This claim, for which $11,250 are appropriated by this bill, is of the same nature and character as the claim of Dr. J. Milton Best, which was returned to the Senate on the 1st instant without my signature.
The same reasons which prompted the return of that bill for reconsideration apply in this case, which also is a claim for compensation on account of the ravages of war, and comes under the same general principle of both international and municipal law, that all property is held subject not only to be taken by the Government for public uses, in which case, under the Constitution of the United States, the owner is entitled to just compensation, but also subject to be temporarily occupied, or even actually destroyed, in times of great public danger, and when the public safety demands it; and in the latter case governments do not admit a legal obligation on their part to compensate the owner.
The temporary occupation of, injuries to, and destruction of property caused by actual and necessary military operations are generally considered to fall within the last-mentioned principle, and if a government makes compensation under such circumstances it is a matter of bounty rather than of strict legal right. If it be deemed proper to make compensation for such losses, I renew my recommendation that provision be made by general legislation for all similar cases.
U.S. GRANT.
PROCLAMATIONS.
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
A PROCLAMATION.
Whereas satisfactory information has been received by me, through Don Mauricio Lopez Roberts, envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of His Majesty the King of Spain, that the Government of that country has abolished discriminating duties heretofore imposed on merchandise imported from all other countries, excepting the islands of Cuba and Porto Rico, into Spain and the adjacent islands in vessels of the United States, said abolition to take effect from and after the 1st day of January next:
Now, therefore, I, Ulysses S. Grant, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by an act of Congress of the 7th day of January, 1824, and by an act in addition thereto of the 24th day of May, 1828, do hereby declare and proclaim that on and after the said 1st day of January next, so long as merchandise imported from any other country, excepting the islands of Cuba and Porto Rico, into the ports of Spain and the islands adjacent thereto in vessels belonging to citizens of the United States shall be exempt from discriminating duties, any such duties on merchandise imported into the United States in Spanish vessels, excepting from the islands of Cuba and Porto Rico, shall be discontinued and abolished.
In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.