Relation with Great Britain.--Close of the Year 1860.--Prince of
Wales's Visit to the United States.--Exchange of Congratulatory
Notes.--Dawn of the Rebellion.--Lord Lyons's Dispatch.--Mr. Seward's
Views.--Lord John Russell's Threats.--Condition of Affairs at Mr.
Lincoln's Inauguration.--Unfriendly Manifestations by Great Britain.
--Recognizes Belligerency of Southern States.--Discourtesy to
American Minister.--England and France make Propositions to the
Confederate States.--Unfriendly in their Character to the United
States.--Full Details given.--Motives inquired into.--Trent Affair.
--Lord John Russell.--Lord Lyons.--Mr. Seward.--Mason and Slidell
released.--Doubtful Grounds assigned.--Greater Wrongs against us
by Great Britain.--Queen Victoria's Friendship.--Isolation of United
States.--Foreign Aid to Confederates on the Sea.--Details given.--
So-called Neutrality.--French Attempt to establish an Empire in
Mexico.--Lord Palmerston in 1848, in 1859, in 1861.--Conclusive
Observations.
At the close of the year 1860 the long series of irritating and
dangerous questions which had disturbed the relations of the United
States and Great Britain, from the time of the Declaration of
Independence, had reached final and friendly solution. The fact
gave unalloyed satisfaction to the American people and to their
Government. Mr. Buchanan was able to say in his message of December,
in language which Lord Lyons truly described as "the most cordial
which has appeared in any President's message since the foundation
of the Republic,"--
"Our relations with Great Britain are of the most friendly character.
Since the commencement of my Administration the two dangerous
questions arising from the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty and from the right
of search claimed by the British Government have been amicably and
honorably adjusted. The discordant constructions of the Clayton-
Bulwer Treaty, which at different periods of the discussion bore
a threatening aspect, have resulted in a final settlement entirely
satisfactory to this government. The only question of any importance
which still remains open is the disputed title between the two
governments to the Island of San Juan in the vicinity of Washington
Territory." It was obvious that neither government looked forward
to any trouble from this source.
To give manifestation of the cordiality with which our friendship
was reciprocated, Her Majesty had selected this auspicious year
for a visit of her son, the Prince of Wales, to this country. His
Royal Highness was received everywhere by the government and the
people with genuine and even enthusiastic hospitality, and at the
termination of his visit Lord Lyons was instructed to express the
thanks of Her Majesty.
"One of the main objects," His Lordship wrote to Secretary Cass on
the 8th of December, 1860, "which Her Majesty had in view in
sanctioning the visit of His Royal Highness was to prove to the
President and citizens of the United States the sincerity of those
sentiments of esteem and regard which Her Majesty and all classes
of her subjects entertain for the kindred race which occupies so
distinguished a position in the community of nations. Her Majesty
has seen with the greatest satisfaction that her feelings and those
of her people in this respect have been met with the warmest sympathy
in the great American Union; and Her Majesty trusts that the feelings
of confidence and affection, of which late events have proved beyond
all question the existence, will long continue to prevail between
the two countries to their mutual advantage and to the general
interests of civilization and humanity. I am commanded to state
to the President that the Queen would be gratified by his making
known generally to the citizens of the United States her grateful
sense of the kindness with which they received her son, who has
returned to England deeply impressed with all he saw during his
progress through the States, and more especially so with the friendly
and cordial good will manifested towards him on every occasion by
all classes of the community."
Mr. William Henry Trescott, then Assistant Secretary of State,
replied to Lord Lyons's note without delay, writing on the 11th of
December: "I am instructed by the President to express the
gratification with which he has learned how correctly Her Majesty
has appreciated the spirit in which His Royal Highness was received
throughout the Republic, and the cordial manifestation of that
spirit by the people of the United States which accompanied him in
every step of his progress. Her Majesty has justly recognized that
the visit of her son aroused the kind and generous sympathies of
our citizens, and, if I may so speak, has created an almost personal
interest in the fortunes of the Royalty which he so well represents.
The President trusts that this sympathy and interest towards the
future representative of the Sovereignty of Great Britain are at
once an evidence and a guaranty of that consciousness of common
interest and mutual regard which have bound in the past, and will
in the future bind together more strongly than treaties, the feelings
and the fortunes of the two nations which represent the enterprise,
the civilization, and the constitutional liberty of the same great
race. I have also been instructed to make this correspondence
public, that the citizens of the United States may have the
satisfaction of knowing how strongly and properly Her Majesty has
appreciated the cordial warmth of their welcome to His Royal
Highness."
VISIT OF THE PRINCE OF WALES.
Time was soon to test "the sincerity of those sentiments of esteem
and regard which Her Majesty and all classes of her subjects
entertain for the kindred race which occupies so distinguished a
position in the community of nations." Within a few days after
the exchange of this correspondence it became the duty of Lord
Lyons to announce to his government that the domestic differences
"in the great American Union" were deepening into so fierce a feud
that from different motives both General Cass the Secretary of
State, to whom his letter had been addressed, and Mr. Trescott the
Assistant Secretary of State, by whom it had been answered, had
resigned, and that the United States, one "of the two great nations
which represent the enterprise, the civilization, and the constitutional
liberty of the same great race," was about to confront the gravest
danger that can threaten national existence.
The State of South Carolina passed its Ordinance of Secession
December 17, 1860. From that date until the surrender of Fort
Sumter, April 14, 1861, many of the most patriotic and able statesmen
of the country and a large majority of the people of the North
hoped that some reasonable and peaceful adjustment of the difficulties
would be found. The new Administration had every right to expect
that foreign powers would maintain the utmost reserve, both in
opinion and in action, until it could have a fair opportunity to
decide upon a policy. The great need of the new President was
time. Both he and his advisers felt that every day's delay was a
substantial gain, and that the maintenance of the _status quo_,
with no fresh outbreak at home and no unfriendly expression aborad,
was of incalculable advantage to the cause of the Union.
Amid the varying and contradictory impressions of the hour, Lord
Lyons had reported events as they occurred, with singular fairness
and accuracy. Just one month before Mr. Lincoln was inaugurated,
on the 4th of February, 1861, His Lordship wrote to Lord John
Russell, at that time Her Majesty's Minister of Foreign Affairs:
"Mr. Seward's real view of the state of the country appears to be
that if bloodshed can be avoided until the new government is
installed, the seceding States will in no long time return to the
Confederation. He seems to think that in a few months the evils
and hardships produced by secession will become intolerably grievous
to the Southern States, that they will be completely re-assured as
to the intentions of the Administration, and that the conservative
element which is now kept under the surface by the violent pressure
of the Secessionists will emerge with irresistible force. From
all these causes he confidently expects that when elections for
the State Legislatures are held in the Southern States in November
next, the Union party will have a clear majority and will bring
the seceding States back into the Confederation. He then hopes to
place himself at the head of a strong Union party having extensive
ramifications both in the North and in the South, and to make 'Union
or Disunion, not Freedom or Slavery,' the watchwords of political
parties." It can scarcely escape notice how significant, even at
this early period, is the use in this dispatch of the word
"confederation" as applied to the United States,--a use never before
made of it in diplomatic communication since the establishment of
the Constitution, and indicating, only too clearly, the view to be
taken by the British Government of the relation of the States to
the Union.
Whatever may have been the estimate at home of the policy attributed
to Mr. Seward, it was certainly one which would commend itself to
the sympathy of a friendly nation, and one, to the success of which
no neutral power would hesitate to contribute all the aid it could
rightfully render. The dispatch of Lord Lyons was received in
London on the 18th of February, and on the 20th Lord John Russell
replied as follows: "The success or failure of Mr. Seward's plans
to prevent a disruption of the North-American Union is a matter of
deep interest to Her Majesty's Government, but they can only expect
and hope. They are not called upon nor would they be acting
prudently were they to obtrude their advice on the dissentient
parties in the United States. Supposing however that Mr. Lincoln,
acting under bad advice, should endeavor to provide excitement for
the public mind by raising questions with Great Britain, Her
Majesty's Government feel no hesitation as to the policy they would
pursue. They would in the first place be very forbearing. They
would show by their acts how highly they value the relations of
peace and amity with the United States. But they would take care
to let the government which multiplied provocations and sought for
quarrels understand that their forbearance sprung from the
consciousness of strength and not from the timidity of weakness.
They would warn a government which was making political capital
out of blustering demonstrations that our patience might be tried
too far."
THREATS FROM LORD JOHN RUSSELL.
It is impossible to mistake the spirit or the temper of this
dispatch. It is difficult to account for the manifest irritation
of its tone except upon the ground that Lord John Russell saw in
a possible reconciliation, between North and South, something that
threatened the interest or jarred upon the sympathy of the British
Government. It was at least sufficient and ominous warning of what
the United States might expect from "the confidence and affection"
which had only a few weeks before been outpoured so lavishly by
Her Majesty's Government. The fact is worthy of emphasis that
since the cordial interchange of notes touching the visit of the
Prince of Wales there had not been a single word of unkindness in
the correspondence of the two governments. But our embarrassments
had been steadily deepening, and according to many precedents in
the career of that illustrious statesman, Lord John seems to have
considered the period of our distress a fitting time to assert that
"British forbearance springs from the consciousness of strength
and not from the timidity of weakness."
On the 4th of March, 1861, the administration of Mr. Lincoln assumed
the responsibility of government. At that date the organization
of the Southern Confederacy had not been perfected. Four States
which ultimately joined it had not yet seceded from the Union.
There had been no overt act of violence. The Administration still
believed in the possibility of a peaceful settlement. But on the
12th of April Fort Sumter was attacked. On the 14th it was
surrendered. On the 15th the President issued his Proclamation
calling out seventy-five thousand militia and summoning Congress
to meet on the 4th of July. On the 17th the President of the
Confederacy authorized the issue of letters of marque. On the 19th
the President of the United States proclaimed a blockade of the
Southern ports and declared that privateers with letters of marque
from the Southern Confederacy would be treated as pirates.
This condition of affairs rendered the relation of foreign powers
to the Union and to the Confederacy at once urgent and critical.
It is true that Fort Sumter had surrendered to a warlike demonstration,
but fortunately no blood had been shed. It is true that letters
of marque had been authorized, but none had been actually issued.
