John Mercer Langston to L. Ethéart, January 21, 1879

Mr. Langston to Mr. Ethéart.

Sir: In reply to your dispatch of December —, 1878, the receipt of which I have heretofore had the honor to acknowledge, I have the pleasure to assure you that, in the discussion which occupies our attention concerning the matter of discriminating duties upon licenses, I come to this discussion bringing no new interpretation of the fifth article of the treaty of 1864 as the same has been established by our government; for my path has been made plain, even luminous, by the able and concise argument of my predecessor, and the action of your government when you were its honored representative and announced its conclusions with regard to this same subject, in response to the protest of my government.

I am not forgetful of the discrimination which you undertake to make in your late dispatch between the discriminating tax, as established by a decree under Domingue, and your present legislative enactment. But if the tax was wrong, contrary to the treaty, under the decree, even if quite excessive, what makes it exactly right under the present enactment when the discrimination is equally made, if the charge is, in the latter case, a little less? The principle is the same. Perhaps you have forgotten that when this subject occupied the attention of our governments in 1876 my own government held and advanced the opinion that the fifth article of the treaty between the United States and Hayti of the 3d of November, 1864, was intended to protect and should protect our citizens from any discriminations in matters of trade to the advantage of Haytian citizens.

Consequently no acquiescence could be given to a license law or decree creating such discriminations by my government; and it was upon such ground that the decree to which you refer was held contrary to the treaty and discontinued, and upon which objection is made to the law now enforced by your government to the disadvantage of American citizens doing business in your country. And, with your permission, I beg to state that one would find it difficult, indeed, in the light of any accepted principles of interpretation, to reach any other conclusion with regard to the meaning and application of the fifth article of the treaty. I am, therefore, Mr. Secretary, of the opinion heretofore presented, and must insist upon the protest already made in the name of my government and the restitution therein demanded.

With sentiments of distinguished consideration,

I am, &c.,