Chapter XXXI: Section 3: That nothing in this act shall be so construed as to (3)

SEC. 2. That the foregoing provisions shall not affect the prosecution or punishment of any offence already committed against the section amended by the first section of this act.

SEC. 3. That if any male person, in a Territory or other place over which the United States have exclusive jurisdiction, hereafter cohabits with more than one woman, he shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and on conviction thereof shall be punished by a fine of not more than $300, or by imprisonment for not more than six months, or by both said punishments in the discretion of the court.

SEC. 4. That counts for any or all of the offences named in sections 1 and 3 of this act may be joined in the same information or indictment.

SEC. 5. That in any prosecution for bigamy, polygamy or unlawful cohabitation under any statute of the United States, it shall be sufficient cause of challenge to any person drawn or summoned as a juryman or talesman, first, that he is or has been living in the practice of bigamy, polygamy, or unlawful cohabitation with more than one woman, or that he is or has been guilty of an offence punishable by either of the foregoing sections or by section 5352 of the Revised Statutes of the United States or the act of July 1, 1862, entitled “An act to punish and prevent the practice of polygamy in the Territories of the United States and other places, and disapproving and annulling certain acts of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Utah;” or, second, that he believes it right for a man to have more than one living and undivorced wife at the same time, or to live in the practice of cohabiting with more than one woman, and any person appearing or offered as a juror or talesman and challenged on either of the foregoing grounds may be questioned on his oath as to the existence of any such cause of challenge, and other evidence may be introduced bearing upon the question raised by such challenge, and this question shall be tried by the court. But as to the first ground of challenge before mentioned the person challenged shall be bound to answer if he shall say upon his oath that he declines on the ground that his answer may tend to criminate himself, and if he shall answer to said first ground his answer shall not be given in evidence in any criminal prosecution against him for any offense named in sections 1 or 3 of this act, but if he declines to answer on any ground he shall be rejected as incompetent.

SEC. 6. That the President is hereby authorized to grant amnesty to such classes of offenders guilty before the passage of this act of bigamy, polygamy, or unlawful cohabitation before the passage of this act, on such conditions and under such limitations as he shall think proper; but no such amnesty shall have effect unless the conditions thereof shall be complied with.

SEC. 7. That the issue of bigamous or polygamous marriages known as Mormon marriages, in cases in which such marriages have been solemnized according to the ceremonies of the Mormon sect, in any Territory of the United States, and such issue shall have been born before the 1st day of January, A. D. 1883, are hereby legitimated.

SEC. 8. That no polygamist, bigamist, or any person cohabiting with more than one woman, and no woman cohabiting with any of the persons described as aforesaid in this section, in any Territory or other place over which the United States have exclusive jurisdiction, shall be entitled to vote at any election held in any such Territory or other place, or be eligible for election or appointment to or be entitled to hold any office or place of public trust, honor or emolument in, under, or for such Territory or place, or under the United States.

SEC. 9. That all the registration and election offices of every description in the Territory of Utah are hereby declared vacant, and each and every duty relating to the registration of voters, the conduct of elections, the receiving or rejection of votes, and the canvassing and returning of the same, and the issuing of certificates or other evidence of election in said Territory, shall, until other provision be made by the Legislative Assembly of said Territory as is hereinafter by this section provided, be performed under the existing laws of the United States and of said Territory by proper persons, who shall be appointed to execute such offices and perform such duties by a board of five persons, to be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, and not more than three of whom shall be members of one political party, and a majority of whom shall constitute a quorum. The members of said board so appointed by the President shall each receive a salary at the rate of $3,000 per annum, and shall continue in office until the Legislative Assembly of said Territory shall make provision for filling said offices as herein authorized. The secretary of the Territory shall be the secretary of said board, and keep a journal of its proceedings, and attest the action of said board under this section. The canvass and return of all the votes at elections in said Territory for members of the Legislative Assembly thereof shall also be returned to said board, which shall canvass all such returns and issue certificates of election to those persons who, being eligible for such election, shall appear to have been lawfully elected, which certificate shall be the only evidence of the right of such persons to sit in such Assembly: _Provided_, That said board of five persons shall not exclude any person otherwise eligible to vote from the polls on account of any opinion such person may entertain on the subject of bigamy or polygamy, nor shall they refuse to count any such vote on account of the opinion of the person casting it on the subject of bigamy or polygamy; but each house of such Assembly, after its organization, shall have power to decide upon the elections and qualifications of its members. And at or after the first meeting of said Legislative Assembly whose members shall have been elected and returned according to the provisions of this act, said Legislative Assembly may make such laws, conformable to the organic act of said Territory and not inconsistent with other laws of the United States, as it shall deem proper concerning the filling of the offices in said Territory declared vacant by this act.

