No. 322.
Mr. Blaine
to Mr. Lowell.
Washington, May 26, 1881.
Sir: Since my instruction of the 31st of March last, in reply to your No. 140 of the 12th of that month, touching the case of Mr. Michael P. Boyton, I have received your Nos. 144 of March 21, 147 of March 25, and 154 of April 7, all relating to the same subject. The prudence you have shown in dealing with Mr. Boyton’s claim of citizenship is commendable, and the statements as to the law in his case, made in your letters to him, are in full accord with the interpretation of this Department.
In answer to a resolution of the Senate, calling for the facts and correspondence in the matter, I laid before the President a full report, which was communicated to the Senate on the 20th instant. In that report I showed that the evidence presented by Mr. Boyton himself, and by his friends here in his behalf, was not such as to prove his claim to citizenship under our laws.
Had his citizenship been established, I should not have hesitated to do for him all which I could properly do for an American citizen, accused of offending against British law in British jurisdiction. How far such protection would avail to relieve an American citizen from the operation of a British law, is a point I am not prepared to express an opinion upon, in view especially of the fact that a copy of the so-called “coercion act,” under which the Boyton proceedings were had, has not yet been sent to me. From its tenor, as described by the press, it contains provisions giving a latitude of action to the British authorities which this government would be loath to see insisted upon in the case of an American citizen. For example, upon reasonable suspicion of the commission, within a fixed time prior to the passage of the law, of an act therein defined as giving cause for arrest, the authorities are understood to be empowered to decree the detention of any person, and his imprisonment for a prolonged period without the obligation of speedy trial or the production of proof of criminality. While in some sense ah ex post facto enactment, it is in others a conferment of arbitrary and irresponsible power, and, in either view, repugnant to the principles of civil liberty and personal rights which are the common glory of British and American jurisprudence.
That the fact of American citizenship could, of itself, operate to exempt any one from the penalties of a law which he had violated, is, of course, an untenable proposition. Conversely, however, the proposition that a retroactive law, suspending at will the simplest operations of justice, could be applied without question to an American citizen, is “one to which this government would not give anticipatory assent.
In the specific case of Mr. Boyton, it is inferred from your statement of the facts that the act complained of, the incitement of divers persons to murder divers other persons, was committed subsequently to the passage of the protection act. Had Mr. Boyton’s American citizenship been established, we could not, in view of this, have pleaded the retroactive application of the law. Neither could we have decently protested against the application of some process of law where so grave an offense was charged against a foreigner while a guest in the dominions of a friendly state. The allegation that such an act was done by an alien and a guest, while throwing upon the country to which the offender [Page 531] owes allegiance no duty to defend him or disprove his crime, on the other hand does not absolve the justice of the country where the commission of the act is alleged from the burden of proving the guilt of the criminal by due course of law within a reasonable time, or, in default of prompt and lawful proof, from the obligation of releasing him. Immunity would not be asked, but prompt and certain justice, under the usual and unstrained operation of law, would be certainly expected.
I have set these views before you hypothetically, as suggested by Mr. Boyton’s case, not as applicable thereto. It is not desired that you should communicate them to Her Majesty’s Government in advance of any case warranting our intervention, but you will bear them in mind, if a contingency should unhappily arise calling for your interposition.
I am, &c.,