OPINIONS OF THE ATTORNEYS GENERAL AND JUDGMENTS OF THE SUPREME COURT PUBLISHED BY THE ENDOWMENT 1917 Prefatory Note In the pamphlet entitled "Documents Relating to the Controversy over Neutral Rights between the United States and France, 17971800," the messages of President Adams, the replies of the Congress. and the texts of the various laws enacted to protect the neutral rights. of the United States against French aggression were given. The present pamphlet continues the subject of its predecessor by bringing together opinions of the attorneys general and decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States and of the Court of Claims regarding the origin, nature, extent and legal effect of the hostilities between the United States and France at the close of the eighteenth century. In President Wilson's address to the Congress on February 26, 1917. he said: Since it has unhappily proved impossible to safeguard our neutral rights by diplomatic means against the unwarranted infringements they are suffering at the hands of Germany, there may be no recourse but to armed neutrality, which we shall know how to maintain and for which there is abundant American precedent. These two pamphlets, which will later be combined into one volume, have been prepared and issued as a contribution to American precedent, which the President considers abundant. JAMES BROWN SCOTT, Director of the Division of International Law. WASHINGTON, D. C. February 28, 1917. |