John R. McBride writing in the February number (1882) of _The International Review_, gives an interesting and correct view of the obstacles which the Mormons have erected against the enforcement of United States laws in the Territory. It requires acquaintance with these facts to fully comprehend the difficulties in the way of what seems to most minds a very plain and easy task. Mr. McBride says: Their first care on arriving in Utah was to erect a “free and Independent State,” called the “State of Deseret.” It included in its nominal limits, not only all of Utah as it now is, but one-half of California, all of Nevada, part of Colorado, and a large portion of four other Territories now organized. Brigham Young was elected Governor, and its departments, legislative and judicial, were fully organized and put into operation. Its legislative acts were styled “ordinances,” and when Congress, disregarding the State organization, instituted a Territorial Government for Utah, the legislative body chosen by the Mormons adopted the ordinances of the “State of Deseret.” Many of these are yet on the statute book of Utah. They show conclusively the domination of the ecclesiastical idea, and how utterly insignificant in comparison was the power of the civil authority. They incorporated the Mormon Church into a body politic and corporate, and by the third section of the act gave it supreme authority over its members in everything temporal and spiritual, and assigned as a reason for so doing that it was because the powers confirmed were in “support of morality and virtue, and were founded on the revelations of the Lord.” Under this power to make laws and punish and forgive offenses, to hear and determine between brethren, the civil law was superseded. The decrees of the courts of this church, certified under seal, have been examined by the writer, and he found them exercising a jurisdiction without limit except that of appeal to the President of the church. That the assassinations of apostates, the massacres of the Morrisites at Morris Fort and of the Arkansas emigrants at Mountain Meadows, were all in pursuance of church decrees, more or less formal, no one acquainted with the system doubts. This act of incorporation was passed February 8, 1851, and is found in the latest compilation of Utah statutes. It is proper also to observe that, for many years after the erection of the Territorial Government by Congress, the “State of Deseret” organization was maintained by the Mormons, and collision was only prevented because Brigham was Governor of both, and found it unnecessary for his purpose to antagonize either. His church organization made both a shadow, while _that_ was the substance of all authority. One of the earliest of their legislative acts was to organise a Surveyor-General’s Department,[41] and title to land was declared to be in the persons who held a certificate from that office.[42] Having instituted their own system of government and taken possession of the land, and assumed to distribute that in a system of their own, the next step was to vest certain leading men with the control of the timbers and waters of the country. By a series of acts granting lands, waters and timber to individuals, the twelve apostles became the practical proprietors of the better and more desirable portions of the country. By an ordinance dated October 4, 1851, there was granted to Brigham Young the “sole control of City Creek and Cañon for the sum of five hundred dollars.” By an ordinance dated January 9, 1850, the “waters of North Mill Creek and the waters of the Cañon next north” were granted to Heber C. Kimball. On the same day was granted to George A. Smith the “sole control of the cañons and timber of the east side of the ‘West Mountains’.” On the 18th of January, 1851, the North Cottonwood Cañon was granted exclusively to Williard Richards. On the 15th of January, 1851, the waters of the “main channel” of Mill Creek were donated to Brigham Young. On the 9th of December, 1850, there was granted to Ezra T. Benson the exclusive control of the waters of Twin Springs and Rock Springs, in Tooelle Valley; and on the 14th of January, 1851, to the same person was granted the control of all the cañons of the “West Mountain” and the timber therein. By the ordinance of September 14, 1850, a “general conference of the Church of Latter Day Saints” was authorized to elect thirteen men to become a corporation, to be called the Emigration Company; and to this company, elected exclusively by the church, was secured and appropriated the two islands in Salt Lake known as Antelope and Stansberry Islands, to be under the exclusive control of President Brigham Young. These examples are given to show that the right of the United States to the lands of Utah met no recognition by these people. They appropriated them, not only in a way to make the people slaves, but indicated their claim of sovereignty as superior to any. Young, Smith, Benson and Kimball were apostles. Richards was Brigham Young’s counselor. By an act of December 28, 1855, there was granted to the “University of the State of Deseret” a tract of land amounting to about five hundred acres, inside the city limits of Salt Lake City, without any reservation to the occupants whatever; and everywhere was the authority of the United States over the country and its soil and people utterly ignored.

Not satisfied with making the grants referred to, the Legislative Assembly entered upon a system of municipal incorporations, by which the fertile lands of the Territory were withdrawn from the operation of the preëmptive laws of Congress; and thus while _they_ occupied these without title, non-Mormons were unable to make settlement on them, and they were thus engrossed to Mormon use. From a report made by the Commissioner of the General Land Office to the United States Senate,[43] it appears that the municipal corporations covered over 400,000 acres of the public lands, and over 600 square miles of territory. These lands[44] are not subject to either the Homestead or Preëmption laws, and thus the non-Mormon settler was prevented from attempting, except in rare instances, to secure any lands in Utah. The spirit which prompted this course is well illustrated by an instance which was the subject of an investigation in the Land Department, and the proofs are found in the document just referred to. George Q. Cannon, the late Mormon delegate in Congress, was called to exercise his duties as an apostle to the Tooelle “Stake” at the city of Grantville. In a discourse on Sunday, the 20th day of July, 1875, Mr. Cannon said:[45] “God has given us (meaning the Mormon people) this land, and, if any outsider shall come in to take land which we claim, a piece _six feet_ by _two_ is all they are entitled to, and that will last them to all eternity.”

