The life and public services of Abraham Lincoln ... together with his state papers, including his speeches, addresses, messages, letters, and proclamations, and the closing scenes connected with his life and death. By Henry J. Raymond. To which are added anecdotes and personal reminiscences of President Lincoln, by Frank B. Carpenter.

448 THE LIFE, PUBLIC SERVICES, AND
The mineral resources of Colorado, Nevada, Idaho, New Mexico, and
Arizona, are proving far richer than has been heretofore understood. I
lay before you a communication on this subject fiom the Governor of
New Mexico. I again submit to your consideration the expediency of
establishing a system for the encouragement of emigration. Although
this source of national wealth and strength is again flowing with greater
freedom than for several years before the insurrection occurred, there is
still a great deficiency of laborers in every field of industry, especially in
agriculture and in our mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious
metals. While the demand for labor is thus increased here, tens of
thousands of persons, destitute of remunerative occupation, are thronging our foreign consulates, and offering to emigrate to the United States,
if essential, but very cheap, assistance can be afforded them.' It is easy
to see that under the sharp discipline of civil war the nation is beginning
a new life. This noble effort demands the aid, and ought to receive the
attention and support, of the Government.
Injuries unforeseen by the Government, and unintended, may in some
cases have been inflicted on the subjects or citizens of foreign countries,
both at sea and on land, by persons in the service of the United States.
As this Government expects redress from other Powers when similar
injuries are inflicted by persons in their service upon citizens of the
United States, we must be prepared to do justice to foreigners. If the
existing judicial tribunals are inadequate to this purpose, a special court
may be authorized, with power to hear and decide such claims of the
character referred to as may have arisen under treaties and the public
law. Conventions for adjusting the claims by joint commission have
been proposed to some Governments, but no definite answer to the proposition has yet been received from any.
In the course of the session I shall probably have occasion to request
you to provide indemnification to claimants where decrees of restitution
have been rendered, and damages awarded by Admiralty Courts; and in
other cases, where this Government may be acknowledged to be liable in
principle, and where the amount of that liability has been ascertained by
an informal arbitration, the proper officers of the Treasury have deemed
themselves required by the law of the United States upon the subject, to
demand a tax upon the incomes of foreign Consuls in this country. While
such a demand may not, in strictness, be in derogation of public law, or
perhaps of any existing treaty between the United States and a foreign
country, the expediency of so far modifying the act as to exempt from
tax the income of such Consuls as are not citizens of the United States,
derived from the emoluments of their office, or from property not situate
in the United States, is submitted to your serious consideration. I make
this suggestion upon the ground that a comity which ought to be reciprocated exempts our Consuls in all other countries from taxation to the
extent thus indicated. The United States, I think, ought not to be exceptionally illiberal to international trade and commerce.