Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/205

Rh Will the Senator allow me to ask him a question?

Yes, sir.

Suppose an American citizen in a foreign country is maltreated in any way, deprived of his rights, and our Navy is cruising in the waters of that country, has the President of the United States any right to use force for the protection of that citizen?

If the Senator from Nevada will take the Congressional Globe for the year 1859, and look at a discussion which took place on this floor on the 18th of February of that year, he will find that President Buchanan asked of Congress power to protect by warlike means the safety of citizens of the United States on the transit route of Panama, and that the Senate indignantly refused such discretionary authority.

Let me ask the Senator, if the Navy of the United States has no power to protect our citizens abroad without an act of Congress declaring war, when it is perfectly obvious in most cases that all the virtue and all the benefits of that protection will pass by before the convening of Congress, before an act can be had, why have an expensive navy cruising in foreign waters?

Is that all the Senator has to ask?

Yes, sir.

I do not think that question deserves an answer.

As I have said, I repeat that the President in ordering the naval commanders of the United States to capture and destroy by force, without being attacked, without our territory being invaded by force, the vessels of a nation with whom the United States were at peace, in a contingency arbitrarily defined by himself, did usurp the war-making power of Congress; and I repeat it.

That a warlike collision between the forces of the