Chapter XXVI (2)

After the war of 1812 these unendurable insults to our flag were not repeated by Great Britain, but her Government steadily refused to make any formal renunciation of her right to repeat them, so that our immunity from like insults did not rest upon any better foundation than that which might be dictated by considerations of interest and prudence on the part of the offending Power. The wrong which Captain Wilkes committed against the British flag was surely not so great as if he had seized the persons of British subjects--subjects, if you please, who were of kindred blood to one who stands as high in the affection of the British people as Washington stands in the affection of the American people,--if indeed there be such a one in English tradition.

The offense of Captain Wilkes was surely far below that in the essential quality of outrage. He had not touched the hair of a British subject's head. He had only removed from the hospitality and shelter of a British ship four men who were bent on an errand of destruction to the American Union. His act cannot be justified by the canons of International Law as our own Government has interpreted and enforced them. But in view of the past and of the long series of graver outrages with which Great Britain had so wantonly insulted the American flag, she might have refrained from invoking the judgment of the civilized world against us, and especially might she have refrained from making in the hour of our sore trial and our deep distress, a demand which no British Minister would address to this Government in the day of its strength and its power.

FRIENDLY POSITION OF THE QUEEN.

It would be ungracious to withhold an expression of the lasting appreciation entertained in this country of the course pursued by Her Majesty, the Queen of England, throughout this most painful ordeal. She was wiser than her Ministers, and there can be little doubt but for her considerate interposition, softening the rigor of the British demand, the two nations would have been forced into war. On all the subsequent occasions for bitterness towards England, by reason of the treatment we experienced during the war, there was an instinctive feeling among Americans that the Queen desired peace and good will, and did not sympathize with the insidious efforts at our destruction, which had their origin in her dominions. It was fortunate that the disposition of the Queen, and not of her Ministry, was represented in Washington by Lord Lyons. The good sense and good temper of His Lordship were of inestimable value to both countries, in making the task of Mr. Seward practicable, without increasing the resentment of our people.

It was well that the Government and people of the United States were so early taught that their value to the world of foreign principles, foreign feeling, and foreign interests was only what they could themselves establish; that in this contest they must depend upon themselves; and that the dissolution of their National Unity and the destruction of their free, popular Government from the lack of courage and wisdom in those whose duty it was to maintain them, would not be unwelcome to the Principalities and Powers that "were willing to wound, but yet afraid to strike." This is not the time to describe the vacillating and hesitating development of this hostile policy; but as the purpose of the United-States Government grew more steady, more resolute, and more self-reliant, a sickening doubt seemed to becloud the ill-concealed hope of our ruin. It was not long until the brave and deluded rebels of the South learned that there was no confidence to be placed in the cruel and selfish calculation which encouraged their desperate resistance with the show of sympathy, but would not avow an open support or make a manly sacrifice in their behalf.

This initial policy of foreign powers had developed its natural consequences. It not only excited but it warranted in the Southern Confederacy the hope of early recognition. It seemed impossible that, with this recognized equality between the belligerents, there would not occur somewhere just such incidents as the seizure of the _Trent_ or the capture of the _Florida_ which would render it very difficult to maintain peaceful relations between foreign Powers and the United States. The neutrality laws were complicated. Men- of-war commanded by ambitious, ardent, and patriotic officers would sometimes in the excitement of honorable feeling, sometimes in mistaken sense of duty, vindicate their country's flag; while it was the interest of the officers of the Confederate cruisers, as bold and ingenious men who ever commanded ship, to create, wherever they could, difficulties which would embarrass the interests of neutrals and intensify between the United States and foreign Powers the growing feeling of distrust. Thus from month to month the Government of the United States could never feel secure that there would not arise questions which the indignation of its own people and the pride and latent hostility of foreign government would place beyond the power of friendly adjustment. Such questions did arise with England, France, Brazil, Spain, and even with Mexico, which the common disinclination to actual war succeeded in postponing rather than settling. But as the civil war went on, three classes of questions took continuous and precise shape. Their scope and result can be fully and fairly considered. These were--

1. The building and equipping of Confederate cruisers and their treatment as legitimate national vessels of war in the home and colonial ports of foreign powers.

2. The establishment at such ports as Nassau, in the immediate vicinity of the blockaded ports of the Southern States, of depots of supplies, which afforded to the Confederates enormous advantages in the attempt to break the blockade.

3. The distinct defiance of the traditional policy of the United States by the invasion of the neighboring Republic of Mexico for the avowed purpose of establishing there a foreign and monarchical dynasty.

SECRET SERVICE OF THE CONFEDERACY.

