ereign and Independent, must exercise within
its own territorial limits absolute uncontrolled
jurisdiction, in its own mode, free from foreign
interruption. But it must be apparent to every
man that this rule is not applicable to the cases
of Panama and Nicaragua; the rights of transit
across either isthmus not being the result of
strictly private contracts.
We understand contracts to be of three kinds:
private, public, and public and private com
bined, or "mixed !" contracts. The Transit
contracts given by the Governments of New
Granada and Nicaragua are of the latter kind,
since, while in each the right is given to pri-
vate company to establish an intercommunica.
ton between the oceans, the company is com.
PEELED, as condition to the enjoyment of the
right, to take the citizens and subjects of all
the nations of the earth on equal and common
terms, across such line of INSTRUMENTATION
Thus it will be seen, that by means of these
feebntcaHy private grants, the whole world has
acquired freedom of transit before then really
unenjoyed by any portion of it. If by these
so-called private grants the citizens Of the
United States acquired a right before not pos
sessed by them, then the grant is to be re-
garded as public and private, or mixed. The
right having been acquired by the entire pub.
lic the mode Of its acqu irement becomes i'm
material.
No matter whether the public takes it by
direct cesslon from government to government,
or by one government to another through the
means of grant to private citizens. 1t is the
right that is valuable-not the specific mode
adopted to secure it; and being once acquired,
1t is within the power, and becomes the duty
OF the Government to uphold and protect it
equal with any other national right. If valu-
able, the Government is bound to protect it
against ali interruption or interference on the
part of the State from which it is derived.
Ii the public right rests on technically pr-
vate grant which would cease to exist with the
failure or revocation of such grant, then it is
the clear duty of the Government to protect
the grantees against acts of forfeiture or an
nulment not ON their account alone, but as a
means, and the only means Of preserving and
protecting the public right.
In the cases of Panama and Nicaragua, pri-
vate enterprise and private capital have out
stripped our own Government and have pro-
cured for the people Of this country privileges
not only important but of a necessary charac-
ter. The least, then, this Government can do
Is to protect its people in the enjoyment of
rights which private citizens have secured for
them, and which the Government itself failed
to establish. Let US be distinctly understood.
While We no not advocate governmental inter
ference for the enforcement of contracts strictly
private between citizens Of the United States
and foreign government we do insist that il
IS Its duty land that it must be held response
bic for the omission to perform it, to protect
the inviolability of every public right, valu-
able or invaluable no matter by what form or
mode of cession such right may have been ac-
quired.
While we are ready to award great credit to
private corporations for securing to our whole
people valuable public privileges we are not
their defenders against we'll settled principle
of international law. We are ready to thank
them for what they have voluntarily done for
the country 1t is the defence of the public
right that we advocate and if this can only be
done by protecting private individuals in rights
vested In them by contract we not only adyo-
cate, but insist on that method (of defence
We may be considered as announcing a new
principle OF international law; but interna-
tional law springs from international necessi-
ties, and the defence by each nation of each
and all of its public rights is an act of the first
and most sovereign necessity. If this rule has
not hitherto been acted upon, it will be, be-
cause it must be-
RATHER TARA fair correspondent sends
US the following criticism upon Southern eulo-
gies of the late Rev. Mr. Tying, DR.. Bethunes
defence of the South, &C.
some Time since, clergyman of the Episcopal
Church, in a Northern CITY, rose i'm his nnInit IN
Sabbath day, and delivered political harangue
denunclatory OF the South, inteflarded with viru-
lent ana vulgar abuse Of the then Executive and
hlled throughout with language of the utmost
codrseness and violence. This wanton desecra-
ton OF Gods day and Gods temple disousted
The cong TeSdtOn before which the DISPLAY was
made, to such degree that on tine next SUNDAY,
out OF the hundreds usually in attendance scarcely
NIFTY We're present. The affair ended by the cIeT
gyman beng compelled to resign his charge and
the CONGREGATION supplying themselves with a
rector VINO would have more regard for the time
hoDored practice of the Episcopal Church than to
use the pulpit for fanatical stamp speeches A
Few weeks ago, the I" freedom shI iekingn parson
died. and-would IL be beieved,-the leaders of
the SohtheTn Churchman, religious paper pub.
ilshed at Alexandria, Va, Were RECALLED week
after week, with the praises of man who had so
sianaered the South, and the President whom
the south delighted to honor, - as to disgust even
Northern congregation into separating from
him. Column after column was filled with ac
counts OF all he said and did, and all that every
BODY around him said and did; in short, il
bP he pa ipta