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right of expatriation to be a natural and inherent right of all people; but, while many other nations have enacted laws providing what formalities shall be necessary to work a change of allegiance, the United States has enacted no provisions of law, and has in no respect marked out how and when expatriation may be accomplished by its citizens. Instances are brought to the attention of the Government' where citizens of the United States, either naturalized or native-born, have formally become citizens or subjects of foreign powers, but who, nevertheless, in the absence of any provisions of legislation on this question, when involved, in difficulties, or when it seems to be their interest, claim to be citizens of the United States, and demand the intervention of a government which, they have long since abandoned, and to which for years they have rendered no service, nor held themselves in any way amenable.

In other cases naturalized citizens, immediately after naturalization, have returned to their native country; have become engaged in business; have accepted offices or pursuits inconsistent with American citizenship, and evidence no intent to return to the United States until called upon to discharge some duty to the country where they are residing, when at once they assert their citizenship, and call upon the representatives of the Government to aid them in their unjust pretensions. It is but justice to all bona fide citizens that no doubt should exist on such questions, and that Congress should determine by enactment of law how expatriation may be accomplished, and change of citizenship be established.

I also invite your attention to the necessity of regulating by law the status of American women who may marry foreigners, and of denning more fully that of children born in a foreign country of American parents who may reside abroad; and also of some further provision regulating or giving legal effect to marriages of American citizens contracted in foreign countries. * *

* * The report of the Secretary of the Treasury shows the receipts from customs for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1874, to have been $163,103,833.69, and for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1875, to have been $157,167,722.35, a decrease for the last fiscal year of $5,936,111.34. Receipts from internal revenue for the year ending the 30th of June, 1874, were $102,409,784.90, and for the year ending June 30, 1875, $110,007,493.58; increase, $7,597,708.68.

The report also shows a complete history of the workings of the Department for the last year, and contains recommendations for reforms and for legislation which I concur in, but cannot comment on so fully as I should like to do if space would permit, but will confine myself to a few suggestions which I look upon as vital to the best interests of the whole people—coming within the purview of "Treasury"—I mean specie resumption. Too much stress cannot be laid upon this question, and I hope Congress may be induced, at the earliest day practicable, to insure the consummation of the act of the last Congress, at its last session, to bring about specie resumption "on and after the 1st of January, 1879," at furthest. It would be a great blessing if this could be consummated even at an earlier day.

Nothing seems to me more certain than that a full, healthy and permanent reaction cannot take place in favor of the industries and financial welfare of the country until we return to a measure of values recognized throughout the civilized world. While we use a currency not equivalent to this standard, the world's recognized standard, specie, becomes a commodity like the products of the soil, the surplus seeking a market wherever there is a demand for it.

Under our present system we should want none, nor would we have any, were it not that custom-dues must be paid in coin, and because of the pledge to pay interest on the public debt in coin. The yield of precious metals would flow out for the purchase of foreign productions, and leave the United States "hewers of wood and drawers of water" because of wiser legislation on the subject of finance by the nations with whom we have dealings. I am not prepared to say that I can suggest the best legislation to secure the end most heartily recommended. It will be a source of great gratification to me to be able to approve any measure of Congress looking effectively toward securing "resumption."

Unlimited inflation would probably bring about specie payments more speedily than any legislation looking to the redemption of the legal-tenders in coin. But it would be at the expense of honor. The legal tenders would have no value beyond settling present liabilities, or properly speaking, repudiating them. They would buy nothing after debts were all settled.

There are a few measures which seem to me important in this connection, and which I commend to your earnest consideration:

A repeal of so much of the legal-tender act as makes these notes receivable for debts contracted after a date to be fixed in the act itself, say not later than the 1st of January, 1877. We should then have quotations at real values, not fictitious ones. Gold would no longer be at a premium, but currency at a discount. A healthy reaction would set in at once, and with it a desire to make the currency equal to what it purports to be. The merchants, manufacturers, and tradesmen of every calling could do business on a fair margin of profit, the money to be received having an unvarying value. Laborers and all classes who work for stipulated pay or salary would receive more for their income, because extra profits would no longer be charged by the capitalist to compensate for the risk of a downward fluctuation in the value of the currency.

Second, that the Secretary of the Treasury be authorized to redeem say not to exceed two million ($2,000,000) dollars monthly of legal tender notes, by issuing in their stead a long bond, bearing interest at the rate of 3.65 per cent, per annum, of denominations ranging from $50 up to $1,000 each. This would in time reduce the legal-tender notes to a volume that could be kept afloat without demanding redemption in large sums suddenly.

