Relations with Foreign Nations.--The Public Questions.--Ministers
abroad.--Usages of Intercourse between Nations.--Our Action.--
Mistake of European Nations; they follow the Example of England and
France.--Different Conditions of the Belligerents.--Injury to the
Confederacy with a Single Exception.--These Agreements remained
inoperative.--Extent of the Pretended Blockade.--Remonstrances
against its Recognition.--Sinking Vessels to block up Harbors.--
Every Proscription of Maritime Law violated by the United States
Government.--Protest.--Addition made to the Law by Great Britain.--
Policy pursued favorable to our Enemies.--Instances.--Mediation
proposed by France to Great Britain, and Russian Letter of French
Minister.--Reply of Great Britain.--Reply of Russia.--Letter to
French Minister at Washington.--Various Offensive Actions of the
British Government.--Encouraging to the United States.--Hollow
Profession of Neutrality.
The public questions arising out of our foreign relations were too
important to be overlooked. At the end of the first year of the war
the Confederate States had been recognized by the leading governments
of Europe as a belligerent power. This continued unchanged to the
close. Mr. Mason became our representative in London, Mr. Slidell in
Paris, Mr. Rost in Spain, and Mr. Mann in Belgium. They performed
with energy and skill the positions, but were unsuccessful in
obtaining our recognition as an independent power.
The usages of intercourse between nations require that official
communication be made to friendly powers of all organic changes in
the constitution of states. To those who are familiar with the
principles upon which the States known as the United States were
originally constituted, as well as those upon which the Union was
formed, the organic changes made by the secession and confederation
of the Southern States are very apparent. But to others an
explanation may be necessary. Each of the States was originally
declared to be sovereign and independent. In this condition, at a
former period, all of those then existing were severally recognized
by name by the only one of the powers which had denied their right to
independence. This gave to each a recognized national sovereignty.
Subsequently they formed a compact of voluntary union, whereby a new
organization was constituted, which was made the representative of
the individual States in all general intercourse with other nations.
So long as the compact continued in force, this agent represented
merely the sovereignty of the States. But, when a portion of the
States withdrew from the compact and formed a new one under the name
of the Confederate States, they had made such organic changes in
their Constitution as to require official notice in compliance with
the usages of nations.
For this purpose the Provisional Government took early measures for
sending to Europe Commissioners charged with the duty of visiting the
capitals of the different powers and making arrangements for the
opening of more formal diplomatic intercourse. Prior, however, to the
arrival abroad of these Commissioners, the Government of the United
States had addressed communications to the different Cabinets of
Europe, in which it assumed the attitude of being sovereign over the
Confederate States, and alleged that these independent States were in
rebellion against the remaining States of the Union, and threatened
Europe with manifestations of its displeasure if it should treat the
Confederate States as having an independent existence. It soon became
known that these pretensions were not considered abroad to be as
absurd as they were known to be at home; nor had Europe yet learned
what reliance was to be placed in the official statements of the
Cabinet at Washington. The delegation of power granted by the States
to the General Government to represent them in foreign intercourse
had led European nations into the grave error of supposing that their
separate sovereignty and independence had been merged into one common
sovereignty, and had ceased to have a distinct existence. Under the
influence of this error, which all appeals to reason and historical
fact were vainly used to dispel, our Commissioners were met by the
declaration that foreign Governments could not assume to judge
between the conflicting representations of the two parties as to the
true nature of their previous relations. The Governments of Great
Britain and France accordingly signified their determination to
confine themselves to recognizing the self-evident fact of the
existence of a war, and to maintain a strict neutrality during its
progress. Some of the other powers of Europe pursued the same course
of policy, and it became apparent that by some understanding, express
or tacit, Europe had decided to leave the initiative in all action
touching the contest on this continent to the two powers just named,
who were recognized to have the largest interests involved, both by
reason of proximity to and of the extent of intimacy of their
commercial relations with the States engaged in war.
