Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 June 1876 — The President’s Message Relative to the Extradition Treaty. [ARTICLE]

The President’s Message Relative to the Extradition Treaty.

Washington, June 20. The President to-day sent a message to the Senate and House of Representatives respecting the Extradition Treaty with Great Britain. After stating at length the provisions of the treaty, and criticising the action taken by the British Government in the Winslow and Brent cases, the President says: It Is with extreme regret that I am now called upon to announce to you that Her Majesty’s Government has finally released both of these fugitives, Winslow and Brent, and set them at liberty, thus omitting to comply with the provisions and requirements of the treaty under which extradition of fugitive criminals is made between the two Governments. The position thus taken by the British. Government, if adhered to, cannot but be regarded as the abrogation and annulment of the article of the treaty on extradition. Under these circumstances it Will not, in. my judgment, comport with the dignity or self-respect •f this Government to make demands upon that Government for the surrender of fugitive criminals, nor to entertain any requisition of that character from that Government under the treaty. It will be a cause of deep regret if a treaty which has been thus beneficial in its practical operations, which has worked so well and so efficiently, and which, notwithstanding the exciting and at the same time violent political disturbances of which both countries have been the scene during its existence, has given rise to no complaints on the part of either Government, against either its spirit or its provisions, should be abruptly terminated. It has tended to the protection of society, and to the general interests of both countries. Its violation or annulment would.be a retrograde step in international intercourse. I have been anxious, and have made efforts to enlarge its scope, and to make a new treaty which would be a still more efficient agent for the punishment and prevention of crime; at the same time I have felt it my duty to decline to entertain a proposition made by Great Britain, pending, its refusal to execute the existing treaty, to. amend it by practically conceding by treaty the identical conditions which that Government demands under its act of Parliament.

In addition to the impossibility of the United States entering upon negotiations under the menace of an intended violation of a refusal to execute the terms of an existing treaty, I deemed it inadvisable totreatof only the one amendment proposed by Great Britain, while the United States desires an enlargement of the list of crinSes for which extradition may be asked, and other improvements which experience has shown might be embodied in a new treaty. It is for the wisdom of Congress to determine whether the article of the treaty relating to extradition is to be any longer regarded as obligatory on the Government of the United States or as forming part of the supreme law of the land. Should the attitude of toe British Government remain unchanged, I shall not, without an expression of the wish of Congress that I should do so, take any action either in making or granting requisitions for the surrender of fugitive criminals under the treaty ot 1842. Respectfully submitted, U. S. Grant.