Third, that additional power be given to the Secretary of the Treasury to accumulate gold for final redemption, either by increasing revenue, curtailing expenses, or both—it is preferable to do both; and I recommend that reduction of expenditures be made wherever it can be done without impairing Government obligations or crippling the due execution thereof. One measure for increasing the revenue—and the only one I think of—is the restoration of the duty on tea and coffee. These duties would add probably $18,000,000 to the present amount received from imports, and would in no way increase the prices paid for those articles by the consumers.

These articles are the products of countries collecting revenue from exports, and as we, the largest consumers, reduce the duties, they proportionately increase them. With this addition to the revenue^ many duties now collected, and which give but an insignificant return for the cost of collection, might be remitted, and to the direct advantage of consumers at home.

I would mention those articles which enter into manufactures of all sorts. All duty paid upon such articles goes directly to the cost of the article when manufactured here, and must be paid for by the consumers. These duties not only come from the consumers at home, but act as a protection to foreign manufacturers of the same completed articles in our own and distant markets.

I will suggest, or mention, another subject bearing upon the problem of " how to enable the Secretary of the Treasury to accumulate balances." It is to devise some better method of verifying claims against the Government than at present exists through the Court of Claims, especially those claims growing out of the late war. Nothing is more certain than that a very large percentage of the amounts passed and paid are either wholly fraudulent, or are far in excess of the real losses sustained. The large amount of losses proven—on good testimony according to existing laws, by affidavits of fictitious or unscrupulous persons—to have been sustained on small farms and plantations, are not only far beyond the possible yield of those places for any one year, but, as every one knows who has had experience in tilling the soil, and who has visited the scenes of these spoliations, are in many instances more than the individual claimants were ever worth, including their personal and real estate.

The report of the Attorney-General, which will be submitted to Congress at an early day, will contain a detailed history of awards made, and of claims pending, of the class here referred to.

* * The condition of our Navy at this time is a subject of satisfaction. It does not contain, it is true, any of the powerful cruising iron-clads which make so much of the maritime strength of some other nations; but neither our continental situation nor our foreign policy requires that we should have a large number of ships of this character, while this situation and the nature of our ports combine to make those of other nations little dangerous to us under'any circumstances.

Our Navy does contain, however, a considerable number of iron-clads of the monitor class, which, though not properly cruisers, are powerful and effective for harbor defense and for operations near our own shores. Of these all the single-turreted ones, fifteen in number, have been substantially rebuilt, their rotten wooden beams replaced with iron, their hulls strengthened, and their engines and machinery thoroughly repaired, so that they are now in the most efficient condi

tion, and ready for sea as soon as they can be manned and put in commission.

The five double-turreted iron-clads belonging to our Navy, by far the most powerful of our ships for fighting purposes, are also in hand undergoing complete repairs, and could be ready for sea in periods varying from four to six months. With these completed according to the present design, and our two iron torpedo-boats now ready, our iron-clad fleet will be, for the purposes of defense at home, equal to any force that can readily be brought against it.

Of our wooden navy also, cruisers of various sizes, to the number of about forty, including those now in commission, are in the Atlantic, and could be ready for duty as fast as men could be enlisted for those not already in commission. Of these, one-third are in effect new ships, and. though some of the remainder need considerable repairs to their boilers and machinery, they all are, or can readily be made, effective. * *

This constitutes a fleet of more than fifty warships, of which fifteen are iron-clad, now in hand on the Atlantic coast. * * * *

It would, in my opinion, be wise at once to afford sufficient means for the immediate completion of the five double-turreted monitors now undergoing repairs, which must otherwise advance slowly, and only as money can be spared from current expenses. Supplemented by these, our Navy, armed with the destructive weapons of modern warfare, manned by our seamen, and in charge of our instructed officers, will present a force powerful for the home purposes of a responsible though peaceful nation.

The report of the Postmaster-General, herewith transmitted, gives a full history of the workings of the Department for the year just passed. It will be observed that the deficiency to be supplied from the General Treasury increased over the amount required for the preceding year. In a country so vast in area as the United States, with large portions sparsely settled, it must be expected that this important service will be more or less a burden upon the Treasury for many years to come. But there is no branch of the public service which interests the whole people more than that of cheap and rapid transmission of the mails to every inhabited part of our territory. Next to the free school, the post-office is the great educator of the people, and it may well receive the support of the General Government. *

The steady growth and increase of the business of the Patent-Office indicates, in some measure, the progress of the industrial activity of the country. The receipts of the Office are in excess of its expenditures, and the Office generally is in a prosperous and satisfactory condition.