By measures and threats like these have the Mormons unlawfully controlled the agricultural lands of the Territory and excluded therefrom the dissenting settler. The attempt of the United States to establish a Surveyor-General’s office in Utah in 1855, and to survey the lands in view of disposing of them according to law, was met by such opposition that Mr. Burr, the Surveyor-General, was compelled to fly for life. The monuments of surveys made by his order were destroyed, and the records were supposed to have met a like fate, but were afterwards restored by Brigham Young to the Government. The report of his experience by Mr. Burr was instrumental in causing troops to be sent in 1857 to assert the authority of the Government. When this army, consisting of regular troops, was on the way to Utah, Brigham Young, as Governor, issued a proclamation, dated September 15, 1857, declaring martial law and ordering the people of the Territory to hold themselves in readiness to march to repel the invaders, and on the 29th of September following addressed the commander of United States forces an order forbidding him to enter the Territory, and directing him to retire from it by the same route he had come. Further evidence of the Mormon claim that they were independent is perhaps unnecessary. The treasonable character of the local organization is manifest. It is this organization that controls, not only the people who belong to it, but the 30,000 non-Mormons who now reside in Utah.

Every member of the territorial Legislature is a Mormon. Every county officer is a Mormon. Every territorial officer is a Mormon, except such as are appointive. The schools provided by law and supported by taxation are Mormon. The teachers are Mormon, and the sectarian catechism affirming the revelations of Joseph Smith is regularly taught therein. The municipal corporations are under the control of Mormons. In the hands of this bigoted class all the material interests of the Territory are left, subject only to such checks as a Federal Governor and a Federal judiciary can impose. From beyond the sea they import some thousands of ignorant converts annually, and, while the non-Mormons are increasing, they are overwhelmed by the muddy tide of fanaticism shipped in upon them. The suffrage has been bestowed upon all classes by a statute so general that the ballot-box is filled with a mass of votes which repels the free citizen from the exercise of that right. If a Gentile is chosen to the Legislature (two or three such instances have occurred), he is not admitted to the seat, although the act of Congress (June 23, 1874) requires the Territory to pay all the expenses of the enforcement of the laws of the Territory, and of the care of persons convicted of offenses against the laws of the Territory. Provision is made for jurors’ fees in criminal cases only, and none is made for the care of criminals.[46] While Congress pays the legislative expenses, amounting to $20,000 per session, the Legislature defiantly refuses to comply with the laws which its members are sworn to support. And the same body, though failing to protect the marriage bond by any law whatever requiring any solemnities for entering it, provided a divorce act which practically allowed marriages to be annulled at will.[47] Neither seduction, adultery nor incest find penalty or recognition in its legal code. The purity of home is destroyed by the beastly practice of plural marriage, and the brows of innocent children are branded with the stain of bastardy to gratify the lust which cares naught for its victims. Twenty-eight of the thirty-six members of the present Legislature of Utah are reported as having from two to seven wives each. While the Government of the United States is paying these men their mileage and _per diem_ as law-makers in Utah, those guilty of the same offense outside of Utah are leading the lives of felons in convict cells. For eight years a Mormon delegate has sat in the capitol at Washington having four living wives in his harem in Utah, and at the same time, under the shadow of that capitol, lingers in a felon’s prison a man who had been guilty of marrying a woman while another wife was still living.

For thirty years have the Mormons been trusted to correct these evils and put themselves in harmony with the balance of civilized mankind. This they have refused to do. Planting themselves in the heart of the continent, they have persistently defied the laws of the land, the laws of modern society, and the teachings of a common humanity. They degrade woman to the office of a breeding animal, and, after depriving her of all property rights in her husband’s estate,[48] all control of her children,[49] they, with ostentation, bestow upon her the ballot in a way that makes it a nullity if contested, and compels her to use it to perpetuate her own degradation if she avails herself of it.

No power has been given to the Mormon Hierarchy that has not been abused. The right of representation in the legislative councils has been violated in the apportionment of members so as to disfranchise the non-Mormon class.[50] The system of revenue and taxation was for twenty-five years a system of confiscation and extortion.[51] The courts were so organized and controlled that they were but the organs of the church oppressions and ministers of its vengeance.[52] The legal profession was abolished by a statute that prohibited a lawyer from recovering on any contract for service, and allowed every person to appear as an attorney in any court.[53] The attorney was compelled to present “all the facts in the case,” whether for or against his client, and a refusal to disclose the confidential communications of the latter subjected the attorney to fine and imprisonment.[54] No law book except the statutes of Utah and of the United States, “when applicable,” was permitted to be read in any court by an attorney, and the citation of a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, or even a quotation from the Bible, in the trial of any cause, subjected a lawyer to fine and imprisonment.[55]

The practitioners of medicine were equally assailed by legislation. The use of the most important remedies known to modern medical science, including all anæsthetics, was prohibited except under conditions which made their use impossible, “and if death followed” the administration of these remedies, the person administering them was declared guilty of manslaughter or murder.[56] The Legislative Assembly is but an organized conspiracy against the national law, and an obstacle in the way of the advancement of its own people. For sixteen years it refused to lay its enactments before Congress, and they were only obtained by a joint resolution demanding them. Once in armed rebellion against the authority of the nation, the Mormons have always secretly struggled for, as they have openly prophesied, its entire overthrow. Standing thus in the pathway of the material growth and development of the Territory, a disgrace to the balance of the country, with no redeeming virtue to plead for further indulgence, this travesty of a local government demands radical and speedy reform.

