Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs Volume II Part 24

But the losses were chiefly due to the absence of adequate evidence as to the ownership of the property for which claims were made, and to the enormous exaggerations as to values in which the claimants indulged.

COURTS-MARTIAL

Between the year 1880 and the year 1895 there were five general courts- martial held in the city of Washington and I appeared for the defendants in four of them.

I was also retained for the investigation of two cases of officers of the Navy who had been convicted by courts-martial, one of them held in the waters of China and the other on the coast of Brazil. The latter, the case of Reed, which may be found in volume 100 of the United States Reports, became important as the first attempt by the Supreme Court to define and limit the jurisdiction of the civil tribunals over the proceedings of courts-martial.

The courts consist of thirteen officers of the service to which the accused may belong, and by a majority in number they are his seniors in rank, if the condition of the service will permit such a selection.

A court thus const.i.tuted is an imposing tribunal, and in dignity of appearance not inferior to the Supreme Court of the United States. The members are well instructed in the requirements of the service, but their knowledge of the science of law, especially in its technicalities, is limited. It is the theory of the system that the judge-advocate will be an impartial adviser of the court and that he will protect the accused against any irregular proceeding and especially protect him against the admission of any testimony that would be excluded in an ordinary court of law.

In fact, however, the judge advocate becomes the attorney of the Government, especially when the accused has the aid of counsel. His advice to the court becomes the rule of the court. Questions of testimony are important usually, and the line between what is competent and that which should be excluded is often a very delicate line. The judge should be a disinterested person. It is too much to a.s.sume that an advocate can in a moment transform himself into an impartial judge.

In the case of Reed, which was an application by a _habeas corpus_ proceeding for the discharge of Reed from prison, the Supreme Court held that it could not examine the proceedings of the court-martial further than to inquire whether the act charged was an offence under the rules of the service, and, second, whether the punishment was one which the court had power to impose.

Thus it follows, that intermediate errors and wrongs whether by the exclusion or admission of testimony, or by corruption even, cannot be remedied by judicial tribunals on the civil side.

A partial remedy for possible evils may be found through the appointment of a judge from the civil courts, or of an experienced lawyer who should become the adviser of the court-martial, in place of the judge-advocate --thus leaving to him the duties of an attorney in behalf of the Government.

XLII LAST OF THE OCEAN SLAVE-TRADERS*

In the month of April, 1861, a bark, registering 215 tons, anch.o.r.ed in the bay of Port Liberte, a place of no considerable importance, on the northerly coast of the island of Hayti, about twenty miles from the boundary of Santo Domingo. The vessel carried the flag of France, and the captain called himself Jules Letellier. The name of the vessel was not painted upon the stern, as is required by our law; but the captain gave her name as _Guillaume Tell_, bound from Havana to Havre.

He stated that he had suffered a disaster at the island of Guadaloupe, and that he had been compelled to throw a part of his cargo overboard.

He said also that his object in putting into the port was to obtain a.s.sistance for the recovery of his cargo; and for that purpose he solicited recruits. The authorities became suspicious of the craft, and an arrest was made of the vessel, her officers and men. After some delay the vessel was sent to Port au Prince, where she was condemned and confiscated upon the charge of being engaged "in piracy and slave- trading on the coast of Hayti."

Upon investigation it appeared that the true name of the vessel was _William_, and that the name of the captain was Antonio Pelletier.

Pelletier was tried according to the laws of Hayti, convicted and sentenced to death. The sentence was commuted to imprisonment for a term of years. The facts of his arrest and of the sentence p.r.o.nounced upon him were published in the New York _Herald;_ and thereupon, as it appeared in the investigation that was afterward made, his wife married and, taking Pelletier's two children, left the country.

Pelletier was kept in prison for about two years, when he escaped, probably with the connivance of the authorities. He returned to the United States. Previous to his escape he gained the confidence of the commissioner of the United States at Port au Prince, who made a report in his behalf and upon the ground that he had been arrested, tried and convicted for an offense of which he was not guilty.