It is true that a blockade had been proclaimed, but some time must
elapse before it could be practically enforced. All that can be
said is that the rebellion had organized itself with promptness
and courage for a conflict. There was still a pause. Neither
party thoroughly realized the horror of the work before them, though
every day made it more clearly apparent. Until then the United
States was the only organized government on our soil known to
England, and with it she had for three-quarters of a century
maintained commercial and political relations which had grown closer
and more friendly every year. The vital element of that government
was Union. Whatever might be the complicated relations of their
domestic law, to the world and to themselves the United States of
America was the indivisible government. This instinct of union
had gathered them together as colonies, had formed them into an
imperfect confederation, had matured them under a National
Constitution. It gave them their vigor at home, their power and
influence abroad. To destroy their union was to resolve them into
worse than colonial disintegration.
But the separation of the States was more than the dissolution of
the Union. For, treating with all due respect the conviction of
the Southern States as to the violation of their constitutional
rights, no fair-minded man can deny that the central idea of the
secession movement was the establishment of a great slave-holding
empire around the Gulf of Mexico. It was a bold and imperial
conception. With an abounding soil, with millions of trained and
patient laborers, with a proud and martial people, with leaders
used to power and skilled in government, controlling some of the
greatest and most necessary of the commercial staples of the world,
the haughty oligarchy of the South would have founded a slave
republic which, in its successful development, would have changed
the future of this continent and of the world. When English
statesmen were called upon to deal with such a crisis, the United
States had a right to expect, if not active sympathy, at least that
neutrality which would confine itself within the strict limit of
international obligation, and would not withhold friendly wishes
for the preservation of the Union.
RELATIONS OF ENGLAND AND THE UNION.
England had tested slowly but surely the worth of the American
Union. As the United States had extended its territory, had
developed in wealth, had increased in population, richer and richer
had become the returns to England's merchants and manufacturers;
question after question of angry controversy had been amicably
settled by the conviction of mutual, growing, and peaceful interests.
And while it had become a rhetorical truism with English historians
and statesmen, that relations with the independent Republic were
stronger, safer, and more valuable than those of the old colonial
connection, her own principles of constitutional liberty were re-
invigorated by the skill and the breadth with which they were
applied and administered by her own children in a new country.
England could not but know that all this was due to the Union,--
the Union which had concentrated the weakness of scattered States
into a government that protected the citizen and welcomed the
immigrant, which carried law and liberty to the pioneer on the
remotest border, which had made of provincial villages centres of
wealth and civilization that would not have discredited the capitals
of older nations, and which above all had created a Federal
representative government whose successful working might teach
England herself how to hold together the ample colonies that still
formed the outposts of her Empire.
More than all, a Cabinet, every member of which by personal relation
of tradition connection belonged to the great liberal party that
felt the achievement of Emancipation to be a part of its historic
glory, should have realized that no diminution of a rival, no
monopoly of commerce, could bring to England any compensation for
the establishment of a slave-holding empire upon the central waters
of the world.
With this natural expectation the Government in less than sixty
days after Mr. Lincoln's inauguration, sent its minister to London,
confident that he would at least be allowed to present to the
British Government for friendly consideration, the condition and
policy of the Republic before any positive action should disturb
the apparently amicable relations of the two countries. Mr. Charles
Francis Adams, who was selected for this important duty, was
instructed to explain to the British Government that the peculiar
relation of the States to the Federal Government, and the reticence
and reservations consequent upon a change of administration, had
hitherto restrained the action of the President in the formation
and declaration of his policy; that without foreign interference
the condition of affairs still afforded reasonable hope of a
satisfactory solution; and especially that it was necessary, if
there existed a sincere desire to avoid wrong and injury to the
United States, for foreign powers to abstain from any act of
pretended neutrality which would give material advantage or moral
encouragement to the organized forces of the rebellion.
Before Mr. Adams could cross the Atlantic the British Government,
although aware of his mission and its object, decided upon its own
course, in concerted action with France, and without reference to
the views or wishes or interest of the United States. On the day
before Mr. Adams's arrival in England, as if to give him offensive
warning how little his representations would be regarded, Her
Majesty's Government issued a proclamation recognizing the confederated
Southern States as belligerents. It is entirely unnecessary to
discuss the question of the right to recognize belligerency. The
great powers of Europe had the same right to recognize the Southern
Confederacy as a belligerent that they had to recognize it as an
established nationality, and with the same consequences,--all
dependent upon whether the fact so recognized were indeed a fact.
But the recognition of belligerency or independence may be the
means to achieve a result, and not simply an impartial acquiescence
in a result already achieved. The question therefore was not
whether foreign powers had a right to recognize, but whether the
time and method of such recognition were not distinctly hostile,--
whether they were not the efficient and coldly calculated means to
strengthen the hands of the Rebellion.
Events proved that if the English Government had postponed this
action until the Government of the United States had been allowed
a frank discussion of its policy, no possible injury to English
interests could have resulted. It was but a very short time before
the rebellion assumed proportions that led to the recognition of
the Confederacy as a belligerent by the civil, judicial, and military
authorities of the Union; a recognition by foreign powers would
then have been simply an act of impartial neutrality. But, declared
with such precipitancy, recognition could be regarded only as an
act of unfriendliness to the United States. The proof of this is
inherent in the case:--
1. The purpose of the secession, openly avowed from the beginning,
was the dissolution of the Union and the establishment of an
independent slave-empire; and the joint recognition was a declaration
that such a result, fraught with ruin to us, was not antagonistic
to the feelings or to the supposed interests of Europe, and that
both the commercial ambition of England and the military aspirations
of France in Mexico hoped to find profit in the event.
ENGLAND'S RECOGNITION OF BELLIGERENCY.
2. This recognition of belligerency in defiance of the known wishes
and interests of the United States, accompanied by the discourteous
refusal to allow a few hours' delay for the reception of the American
minister, was a significant warning to the seceded States that no
respect due to the old Union would long delay the establishment of
new relations, and that they should put forth all their energies
before the embarrassed Administration could concentrate its efforts
in defense of the National life.
3. The recognition of the belligerent flag of the Southern
Confederacy, with the equal right to supplies and hospitality,
guarantied by such recognition, gave to the insurgents facilities
and opportunities which were energetically used, and led to
consequences which belong to a later period of this history, but
the injury and error of which were emphatically rebuked by a judgment
of the most important tribunal that has ever been assembled to
interpret and administer international law.
The demand which naturally followed for a rigid enforcement of the
blockade, imposed a heavy burden upon the Government of the United
States just at the time when it was least prepared to assume such
a burden. Apologists for the unfriendly course of England interpose
the plea that the declaration of blockade by the United States was
in fact a prior recognition of Southern belligerency. But it must
be remembered that when the United States proposed to avoid this
technical argument by closing the insurgent ports instead of
blockading them, Mr. Seward was informed by Lord Lyons, acting in
concert with the French minister, that Her Majesty's Government
"would consider a decree closing the ports of the South actually
in possession of the insurgent or Confederate States, as null and
void, and that they would not submit to measures on the high seas
in pursuance of such decree." Bitterly might Mr. Seward announce
the fact which has sunk deep into the American heart: "It is indeed
manifest in the tone of the speeches, as well as in the general
tenor of popular discussion, that neither the responsible ministers
nor the House of Commons nor the active portion of the people of
Great Britain sympathize with this government, and hope, or even
wish, for its success in suppressing the insurrection; and that on
the contrary the whole British nation, speaking practically, desire
and expect the dismemberment of the Republic."
This very decided step towards a hostile policy was soon followed
by another even more significant. On the 9th of May, 1861, only
a few days before the Proclamation of Her Britannic Majesty,
recognizing the belligerency of the Southern Confederacy and thus
developing itself as a part of a concerted and systematic policy,
Lord Cowley, the British Ambassador at Paris, wrote to Lord John
Russell: "I called this afternoon on M. Thouvenel, Minister of
Foreign Affairs, for the purpose of obtaining his answer to the
proposals contained in your Lordship's dispatch of the 6th inst.
relative to the measures which should be pursued by the Maritime
Powers of Europe for the protection of neutral property in presence
of the events which are passing in the American States. M. Thouvenel
said the Imperial Government concurred entirely in the views of
Her Majesty's Government in endeavoring to _obtain of the belligerents_
a _formal_ recognition of the second, third, and fourth articles
of the Declaration of Paris. Count de Flahault (French Ambassador
in London) would receive instructions to make this known officially
to your Lordship. With regard to the manner in which this endeavor
should be made, M. Thouvenel said that he thought a communication
should be addressed to both parties _in as nearly as possible the
same language_, the consuls being made the organs of communication
with the Southern States."
Communicating this intelligence to Lord Lyons in a dispatch dated
May 18, 1861, Lord John Russell added these instructions: "Your
Lordship may therefore be prepared to find your French colleague
ready to take the same line with yourself in his communications
with the Government of the United States. I need not tell your
Lordship that Her Majesty's Government would very gladly see a
practice which is calculated to lead to great irregularities and
to increase the calamities of war renounced by _both_ the contending
parties in America as it has been renounced by almost _every other
nation_ in the world. . . . You will take such measures as you
shall judge most expedient to transmit to Her Majesty's consul at
Charleston or New Orleans a copy of my previous dispatch to you of
this day's date, to be communicated at Montgomery to the President
of the so-styled Confederate States."
The identity of the address and the equality upon which both the
belligerents were invited to do what had been done by "almost every
other _nation_ of the world" need not be emphasized.
ACTION OF CONFEDERATE GOVERNMENT.
On July 5, 1861, Lord Lyons instructed Mr. Bunch, the British Consul
at Charleston, South Carolina:--
"The course of events having invested the States assuming the title
of Confederate States of America with the character of belligerents,
it has become necessary for Her Majesty's Government to obtain from
the existing government in those States securities concerning the
proper treatment of neutrals. I am authorized by Lord John Russell
to confide the negotiation on this matter to you, and I have great
satisfaction in doing so. In order to make you acquainted with
the views of Her Majesty's Government, I transmit to you a duplicate
of a dispatch to me in which they are fully stated." His Lordship
then proceeded to instruct the consul as to the manner in which it
might be best to conduct the negotiation, the object being to avoid
as far as possible a direct official communication with the
authorities of the Confederate States. Instructions to the same
purport were addressed by the French Government to their consul at
Charleston.
