The Federal Council to Mr. Fogg.
The federal council has given information to the government of the canton of St. Gall of the declaration contained in the note of 30th May last from the minister resident of the United States of America, importing that he is not in position to be enabled to supply or procure for the family of Jean Zweifel, of Brooklyn, State of New York, fallen sick and destitute of means of living, the contributions solicited in his behalf.
This declaration has appeared extraordinary to the government of St. Gall, which declares that it cannot admit the construction given by Mr. Fogg to article 3 of the treaty concluded between the Swiss Confederation and the United States of North America, the 25th February, 1850. It appears to that government that the minister resident has not noticed the last paragraph of article 3 of said treaty, which takes away every sort of doubt upon the meaning of this article.
Article 3 of the treaty says very clearly, that, ex gr., a citizen of the American Union who shall be sent away under the laws about mendicity, as is the case of J. Zweifel, of Brooklyn, shall be received with his wife and children in the country where he shall have preserved his rights in conformity to the laws. But J. Zweifel has not preserved his primitive rights of citizenship in the canton of St. Gall; after having formally renounced that right, and having acquired the right of citizen of Brooklyn, he not only has been, with the consent of the competent authority of the commune of Kaltbrun, released in all the forms of law by the government of St. Gall, the 7th December, 1859, from the ties which united him to that state, but, moreover, the fortune which he owned in the. canton of St. Gall, and which was under pupillary administration, was returned to him. Per contra, Jean Zweifel has preserved the right of citizen of Brooklyn, and it is thence, according to article 3, several times mentioned, very clear, that he should be sent back, he, his wife and his children, because of his indigence, and should be received at all times and under all circumstances at Brooklyn.
The government of St. Gall must, in consequence, solemnly reserve to itself the evident right which it has to send back J. Zweifel and his family to Brooklyn, and it expresses the expectation that the minister resident of the United States of America would please to take the steps necessary, with the competent authority of the State of New York or the authority of the city of Brooklyn, to obtain from it the expense of the subsisting and transportation needful in favor of J. Zweifel and his family.
[Page 398]The sustaining this demand of the government of St. Gall, the federal council hopes that it will be favorably received by Mr. George G. Fogg.
In this hope it has the honor &c.,
The President of the Confederation,
The Chancellor of the Confederation,