Wells Williams to John A. T. Meadows, June 25, 1868

Mr. Williams to Mr. Meadows

Sir: I have just received a communication from Baron Rehfues, the minister of the North German Confederation, inclosing an official opinion of yours, made on the 8th instant, in re Talee vs. Manchu, in which you decline to adjudicate the case on the ground that “American citizens and subjects of the North German Confederation were, under the present system, not on the same footing of equality as to attaining redress and justice,” and further state “that you intend not to entertain any plaint against American citizens on the part of North German Confederation subjects till the vice-consul of the North German Confederation at Tientsin was empowered to decide cases.”

In making this distinction respecting the judicial functions of the consuls of the North German Confederation, as compared with those of the United States, you have made an issue ex cathedra that belongs to their respective governments. The jurisprudence of the two nations has been arranged in China in consonance to their peculiar institutions; and in both, we are bound to believe, for the purpose of obtaining redress and administering justice between their subjects. Whatever disabilities and hinderances may appear in the execution of their respective laws, can properly become a matter of reclamation between the governments, with a view to melioration; but you cannot deny all justice in your consular court to a German who comes with a plaint against an American, because of an alleged deficiency in the laws of his country. This is to make our judicial system subject to the torts of other nations, and not one to be exercised on its own merits. If carried out, the principle would soon prevent all international action in China, and destroy the possibility of the comity now enjoyed. If you deem the consular laws of the North German Confederation as exercised in China incomplete for attaining the ends of justice, how much more equitably and firmly might you refuse to hear the plaint of a Chinese against an American, which yet by the treaty you cannot do.

I think that these views will approve themselves as tenable; and I direct you, therefore, to summon the parties in the case Talee vs. Manchu to your consular court, and try the case on its merits. I hope, too, that the time which has elapsed since they first appeared will not have brought about changes that will prevent them from again appearing.

I am, sir, your obedient servant,