The report of the General Land-Office shows that there were 2,459,601 acres less disposed of during this than during the last year. More than one-half of this decrease was in lands disposed of under the homestead and timber-culture laws. The cause of this decrease is supposed to be found in the grasshopper scourge and the droughts which prevailed so extensively in some of the frontier States and Territories during that time as to discourage and deter entries by actual settlers. The cash receipts were less, by $690,322.23 than during the preceding year.

The entire surveyed area of the public domain is 680,253,094 acres, of which 26,077,531 acres were surveyed during the past year, leaving I,I54>" 471,762.acres still unsurveyed. * * *

The number of pensioners still continues to decrease, the highest number having been reached during the year ending June 30, 1873. During the last year, 11,557 names were added to the rolls, and 12,977 were dropped therefrom, showing a net decrease of 1,420. But while the number of pensioners has decreased, the annual amount due on the pension-rolls has increased $44,733.13. This is caused by the greatly increased average rate of pensions, which, by the liberal legislation of Congress, has increased from $90.26 in 1872 to $103.91 in 1875 to each invalid pensioner, an increase in the average rate of fifteen per cent, in the three years. During the year ending June 30, 1875, there was paid on account of pensions, including the expenses of disbursement, $29,683,116, being $910,632 less than was paid the preceding year. This reduction in amount of expenditures was produced by the decrease in the amount of arrearages due on allowed claims, and on pensions, the rate of which was increased by the legislation of the preceding session of Congress. At the close of the last fiscal year there were on the pension rolls 234,821 persons, of whom 210,363 were Army pensioners, 105,478 being invalids and 104,885 widows and dependent relatives; 3,420 were Navy pensioners, of whom 1,636 were invalids and 1,784 widows and dependent relatives; 21,038 were pensioners of the war of 1812, 15)875 of whom were survivors and 5,163 were widows.

It is estimated that $29,535,000 will be required for the payment of pensions for the next fiscal year, an amount $965,000 less than the estimate for the present year.

The method for the treatment of the Indians, adopted at the beginning of my first term, has been steadily pursued, and with satisfactory and encouraging results. It has been productive of evident improvement in the condition of that race, and will be continued, with only such modifications -as further experience may indicate to be necessary. * * * *

In nearly every annual message that I have had the honor of transmitting to Congress, I have called attention to the anomalous, not to say scandalous, condition of affairs existing in the Territory of Utah, and have asked for definite legislation to correct it. That polygamy should exist

in a free, enlightened and Christian country, without the power to punish so flagrant a crime against decency and morality, seems preposterous. True, there is no law to sustain this unnatural vice, but what is needed is a law to punish it as a crime, and at the same time to fix the status of the innocent children, the offspring of this system, and of the possibly innocent plural wives. But, as an institution, polygamy should be banished from the land.

While this is being done, I invite the attention of Congress to another, though perhaps no less an evil, the importation of Chinese women, but few of whom are brought to our shores to pursue honorable or useful occupations.

As this will be the last annual message which I shall have the honor of transmitting to Congress before my successor is chosen, I will repeat or recapitulate the questions which I deem of vital importance, which may be legislated upon and settled at this session:

First. That the States shall be required to afford the opportunity of a good common-school education to every child within their limits.

Second. No sectarian tenets shall ever be taught in any school supported in whole or in part by the State, nation, or by the proceeds of any tax levied upon any community. Make education compulsory, so far as to deprive all persons who cannot read and write from becoming voters after the year 1890, disfranchising none, however, on grounds of illiteracy who may be voters at the time this amendment takes effect.

Third. Declare church and state forever separate and distinct, but each free within their proper spheres; and that all church-property shall bear its own proportion of taxation.

Fourth. Drive out licensed immorality, such as polygamy and the importation of women for illegitimate purposes. To recur again to the centennial year, it would seem as though now, as we are about to begin the second century of our national existence, would be a most fitting time for these reforms.

Fifth. Enact such laws as will insure a speedy return to a sound currency, such as will command the respect of the world.

Believing that these views will commend themselves to the great majority of the rightthinking and patriotic citizens of the United States, I submit the rest to Congress.

U. S. Grant.

Executive Mansion, Decetnber 7, 1875.

YII.

PROCLAMATIONS AND ORDERS OF PRESIDENT GRANT.

Proclamation Requiring Certain Disorderly Persons in Louisiana to Disperse, September 15th, 1874.

