8 Why, then, Mr. President, shall not this debt, so ancient,, and apparently so sacred and so just, be discharged ? I proceed to review the reasons which have been at various times assigned. First. The intrinsic justice of the claims has been questioned. The very learned and justly distinguished Senator from Missouri, [Mr.. Benton,] in a former debate, stated that France had justified these spoliations, on the ground that the ships seized were in part laden with goods belonging to Englishmen, who had borrowed the names of Americans. I have not been able torfind evidence to support such a pretension. On the other hand, the diplomatic language of the United States constantly claimed that the sufferers were American citizens. Sir, if these claims are spurious, then it must be true that either Ellsworth, Marshall, Pinckney,. Monroe, Morris, Jefferson, Adams the elder, and Washington, were ignorant of the fact, or that they colluded to defraud France. Neither position can be true. The claims are therefore just. An objection raised by the Senator from Virginia [Mr. Hunter] falls under the same head. It is that the French Government have a list or table of the claims submitted in 1803, which was presented to the French Government by the American Commissioners, and which shows that the French, as the Senator says, suppose that they paid, under the Convention of 1803, all the claims of American citizens. I have this table before me. If the honorable Senator will refer to the treaty of 1800, he will find that it stipulated for the payment of the class specified in that table only—to witt debts owing on contracts—and that the claims for the spoliations now in question were omitted expressly on the ground that they were excluded by the treaty of 1800. Here is the article of that treaty : “ The debts contracted by one of the two nations with individuals of the other, or by the individuals of one with the individuals of the other, shall be paid, or the payment may be prosecuted in the same manner as if there had been no misunderstanding between the two States. But this clause shall not extend to indemnities claimed on account of captures or conf scations.'’—Volume VIII of Statutes at Large, p. 180. Then, what is left out of this table ? The reduced amount, in the apprehension of the Senator from Virginia, [Mr. Hunter,] is just exactly that portion of the claims left out of the treaty, and which is the subject of the present bill. Secondly. It has been objected in late years that the claims belonged to speculators. Certainly few of the sufferers survive, and soon all will have departed.- But the claims are property; they were the property of those sufferers. As property they could be transferred and transmitted by assignment, will, and administration. These are only modes in which property is perpetuated; and this capability of being perpetuated is inherent in it, and is always rightfully and necessarily recognised and protected by all Governments, with proper limitations. Individual property is the ballast of the State. Wo to the State that casts it overboard. That State is sure to drift away, and to break upon rocks. But the allegation that speculators have purchased these claims is denied, while the bill protects,the public if it be true. None but a lawful assignee can take any benefit from the bill, nor can he receive in any case more than he actually paid for the claim. Thirdly. It is said that the evidences of the claims and of title must necessarily be loose and inconclusive. However this may be, the fault does not rest with the claimants, while the loss will fall upon them. Moreover, they must produce legal evidence. The United States can justly ask no more.
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