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 noblest 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 statesmanship, 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 incumbent 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 mass 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 class 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 arsenals on her own soil the dockyards and arsenals 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, shillings, 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 assumed a position which proved embarrassing 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-asserted 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 ownership of these several claims, on notice to the representative of her Majesty at Washington, and that authority be given for the settlement of these claims by the United States, so that the Government shall have the ownership 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 assured 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 entitled 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 assuredly 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 shipping 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 embarrassment as the people of England, with the neglect or connivance of their Government, had added to the distress and embarrassment 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.

These facts and apprehensions seem to have wrought a great change in the disposition of the British Government, and led them to seek a re-opening of the negotiation. In an apparently unofficial way Sir John Rose, a London banker (associated in business with Honorable L. P. Morton, a well-known banker and distinguished citizen of New York), came to this country on a secret mission early in January, 1871. President Grant's message had made a profound impression in London, the Franco-Prussian war had not yet ended, and Her Majesty's Ministers had reason to fear trouble with the Russian Government. Sir John's duty was to ascertain in an informal way the feeling of the American Government in regard to pending controversies between the two countries. He showed himself as clever in diplomacy as he was in finance, and important results followed in an incredibly short space of time. An understanding was reached, which on the surface expressed itself in a seemingly casual letter from Sir Edward Thornton to Secretary Fish of the 26th of January, 1871, communicating certain instructions from Lord Granville in regard to a better adjustment of the fishery question and all other matters affecting the relations of the United States to the British North-American possessions. To settle this question Sir Edward was authorized by his Government to propose the creation of a Joint High Commission, the members to be named by each Government, which should meet in Washington and discuss the question of the fisheries and the relations of the United States to her Majesty's possessions in North America.

Mr. Fish replied in a tone which indicated that Sir Edward was really serious in his proposition to organize so imposing a tribunal to discuss the fishery question. He informed Sir Edward that "in the opinion of the President the removal of differences which arose during the rebellion in the United States, and which have existed since then, growing out of the acts committed by several vessels, which have given rise to the claims generally known as the Alabama Claims, will also be essential to the restoration of cordial and amicable relations between the two Governments." Sir Edward waited just long enough to hear from Lord Granville by cable, and on the day after the receipt of Mr. Fish's note assented in writing to his suggestions, adding a request that "all other claims of the citizens of either country, arising out of the acts committed during the recent civil war in the United States, might be taken into consideration by the Commission." To this Mr. Fish readily assented in turn.

The question which for six years had been treated with easy indifference if not with contempt by the British Foreign Office had in a day become exigent and urgent, and the diplomatic details which ordinarily would have required months to adjust were now settled by cable in an hour. The first proposal for a Joint High Commission was made by Sir Edward Thornton on the 26th of January, 1871; and the course of events was so rapid that in twenty-seven days thereafter the British Commissioners landed in New York en route to Washington. They sailed without their commissions, which were signed by the Queen at the castle of Windsor on the sixteenth day of February and forwarded to them by special messenger. This was extraordinary and almost undignified haste, altogether unusual with Plenipotentiaries of Great Britain. It was laughingly said at the time that the Commissioners were dispatched from London "so hurriedly that they came with portmanteaus, leaving their servants behind to back their trunks and follow." For this change of view in the British Cabinet and this courier-like speed among British diplomatists, there was a double cause,—the warning of the Franco-Prussian war, and President Grant's proposition to pay the Alabama Claims from the Treasury of the United States—and wait. Assuredly the President did not wait long!

The gentlemen constituting the Joint High Commission were well known in their respective countries, and enjoyed the fullest measure of public confidence, thus insuring in advance the acceptance of whatever settlement they might agree upon.(5) The result of their deliberations was the Treaty of Washington, concluded on the eighth day of May, 1871. It took cognizance of the four questions at issue between the two countries, and provided for the settlement of each. The Alabama claims were to be adjusted by a commission to meet at Geneva, in Switzerland; all other claims for loss or damage of any kind, between 1861 and 1865, by subjects of Great Britain or citizens of the United States, were to be adjusted by a commission to meet in Washington; the San Juan question was to be referred for settlement to the Emperor of Germany, as Umpire; and the dispute in regard to the fisheries was to be settled by a commission to meet at Halifax, Nova Scotia.

The basis for adjusting the Alabama claims was promptly agreed upon. This question stood in the forefront of the treaty, taking its proper rank as the principal dispute between the two countries. Her Britannic Majesty had authorized her High Commissioners and plenipotentiaries "to express in a friendly spirit the regret felt by Her Majesty's Government for the escape, under whatever circumstances, of the Alabama and other vessels from British ports, and for the depredations committed by those vessels." And with the expression of this regret, Her Britannic Majesty agreed, through her Commissioners, that all the claims growing out of acts committed by the aforesaid vessels, and generally known as the Alabama claims, "shall be referred to a tribunal of arbitration, to be composed of five arbitrators,—one to be named by the President of the United States, one by the Queen of England, one by the King of Italy, one by the President of the Swiss Confederation, and one by the Emperor of Brazil." This was a great step beyond the Johnson-Clarendon treaty, which did not in any way concede the responsibility of England to the Government of the United States. It was a still greater step beyond the flat refusal, first of Earl Russell and then of Lord Stanley, to refer the claims to the ruler of a friendly state.

But England was willing to go still farther. She agreed that "in deciding the matters submitted to the arbitrators, they shall be governed by three rules, which are agreed upon by the high contracting parties as rules to be taken as applicable to the case; and by such principles of International Law, not inconsistent therewith, as the Arbitrators shall determine to have been applicable to the case.(6)" Her Brittanic Majesty had commanded her High Commissioners to declare that "Her Majesty's Government cannot assent to these rules as a statement of the principles of International Law which were in force at the time when the claims arose; but that Her Majesty's Government, in order to evince its desire of strengthening the friendly relations between the two countries, and of making satisfactory provision for the future, agrees that in deciding the questions between the two countries arising out of those claims, the Arbitrators shall assume that Her Majesty's Government had undertaken to act upon the principles set forth in these rules."

There is some question as to whether the British Government has discharged one of the obligations which it assumed under the treaty. After the three rules had been agreed upon, a clause of the treaty declared that "the high contracting parties agree to observe these rules as between themselves in the future, and to bring them to the knowledge of the other maritime powers and invite them to accede to them." Declaring that the three rules had not been recognized theretofore as International Law by her Majesty's Government, it was a fair agreement that they should be recognized thereafter, and that the combined influence of the British and American Governments should be used to incorporate them in the recognized code of the world.

But the Government of England has been unwilling to perform the duty which had thus been agreed upon, and this refusal gives rise to the impression that England does not desire to bind itself with other nations as she has bound herself with the United States. As the matter stands, if England should be involved in war with a European power, the United States is strictly bound by the letter and spirit of these three rules; but if two Continental powers become engaged in war, England is not bound by those rules in her conduct towards them. She certainly has gained much in securing the absolute neutrality of the United States when she is engaged in war, but it cannot be considered an honorable compliance with the obligations of the treaty if she fails to use her influence to extend the operation of the rules.

