New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1859-07-09
AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP IN 1852.


There is q somewhat marked difference between
the cowardly and impolitic course pursued BY the
Administration OF Buchanan in this question which
involves the rights Of naturalized citizens and the
manly position asserted by that of Millard Fillmore
in similar emergency. Edward Everett was then
Secretary Of State, q capacity, our readers will
allow, which afforded him much better opportunity
of acquiring credtable renown than as contributor
to the columns presided over by the Barnum Of i.era
ture The case of military impressment which then
turned up and afforded Mr.. Everett and bis confreres
Of the administration chance OF showing that they
knew the rights Of citizens and knowing dared
maintain them,'' was that Of resident OF New Or
leans, naturalized citizen, Frenchman by birth
and Allibert by name, who was actually dra,on in
the conscription Of 1885, but left France without
serving aad coming to the United States was natural.
lied, settling in New Orleans where be accumulated
means.
In 1852 Mr.. Allbert revisited France and had not
been twentyfour hours in his native place when be
seized by the agents Of the police as an escaped
| conscript. He at once appealed to Mr.. Hodge, the
American Consul at Marsees and pleaded bis rights
as an American citizen. The question was referred
to the proper tribunal, and Mr. Alibert, wishing to
avoid trouble, offered to pay substitute and thus
purchase his liberty; but the high-minded and en-
| lightened gentleman who fortunately was Cons ul
peremptory refused to allow him to do so asserte
bis exemption, as an American citzen from all sue
liabilities and the was referred to the Secretar
of War; who in due time returned order comman d.
ing the release Of Mr.. Alibert who afterwards ira
eled all through France and eventually returned to
the United States.
| On the Sd of March, 1858, Mr.. Everett wrote to
Mr. Hodge the following highly approbatory and
complimentary letter
| The Department was gratfed to learn that Mr.
Allibert, whose arrest and Imprisonment as an insou
mis-, although naturalized citizen Of the United
been released. This is undoubtedly due to the firm
and decided stand maintained throughout the long
controversy in your official correspondence with the
authorities on the subject.
1t is much to be desired that the case may be con
sidered as precedent, as you intimate, and that
hereafter natnralized citizens of the United States
may visit France without danger of arrest for mill
tary service. In this event. hurtu Of irrita
tion and unfriendly feeling will be avoided.
Mr.. Everett thought that it was much to be de
sired that the may be considered as precedent
but his feeble has allowed weight to The
official precedent which is of record among thu
governmental archives, preferring to chalk out
new and independently erroneous and disgracefu
line of policy for his own glory and renown. Ani
able that we expect that by this time the venerable
Secretary would be quite willing to dispose Of it tt
any ambitious party who would be willing to take i
off his hands. His successive epistles, and those o
the advocates whom he endorses, on the subjec
show continually progressive retrogade movemen
from the position assumed by the first and mos
notorious, and the prospect is that before he has
done he will have backed entirely out of the diff
Guilty into which he got himself thereby, if not ou
of the obloquy which it attaches
The Buchanan Administration refuses to protect
citizens from their liability to military law of the
Government to which they renounce allegiance, Will
that of Fillmore extended the ys of its guardian
ship over the actual deserter, who had been drawn
for service under an oppressive regulation maintain
ing that his person became sacred by the act which
received him as q citizen Of this country-so that he
might inscribe "Noli me tangere" on his naturaliza
on papers and shake them in the face of all despot
of the world. The whole business, the blunder anG
the attempt at backing down from it without &C
acknowledgement of error, is Of piece with most opera
tions of this Buchanan Democracy, which now brood
over the country like a vampire sucking the fnanca
blood of its substance and sappng its strength Sinc
the Inauguration of its authority it has uniformly re
fused to protect citizens when oppression was exer
cised in any part of the world, in the eastern OF
western hemispheres, and this wrong has been but
small part of its manifold shining.