Twenty Years of Congress Volume Ii Part 28

Tennessee alone furnished at least thirty-five thousand white troops as brave as ever followed the flag. The Carolinas, Virginia, Georgia, Alabama, all furnished loyal men from their mountain districts; and beyond the Mississippi a valuable contingent came from Arkansas and Texas.

The men who had the courage to stand for the Union in time of war should not have separated from its friends in time of peace. If Reconstruction had been completed according to the first design, on the basis of the Fourteenth Amendment, these men would have remained solidly hostile to the Southern Democracy. But as the contest waxed warm, as negro suffrage became a prominent issue, many of them broke away from their a.s.sociations and became the bitterest foes of the Republican party. They followed Andrew Johnson and partook of his spirit. But against all adverse influences, some of the truest and best of this cla.s.s of Union men remained with the Republican party.

If the whole number had proved steadfast, they would have formed the centre of a strong and growing influence in the South which in many localities would have been able--as in East Tennessee--to resist the combined rebel power of their respective communities. Under such protection the colored vote, intelligently directed and defended, could have resisted the violence which has practically deprived it of all influence. Every day affords fresh proof of the disasters which have resulted to the Republican party of the South from the loss of so large a proportion of the original Union men.

Perhaps the most serious charge brought against the Republican policy by Southern men, was that the negro was advanced to the right of suffrage, while a portion of the white population were placed under such political disabilities as prevented their voting. This allegation is often made, however, in a way that leads to erroneous impressions, because as matter of fact it was not the policy of Congress to deprive any man of the right of suffrage. Congress even left the voting franchise in full force with those who were under such political disabilities as forbade their holding office. It is true that in a certain election under the Reconstruction laws the voter was subjected to a test-oath, but this condition was imposed under what seemed to be a fair plea of necessity; for it was applied in the South only after the entire white population had refused to reconstruct their States on the basis first freely offered them, with no restriction on white suffrage, and even before the negro was empowered to vote. Fearing from this experience that any organization of a State under the auspices of Republican power might be voted down, Congress resorted to the expedient of confining the suffrage in the preliminary stage to shoe who had not rebelled, and who could therefore be firmly trusted to establish a loyal government.

While the National Government refrained from withholding the elective franchise from men who had fought to destroy the Union, there is no doubt that disabilities and exclusions were imposed upon large cla.s.ses in certain States of the South. But perhaps even here there have been exaggeration and misunderstanding, for in some of the reconstructed States,--notably Georgia, Florida, and the Carolinas,--there were no test-oaths and no exclusion from the right of suffrage by reason of partic.i.p.ation in the rebellion; and yet hostility to the Reconstruction Acts, and personal wrongs and injuries to the colored men, were quite as marked in those States as in those where certain cla.s.ses of citizens labored under the stigma of exclusion from the ballot. Possibly it might be said that exclusion, even in one State, was an odious discrimination which all who had taken part in the rebellion would, from a feeling of fellows.h.i.+p, resent and resist. But the truth remains, nevertheless, that in the Southern States in which no test-oaths were applied disturbance, disorder, and resistance to law were as frequent and flagrant as in those where suffrage had in some degree been qualified and restricted.

The original difficulty was the rejection of the Fourteenth Amendment by the South--a difficulty that recurred not only at every subsequent step of reconstruction, but was even more plainly demonstrated after reconstruction was nominally complete. If that Amendment had been accepted by the Southern States as the basis of reconstruction, the suffrage of the colored man would have followed as a necessity and a boon to the South. It would have originated in popular demand, and the State authorities, instead of expending their power in resisting the decree of the Nation, would have upheld the same franchise with all the earnestness which the combined power of necessity and self-interest could inspire. It is difficult to compute the loss and the suffering endured by the South from the folly of rejecting a Const.i.tutional Amendment, which they could have had with all its benefits, and which they were compelled afterwards to accept with all its burdens. This unhappy result to the South was the fruit of their unwise adherence to Andrew Johnson in a political battle which he was predestined to lose.