Following the provision for arbitration of the Alabama claims, the Treaty of Washington provided for a Commission to adjust "all claims on the part of corporations, companies or private individuals, citizens of the United States, upon the Government of her Britannic Majesty; and on the part of corporations, companies or private individuals, subject of her Britannic Majesty, upon the Government of the United States." These were claims arising out of acts committed against the persons or property of citizens of either country by the other, during the period between the 13th of April, 1861, and the 9th of April, 1865, inclusive, —being simply the damages inflicted during the war. The tribunal to which all such claims were referred was constituted of three Commissioners; one to be named by the President of the United States, one by her Britannic Majesty, and the third by the two conjointly.

The Commission was organized at Washington on the 26th of September, 1871, and made its final award at Newport, Rhode Island, on the 25th of September, 1873. The claims presented by American citizens before the Commission were only nineteen in number, amounting in the aggregate to a little less than a million of dollars. These claims were all rejected by the Commission—no responsibility of the British Government having been established. The subjects of her Majesty presented 478 claims which, with interest reckoned by the rule allowed by the Commission, amounted to $96,000,000. Of this number 181 awards were made in favor of the claimants, amounting in the aggregate to $1,929,819, or only two per cent of the amount claimed. The amount awarded was appropriated by Congress and paid by the United States to the British Government. All claims accruing between 1861 and 1865 for injuries resulting in any way from the war were thereafter barred.(7)

The subject of the north-western boundary line, commonly known as the San Juan question, was one of very considerable importance, over which there had been long contention between the two Governments. The treaty of Independence in 1783 was followed by a series of disputes relating to the boundary between the United States and British America. It was inevitable that a tortuous line, drawn from the north-western angle of Nova Scotia to the Lake of the Woods and thence (as the treaty erroneously described it) due west to the Mississippi River, would give occasion for honest difference of opinion and very frequent opportunity for technical disputes. The face of the country was imperfectly known in 1783, and the highlands and water-courses by which the line was to be determined could not at that time be laid down with accuracy.

Beyond the Mississippi (then an unknown country) territorial disputes grew up between Spain and Great Britain. By the purchase of Louisiana in 1803, and by the subsequently acquired claim to the Oregon country, the sovereignty of the Republic was extended to the Pacific; Great Britain claiming to be co-terminous for the entire distance. By the treaty of 1818 the forty-ninth parallel was agreed upon as the boundary from the line of the Lake of the Woods to the "Stony Mountains." The boundary from the Stony Mountains to the Pacific was left for subsequent settlement, and was finally adjusted (as already narrated in these pages) by the treaty of 1846. By that treaty the two governments agreed to continue the forty-ninth parallel as the boundary from the Stony Mountains "westward to the middle of the channel which separates the continent from Vancouver's Island, and thence southerly through the middle of said channel and of Fuca Straits to the Pacific Ocean."

The Commissioners appointed by the two Governments to run the line could not come to an agreement upon it,—the British Government claiming that it should be run through the Rosario Straits, and the Government of the United States that it should be run through the Canal de Haro. If the line should be run by the Rosario Straits the Island of San Juan belonged to Great Britain; if by the Canal de Haro the island belonged to the United States and formed part of Washington Territory. It was now agreed in the Treaty of Washington that the question should be left to the Emperor of Germany, who was "authorized to decide finally and without appeal which of these claims is most in accordance with the true interpretation of the treaty of June 15, 1846." The question thus submitted to his Imperial Majesty was purely a geographical one. Its decision either way could scarcely wound the susceptibilities of either party, however it might affect National interests. It also relieved the august arbitrator from the consideration of all the political prejudices and pretensions which had marked the long line of boundary discussions between the two countries, and the jealousies and misunderstandings between the two countries, and the jealousies and misunderstandings which had proved so troublesome during the period of joint occupation of the Oregon territory. The Emperor referred the detailed examination of the subject to a Commission of eminent experts both in law and science, and in accordance with their report decided in favor of the claim of the United States that the line should be run through the Canal de Haro.

The Government of the United States was fortunate in having its rights and interests represented before the Umpire by its Minister at Berlin, the Honorable George Bancroft. He was a member of President Polk's Cabinet during the period of the discussion and completion of the treaty of 1846, and was Minister at London when the San Juan dispute began. With his prolonged experience in historical investigation, Mr. Bancroft had readily mastered every detail of the question, and was thus enabled to present it in the strongest and most favorable light. His success fitly crowned an official career of great usefulness and honor. His memorial to the Emperor of Germany, when he presented the case, was conceived in his happiest style. The opening words were felicitous and touching: "The treaty of which the interpretation is referred to Your Majesty's arbitrament was ratified more than a quarter of a century ago. Of the sixteen members of the British Cabinet which framed and presented it for the acceptance of the United States, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Aberdeen, and all the rest but one, are no more. The British Minister at Washington who signed it is dead. Of American statesmen concerned in it, the Minister at London, the President and Vice-President, the Secretary of State, and every one of the President's constitutional advisers, except one, have passed away. I alone remain, and after finishing the threescore years and ten that are the days of our years, am selected by my country to uphold its rights."

The decision of the Emperor was given on the 21st of October (1872). The British Government accepted it cordially and Lord Granville immediately instructed Sir Edward Thornton to propose that the two Governments should resume the work of the boundary commission, which was interrupted in 1859. In accordance with this proposition a chart was immediately prepared and approved by both parties to the treaty. It is unnecessary to point out the advantage to the United States of the decision. A glance at the map will show it in full detail. The conclusion of the negotiation enabled President Grant to say in his message to Congress, December, 1872,—ninety years after the close of the Revolutionary War,—"It leaves us for the first time in the history of the United States as a nation, without a question of disputed boundary between our territory and the possessions of Great Britain on the American continent."

His Majesty's Government had needlessly lost six years in coming to a settlement which was entirely satisfactory to the Government and people of the United States. Indeed a settlement at the close of the war could have been made with even less concession on the part of Great Britain, and perhaps if it had been longer postponed the demands of the Government of the United States might have increased. Wars have grown out of less aggravation and dispute between nations; but the Government of the United States had never anticipated such a result as possible, and felt assured that in the end Great Britain would not refuse to make the reparation honorably due.

The Arbitrators met in the ensuing December at Geneva, Switzerland, and after a hearing of nine months agreed upon an award, made public on the 14th of September, 1872. The judgment was that "the sum of $15,500,000 in gold be paid by Great Britain to the United States for the satisfaction of all the claims referred to the consideration of the tribunal." Sir Alexander Cockburn, the British Commissioner, dissented in a somewhat ungracious manner from the judgment of his associates; but as the majority had been specially empowered to make an award, the refusal of England's representative to join in it did not in the least degree affect its validity.(8)

[NOTE.—The question of the fisheries—the last for whose adjudication the Treaty of Washington provided—is referred to in a subsequent chapter.]

[(1) The following extracts are from Hansard's Parliamentary Debates:—

May 16th, 1861. Earl Derby, in discussing our blockade of the Southern coast, said: "A blockade extending over a space to which it is physically impossible that an effectual blockade can be applied will not be recognized as valid by the British Government." And he intimated that "it is essentially necessary that the Northern States should not be induced to rely upon our forbearance."

—Feb. 10, 1862. Earl Derby discussed the right of Mr. Lincoln to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, and even when Congress had passed a resolution affirming the course taken by the President, the noble Earl declared that "No law can be shown to support the President's exercise of the power."