What then was the point of the negotiations committed to these
consuls? It will be found in the dispatch from Lord John Russell,
communicated by his order to Mr. Bunch. It was the accession of
the United States and of the Confederate States to the Declaration
of Paris of April 16, 1856. That Declaration was signed by the
Ministers of Austria, France, Great Britain, Prussia, Russia,
Sardinia, and Turkey. It adopted as article of Maritime Law the
following points:--
"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 the 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."
The Powers signing the Declaration engaged to bring it to the
knowledge of those Powers which had not taken part in that Congress
of Paris, and to invite them to accede to it; and they agreed that
"the present Declaration is not and shall not be binding except
between those Powers which have acceded or shall accede to it."
It was accepted by all the European and South American Powers.
The United States, Mexico, and the Oriental Powers did not join in
the general acceptance.
The English and French consuls in Charleston, having received these
instructions, sought and found an intermediary whose position and
diplomatic experience would satisfy the requirements. This agent
accepted the trust on two conditions,--one, that he should be
furnished with the instructions as proof to the Confederate Government
of the genuineness of the negotiation, the other, that the answer
of the Confederate Government should be received in whatever shape
that government should think proper to frame it. The negotiations
in Richmond which had by this time become the seat of the Insurgent
Government were speedily concluded, and on the 13th of August,
1861, the Confederate Government passed the following resolution:--
"WHEREAS the Plenipotentiaries of Great Britain, Austria, France,
Prussia, Russia, Sardinia, and Turkey, in a conference held at
Paris on the 16th of April, 1856, made certain declarations concerning
Maritime Law, to serve as uniform rules for their guidance in all
cases arising out of the principles thus proclaimed;
"AND WHEREAS it being desirable not only to attain certainty and
uniformity as far as may be practicable in maritime law, but also
to maintain whatever is just and proper in the established usages
of nations, the Confederate States of America deem it important to
declare the principles by which they will be governed in their
intercourse with the rest of mankind: Now therefore be it
"_Resolved_, by the Congress of the Confederate States of America,
"1st, That we maintain the right of privateering as it has been
long established by the practice and recognized by the law of
nations.
"2d, That the neutral flag covers enemy's goods with the exception
of contraband of war.
"3d, That neutral goods, with the exception of contraband of war,
are not liable to capture under the enemy's flag.
"4th, 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."
ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND THE CONFEDERACY.
"These resolutions," says Mr. Bunch to Lord Lyons on Aug. 16, 1861,
"were passed on the 13th inst., approved on the same day by the
President, and I have the honor to enclose herewith to your Lordship
the copy of them which has been sent to Mr. ---- by the Secretary
of State to be delivered to M. de Belligny and myself." On Aug.
30, 1861, Lord Lyons wrote to Lord John Russell: "I have received,
just in time to have the enclosed copy made for your Lordship, a
dispatch from Mr. Consul Bunch reporting the proceedings taken by
him in conjunction with his French colleague M. de Belligny to
obtain the adherence of the so-called Confederate States to the
last three articles of the Declaration of Paris;" and a few days
later he says, "I am confirmed in the opinion that the negotiation,
which was difficult and delicate, was managed with great tact and
judgment by the two consuls."
Upon the discovery of this "difficult and delicate negotiation,"
Mr. Seward demanded the removal of Mr. Bunch. Lord John Russell
replied to Mr. Adams Sept. 9, 1861, "The undersigned will without
hesitation state to Mr. Adams that in pursuance of an agreement
between the British and French Government, Mr. Bunch was instructed
to communicate to the persons exercising authority in the so-called
Confederate States the desire of those governments that the second,
third, and fourth articles of the Declaration of Paris should be
observed by those States in the prosecution of the hostilities in
which they were engaged. Mr. Adams will observe that the commerce
of Great Britain and France is deeply interested in the maintenance
of the articles providing that the flag covers the goods, and that
the goods of a neutral taken on board a belligerent ship are not
liable to confiscation. Mr. Bunch, therefore, in what he has done
in this matter, has acted in obedience to the instructions of his
government, who accept the responsibility of his proceedings so
far as they are known to the Foreign Department, and who cannot
remove him from his office for having obeyed instructions."
Here then was a complete official negotiation with the Confederate
States. Mr. Montagu Bernard, in his ingenious and learned work,
_The Neutrality of Great Britain during the American War_, conceals
the true character of the work in which the British Government had
been engaged: "The history of an unofficial application made to
the Confederate States on the same subject is told in the two
following dispatches. It will be seen that the channel of
communication was a private person instructed by the British and
French consuls, who had been themselves instructed by the ministers
of their respective governments at Washington." The presence of
a private intermediary at one point cannot break the chain of
official communication if the communications are themselves official.
For certain purposes the governments of England and France consulted
and determined upon a specific line of policy. That policy was
communicated in regular official instructions to their minister in
Washington. The Ministers were to select the instruments to carry
it out, and the persons selected were the official consular
representatives of France and England, who although residing at
the South held their _exequatures_ from the United-States Government.
They were instructed to make a political application to the government
of the Confederacy, and Lord John Russell could not disguise that
government under the mask of "the persons exercising authority in
the so-called Confederate States." Their application was received
by the Confederate Government through their agent just as it would
have been received through the mail addressed to the Secretary of
State. Their application was officially acted upon by the Confederate
Congress, and the result contained in an official document was
transmitted to them, and forwarded by them to their immediate
official superiors in Washington, who recognized it as a successful
result of "a difficult and delicate negotiation." It was then sent
to the Foreign Secretaries of the two countries, and the responsibility
of the act was fully and finally assumed by those ministers.
Nor can it be justified as an application to a belligerent, informing
him that in the exercise of belligerent rights England and France
would expect a strict conformity to International Law. The four
articles of the Treaty of Paris were not provisions of International
Law. They were explicit modifications of that law as it had long
existed, and the Declaration itself stated that it was not to bind
any of the Powers which had not agreed expressly to accept it. It
was therefore an invitation, not to a belligerent but to the Southern
Confederacy, to accept and thus become a part to an international
compact to which in the very nature of things there could be no
parties save those whose acceptance constituted an international
obligation. It has never yet been claimed that a mere insurgent
belligerent, however strong, occupied such position. If instead
of declaring by resolution that the second, third, and fourth
articles of the Declaration of Paris were principles which by their
own voluntary action they would adopt as rules for their own
government, the Confederate States had, with an astute policy which
the invitation itself seems intended to suggest, demanded that they
should be allowed to accept the Declaration in the same method in
which it had been accepted "by every other nation," it is difficult
to see how their demand could have been refused; and if it has been
admitted, what would have been wanting to perfect the recognition
of the independence of the Southern Confederacy?
THE PARIS CONVENTION.
The motive of England and France in this extraordinary negotiation
with the Confederacy is plain. The right of privateering was not
left untouched except with deep design. By securing the assent of
the Confederacy to the other three articles of the Paris Convention,
safety was assured to British and French cargoes under the American
flag, while every American cargo was at risk unless protected by
a Foreign flag--generally the flag of England. It would have been
impossible to invent a process more gainful to British commerce,
more harmful to American commerce. While the British and French
consuls were conducting this negotiation with the Confederate
States, the British and French ministers were conducting another
to the same purport with the United States. Finally Mr. Seward
offered to waive the point made by Secretary Marcy many years before
at the date of the Declaration, and to accept the four articles of
the Paris Convention, pure and simple. But his could not be done,
because the Confederate States had not accepted the first article
abolishing privateering and her privateers must therefore be
recognized. England and France used this fact as a pretext for
absolutely declining to permit the accession of the United States,
one of the great maritime powers of the world, to a treaty which
was proclaimed to be a wise and humane improvement of the old and
harsh law of nations, and to which in former years the United States
had been most earnestly invited to give her assent. This course
throws a flood of light on the clandestine correspondence with the
Confederacy, and plainly exposes the reasons why it was desired
that the right of privateering should be left open to the Confederates.
Through that instrumentality great harm could be inflicted on the
United States and at the same time England could be guarded against
a cotton famine. To accomplish these ends she negotiated what was
little less than a hostile treaty with an Insurgent Government.
This action was initiated before a single battle was fought, and
was evidently intended as encouragement and inspiration to the
Confederates to persist in their revolutionary proceedings against
the Government of the United States. Any reasonable man, looking
at the condition of affairs, could not doubt that the public
recognition of the independence of the Confederacy by England and
France, was a foregone and rapidly approaching conclusion.
With this condition of affairs leading necessarily to a more
pronounced unfriendliness, an incident occurred towards the close
of the year which seriously threatened a final breach of amicable
relations. On the 9th of November, 1861, Captain Wilkes of the
United-States steamer _San Jacinto_, seized the persons of James
M. Mason and John Slidell, ministers from the Southern Confederacy,
and their secretaries, on board the British mail-steamer _Trent_
on her way from Havana to Kingston. Messrs. Mason and Slidell were
accredited by the Executive of the Southern Confederacy to the
Governments of England and France. Their avowed object was to
obtain the recognition by those governments of the independence of
the new Southern Republic, and their success would have been a most
dangerous if not a fatal blow to the cause of the Union. But they
were not by any recognized principle of international law contraband
of war, and they were proceeding from a neutral port to a neutral
port in a neutral vessel. The action of the officer who seized
them was not authorized by any instructions, and the seizure was
itself in violation of those principles of maritime law for which
the United States had steadily and consistently contended from the
establishment of its national life. The difficulty of adjustment
lay not in the temper or conviction of either government, but in
the passionate and very natural excitement of popular feeling in
both countries. In the United States there was universal and
enthusiastic approval of the act of Captain Wilkes. In England
there was an equally vehement demand for immediate and signal
reparation.
LORD JOHN RUSSELL AND LORD LYONS.
Lord John Russell, after reciting the facts, instructed Lord Lyons
in a dispatch of Nov. 30, 1861: "Her Majesty's Government therefore
trust that when this matter shall have been brought under the
consideration of the Government of the United States, that government
will of its own accord offer to the British Government such redress
as alone would satisfy the British nation; namely, the liberation
of the four gentlemen and their delivery to your Lordship in order
that they may again be placed under British protection, and a
suitable apology for the aggression which has been committed.