The South American Question.

If it was not shrewdly surmised before it is now known that had President Garfield lived he intended to make his administration brilliant at home and abroad—a view confirmed by the policy conceived by Secretary Blaine and sanctioned, it must be presumed, by President Garfield. This policy looked to closer commercial and political relations with all of the Republics on this Hemisphere, as developed in the following quotations from a correspondence, the publication of which lacks completeness because of delays in transmitting all of it to Congress.

Ex-Secretary Blaine on the 3d of January sent the following letter to President Arthur:

“The suggestion of a congress of all the American nations to assemble
in the city of Washington for the purpose of agreeing on such a basis
of arbitration for international troubles as would remove all
possibility of war in the Western hemisphere was warmly approved by
your predecessor. The assassination of July 2 prevented his issuing
the invitations to the American States. After your accession to the
Presidency I acquainted you with the project and submitted to you a
draft for such an invitation. You received the suggestion with the
most appreciative consideration, and after carefully examining the
form of the invitation directed that it be sent. It was accordingly
dispatched in November to the independent governments of America North
and South, including all, from the Empire of Brazil to the smallest
republic. In a communication addressed by the present Secretary of
State on January 9, to Mr. Trescot and recently sent to the Senate I
was greatly surprised to find a proposition looking to the annulment
of these invitations, and I was still more surprised when I read the
reasons assigned. If I correctly apprehend the meaning of his words it
is that we might offend some European powers if we should hold in the
United States a congress of the “selected nationalities” of America.

“This is certainly a new position for the United States to assume, and
one which I earnestly beg you will not permit this government to
occupy. The European powers assemble in congress whenever an object
seems to them of sufficient importance to justify it. I have never
heard of their consulting the government of the United States in
regard to the propriety of their so assembling, nor have I ever known
of their inviting an American representative to be present. Nor would
there, in my judgment, be any good reason for their so doing. Two
Presidents of the United States in the year 1881 adjudged it to be
expedient that the American powers should meet in congress for the
sole purpose of agreeing upon some basis for arbitration of
differences that may arise between them and for the prevention, as far
as possible, of war in the future. If that movement is now to be
arrested for fear that it may give offense in Europe, the voluntary
humiliation of this government could not be more complete, unless we
should press the European governments for the privilege of holding the
congress. I cannot conceive how the United States could be placed in a
less enviable position than would be secured by sending in November a
cordial invitation to all the American governments to meet in
Washington for the sole purpose of concerting measures of peace and in
January recalling the invitation for fear that it might create
“jealousy and ill will” on the part of monarchical governments in
Europe. It would be difficult to devise a more effective mode for
making enemies of the American Government and it would certainly not
add to our prestige in the European world. Nor can I see, Mr.
President, how European governments should feel “jealousy and ill
will” towards the United States because of an effort on our own part
to assure lasting peace between the nations of America, unless,
indeed, it be to the interest of European power that American nations
should at intervals fall into war and bring reproach on republican
government. But from that very circumstance I see an additional and
powerful motive for the American Governments to be at peace among
themselves.

“The United States is indeed at peace with all the world, as Mr.
Frelinghuysen well says, but there are and have been serious troubles
between other American nations. Peru, Chili and Bolivia have been for
more than two years engaged in a desperate conflict. It was the
fortunate intervention of the United States last spring that averted
war between Chili and the Argentine Republic. Guatemala is at this
moment asking the United States to interpose its good offices with
Mexico to keep off war. These important facts were all communicated in
your late message to Congress. It is the existence or the menace of
these wars that influenced President Garfield, and as I supposed
influenced yourself, to desire a friendly conference of all the
nations of America to devise methods of permanent peace and consequent
prosperity for all. Shall the United States now turn back, hold aloof
and refuse to exert its great moral power for the advantage of its
weaker neighbors?

If you have not formally and finally recalled the invitations to the
Peace Congress, Mr. President, I beg you to consider well the effect
of so doing. The invitation was not mine. It was yours. I performed
only the part of the Secretary—to advise and to draft. You spoke in
the name of the United States to each of the independent nations of
America. To revoke that invitation for any cause would be
embarrassing; to revoke it for the avowed fear of “jealousy and ill
will” on the part of European powers would appeal as little to
American pride as to American hospitality. Those you have invited may
decline, and having now cause to doubt their welcome will, perhaps, do
so. This would break up the congress, but it would not touch our
dignity.