It was not unnatural that the unwise action on the part of the South should lead to unwise action of the part of the North; but it must be remembered that if mistakes were made in the system of reconstruction they were for a day only, while the objects sought were for all time. The misfortune was, that the mistakes blinded the eyes of many candid and patriotic men to the real merit of the struggle. It is not the first time in history where a great and n.o.ble purpose has been weakened and thwarted by prejudices aroused against the means used to effect it. The design was broad, patriotic, generous, and statesmanlike: the means to attain it aroused prejudices which created obstacles at every step and led to almost fatal embarra.s.sment. The elevation of a race, the stamping out of the last vestige of caste, the obliteration of cruel wrongs, were the objects aimed at by the Republicans. If they remain unaccomplished, or only partially accomplished, no discredit can attach to the great political organization which entertained lofty conceptions of human rights, and projected complete measures for their realization. That prejudice should stand in the way of principle, that subsidiary issues should embarra.s.s the attainment of great ends, that personal and partisan interests should for a time override the n.o.bler instincts of philanthropy, must be regarded with regret, but not with discouragement.

[(1) The New Jersey Legislature of 1871 reversed the action of the previous year, and ratified the Amendment after it had been proclaimed by the Secretary of State as adopted. Ohio at first rejected the Amendment, but reversed her action in time to have her vote recorded among the States ratifying the Amendment. New York ratified the Amendment in 1869; the next year, under a Democratic majority, the Legislature attempted to withdraw the ratification; and in the year succeeding the Republicans re-affirmed it.]

CHAPTER XX.

The civil war closed with ill-feeling amounting to resentment towards England on the part of the loyal citizens of the United States. They believed that the Government of Great Britain, and especially the aristocratic and wealthy cla.s.ses (whose influence in the kingdom is predominant), had desired the destruction of the Union and had connived at it so far as connivance was safe; they believed that great harm had been inflicted on the American marine by rebel cruisers built in English s.h.i.+p-yards and manned with English sailors; they believed that the war had been cruelly prolonged by the Confederate hope of British intervention,--a hope stimulated by the utterances of high officials of the British Government; they believed that her Majesty's Ministers would have been willing at any time to recognize the Southern Confederacy, if it could have been done without danger of a European conflict, the effect of which upon the interests of England could not be readily measured.

Their belief did not wait for legal proofs or written arguments, nor was it in any degree restrained by technicalities. The American people had followed the varying fortunes of the war with intense solicitude, and had made up their minds that the British Government throughout the contest had been unfriendly and offensive, manifestly violating at every step the fair and honorable duty of a neutral. They did not ground their conclusions upon any specially enunciated principles of international law; they did not seek to demonstrate, by quotations from accepted authorities, that England had failed in this or in that respect to perform her duty towards the American Government. They simply recognized that England's hand had been against us, concealed somewhat, and used indirectly, but still heavily against us. They left to the officers of their own Government the responsible task of stating the law and submitting the evidence when the proper time should come.

Perhaps the ma.s.s of the people in no other country keep so close a watch upon the progress of public events as is kept by the people of the United States. If the scholars.h.i.+p of the few is not so thorough as in certain European countries, the intelligence of the many is far beyond that of any other nation. The popular conclusions, therefore, touching the conduct of England, did not spring from imagination or from prejudice; nor were they the results of illogical inference. To the outside world the British Government is the British Parliament; and citizens of the United States knew that their country had been subjected in the House of Lords and in the House of Commons to every form of misrepresentation, to every insult which malice could invent, to every humiliation which insolence and arrogance could inflict. The most distant generation of Americans will never be able to read the Parliamentary reports from 1861 to 1865 without indignation.

