I saw
last evening a communication from the State Department inclosing several pages
of regulations for letters of marque. The subject was to-day before the
Cabinet, and there is a stronger disposition for the policy than I expected. I
told the President I had given the proposed regulations but a cursory
examination. The subject was therefore postponed to our Friday meeting, with an
understanding that I should in the mean time examine them and report if they
were objectionable. On looking over the sections, I find they are a transcript
of the laws of 1812 and 1813, which the Secretary of State has embodied in a
series of regulations which he proposes to issue. The old laws of half a
century ago have expired. It is not pretended they have vitality. But the Secretary
of State legislates by regulations. I am not favorably impressed with the law
or the regulations, nor with the idea of sending out privateers against a
couple of piratical cruisers, even if there are private parties fools enough to
go on that hunt, which he says there are, but I doubt. The law undertakes to
delegate legislative power to the President, which is in itself wrong. But the
subject is, I fear, a foregone conclusion. Both Seward and Chase favor it, and
the commercial community is greatly exasperated against the robbers. If the
subject goes forward, S. will turn the whole labor and responsibility over to
the Navy Department.
SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles,
Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30,
1864, p. 246-7
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