It was manifest that the course of action adopted by Europe, while
based on an apparent refusal to determine the question or to side
with either party, was, in point of fact, an actual decision against
our rights and in favor of the groundless pretensions of the United
States. It was a refusal to treat us as an independent government. If
we were independent States, the refusal to entertain with us the same
international intercourse which was maintained with our enemy was
unjust, and was injurious in its effects, whatever might have been
the motive which prompted it. Neither was it in accordance with the
high moral obligations of that international code, whose chief
sanction is the conscience of sovereigns and the public opinion of
mankind, that those eminent powers should have declined the
performance of a duty peculiarly incumbent on them, from any
apprehension of the consequences to themselves. One immediate and
necessary result of their declining the responsibility of a decision,
which must have been adverse to the extravagant pretensions of the
United States, was the prolongation of hostilities to which our
enemies were thereby encouraged, and which resulted in scenes of
carnage and devastation on this continent and of misery and suffering
on the other such as have scarcely a parallel in history. Had those
powers promptly admitted our right to be treated as all other
independent nations, none can doubt that the moral effect of such
action would have been to dispel the pretension under which the
United States persisted in their efforts to accomplish our
subjugation.
There were other matters in which less than justice was rendered to
the Confederacy by "neutral" Europe, and undue advantage conferred on
the aggressors in a wicked war. At the inception of hostilities, the
inhabitants of the Confederate States were almost exclusively
agriculturists; those of the United States were also to a large
extent mechanics, merchants, and navigators. We had no commercial
marine, while their merchant-vessels covered the ocean. We were
without a navy, while they had powerful fleets built by the money we
had in full share contributed. The power which they possessed for
inflicting injury on our coasts and harbors was thus counterbalanced
in some measure by the exposure of their commerce to attack by
private armed vessels. It was known to Europe that within a very few
years past the United States had peremptorily refused to accede to
proposals for the abolition of privateering, on the ground, as
alleged by them, that nations owning powerful fleets would thereby
obtain undue advantage over those possessing inferior naval force.
Yet no sooner was war flagrant between the Confederacy and the United
States than the maritime powers of Europe issued orders prohibiting
either party from bringing prizes into their ports. This prohibition,
directed with apparent impartiality against both belligerents, was in
reality effective against, the Confederate States only, for they
alone could find a hostile commerce on the ocean. Merely nominal
against the United States, the prohibition operated with intense
severity on the Confederacy by depriving it of the only means of
maintaining its struggle on the ocean against the crashing
superiority of naval force possessed by its enemies. The value and
efficiency of the weapon which was thus wrested from our grasp by the
combined action of "neutral" European powers, in favor of a power
which professes openly its intention of ravaging their commerce by
privateers in any future war, is strikingly illustrated by the terror
inspired among commercial classes of the United States by a single
cruiser of the Confederacy. One small steamer, commanded by officers
and manned by a crew who were debarred by the closure of neutral
ports from the opportunity of causing captured vessels to be
condemned in their favor as prizes, sufficed to double the rates of
marine insurance in Northern ports, and consign to forced inaction
numbers of Northern vessels, in addition to the direct damage
inflicted by captures at sea.
But it was especially in relation to the so-called blockade that the
policy of European powers was so shaped as to cause the greatest
injury to the Confederacy, and to confer signal advantages on the
United States. A few words in explanation may here be necessary.
Prior to the year 1856 the principles regulating this subject were to
be gathered from the writings of eminent publicists, the decisions of
admiralty courts, international treaties, and the usages of nations.
The uncertainty and doubt which prevailed in reference to the true
rules of maritime law, in time of war, resulting from the discordant
and often conflicting principles announced from such varied and
independent sources, had become a grievous evil to mankind. Whether a
blockade was allowable against a port not invested by land as well as
by sea, whether a blockade was valid by sea if the investing fleet
was merely sufficient to render ingress to the blockaded port
evidently dangerous, or whether it was further required for its
legality that it should be sufficient "really to prevent access," and
numerous other similar questions, had remained doubtful and undecided.
Animated by the highly honorable desire to put an end "to differences
of opinion between neutrals and belligerents, which may occasion
serious difficulties and even conflicts" (such was the official
language), the five great powers of Europe, together with Sardinia
and Turkey, adopted in 1856 the following declaration of principles:
"1. Privateering is and remains abolished.
"2. The neutral flag covers enemy's goods, with the exception of
contraband of war.
"3. Neutral goods, with the exception of contraband of war, are not
liable to capture under enemy's flag.
"4. Blockades, in order to be binding must be effective, that is to
say, maintained by a force sufficient really to prevent access to the
coast of the enemy."