Discussions touching the condition of the United States occupied no small share of the time in both Houses, and in the House of Lords cordiality was never expressed for the Union. In the House of Commons the Government of the United States had sympathizing friends, eloquent defenders, though few in number. Bright, Forster, Cobden, and men of that cla.s.s, spoke brave words in defense of the cause for which brave deeds were done by their kindred on this side of the Atlantic--a kindred always more eager to cherish grat.i.tude than to nurture revenge.

But from the Government of England, terming itself _Liberal_, with Lord Palmerston at its head, Earl Russell as Foreign Secretary, Mr.

Gladstone as Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Duke of Argyll as Lord Privy Seal, and Earl Granville as Lord President of the Council, not one friendly word was sent across the Atlantic. A formal neutrality was declared by Government officials, while its spirit was daily violated. If the Republic had been a dependency of Great Britain, like Canada or Australia, engaged in civil strife, it could not have been more steadily subjected to review, to criticism, and to the menace of discipline. The proclamations of President Lincoln, the decisions of Federal courts, the orders issued commanders of the Union armies, were frequently brought to the attention of Parliament, as if America were in some way accountable to the judgment of England. Harsh comment came from leading British statesmen, while the most ribald defamers of the United States met with cheers from a majority of the House of Commons, and indulged in the bitterest denunciation of a friendly Government without rebuke from the Ministerial benches.(1)

The notorious Mr. Roebuck, in a debate, March 14, 1864, upon the progress of the civil war, said: "The whole proceedings in this American war are a blot upon human nature; and when I am told that I should have sympathy for the Northern States of America, I turn in absolute disgust from their hypocrisy. If there is a sink of political iniquity, it is at Was.h.i.+ngton. They are corrupt; they are base; they are cowardly; they are cruel." This highly indecorous speech was made in the presence of members of the British Ministry. The Premier, Lord Palmerston, followed Mr. Roebuck on the floor, calling him his "honorable and learned friend," and offering neither rebuke nor objection to the words he had used. On the contrary, with jaunty recklessness he accused the American Government of secretly and cunningly recruiting its armies in Ireland, by inducing Irishmen to emigrate as laborers and "then to enlist in some Ohio regiment or other, and become soldiers with the chance of plunder, and G.o.d knows what besides."

Lord Robert Cecil, since known as the Marquis of Salisbury, and at present (1885) Premier of England, only a few months before Mr.

Roebuck's disreputable speech, attacked the Judiciary of the United States, and told a story so remarkable that it needs no characterization. "American courts," said his lords.h.i.+p, "are not free from circ.u.mstances of suspicion attaching to them peculiarly.

It might be that in old times judges sat on the American Bench who enjoyed world-wide reputation, but within the last two or three years the American tribunals have delivered their decisions under the pressure of fixed bayonets. The Supreme Court of America two years ago was applied to for the purpose of enforcing the provisions of the American Const.i.tution; but the Judges were unable to p.r.o.nounce the judgment which their consciences would have prompted them to deliver, _because the soldiers of President Lincoln, appearing at their doors in arms, so terrified them that they perverted the law to suit the design of the Executive_." If his Lords.h.i.+p believed this groundless calumny, his ignorance concerning the United States would be subject of pity.

If his Lords.h.i.+p did not believe it, the just accusation against him is too serious to be stated in these pages.

During the first year of the war Lord Robert Cecil had so frankly expressed his view of the situation and his belief in the gain to England which would result from the destruction of the American Union, that his extraordinary madness may at least be said to have had a method. He was already a prominent member of the party of which he is now the head, and really reflected their sentiment as to the advantage which would come to England if the rebellion should be successful and the Southern Confederacy established. They had witnessed the marvelous growth of the United States and had concluded that, already a powerful rival, the Republic would certainly be dangerous as an enemy. This view is discernible in the Tory speeches in Parliament and in the Tory press of England, and was the motive which inspired so many Englishmen to connive at the destruction of the American Union. They went to great length, even establis.h.i.+ng an a.s.sociation to promote the cause of the rebellion, and to supply the Confederate Treasury with money. Lord Robert Cecil was one of the Vice-Presidents of the "Southern Independence a.s.sociation" and a subscriber to the Confederate loan, as were also Mr. Roebuck, Mr.

