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ment of State has adopted and prescribed the seven rules of the congress of Vienna, found in the protocol of the session of March 9, 1815, and the supplementary or eighth rule of the congress of Aix-la-Chapelle of November 21, 1818. They are as follows:

"In order to prevent the inconveniences which have frequently occurred, and which might again arise, from claims of precedence among different diplomatic agents, the plenipotentiaries of the powers who signed the treaty of Paris have agreed on the following articles, and they think it their duty to invite the plenipotentiaries of other crowned heads to adopt the same regulations:

"ARTICLE I. Diplomatic agents are divided into three classes: That of embassadors, legates, or nuncios; that of envoys, ministers, or other persons accredited to sovereigns; that of chargés d'affaires accredited to ministers for foreign affairs.

ART. II. Embassadors, legates, or nuncios only have the representative character.

"ART. III. Diplomatic agents on an extraordinary mission have not, on that account, any superiority of rank.

"ART. IV. Diplomatic agents shall take precedence in their respective classes according to the date of the official notification of their arrival. The present regulation shall not cause any innovation with regard to the representative of the Pope.

"ART. V. A uniform mode shall be determined in each state for the reception of diplomatic agents of each class.

"ART. VI. Relations of consanguinity or of family alliance between courts confer no precedence on their diplomatic agents. The same rule also applies to political alliances.

"ART. VII. In acts or treaties between several powers which grant alternate precedence, the order which is to be observed in the signa tures shall be decided by lot between the ministers.

"ART. VIII. It is agreed that ministers resident accredited to them shall form, with respect to their precedence, an intermediate class between ministers of the second class and chargés d'affaires.'

"The representatives of the United States are of the second, the intermediate, and the third classes, as follows:

"A. Envoys extraordinary and ministers plenipotentiary. Special commissioners, when styled as having the rank of envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary.

"B. Ministers resident.

"These grades of representatives are accredited by the President. "C. Chargés d'affairés, commissioned by the President as such, and accredited by the Secretary of State to the minister for foreign affairs of the Government to which they are sent.

"D. Chargés d'affaires ad interim. These are in most cases secretaries of legation, who, ex officio, act as temporary chiefs of mission in the absence of the minister, and need no special letter of credence. In the absence of a secretary of legation, the Secretary of State may designate any competent person to act ad interim, in which case he is specifically accredited by letter to the minister for foreign affairs.

"When the office of consul-general is added to that of minister resi dent, chargé d'affaires, or secretary of legation, the diplomatic rank is regarded as superior to the consulår rank. The officer, however, will follow the Consular Regulations in regard to his consular duties and official accounts, keeping correspondence in one capacity separate from

correspondence in the other. The allowance for rent in such combined offices is, as a rule, based upon the entire salary."

Printed Pers. Inst., Dip. Agents, 1885.

The expression "ambassadors and other public ministers," in the Constitution, must be understood as comprehending all officers having diplomatic functions, whatever their title or designation.

7 Op., 186, Cushing, 1855.

The commissioner of the United States in China is a diplomatic officer by the law of nations, and a judicial officer by treaty and statute.

Ibid.

"With reference to diplomatic rank, I only heard last night for the first time that the Duke of Sutherland had, some time ago, addressed a formai remonstrance to Palmerston against foreign ministers (not ambassadors) having place given them at the palace (which means going out to dinner over himself et suos pares), a most extraordinary thing for a sensible man to have done, especially in such high favor as his wife and her whole family are. He got for answer that Her Majesty exercised her own pleasure in this respect in her own palace. The rule always has been that ambassadors (who represent the persons of their sovereigns) have precedence of everybody; ministers, who are only agents, have not; but the Queen, it appears, has given the pas to ministers plenipotentiaries, as well as to ambassadors, and ordered them to go out at her dinners before her own subjects of the highest rank." In a note it is said to have been "afterward settled by Her Majesty that foreign ministers should take precedence after dukes and before marquesses."

Greville's Mem., 2d series, Mar. 29, 1860. As to precedence socially, see infra, $ 107a.

