e for Chinese
subjects in the United States, as compared with other aliens; not that
it creates any peculiar rights which others do not share, but because,
in case, of ill treatment of the Chinese in the United States, this
Government is bound to "exert all its power to devise measures for their
protection," by securing to them the rights to which equally with any
and all other foreigners they are entitled.

Whether it is now incumbent upon the United States to amend their
general laws or devise new measures in this regard I do not consider in
the present communication, but confine myself to the particular point
raised by the outrage and massacre at Rock Springs.

The note of the Chinese minister and the documents which accompany
it give, as I believe, an unexaggerated statement of the lamentable
incident, and present impressively the regrettable circumstance that
the proceedings, in the name of justice, for the ascertainment of the
crime and fixing the responsibility therefor were a ghastly mockery
of justice. So long as the Chinese minister, under his instructions,
makes this the basis of an appeal to the principles and convictions
of mankind, no exception can be taken; but when he goes further, and,
taking as his precedent the action of the Chinese Government in past
instances where the lives of American citizens and their property in
China have been endangered, argues a reciprocal obligation on the part
of the United States to indemnify the Chinese subjects who suffered at
Rock Springs, it became necessary to meet his argument and to deny most
emphatically the conclusions he seeks to draw as to the existence of
such a liability and the right of the Chinese Government to insist
upon it.

I draw the attention of the Congress to the latter part of the note of
the Secretary of State of February 18, 1886, in reply to the Chinese
minister's representations, and invite especial consideration of the
cogent reasons by which he reaches the conclusion that whilst the United
States Government is under no obligation, whether by the express terms
of its treaties with China or the principles of international law, to
indemnify these Chinese subjects for losses caused by such means and
under the admitted circumstances, yet that in view of the palpable and
discreditable failure of the authorities of Wyoming Territory to bring
to justice the guilty parties or to assure to the sufferers an impartial
forum in which to seek and obtain