By the President of the United States of America.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas it has been satisfactorily represented to me that turbulent and disorderly persons have combined together with force and arms to over

throw the State government of Louisiana, and to resist the laws and constituted authorities of said State; and

Whereas it is provided in the Constitution of the United States that the United States shall protect every State in this Union, on application of the Legislature, or of the Executive, when the Legislature cannot be convened, against domestic violence j and

Whereas it is provided in the laws of the United States that, in all cases of insurrection in any State, or of obstruction to the laws thereof, it shall be lawful for the President of the United States, on application of the Legislature of such State, or of the Executive when the Legislature cannot be convened, to call forth the militia of any other State or States, or to employ such part of the land 3-?.'.?. naval forces as shall be judged necessary fo: the purpose of suppressing such insurrection or causing the laws to be duly executed; and

Whereas the Legislature of said. State is not now in session and cannot be convened in time to meet the present emergency, and the Executive of said State, under section 4 of article IV. of the Constitution of the United States and the laws passed in pursuance thereof, has therefore made application to me for such part of the military force of the United States as may be necessary and adequate to protect said State and the citizens thereof against domestic violence, and to enforce the due execution of the laws; and

Whereas it is required that, whenever it may be necessary, in the judgment of the President, to use the military force for the purpose aforesaid, he shall forthwith by proclamation command such insurgents to disperse and retire peaceably to their respective homes within a limited time:

Now, therefore, I, Ulysses S. Grant, President of the United States, do hereby make proclamation, and command said turbulent and disorderly persons to disperse and retire peaceably to their respective abodes within five days from this date, and hereafter to submit themselves to the laws and constituted authorities of said State; and I invoke the aid and co-operation of all good citizens thereof to uphold law and preserve the public peace.

In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington this fifteenth

day of September, in the year of our

[seal.] Lord eighteen hundred and seventy-four,

and of the Independence of the United

States the ninety-ninth.

U. S. Grant.

By the President:

Hamilton Fish, Secretary of State.

Proclamation relative to Foreigners holding Real Estate in the Ottoman Empire, October 29th, 1874.

Whereas, pursuant to the second section of the act of Congress approved the 23d of March last, entitled "An Act to authorize the President to accept for citizens of the United States the jurisdiction of certain tribunals in the Ottoman dominions and Egypt, established or to be established, under the authority of the Sublime Porte and of the government of Egypt," the President is authorized, for the benefit of American citizens residing in the Turkish dominions, to accept the recent law of the Ottoman Porte ceding the right of foreigners possessing immovable property in said dominions:

And whereas, pursuant to the authority thus in me vested, I have authorized George H. Boker, accredited as Minister Resident of the

United States to the Ottoman Porte, to sign, on behalf of this Government, the Protocol accepting the law aforesaid of the said Ottoman Porte, which Protocol and Law are, word for word, as follows:

[Translation.]

The United States of America and His Majesty the Sultan being desirous to establish by a special act the agreement entered upon between them regarding the admission of American citizens to the right of holding real estate granted to foreigners by the law promulgated on the 7th of Sepher, 1284, (January 18th, 1867,) have authorized:

The President of the United States of America, George H. Boker, Minister Resident of the United States of America near the Sublime Porte, and

His Imperial Majesty the Sultan, His Excellency A. Aarifi Pasha, His Minister of Foreign Affairs, to sign the Protocol which follows: Protocol.

The law granting foreigners the right of holding real estate does not interfere with the immunities specified by the treaties, and which will continue to protect the person and the. movable property of foreigners who may become owners of real estate.

As the exercise of this right of possessing real property may induce foreigners to establish themselves in larger numbers in the Ottoman Empire, the Imperial government thinks it proper to anticipate and to prevent the difficulties to which the application of this law may give rise in certain localities. Such is the object of the arrangements which follow.

The domicile of any person residing upon the Ottoman soil being inviolable, and as no one can enter it without the consent of the owner, except by virtue of orders emanating from competent authority, and with the assistance of the magistrate or functionary invested with the necessary powers, the residence of foreigners is inviolable on the same principle, in conformity with the treaties, and the agents of the public force cannot enter it without the assistance of the consul or of the delegate of the consul of the Power on which the foreigner depends.

By residence we understand the house of inhabitation and its dependencies: that is to say, the out-houses, courts, gardens, and neighboring enclosures, to the exclusion of all other parts of the property.

In the localities distant by less than nine hours' journey from the consular residence, the agents of the public force cannot enter the residence of a foreigner without the assistance of a consul, as * was before said.

On his part the consul is bound to give his immediate assistance to the local authority, so as not to let six hours elapse between the moment which he may be informed and the moment of his departure, or the departure of his delegate, so that the action of the authorities may never be suspended more than twenty-four hours.

