Are you aware, Sir, of the extent to which the abrogation of this treaty may affect private interests, and therefore directly raise for the judgment of the courts the question of the validity of your proceeding? By this treaty Danish ships and cargoes are put upon the footing of those of the most favored nations, and exempted from discriminating duties; but these privileges must, of course, cease with the treaty. Now, if a Danish vessel should arrive in the coming month at New York, from St. Thomas, or at San Francisco, on her way from Manila, as has latterly happened, the question would at once be presented, whether the treaty had been legally abrogated, so as to expose the vessel and cargo to the discriminating duties and fees? That I may not seem to imagine a case, I call your attention to a list of these duties and fees.
[Here Mr. Sumner went into details which are omitted. At this stage he was interrupted by a question from a Senator.]
MR. CLAYTON. I wish to ask the Senator, whether, in his judgment, supposing the treaty to be abrogated, our Act of Congress of 1828 would not authorize the executive department of the Government to admit free of duty any articles from Denmark?
MR. SUMNER. The Senator is, perhaps, right. The President may remit these discriminating duties; but I believe he can do it only after information from Denmark as to her course. He cannot do it _at once_; and I now refer to these duties simply to show that at this moment, while I speak, a practical question may arise in our courts, or at our custom-houses, as to the validity of the act of abrogation.
These things will at least make you hesitate before you assert a power which is without precedent, and which at a former day was disowned in this very case. By referring to the published diplomatic correspondence, it appears that Mr. Buchanan, when Secretary of State, in a letter to our representative at Copenhagen, dated 14th October, 1848, twice over recognized this power in Congress. “_Congress_ may, therefore, at any moment, authorize the President to terminate this convention.” Mark, Sir, he did not say the Senate, but Congress. And then again he says: “It is probable that two years might elapse before the existing convention could be terminated, AS AN ACT MUST FIRST PASS CONGRESS _to enable the President to give the required notice, after which a year must expire before it could be rendered effectual_.”[61] It appears, also, that the House of Representatives, proceeding on this understanding, had already initiated a joint resolution on this subject, and therefore were in some measure seized of it, when the Senate undertook to act alone. It seems to me that the course you have commenced should be retraced, and that a joint resolution, or Act of Congress, for the abrogation of the treaty, should be introduced at once, if it is considered, in the present state of negotiations on this question among the European nations, that the abrogation of the treaty should be pressed immediately.