Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Transmitted to Congress, With the Annual Message of the President, December 3, 1888, Part I

No. 284.
Mr. Bayard to Mr. Walker.

Department of State,
Washington, April 28, 1888.

No. 78.]

Sir: The Department has been informed by our consul-general at Panama that citizens of the United States are required to pay a capitation tax in that department from which British subjects are exempted by virtue of the treaty between Great Britain and Colombia, of 1866.

Reply was made to the consul-general’s protest by the secretary-general that the matter has been referred to the supreme Government of the Republic.

This Department holds that citizens of the United States in Colombia are exempted from paying any tax from which the subjects or citizens of another power are exempt both by the “favored nation” clause of our treaty of 1846 with Colombia, and by the general principle of the law of nations which justifies this Government in insisting that there shall be no undue discrimination against citizens of the United States wherever they may be resident.

You are instructed to bring this question to the attention of the Colombian Government, and to urge the Department’s views upon it.

I am, sir, etc.,

T. F. Bayard.