“Beyond the philanthropic and Christian ends to be obtained by an
American conference devoted to peace and good will among men, we might
well hope for material advantages, as the result of a better
understanding and closer friendship with the nation of America. At
present the condition of trade between the United States and its
American neighbors is unsatisfactory to us, and even deplorable.
According to the official statistics of our own Treasury Department,
the balance against us in that trade last year was $120,000,000—a sum
greater than the yearly product of all the gold and silver mines in
the United States. This vast balance was paid by us in foreign
exchange, and a very large proportion of it went to England, where
shipments of cotton, provisions and breadstuffs supplied the money. If
anything should change or check the balance in our favor in European
trade our commercial exchanges with Spanish America would drain us of
our reserve of gold at a rate exceeding $100,000,000 per annum, and
would probably precipitate a suspension of specie payment in this
country. Such a result at home might be worse than a little jealousy
and ill-will abroad. I do not say, Mr. President, that the holding of
a peace congress will necessarily change the currents of trade, but it
will bring us into kindly relations with all the American nations; it
will promote the reign of peace and law and order; it will increase
production and consumption and will stimulate the demand for articles
which American manufacturers can furnish with profit. It will at all
events be a friendly and auspicious beginning in the direction of
American influence and American trade in a large field which we have
hitherto greatly neglected and which has been practically monopolized
by our commercial rivals in Europe.

As Mr. Frelinghuysen’s dispatch, foreshadowing the abandonment of the
peace congress, has been made public, I deem it a matter of propriety
and justice to give this letter to the press.

JAS. G. BLAINE.

The above well presents the Blaine view of the proposition to have a Congress of the Republics of America at Washington, and under the patronage of this government, with a view to settle all difficulties by arbitration, to promote trade, and it is presumed to form alliances ready to suit a new and advanced application of the Monroe doctrine.

The following is the letter proposing a conference of North and South American Republics sent to the U. S. Ministers in Central and South America:

SIR: The attitude of the United States with respect to the question of
general peace on the American Continent is well known through its
persistent efforts for years past to avert the evils of warfare, or,
these efforts failing, to bring positive conflicts to an end through
pacific counsels or the advocacy of impartial arbitration. This
attitude has been consistently maintained, and always with such
fairness as to leave no room for imputing to our Government any motive
except the humane and disinterested one of saving the kindred States
of the American Continent from the burdens of war. The position of the
United States, as the leading power of the new world, might well give
to its Government a claim to authoritative utterance for the purpose
of quieting discord among its neighbors, with all of whom the most
friendly relations exist. Nevertheless the good offices of this
Government are not, and have not at any time, been tendered with a
show of dictation or compulsion, but only as exhibiting the solicitous
good will of a common friend.

THE CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICAN STATES.

For some years past a growing disposition has been manifested by
certain States of Central and South America to refer disputes
affecting grave questions of international relationship and boundaries
to arbitration rather than to the sword. It has been on several
occasions a source of profound satisfaction to the Government of the
United States to see that this country is in a large measure looked to
by all the American powers as their friend and mediator. The just and
impartial counsel of the President in such cases, has never been
withheld, and his efforts have been rewarded by the prevention of
sanguinary strife or angry contentions between peoples whom we regard
as brethren. The existence of this growing tendency convinces the
President that the time is ripe for a proposal that shall enlist the
good will and active co-operation of all the States of the Western
Hemisphere both North and South, in the interest of humanity and for
the common weal of nations.

He conceives that none of the Governments of America can be less alive
than our own to the dangers and horrors of a state of war, and
especially of war between kinsmen. He is sure that none of the chiefs
of Government on the Continent can be less sensitive than he is to the
sacred duty of making every endeavor to do away with the chances of
fratricidal strife, and he looks with hopeful confidence to such
active assistance from them as will serve to show the broadness of our
common humanity, the strength of the ties which bind us all together
as a great and harmonious system of American Commonwealths.

A GENERAL CONGRESS PROPOSED.

Impressed by these views, the President extends to all the independent
countries of North and South America an earnest invitation to
participate in a general Congress, to be held in the city of
Washington, on the 22d of November, 1882, for the purpose of
considering and discussing the methods of preventing war between the
nations of America. He desires that the attention of the Congress
shall be strictly confined to this one great object; and its sole aim
shall be to seek a way of permanently averting the horrors of a cruel
and bloody contest between countries oftenest of one blood and speech,
or the even worse calamity of internal commotion and civil strife;
that it shall regard the burdensome and far-reaching consequences of
such a struggle, the legacies of exhausted finances, of oppressive
debt, of onerous taxation, of ruined cities, of paralyzed industries,
of devastated fields, of ruthless conscriptions, of the slaughter of
men, of the grief of the widow and orphan, of embittered resentments
that long survive those who provoked them and heavily afflict the
innocent generations that come after.

THE MISSION OF THE CONGRESS.

