years' standing, is known to every one; and, moreover, official notices are every year frequently published to summon the young men to their standards. Every one knows, if only through his parents or friends, that at twenty years of age it is his bounden duty to present himself to the military board called to decide whether he is fit or not to serve in the army. If, therefore, any Prussian pretends not to have known that he was held to render this service, one is clearly authorized to belive that he belies his conscience. As to those persons who wittingly attempt to evade this obligation, they certainly do not deserve that any interest should be taken in them; and it is with reason that the law decrees that such, in preference, should be enrolled in the army, because they seek to free themselves of a duty, common to all, to cast it upon their fellow-citizens. Of this number are the aforesaid B. Meyer and J. Kracke, to whom my two letters of 22d October, last year, and 22d of the present, referred. I am pursuaded that the government of the United States, after careful examination of the conduct of these two persons, will discover that they have acted with the single purpose of evading their military duties in Prussia, and thus there is no room for complaint if the Prussian government limits itself to subjecting them to the duty which they have, of purpose, neglected. It is not a punishment inflicted upon them, it is simply the fulfillment of an obligation resting upon them in the quality of subjects of Prussia. Men like Meyer and Kracke have no right to ask that this military service should be dispensed with and they be replaced by others to keep the Prussian army full. Moreover, the service is not hard, nor of long duration. In the space of three years it is finished; and, often, even new conscripts are discharged before this term is completed. To be willing to treat persons who have emigrated without the permission of the government with more tenderness than those who have stayed at home, would be, on one part, to encourage emigration, contrary to the public welfare, and, on the other hand, to weaken the force of laws and the respect which is due to them. Such a proceeding would be more out of place, because the law itself is so mild that it grants the right of emigration even to those subject still to service in the army, provided they are in condition to prove that, in their selfexpatriation, they are not influenced by the sole intention to evade such service. I like to believe, sir, that these explanations will give to your government the full and entire conviction that the government of his Majesty, far from having used any rigor against the said Meyer and Kracke, has only done that which it ought to do to prevent its own subjects from accusing it of treating more favorably those who violate the law than those who obey. At the close of your note of the 15th instant, you still quote section twenty-three of the law of 21st December, 1842. I permit myself to request you will notice, sir, that the term of ten years fixed for the return to Prussia of a subject of his Majesty, only runs from the first January, 1843, and that if said paragraph authorizes the government to consider an uninterrupted absence of more than ten years as importing the loss of the quality of Prussian subject, it does not, nevertheless, Ex. Doc. 38-5 dispense the absentee from duties which he ought to discharge while he was a Prussian. Accept on this occasion, sir, the renewed assurance of my high consideration. Mr. BARNARD, MANTEUFFEL. Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary. Mr. Barnard to Baron Manteuffel. LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, MONSIEUR LE BARON: I have received the two letters which your excellency has done me the honor to address to me-the first, dated the 22d of February, in reference to the case of John Joseph Kracke, and the other dated 28th of February, in reference to the same case, and more generally in reply to my letter of the 15th of the same month. I had indulged the hope that his Majesty's government might have found it not incompatible with its interests, under all the circumstances of the case, and while adhering to its claim of right in the premises, to accord to my request, and to the earnest wishes of my government, the release of Kracke from the Prussian army. In this I have been disappointed; but I do not yet mean to despair of this man's release. Kracke left Prussia when a boy of fourteen, and from that time for a period of fourteen years it appears he was never in Prussia. He learned his trade of a smith, in Hanover, and not in Prussia. He then lived and worked at his trade in Holland; and finally he passed from Holland, and not from Prussia, to the United States. There he became a naturalized citizen, acquired property, and fixed himself permanently and for life. That is his country and his home. But having ventured, after fourteen years, unconscious of offense or of danger, to set his foot as a visitor on the soil of the country where he had chanced to draw his first breath, he found himself suddenly seized and forced into the military service of that country for a term of years. This has come upon him at the age of twenty-eight, to interrupt all the plans and expectations of his life. It is at this age, just the most critical and important to him of his whole existence, that a demand is made upon him for a service of three years in the camp of a foreign country; for Prussia, in regard to such a service, is as foreign to him, to his affections, his interests, and his hopes, as Turkey would be. His labor in the United States has already had its reward. He has become the owner of a house and ground in one of the most populous and prosperous cities of that country. But this property is not wholly paid for; it is under mortgage, and he has no means of redeeming his property from that mortgage but by the earnings of his personal and continued labor. There is nobody to pay that mortgage for him, and if he is kept here, his property will almost necessarily be sacrificed. Such is his unhappy condition. I am unable to agree with your excellency, that there is nothing in this case affording any ground either of equity or humanity on which to appeal to the Prussian government in this man's favor; and neither my government, nor the people of the United States, will be able to agree with your excellency. On technical grounds, Kracke was still a Prussian subject when he emigrated to the United States. But he did not, in point of fact, emigrate from Prussia. He emigrated from Holland, and had then been absent from Prussia for about seven years. Intending to make the United States his permanent residence and home, and having just at his twenty-first year realized from his industry in Holland the means necessary to accomplish his voyage, it certainly can surprise nobody, whatever may have been his technical duty in the premises, that he did not first return to Prussia, either to ask for permission to emigrate, or voluntarily to undergo a military service of three years before emigrating. I think all this is matter proper for the consideration of his Majesty's government. I have already referred, in my letter of the 15th of February, to the estimate put by the United States on the liberality of