That report was made to the Department of State, when Mr. Seward was Secretary of State. Mr. Seward declined to act, upon two grounds-- first, it was not proved that Pelletier was a citizen of the United States; and second, the course of Hayti seemed justified by the facts as they then appeared. Pelletier presented a statement of his claim, amounting in all to about $2,500,000. He placed the value of the bark _William_ and her cargo, with some money which he claimed was on her, at about $92,000. He claimed also that he had been subjected to many losses in business transactions, which he had been unable to consummate owing to his arrest in Hayti. These amounted to about $750,000. The most extraordinary claim was the claim for damages to his person, in the matter of his arrest and captivity, and the loss of his wife, children and home, for all of which he charged $300,000.

The claimant pressed his claim persistently to the State Department; and in the year 1884, when Mr. Frelinghuysen was Secretary of State, a protocol was entered into between him and Mr. Preston, then minister plenipotentiary of the republic of Hayti, by which this claim, with another large claim in behalf of A. H. Lazare against the republic of Hayti, was submitted to an international arbitrator,--the Hon. William Strong, formerly a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

The republic of Hayti retained Charles A. de Chambrun and myself as counsel for the defence. This hearing occupied one year of time, and the doc.u.ments and the testimony taken covered two thousand printed pages. The investigation showed that Pelletier was born at Fontainebleau in France in the year 1819. At the age of fourteen he ran away from his home and country and came to the United States, where he found employment on board a ship, which was owned and navigated by one Blanchard of the State of Maine. From about the year 1835 to the year 1850, Pelletier was employed upon shipboard in various menial capacities, until finally he became master of several small vessels, which were employed on short voyages in the Caribbean Sea and on the coast of South America. About the year 1850 he appeared in the city of New York, and between that time and 1859 he was in the city of Chicago, where on one occasion and as the representative of some local party he was a candidate for alderman. He was also engaged for a time in the manufacture of boots and shoes at Troy, New York.

In the autumn of 1860 there appeared a statement in the newspapers that a bark called the _William_ had been arrested and condemned at Key West upon the charge of having been fitted out for the slave trade. Guided by that notice, Pelletier went to Havana, and employed an agent to go to Key West and to purchase the bark. The purchase was made at a cost of $1,504. In Pelletier's statement of his claim, he a.s.serted that he paid something over $10,000 for the vessel. From Key West the vessel was sent to Mobile in charge of a man named Thomas Collar, who became Pelletier's mate, but who was known on the vessel as Samuel Gerdon. At Mobile the _William_ was fitted out for the voyage under the direction and apparent ownership of a firm in that city known as Delauney, Rice & Co., of which Pelletier claimed to be a member and proprietor to the extent of $50,000, the patrimony which he had received upon the death of his father. The vessel was freighted with lumber, and was cleared for Carthagena, New Granada, in October. She arrived at that port late in November. The investigation showed that a portion of the lumber was placed upon the deck when there was s.p.a.ce below where it might have been stored. It appeared also that the vessel contained a large number of water casks, some twenty or twenty-five, about twenty pairs of manacles, a quant.i.ty of ammunition, and that the number of sailors was considerably in excess of the number required for the navigation of the vessel.

At Carthagena Pelletier made a contract with a colored man named Cortes, to carry him with his wife and children and servant to a point on the coast east of Carthagena, known as Rio de Hache. This contract he never performed. The original object of the voyage, as he alleged, was to obtain a cargo of guano, at an island which he named Buida. As a matter of fact, there is no such island, or at any rate none could be found on the maps, nor was its existence known to the officers of our Government who had been engaged in taking soundings in the Caribbean Sea.

While the _William_ was at Carthagena, one of the men deserted and notified the commander of a British man-of-war that the object of the voyage of the bark _William_ was a cargo of negroes to be carried to the United States and sold as slaves. Following the desertion of this man, Pelletier left Carthagena and, instead of proceeding to Rio de Hache, which was understood to be the destination of the British man-of- war, he took a northerly course toward the island of Grand Inagua.

Upon this change of the course of the vessel, Cortes became alarmed for his safety, and he urged Pelletier to put him ash.o.r.e, and especially for the reason that the shades of maternity were falling on his wife.

After a delay of ten days, Pelletier consented to land him, which he did at Grand Inagua, and secured in payment the goods and effects which Cortes had on board the vessel, and which were understood to be of the value of $500 or more.