Should these terms not be offered by Mr. Seward you will propose
them to him." In a dispatch of the same date Lord John Russell
says to Lord Lyons: "In my previous dispatch of this date I have
instructed you by command of Her Majesty to make certain demands
of the Government of the United States. Should Mr. Seward ask for
delay in order that this grave and painful matter should be
deliberately considered, you will consent to a delay not exceeding
seven days. If at the end of that time no answer is given, or if
any other answer is given except that of compliance with the demands
of Her Majesty's Government, your Lordship is instructed to leave
Washington with all the members of your Legation, bringing with
you the archives of the Legation, and to repair immediately to
London. If however you should be of opinion that the requirements
of Her Majesty's Government are substantially complied with you
may report the facts to Her Majesty's Government for their
consideration, and remain at your post until you receive further
orders." The communication of this peremptory limitation of time
for a reply would have been an offensive threat; but it was a
private instruction to guide the discretion of the minister, not
to be used if the condition of things upon its arrival promised an
amicable solution. It must also in justice be remembered that
excited feeling had been shown by different departments of our own
Government as well as by the press and the people. The House of
Representatives had unanimously adopted a resolution thanking
Captain Wilkes "for his brave, adroit, and patriotic conduct;" and
the Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Gideon Welles, had publicly and
officially approved his action.
The spirit in which Lord Lyons would receive his instructions was
indicated in advance by his own dispatch to Lord John Russell of
Nov. 19, 1861: "I have accordingly deemed it right to maintain
the most complete reserve on the subject. To conceal the distress
which I feel would be impossible, nor would it if possible be
desirable; but I have expressed no opinion on the questions of
international law involved; I have hazarded no conjecture as to
the course which will be taken by Her Majesty's Government. On
the one hand I dare not run the risk of compromising the honor and
inviolability of the British flag by asking for a measure of
reparation which may prove to be inadequate. On the other hand I
am scarcely less unwilling to incur the danger of rendering a
satisfactory settlement of the question more difficult by making
a demand which may turn out to be unnecessarily great. In the
present imperfect state of my information I feel that the only
proper and prudent course is to wait for the orders which your
Lordship will give, with a complete knowledge of the whole case.
I am unwilling moreover to deprive any explanation or reparation
which the United-States Government may think it right to offer, of
the grace of being made spontaneously. I know too that a demand
from me would very much increase the main difficulty which the
government would feel in yielding to any disposition which they
may have to make amends to Great Britain. The American people
would more easily tolerate a spontaneous offer of reparation made
by its government from a sense of justice than a compliance with
a demand for satisfaction from a foreign minister."
In accordance with the sentiments thus expressed, Lord Lyons,
interpreting his discretion liberally and even generously, called
upon Mr. Seward on the 19th of December, 1861, and the following
is his official account of the interview: "The Messenger Seymour
delivered to me at half-past eleven o'clock last night your Lordship's
dispatch of the 30th ultimo, specifying the reparation required by
Her Majesty's Government for the seizure of Mr. Mason and Mr.
Slidell and their secretaries on board the royal mail-steamer
_Trent_. I waited on Mr. Seward this afternoon at the State
Department, and acquainted him in general terms with the tenor of
that dispatch. I stated in particular, as nearly as possible in
your Lordship's words, that the only redress which could satisfy
Her Majesty's Government and Her Majesty's people would be the
immediate delivery of the prisoners to me in order that they might
be placed under British protection, and moreover a suitable apology
for the aggression which had been committed. I added that Her
Majesty's Government hoped that the Government of the United States
would of its own accord offer this reparation; that it was in order
to facilitate such an arrangement that I had come to him without
any written demand, or even any written paper at all, in my hand;
that if there was a prospect of attaining this object I was willing
to be guided by him as to the conduct on my part which would render
its attainment most easy. Mr. Seward received my communication
seriously and with dignity, but without any manifestation of
dissatisfaction. Some further conversation ensued in consequence
of questions put by him with a view to ascertain the exact character
of the dispatch. At the conclusion he asked me to give him to-
morrow to consider the question and to communicate with the President.
On the day after he should, he said, be ready to express an opinion
with respect to the communication I had made. In the mean time he
begged me to be assured that he was very sensible of the friendly
and conciliatory manner in which I had made it."
SECRETARY SEWARD AND LORD LYONS.
On the 26th of December Mr. Seward transmitted to Lord Lyons the
reply of the United States to the demand of the British Government.
In forwarding it to his Government Lord Lyons said: "Before
transmitting to me the note of which a copy enclosed in my immediately
preceding dispatch of to-day's date, Mr. Seward sent for me to the
State Department, and said with some emotion that he thought that
it was due to the great kindness and consideration which I had
manifested throughout in dealing with the affair of the _Trent_,
that he should tell me with his own lips that he had been able to
effect a satisfactory settlement of it. He had now however been
authorized to address to me a note which would be satisfactory to
Her Majesty's Government. In answer to inquiries from me Mr. Seward
said that of course he understood Her Majesty's Government to leave
it open to the Government of Washington to present the case in the
form which would be most acceptable to the American people, but
that the note was intended to be and was a compliance with the
terms proposed by Her Majesty's Government. He would add that the
friendly spirit and discretion which I had manifested in the whole
matter from the day on which the intelligence of the seizure reached
Washington up to the present moment had more than any thing else
contributed to the satisfactory settlement of the question."
In his reply Mr. Seward took the ground that we had the right to
detain the British vessel and to search for contraband persons and
dispatches, and moreover that the persons named and their dispatches
were contraband. But he found good reason for surrendering the
Confederate envoys in the fact that Captain Wilkes had neglected
to bring the _Trent_ into a Prize Court and to submit the whole
transaction to Judicial examination. Mr. Seward certainly strained
the argument of Mr. Madison as Secretary of State in 1804 to a most
extraordinary degree when he apparently made it cover the ground
that we would quietly have submitted to British right of search if
the "Floating Judgment-seat" could have been substituted by a
British Prize Court. The seizure of the _Trent_ would not have
been made more acceptable to the English Government by transferring
her to the jurisdiction of an American Prize-Court, unless indeed
that Court should have decided, as it most probably would have
decided, that the seizure was illegal. Measuring the English demand
not by the peremptory words of Lord John Russell but by the kindly
phrase in which Lord Lyons in a personal interview verbally
communicated them, Mr. Seward felt justified in saying that "the
claim of the British Government is not made in a discourteous
manner." Mr. Seward did not know that at the very moment he was
writing these conciliatory words, British troops were on their way
to the Dominion of Canada to menace the United States, and that
British cannon were shotted for our destruction.
Lord John Russell, however much he might differ from Mr. Seward's
argument, found ample satisfaction to the British Government in
his conclusion. He said in reply: "Her Majesty's Government having
carefully taken into their consideration the liberation of the
prisoners, the delivery of them into your hands, and the explanations
to which I have just referred, have arrived at the conclusion that
they constitute the reparation which Her Majesty and the British
nation had a right to expect." And thus, by the delivery of the
prisoners in the form and at the place least calculated to excite
or wound the susceptibilities of the American people, this dangerous
question was settled. It is only to be regretted that the spirit
and discretion exhibited by the eminent diplomatist who represented
England here with such wisdom and good temper, had not been adopted
at an earlier date and more steadily maintained by the British
Government. It would have prevented much angry controversy, much
bitter feeling; it would have averted events and consequences which
still shadow with distrust a national friendship that ought to be
cordial and constant.
ENGLAND, FRANCE, PRUSSIA, AND AUSTRIA.
The painful event impressed upon the Government of the United States
a profound sense of its isolation from the sympathy of Europe.
The principle of maritime law, which was so promptly and rigorously
applied, was one for which the United States had contended in its
weakness against the usages of the world and against the arms of
Great Britain. There was apparent now an eager resolution to
enforce it, when that enforcement was sure to embarrass us and to
provoke a spirit of derisive triumph in our foes. It was clear
that no effort would be spared to restrict our belligerent rights
within the narrowest possible limits. Not content with leaving us
to settle this question with England, France and Prussia and Austria
hastened to inform us in language professedly friendly, that England
would be supported in her demand for reparation, cost what it might
to us in prestige, and in power to deal with the Rebellion at home.
At this time there was but one among the great nations of the world
which adhered to an active and avowed friendship for us. "We desire
above all things the maintenance of the American Union as one
indivisible nation," was the kindly and always to be remembered
greeting that came to us from the Emperor of Russia.
The profound ability exhibited by Mr. Seward as Secretary of State
has long been acknowledged and emphasized by the admiration and
gratitude of the country. In the _Trent_ affair he acted under a
pressure of circumstances more harassing and perplexing than had
ever tested the skill of American diplomacy. It is with no
disposition to detract from the great service rendered by him that
a dissent is expressed from the ground upon which he placed the
surrender of Mason and Slidell. It is not believed that the doctrine
announced by Mr. Seward can be maintained on sound principles of
International Law, while it is certainly in conflict with the
practice which the United States had sought to establish from the
foundation of the Government. The restoration of the envoys on
any such apparently insufficient basis did not avoid the mortification
of the surrender; it only deprived us of the fuller credit and
advantage which we might have secured from the act. It is to be
regretted that we did not place the restoration of the prisoners
upon franker and truer ground, viz., that their seizure was in
violation of the principles which we had steadily and resolutely
maintained--principles which we would not abandon either for a
temporary advantage or to save the wounding of our National pride.
The luminous speech of Mr. Sumner, when the papers in the _Trent_
case were submitted to Congress, stated the ground for which the
United States had always contended with admirable precision. We
could not have refused to surrender Mason and Slidell without
trampling upon our own principles and disregarding the many precedents
we had sought to establish. But it must not be forgotten that the
sword of precedent cut both ways. It was as absolutely against
the peremptory demand of England for the surrender of the prisoners
as it was against the United States for the seizure of them.
Whatever wrong was inflicted on the British Flag by the action of
Captain Wilkes, had been time and again inflicted on the American
flag by officers of the English Navy,--without cause, without
redress, without apology. Hundreds and thousands of American
citizens had in time of peace been taken by British cruisers from
the decks of American vessels and violently impressed into the
naval service of that country.