Gregory, and many other members of the British Parliament.(2)

The conduct of the Tories was not, however, a surprise to the American people. From the earliest period of our National existence we had received from that party constant demonstrations of unfriendliness; and where safe opportunity offered, insult was added.

But of the Liberal party Americans had hoped, nay, had confidently expected, if not open demonstrations of sympathy, at least a neutrality which would deprive the Rebel leaders of any form of encouragement.

When the first shadow of real danger to the Union appeared in 1860-61, there was instinctive gladness among loyal Americans that a Liberal ministry was in power in England, composed of men who would in no event permit their Government to be used in aid of a rebellion, whose first object was the destruction of a kindred nation, and whose subsequent policy looked to the perpetuation of human slavery. But the hope proved to be only the delusion of a day. Americans found the Palmerston Ministry in a hostile mood and ready to embarra.s.s the Government of the Union by every course that might be taken with safety to the interests of England; and they at once recognized a vast increase of the force against which they must contend.

But there was one apprehension which constantly enforced a limitation upon the action of the British Government, and that was the danger that an open espousal of the cause of the Confederacy would be the signal for a European conflict. Russia was more than friendly to us: Germany had no interest in our destruction. Russia was hostile to England: Germany was hostile to France. Active intervention by England and France, so much talked of, might have caused an earlier dethronement of Napoleon III, and a struggle in the East which would have left England no military power to expend on this side of the Atlantic. The American citizen cannot so wholly or ignorantly deceive himself as to believe that the Palmerston Government, from any consideration of the duties of neutrality, from any sympathy with the anti-slavery aspect of the contest, or from any enn.o.bling impulse whatever, refrained from formal recognition of the Southern Confederacy and the open espousal of its cause.

When the question of recognizing the Confederacy came before Parliament, it was withdrawn after discussion by request of Mr.

Gladstone, Chancellor of the Exchequer. He a.s.sured the House that "the main result of the American contest is not, humanly speaking, _in any degree doubtful_." He thought "there never was a war of more destructive, more deplorable, more hopeless character." The contest in his judgment was "a _miserable_ one." "We do not," said he, "believe that the restoration of the American Union by force is attainable. _I believe that the public opinion of this country is unanimous upon that subject_. It is not, therefore, from indifference, it is not from any belief that this war _is waged for any adequate or worthy object on the part of the North_, that I would venture to deprecate in the strongest terms the adoption of the motion of the honorable and learned gentleman." The "honorable and learned gentleman" was Mr. Roebuck, already quoted; and his motion was for the recognition of the Southern Confederacy as an independent Nation. The argument which Mr. Gladstone brought against it was in effect that the Confederacy was sure to succeed without foreign intervention. The fruit when ripe would fall of itself, and hence there was no need of prematurely beating the tree. The platform speeches of Mr.

Gladstone were still more offensive and unjust, but he need be held answerable only for official declarations.

The only friends of the United States in England at that trying period were to be found among the "middle cla.s.ses," as they are termed, and among the laboring men. The "n.o.bility and gentry," the bankers, the great merchants, the s.h.i.+p-builders, were in the main hostile to the Union,--wis.h.i.+ng and waiting for the success of the Confederacy. The honorable exceptions to this general statement were so few in number that they could exert little influence on public opinion and still less upon the course of the Ministry. The philanthropy, the foresight, the insight of the realm were found among the humbler cla.s.ses. In all parts of the kingdom the laboring men were on the side of the Union.

Though they suffered from a cotton-famine, they knew by intuition that the founding of a slave empire in America would degrade labor everywhere; they knew that the triumph of the Union signified the equality of human rights and would add to the dignity and reward of labor. It would have been well for England's fame and for her prosperity if the statesmen at Westminster had shared the wisdom and the n.o.bler instincts of the operatives of Lancas.h.i.+re.

