Mr. Blaine to Marquis Imperiali.
Washington, April 1, 1891.
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of a note of yesterday’s date from Baron Fava, who has left the, Italian legation in your charge.
I beg to express the sincere regret with which the Government of the United States receives the intelligence of Baron Fava’s speedy departure from this capital. Though he has more than once intimated this purpose, the Government of the United States has been unable to see adequate reasons for such a step.
The baron’s service here for the past ten years has been distinguished at all times by the most agreeable relations with the Executive Department of this Government. The regret at his leaving is enhanced when, as the President believes, he has been recalled under a misapprehension of facts by the Government of Italy.
The cause of sundering his diplomatic relations with this Government is thus given in his note:
The reparation demanded by the Government of the King, as I have had the honor to inform you in our interviews held during the last few days, was to consist of the following points:
- (1)
- The official assurance by the Federal Government that the guilty parties should be brought to justice.
- (2)
- The recognition, in principle, that an indemnity is due to the relatives of the victims.
The first demand thus stated by Baron Fava is slightly changed in phrase from that employed by him in his many verbal requests based on a telegram from the Marquis Rudini which he left with me. The Marquis Rudini declared that “Italy’s right to demand and to obtain the [Page 677] punishment of the murderers and an indemnity for the victims is unquestionable.” It is inferred that Baron Fava’s change of phrase meant no change of demand.
I have endeavored to impress upon him, in the several personal interviews with which he has honored me, that the Government of the United States is utterly unable to give the assurance which the Marquis Rudini has demanded. Even if the National Government had the entire jurisdiction over the alleged murderers, it could not give assurance to any foreign power that they should be punished. The President is unable to see how any government could justly give an assurance of this character in advance of investigation or trial.
In the Constitution of the United States it is declared that—
In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed.
It needs no argument to prove that a jury could not be impartial if it were in any sense, or to any degree, bound, before the trial of the accused, by an assurance which the President of the United States had ventured to give to a foreign power.
In the constitution of the State of Louisiana, under whose immediate jurisdiction the crimes were committed, substantially the same provision is found; so that the governor of that State would be as unable to give a pledge in advance for the result of a trial under State law as the I resident would be were it practicable to try the leaders of the mob under the laws of the United States.
In Baron Fava’s second point he demands the recognition, in principle, that an indemnity is due to the relatives of the victims. He is assuredly under a grave error when he declares that the United States Government declined to take this demand into consideration, and I shall regret if he has communicated such a conclusion to your Government. The United States, so far from refusing, has distinctly recognized the principle of indemnity to those Italian subjects who may have been wronged by a violation of the rights secured to them under the treaty with the United States concluded February 26, 1871.
I have repeatedly given to Baron Fava the assurance that, under the direction of the President, all the incidents connected with the unhappy tragedy at New Orleans on the 14th of March last should be most thoroughly investigated. I have also informed him that in a matter of such gravity the Government of the United States would not permit itself to be unduly hurried; nor will it make answer to any demand until every fact essential to a correct judgment shall have been fully ascertained through legal authority. The impatience of the aggrieved may be natural, but its indulgence does not always secure the most substantial justice.
Accept, etc.,