—May 28, 1861. Mr. Bernal Osborne, in discussing the civil war in the United States, said: "If this were the proper time, I could point to outrages committed by the militia of New York in one of the Southern States occupied by them, where the General commanding, on the pretext that one of his men had been poisoned by strychnine, issued an order of the day, threatening to put a slave into every man's house to incite the slaves to murder their masters. Such was the general order issued by General Butler."

—Feb. 17, 1862. Lord Palmerston discussed the Constitutional powers of the Government, and said he knew that Mr. Seward and Mr. Lincoln could not make war upon their own authority. "We know that very well. It requires the sanction of the Senate."

—March 7, 1862. Mr. Gregory, in discussing the blockade of the Southern ports, said: "Now I can assure my honorable friend that, so far as I was concerned, I should have made use of no irritating expression. I should have affirmed then, as, undeterred by what has occurred since then, I affirm now, that secession was a right, that separation is a fact, and that reconstruction is an impossibility." Mr. Gregory denounced Mr. Seward as "lax, unscrupulous, and lawless of the rights of others."

—March 7, 1862. General Butler's orders were discussed by the Earl of Carnarvon, in the Lords, and by Sir John Walsh and Mr. Gregory in the Commons. Lord Palmerston was pleased to tell them that "with regard to the course which Her Majesty's Government may, upon consideration, take on the subject, the House I trust will allow me to say that that will be matter of reflection."

—March 7, 1862. Mr. G. W. P. Bentinck made a very bitter and abusive speech of the United States, and invited Her Majesty's Government to offer some explanation why, according to the policy which they had pursued with respect to Italian affairs, they had abstained from recognizing the independence of the Confederacy. He sneeringly referred to the "endless corruption in every public department in the Northern States."

—April 23, 1863. Mr. G. W. P. Bentinck transcended every limit of courtesy when in referring to Mr. Adams he said: "The idea of the American Minister of honesty and neutrality is remarkable. Every thing is honest to suit his own purposes."

—March 7, 1862. Lord Robert Cecil, in discussing the blockade of the Southern coast, said: "The plain matter of fact is, as every one who watches the current of history must know, that the Northern States of America never can be our sure friends, for this simple reason—not merely because the newspapers write at each other, or that there are prejudices on both sides, but because we are rivals, rivals politically, rivals commercially. We aspire to the same position. We both aspire to the government of the seas. We are both manufacturing people, and in every port, as well as at every court, we are rivals to each other. . . . With respect to the Southern States, the case is entirely reversed. The population are an agricultural people. They furnish the raw material of our industry, and they consume the produce which we manufacture from it. With them, therefore, every interest must lead us to cultivate friendly relations, and we have seen that when the war began they at once recurred to England as their natural ally."

—July 18, 1862. Mr. Lindsay, in discussing the questions of the civil war, said: "The re-establishment of the Union is indeed hopeless. That being so,—if we come to that conclusion,—it behooves England, in concert, I hope, with the great Powers of Europe, to offer her meditation, and to ask these States to consider the great distress among the people of this country caused entirely by this unhappy civil war which is now raging."

—Aug. 4, 1862. Lord Campbell (discussing the civil war) said: "But if the present moment is abandoned what are we to wait for? Not for Northern victories. Such victories would clearly limit our capacity to acknowledge Southern independence, as it was limited from the defeat and death of Zollicoffer in the winter down to the events which have lately driven General McClellan to the river. We are to wait, therefore, for new misfortunes to the Government of Washington before we grant to this unhappy strife the possibility of closing."

—March 23, 1863. Lord Campbell said: "Swelling with omnipotence, Mr. Lincoln and his colleagues dictate insurrection to the slaves of Alabama." And he spoke of the administration as "ready to let loose four million negroes on their compulsory owners and to renew from sea to sea the horrors and crimes of San Domingo."—He argued earnestly in favor of the British Government joining the government of France in acknowledging Southern independence. He boasted that within the last few days a Southern loan of L3,000,000 sterling had been offered in London, and that L9,000,000 were subscribed. He said: "Southern recognition will take away from the Northern mind the hope which lingers yet of Southern subjugation. From the Government of Washington it will take away the power of describing eleven communities contending for their liberty as rebels. . . . Victorious already, animated then, the Southern armies would be doubly irresistible. They would not have, if they retain it now, the power to be vanquished."

—Feb. 5, 1863. Earl Malmesbury spoke disdainfully of treating with so extraordinary a body as the Government of the United States, and referred to the horrors of the war,—"horrors unparalleled even in the wars of barbarous nations."

—March 27, 1863. Mr. Laird of Birkenhead (the builder of the Alabama and the rebel rams) was loudly cheered when he declared that "the institutions of the United States are of no value whatever, and have reduced the very name of liberty to an utter absurdity."

—April 23, 1863. Mr. Roebuck declared "that the whole conduct of the people of the North is such as proves them not only unfit for the government of themselves, but unfit for the courtesies and the community of the civilized world." Referring to some case of an English ship that had been seized by an American man-of-war, he declared: "It may lead to war; and I, speaking here for the English people, am prepared for war. I know that language will strike the heart of the peace party in this country, but it will also strike the heart of the insolent people who govern America."

—Lord Palmerston, Prime Minister, simply replied, without other comment, that the question to which Mr. Roebuck referred "is of the greatest possible importance."

—June 30, 1863. Mr. Roebuck asserted that "the South will never come into the Union, and what is more, I hope it never may. I will tell you why I say so. America while she was united ran a race of prosperity unparalleled in the world. Eighty years made the Republic such a power, that if she had continued as she was a few years longer she would have been the great bully of the world. . . . As far as my influence goes, I am determined to do all I can to prevent the reconstruction of the Union. . . . I say then that the Southern States have indicated their right to recognition; they hold out to us advantages such as the world has never seen before. I hold that it will be of the greatest importance that the reconstruction of the Union should not take place."

—April 24, 1863. Mr. Horsman of Stroud said: "We have seen the leviathan power of the North broken and driven back, with nothing to show for two years of unparalleled preparation and vast human sacrifice but failure and humiliation; the conquest of the South more hopeless and unachievable than ever, and Washington at this moment in greater jeopardy than Richmond. . . . I am not surprised that we should hear the questions asked now, 'How long are these afflictions to be endured? How long are the cotton ports of the South to remain sealed to Europe? How long are France and England to be debarred from intercourse with friendly States that owe no more allegiance to the North than they owe to the Pope? And how long are our patient but suffering operatives to remain the victims of an extinct authority and an aggressive and a malevolent Legislature?'"

—June 15, 1863. The Marquis of Clanricarde objected to our blockade, and said it was kept up "although every man of common sense in the United States is now convinced that it is impossible to compel the Southern States to re-enter the Union. . . . It is the duty of the British Government not to allow these infractions of maritime law to continue, which are in effect setting aside all law and practice as hitherto maintained."

—June 26, 1863. The Marquis of Clanricarde thought that "proceedings of American prize courts should be closely watched, for if doctrines are admitted there contrary to those maintained in the highest courts of this country, great confusion will be the result hereafter."

—June 29, 1863. Mr. Peacocke, complaining of some decisions made in the prize courts of the United States, said: "It is therefore the duty of the House to see how the law is administered in those courts." He confessed that he greatly distrusted these prize courts as they were at the time constituted.