Not only did this solemn declaration announce to the world the
principles to which the signing powers agreed to conform in future
wars, but it contained a clause to which these powers gave immediate
effect, and which provided that the states, not parties to the
Congress of Paris, should be invited to accede to the declaration.
Under this invitation every independent state in Europe yielded its
assent--at least, no instance is known to me of a refusal; and the
United States, while declining to assent to the proposition which
prohibited privateering, declared that the three remaining principles
were in entire accordance with their own views of international law.
No instance is known in history of the adoption of rules of public
law under circumstances of like solemnity, with like unanimity, and
pledging the faith of nations with a sanctity so peculiar.
When, therefore, this Confederacy was formed, and when neutral
powers, while deferring action on its demand for admission into the
family of nations, recognized it as a belligerent power, Great
Britain and France made informal proposals, about the same time, that
their own rights as neutrals should be guaranteed by our acceding, as
belligerents, to the declaration of principles made by the Congress
of Paris. The request was addressed to our sense of justice, and
therefore met immediate and favorable response in the resolutions of
the Provisional Congress of the 13th of August, 1861, by which all
the principles announced by the Congress of Paris were adopted as the
guide of our conduct during the war, with the sole exception of that
relative to privateering. As the right to make use of privateers was
one in which neutral nations had, as to the then existing war, no
interest; as it was a right which the United States had refused to
abandon, and which they remained at liberty to employ against us; as
it was a right of which we were already in actual enjoyment, and
which we could not be expected to renounce _flagrante bello_ against
an adversary possessing an overwhelming superiority of naval forces--
it was reserved with entire confidence that neutral nations could not
fail to perceive that just reason existed for the reservation. Nor
was this confidence misplaced; for the official documents published
by the British Government contained the expression of the
satisfaction of that Government with the conduct of officials who
conducted successfully the delicate transaction confided to their
charge.
These solemn declarations of principle, this implied agreement
between the Confederacy and the two powers just named, were suffered
to remain inoperative against the menaces and outrages on neutral
rights committed by the United States with unceasing and progressing
arrogance during the whole period of the war. Neutral Europe remained
passive when the United States, with a naval force insufficient to
blockade effectively the coast of a single State, proclaimed a paper
blockade of thousands of miles of coast, extending from the Capes of
the Chesapeake to those of Florida, and encircling the Gulf of Mexico
from Key West to the mouth of the Rio Grande. Compared with this
monstrous pretension of the United States, the blockades known in
history under the names of the Berlin and Milan Decrees, and the
British Orders in Council, in the years 1806 and 1807, sink into
insignificance. Those blockades were justified by the powers that
declared them, on the sole ground that they were retaliatory; yet
they have since been condemned by the publicists of those very powers
as violations of international law. It will be remembered that those
blockades evoked angry remonstrances from neutral powers, among which
the United States were the most conspicuous, and were in their
consequences the chief cause of the war between Great Britain and the
United States in 1812; also, that they formed one of the principal
motives that led to the declaration of the Congress of Paris in 1856,
in the fond hope of imposing an enduring check on the very abuse of
maritime power which was renewed by the United States in 1861 and
1862, under circumstances and with features of aggravated wrong
without precedent in history.
Repeated and formal remonstrances were made by the Confederate
Government to neutral powers against the recognition of that
blockade. It was shown by evidence not capable of contradiction, and
which was furnished in part by the officials of neutral nations, that
the few ports of the Confederacy, before which any naval forces at
all were stationed, were invested so inefficiently that hundreds of
entries were effected into them after the declaration of the
blockade; that our enemies admitted the inefficiency of their
blockade in the most forcible manner, by repeated official complaints
of the sale to us of goods contraband of war--a sale which could not
possibly have affected their interests if their pretended blockade
had been sufficient "really to prevent access to our coasts"; that
they alleged their inability to render their paper blockade effective
as the excuse for the odious barbarity of destroying the entrance to
one of the harbors by sinking vessels loaded with stone in the
channel; that our commerce with foreign nations was interrupted, not
by the effective investment of our ports, but by watching the ports
of the West Indies; not only by the seizure of ships in the attempt
to enter the Confederate ports, but by the capture on the high-seas
of neutral vessels by the cruisers of our enemies, whenever supposed
to be bound to any point on our extensive coast, without inquiry
whether a single blockading vessel was to be found at such point;
that blockading vessels had left the ports at which they were
stationed for distant expeditions, were absent for many days, and
returned without notice either of the cessation or renewal of the
blockade; in a word, that every prescription of maritime law and
every right of neutral nations to trade with a belligerent under the
sanction of principles heretofore universally respected were
systematically and persistently violated by the United States.