In the month of January, 1861, Pelletier arrived in the harbor of Port- au-Prince, Hayti, where he was accused of being engaged in a slave- trading expedition by five of his men whom he had landed and caused to be put in prison on the charge of insubordination. The authorities were so well convinced of the unlawful character of the expedition that they ordered Pelletier to leave without delay. He was conveyed out of the harbor by an armed vessel, and upon the understanding that he was to sail for New Orleans. As a matter of fact, however, he employed the months following, until April, in expeditions among the islands of the Caribbean Sea. In the course of the investigation, Pelletier appeared on the stand as a witness. In a series of questions which I put to him, I asked for the names of the vessels which he had commanded, previous to the voyage of the _William_. Among others he mentioned the _Ardennes_, which was an American ship, registered. It turned out upon further investigation that that ship was fitted out by him at Jacksonville in the year 1859, and cleared for the Canary Islands. Her cargo consisted of rum, sugar, cigars and tobacco. From the admission of Pelletier it appeared that he never reached the Canary Islands, but made the coast of Africa, near the mouth of the Congo River. Upon being pressed for a reason for the change, he stated that he had been driven there by a storm. We were able to cause an examination to be made of the records of the _Pluto_, a British man-of-war, that discovered the _Ardennes_ near Magna Grand in April, 1859. The officers of the _Pluto_ boarded the _Ardennes_, and made such an examination as they thought proper. The captain made this entry after an examination of the vessel's papers and register, namely: "Which, though not appearing to be correct, I did not detain or molest them." The _Ardennes_ lingered in the vicinity of the mouth of the Congo, where she was arrested by the officers of the United States ship _Marion_, under command of Captain Brent. The results of the examination which he made and the circ.u.mstances of which he obtained knowledge were such that he took possession of the vessel and sent her to New York upon the charge of being engaged in the slave trade. The evidence produced at New York was not sufficient to lead the court to condemn her, but the judge gave a certificate that there was probable cause for her arrest.

The real character of the voyage of the _William_ from Mobile was finally established beyond all controversy. In the year 1880, a treaty was made between the United States and France, by which an international commission was created for the purpose of determining the validity of claims made by citizens of the United States against France and of claims made by citizens of France against the United States. Among the claimants against the United States were two Frenchmen by the name of Le More, residents of New Orleans. At the time of the capture of New Orleans in the year 1862, these men had in their possession a large sum of money belonging to the Confederate government. By the proclamation of General Butler, made immediately upon the capture of the city, all intercourse with the Confederate authorities by residents of New Orleans was interdicted. Notwithstanding the proclamation, the Le Mores contrived to convey the funds in their possession across the line, and to procure their delivery to the Confederate authorities.

General Butler, having obtained knowledge of this transaction, had the Le Mores brought before him. He then questioned them, and upon his own judgment and without trial he sent them as prisoners to Ship Island, where they were confined for a time with an attachment of a ball and chain. Each of these men presented a claim to the commission, and, there being no defence, an award of $20,000 was made to each. If General Butler had convened a military court or commission, as he should have done, and had obtained a conviction, as he would have obtained one, he would not have subjected the United States to the judgments which were rendered finally.

In that hearing, De Chambrun represented the Government of France and I represented the Government of the United States. Thus having knowledge of the Le Mores, who were yet in New Orleans, we applied to them for the purpose of ascertaining the character of Delauney, Rice & Co., and also whether there was any person living who had knowledge of the fitting out of the bark _William_. They found a man by the name of Louis Moses, who had been a resident of New Orleans since the year 1852, and who was well acquainted with the house of Delauney, Rice & Co., having transacted business for it, and who was himself concerned in the fitting out of the bark _William_. He had indeed invested, in one form or another, the sum of $15,000 in the enterprise, of which he had evidence in writing. He stated that the object of the voyage was to obtain a cargo of negroes in some of the islands of the Caribbean Sea, and to bring them to a desert island on the west bank of the Mississippi, near the mainland of Louisiana; in fine, that there was no purpose to obtain a cargo of guano.