"At very many foreign offices the rule 'first come first served' is not observed; but an envoy or a minister, though he may have been waiting hours in the ante-room for an important affair, must give place to an ambassador who has come in at the moment; and at Constantinople it is even expected that, should a minister be in conversation with the minister of foreign affairs or the grand vizier, he should withdraw and wait whenever an ambassador may be announced. In some countries a different rule is observed. In Russia it has been for many years the custom for the minister to receive the foreign representatives in the order in which they arrive at his office, without regard to their rank. This rule was brought into force at Berlin, owing to a personal dispute between Mr. Bancroft, our minister, and the British ambassador. Mr. Bancroft, after having waited a long time for an audience, was on one occasion obliged to yield to the British ambassador, who had that moment arrived. As the ambassador was personally disagreeable to the chan cellor, and Mr. Bancroft was a friend of his, a representation of the injustice done to the United States and its representative brought about a change of rule."

Schuyler's Am. Diplom., 113.

Mr. Schuyler (American Diplomacy, 114 f) argues with much earnestness for the appointment, if not of ambassadors, at least of diplomatic agents of uniformly high grade.

XIII. CITIZENS OF COUNTRY OF RECEPTION NOT ACCEPTABLE.

§ 88a.

It is considered by the Government not advisable to receive a citizen of the United States as the permanent diplomatic representative of a foreign power. It would be otherwise as to special purposes not involving continuous abode in the country.

Mr. Fish, Sec. of State, to Mr. Squier, Mar. 5, 1870. MSS. Notes, Honduras. "This Government objects to receiving a citizen of the United States as a diplomatic representative of a foreign power. Such citizens, however, are frequently recognized as consular officers of other nations, and this policy is not known to have hitherto occasioned any inconven ience."

Mr. Evarts, Sec. of State, to Mr. Logan, Sept. 19, 1879. MSS. Inst., Cent. Am. "Although the usage of diplomatic intercourse between nations is averse to the acceptance, in the representative capacity, of a person who, while native-born in the country which sends him, has yet acquired lawful status as a citizen by naturalization of the country to which he is sent, as is understood to be the case with your worthy self, I am not disposed to interpose any technical obstacle, however sound, to the immediate renewal of diplomatic relations with Venezuela, and it will give me much pleasure to receive from your hands the original letters of credence you bear, at such time to-morrow, the 21st instant, between 12 and 3 o'clock, as may be most convenient to you."

Mr. Evarts, Sec. of State, to Mr. Camacho, Apr. 20, 1880. MSS. Notes, Venez.

XIV. DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE CONFIDENTIAL, EXCEPT BY

ORDER OF DEPARTMENT.

§ 89.

"No ground of support for the Executive will ever be so sure as a complete knowledge of their proceedings by the people, and it is only in cases where the public good would be injured, and because it would be injured, that proceedings should be secret. In such cases it is the duty of the Executive to sacrifice their personal interests (which would be promoted by publicity) to the public interests."

Mr. Jefferson, Sec. of State, to the President, Dec. 2, 1793. 4 Jeff. Works, 89. The publication in the newspapers by a foreign minister in the United States of an official letter to the Secretary of State is an improper act, which will justify alike publication by the Secretary of his reply.

Mr. Pickering, Sec. of State, to Mr. Pinckney, Nov. 5, 1796. MSS. Inst, Min

isters.

1

For instances of the publication of controversial diplomatic notes before they had been received by the parties to whom they were addressed, see 11 J. Q. Adams' Mem., 360.

As to tone of correspondence, see infra, § 107.

The publication, by a foreign minister to the United States, "of his correspondence with the Department without the authority of his Government, is believed to be unexampled in the history of diplomacy and not decorous to the United States."

Mr. Forsyth, Sec. of State, to Mr. Ellis, Dec. 9, 1836. MSS. Inst., Ministers.

As to Mr. Webster's criticism on the action of Mr. Cass, in reference to publication of official action, see 6 Webster's Works, 383.

By the rules of the Department papers connected with pending diplo matic negotiations cannot be made public unless the documents are called for by Congress with the usual limitations.