Lord Castlereagh practically confessed in Parliament that this
offense against the liberty of American citizens had been repeated
thirty-five hundred times. According to the records of our own
department of State as Mr. Sumner alleges "the quarter-deck of a
British man-of-war had been made a floating judgment-seat six
thousand times and upwards, and each time some citizen or other
person was taken from the protection of our national flag without
any form of trial whatever." So insolent and oppressive had British
aggression become before the war of 1812, that Mr. Jefferson in
his somewhat celebrated letter to Madame de Stael-Holstein of May
24, 1813, said, "No American could safely cross the ocean or venture
to pass by sea from one to another of our own ports. _It is not
long since they impressed at sea two nephews of General Washington
returning from Europe, and put them, as common seamen, under the
ordinary discipline of their ships of war_."
After the war of 1812 these unendurable insults to our flag were
not repeated by Great Britain, but her Government steadily refused
to make any formal renunciation of her right to repeat them, so
that our immunity from like insults did not rest upon any better
foundation than that which might be dictated by considerations of
interest and prudence on the part of the offending Power. The
wrong which Captain Wilkes committed against the British flag was
surely not so great as if he had seized the persons of British
subjects--subjects, if you please, who were of kindred blood to
one who stands as high in the affection of the British people as
Washington stands in the affection of the American people,--if
indeed there be such a one in English tradition.
The offense of Captain Wilkes was surely far below that in the
essential quality of outrage. He had not touched the hair of a
British subject's head. He had only removed from the hospitality
and shelter of a British ship four men who were bent on an errand
of destruction to the American Union. His act cannot be justified
by the canons of International Law as our own Government has
interpreted and enforced them. But in view of the past and of the
long series of graver outrages with which Great Britain had so
wantonly insulted the American flag, she might have refrained from
invoking the judgment of the civilized world against us, and
especially might she have refrained from making in the hour of our
sore trial and our deep distress, a demand which no British Minister
would address to this Government in the day of its strength and
its power.
FRIENDLY POSITION OF THE QUEEN.
It would be ungracious to withhold an expression of the lasting
appreciation entertained in this country of the course pursued by
Her Majesty, the Queen of England, throughout this most painful
ordeal. She was wiser than her Ministers, and there can be little
doubt but for her considerate interposition, softening the rigor
of the British demand, the two nations would have been forced into
war. On all the subsequent occasions for bitterness towards England,
by reason of the treatment we experienced during the war, there
was an instinctive feeling among Americans that the Queen desired
peace and good will, and did not sympathize with the insidious
efforts at our destruction, which had their origin in her dominions.
It was fortunate that the disposition of the Queen, and not of her
Ministry, was represented in Washington by Lord Lyons. The good
sense and good temper of His Lordship were of inestimable value to
both countries, in making the task of Mr. Seward practicable,
without increasing the resentment of our people.
It was well that the Government and people of the United States
were so early taught that their value to the world of foreign
principles, foreign feeling, and foreign interests was only what
they could themselves establish; that in this contest they must
depend upon themselves; and that the dissolution of their National
Unity and the destruction of their free, popular Government from
the lack of courage and wisdom in those whose duty it was to maintain
them, would not be unwelcome to the Principalities and Powers that
"were willing to wound, but yet afraid to strike." This is not
the time to describe the vacillating and hesitating development of
this hostile policy; but as the purpose of the United-States
Government grew more steady, more resolute, and more self-reliant,
a sickening doubt seemed to becloud the ill-concealed hope of our
ruin. It was not long until the brave and deluded rebels of the
South learned that there was no confidence to be placed in the
cruel and selfish calculation which encouraged their desperate
resistance with the show of sympathy, but would not avow an open
support or make a manly sacrifice in their behalf.
This initial policy of foreign powers had developed its natural
consequences. It not only excited but it warranted in the Southern
Confederacy the hope of early recognition. It seemed impossible
that, with this recognized equality between the belligerents, there
would not occur somewhere just such incidents as the seizure of
the _Trent_ or the capture of the _Florida_ which would render it
very difficult to maintain peaceful relations between foreign Powers
and the United States. The neutrality laws were complicated. Men-
of-war commanded by ambitious, ardent, and patriotic officers would
sometimes in the excitement of honorable feeling, sometimes in
mistaken sense of duty, vindicate their country's flag; while it
was the interest of the officers of the Confederate cruisers, as
bold and ingenious men who ever commanded ship, to create, wherever
they could, difficulties which would embarrass the interests of
neutrals and intensify between the United States and foreign Powers
the growing feeling of distrust. Thus from month to month the
Government of the United States could never feel secure that there
would not arise questions which the indignation of its own people
and the pride and latent hostility of foreign government would
place beyond the power of friendly adjustment. Such questions did
arise with England, France, Brazil, Spain, and even with Mexico,
which the common disinclination to actual war succeeded in postponing
rather than settling. But as the civil war went on, three classes
of questions took continuous and precise shape. Their scope and
result can be fully and fairly considered. These were--
1. The building and equipping of Confederate cruisers and their
treatment as legitimate national vessels of war in the home and
colonial ports of foreign powers.
2. The establishment at such ports as Nassau, in the immediate
vicinity of the blockaded ports of the Southern States, of depots
of supplies, which afforded to the Confederates enormous advantages
in the attempt to break the blockade.
3. The distinct defiance of the traditional policy of the United
States by the invasion of the neighboring Republic of Mexico for
the avowed purpose of establishing there a foreign and monarchical
dynasty.
SECRET SERVICE OF THE CONFEDERACY.
No sooner had Her Brittanic Majesty's proclamation, recognizing
the belligerent rights of the Southern Confederacy, been issued,
than a naval officer of remarkable ability and energy was sent from
Montgomery to Liverpool. In his very interesting history of the
services rendered by him, that officer says: "The chief object of
this narrative is to demonstrate by a plain statement of facts that
the Confederate Government, through their agents, did nothing more
than all other belligerents have heretofore done in time of need;
namely, tried to obtain from every possible source the means
necessary to carry on the war in which they were engaged, and that
in so doing they took particular pains to understand the municipal
law of those countries in which they sought to supply their wants,
and were especially careful to keep with the statutes. . . .
"The object of the Confederate Government was not merely to build
a single ship, but it was to maintain a permanent representative
of the Navy Department abroad, and to get ships and naval supplies
without hindrance so long as the war lasted. To effect this purpose
it was manifestly necessary to act with prudence and caution and
to do nothing in violation of the municipal law, because a single
conviction would both expose the object and defeat the aim." His
solicitor "therefore drew up a case for counsel's opinion and
submitted it to two eminent barristers, both of whom have since
filled the highest judicial positions. The case was submitted;
was a general and not a specific proposition. It was not intimated
for what purpose and on whose behalf the opinion was asked, and
the reply was therefore wholly without bias, and embraced a full
exposition of the Act in its bearing upon the question of building
and equipping ships in Her Majesty's dominions.
"The inferences drawn from the investigation of the Act by counsel
were put in the following form by my solicitor:--
"'1. It is no offense (under the Act) for British subjects to
equip, etc., a ship at some country _without_ Her Majesty's dominions
though the intent be to cruise against a friendly State.
"'2. It is no offense for _any_ person (subject or no subject) to
_equip_ a ship _within_ Her Majesty's dominions if it be _not_ done
with the intent to cruise against a friendly State.
"'3. The mere building of a ship _within_ Her Majesty's dominions
by any person (subject or no subject) is no offense, _whatever may
be the intent of the parties_, because the offense is not in the
_building_, but the _equipping_.
"'Therefore any ship-builder may build any ship in Her Majesty's
dominions, provided he does not equip her within Her Majesty's
dominions, and he had nothing to do with the acts of the purchasers
done _within_ Her Majesty's dominions without his concurrence, or
without Her Majesty's dominions even with his concurrence.'"--
[BULLOCK's _Secret Service of the Confederate States_, vol. i, pp.
65-67.]
It is an amazing courtesy which attributes to the eminent counsel
a complete ignorance of the object and purpose for which their
weighty opinion was sought in the construction of British law.
Such ignorance is feigned and not real, and the pretense of its
existence indicates either on the part of the author or the counsel
a full appreciation of the deadly consequences of that malign
interpretation of England's duty for which two illustrious members
of the English Bar were willing to stand sponsors before the world.
Conceding, as we fairly may concede, that the decision in the case
of the _Alexandra_ is confirmatory of the opinion given by these
leaders of the British bar, the result was simply the establishment
and administration of the Naval Department of the Confederacy in
England. There was its chief, there were its financial agents,
there its workshops. There were its vessels armed and commissioned.
Thence they sailed on their mission of destruction, and thither
they returned to repair their damages, and to renew their supplies.
Under formal contracts with the Confederate Government the colonial
ports of Nassau and the Bermudas were made depots of supplies which
were drawn upon with persistent and successful regularity. The
effects of this thoroughly organized system of so-called neutrality
that supplied ports, ships, arms, and men to a belligerent which
had none, are not matters of conjecture or exaggeration; they have
been proven and recorded. In three years fifteen million dollars'
worth of property was destroyed,--given to the flame or sunk beneath
the waters,--the shipping of the United States was reduced one-
half, and the commercial flag of the Union fluttered with terror
in every wind that blew, form the whale-fisheries of the Arctic to
the Southern Cross.
MINISTER DAYTON'S INDIGNANT PROTEST.
With this condition of affairs, permitted and encouraged by England
and France, our distinguished minister at Paris was justified in
saying to the Government of Louis Napoleon on the reception of the
Confederate steamer _Georgia_ at Brest, in language which though
but the bare recital of fact was of itself the keenest reproach to
the French Government:--
"The _Georgia_, like the _Florida_, the _Alabama_, and other scourges
of peaceful commerce, was born of that unhappy decree which gave
the rebels who did not own a ship-of-war or command a single port
the right of an ocean belligerent. Thus encouraged by foreign
powers they began to build and fit out in neutral ports a class of
vessels constructed mainly for speed, and whose acknowledged mission
is not to fight, but to rob, to burn, and to fly. Although the
smoke of burning ships has everywhere marked the track of the
_Georgia_ and the _Florida_ upon the ocean, they have never sought
a foe or fired a gun against an armed enemy. To dignify such
vessels with the name of ships-of-war seems to me, with deference,
a misnomer. Whatever flag may fly from their mast-head, or whatever
power may claim to own them, their conduct stamps them as piratical.