—June 30, 1863. Mr. Clifford spoke of the "wanton barbarity with which the Federal Government has allowed its officers to wage the war, as though they sought to emulate the ravages of Attila and Genghis-Khan. . . And these things were done not for military objects which would afford some excuse for them, but out of such sheer wanton malice that even the negroes looked on disgusted and aghast."

—Feb. 9, 1864. Mr. Haliburton said: "The Canadians feel that the Americans are a lawless people, who are bound by no ties, who disregard International Law, who resort to violence and force."

—March 4, 1864. Lord Robert Montagu tauntingly remarked that it seemed to him "that it is the Federals who are bound to stop the depredations of the Alabama. Why have they not a ship quick enough to catch her and strong enough to destroy her?"

—March 14, 1864. Sir James Fergusson declared that "wholesale peculations and robbery have been perpetrated under the form of war by the Generals of the Federal States, and worse horrors than, I believe, have ever in the present century disgraced European armies, have been perpetrated under the eyes of the Federal Government and yet remain unpunished. These things are notorious as the proceedings of a Government which seems anxious to rival one despotic and irresponsible power of Europe in its contempt for the public opinion of mankind."

—March 18, 1864. The Earl of Donoughmore, referring to a statement in regard to the enlistments made by Captain Winslow of the United States ship Kearsarge, said that "either he stated what was a transparent falsehood or else he was not fit for his post." He then added: "The fact, however, is that any transparent falsehood seems to be a sufficient excuse for a particular line of conduct when it comes from the Federal Government."

—May 19, 1864. Mr. Alderman Rose declared "the whole system of Government in the Northern States is false, rotten, and corrupt; while the South is making for herself a great name and a glorious history."

—June 9, 1864. Lord Brougham said that he believed there was "but one universal feeling not only in this country, but all over Europe, of reprobation of the continuance of this war, of deep lamentation for its existence, and of an anxious desire that it should at length be made to cease." He lived in hopes "that before long an occasion might arise when in conjunction with our ally on the other side of the channel we shall interfere with effect, and when an endeavor to accommodate matters and restore peace between the two great contending parties will be attended with success."

—Lord John Russell agreed with Lord Brougham that "it is a most horrible war in America. There seems to be such hatred and animosity between great hosts of men, who were lately united under one government, that no consideration seems powerful enough to induce them to put an end to their fratricidal strife; and it is difficult to deal with them on those ordinary principles which have hitherto governed the conduct of civilized mankind."]

[(2) The subscribers to the Confederate loan in England were very numerous. The following were among the most conspicuous, as given in an official list.

Right Hon. Lord Wharncliffe; Marquis of Bath; Marquis of Lothian; Admiral, Right Hon. Lord Fitzardinge; Right Hon. Lord Claud Hamilton, M. P.; Right Hon. Viscount Lefford; Right Hon. Lord Teynham; Viscount Goimanson; Lord Robert Cecil, M. P.; Lord Henry F. Thynne, M. P.; Sir John W. H. Anson; Sir Gerald George Aylmer; Sir George H. Beaumont; Sir Samuel Bignold; Sir W. H. Capell Brook; Sir C. W. C. de Crispigny; Sir T. B. Dancer; Sir Arthur H. Elton; Sir W. H. Fielden; Sir W. Fitzherbert; Rev. Sir C. H. Foster; General Sir J. W. Guise; Sir Robert Harty; Sir William Hartopp; Sir Henry A. Hoare; Sir Henry de Hoghton; Vice-Admiral Hon. Sir Henry Keppel; Sir Edward Kerrison, M. P.; Sir John Dick Lander, M. P.; Sir E. A. H. Lechmere; Sir Coleman M. O. Loghlin, M. P.; Rev. C. R. Lighton, Bart.; Lieut.-Col. Sir Coutts Lindsay; Captain Sir G. N. Brooke Middelton; Sir Edmund Prideaux; Sir George Ramsey; Sir John S. Richardson; Sir George S. Robinson; Sir John S. Robinson; Sir J. A. Stewart; Sir W. D. Stewart; Sir John Tysser Tyrrell; Sir C. F. Lascelles Wraxall; Hon A. Duncombe, M. P.; Colonel, Right Hon. G. C. W. Forester, M. P.; Right Hon. J. Whiteside, M. P.; Hon. Percy S. Windham, M. P.; Lieut.-Col. T. Peers Williams, M. P.; Hon. W. Ashley; Major Hon. W. E. Cochrane; Hon. M. Portman; Hon S. P. Vereker; Richard Breminge, M. P.; W. H. Gregory, M. P.; Judge Halliburton, M. P.; John Hardy, M. P.; Beresford A. J. B. Hope, M. P.; J. T. Hopewood, M. P.; W. S. Lindsay, M. P.; Matthew Henry Marsh, M. P.; Francis Macdonough, M. P.; J. A. Roebuck, M. P.; William Scholefield, M. P.; William Vansittart, M. P.; Arthur Edwin Way, M. P.]

[(3) Three eminent British authorities may be quoted as to the mode in which England had governed Ireland.

—Mr. Lecky, in his history of England in the eighteenth century, in reviewing the condition of Ireland, says, in 1878: "It would be difficult in the whole compass of history to find another instance in which such various and such powerful agencies concurred to degrade the character and to blast the prosperity of a nation. That the greater part of them sprang directly from the corrupt and selfish Government of England is incontestable. No country ever exercised a more complete control over the destinies of another than did England over those of Ireland for three-quarters of a century after the Revolution. No serious resistance of any kind was ever attempted. The nation was as passive as clay in the hands of the potter, and it is a circumstance of peculiar aggravation that a large part of the legislation I have recounted was a distinct violation of a solemn treaty. The commercial legislation which ruined Irish industry, the confiscation of Irish land, which disorganized the whole social condition of the country, the scandalous misapplication of patronage, which at once demoralized and impoverished the nation, were all directly due to the English Government and the English Parliament."

—Mr. Macaulay, in a speech in the House of Commons on the state of Ireland, in Feb., 1844, said: "My first proposition, sir, will scarcely be disputed. Both sides of the House are fully agreed in thinking that the condition of Ireland may well excite great anxiety and apprehension. That island, in extent about one-fourth of the United Kingdom, in population more than one-fourth, superior probably in natural fertility to any area of equal size in Europe, possessed of natural facilities for trade such as can nowhere else be found in an equal extent of coast, an inexhaustible nursery of gallant soldiers, a country far more important to the prosperity, the strength, the dignity of this great empire than all our distant dependencies together, than the Canadas and the West Indies added to Southern Africa, to Australasia, to Ceylon, and to the vast dominions of the Moguls,—that island, sir, is acknowledged by all to be so ill affected and so turbulent that it must, in any estimate of your power, be not added, but deducted. You admit that you govern that island, not as you govern England and Scotland, but as you govern your new conquests in Scinde; not by means of the respect which the people feel for the laws, but by means of bayonets, of artillery, or entrenched camps."