The President is especially desirous to have it understood that in
putting forth this invitation the United States does not assume the
position of counseling or attempting, through the voice of the
Congress, to counsel any determinate solution of existing questions
which may now divide any of the countries. Such questions cannot
properly come before the Congress. Its mission is higher. It is to
provide for the interests of all in the future, not to settle the
individual differences of the present. For this reason especially the
President has indicated a day for the assembling of the Congress so
far in the future as to leave good ground for the hope that by the
time named the present situation on the South Pacific coast will be
happily terminated, and that those engaged in the contest may take
peaceable part in the discussion and solution of the general question
affecting in an equal degree the well-being of all.

It seems also desirable to disclaim in advance any purpose on the part
of the United States to prejudge the issues to be presented to the
Congress. It is far from the intent of this Government to appear
before the Congress as in any sense the protector of its neighbors or
the predestined and necessary arbitrator of their disputes. The United
States will enter into the deliberations of the Congress on the same
footing as other powers represented, and with the loyal determination
to approach any proposed solution, not merely in its own interest, or
with a view to asserting its own power, but as a single member among
many co-ordinate and co-equal States. So far as the influence of this
Government may be potential, it will be exerted in the direction of
conciliating whatever conflicting interests of blood, or government,
or historical tradition that may necessarily come together in response
to a call embracing such vast and diverse elements.

INSTRUCTIONS TO THE MINISTERS.

You will present these views to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of
Costa Rica, enlarging, if need be, in such terms as will readily occur
to you upon the great mission which it is within the power of the
proposed Congress to accomplish in the interest of humanity, and the
firm purpose of the United States of America to maintain a position of
the most absolute and impartial friendship toward all. You will,
therefore, in the name of the President of the United States, tender
to his Excellency, the President of ——, a formal invitation to send
two commissioners to the Congress, provided with such powers and
instructions on behalf of their Government as will enable them to
consider the questions brought before that body within the limit of
submission contemplated by this invitation.

The United States, as well as the other powers, will in like manner be
represented by two commissioners, so that equality and impartiality
will be amply secured in the proceedings of the Congress.

In delivering this invitation through the Minister of Foreign Affairs,
you will read this despatch to him and leave with him a copy,
intimating that an answer is desired by this Government as promptly as
the just consideration of so important a proposition will permit.

I am, sir, your obedient servant,

JAMES G. BLAINE.

Minister Logan’s Reply.

The following is an abstract of the reply of Minister Logan to the above.

“From a full review of the situation, as heretofore detailed to you, I am not clear as to being able to obtain the genuine co-operation of all the States of Central America in the proposed congress.—Each, I have no doubt, will ultimately agree to send the specified number of commissioners and assume, outwardly, an appearance of sincere co-operation, but, as you will perceive from your knowledge of the posture of affairs, all hope of effecting a union of these States except upon a basis the leaders will never permit—that of a free choice of the whole people—will be at an end. The obligation to keep the peace, imposed by the congress, will bind the United States as well as all others, and thus prevent any efforts to bring about the desired union other than those based upon a simple tender of good offices—this means until the years shall bring about a radical change—must be as inefficient in the future as in the past. The situation, as it appears to me, is a difficult one. As a means of restraining the aggressive tendency of Mexico in the direction of Central America, the congress would be attended by the happiest results, should a full agreement be reached. But as the Central American States are now in a chaotic condition, politically considered, with their future status wholly undefined, and as a final settlement can only be reached, as it now appears, through the operation of military forces, the hope of a Federal union in Central America would be crushed, at least in the immediate present. Wiser heads than my own may devise a method to harmonize these difficulties when the congress is actually in session, but it must be constantly remembered that so far as the Central American commissioners are concerned they will represent the interests and positive mandates of their respective government chiefs in the strictest and most absolute sense. While all will probably send commissioners, through motives of expediency, they may possibly be instructed to secretly defeat the ends of the convention. I make these suggestions that you may have the whole field under view.

“I may mention in this connection that I have received information that up to the tenth of the present month only two members of the proposed convention at Panama had arrived and that it was considered as having failed.”

Contemporaneous with these movements or suggestions was another on the part of Mr. Blaine to secure from England a modification or abrogation of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, with the object of giving to the United States, rather to the Republics of North and South America, full supervision of the Isthmus and Panama Canal when constructed. This branch of the correspondence was sent to the Senate on the 17th of February. Lord Granville, in his despatch of January 7th to Minister West in reference to the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty controversy, denies any analogy between the cases of the Panama and Suez Canals. He cordially concurs in Mr. Blaine’s statement in regard to the unexampled development of the Pacific Coast, but denies that it was unexpected.