If vessels of war even, they would by this conduct have justly
forfeited all courtesies in ports of neutral nations. Manned by
foreign seamen, armed by foreign guns, entering no home port, and
waiting no judicial condemnation of prizes, they have already
devastated and destroyed our commerce to an extent, as compared
with their number, beyond any thing known in the records of
privateering."
It would seem impossible that such a state of things could be the
result of the impartial administration of an honest neutrality.
It must be attributed to one of two causes;--either the municipal
law of foreign countries was not sufficient to enable the governments
to control the selfishness or the sentiment of their people,--to
which the reply is obvious that the weakness and incompetence of
municipal law cannot diminish or excuse international obligations:
or it must have been due to a misconception of the obligations
which international law imposes. How far there may have been a
motive for this misconception, how far the wish was father to the
thought of such misconstruction, it is perhaps needless now to
inquire. The theory of international law maintained by the foreign
Powers may be fairly stated in two propositions:--
1. That foreign Powers had the right, and in due regard to their
own interests were bound, to recognize belligerency as a fact.
2. That belligerents once recognized, were equals and must be
treated with the same perfect neutrality.
It is not necessary to deny these propositions, but simply to
ascertain their real meaning. In its primary and simple application,
the law of belligerency referred to two or more belligerents,
equally independent. Its application to the case of insurgents
against an established and recognized government is later, involves
other and in some respects different considerations, and cannot
even now be regarded as settled. To recognize an insurgent as a
belligerent is not to recognize him as fully the equal of the
government from which he secedes. This would be simply to recognize
his independence. The limitation which international law places
upon this recognition is stated in the English phrase, "the right
to recognize belligerency as a fact;"--that is, to recognize the
belligerent to the extent of his war capacity but no farther. The
neutral cannot on this principle recognize in the belligerent the
possession of any power which he does not actually possess, although
in the progress of the contest such power may be developed.
The Southern Confederacy had an organized government and great
armies. To that extent its power was a fact. But when foreign
governments recognized in the insurgents the rights of ocean
belligerency, they went beyond the fact. They were actually giving
to the Confederacy a character which it did not possess and which
it never acquired. For the Confederacy had not a ship or an open
port. Whenever an insurgent power claims such right, it must be
in condition to assume and discharge the obligation which such
rights impose. When any power, insurgent or recognized, claims
such right,--the right to fly its flag, to deal in hostility with
the commerce of the world, to exercise dangerous privileges which
may affect the interests and complicate the relations of other
nations,--it must give to the world a guaranty that it is both able
and willing to administer the system of maritime law under which
it claims such rights and powers, by submitting its action to the
regular and formal jurisdiction of Prize Courts. Strike the Prize
Court out of modern maritime law and the whole system falls, and
capture on the sea becomes pure barbarism,--distinguished from
piracy only by the astuteness of a legal technicality. The Southern
Confederacy could give no guaranty. Just as it undertook to
naturalize foreign seamen upon the quarter-deck of its roving
cruisers, so it undertook to administer a system of maritime law
which precluded the most solemn and important of its provisions--
a judicial decision--and converted the humane and legal right of
capture into an absolute and a ruthless decree of destruction. No
neutral has the right to make or accept such an interpolation into
the recognized and essential principles of the law of maritime
warfare.
ENGLAND'S MALIGNANT NEUTRALITY.
The application of this so-called neutrality to both the so-called
belligerents was not designed nor was it practicable. In referring
to the obligation of the neutral to furnish no assistance to either
of the belligerents, one of the oldest and most authoritative of
international law writers says: "I do not say to give assistance
equally but to give no assistance, for it would be absurd that a
state should assist at the same time two enemies. And besides it
would be impossible to do it with equality: the same things, the
like number of troops, the like quantity of arms and munitions
furnished under different circumstances are no longer equivalent
succors." Assistance is not a theoretical idea; it is a plain,
practical, unmistakable fact. When the United States had, at vast
cost and by incredible effort, shut the Southern Confederacy from
the sea and blockaded its ports against the entry of supplies, when
that government had no resources within its territory by which it
could put a ship upon the ocean, or break the blockade from within,
then it was that England allowed Confederate officers to camp upon
her soil, organize her labor, employ her machinery, use her ports,
occupy her colonial stations, almost within sight of the blockaded
coast, and to do this continuously, systematically, defiantly.
By these acts the British government gave the most valuable assistance
to the South and actually engaged in defeating the military operations
of the United States. There was no equivalent assistance which
Great Britain could or did render to the United States. They might
have rendered other assistance, but none which would compensate
for this. Let it be supposed for one moment that Mexico had
practiced, on the other side of the Rio Grande, the same sort of
neutrality,--that she had lined the bank of the river with depots
of military supplies; that she had allowed officers of the Confederate
army to establish themselves and organize a complete system for
the receipt of cotton and the delivery of merchandise on her
territory; that her people had served as factors, intermediaries,
and carriers,--would any reasonable interpretation of international
law consider such conduct to be impartial neutrality? But illustration
does not strengthen the argument. The naked statement of England's
position is its worst condemnation. Her course, while ingeniously
avoiding public responsibility, gave unceasing help to the Confederacy
--as effective as if the intention had been proclaimed. The whole
procedure was in disregard of international obligation and was the
outgrowth of what M. Prevost-Paradol aptly charaterized as a
"malignant neutrality."
It cannot be said in reply that the Governments of England and
France were unable to restrain this demonstration of the sympathy,
this exercise of the commercial enterprise of their people. For
the time came when they did restrain it. As soon as it became
evident that the Confederacy was growing weaker, that with all its
marvelous display of courage and endurance it could not prevent
the final success of the Union, there was no longer difficulty in
arresting the building of the iron-clads on the Mersey; then the
watchfulness of home and colonial authorities was quickened; then
supplies were meted out scantily; then the dangers of a great slave
empire began to impress Ministerial consciences, and the same Powers
prepared to greet the triumph of the Union with well-feigned
satisfaction. But even if this change had not occurred the condition
of repressed hostility could not have lasted. It was war in disguise
--not declared, only because the United-States Government could
not afford to multiply its enemies, and England felt that there
was still uncertainty enough in the result to caution her against
assuming so great a risk. But the tension of the relation was
aptly described by Mr. Seward in July, 1863, when he said,--
"If the law of Great Britain must be left without amendment and be
construed by the government in conformity with the rulings of the
chief Baron of the Exchequer [the _Alexandra_ case] then there will
be left for the United States no alternative but to protect themselves
and their commerce against armed cruisers proceeding from British
ports as against the naval forces of a public enemy. . . . British
ports, domestic as well as colonial, are now open under certain
restrictions to the visits of piratical vessels, and not only
furnish them coals, provisions, and repairs, but even receive their
prisoners when the enemies of the United States come in to obtain
such relief from voyages in which they have either burned ships
they have captured, or have even manned and armed them as pirates
and sent them abroad as auxiliaries in the work of destruction.
Can it be an occasion for either surprise or complaint that if this
condition of things is to remain and receive the deliberate sanction
of the British Government, the navy of the United States will
receive instructions to pursue these enemies into the ports which
thus in violation of the law of nations and the obligations of
neutrality become harbors for the pirates? The President very
distinctly perceives the risks and hazards which a naval conflict
thus maintained will bring to the commerce and even to the peace
of the two countries. But he is obliged to consider that in the
case supposed, the destruction of our commerce will probably amount
to a naval war, waged by a portion at least of the British nation
against the government and people of the United States--a war
tolerated although not declared or avowed by the British Government.
If through the necessary employment of all our means of national
defense such a partial war shall become a general one between the
two nations, the President thinks that the responsibility for that
painful result will not fall upon the United States."
ENGLAND'S MALIGNANT NEUTRALITY.
The truth is that the so-called neutral policy of foreign Powers
was the vicious application of obsolete analogies to the conditions
of modern life. Because of the doctrine of belligerent recognition
had in its origin referred to nations of well established, independent
existence, the doctrine was now pushed forward to the extent of
giving ocean belligerency to an insurgent which had in reality no
maritime power whatever. It was an old and recognized principle
that the commercial relations of the neutral should not be interfered
with unless they worked positive injury to the belligerent. The
new application made the interests of neutral commerce the supreme
factor in determining how far belligerent rights should be respected.
The ship-building and carrying-trade of England were to be maintained
and encouraged at any cost to the belligerent. Under the old law,
a belligerent had the right to purchase a ship and a cargo, or a
neutral might run a blockade, taking all the risk of capture. By
the new construction, power was to be given to a belligerent to
transfer the entire administration of its naval service to foreign
soil, and to create and equip a navy which issued from foreign
waters, ready not for a dangerous journey to their own ports of
delivery, but for the immediate demonstration of hostile purpose.
No such absurd system can be found in the principles or precedents
of international law; no such system would be permitted by the
great powers of Europe if to-morrow they should engage in war.
The principle of this policy was essentially mercenary. It professed
no moral sense. It might be perfectly indifferent to the high or
the low issues which the contest between the belligerents involved;
it was deaf to any thing which might be urged by justice of humanity
or friendship; it was the cynical recognition of the truth of the
old proverb that "It is an ill wind which blows good to no one."
It was the same principle upon which England declares with audacious
selfishness that she cannot sacrifice that portion of her Indian
revenue which comes from the opium trade or the capital which is
invested in its growth and manufacture, and that China must therefore
take the poison which diseases and degrades her population. But
selfish as is this market-policy, it is a policy of circumstance.
It may be resisted with success or it may be abandoned because it
cannot succeed. It creates bitterness; it leads to war; it may in
its selfishness cause the destruction of a nation, but it does not
necessarily imply a desire for that destruction. But there was in
the foreign policy of Europe towards the United States during the
civil war the manifestation of a spirit more intense in its hostility,
more dangerous in its consequences. It was the spirit of enmity
to the Union itself, and the emphatic demonstration of this feeling
was the invasion of Mexico for the purpose of converting the republic
by force into an empire. Louis Napoleon's enterprise was distinctly
based on the utter destruction of the American Union.
