In June, 1874, the United States Senate had refused to take into consideration the petition of Antonio Pelletier. In 1868 and in 1878 the House of Representatives had also refused to make any recommendation to the State Department concerning the case. Upon its attention being called to all these facts by the Haitian Legation at Washington the Department of State, without the least hesitation, put aside the two awards and exempted Haiti from paying indemnity either to Pelletier or Lazare. The reasons stated in a memorial[1] of the 20th of January, 1887, presented by Mr. T. F. Bayard, then Secretary of State, do honor to the great Republic of North America. The following are his words concerning Pelletier: "This claim, I do now assert, is one which, from its character, no civilized Government can press. … I do not hesitate to say that, in my judgment, the claim of Pelletier is one which this Government should not press on Haiti, either by persuasion or by force, and I come to this conclusion, first because Haiti had jurisdiction to indict on him the very punishment of which he complains, such punishment being in no way excessive in view of the heinousness of the offense, and secondly, because his cause is of itself so saturated with turpitude and infamy that on it no action, judicial or diplomatic, can be based."
The following opinions expressed by Mr. Bayard concerning Lazare will be read with pleasure by all those who place faith in the justice and the strict sense of duty of the United States: "Essential as it is that the intercourse between nations should be marked by the highest honor as well as honesty, the moment that the Government of the United States discovers that a claim it makes on a foreign Government cannot be honorably and honestly pressed, that moment, no matter what may be the period of the procedure, that claim should be dropped."
Whilst the United States was thus giving proof of its
- ↑ Foreign Relations of the United States, 1888, p. 593.