—Edmund Burke, writing to Sir Hercules Langrishe, in 1792, said: "The original scheme was never deviated from for a single hour. Unheard-of confiscations were made in the Northern parts, upon grounds of plots and conspiracies never proved upon their supposed authors. The war of chicane succeeded to the war of arms and of hostile statutes; and a regular series of operations were carried on, particularly from Chichester's time, in the ordinary courts of justice and by special commissions and inquisitions: First under pretense of tenures, and then of titles in the Crown, for the purpose of the total extirpation of the interests of the natives in their own soil, until the species of subtle ravage kindled the flames of that rebellion which broke out in 1641. By the issue of that war, by the turn which the Earl of Clarendon gave to things at the Restoration, and by the total reduction of the kingdom of Ireland in 1691, the ruin of the native Irish, and in a great measure too of the first races of the English, was completely accomplished."]

[(4) The following is the language of President Grant in his message:—

"Toward the close of the last Administration a convention was signed at London for the settlement of all outstanding claims between Great Britain and the United States, which failed to receive the advice and consent of the Senate to its ratification. The time and the circumstances attending the negotiation of that treaty were unfavorable to its acceptance by the people of the United States, and its provisions were wholly inadequate for the settlement of the grave wrongs that had been sustained by this Government as well as by its citizens.

"The injuries resulting to the United States by reason of the course adopted by Great Britain during our late civil war in the increased rates of insurance; in the diminution of exports and imports, and other obstruction to domestic industry and production; in its effect upon the foreign commerce of the country; in the decrease and transfer to Great Britain of our commercial marine; in the prolongation of the war and the increased cost, both in treasure and in lives, of its suppression, could not be adjusted and satisfied as ordinary commercial claims, which continually arise between commercial nations. And yet the convention treated them simply as such ordinary claims, from which they differ more widely in the gravity of their character than in the magnitude of their amount, great even as is that difference. Not a word was found in the treaty, and not an inference could be drawn from it, to remove the sense of the unfriendliness of the course of Great Britain in our struggle for existence, which has so deeply and universally impressed itself upon the people of this country.

"Believing that a convention thus misconceived in its scope and inadequate in its provisions would not have produced the hearty, cordial settlement of pending questions, which alone is consistent with the relations which I desire to have firmly established between the United States and Great Britain, I regarded the action of the Senate in rejecting the treaty to have been wisely taken in the interest of peace, and as a necessary step in the direction of a perfect and cordial friendship between the two countries. A sensitive people conscious of their power are more at ease under a great wrong wholly unatoned than under the restraint of a settlement which satisfies neither their ideas of justice nor their grave sense of the grievance they have sustained."]

[(5) The Commissioners on behalf of Great Britain were the Earl de Grey and Ripon, President of the Queen's Counsel; Sir Stafford Northcote, late Chancellor of the Exchequer; Sir Edward Thornton, British Minister at Washington; Sir John Macdonald, Premier of the Dominion of Canada; and Montague Bernard, Professor of International Law in the university of Oxford. On the part of the United States the Commissioners were Hamilton Fish, Secretary of State; Robert C. Schenck, who had just been appointed Minister to Great Britain; Samuel Nelson, Justice of the Supreme Court; E. Rockwood Hoar, late Attorney-General; and George H. Williams, late senator of the United States from Oregon.—The Secretaries were Lord Tenterden, under secretary of the British Foreign Office, and J. C. Bancroft Davis, Assistant Secretary of State of the United States.]

[(6) The following are the three rules agreed upon:—

"A neutral Government is bound—

"First, to use due diligence to prevent the fitting out, arming, or equipping, within its jurisdiction, of any vessel which it has reasonable ground to believe is intended to cruise or to carry on war against a power with which it is at peace; and also to use like diligence to prevent the departure from its jurisdiction of any vessel intended to cruise or carry on war as above, such vessel having been specially adapted, in whole or in part, within such jurisdiction, to warlike use.

"Secondly, not to permit or suffer either belligerent to make use of its ports of waters as the base of naval operations against the other, or for the purpose of the renewal or augmentation of military supplies or arms, or the recruitment of men.

"Thirdly, to exercise due diligence in its own ports and waters, and, as to all persons within its jurisdiction, to prevent any violation of the foregoing obligations and duties."]

[(7) The Commission that made these labored and accurate awards was composed as follows:—

Right Hon. Russell Gurney, M. P., was the English Commissioner; Hon. James S. Fraser of Indiana was Commissioner for the United States; Count Louis Corti (Minister from Italy to the United States) was selected as third Commissioner. Hon. Robert S. Hale, a learned member of the bar of New York, and distinguished as a representative in Congress, was appointed agent of the United States; and Mr. Henry Howard, one of the British secretaries of Legation at Washington, and most favorably known to the people of the Capital, was agent of Her Majesty's Government.]

[(8) The arbitrators who met at Geneva were as follows:—

Great Britain appointed Sir Alexander Cockburn; the United States appointed Mr. Charles Francis Adams; the King of Italy named Count Frederick Sclopia; the President of the Swiss Confederation named Mr. Jacob Staempfli; the Emperor of Brazil named the Baron d'Itajuba. Mr. J. C. Bancroft Davis was appointed Agent of the United States; and Lord Tenterden was the Agent of Great Britain.]

CHAPTER XXI.

The opening of the Forty-second Congress, on the 4th of March, 1871, was disfigured by an act of grave injustice committed by the Senate of the United States. Charles Sumner was deposed from the chairmanship of the Committee on Foreign Relations,—a position he had held continuously since the Republican party gained control of the Senate. The cause of his displacement may be found in the angry contentions to which the scheme of annexing San Domingo gave rise. Mr. Sumner's opposition to that project was intense, and his words carried with them what was construed as a personal affront to the President of the United States,—though never so intended by the Massachusetts senator. When the committees were announced from the Republican caucus on the 10th of March, 1871, by Mr. Howe of Wisconsin, Mr. Cameron of Pennsylvania appeared as chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations and Mr. Sumner was assigned to the chairmanship of a new committee,—Privileges and Elections,—created for the exigency.(1)

The removal of Mr. Sumner from his place had been determined in a caucus of Republican senators, and never was the power of the caucus more wrongfully applied. Many senators were compelled, from their sense of obedience to the decision of the majority, to commit an act against their conceptions of right, against what they believed to be justice to a political associate, against what they believed to be sound public policy, against what they believed to be the interest of the Republican party. The caucus is a convention in party organization to determine the course to be pursued in matters of expediency which do not involve questions of moral obligation or personal justice. Rightfully employed, the caucus in not only useful but necessary in the conduct and government of party interests. Wrongfully applied, it is a weakness, an offense, a stumbling-block in the way of party prosperity.

Mr. Sumner's deposition from the place he had so long honored was not accomplished, however, without protest and contest. Mr. Schurz made an inquiry of Mr. Howe as to the grounds upon which the senator was to be deposed; and the answer was that "the personal relations between the senator from Massachusetts and the President of the United States and the head of the State Department are such as preclude all social intercourse between them." "In brief," said Mr. Howe, "I may say that the information communicated to us was that the senator from Massachusetts refused to hold personal intercourse with the Secretary of State."

—Mr. Schurz, sitting near Mr. Sumner, immediately answered for that senator that "he had not refused to enter into any official relations, either with the President of the United States or with the Secretary of State; and that upon inquiry being made of him, Mr. Sumner had answered that he would receive Mr. Fish as an old friend, and would not only be willing but would be glad to transact such matters and to discuss such questions as might come up for consideration." And Mr. Sumner added: "In his own house."