When the National Government had finally triumphed over the rebellion despite the evil wishes and machinations of England, Parliament suddenly ceased to consider the condition of the United States as one of the regular orders of the day; and Lord Palmerston when inquiry was addressed to him whether any representations would be made in regard to the arrest of Jefferson Davis, curtly replied that it was not the intention of the Government in any respect to interfere with the internal affairs of the United States. The only expression now made in Parliament touching our policies, was one of solicitude lest our government should deal with the citizens of the Southern States in terms of severity. In June, 1865, two months after the war closed, two n.o.ble earls, Russell and Derby, took it upon themselves to advise the American Government against the indulgence of pa.s.sion and revenge towards those who had engaged in the rebellion. Earl Derby thought that "the triumphant Government should seek not to exasperate the feelings of their former antagonists, which have already been too much embittered, but should endeavor by deeds of conciliation and of mercy to re-cement if possible a Union so nearly dissolved." Earl Russell expressed opinion that it was "most desirable that there should be no appearance of pa.s.sion of the part of those who have the guidance of affairs in the American Union."

Kindly advice is never to be rudely repelled; but this was counsel which the American Government did not need. The war had closed without the execution of a single man who had borne arms against the Government, without imprisonment, without confiscation of property, without even depriving one rebel of his franchise as an elector. The advice of the n.o.ble earls, on the side of mercy, would have had more weight and influence, had weight and influence been needed, if their own Government, after every rebellion, however small or under however great provocation, had not uniformly followed its victory by the gibbet, by imprisonment, by transportation of the men who had taken up arms against intolerable oppression. If n.o.ble earls of England had scrutinized English policy, and advised their own Government as they now advised the Government of the United States, some heroic lives would have been spared to Ireland, and subjects in India would not have been doomed to a personal degradation which heightened the horror of impending death.

But while offensive surveillance of American affairs ceased in Parliament, offensive criticisms in the British Press continued throughout the period of Reconstruction, and our Government was held answerable for alleged wrongs and outrages against a conquered foe.

Especial hostility was exhibited towards the Republican party, which had conducted the Government through the war and led it to its complete triumph. This party controlled Congress when it levied heavy protective duties and stimulated manufacturing in American as the basis of that financial strength which proved during the civil war a marvel to the world. Offended by the Protective policy of the United States, the British Press now denounced the measures proposed for the Reconstruction of the South. No censure was too harsh, no epithet too severe to apply to the policy and to the Republican party that stood sponsor for it. It might have surprised those English critics to learn that the opponents of the Reconstruction policy at home could find nothing to say of it so denunciatory or so concentrated in bitterness as that the National Government was trying to reduce the Southern States to the condition of Ireland. And thus while we were receiving from British oracles multiplied instructions as to the manner of dealing with the States that had attempted to break from their allegiance, those States knew that almost within sight of England's sh.o.r.es there could be found the worst governed, the most cruelly treated people within the circle of Christendom. The American mote could be plainly descried beyond the broad ocean, but the Irish beam was not visible across the narrow channel.

The comparison of the Southern States under the measures of Reconstruction, with Ireland under the measures of the British Government, naturally suggested by hostile criticism in the English press, is not without its useful lessons. The complaint of discontented people in the Southern States was that there had been too great an expansion of popular rights, too large an extension of the elective franchise. But in Ireland, according to eminent British statesmen and historian, the suffering was from directly opposite causes.(3) Self-government of all the people was the rule established in the Southern States: subjection of all the people and government with the sword was the rule established in Ireland. Even if the American Government had made a mistake in its treatment of the Southern States, the history and traditions of the Republic gave ample guarantees that wrong steps would be speedily retraced, that all grievances would be thoroughly redressed; whereas the complaints of Ireland have remained unredressed for centuries.