Neutral Europe received our remonstrances, and submitted in almost
unbroken silence to all the wrongs that the United States chose to
inflict on its commerce. The Cabinet of Great Britain, however, did
not confine itself to such implied acquiescence in these breaches of
international law which resulted from simple inaction, but, in a
published dispatch of the Minister for Foreign Affairs, assumed to
make a change in the principle enunciated by the Congress of Paris,
to which the faith of the British Government was considered to be
pledged. The change was so important and so prejudicial to the
interests of the Confederacy that, after a vain attempt to obtain
satisfactory explanations from that Government, I directed a solemn
protest to be made.
[Illustration: Members of the Confederate Cabinet]
In a published dispatch from her Majesty's Foreign Office to her
Minister at Washington, under date of February 11th, 1862, occurred
the following passage:
"Her Majesty's Government, however, are of opinion that, assuming
that the blockade was duly notified, and also that a number of ships
is stationed and remains at the entrance of a port sufficient really
to prevent access to it, _or to create an evident danger of entering
it or leaving it_, and that these ships do not voluntarily permit
ingress or egress, the fact that various ships may have successfully
escaped through it (as in the particular instance here referred to),
will not of itself prevent the blockade from being an effectual one
by international law."
The words which I have italicized were an addition made by the
British Government of its own authority to a principle, the exact
terms of which were settled with deliberation by the common consent
of civilized nations, and by implied convention with our Government,
as already explained, and their effect was clearly to reopen to the
prejudice of the Confederacy one of the very disputed questions on
the law of blockade which the Congress of Paris proposed to settle.
The importance of this change was readily illustrated by taking one
of our ports as an example. There was "evident danger," in entering
the port of Wilmington, from the presence of a blockading force, and
by this test the blockade was effective. "Access is not really
prevented" by the blockading fleet to the same port; for steamers
were continually arriving and departing, so that, tried by this test,
the blockade was ineffective and invalid. Thus, while every energy of
our country was evoked in the struggle for maintaining its existence,
the neutral nations of Europe pursued a policy which, nominally
impartial, was practically most favorable to our enemies and most
detrimental to us.
The exercise of the neutral right of refusing entry into their ports
to prizes taken by both belligerents was especially hurtful to the
Confederacy. It was sternly adhered to and enforced.
The assertion of the neutral right of commerce with a belligerent,
whose ports are not blockaded by fleets sufficient really to prevent
access to them, would have been eminently beneficial to the
Confederate States, and only thus hurtful to the United States. It
was complaisantly abandoned.
The duty of neutral states to receive with cordiality and recognize
with respect any new confederation that independent states may think
proper to form, was too clear to admit of denial, but its
postponement was equally beneficial to the United States and
detrimental to the Confederacy. It was postponed.
In this statement of our relations with the nations of Europe, it has
been my purpose to point out distinctly that the Confederacy had no
complaint to make that those nations declared their neutrality. It
could neither expect nor desire more. The complaint was, that the
declared neutrality was delusive, not real; that recognized neutral
rights were alternately asserted and waived in such manner as to bear
with great severity on us, while conferring signal advantages on our
enemy.
Perhaps it may not be out of place here to notice a correspondence
between the Cabinets of France, Great Britain, and Russia, relative
to a mediation between the Confederacy and the United States. On
October 30, 1862, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Drouyn de
l'Huys, addressed a note to the ambassadors of France at London and
St. Petersburg. In this dispatch he stated that the Emperor had
followed with painful interest the struggle which had then been going
on for more than a year on this continent. He observed that the
proofs of energy, perseverance, and courage, on both sides, had been
given at the expense of innumerable calamities and immense bloodshed;
to the accompaniments of civil conflict was to be added the
apprehension of servile war, which would be the climax of so many
irreparable misfortunes.
