Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1868-07-31

RErAuATIoS.-Mr Sumner made strong
speech in the Senate on Saturday against the
clause, in the House bill for the protection Of
American citizens abroad, giving the President
power to suspend commercial relations with any
country offending, and To arrest in retaliation
the innocent citizens Of such country. He char
aeterized these provisions as - monstrous and
utterly unworthy Of a generous republic. hoping
to give an example to mankind We quote
from his remarks
The whole business Is solemn. Nothing graver
could challenge the attention Of the Senate Two
powers are conferred upon the President. First,
To have supreme control Of our commercial rela-
tions with a foreign government, and secondly,
TO arrest and to detain in custody any subjects
Of a foreign government found within the juris-
diction Of the United States. The suspension of
commercial relations and the arrest Of innocent
foreigners simply At the viii Of the President
these are the two powers; II would be dithcult TO
imagine greater We have had in our own his
tory the existence Of an embargo, when all our
merchant ships were kept at home and forbidden
to embark in foreign commerce. That measure
was intended to save our ships from insult and
by act Of Congress. am not aware Of any in
stance in our own history, or in the history Of
any other country, where there has been a sus-
pension of commercial relations with the hostile
power. Commerce, with that power, IS imPos-
sible, and there can be no contract even between
the citizens and subjects Of the two powers. But
this is war. Il is now proposed TO do this same
thing and to call it peace. The proposition Is
new-absolutely new-not an instance in history,
for not a phrase in the law Of nations sanctions
il. need not say how little consonant it is
with the age in which we live.
The present object of good men is to make war
difficult, if not impossible. Here is way to
make war easy. To the President is given this
alarming power. In Europe, war proceeds from
the sovereign In England, from the Queen in
council In France, from Louis Napoleon This
is according to the genius Of monarchles- by
the constitution Of our republic It IS congress
alone that can declare war; and yet by TINS Dill
one man in his discretion may do little short oil
declaring war He may at least hurl one OF the
bolts of war, and end the commercial relations
of two great powers Consider well what must
ensue. Suppose the bolt is hurled at England
All that various commerce on which so much
depends; all that interchange Of good which
contributes so infinitely to the wants Of each; all
that shipping, and all those steamers traversing
the ocean between the twc-all the multitudinous
threads of business by which the two peoples are
woven together as in q mighty loom-an these
must be severed The next power conferred on
the President is like unto the first in ITS aonor-
NAL character. 1t is nothing less than authority
in his discretion to make reprisals by seiring IN.
nocent foreigners happening to be in the United
States. The more this is considered the more
it must be regarded with distrust. Reprisais
belonged to the incidents Of war in the earlier
o0es before civilization had tempered the rude