This order immediately aroused the intense indignation of the consuls, and they addressed me in a labored argument to show that the oath offered to them would be equivalent to naturalizing them as citizens, and that although they were not forced to take it, yet they could have nothing of protection until they-did take it and acknowledge themselves as citizens of the United States. They then said that that would be a violation of their neutrality. The argument further was, that the foreigners' oath required them to swear that they would act as spies for the United States, and that the requirement that they “should not conceal any act done,” required them to swear that they would be spies and denunciators for the United States. This address was signed by all the consuls, headed by the French consul.
To this I answered in substance that there was nothing compulsory about the order; that I had nothing to do with naturalization; that I had asked no such oath. As to their statement that this oath compelled every foreigner to descend to the level of a spy for the benefit of the United States, I answered that there was no just construction of language which would give any such interpretation to the order. The oath required him who took it not to conceal any wrong that had been or was about to be done in aid of the enemies of the United States. I continued:--
It has been read and translated as if it required you to reveal all such acts. Conceal is a verb active in our language; concealment is an act done, not a thing suffered by the concealers.Let me thus state the difference in meaning.
If I am passing about and see a thief picking the pocket of my neighbor, and I say nothing about it unless called upon by a proper tribunal, that is not concealment of the theft; but if I throw my cloak over the thief to screen him from the police officer while he does it, I then “conceal” the theft. Again, if I know that my neighbor is about to join the rebel army, and I go about my usual business, I do not “conceal” the fact; but if upon being inquired of by the proper authority as to