In the localities distant by nine hours or more than nine hours of travel from the residence of the consular agent, the agents of the public force may, on the request of the local authority, and with the assistance of three members of the Council of the Elders of the Commune, enter into the residence of a foreigner, without being assisted by the consular agent, but only in case of urgency, and for the search and the proof of the crime of murder, of attempt at murder, of incendiarism, of armed robbery either with infraction or by night in an inhabited house, of armed rebellion, and of the fabrication of counterfeit money; and this entry may be made whether the crime was committed by a foreigner or by an Ottoman subject, and whether it took place in the residence of a foreigner or not in his residence, or in any other place.

These regulations are not applicable but to the parts of the real estate which constitute the residence, as it has been heretofore defined.

Beyond the residence, the action of the police shall be exercised freely and without reserve; but in case a person charged with crime or offence should be arrested, and the accused shall be a foreigner, the immunities attached to his person shall be observed in respect to him.

The functionary or the officer charged with the accomplishment of a domiciliary visit, in the exceptional circumstances determined before, and the members of the Council of Elders who shall assist him, will be obliged to make out a procesverbal of the domiciliary visit, and to communicate it immediately to the superior authority under whose jurisdiction they are, and the latter shall transmit it to the nearest consular agent, without delay.

A special regulation will be promulgated by the Sublime Porte, to determine the mode of action of the local police in the several cases provided heretofore.

In localities more distant than nine hours' travel from the residence of the consular agent, in which the law of the judicial organization of the Velayet may be in force, foreigners shall be tried without the assistance of the consular delegate by the Council of Elders fulfilling the function of justices of the peace, and by the tribunal of the canton, as well for actions not exceeding one thousand piastres as for offences entailing a fine of five hundred piastres only at the maximum.

Foreigners shall have, in any case, the right of appeal to the tribunal of the arrondissement against the judgments issued as above stated, and the appeal shall be followed and judged with the assistance of the consul, in conformity with the treaties.

The appeal shall always suspend the execution of a sentence.

In all cases the forcible execution of the judgments, issued on the conditions determined heretofore, shall not take place without the cooperation of the consul or of his delegate.

The Imperial government will enact a law which shall determine the rules of procedure to be observed by the parties, in the application of the preceding regulations.

Foreigners, in whatever locality they may be, may freely submit themselves to the jurisdiction of the Council of Elders or of the tribunal of the canton, without the assistance of the consul, in cases which do not exceed the competency of these councils or tribunals, reserving always the right of appeal before the tribunal of the arron

dissement, where the case may be brought and tried with the assistance of the consul or his delegate.

The consent of a foreigner to be tried as above stated, without the assistance of his consul, shall always be given in writing, and in advance of all procedure.

It is well understood that all these restrictions do not concern cases which have for their object questions of real estate, which shall be tried and determined under the conditions established by the law.

The right of defense and the publicity of the hearings shall be assured in all cases to foreigners who may appear before the Ottoman tribunals, as well as to Ottoman subjects.

The preceding dispositions shall remain in force until the revision of the ancient treaties, a revision which the Sublime Porte reserves to itself the right to bring about hereafter by an understanding between it and the friendly Powers.

In witness whereof the respective plenipotentiaries have signed the Protocol, and have affixed thereto their seals.

Done at Constantinople the eleventh of August, one thousand eight hundred and seventy four. (Signed:) A. Aarifi. [l. S.]

(Signed:) Geo. H. Boker. [l. S.]

[Translation.] Law conceding to foreigners the right of holding

real estate in the Ottoman Empire. Imperial Rescript.—Let it be done in conformity

with the contents. 7 Sepher, 1284, (January

18, 1867.)

With the object of developing the prosperity of the country, to put an end to the difficulties, to the abuses, and to the uncertainties which have arisen on the subject of the right of foreigners to hold property in the Ottoman Empire, and to complete, in accordance with a precise regulation, the safeguards which are due to financial interests and to administrative action, the following legislative enactments have been promulgated by the order of His Imperial Majesty, the Sultan:

Art. I. Foreigners are admitted, by the same privilege as Ottoman subjects, and without any other restriction, to enjoy the right of holding real estate, whether in the city or the country, throughout the empire, with the exception of the province of the Hedjaz, by submitting themselves to the laws and the regulations which govern Ottoman subjects, as is hereafter stated.

This arrangement does not concern subjects of Ottoman birth who have changed their nationality, who shall be governed in this matter by a special law.

Art. II. Foreigners, proprietors of real estate, in town or in country, are in consequence placed upon terms of equality with Ottoman subjects in all things that concern their landed property.

The legal effect of this equality is—

1st. To oblige them to conform to all the laws and regulations of the police or of the municipality which govern at present or may govern hereafter the enjoyment, the transmission, the

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