The Declaration of Independence by the British Colonies in America
was something more than the creation of a new sovereignty. It was
the foundation of a new system both of internal government and
foreign relation, a system not entirely isolated from the affairs
of the Old World but independent of the dynastic complications and
the territorial interests which controlled the political conflicts
of Europe. At first, with its material resources undeveloped, its
territorial extension limited and surrounded by the colonies of
the great Powers, this principle although maintained as a conviction,
could not manifest itself in action. But it showed itself in that
abstinence from entangling alliances which would avoid the dangers
of even a too friendly connection. In time our territory expanded.
The colonies of foreign nations following our example became
independent republics whose people had the same aspirations, whose
governments were framed upon the same basis of popular right. The
rapidity of communication, supplied by the railroad and the telegraph,
facilitated and concentrated this political cohesion, and there
had been formed from the borders of Canada to the Straits of Magellan
a complete system of republics (to which Brazil can scarcely be
considered an exception) professing the same political creed, having
great commercial interests in common, and which with the extinction
of some few jealousies, were justified in the anticipation of a
prosperous and peaceful future. There was not an interest or an
ambition of a single one of these republics which threatened an
interest or an ambition of a single European power.
THE REPUBLICS OF AMERICA.
It needs no argument to show that the central element of the
stability of this system of American republics was the strength of
the Federal Union, its growth into a harmonious nationality, and
its ability to prevent anywhere on the two continents the armed
intervention of foreign Powers for the purpose of political
domination. This strength was known and this resolution publicly
declared, and it is safe to affirm that before 1861 or after 1865
not one nor all of the European Powers would have willingly challenged
this policy. But the moment the strength of the Union seemed
weakened, the moment that the leading Republic of this system found
itself hampered and embarrassed by internal dissensions, all Europe
--that Europe which upon the threatening of a Belgian fortress, or
the invasion of a Swiss canton, or the loss of the key to a church
in Jerusalem, would have written protocols, summoned conferences,
and mustered armies--quietly acquiesced in as wanton, wicked, and
foolish an aggression as ever Imperial folly devised. The same
monarch who appealed with confidence to Heaven when he declared
war to prevent a Hohenzollern from ascending the throne of Spain,
appealed to the same Heaven with equal confidence and equal success
when he declared war to force a Hapsburg upon the throne of Mexico.
The success of the establishment of a Foreign Empire in Mexico
would have been fatal to all that the United States cherished, to
all that it hoped peacefully to achieve. The scheme of invasion
rested on the assumption of the dissolution of the Union and its
division into two hostile governments; but aside from that possibility,
it threatened the United States upon the most vital questions. It
was at war with all our institutions and our habits of political
life, for it would have introduced into a great country on this
continent, capable of unlimited development, that curious and
mischievous form of government, that perplexing mixture of absolutism
and democracy,--imperial power supported by universal suffrage,--
which seems certain to produce aggression abroad and corruption at
home, and which must have injuriously influenced the political
growth of the Spanish-American Republics. Firmly seated in Mexico,
it would have spread through Central America to the Isthmus,
controlling all canal communications between the two oceans which
were the boundaries of the Union, while its growth upon the Pacific
Coast would have been in direct rivalry with the natural and
increasing power of the United States. Commanding the Gulf of
Mexico it would have controlled the whole commerce of the West-
Indian islands and radically changed their future. Bound by dynastic
connection, checked and directed by European influence, it could
not have developed a national policy in harmony with neighboring
States, but its existence and its necessary efforts at expansion
would have made it not only a constant menace to American Republics
but a source of endless war and confusion between the great Powers
of the world. The policy signally failed. But surely European
statesmen, without miraculous foresight, might have anticipated
that its success would have been more dangerous than its defeat,
and that the conservative strength of the Union might be even to
them an influence of good and not of evil.
FORMER VIEWS OF LORD PALMERSTON.
In 1859 Lord Palmerston wrote to Lord John Russell: "It is plain
that France aims through Spain at getting fortified points on each
side of the Gut of Gibraltar which in the event of war between
Spain and France on the one hand and England on the other would by
a cross fire render that strait very difficult and dangerous to
pass and thus virtually shut us out of the Mediterranean. . . .
The French Minister of War or of marine said the other day that
Algeria never would be safe till France possessed a port on the
Atlantic coast of Africa. Against whom would such a port make
Algeria safe? Evidently only against England, and how could such
a port help France against England? Only by tending to shut us
out of the Mediterranean." Later in the same year writing to the
same colleague, he says, "Till lately I had strong confidence in
the fair intentions of Napoleon towards England, but of late I have
begun to feel great distrust and to suspect that his formerly
declared intention of avenging Waterloo has only lain dormant and
has not died away. He seems to have thought that he ought to lay
his foundation by beating with our aid or with our concurrence or
our neutrality, first Russia, then Austria, and by dealing with
them generously to make them his friends in any subsequent quarrel
with us. . . . Next he has been assiduously laboring to increase
his naval means, evidently for offensive as well as for defensive
purposes, and latterly great pains have been taken to raise throughout
France and especially among the army and navy, hatred of England
and a disparaging feeling of our military and naval means."
Is it not strange that, even with such apprehensions, the destruction
of the Union was so welcome in England that it blinded the eyes of
her statesmen and her people? They should surely have seen that
the establishment of a Latin empire under the protection of France,
in the heart of the Spanish-American Republics, would open a field
far more dangerous to British interests than a combination for a
French port in Africa, and that in pursuing his policy the wily
Emperor was providing a throne for an Austrian archduke as a
compensation for the loss of Lombardy. There was a time when Lord
Palmerston himself held broader and juster views of what ought to
be the relations between England and the United States. In 1848
he suggested to Lord John Russell a policy which looked to a complete
unification of the interests of the two countries: "If as I hope,"
said His Lordship, "we shall succeed in altering our Navigation
Laws, and if as a consequence Great Britain and the United States
shall place their commercial marines upon a footing of mutual
equality with the exception of the coasting-trade and some other
special matters, might not such an arrangement afford us a good
opportunity for endeavoring to carry in some degree into execution
the wish which Mr. Fox entertained in 1783, when he wished to
substitute close alliance in the place of sovereignty and dependence
as the connecting link between the United States and Great Britain?
A treaty for mutual defense would no longer be applicable to the
condition of the two countries as independent Powers, but might
they not with mutual advantage conclude a treaty containing something
like the following conditions:--
"1. That in all cases of difference which may hereafter unfortunately
arise between the contracting parties, they will in the first place
have recourse to the mediation of some friendly Power, and that
hostilities shall not begin between them until every endeavor to
settle their difference by such means shall have proved fruitless.
"2. That if either of the two should at any time be at war with
any other Power, no subject or citizen of the other contracting
party shall be allowed to take out letters of marque from such
Power under pain of being treated and dealt with as a pirate.
"3. That in such case of war between either of the two parties
and a third Power, no subject or citizen of the other contracting
party shall be allowed to enter into the service naval or military
of such third Power.
"4. That in such case of war as aforesaid, neither of the contracting
parties shall afford assistance to the enemies of the other by sea
or by land, unless war should break out between the two contracting
parties themselves after the failure of all endeavors to settle
their differences in the manner specified in Article 1."
At the time Lord Palmerston expressed these opinions, we had just
closed the Mexican war, with vast acquisition of territory and with
a display of military power on distant fields of conquest which
surprised European statesmen. Our maritime interests were almost
equal to those of the United Kingdom, our prosperity was great,
the prestige of the Nation was growing. In the thirteen intervening
years between that date and the outbreak of the Southern Rebellion
we had grown enormously in wealth, our Pacific possessions had
shown an extraordinary production of precious metals, our population
had increased more than ten millions. If an alliance with the
United States was desirable for England in 1848, it was far more
desirable in 1861, and Lord Palmerston being Prime Minister in the
latter year, his power to propose and promote it was far greater.
Is there any reason that will satisfactorily account for His
Lordship's abandonment of this ideal relation of friendship between
the two countries except that he saw a speedier way of adding to
the power of England by conniving at the destruction of the Union?
His change from the policy which he painted in 1848 to that which
he acted in 1861 cannot be satisfactorily explained upon any other
hypothesis than that he could not resist the temptation to cripple
and humiliate the Great Republic.
FIXED POLICY OF THE UNITED STATES.
This brief history of the spirit rather than the events which
characterized the foreign relations of the United States during
the civil war, has been undertaken with no desire to revive the
feelings of burning indignation which they provoked, or to prolong
the discussion of the angry questions to which they gave rise.
The relations of nations are not and should not be governed by
sentiment. The interest and ambition of states, like those of men,
will disturb the moral sense and incline to one side or the other
the strict balance of impartial justice. New days bring new issues
and old passions are unsafe counselors. Twenty years have gone
by. England has paid the cost of her mistakes. The Republic of
Mexico has seen the fame and the fortunes of the Emperors who sought
her conquest sink suddenly--as into the pits which they themselves
had digged for their victims--and the Republic of the United States
has come out of her long and bitter struggle, so strong that never
again will she afford the temptation or the opportunity for unfriendly
governments to strike at her National life. Let the past be the
past, but let it be the past with all the instruction and the
warning of its experience.
The future safety of these continents rests upon the strength and
the maintenance of the Union, for had dissolution been possible,
events have shown with what small regard the interests or the honor
of either of the belligerents would have been treated. It has been
taught to the smaller republics that if this strength be shattered
they will be the spoil of foreign arms and the dependent provinces
again of foreign monarchs. When this contest was over, the day of
immaturity had passed and the United States stood before the world
a great and permanent Power. That Power can afford to bury all
resentments. Tranquil at home, developing its inexhaustible
resources with a rapidity and success unknown in history, bound in
sincere friendship, and beyond the possibility of a hostile rivalry,
with the other republics of the continents, standing midway between
Asia and Europe, a Power on the Pacific as well as on the Atlantic,
with no temptation to intermeddle in the questions which disturb
the Old World, the Republic of the United States desires to live
in amicable relation with all peoples, demanding only the abstinence
of foreign intervention in the development of that policy which
her political creed, her territorial extent, and the close and
cordial neighborhood of kindred governments have made the essential
rule of her National life.
