New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1876-03-10
The New Minister to England.

100 1New .Ml0l0tof 10 E08B000s
The Hon. Richard H. Dana, Jr., of Mas
sachusetts, who has been appointed minis
ter to England as successor to General
Schenck, is one of the most eminent men Of
that State. He was the son of Richard
Henry Dana. the poet, and was born st
Cambridge, Massachusetts, August !, 1915,
and graduated at Harvard College in 1887.
Being compelled to interrupt his collegiate
course in 1884 by weakness of the eyes, he
made the voyage described in his 1.-TWO
Years Before the Mast" to California,
then wild and almost unknown region.
He was q member Of the Dane Law
Story and Professor Greenleaf, and during
two years of that time also acted as ad-
junct to Professor Claiming in the depart
ment of Rhetoric at the university. He
was admitted to the Boston bar in 1910,
and was much employed in the admiralty
courts, having been naturally led to pay
special attention to maritime and CONNER
cial law.
In 1Sll he published q manual of sea
usages and law, 1.-The Seamans Friend"
republished in England as the "Seamsn's
Manuel" "A letter published by him at the
time of the melancholy affair Of the United
States brig Somers. l843, and in detailed
explanation of the critical position of the
officers on that occasion, served to moderate
the natural public feeling, and rendernd it
more favorable to Captain Mackenzie. Mr..
Dana's practice gradually became general
in the law courts, where he is now one of
the leading advocates and has been engaged
in larger than ueual proportion of causes
of public interest; among others, in the
weIl-known reinvestig alton of the presump.
ton of murder from homicide lYork's case,
1S45), which has led to new enactments on
the general subject in several States; on
the legal right to require the use Of the
Bible in the common schools in Maine
(DOnahue Va. Richards. 1854; on the canon
law of the Episcopal Church, in the Rev.
Mr.. Prescott's cases, 1852; on the title to
public and religious charities, in the case of
the Presbyterian Synod We. the parish of
the late DR.. Charming, 1854; in the numer-
GUS trials for the rescue Of the slave Shad-
rack in 1853, and in the still more noted
case of Anthony Burns in 1854. He ap-
peared, however, voluntarily in 1855,
against the removal Of Judge Loring in the
then state of the law, but not after the
Massachusetts statute of May 81, 1855, un-
der which the removal eventually took
place.
Mr.. Dana was one of the founders of the
Free Soil party, delegate from Boston to
tho Buffalo convention Of lA, and popu-
lar speaker in that and Vie Republican
movement of 1856 He was one of the
ablest members of the Massachusetts Con-
stitutiona! Convention of 1853. and his
speeches in that body have received high
praise in the chief work of an eminent for
eign publicist lMohl's "Geschichte und
Literatur der Staatswissensch h aften)
In 1861 he was appointed United States
attorney for Massachusetts, and held that
Office till 1866 arguing every prize case that
came up in the district. He also, in con-
junction with Mr.. Evarts, argued the prize
cases for the government before the Su-
preme Court, laying down the principle that
in civil war q government can exercise
belligerent powers against it's own citizens.
on it's own coil or on the high seas, just as
against neutral nations; that any portion OF
her soil in actual firm possession and control
Of a rebellion is enemy territory in the
technical sense of the laws of war, and
the property of persons residing in
such territory is enemy property in the
technical sense of the prize law, irrespect-
i've of their personal loyalty or disloyalty,
the property being in such case condemned
as prize, and not forfeited for violation of
law; that enemy territory depends on the
fact of hostile occupation for the time being,
and has no reference to any sO-called ordi-
pendence; and that, although the President
can not initiate q war, he can, in the ab-
sence of Congress, use war powers for the
national defense. These principles we're
established in the decision of the court.
The Prize Cases, 2 Blacks Rep, $751; Mr..
Dana also drew up the prize act Of 1864,
which repealed all prior acts on the subject,
and completed prize code for the United
States.
He was counsel for the United States in
the proceedings against Jefferson Davis for
A.4n 10 t. h~v IS
the family of Mr.. Wheaton. he published
an edition of Wheaton's elements of In
ternstional Law" covering the period be-
tween Mr.. Wheaton's death in l848 and the
of publication. His note, No. 2l5, on the
legislative, judicial and diplomatic history
of the neutrality laws of the United States
and Great Britain, was printed by the
government and translated into French for
the use Of the arbitrators at Geneva in
1872.
Others of his notes were frequently cited
by the counsel on each side, and by the ar
bitrators in their opinions. In 1867 and in
1868 he represented Cambridge in the Mas
sachusetts Legislature, and was chairman
of the Committee on Judiciary.
His speech in the Legislature in 1867, in
favor Of the repeal of ueury laws, was printed
at the request of the members, and re-
printe in 1873, in New York, by a body of
gentlemen interested in the repeal Of usury
laws generally.
In 1868, it will be remembered, he was
the independent candidate for Congress in
the Essex district against Benjamin F. But
ler, but was defeated by large majority
after spirited campaign, Butlerism not
having then relaxed it's hold upon the Re-
publican voters of the State.
Mr.. Dana's last prominent appearance in
public life was at tho centennial celebration
Of the battle of Lexington ON April l9, 1875,
when he delivered the oration.