Vicente Restrepo to Scruggs, February 16, 1885

Mr. Restrepo to Mr. Scruggs.

Mr. Minister: Your excellency is aware that the unjustifiable rebellion which has broken out in the Colombian territory, a rebellion which has proclaimed no principle, nor invoked any right, has not urged the executive power into any odious extreme; on the contrary, the executive has been unwilling to avail itself of the tremendous right of war even in the legitimate cases of reprisal for acts of violence, pillage, and treason with which everybody is acquainted, but has rather limited itself to enforcing the ordinary proceedings of the law, and to decreeing such forced imposts as are necessary to maintain the public armed force; and the progress of the military operations.

The public of this city is every day witness of acts of toleration, of which the like has never been known in any of our previous internal commotions; to such a degree that in the end this magnanimity has come to be mistaken for weakness. My Government, however, has felt little concern at the existence of this error, which it has been at no pains to dissipate; indeed, far from causing any diminution of its authority, which is being daily reestablished wherever it has been momentarily lost, this error is considered by my Government as a title to the highest esteem, both within and without the country. In general the Government pursues only such of its enemies as are under arms, and even so with the sole view of reducing them to obedience and of re-establishing peace and the supremacy of the law.

If, as I flatter myself, your excellency will acknowledge that the course of events has been and is such as I have described, I desire to invoke these antecedents, which of themselves command respect, in order next to make known to your excellency, according to the instructions I have received from the citizen President of the Republic, the manner in which that magistrate and the Government over which he presides understand the immunities of the foreign diplomatic ministers, in regard to the asylum they may possibly feel themselves called upon to grant to individuals hostile to the Government and criminally engaged in the present civil conflict.

The right of self-preservation and of the supreme defense of states is recognized by the most learned publicists as paramount to all other considerations, even to the immunities which are enjoyed by diplomatic agents.

The action of my Government will therefore be guided by that rule, if such occasion, truly and happily very remote, presents itself; but it naturally trusts that the respectable diplomatic body accredited to the Government of the Union, of which your excellency is so distinguished a member, will not lay it under the necessity of claiming the surrender of individuals who have taken refuge in their residences, and of whom the legitimate authority may, for any motive whatever, be in search, as it cannot be supposed that any member of that body, there being no question of defending such refugees from any barbarous maltreatment, will desire to mix himself up in our unhappy domestic conflicts.

For the rest, my Government will recognize to the fullest extent the immunity of your excellency, and that of your family and dependents, as likewise that of your residence, and as far as the abundant resources at its command, both material and moral, will allow, will cause that immunity to be respected at any cost, provided that an so doing no damage or danger accrue to the nation, nor anything tend to destroy the guarantee of the right of equality consigned in the constitution which governs us.

Fortunately your excellency’s antecedents, and the great respectability of the Government you so worthily represent, are data which incline the Government to judge that the difficulties it is attempting to prevent are, as I above stated, very remote, and in this belief the present dispatch has no other object than that of calling your excellency’s attention, in a friendly manner, to the duties which the executive may find itself called upon to perform, and which it must perforce perform in the civil war the country is witnessing.

I deem it unnecessary to enter into a lengthened discussion of this point of public law on which examples drawn from the history of nations throw so much light, and therefore close the present note with no further addition than the assurance of the distinguished consideration with which I subscribe myself.

Your excellency’s, &c.,