Mr. Marcy, Sec. of State, to Mr. McKeon, Feb. 8, 1854. MSS. Dom. Let. "The cipher now used by this Department has been used for the last forty years at least, and is framed upon a system which is considered to render it entirely inscrutable to any one not having the key. No doubt offers of other systems have often been made to the Department since the one now in use was adopted. Indeed, the chief clerk, who has been an officer of the Department for about twenty-five years, informs me that such offers have averaged at least four a year within that time."

Mr. Marcy, Sec. of State, to Mr. Breckenridge, Dec. 22, 1853. MSS. Dom. Let. "Your idea of improving our foreign diplomacy by having each minister apprised of the principal objects pursuing at every court is excellent. I urged something analogous to it upon Mr. Forsyth, while I was at St. Petersburg, and I pressed it upon Mr. Webster when Secretary of State. It is the great practical advantage enjoyed by the diplomats of Russia. It produces a harmony of action and inculcation that, in a long run, teils conclusively. Mr. Webster's difficulty was in the great labor which it must throw upon somebody in the Department already overtaxed. How that may be, I can't pretend to say, but if there be any use at all in having missions dotted over Europe, they might as well be made to co-operate in the general policy of the Government as run the risk of impeding it by a want of information from the fountain-head.”

Mr. Dallas to Mr. Cass, Sec. of State, Oct. 13, 1857. 1 Dallas, Letters from London, 317.

Communications to the Government of the United States by its foreign ministers are so far privileged that, though published by order of Congress, the Government cannot sanction criticisms of them by other foreign powers.

Mr. Fish, Sec. of State, to Mr. Jay, July 11, 1870. MSS. Inst., Austria. "The Department gives to the consideration and preparation for publication of the dispatches of its agents abroad every attention, with the object of guarding against the publication of their personal views,

date is the difficulty with Germany, arising from the publication of a dispatch of our minister on the pork question, which resulted ultimately in his recall, disguised under the name of transfer."

Schuyler's Am. Diplom., 34.

(1) CONFINED TO OFFICIAL BUSINESS.

§ 89a.

The judiciary alone are competent to determine most questions of law in the United States, and the Executive will decline to give an opinion as to such questions when appealed to by a foreign sovereign or his minister.

Mr. Jefferson, Sec. of State, to the minister of France, Mar. 29, 1793. MSS. Notes, For. Leg. To same effect, see Mr. Jefferson to Mr. Hammond, Apr. 18, 1793. MSS. Notes, For. Leg.

"It is not competent for the Government of the United States to interfere with the legislation of the respective States in relation to the prop erty of foreigners dying ab intestato, or in regard to inheritances of any kind, nor has Congress authority, under the Constitution, to pass a gen eral law, as you seem to suppose, upon the subject."

Mr. Marcy, Sec. of State, to Mr. Fay, June 19, 1854. MSS. Inst., Switz. "There has for many years been established in this Department a rule which inhibits the Secretary of State from giving letters of introduc tion, circular or otherwise, for persons going abroad, to the ministers or consuls of the United States."

Mr. Seward, Sec. of State, to Mr. Spencer, June 20, 1863. MSS. Dom. Let. "We receive from all monarchical states letters announcing the births and deaths of persons connected nearly with the throne, and we respond to them in the spirit of friendship and in terms of courtesy. On the contrary, on our part, no signal incidents or melancholy casualties affecting the Chief Magistrate or other functionaries of the Republic are ever officially announced by us to foreign states. While we allow to foreign states the unrestrained indulgence of these peculiar tastes, we carefully practice our own. This is nothing more than the courtesy of private life extended into the intercourse between nations."

Mr. Seward, Sec. of State, to Mr. Webb, July 24, 1865. MSS. Inst., Brazil. "It is the long-established practice of this Department to decline giving advice upon a hypothetical case arising out of our foreign rela tions."

Mr. Fish, Sec. of State, to Mr. Harriman, Apr. 27, 1870. MSS. Dom. Let. "The Department, by a new regulation, has ceased to give personal letters of introduction to its officers abroad, except in special cases where they may be necessary to the conduct of the public business."

Mr. Blaine, Sec. of State, to Mr. Morse, Mar. 24, 1881. MSS. Dom. Let.

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