tions for civil penalties, the parties may nominate arbitrators. Art. 161. Without proof of reconciliation having been attempted, no prosecution can be commenced. Art. 162. For this purpose there shall be justices of the peace, who shall be elected at the same time and manner as the members of the chambers. Their powers and districts shall be regulated by law. Art. 163. Besides the court which must exist in the capital of the empire, as well as in the provinces, there will also be a court entitled the supreme tribunal of justice, at which will preside judges selected from the other courts, according to their seniority. Art. 164. The duties of this tribunal will be-1. To permit or to refuse the revision of causes in the way determined by the law. 2. To inquire into the abuses committed by its own officers, or those of the other courts, persons connected with the diplomatic body, and the presidents of the provinces. 3. To investigate and to decide on disputes respecting the jurisdiction and competency of the provincial towns now existing, and in those which may hereafter be created, there shall be councils for managing the economical and municipal government of the said cities and towns. Art. 168. The councils shall be elected and composed of the number of land-holders which the law may determine; and he who may obtain the greatest number of votes, shall be president. Art. 169. The functions of these councils, the formation of their police, the application of their revenues, and all their useful attributes, shall be decreed by a regulating law. Chapter III-[This Chapter es tablishes the principal Financial arrangements of the empire.] TITLE VIII.-Of the general Regulations and Guarantees of the Civil and Political Rights of Brazilian Citizens. Art. 178. What is stated respecting the limits and respective jurisdictions of the political powers, and respecting the political and civil rights of citizens, is alone constitutional. Every thing not constitutional may be altered by ordinary legislatures, without the formalities referred to. Art. 179. The inviolability of the civil and political rights of the Brazilian citizens, which have for their basis, liberty, and the security of persons and property, is guaranteed by the constitution of the empire in the following manner :—1. No citizen can be compelled to do, or to refrain from doing any thing, except in virtue of the law. 2. No law shall be made except for public utility. 3. Its enactments shall never be retroactive. 4. All persons may communicate their 14. thoughts by speech or writing, and authority. If the order prove to publish them by the press, inde- be arbitrary, the judge, who grants pendent of censorship. Neverthe- it, shall be punished in the manner less, they must be responsible for the law may direct. 11. No one the abuses which they may commit shall be sentenced except by the in the exercise of this right, in the competent authority, and in virtue cases, and according to the forms, of an anterior law. 12. The indewhich the law shall determine. pendence of the judicial power 5. No one can be troubled on ac- shall be maintained. No authority count of religion, so long as he re- can assume jurisdiction over pendspects the state, and gives no of- ing causes, stay them, or revive fence to public morals. 6. Every actions. 13. The law shall be person may remain in, or depart equal to all, whether to protect or from the empire at pleasure, the to punish, and shall reward every police regulations being observed, one according to his deserts. and prejudice to third parties saved. Every citizen is admissible to pub7. The house of every citizen is an lic offices, civil, political, or miliinviolable asylum: by night, it tary, without distinction, except cannot be entered, except with as respects his talents and virtues. the owner's consent, or to save it 15. No one shall be exempt from from fire or inundation: by day, its contributing to the expenses of the entrance can be sanctioned only in state in proportion to his means. 16. the cases, and according to the All privileges, not essentially conmanner, which the law shall de- nected with offices of public utility, termine. 8. No person not in- are abolished. 17. With the exdicted can be arrested, except in ception of the causes, which, from the cases declared by the law; and their nature, belong to particular in those cases, within 24 hours, jurisdictions in conformity with in cities or towns near the the law, there shall be no privijudge's residence, and within a leged court, nor special commisreasonable period in places more sions, either in civil or criminal remote-the judge shall, by a note causes. 18. A civil and criminal signed by himself, make known to code, founded on the solid basis of the prisoner the cause of his arrest, justice and equity, shall be drawn the names of his accusers, and of up as soon as possible. 19. From the witnesses against him. 9. this time henceforth are for ever abolished, whipping, the torture, branding, and all the more cruel punishments. 20. No punishment shall extend beyond the person of the delinquent. Wherefore in no case shall property be confiscated, or infamy be transmitted to any of the relatives of the criminal. 21. The gaol shall be secure, clean, and well regulated, having divisions for the separation of the prisoners according to their circumstances, and the nature of their crimes. 22. The right of property Even after indictment no person already arrested shall be detained in prison, if he offer proper bail, in the cases in which bail is admitted by law; and, in general, in offences to which no greater penalty is attached than six months' imprisonment, or banishment from the district, the accused may be set at liberty on his own recogni zance. 10. With the exception of those taken in flagrante delicto, no person can be imprisoned without a written order from a lawful is 'guaranteed in its fullest extent. If the public good, legally proved, require the use or the loan of property, the owner shall be previously indemnified for the value thereof. 23. The public debt is in like manner fully guaranteed. 24. No kind of labour, cultivation, industry, or commerce, can be prohibited, if it be not opposed to public morals, or to the safety and health of the citizens. 25. All professional corporations are abolished. 26. Inventors shall have secured to them the property of their discoveries or productions. 27. The secrecy of letters is inviolable. The administration of the post office is made rigorously responsible for every infraction of this article. 28. Rewards conferred for services done to the state, whether civil or military, remain guaranteed. 29. Public officers are responsible for abuses and omissions in the exercise of their functions, and for not exacting an effective responsibility from their subalterns. 30. Every citizen may present in writing to the legislative body and to the executive, remonstrances, complaints, or petitions, and may expose any infraction of the constitution, requiring from the competent autho, rity the effective responsibility of the infractors. 31. The constitution also guarantees public suc(Signed) 33. cours. 32. Primary and gratuit◄ ous instruction to all citizens. Colleges and universities, wherein shall be taught the elements of the sciences, literature, and the arts. 34. The constitutional authorities cannot suspend the constitution, in what respects the rights of individuals, except in the cases and cir cumstances specified in the next section. 