When the hearing commenced, in the year 1884, Pelletier came before the arbitrator in perfect health and with the appearance of a man of ability and of fortune. After an acquaintance of about a year I was able to use this language in my final arguments: "It is a singular circ.u.mstance that Captain Pelletier has not produced an original paper or doc.u.ment in support of his claim. He is sixty years of age or more. He is a man not deficient in intellectual capacity, whatever else may be said of him. He is endowed by nature with ability for large and honest undertakings. He claims to have had an extensive business experience; to have been the possessor of large wealth; to have been trusted in fiduciary ways; and he comes here and claims compensation for a great outrage, as he alleges, upon his person and his rights; and yet he has not produced a paper that has the signature of any being, living or dead, by which he can sustain the claim he makes. What is his answer in regard to the absence of papers? It is that they were on board the bark _William_. According to the best information we can obtain, that bark was not less than twelve or fifteen years of age. We know that it did not much exceed two hundred tons burden. It was bound on a voyage into tempestuous seas; and, leaving behind him wealth, as he says, to be measured by the million, he embarks on that vessel with all his papers, including t.i.tle deeds, articles of copartnership, powers of attorney, and preliminary accounts relating to unsettled affairs. He is a member of the house of Delauney, Rice & Co., in which he had deposited his patrimony to the extent of fifty thousand dollars; and he carries away on that frail bark all evidence of his investment in that firm. He had, he said, a partnership agreement; he had accounts of profits that had been rendered from time to time,--and all are gone.

He had a dear wife and two children, for whose loss he now demands large compensation; and yet he carried away the evidence of which their right to his estate would have depended, in case of his death. The statement may be true, but in the nature of things it is not probable. That we may believe a statement of that sort, evidence is required, not from one man unknown, not from one man impeached, but from many men of reputable standing in society. It is not to be believed that a man who had been engaged in transactions measured by hundreds of thousands of dollars, through a period of ten years, should take every evidence of those transactions on board a vessel of hardly more than two hundred tons burden, manned by a crew composed of highbinders, as he has described them, and sail to foreign lands, over tempestuous seas, upon the poor pretext of procuring guano for the plantations of Louisiana,--and this, as he says, when war was imminent."

In my argument to the arbitrator I attempted to trace the voyage of the _Ardennes_ and the voyage of the _William_ with as much minuteness as seemed to me to be wise under the circ.u.mstances, and for the sole purpose of establishing the charge that Pelletier was engaged in the slave trade. The character of the voyage of the _Ardennes_ was important in view of the rule of law that, in the trial of a person charged with the crime of slave-trading, evidence is admissible which tends to prove that the accused had been engaged in similar undertakings at about the same time.

My argument occupied the business hours of two sessions of the court.

At the opening of the court Pelletier appeared, took a seat, and remained during the first thirty or forty minutes of my argument, when he disappeared. The New York _Herald_, on the morning of the third day after Pelletier's last appearance, contained the announcement that Antonio Pelletier had died suddenly at the Astor House in the city of New York. The hearing proceeded, and on the 30th day of June, 1885, Mr. Justice Strong filed his opinion in the Department of State. In that opinion, he says:

"I can hardly escape from the conviction that the voyage of the bark _William_ was an illegal voyage; that its paramount purpose was to obtain a cargo of negroes, either by purchase or kidnaping, and bring them into slavery in the State of Louisiana; and that the load of lumber, and the profession of a purpose to go for a cargo of guano were mere covers to conceal the true character of the enterprise." He states also "that Pelletier had applied to a Haytian to obtain fifty men and some women, blacks, of course, to a.s.sist him in obtaining guano." The arbitrator found, however, that by the law of nations the courts of Hayti had no jurisdiction of the case. "It is undeniable,"

said Justice Strong, "that none of them were piratical in view of the law of nations."

By the _act d'accusation_ Pelletier was charged with piracy and slave- trading on the coast of Hayti. The arbitrator found that he was not guilty of piracy and that the act of slave-trading was never committed, although the design and purpose of the voyage were perfectly clear.

The claims as presented were all rejected by the arbitrator, except the claim for injury to Pelletier personally by his confinement in prison.