There is no parallel among civilized nations to the prolonged discontent among the Irish people. A race gifted with many of the n.o.blest qualities of humanity, strong in intellect and quick in apprehension, could not for centuries complain of grievances if they did not exist, and the grievances could not exist for centuries without serious reproach to the British Government. To the lasting honor of American statesmans.h.i.+p, Southern grievances were not allowed by neglect or arrogance to grow and become chronic after the civil war had closed.

The one safeguard against an evil so great was the restoration of self-government to the people who had rebelled, the broadening of the elective franchise, the abolition of caste and privilege. If Englishmen had studied the Reconstruction policy instead of deriding it, they might have learned that the American Government accomplished for the South in four years what their own Government has failed to accomplish for Ireland through ten generations.

The Government of the United States had steadily protested during the continuance of the civil war against the unfriendly and unlawful course of England, and it was determined that compensation should be demanded upon the return of Peace. Mr. Adams, under instructions from Secretary Seward, had presented and ably argued the American case.

He proposed a friendly arbitration of the _Alabama_ claims, but was met by a flat refusal from Earl Russell, who declined on the part of the British Government either to make reparation or compensation, or permit a reference to any foreign State friendly to both parties.

In the autumn succeeding the close of the war, Mr. Seward notified the British Government that no further effort would be made for arbitration, and in the following August (1866) he transmitted a list of individual claims based upon the destruction caused by the _Alabama_. Lord Stanley (the present Earl of Derby) had succeeded Earl Russell in the Foreign Office, and declined to recognize the claims of this Government in as decisive a tone as that employed by Earl Russell. Of opposite parties, Earl Russell and Lord Stanley were supposed to represent the aggregate, if not indeed the unanimous, public opinion of England; so that the refusal to accede to the demands of the United States was popularly accepted as conclusive. Mr. Adams retired from his mission, in which his services to the country had been zealous and useful, without effecting the negotiations which he had urged upon the attention of the British Government. He took his formal leave in May, 1868, and was succeeded the following month by Mr. Reverdy Johnson.

The new Minister carried with him the respect and confidence of his fellow-citizens. Appointed directly after the Impeachment trial of President Johnson, he was among the few statesmen of the Democratic party who could have secured the ready confirmation of the Senate for a mission which demanded in its inc.u.mbent a talent for diplomacy and a thorough knowledge of International law. The only objection seriously maintained at the time against Mr. Johnson's appointment, was the fact that he was in his seventy-third year, and might not therefore be equal to the exacting duties which his mission involved.

Before Mr. Johnson could open his negotiation, the British Ministry was changed,--Mr. Disraeli giving way to Mr. Gladstone as Premier, and Lord Stanley being succeeded by Lord Clarendon as Minister of Foreign Affairs. With the latter Mr. Johnson very promptly agreed upon a treaty, which reached the United States in the month of February, 1869.

It purported to be a settlement of the questions in dispute between the two countries. There was great curiosity to learn its provisions.

Much was hoped from it, because it was known to have been approved by Mr. Seward at the various stages of the negotiation,--a constant and confidential correspondence having been maintained by cable, between the State Department and the American Legation in London, on every phase of the treaty.

Mr. Seward had earned approbation so hearty and general by his diplomatic correspondence with Great Britain during the war and in the years immediately succeeding, that no one was prepared for the disappointment and chagrin experienced in the United States when the Johnson-Clarendon treaty was made public. It gave almost personal offense to the ma.s.s of people in the loyal States. It overlooked, and yet by cunning phrase condoned, every unfriendly act of England during our civil war. It affected to cla.s.s the injuries inflicted upon the Nation as mere private claims, to be offset by private claims of British subjects,--the whole to be referred to a joint commission, after the ordinary and constantly recurring method of adjusting claims of private individuals that may have become matters of diplomatic importance.