35. In cases of rebellion or of hostile invasion, and the safety of the state requiring that some of the forms which guarantee personal liberty should be dispensed with for a certain time, the same may be done by a special act of the legislature. If, however, the legislature should not at this time be assembled, the government may, the danger of the country being imminent, exercise this precaution as a provisional and indispensable measure, to be immediately suspended when the necessity which caused it ceases; in either case, there is to be presented to the assembly, on its meeting, a report of all of all the imprisonments and grounds of arrest and other precautionary measures which may have been taken. Whatever authorities may have ordered those measures, shall be held responsible for the abuses which may have taken place. JOAO LEVERIANO MACIEL DA COSTA. ANTONIO LUIS AERCEIRA DA CUNHA. The MESSAGE of the PRESIDENT of the UNITED STATES to the CONGRESS. Fellow Citizens of the Senate, and House of Representatives,Many important subjects will claim your attention during the present session, of which I shall endeavour to give, in aid of your deliberations, a just idea in this communication. I undertake this duty with diffidence, from the vast extent of the interests on which I have to treat, and of their great importance to every portion of our Union. I enter on it with zeal, from a thorough conviction that there never was a period, since the establishment of our revolution, when, regarding the condition of the civilized world, and its bearing on us, there was greater necessity for devotion in the public servants to their respective duties, or for virtue, patriotism, and union, in our constituents. Meeting in you a new Congress, I deem it proper to present this view of public affairs in greater detail than might otherwise be necessary. I do it, however, with peculiar satisfaction, from a knowledge that, in this respect, I shall comply more fully with the sound principles of our government. The people being with us exclusively the sovereign, it is indispensable that full information be laid before them on all important subjects, to enable them to exercise that high power with complete effect. If kept in the dark, they must be incompetent to it. We are all liable to error, and those who are engaged in the management of public affairs, are more subject to excitement, and to be led astray by their particular interests, and passions, than the great body of our constituents, who, living at home, in the pursuit of their ordinary avocations, are calm but deeply interested spectators of events, and of the conduct of those who are parties to them. To the people, every department of the govern ment, and every individual in each are responsible; and the more full their information, the better they can judge of the wisdom of the policy pursued, and of the conduct of each in regard to it. From their dispassionate judgment, much aid may always be obtained; while their approbation will form the greatest incentive, and most gratifying reward for virtuous actions; and the dread of their censure the best security against the abuse of their confidence. Their interests, in all vital questions, are the same; and the bond by sentiment, as well as by interest, will be pro portionably strengthened as they are better informed of the real state of public affairs, especially in difficult conjunctures. It is by such knowledge that local prejudices and jealousies are surmounted, and that a national policy, extending its fostering care and protection to all the great interests of our union, is formed and steadily adhered to. A precise knowledge of our res lations with foreign powers, as respects our negotiations and transactions with each, is thought to be particularly necessary. Equally necessary is it, that we should form a just estimate of our resources, revenue, and progress in every kind of improvement connected with the national prosperity and public defence. It is by rendering justice to other nations, that we may expect it from them. It is by our ability to resent injuries, and redress wrongs, that we may avoid them. The commissioners under the fifth article of the treaty of Ghent, having disagreed in their opinions respecting that portion of the boundary between the territories of the United States and of Great Britain, the establishment of which had been submitted to them, have made their respective reports, in compliance with that article, that the same might be referred to the decision of a friendly Power. It being manifest, however, that it would be difficult, if not impossible, for any Power to perform that office, without great delay and much inconvenience to itself, a proposal has been made by this government, and acceded to by that of Great Britain, to endeavour to establish that boundary by amicable negotiation. It appearing, from long experience, that no satisfactory arrangement could be formed of the commercial intercourse between the United States and the British colonies in this hemisphere, by legislative acts, while each party pursued its own course, without agreement or concert with the other, a proposal has been made to the British government to regulate this commerce by treaty, as it has been to arrange, in like manner, the just claims of the citizens of the United States inhabiting the states and territories bordering on the lakes and rivers which empty into the St. Lawrence, to the navigation of that river to the ocean. For these and other objects of high importance to the interests of both parties, a negotiation has been opened with the British government, which, it is hoped, will have a satisfactory result. The commissioners, under the sixth and seventh articles of the treaty of Ghent, having successfully closed their labours in relation to the sixth, have proceeded to the discharge of those relating to the seventh. Their progress in the extensive survey required for the performance of their duties justifies the presumption that it will be completed in the ensuing year. The negotiation which had been long depending with the French government on several important subjects, and particularly for a just indemnity for losses sustained in the late wars by the citizens of the United States, under unjustifiable seizures and confiscations of their property, has not, as yet, had the desired effect. As this claim rests on the same principle with others which have been admitted by the French government, it is not perceived on what just grounds it can be rejected. A minister will be immediately appointed to proceed to France, and resume the negotiation on this and other subjects which may arise between the two nations. At the proposal of the Russian Imperial government made through the minister of the emperor residing here, a full power and instructions have been transmitted to the minister of the United States at St. Petersburgh, to arrange, by amicable negotiation, the respective rights and interests of the two nations on the north west coast of this continent. A similar proposal had been made by his Imperial Majesty to the government of Great Britain, which has likewise been acceded to. The government of the United States has been desirous, by this friendly proeeeding, of manifesting the great |