He says the declaration of President Monroe anterior to the treaty show that he and his Cabinet had a clear prevision of the great future of that region. The development of the interests of the British possessions also continued, though possibly less rapidly. The Government are of the opinion that the canal, as a water way between the two great oceans and Europe and Eastern Asia, is a work which concerns not only the American Continent, but the whole civilized world. With all deference to the considerations which prompted Mr. Blaine he cannot believe that his proposals will be even beneficial in themselves. He can conceive a no more melancholy spectacle than competition between nations in the construction of fortifications to command the canal. He cannot believe that any South American States would like to admit a foreign power to erect fortifications on its territory, when the claim to do so is accompanied by the declaration that the canal is to be regarded as a part of the American coast line. It is difficult to believe, he says, that the territory between it and the United States could retain its present independence. Lord Granville believes that an invitation to all the maritime states to participate in an agreement based on the stipulations of the Convention of 1850, would make the Convention adequate for the purposes for which it was designed. Her Majesty’s Government would gladly see the United States take the initiative towards such a convention, and will be prepared to endorse and support such action in any way, provided it does not conflict with the Clayton-Bulwer treaty.

Lord Granville, in a subsequent despatch, draws attention to the fact that Mr. Blaine, in using the argument that the treaty has been a source of continual difficulties, omits to state that the questions in dispute which related to points occupied by the British in Central America were removed in 1860 by the voluntary action of Great Britain in certain treaties concluded with Honduras and Nicaragua, the settlement being recognized as perfectly satisfactory by President Buchanan. Lord Granville says, further, that during this controversy America disclaimed any desire to have the exclusive control of the canal.

The Earl contends that in cases where the details of an international agreement have given rise to difficulties and discussions to such an extent as to cause the contracting parties at one time to contemplate its abrogation or modification as one of several possible alternatives, and where it has yet been found preferable to arrive at a solution as to those details rather than to sacrifice the general bases of the engagement, it must surely be allowed that such a fact, far from being an argument against that engagement, is an argument distinctly in its favor. It is equally plain that either of the contracting parties which had abandoned its own contention for the purpose of preserving the agreement in its entirety would have reason to complain if the differences which had been settled by its concessions were afterwards urged as a reason for essentially modifying those other provisions which it had made this sacrifice to maintain. In order to strengthen these arguments, the Earl reviews the correspondence, quotes the historical points made by Mr. Blaine and in many instances introduces additional data as contradicting the inferences drawn by Mr. Blaine and supporting his own position.

The point on which Mr. Blaine laid particular stress in his despatch to Earl Granville, is the objection made by the government of the United States to any concerted action of the European powers for the purpose of guarantying the neutrality of the Isthmus canal or determining the conditions of its use.

CHILI AND PERU.

The entire question is complicated by the war between Chili and Peru, the latter owning immense guano deposits in which American citizens have become financially interested. These sought the friendly intervention of our government to prevent Chili, the conquering Republic, from appropriating these deposits as part of her war indemnity. The Landreau, an original French claim, is said to represent $125,000,000, and the holders were prior to and during the war pressing it upon Calderon, the Peruvian President, for settlement; the Cochet claim, another of the same class, represented $1,000,000,000. Doubtless these claims are speculative and largely fraudulent, and shrewd agents are interested in their collection and preservation. A still more preposterous and speculative movement was fathered by one Shipherd, who opened a correspondence with Minister Hurlburt, and with other parties for the establishment of the Credit Industriel, which was to pay the $20,000,000 money indemnity demanded of Peru by Chili, and to be reimbursed by the Peruvian nitrates and guano deposits.

THE SCANDAL.

All of these things surround the question with scandals which probably fail to truthfully reach any prominent officer of our government, but which have nevertheless attracted the attention of Congress to such an extent that the following action has been already taken:

On February 24th Mr. Bayard offered in the Senate a resolution reciting that whereas publication has been widely made by the public press of certain alleged public commercial contracts between certain companies and copartnerships of individuals relative to the exports of guano and nitrates from Peru, in which the mediation by the Government of the United States between the Governments of Peru, Bolivia and Chili is declared to be a condition for the effectuation and continuance of the said contracts; therefore be it resolved, that the Committee on Foreign Relations be instructed to inquire whether any promise or stipulation by which the intervention by the United States in the controversies existing between Chili and Peru or Chili and Bolivia has been expressly or impliedly given by any person or persons officially connected with the Government of the United States, or whether the influence of the Government of the United States has been in any way exerted, promised or intimated in connection with, or in relation to the said contracts by any one officially connected with the Government of the United States, and whether any one officially connected with the Government of the United States is interested, directly or indirectly, with any such alleged contracts in which the mediation as aforesaid of the United States is recited to be a condition, and that the said committee have power to send for persons and paper and make report of their proceedings in the premises to the Senate at the earliest possible day.

Mr. Edmunds said he had drafted a resolution covering all the branches of “that most unfortunate affair” to which reference was now made, and in view of the ill policy of any action which would commit the Senate to inquiries about declaring foreign matters in advance of a careful investigation by a committee, he now made the suggestion that he would have made as to his own resolution, if he had offered it, namely, that the subject be referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations. He intimated that the proposition prepared by himself would be considered by the committee as a suggestion bearing upon the pending resolution.