For that injury the arbitrator allowed Pelletier the sum of $25 a day during his confinement, and the interest thereon up to the time the judgment was rendered, amounting in all to $57,250.

When the judgment had been rendered, the counsel for Hayti presented a memorial to the State Department, setting forth the impropriety and bad policy of a presentation by the Government of the United States of a judgment rendered in favor of a claimant who had been found guilty of fitting out a slave-trading expedition within the limits of the United States, and using the flag of the United States as a protection in the prosecution of his illegal undertaking. Mr. Bayard was then Secretary of State, and Mr. Cleveland was President. That view of the counsel of Hayti was accepted by the Secretary of State and by the President, and the government of Hayti was relieved from the payment of the claim.

I ought to add that Mr. Justice Strong concurred with the counsel for Hayti, and made a representation to the Department of State urging the remission of the penalty in the judgment he had rendered.

The decision of Mr. Justice Strong raises a question of very serious character--that is to say, whether an international tribunal can take notice of proceedings in the judicial tribunals of a foreign state, further than to ascertain whether the proceedings were according to "due process of law" in the state where the proceedings were had.

Justice Strong went so far as to hold that the courts of Hayti had erred upon the question of their own jurisdiction. Such a ruling, if applied to cases of public importance, might lead to very serious results.

[* Printed in the _New England Magazine_. Copyright, 1900, by Warren F. Kellogg.]

XLIII MR. LINCOLN AS AN HISTORICAL PERSONAGE.

A SPEECH DELIVERED BEFORE THE LA SALLE CLUB, CHICAGO, FEBRUARY 12, 1889

The services and fame of Mr. Lincoln are so identified with the organization, doings and character of the Republican Party, that something of the history of that party is the necessary incident of every attempt to set forth the services and the fame of Mr. Lincoln.

In a very important sense Mr. Lincoln may be regarded as the founder of the Republican Party. He was its leader in the first successful national contest, and it was during his administration as President that the policy of the party was developed and its capacity for the business of government established. The Republican Party gave to Mr.

Lincoln the opportunity for the services on which his fame rests, and the fame of Mr. Lincoln is the inheritance of the Republican Party.

His eulogy is its encomium, and therefore when we set forth the character and services of Mr. Lincoln we set forth as well the claims of the Republican Party to the grat.i.tude and confidence of the country, and the favorable opinion of mankind.

If it could be a.s.sumed that for the Republican Party the Book of Life is already closed, it is yet true that that party is an historical party and Mr. Lincoln is an historical personage, not less so than Cromwell, Napoleon, or Washington, and all without the glamor that rests upon the brows of successful military chieftains.

Of Mr. Lincoln's predecessors in the Presidential office, two only, Washington and Jefferson, can be regarded as historical persons in a large view of history. The author of the Declaration of Independence is so identified with the history of the country that that history cannot outlast his name and fame.

As the author of that Declaration and as the exponent of new and advanced ideas of government, Jefferson was elected to the Presidency, but his administrations, excepting only the acquisition of Louisiana, were not marked by distinguished ability, nor were they attended or followed by results which have commanded the favorable opinion of succeeding generations.

Washington had no compet.i.tors. The grat.i.tude of his countrymen rebuked all rivalries. He was borne to the Presidency by a vote quite unanimous, and he was supported in the discharge of his duties by a confidence not limited by the boundaries of the Republic.

It is only a moderate exaggeration to say that when Mr. Lincoln was nominated for the Presidency, he was an unknown man; he had performed no important public service; his election was not due to personal popularity, nor to the strength of the party that he represented; but to the divisions among his opponents.

In 1862, when eleven hostile States were not represented in the Government, the weakness of the administration was such that only a bare majority of the House of Representatives was secured after a vigorous and aggressive campaign on the part of the Republican Party.

Thus do the circ.u.mstances and incidents of the formative period in Mr. Lincoln's career ill.u.s.trate and adorn the events that distinguished the man, the party and the country.

I am quite conscious that in our attempt to give Mr. Lincoln a conspicuous place in the ranks of historical personages, we are to encounter a large and intelligent public opinion which claims that distance in time and even distance in s.p.a.ce are the necessary conditions of a wise and permanent decision.