Grotius says substantially the same.[260] So does Vattel, who declares that claimants may obtain “what is due, together with interest and damages.”[261] And Wheaton copies Vattel.[262] The Supreme Court of the United States gives the same rule with nearly equal simplicity:—
“The prime cost, or value of the property lost at the time of the loss, and, in case of injury, the diminution in value by reason of the injury, with interest upon such valuation, affords the true measure for assessing damages.”[263]
Such is the law of interest, and the Committee refer to it as illustrating the accumulated losses which await satisfaction at the hands of Congress.
RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE COMMITTEE.
The Committee, impressed by the original justice of these claims and the present obligation of the United States, do not hesitate to recommend their liquidation and payment at an early day, as they would recommend the discharge of a national debt. While setting forth the unanswerable evidence of their value, they content themselves with the recommendation made many years ago, and repeated by successive committees of both Houses of Congress, limiting the appropriation to a sum not exceeding five million dollars, without interest, to be distributed by a board of commissioners pro rata among the claimants, according to the provisions of the bill reported herewith. The limitation is a departure from strict justice, but it is part of the additional sacrifice which seems to be expected by Congress from these long-suffering claimants.
In deference to the Secretary of the Treasury,[264] who, when consulted thereupon, objected to the creation of a stock for this special purpose, as provided in former bills, it is proposed that the money be paid whenever Congress shall make an appropriation therefor.
By positive description the bill is made to cover claims for illegal captures and condemnations prior to July 31, 1801, the date of the final ratification of the Convention. But, by positive words of exclusion, it is provided that the bill shall not cover claims originally embraced in the Louisiana Convention of 1803, in the treaty with Spain of 22d February, 1819, or in the Convention with France of July 4, 1831; so that, in point of fact, the bill is carefully limited to those original claims which, after postponement by the second article of the Convention of 1800, were, at its final ratification, definitely renounced by the United States, in consideration of equivalent renunciations from France.
CONCLUSION.
The Committee have now finished the review which, in the discharge of public service, they were called to make. Approaching a much vexed question without prejudice, they have striven to consider it with candor, in the hope of ascertaining and exhibiting the requirements of duty. The conclusion they have adopted, in harmony with so many previous committees of both houses, and also with Congress itself, which has twice enacted a law for the satisfaction of these claims, is now submitted to the judgment of the Senate.