Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1864-05-19
THE FRENCH sPoLIATIoN CLAIMS.

We have received copy of the very able and
elaborate report of Senator SUMNER on the claims
of citizens against the United States on account of
spoliations committed by the French Government,
and the responsibility for which was assumed by
our Government under the treaty with that Power
concluded on the Both of September, 1900. This
production of the distinguished Senator from Mas
sachusetts is no mere rehash of former reports on
the same subject, but is an original as well as a
thorough and exhaustive discussion of the question
presented by these claims, to the treatment of
which he has brought all the resources of his
accurate historical knowledge. And when we add
that the report comprises nearly one hundred and
fifty pages, the reader will perceive that it is equally
a memorial to the industry Ct the writer, who, amid
the engrossing cares of the Senate, and while par
ticipating SO prominently in its daily discussions
has nevertheless found time to digest and prepare
paper requiring SO much labor and research
Apart from the interest which attaches to it as an
enforcement of national obligations long postponed
and disregarded, the report is interesting to every
citizen, as a valuable contribution to the diplo.
matte and parliamentary history of the country.
OF the historical character of these claims Mr..
SUMNER thus writes, in the outset of his report
Of all claims our history these are most
with great events and great sacrifices First in time they
also fret in character for they sprng from the very
cradle of the republic and the trials of its infancy To
comprehend them you must know first how independence
was won; and secondly how at later day, peace was
assured. Other claims have been merely personal m
gous these historic Here individual LOSSES
felt at the time most keenly and constituting unan.
aim uhic hv tha srtin afn
Government at critical moment, employed, like
credit cash in hand, to purchase release from out
standing national obligations that the whole country
became at the trustees of these sufferers bound Of
course gratitude for the thus contributed but
bound also to indemnify them against all individual
losses And yet there sufferers thus unique in situation,
have been compelled to all other claims for foreign
spostons satis6ed while they alone have been turned
away. Even early 1894 plundered citizens OBJ
tanned compensation to the amount of than ten mil
lion dollars, account Of British spoati0ns. Similar
ndemDities have been obtained since from Spain, Naples
Denmark, Mexico, and the South American States, whe
by the famous convention Of 1881 France contributed five
million dollars TO the satisfaction of spola0ns under the
continental sysem of Napoleon SPAN stipulated to pay
for every ship cargo taken within Spanish waters
by the Frepcb, that the French spolatops
merce within Spanish wateys have been paid for, but
French spoatons elsewhere before $500
still unredeemed Such has been the fortune of claim
ants the most merorious of all.
" In all other there has been simply claim for
foreign spoaons but without any superadded obligation
on the part of our Government. Here il claim for
foreign spOatOns the precise counterpart of all other
claims but with superadded obligation, the part of
our Government in the nature of debt, constituting
assumpsu or implied promise to pay; that these
sufferers merely claimants account Of French
spoatons but they also creditors account of plain
ption by the Government of the uudoubted liability
of France But the appeal OF these
n enhanced beyond the pecunary interests involved when
consider the nature Of this assumption aud especially
that this way, country obtained final release from
embarrassing stpustons with France contracted in the
for national independence. Regarding it, therefore,
debt it constitutes part Of that sacred debt incurred
for national ndependence-the only part which remains
unpaid"