—Mr. Wilson, the colleague of Mr. Sumner, spoke with great earnestness against the wrong contemplated by the act: "Sir," said he, "we saw Stephen A. Douglas, on this floor, at the bidding of Mr. Buchanan's administration, in obedience to the demands of the slave-holding leaders and the all-conquering slave power, put down, disrated, from his committee. We saw seeds then sown that blossomed and bore bitter fruit at Charleston in 1860. Now we propose to try a similar experiment. I hope and trust in God that we shall not witness similar results. I love justice and fair play, and I think I know enough of the American people to know that ninety-nine hundredths of the men who elected this administration in 1868 will disapprove this act." Mr. Trumbull, Mr. Logan and Mr. Tipton were the only Republican senators who joined with Mr. Wilson in openly deprecating the decree of the party caucus.

—Mr. Edmunds, who was one of the active promoters of Mr. Sumner's deposition, declared that the question was "whether the Senate of the United States and the Republican party are quite ready to sacrifice their sense of duty to the whims of one single man, whether he comes from New England, or from Missouri, or from Illinois, or from anywhere else." He described the transaction as a business affair of changing a member from one committee to another for the convenience of the Senate, and said: "When I hear my friend from Massachusetts [Mr. Wilson] and the senator from Missouri [Mr. Schurz] making these displays about a mere matter of ordinary convenience, it reminds me of the nursery story of the children who thought the sky was going to fall, and it turned out in the end that it was only a rose-leaf that had fallen from a bush to the ground."

—Senator Sherman defended the right of the caucus to make the decision. "Whenever that decision is made known," said he, "every one, however high may be his position, however great his services, is bound by the common courtesies which prevail in these political bodies to yield at once. . . . I feel it my duty to make this explanation of the vote I shall give. I think I am bound by the decision made after full debate on this mere personal point, involving only the question whether the honorable senator from Massachusetts shall occupy the chairmanship of the Committee on Foreign Relations or the chairmanship of the Committee on Privileges and Elections."

Other incidents connected with the removal tended to give it the air of discourtesy to Mr. Sumner. One feature of it was especially marked and painful. Mr. Sumner's acquaintance in Europe, certainly in England, was larger than that of any other member of the Senate. His speech on the Alabama claims was the first utterance on the subject which had arrested the attention of England, and now, as if in rebuke of his patriotic position, the Queen's High Commissioners directly after their arrival in Washington were called to witness a public indignity to Mr. Sumner. The action of the Senate was, in effect, notice to the whole world that Mr. Sumner was to have no further connection with a great international question to which he had given more attention than any other person connected with the Government.

Mr. Sumner declined the service to which he was assigned, and from that time forward to the day of his death he had no rank as chairman, no place upon a committee of the Senate, no committee-room for his use, no clerk assigned to him for the needed discharge of his public duties. When Mr. Sumner entered the Senate twenty years before, the pro-slavery leaders who then controlled it had determined at one time in their caucus to exclude him from all committee service on account of his offensive opinions in regard to slavery, but upon sober second thought they concluded that a persecution of that kind would add to Mr. Sumner's strength rather than detract from it. He was therefore given the ordinary assignment of a new member by the Southern men in control and was thence regularly advanced until he became a member of the Committee on Foreign Relations, under the chairmanship of James M. Mason, with Douglas and Slidell as fellow-members.

For his fidelity to principle and his boldness in asserting the truth at an earlier day Mr. Sumner was struck down in the Senate chamber by a weapon in the hands of a political foe. It was impossible to anticipate that fifteen years later he would be even more cruelly struck down in the Senate by the members of the party he had done so much to establish. The cruelty was greater in the latter case, as the anguish of spirit is greater than suffering of body. In both instances Mr. Sumner's bearing was distinguished by dignity and magnanimity. He gave utterance to no complaints, and silently submitted to the unjustifiable wrong of which he was a victim. That nothing might be lacking in the extraordinary character of the final scene of his deposition, the Democratic senators recorded themselves against the consummation of the injustice. They had no co-operation from the Republicans. The caucus dictation was so strong that discontented Republicans merely refrained from voting.

The personal changes in the Senate, under the new elections, were less numerous than usual. General Logan took the place of Richard Yates from Illinois, having been promoted from the House, where his service since the war had been efficient and distinguished.—Matt W. Ransom, a Confederate soldier who had held high command in General Lee's army, took the place of Joseph C. Abbott of North Carolina. Mr. Ransom had been well educated at the University of Chapel Hill, was a lawyer by profession, had been Attorney-General of his State, and had served several years in this Legislature. Severe service in the field during the four years of the war had somewhat impaired his health, but his personal bearing and the general moderation of his views rapidly won for him many friends in both political parties.

—General Frank P. Blair, jun., entered as senator from Missouri a few weeks preceding the 4th of March, filling the place made vacant by the resignation of Senator Drake, who was appointed to the Bench of the Court of Claims. General Blair's political career had been somewhat checkered and changeful. Originally a Democrat of the Van Buren type, he had helped to organize the Republican party after the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. He remained a Republican until the defection of Andrew Johnson, when he joined the Democrats, and became so vituperatively hostile that the Senate in 1866 successively rejected his nomination for Collector of Internal Revenue in the St. Louis district, and for Minister to Austria. He was a good soldier, rose to the rank of Major-General, and secured the commendation of General Grant, which was far more than a brevet from the War Department. His defeat for the Vice-Presidency had, if possible, increased his antagonism to the Republican party, and he now came to the Senate as much embittered against his late associates as he had been against the Democrats ten years before. He was withal a generous-minded man of strong parts, but the career for which nature fitted him was irreparably injured by the unsteadiness of his political course.

—Henry G. Davis, a native of Maryland, entered as the first Democratic senator from West Virginia. His personal popularity was a large factor in the contest against the Republicans of his State, and he was naturally rewarded by his party as its most influential leader. Mr. Davis had honorably wrought his own way to high station, and had been all his life in active affairs. As a farmer, a railroad man, a lumberman, an operator in coal, a banker, he had been uniformly successful. He came to the Senate with that kind of practical knowledge which schooled him to care and usefulness as a legislator. He steadily grew in the esteem and confidence of both sides of the Senate, and when his party attained the majority he was entrusted with the responsible duty of the chairmanship of the Committee on Appropriations. No more painstaking or trustworthy man ever held the place. While firmly adhering to his party, he was at all times courteous, and in the business of the Senate or in social intercourse never obtruded partisan views. He was re-elected without effort, but early gave notice that at the end of his second term he would retire from active political life.

—Powell Clayton, who succeeded Alexander McDonald as senator from Arkansas, was a native of Delaware County, Pennsylvania, a member of the well-known Clayton family long settled in Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland. He was educated at a military school in Pennsylvania and trained as a civil engineer. He was engaged in that profession in Kansas in 1860-61, and upon the outbreak of the war immediately enlisted in the Union Army. He was rapidly promoted to the rank of Brigadier-General, and made an admirable record for efficiency and bravery. When the war ended he was commanding a district in Arkansas. He remained there as a citizen of the State and was active and influential during the period of reconstruction. In 1868 he was elected Governor, and at the close of his term was chosen United States senator. He is a man of character,—quiet and undemonstrative in manner, but with extraordinary qualities of firmness and endurance.

