RANK OF DIPLOMATIC REPRESENTATIVES ABROAD.
Speeches in the Senate, on an Amendment to the Consular and Diplomatic Bill, authorizing Envoys Extraordinary and Ministers Plenipotentiary instead of Ministers Resident, May 16 and 17, 1866.
May 16th, the Senate having under consideration the bill making appropriations for the consular and diplomatic expenses for the ensuing year, Mr. Sumner moved the following amendment:—
“Provided, That an envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary appointed at any place where the United States are now represented by a minister resident shall receive the compensation fixed by law and appropriated for a minister resident, and no more.”
Mr. Sumner then said:—
I should like to make a brief explanation of this amendment. It will be perceived that it comes after the appropriation for salaries of envoys extraordinary and ministers plenipotentiary and ministers resident. Its object, in one word, is to authorize the Government, in its discretion, to employ persons with the title of envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary where it now employs ministers resident, but without any increase of salary. This subject has occupied the attention of the Committee on Foreign Relations for several years; it has been more than once before the Senate. The Committee were unanimous that the good of the service, especially in Europe, required this change. From authentic information it appears that our ministers at courts where they have only the title of ministers resident play a second part to gentlemen with the higher title, though representing governments which we should not consider in worldly rank on an equality with ours. They are second to them; in short, to use a familiar illustration, and simply to bring the difference home, when they call upon business or appear anywhere, they bear the same relation to the envoys extraordinary of those smaller governments that a member of the other House, calling upon the President, bears to Senators. The Senator is admitted, when the member of the other House, as we know, waits.
I hold in my hand the last Almanac of Gotha, for 1866, which is the diplomatic authority for the world, and has been for a century; and, by way of example, I turn to the diplomatic list for the Netherlands, where, it will be remembered, we are represented by a patriotic citizen, well known to most of us, who was once connected with the press,—Mr. Pike,—with the title of minister resident. According to the list, I find at this same court the Grand Duchy of Baden represented by an envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary; Belgium, the adjoining country, and with a population much inferior to our own, represented by an envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary; Denmark, a nation which, shorn of the two provinces of Schleswig and Holstein, has little more than a million and a half of population, represented by an envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary. Spain, of course, is represented by an envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary. Even the Grand Duchy of Hesse is so represented; so is the kingdom of Italy; so is the Duchy of Nassau; so is Portugal; so is Prussia; and so others. In transacting business, the American minister resident at this court is always treated as second to these representatives. I have alluded to the relations we bear to the head of the Executive Department here, as compared with members of the other House. I doubt not that Senators know there is a positive business advantage in having access promptly, and perhaps with a certain consideration which does not always attach to those of inferior rank.
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It will be observed that the proposition does not undertake to empower the President, or to direct him, to make this change; but it assumes, according to a certain theory of the Constitution, that under the Constitution it is in the discretion of the President to send ambassadors, envoys extraordinary, or ministers resident, or any other diplomatic functionary, in his discretion, Congress having only the function of supplying the means.