Prussia-a great military power as she is, where every citizen is a soldier-in her legal regulations in regard to persons wishing to emigrate. I hope I may now be excused for saying that there seems to me to be rather a marked contrast between that liberality and the rigor employed towards those who, as in the several instances which I have had occasion to bring to your excellency's notice, and especially in the instance of Kracke, may have failed to comply with these regulations. Although Kracke went to the United States in the "period between the end of his seventeenth and the end of his twenty-fifth year," your law only required, in order to his obtaining a free permit of emigration, that he should have obtained from the proper authority a certificate that his application did not proceed solely from a design to withdraw himself from the army. This rule is referred to and recognized in your excellency's letter of the 28th of February. I cannot doubt but that this certificate might have been readily obtained. I think his residence out of Prussia explains why he did not apply for the legal permission to emigrate, and shows, at the same time, that if he had applied, it would have been apparent to every one that his desire to dissolve his political relations with Prussia, and to find a country and home for himself elsewhere, was no new idea got up at that time merely to escape from her military service. Surely, between the liberality of the law, which would have given him, seven years ago, free permission to emigrate, and the rigorous exaction. which demands from him now, at this distance of time, and under the peculiar circumstances of the case, a forced service of three years for having emigrated without that permission, there appears to be a contrast which must be acknowledged to be somewhat remarkable. At any rate, the exaction falls upon him with fearful severity. Certainly, it is for the Prussian government to judge of the reasons of state, in reference to emigration or otherwise, which may demand such a course of action. But I trust I may be excused for suggesting that really little hope can be entertained that the constantly-swelling tide of emigration will be checked by any such measure of repression as that which is now being enforced in the person of Kracke. The only effect will be, that those who have emigrated and those who shall emigrate without leave will take warning from it to keep themselves beyond the reach of the laws and authorities of Prussia. It seems from what is stated in your excellency's letter, that the law of the 3d December, 1843, in regard to emigration, according to the construction put upon it in Prussia, does not bear quite as liberal an interpretation as I had supposed. The law declares that "the quality of a Prussian subject is lost by a residence of ten years abroad," the rule being applied, of course, to those who absent themselves without leave. By your excellency's construction, this term of ten years commences from the date of the law. But, at least, the equity and spirit of such a statute might be applied to a case like Kracke's without doing any violence to its letter or its intent. Certainly, it would be competent to the Prussian government, if it was so disposed, to declare that, under the peculiar circumstances of the case, and upon the equity of this law, it would consider Kracke as no longer a Prussian subject, and accordingly to discharge him from the Prussian army. I shall indulge the hope that he may yet be released, and allowed to return to the United States. Accept, on this occasion, Monsieur le Baron, the assurance of my very distinguished consideration. His Excellency BARON VON MANTEUFFEL, D. D. BARNARD. &c., &c., &c. Mr. Barnard to Mr. Marcy. [Extract.] No. 121.] * LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, * * Berlin, April 5, 1853. * * * SIR: I have the honor to transmit, herewith, a copy of Baron Manteuffel's reply to my letter of the 21st March, urging again on his consideration reasons for the release of J. J. Kracke from the Prussian army. The refusal to release this man seems to be final; though I think it is evident, at the same time, from the tenor of the answer, that some proper impression has been made on the minister's mind in regard to the severe operation of the Prussian law. Of course, he does not yet see * its inhumanity. * * * * * * * I have the honor to be, with the highest respect, your obedient ser vant, Hon. W. L. MARCY, D. D. BARNARD. Secretary of State. Baron Manteuffel to Mr Barnard. [Translation.] BERLIN, March 31, 1853. SIR: After having already consulted with those of my colleagues who have concern in the position of the person called John Joseph Kracke, who is again the subject of your letter of the 21st of this month, I should hesitate to try new modes to obtain the exemption of this individual from military service in Prussia. Without doubt, it can be nowise convenient for Mr. Kracke to be compelled to serve in the army at the age of twenty-eight years, after having found a second country in the United States, and made the acquisition of real estate. But this disagreeable business he should attribute only to his unreflecting and unlawful conduct from the time of his expatriation. At the age of fourteen, Kracke had obtained permission to sojourn temporarily abroad; but, in place of returning to Prussia at the age of twentyone years completed, to enlist under the banners, as his condition of Prussian subject made it his duty to do, he chose this very time to pass secretly to the United States, and thus withdraw himself from his military obligations. After having thus openly violated the law, Kracke has no right to ask that he be released from the bonds which bind him to his native country, before he completes his service in the army. Furthermore, such request, if made in due season, would in like manner not have been acquiesced in, except in the case of his having been able to show that he was not emigrating for the purpose merely of getting rid of this service; and certainly, it would have been difficult for him to make such proof in 1845-that is to say, at the very moment when the age he had attained obliged him to serve in the army. The harshness which is used towards refractories to incorporate them subsidiarily in the army if they return from the United States has no tendency to check emigration, it ought only to serve to convince those who desire to emigrate that the government does not mean to favor secret and illegal emigrations; but, on the contrary, holds out an aiding hand to those who not having satisfied the duties belonging to them as Prussian subjects before emigrating may fully comply with them on their return. As to the bearing of the section 23 of the law of December 31, 1843, its object was to put the government in condition to withdraw the character of Prussian subjects from those who, without permission of the proper provincial authorities, have resided more than ten consecutive years abroad, but it does not authorize the admission that because a Prussian has managed to evade his duties as a subject of the King, by a sojourn of ten years abroad, the government is bound to consider him as exempt from those duties if at any time he places his foot within the territory of Prussia. There exists no motive, even in |