The House of Representatives was organized without delay or obstruction. Mr. Blaine was re-elected Speaker,—receiving 126 votes to 92 cast for George W. Morgan of Ohio, who had been nominated as the Democratic candidate. The oath of office was administered to the Speaker by Mr. Dawes of Massachusetts, who by Mr. Washburne's retirement had become the member of longest continuous service. The vote of the opposing candidates showed that in the elections for this Congress the Democrats had made an obvious gain in the country at large. The Republicans for the first time since 1861 failed to command two-thirds of the House,—a circumstance of much less importance when Congress is in harmony with the Executive than when, in conflict with him, the necessity arises for passing bills over his veto. But while the majority was not large, the House received valuable accessions among the new members.

—Joseph R. Hawley, who now entered the House, was born in North Carolina of Connecticut parents. He was educated in the North and began the practice of law at Hartford in 1850. Gifted with a ready pen, he soon adopted the editorial profession, and was conducting a Republican journal in 1861 when the war broke out. He enlisted the day after Sumter was fired upon, and remained in the service until the rebel armies surrendered, when he returned to his home and became editor of the Hartford Courant, with which his name has been conspicuously identified for many years. His military record was faultless, as might well be inferred from the fact that he began as a private and ended with the brevet of Major-General. He at once entered upon a political career, which in a State so closely divided as Connecticut involves labor and persistence. His two contests for Governor in 1866 and 1867, with James E. English as his opponent, enlisted wide-spread interest. The men were both popular; English had maintained an honorable reputation as a War Democrat at home, and had voted in Congress for the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Both could therefore appeal to the Union sentiment then so pronounced among the people. In the election of 1866 Hawley was victorious by a few hundred; in the election of 1867 English was victorious by a few hundred,—in a total poll each year of about 90,000 votes. In Congress General Hawley at once took active part in the proceedings and debates. A forcible speaker, with quick perception and marked industry, he had all the requisite for success in a Parliamentary body.

—Ellis H. Roberts took his seat as a Republican representative from the Utica district, New York, of which he is a native. Immediately after his graduation at Yale he became the editor of the Utica Morning Herald,—a position he has ever since held. The strength of Mr. Roberts, his intellectual resources, the variety and extent of his knowledge, the elegance and purity of his style, may be found in his editorial columns. No test of a man's power is more severe than the demand made by a daily newspaper. Without the opportunity for elaborate investigation of each subject as it arises, he must have a mind well stored with knowledge; without time for leisurely composition, he must possess the power of writing off-hand with force and precision. Tried by these requirements, Mr. Roberts has for a third of a century exhibited a high order of ability, with a constantly enlarging sphere of knowledge, a constantly growing power of logical statement. He entered Congress, therefore, with great advantages and resources. So well recognized were these, that the general opinion of his colleagues indicated him for the Ways and Means Committee, a position rarely assigned to any but an old member. Mr. Roberts took active and influential part in all the financial legislation, and soon acquired a strong hold upon the House. He always spoke clearly and forcibly, possessing at the same time the art and tact of speaking briefly. He was re-elected in 1872, but suffered defeat in the Republican reverse of 1874. If he had been sustained by the force of a strong Republican majority, he could not have failed to increase the distinction he gained in his brief service, and to become one of the recognized leaders of the House.

—William P. Frye took his seat from Maine. Though but thirty-nine years of age, he had for a considerable period been conspicuous in his State. He graduated at Bowdoin College at nineteen years of age (in 1850), and soon became professionally and politically active. From the first organization of the Republican party he supported its principles and its candidates with well-directed zeal. He served several terms in the Legislature and was one of the foremost figures in the House of Representatives in 1862, recognized as one of the ablest that ever assembled in Maine. He acquired a high reputation as an advocate and was thrice elected Attorney-General of the State. At the close of his service in that important office he was chosen to represent his district in Congress. His rank as a debater was soon established, and he exhibited a degree of care and industry in committee work not often found among representatives who so readily command the attention of the House.

—Charles Foster came from the north-western section of Ohio in which his father had been one of the pioneers and the founder of the town of Fostoria. He attracted more than the ordinary attention given to new members, from the fact that he had been able to carry a Democratic district, and, for a young man, to exert a large influence upon public opinion. He was distinguished by strong common sense, by a popular manner, by personal generosity, and by a quick instinct as to the expediency of political measures and the strength of political parties. These qualities at once gave him a position of consequence in the House superior to that held by many of the older members of established reputation. His subsequent career vindicated his early promise, and enabled him to lead the Republican party of Ohio to victory in more than one canvass which at the outset was surrounded with doubt and danger.

—Two of the most conspicuous and successful business men from the North-West appeared in this House. Charles B. Farwell, one of the leading merchants of Chicago, entered as a Republican; and Alexander Mitchell, prominent in railway and banking circles, came as a Democrat from Milwaukee. Mr. Farwell was a native of New York, and went to the West when a boy, with a fortune which consisted of a good education and habits of industry. When elected to Congress, he had long been regarded as one of the ablest and most successful merchants of Chicago. He was chosen over John Wentworth by a majority of more than five thousand.—Alexander Mitchell was a Scotchman by birth, with all the qualities of his race,—acute, industrious, wary and upright. He had taken a leading position in the financial affairs of the North-West, and maintained it with ability, being rated for years as a man of great wealth honestly acquired.

—Jeremiah H. Wilson of Indiana entered the House with the reputation of being a strong lawyer—a reputation established by his practice at the bar and his service on the bench.—H. Boardman Smith of the Elmira district, New York, was afterwards well known on the Supreme Bench of his State.—Jeremiah Rusk of Wisconsin came with a good war record, and subsequently became Governor of his State.—Mark H. Dunnell, from Minnesota, was a native of Maine, had been a member of each branch of the Maine Legislature, and for several years was Superintendent of Public Instruction.—John T. Averill was also a native of Maine. He had won the rank of Brigadier-General in the war, and had afterwards become extensively engaged in manufacturing in Minnesota.—James Monroe from the Oberlin district, Ohio, was a man of cultivation and of high character. He had served for several years in the Legislature of his State, and had been Consul-General at Rio Janiero under Mr. Lincoln's Administration.—Isaac C. Parker, a Republican from Missouri, made so good a reputation in the House that he was appointed to the United States District bench.—Walter L. Sessions, an active politician, entered from the Chautauqua district of New York.—Alfred C. Harmer, well known in Philadelphia, entered from one of the districts of that city.—John Hancock, a man of ability and character, entered from Texas.—Gerry W. Hamilton, with a fine legal reputation, came from Wisconsin.—Henry Waldron, who had served some years before, returned from Michigan.

The political disabilities imposed by the third section of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution affected large classes in the Southern States. When the Amendment was under discussion in Congress, the total number affected was estimated at fourteen thousand, but subsequently it was ascertained to be much greater. It included not only those who had been members of Congress, or held any office under the United States, but all those who had been Executive or Judicial officers or members of the Legislatures in the revolted States. The Proclamation, making its ratification known to the people, was issued by Secretary Seward on the twentieth day of July, 1868; but in advance of this formal announcement Congress (then in session) began to relieve the persons affected. The first act was for the benefit of Roderick R. Butler of Tennessee, representative-elect to the Fortieth Congress. It was approved on the 19th of June (1868), and permission was given him to take a modified oath. On the 25th of June amnesty was extended to about one thousand persons, and during the remainder of the Congress some five hundred more were relieved from political disability. In the Forty-first Congress the liberality of the majority did not grow less; and during the two years thirty-three hundred participators in the rebellion—among them some of the most prominent and influential—were restored to the full privileges of citizenship; the rule being, in fact, that every one who asked for it, either through himself of his friends, was freely granted remission of penalty.