Mr. Bayard acquiesced in the reference with the remark that anything that tended to bring the matter more fully before the country was satisfactory to him.

The resolution accordingly went to the Committee on Foreign Relations.

In the House Mr. Kasson, of Iowa, offered a resolution reciting that whereas, it is alleged, in connection with the Chili Peruvian correspondence recently and officially published on the call of the two Houses of Congress, that one or more Ministers Plenipotentiary of the United States were either personally interested or improperly connected with a business transaction in which the intervention of this Government was requested or expected and whereas, it is alleged that certain papers in relation to the same subject have been improperly lost or removed from the files of the State Department, that therefore the Committee on Foreign Affairs be instructed to inquire into said allegations and ascertain the facts relating thereto, and report the same with such recommendations as they may deem proper, and they shall have power to send for persons and papers. The resolution was adopted.

THE CLAIMS.

The inner history of what is known as the Peruvian Company reads more like a tale from the Arabian Nights than a plain statement of facts. The following is gleaned from the prospectus of the company, of which only a limited number of copies was printed. According to a note on the cover of these “they are for the strictly private use of the gentlemen into whose hands they are immediately placed.”

The prospects of the corporation are based entirely upon the claims of Cochet and Landreau, two French chemists, residents of Peru. In the year 1833, the Peruvian government, by published decree, promised to every discoverer of valuable deposits upon the public domain a premium of one-third of the discovery as an incentive to the development of great natural resources vaguely known to exist. In the beginning of 1830, Alexandre Cochet, who was a man of superior information, occupied himself in the laborious work of manufacturing nitrate of soda in a small _oficina_ in Peru, and being possessed with quick intelligence and a careful observer he soon came to understand that the valuable properties contained in the guano—an article only known to native cultivators of the soil—would be eminently useful as a restorative to the exhausted lands of the old continent. With this idea he made himself completely master of the mode of application adopted by the Indians and small farmers in the province where he resided, and after a careful investigation of the chemical effects produced on the land by the proper application of the regenerating agent, he proceeded in the year 1840 to the capital (Lima) in order to interest some of his friends in this new enterprise. Not without great persuasion and much hesitation, he induced his countryman, Mr. Achilles Allier, to take up the hazardous speculation and join with him in his discovery. He succeeded, however, and toward the end of the same year the firm of Quiroz & Allier obtained a concession for six years from the government of Peru for the exportation of all the guano existing in the afterwards famous islands of Chinchi for the sum of sixty thousand dollars. In consequence of the refusal of that firm to admit Cochet, the discoverer, to a participation in the profits growing out of this contract a series of lawsuits resulted and a paper war ensued in which Cochet was baffled. In vain he called the attention of the government to the nature and value of this discovery; he was told that he was a “visionary.” In vain he demonstrated that the nation possessed hundreds of millions of dollars in the grand deposits: this only confirmed the opinion of the Council of State that he was a madman. In vain he attempted to prove that one cargo of guano was equal to fourteen cargoes of grain; the Council of State coolly told him that guano was an article known to the Spaniards, and of no value: that Commissioner Humbolt had referred to it, and that they could not accept his theory respecting its superior properties, its value and its probable use in foreign agriculture at a period when no new discovery could be made relative to an article so long and of so evident small value.

At length a new light began to dawn on the lethargic understanding of the officials in power, and as rumors continued to arrive from Europe confirming the asseverations of Cochet, and announcing the sale of guano at from $90 to $120 per ton, a degree of haste was suddenly evinced to secure once more to the public treasury this new and unexpected source of wealth; and at one blow the contract with Quiroz & Allier, which had previously been extended, was reduced to one year. Their claims were cancelled by the payment of ten thousand tons of guano which Congress decreed them. There still remained to be settled the just and acknowledged indebtedness for benefits conferred on the country by Cochet, benefits which could not be denied as wealth and prosperity rolled in on the government and on the people. But few, if any, troubled themselves about the question to whom they were indebted for so much good fortune, nor had time to pay particular attention to Cochet’s claims. Finally, however, Congress was led to declare Cochet the true discoverer of the value, uses and application of guano for European agriculture, and a grant of 5,000 tons was made in his favor September 30th, 1849, but was never paid him. After passing a period of years in hopeless expectancy—from 1840 to 1851—his impoverished circumstances made it necessary for him to endeavor to procure, through the influence of his own government, that measure of support in favor of his claims which would insure him a competency in his old age.

He resolved upon returning to France, after having spent the best part of his life in the service of a country whose cities had risen from desolation to splendor under the sole magic of his touch—a touch that had in it for Peru all the fabled power of the long-sought “philosopher’s stone.” In 1853 Cochet returned to France, but he was then already exhausted by enthusiastic explorations in a deadly climate and never rallied. He lingered in poverty for eleven painful years and died in Paris in an almshouse in 1864, entitled to an estate worth $500,000,000—the richest man in the history of the world—and was buried by the city in the Potters’ Field; his wonderful history well illustrating that truth is stranger than fiction.

THE LANDREAU CLAIM.