The preamble to the treaty established its character and proved its utter inadequacy to meet the demands of the United States. It was in these words: "Whereas claims have at various times since the exchange of the ratifications of the convention between Great Britain and the United States of America, signed at London on the 8th of February, 1853, been made upon the Government of her Britannic Majesty on the part of citizens of the United States, and upon the Government of the United States on the part of subjects of her Britannic Majesty; and whereas _some of such claims are still pending and remain unsettled_, her Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and the President of the United States of America, being of opinion that a speedy and equitable settlement of all such claims will contribute much to the maintenance of the friendly feelings which subsist between the two countries, have resolved to make arrangements for that purpose by means of a convention."

Among the first provisions of the treaty was a declaration that the result of the proceedings of the commission thus to be provided for, should be considered as "a full and final settlement of every claim upon either government arising out of any transaction of a date prior to the exchange of ratifications;" and all claims thereafter were to be "considered and treated as finally settled and barred, and thenceforth inadmissible." For eight years the Government of the United States had been protesting against the unfriendly course of Great Britain, against her premature recognition of the Confederate States as belligerents, against her special concession of ocean belligerency, against her making the dockyards and a.r.s.enals on her own soil the dockyards and a.r.s.enals of the Confederacy, against her wilful depredation upon the commerce of the United States, against the destruction of property belonging to American citizens by her agency and her fault. And now Mr. Johnson and Lord Clarendon had concluded a treaty which practically admitted that the complaints of the United States, as a government, against the conduct of Great Britain, as a government, had been mere rant and bravado on the part of the United States, and were not to be insisted on before any International tribunal, but to be merged in an ordinary claims convention, by whose award a certain amount in dollars and cents might be paid to the American claimants and a certain amount in pounds, s.h.i.+llings, and pence might be paid to British claimants. The text of the treaty did not indicate in any manner whatever that either nation was more at fault than the other touching the matters to be arbitrated.

The treaty had short life in the Senate. The Committee of Foreign Relations, after examination of its provisions, reported that it should "be rejected." Mr. Sumner, who made the report, said it was the first time since he had entered the Senate that such a report had been made concerning any treaty. Amendments, he said, were sometimes suggested, and sometimes a treaty had been reported without any recommendations; but the hostility to the entire spirit and to every detail of the Johnson-Clarendon treaty was so intense that the Committee had made the positive recommendation that it be rejected.

This action was taken in the month of April, 1869, a few weeks after President Grant had entered upon his office. It was accompanied by a speech from Mr. Sumner, made in Executive session, but by direction of the Senate given to the public, in which the reasons for the action of the Senate were stated with great directness, precision and force.

After enumerating the extent of our losses, National and individual, direct and indirect, Mr. Sumner said: "If the case against England is strong, and if our claims are unprecedented in magnitude, it is only because the conduct of that power at a trying period was most unfriendly, and the injurious consequences of this conduct were on a scale corresponding to the theatre of action. Life and property were both swallowed up, leaving behind a deep-seated sense of enormous wrong, as yet unatoned and even unacknowledged, which is one of the chief factors in the problem now presented to the statesmen of both countries. . . . The truth must be told, not in anger, but in sadness.

England has done to the United States an injury most difficult to measure. Considering when it was done and in what complicity, it is most unaccountable. At a great epoch of history, not less momentous than that of the French Revolution or that of the Reformation, when civilization was fighting a last battle with slavery, England gave her influence, her material resources, to the wicked cause, and flung a sword into the scale with slavery."

President Grant was in full sympathy with the Senate in its prompt rejection of the Johnson-Clarendon treaty, and in his annual message to Congress in the ensuing December (1869) he expressed his entire dissent from its provisions.(4) He thought the rejection of the treaty was "followed by a state of public opinion on both sides not favorable to an immediate attempt at renewed negotiation," and expressed "the hope that the time will soon arrive when the two Governments can approach the solution of this momentous question, with an appreciation of what is due to the rights, dignity, and honor of each."

The rejection of the Johnson-Clarendon treaty was formally announced to the British Government through Mr. Motley, who succeeded Mr.