[NOTE.--In the foregoing chapter the term "piratical" is used
without qualification in referring to the Southern cruisers, because
it is the word used in the quotations made. It undoubtedly
represented the feeling of the country at that time, but in an
impartial discussion of the events of the war the word cannot be
used with propriety. Our own Courts have found themselves unable
to sustain such a conclusion. Looking to the future it is better
to rest our objections to the mode of maritime warfare adopted by
the Confederacy upon a sound and enduring principle; viz., that
the recognition of ocean belligerency, when the belligerent cannot
give to his lawful exercise of maritime warfare the guaranty of a
prize jurisdiction, is a violation of any just or reasonable system
of international law. The Confederacy had the plea of necessity
for its course, but the jurisdiction of England for aiding and
abetting the practice has not yet been presented.]
[NOTE.--Her Britannic Majesty's principal ministers of State in
1861-2,--at the time of the correspondence touching the _Trent_
affair, referred to in the preceding chapter,--were as follows:--
_Premier_--Lord Palmerston.
_Lord High Chancellor_--Lord Westbury.
_Lord President of the Council_--Earl Granville.
_Lord Privy Seal_--The Duke of Argyll.
_Secretary for Foreign Affairs_--Lord John Russell.
_Secretary for the Colonies_--The Duke of Newcastle.
_Secretary for the Home Department_--Sir George Gray.
_Secretary of State for War_--Sir G. C. Lewis.
_Secretary of State for India_--Sir Charles Wood.
_Chancellor of the Exchequer_--Rt. Honorable W. E. Gladstone.
_Secretary for Ireland_--Rt. Honorable Edward Cardwell.
_Postmaster-General_--Lord Stanley of Alderney.
_President Board of Trade_--Rt. Honorable Charles Pelham Villiers.
The same Ministry, with unimportant changes, continued in power
throughout the whole period of the Rebellion in the United States.]
ADDENDUM.
The Tenth chapter of this volume having been given to the press in
advance of formal publication, many inquiries have been received
in regard to the text of Judge Black's opinion of November 20,
1860, referred to on pp. 231, 232. The opinion was submitted to
the President by Judge Black as Attorney-General. So much of the
opinion as includes the points which are specially controverted
and criticized is here given--about one-half of the entire document.
It is as follows:--
. . . "I come now to the point in your letter which is probably of
the greatest practical importance. By the Act of 1807 you may
employ such parts of the land and naval forces as you may judge
necessary for the purpose of causing the laws to be duly executed,
in all cases where it is lawful to use the militia for the same
purpose. By the Act of 1795 the militia may be called forth
'whenever the laws of the United States shall be opposed, or the
execution thereof obstructed, in any State by combinations too
powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of Judicial
proceedings, or by the power vested in the marshals.' This imposes
upon the President the sole responsibility of deciding whether the
exigency has arisen which requires the use of military force, and
in proportion to the magnitude of that responsibility will be the
care not to overstep the limits of his legal and just authority.
"The laws referred to in the Act of 1795 are manifestly those which
are administered by the judges, and executed by the ministerial
officers of the courts for the punishment of crime against the
United States, for the protection of rights claimed under the
Federal Constitution and laws, and for the enforcement of such
obligations as come within the cognizance of the Federal Judiciary.
To compel obedience to these laws, the courts have authority to
punish all who obstruct their regular administration, and the
marshals and their deputies have the same powers as sheriffs and
their deputies in the several States in executing the laws of the
States. These are the ordinary means provided for the execution
of the laws; and the whole spirit of our system is opposed to the
employment of any other, except in cases of extreme necessity
arising out of great and unusual combinations against them. Their
agency must continue to be used until their incapacity to cope with
the power opposed to them shall be plainly demonstrated. It is
only upon clear evidence to that effect that a military force can
be called into the field. Even then its operations must be purely
defensive. It can suppress only such combinations as are found
directly opposing the laws and obstructing the execution thereof.
It can do no more than what might and ought to be done by a civil
posse, if a civil posse could be raised large enough to meet the
same opposition. On such occasions, especially, the military power
must be kept in strict subordination to the civil authority, since
it is only in aid of the latter that the former can act at all.
"But what if the feeling in any State against the United States
should become so universal that the Federal officers themselves
(including judges, district attorneys, and marshals) would be
reached by the same influences, and resign their places? Of course,
the first step would be to appoint others in their stead, if others
could be got to serve. But in such an event, it is more than
probable that great difficulty would be found in filling the offices.
We can easily conceive how it might become altogether impossible.
We are therefore obliged to consider what can be done in case we
have no courts to issue judicial process, and no ministerial officers
to execute it. In that event troops would certainly be out of
place, and their use wholly illegal. If they are sent to aid the
courts and marshals, there must be courts and marshals to be aided.
Without the exercise of those functions which belong exclusively to
the civil service, the laws cannot be executed in any event, no
matter what may be the physical strength which the Government has
at its command. Under such circumstances, to send a military force
into any State, with orders to act against the people, would be
simply making war upon them.
"The existing laws put and keep the Federal Government strictly on
the defensive. You can use force only to repel an assault on the
public property and aid the Courts in the performance of their
duty. If the means given you to collect the revenue and execute
the other laws be insufficient for that purpose, Congress may extend
and make them more effectual to those ends.
"If one of the States should declare her independence, your action
cannot depend upon the righteousness of the cause upon which such
declaration is based. Whether the retirement of the State from
the Union be the exercise of a right reserved in the Constitution,
or a revolutionary movement, it is certain that you have not in
either case the authority to recognize her independence or to
absolve her from her Federal obligations. Congress, or the other
States in Convention assembled, must take such measures as may be
necessary and proper. In such an event, I see no course for you
but to go straight onward in the path you have hitherto trodden--
that is, execute the laws to the extent of the defensive means
placed in your hands, and act generally upon the assumption that
the present constitutional relations between the States and the
Federal Government continue to exist, until a new code of things
shall be established either by law or force.
"Whether Congress has the constitutional right to make war against
one or more States, and require the Executive of the Federal
Government to carry it on by means of force to be drawn from the
other States, is a question for Congress itself to consider. It
must be admitted that no such power is expressly given; nor are
there any words in the Constitution which imply it. Among the
powers enumerated in Article 1, Section 8, is that 'to declare war,
grant letters of marque and reprisal, and to make rules concerning
captures on land and water.' This certainly means nothing more
than the power to commence and carry on hostilities against the
foreign enemies of the nation. Another clause in the same section
gives Congress the power 'to provide for calling forth the militia,'
and to use them within the limits of the State. But this power is
so restricted by the words which immediately follow that it can be
exercised only for one of the following purposes: 1. To execute
the laws of the Union; that is, to aid the Federal officers in the
performance of their regular duties. 2. To suppress insurrection
against the State; but this is confined by Article 4, Section 4, to
cases in which the State herself shall apply for assistance against
her own people. 3. To repel the invasion of a State by enemies
who come from abroad to assail her in her own territory. All these
provisions are made to protect the States, not to authorize an
attack by one part of the country upon another; to preserve the
peace, and not to plunge them into civil war. Our forefathers do
not seem to have thought that war was calculated 'to form a more
perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility,
provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and
secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.'
There was undoubtedly a strong and universal conviction among the
men who framed and ratified the Constitution, that military force
would not only be useless, but pernicious, as a means of holding
the States together.
"If it be true that war cannot be declared, nor a system of general
hostilities carried on by the Central Government against a State,
then it seems to follow that an attempt to do so would be _ipso
facto_ an expulsion of such State from the Union. Being treated
as an alien and an enemy, she would be compelled to act accordingly.
And if Congress shall break up the present Union by unconstitutionally
putting strife and enmity and armed hostility between different
sections of the country, instead of the domestic tranquility which
the Constitution was meant to insure, will not all the States be
absolved from their Federal obligations? Is any portion of the
people bound to contribute their money or their blood to carry on
a contest like that?
"The right of the General Government to preserve itself in its
whole constitutional vigor by repelling a direct and positive
aggression upon its property or its officers cannot be denied.
But this is a totally different thing from an offensive war to
punish the people for the political misdeeds of their State
Government, or to enforce an acknowledgment that the Government of
the United States is supreme. The States are colleagues of one
another, and if some of them shall conquer the rest, and hold them
as subjugated provinces, it would totally destroy the whole theory
upon which they are now connected.
"If this view of the subject be correct, as I think it is, then
the Union must utterly perish at the moment when Congress shall
arm one part of the people against another for any purpose beyond
that of merely protecting the General Government in the exercise
of its proper constitutional functions.
"I am, very respectfully, yours, etc.,
"J. S. BLACK."
ERRATUM.
In Chapter VIII., there is some inaccuracy in regard to the number
of killed in the John Brown raid at Harper's Ferry. According to
the official report of Colonel Robert E. Lee, U.S.A., who commanded
the military force that relieved Harper's Ferry, the insurgents
numbered in all nineteen men,--fourteen white, five colored. Of
the white men, ten were killed; two, John Brown and Aaron C. Stevens,
were badly wounded; Edwin Coppee, unhurt, was taken prisoner; John
E. Cooke escaped. Of the colored men, two were killed, two taken
prisoner, one unaccounted for.
THE APPENDICES.
The progress of the country, referred to so frequently in the text,
is strikingly illustrated and verified by the facts contained in the
several appendices which follow.
The appendices include a variety of subjects, and they have all
been selected with the view of showing the progress and development
of the Nation in the different fields of enterprise and human labor.
The tabular statements as to the population and wealth of the
country will be found especially accurate and valuable. The
statistics relating to Education and the Public Schools, to
Agriculture, to Railways, to Immigration, to the Army, to Shipping,
to the Coal and Iron Product, to National and State Banks, to the
Circulation of Paper Money, to the price of Gold, and to the Public
Debt, will be found full of interest.
Thanks are due and are cordially given to Mr. Joseph Nimmo, Jr.,
Chief of the Bureau of Statistics, and Mr. Charles W. Seaton,
Superintendent of the Census, for valuable aid rendered in the
preparation of the appendices.