“I do not object to the suppression of the African
slave-trade, but I do not believe that this Government has
the constitutional right to establish any such court. I
think the treaty ought not to have been adopted.”
July 7th the bill passed the House, and July 11th was approved
by the President.
* * * * *
The importance of this treaty had not been exaggerated. The
_Journal des Débats_, organ of French intelligence at Paris, in
its enunciation, June 15, 1862, of the objects accomplished by
the National Government, says: “There is a treaty with England,
which, loyally executed, must soon render the slave-trade
almost impossible.”
The slave-trade became almost impossible, so that practically
it ceased to exist. The terror of the law, with these
provisions for its enforcement, sufficed at last to deter the
perpetrators of this inhuman crime, and the ocean, so often
traversed by slave-ships, became like a peaceful metropolis
with a well-ordered police.
This great result was without the capture of a single vessel.
It was enough that at last we were in earnest. Judges and
arbitrators found themselves without employment, when, in an
appropriation bill, of March 3, 1869, Congress called on the
President, with the consent of Great Britain, to terminate that
part of the treaty requiring mixed courts and their annual
outlay.[306] This was done by treaty between the two powers,
signed at Washington, June 3, 1870; so that the mutual right of
search for the suppression of the slave-trade alone remained.