If these calamities affected America only, these sufferings of a
friendly nation would be enough to excite the anxiety and sympathy of
the Emperor; but Europe also had suffered in one of the principal
branches of her industry, and her artisans had been subjected to most
cruel trials. France and the maritime powers had, during the
struggle, maintained the strictest neutrality, but the sentiments by
which they were animated, far from imposing on them anything like
indifference, seem, on the contrary, to require that they should
assist the two belligerent parties in an endeavor to escape from a
position which appeared to have no issue. The forces of the two sides
had hitherto fought with balanced success, and the latest accounts
did not show any prospect of a speedy termination of the war.
These circumstances, taken together, seemed to favor the adoption of
measures which might bring about a truce. The Emperor of the French,
therefore, was of the opinion that there was now an opportunity of
offering to the belligerents the good offices of the maritime powers.
He, therefore, proposed to her Majesty, as well as to the Emperor of
Russia, that the three courts should endeavor, both at Washington and
in communication with the Confederate States, to bring about a
suspension of arms for six months, during which time every act of
hostility, direct or indirect, should cease, at sea as well as on
land. This armistice might, if necessary, be renewed for a further
period.
This proposal, he proceeded to say, would not imply, on the part of
the three powers, any judgment on the origin of the war, or any
pressure on the negotiations for peace, which it was hoped would take
place during the armistice. The three powers would only interfere to
smooth the obstacles, and only within the limits which the two
interested parties would prescribe. The French Government was of the
opinion that, even in the event of a failure of immediate success,
those overtures might have proved useful in leading the minds of men
heated by passion to consider the advantages of conciliation and
peace.
The reply of Great Britain, through Lord John Russell, on November
13, 1862, is really contained in this extract:
"After weighing all the information which has been received from
America, her Majesty's Government are led to the conclusion that
there is no ground at the present moment to hope that the Federal
Government would accept the proposal suggested, and a refusal from
Washington at the present time would prevent any speedy renewal of
the offer."
The Russian Government, in reply, said:
"According to the information we have hitherto received, we are
inclined to believe that a combined step between France, England,
and Russia, no matter bow conciliatory, and how cautiously made, if
it were taken with an official and collective character, would run
the risk of causing precisely the very opposite of the object of
pacification, which is the aim of the wishes of the three courts."
The unfavorable reception of the proposal was communicated by the
French Minister of Foreign Affairs to the representative of France at
Washington. In this communication he said:
"Convinced as we were that an understanding between the three powers
in the sense presented by us would answer as much the interests of
the American people as our own; that even that understanding was, in
the existing circumstances, a duty of humanity, you will easily form
an idea of our regret at seeing the initiative we have taken after
mature reflection remain without results. Being also desirous of
informing Mr. Dayton, the United States Minister, of our project, I
confidently communicated it to him, and even read in his presence the
dispatch sent to London and St. Petersburg. I could not but be
surprised that the Minister of the United States should oppose his
objections to the project I communicated to him, and to hear him
express personally some doubts as to the reception which would be
given by the Cabinet at Washington to the joint offers of the good
offices of France, Russia, and Great Britain."
It has already been stated that, by common understanding, the
initiative in all action touching the contest on this continent had
been left by foreign powers to the two great maritime nations of
Western Europe, and that the Governments of these two nations had
agreed to take no measures without previous concert. The result of
these arrangements, therefore, placed it in the power of either
France or England to obstruct at pleasure the recognition to which
the Confederacy was justly entitled, or even to prolong the
continuance of hostilities on this side of the Atlantic, if the
policy of either could be promoted by the postponement of peace.
Each, too, thus became possessed of great influence in so shaping the
general exercise of neutral rights in Europe as to render them
subservient to the purpose of aiding one of the belligerents, to the
detriment of the other. Perhaps it may not be out of place to present
a few examples by which to show the true nature of the neutrality
professed in this war.
In May, 1861, the Government of her Britannic Majesty assured our
enemies that "the sympathies of this country [Great Britain] were
rather with the North than with the South."
On June 1, 1861, the British Government interdicted the use of its
ports to "armed ships and privateers, both of the United States and
the so-called Confederate States," with their prizes. The Secretary
of State of the United States fully appreciated the character and
motive of this interdiction, when he observed to Lord Lyons, who
communicated it, that "this measure and that of the same character
which had been adopted by France would probably prove a death-blow to
Southern privateering"--a means, it will be remembered, which the
United States had refused to abandon for themselves.