Johnson as Minister in London. Mr. Fish, in his letter of instructions, suggested to Mr. Motley the propriety of suspending negotiations for the present on the whole question. At the same time he committed the Government of the United States anew to the maintenance of the claim for National damages, as well as for the losses of individual citizens. And thus the matter was allowed to rest. The United States, though deeply aggrieved, did not desire to urge the negotiation in a spirit of hostility that implied readiness to go to war upon the issue, and simply trusted that a returning sense of justice in the British Government would lead to a renewal of negotiations and a friendly adjustment of all differences between the two Governments.

A year went by and nothing was done. The English Government was not disposed to go a step beyond the provisions of the Johnson-Clarendon treaty, and had indeed been somewhat offended by the promptness with which the Senate had rejected that agreement, especially by the emphasis which the speech of Mr. Sumner had given to the Senate's action. President Grant remained altogether patient and composed--feeling that postponement could not be a loss to the American Government, and would certainly prove no gain to the British Government. In his annual message to Congress of December, 1870, he a.s.sumed a position which proved embarra.s.sing to England. He recognized the fact that "the Cabinet at London does not appear willing to concede that her Majesty's Government was guilty of any negligence, or did or permitted any act of which the United States has just cause of complaint;" and he re-a.s.serted with great deliberation and emphasis that "_our firm and unalterable convictions are directly the reverse_."

The President therefore recommended that Congress should "authorize the appointment of a commission to take proof of the amounts and the owners.h.i.+p of these several claims, _on notice to the representative of her Majesty at Was.h.i.+ngton_, and that authority be given for the settlement of these claims by the United States, so that the Government shall have the owners.h.i.+p of the private claims, as well as the responsible control of all the demands against Great Britain."

President Grant was evidently resolved that the Government of the United States should not allow the pressing need of private claimants to operate in any degree upon public opinion in the United States, so as to create a demand for settlement with England on any basis below that which National dignity required. He felt a.s.sured that Congress would respond favorably to his recommendation, and that with the individual claimants satisfied our Government could afford to wait the course of events. This position convinced the British Government that the President intended to raise the question in all its phases above the grade of private claims, and to make it purely an international affair. No more effective step could have been taken; and the President and his adviser, Secretary Fish, are ent.i.tled to the highest credit for thus elevating the character of the issue--an issue made all the more impressive from the quiet manner in which it was presented, and from the characteristic coolness and determination of the Chief Magistrate who stood behind it.

Meanwhile the sanguinary war between Germany and France has broken out, and was still flagrant when President Grant's recommendation for paying the _Alabama_ claims from the National Treasury was sent to Congress.

Though the foreign conflict terminated without involving other nations, it forcibly reminded England of the situation in which she might be placed if she should be drawn into a European war, the United States being a neutral power. It would certainly be an unjust imputation upon the magnanimity and upon the courage of the people of the United States to represent them as waiting for an opportunity to inflict harm upon England for her conduct towards this Government in the hour of its calamity and its distress. It was not by indirection, or by stealthy blows, or by secret connivance with enemies, or by violations of international justice, that the United States would ever have sought to avenge herself on England for the wrongs she had received. If there had been a disposition among the American people impelling them to that course, it would a.s.suredly have impelled them much farther.

But England was evidently apprehensive that if she should become involved in war, the United States would, as a neutral power, follow the precedent which the English Government had set in the war of the rebellion, and in this way inflict almost irreparable damage upon British s.h.i.+pping and British commerce. Piratical _Alabamas_ might escape from the harbors and rivers of the United States as easily as they had escaped from the harbors and rivers of England; and she might well fear that if a period of calamity should come to her, the people of the United States, with the neglect or connivance of their Government, would be as quick to add to her distress and embarra.s.sment as the people of England, with the neglect or connivance of their Government, had added to the distress and embarra.s.sment of the United States. Conscience does make cowards of us all; and Great Britain, foreseeing the possibility of being herself engaged in a European war, was in a position to dread lest her ill intentions and her misdeed in the time of our civil struggle should return to plague her.