At the opening of the Forty-second Congress it was evident that the practice of removing the disabilities of individuals would not find favor as in the two preceding Congresses. There was a disposition rather to classify and reserve for further consideration the really offending men and give general amnesty to all others. To this end, Mr. Hale of Maine, on the 10th of April, 1871, moved to suspend the rules in order that a bill might be passed removing legal and political disabilities from all persons who had participated in the rebellion, except the following classes: first, members of the Congress of the United States who withdrew therefrom and aided the rebellion; second, officers of the Army and Navy, who, being above the age of twenty-one years, left the service and aided the rebellion; third, members of State Conventions who voted for pretended ordinances of secession. It was further provided that before receiving the benefit of this Act each person should take an oath of loyalty before the Clerk of a United States Court or before a United States Commissioner. Debate was not allowed and the bill was passed by more than the requisite two-thirds—ayes 134, noes 46.

When the Bill came before the Senate, Mr. Robertson of South Carolina attempted to put it on its passage, but objection being made it was referred under the rule, and thereby postponed for the session. With this result the pressure for individual relief of the disabled persons became so great, that at the next session of Congress a bill was prepared and passed in the House, containing some seventeen thousand names, to which the Senate proposed to add some three thousand. But the effect of this was still further to impress upon Congress the necessity of some generalization of the process of relief. The impossibility of examining into the merits of individuals by tens of thousands, and of establishing the quality and degree of their offenses, was so obvious that representatives on both sides of the House demanded an Act of general amnesty, excepting therefrom only the few classes whose names would lead to discussion and possibly to the defeat of the beneficent measure.

General Butler accordingly reported from the Judiciary Committee, on the 13th of May, 1872, a bill removing the disabilities "from all persons whomsoever, except senators and representatives of the Thirty-sixth and Thirty-seventh Congresses, officers in the Judicial, Military and Naval service of the United States, heads of Departments, and foreign Ministers of the United States." This Act of amnesty, which left so few under disabilities (not exceeding seven hundred and fifty in all), would have been completed long before, but for the unwillingness of the Democratic party to combine with it a measure, originated and earnestly advocated by Mr. Sumner, to broaden the civil rights of the colored man, to abolish discrimination against him as enforced by hotels, railroad companies, places of public amusement, and in short, in every capacity where he was rendered unequal in privilege to the white man. But the Democratic leaders were not willing to accept amnesty for their political friends in the South, if at the same time they must take with it the liberation of the colored man from odious personal discriminations.

The Democrats were now to witness an exhibition of magnanimity in the colored representatives which had not been shown towards them. When the Amnesty Bill came before the House for consideration, Mr. Rainey of South Carolina, speaking for the colored race whom he represented, said: "It is not the disposition of my constituents that these disabilities should longer be retained. We are desirous of being magnanimous: it may be that we are so to a fault. Nevertheless we have open and frank hearts towards those who were our former oppressors and taskmasters. We foster no enmity now, and we desire to foster none, for their acts in the past to us or to the Government we love so well. But while we are willing to accord them their enfranchisement and here to-day give our votes that they may be amnestied, while we declare our hearts open and free from any vindictive feelings towards them, we would say to those gentlemen on the other side that there is another class of citizens in the country, who have certain rights and immunities which they would like you, sirs, to remember and respect. . . . We invoke you, gentlemen, to show the same kindly feeling towards us, a race long oppressed, and in demonstration of this humane and just feeling, I implore you, give support to the Civil-rights Bill, which we have been asking at your hands, lo! these many days."

There was no disposition, as General Butler explained, to unite the Civil-rights Bill with the Amnesty Bill, because the former could be passed by a majority, while the latter required two-thirds. With General Butler and the colored representatives speaking for the most radical sentiment of the House, and the Democrats eager for the bill if it could be disentangled from all connection with other measures, complete unanimity was reached, and the bill was enacted without even a division being demanded.

When the measure reached the Senate it was governed by an understanding that without being united in the same Act it should keep even pace with the Civil-rights Bill, and that while the Southern white man was to be relieved of his political disabilities the Southern black man should be endowed with his personal rights. On the 21st of May, therefore, the Civil-rights Bill was taken up for consideration in advance of the Amnesty Bill. In the temporary absence of Mr. Sumner from the Senate chamber, the equality recognized as to public schools and jury service was struck out, and in that form the bill was passed. The Amnesty Bill was immediately taken up; while it was pending Mr. Sumner returned and warmly denounced the fundamental change that had been made in the Civil-rights Bill. In consequence of what he considered a breach of faith on the question, he voted against the passage of the Amnesty Bill, Senator Nye of Nevada being the only one who united with him in the negative vote. Mr. Sumner's denunciations of the emasculated Civil-rights Bill were extremely severe; but he was pertinently reminded by Senator Anthony of Rhode Island that the bill was all that could be obtained in the Senate at this session, and perhaps more than could be enacted into law. The senator from Rhode Island had correctly estimated the probably action of the House, for although on three different occasions attempts were made to pass the bill under a suspension of the rules, the Democratic members, who numbered more than one-third of the House, voted solidly in the negative, and thus defeated the measure.

The colored representatives, who had been slaves, were willing to release their late masters from every form of disability, but the immediate friends of the masters were unwilling to extend the civil rights of the colored man. So far as chivalry, magnanimity, charity, Christian kindness, were involved, the colored men appeared at an advantage. Perhaps it is not surprising that lingering prejudices and the sudden change of situation should have restrained Southern white men from granting these privileges, but it must always be mentioned to the credit of the colored man that he gave his vote for amnesty to his former master when his demand for delay would have obstructed the passage of the measure.

In the stubborn opposition maintained by the Democratic party to the admission of colored men to the rights of citizenship, the closing argument of violent harangues was usually in the form of a question, "Do you want to see them in Congress?"—to which the natural and logical answer was that the right of the colored man to sit in Congress does not depend in the least upon the desire or the prejudice of other States and other districts. It is solely a matter within the judgment of the State or district which in a fair vote and honest election may choose to send him. The revolution in favor of human rights, promoted and directed by the Republican party, swept onward: the colored man, freed from slavery, attained the right of suffrage, and in due season was sent to Congress. Did harm result from it? Nay, was it not the needed demonstration of the freedom and justice of a republican government? If it be viewed simply as an experiment, it was triumphantly successful. The colored men who took seats in both Senate and House did not appear ignorant or helpless. They were as a rule studious, earnest, ambitious men, whose public conduct—as illustrated by Mr. Revels and Mr. Bruce in the Senate, and by Mr. Rapier, Mr. Lynch and Mr. Rainey in the House—would be honorable to any race. Coals of fire were heaped on the heads of all their enemies when the colored men in Congress heartily joined in removing the disabilities of those who had before been their oppressors, and who, with deep regret be it said, have continued to treat them with injustice and ignominy.