On the 12th of June, 1861, the United States Minister in London
informed her Majesty's Minister for Foreign Affairs that the fact of
his having held interviews with the Commissioners of our Government
had given "great dissatisfaction, and that a protraction of this
would be viewed by the United States as hostile in spirit, and to
require some corresponding action accordingly." In response to this
intimation her Majesty's Minister gave assurance that "he had no
expectation of seeing them any more."
Further extracts will show the marked encouragement to the United
States to persevere in its paper blockade, and unmistakable
intimations that her Majesty's Government would not contest its
validity.
On May 21, 1801, Earl Russell pointed out to the United States
Minister in London that "the blockade might, no doubt, be made
effective, considering the small number of harbors on the Southern
coast, even though the extent of three thousand miles were
comprehended in the terms of that blockade."
On January 14, 1862, her Majesty's Minister in Washington
communicated to his Government that, in extenuation of the barbarous
attempt to destroy the port of Charleston by sinking a stone fleet in
the harbor, Mr. Seward had explained that "the Government of the
United States had, last spring, with a navy very little prepared for
so extensive an operation, undertaken to blockade upward of three
thousand miles of coast. The Secretary of the Navy had reported that
he could stop up the 'large holes' by means of his ships, but that he
could not stop up the 'small ones.' It has been found necessary,
therefore, to close some of the numerous small inlets by sinking
vessels in the channel."
On May 6, 1862, so far from claiming the right of British subjects as
neutrals to trade with us as belligerents, and to disregard the
blockade on the ground of this explicit confession by our enemy of
his inability to render it effective, her Majesty's Minister for
Foreign Affairs claimed credit with the United States for friendly
action in respecting it. His lordship stated that--
"The United States Government, on the allegation of a rebellion
pervading from nine to eleven States of the Union, have now, for more
than twelve months, endeavored to maintain a blockade of three
thousand miles of coast. This blockade, kept up irregularly, but,
when enforced, enforced severely, has seriously injured the trade and
manufactures of the United Kingdom.
"Thousands are now obliged to resort to the poor-rates for
subsistence owing to this blockade. Yet her Majesty's Government have
never sought to take advantage of the obvious imperfections of this
blockade, in order to declare it ineffective. They have, to the loss
and detriment of the British nation, scrupulously observed the duties
of Great Britain toward a friendly state."
It is not necessary to pursue this subject further. Suffice it to say
that the British Government, when called upon to redeem its pledge
made at Paris in 1856, and renewed to the Confederacy in 1861,
replied that it could not regard the blockade of Southern ports as
having been otherwise than "practically effective in February, 1862,"
and that "the manner in which it has since been enforced gives to
neutral governments no excuse for asserting that the blockade had not
been effectively maintained."
The partiality of her Majesty's Government in favor of our enemies
was further evinced in the marked difference of its conduct on the
subject of the purchase of supplies by the two belligerents. This
difference was conspicuous from the very commencement of the war. As
early as May 1, 1861, the British Minister in Washington was informed
by the Secretary of State of the United States that he had sent
agents to England, and that others would go to France, to purchase
arms; and this fact was communicated to the British Foreign Office,
which interposed no objection. Yet, in October of the same year, Earl
Russell entertained the complaint of the United States Minister in
London, that the Confederate States were importing contraband of war
from the Island of Nassau, directed inquiry into the matter, and
obtained a report from the authorities of the island denying the
allegations, which report was inclosed to Mr. Adams, and received by
him as satisfactory evidence to dissipate "the suspicion thrown upon
the authorities by that unwarrantable act." So, too, when the
Confederate Government purchased in Great Britain, as a neutral
country (with strict observance both of the law of nations and the
municipal law of Great Britain), vessels which were subsequently
armed and commissioned as vessels of war after they had been far
removed from English waters, the British Government, in violation of
its own laws, and in deference to the importunate demands of the
United States, made an ineffectual attempt to seize one vessel, and
did actually seize and detain another which touched at the Island of
Nassau, on her way to a Confederate port, and subjected her to all
unfounded prosecution, at the very time when cargoes of munitions of
war were openly shipped from British ports to New York, to be used in
warfare against us. Further instances need not be adduced to show how
detrimental to us, and advantageous to our enemy, was the manner in
which the leading European power observed its hollow profession of
neutrality toward the belligerents.