No sooner had Her Brittanic Majesty's proclamation, recognizing the belligerent rights of the Southern Confederacy, been issued, than a naval officer of remarkable ability and energy was sent from Montgomery to Liverpool. In his very interesting history of the services rendered by him, that officer says: "The chief object of this narrative is to demonstrate by a plain statement of facts that the Confederate Government, through their agents, did nothing more than all other belligerents have heretofore done in time of need; namely, tried to obtain from every possible source the means necessary to carry on the war in which they were engaged, and that in so doing they took particular pains to understand the municipal law of those countries in which they sought to supply their wants, and were especially careful to keep with the statutes. . . .

"The object of the Confederate Government was not merely to build a single ship, but it was to maintain a permanent representative of the Navy Department abroad, and to get ships and naval supplies without hindrance so long as the war lasted. To effect this purpose it was manifestly necessary to act with prudence and caution and to do nothing in violation of the municipal law, because a single conviction would both expose the object and defeat the aim." His solicitor "therefore drew up a case for counsel's opinion and submitted it to two eminent barristers, both of whom have since filled the highest judicial positions. The case was submitted; was a general and not a specific proposition. It was not intimated for what purpose and on whose behalf the opinion was asked, and the reply was therefore wholly without bias, and embraced a full exposition of the Act in its bearing upon the question of building and equipping ships in Her Majesty's dominions.

"The inferences drawn from the investigation of the Act by counsel were put in the following form by my solicitor:--

"'1. It is no offense (under the Act) for British subjects to equip, etc., a ship at some country _without_ Her Majesty's dominions though the intent be to cruise against a friendly State.

"'2. It is no offense for _any_ person (subject or no subject) to _equip_ a ship _within_ Her Majesty's dominions if it be _not_ done with the intent to cruise against a friendly State.

"'3. The mere building of a ship _within_ Her Majesty's dominions by any person (subject or no subject) is no offense, _whatever may be the intent of the parties_, because the offense is not in the _building_, but the _equipping_.

"'Therefore any ship-builder may build any ship in Her Majesty's dominions, provided he does not equip her within Her Majesty's dominions, and he had nothing to do with the acts of the purchasers done _within_ Her Majesty's dominions without his concurrence, or without Her Majesty's dominions even with his concurrence.'"-- [BULLOCK's _Secret Service of the Confederate States_, vol. i, pp. 65-67.]

It is an amazing courtesy which attributes to the eminent counsel a complete ignorance of the object and purpose for which their weighty opinion was sought in the construction of British law. Such ignorance is feigned and not real, and the pretense of its existence indicates either on the part of the author or the counsel a full appreciation of the deadly consequences of that malign interpretation of England's duty for which two illustrious members of the English Bar were willing to stand sponsors before the world. Conceding, as we fairly may concede, that the decision in the case of the _Alexandra_ is confirmatory of the opinion given by these leaders of the British bar, the result was simply the establishment and administration of the Naval Department of the Confederacy in England. There was its chief, there were its financial agents, there its workshops. There were its vessels armed and commissioned. Thence they sailed on their mission of destruction, and thither they returned to repair their damages, and to renew their supplies. Under formal contracts with the Confederate Government the colonial ports of Nassau and the Bermudas were made depots of supplies which were drawn upon with persistent and successful regularity. The effects of this thoroughly organized system of so-called neutrality that supplied ports, ships, arms, and men to a belligerent which had none, are not matters of conjecture or exaggeration; they have been proven and recorded. In three years fifteen million dollars' worth of property was destroyed,--given to the flame or sunk beneath the waters,--the shipping of the United States was reduced one- half, and the commercial flag of the Union fluttered with terror in every wind that blew, form the whale-fisheries of the Arctic to the Southern Cross.

MINISTER DAYTON'S INDIGNANT PROTEST.

With this condition of affairs, permitted and encouraged by England and France, our distinguished minister at Paris was justified in saying to the Government of Louis Napoleon on the reception of the Confederate steamer _Georgia_ at Brest, in language which though but the bare recital of fact was of itself the keenest reproach to the French Government:--

"The _Georgia_, like the _Florida_, the _Alabama_, and other scourges of peaceful commerce, was born of that unhappy decree which gave the rebels who did not own a ship-of-war or command a single port the right of an ocean belligerent. Thus encouraged by foreign powers they began to build and fit out in neutral ports a class of vessels constructed mainly for speed, and whose acknowledged mission is not to fight, but to rob, to burn, and to fly. Although the smoke of burning ships has everywhere marked the track of the _Georgia_ and the _Florida_ upon the ocean, they have never sought a foe or fired a gun against an armed enemy. To dignify such vessels with the name of ships-of-war seems to me, with deference, a misnomer. Whatever flag may fly from their mast-head, or whatever power may claim to own them, their conduct stamps them as piratical. If vessels of war even, they would by this conduct have justly forfeited all courtesies in ports of neutral nations. Manned by foreign seamen, armed by foreign guns, entering no home port, and waiting no judicial condemnation of prizes, they have already devastated and destroyed our commerce to an extent, as compared with their number, beyond any thing known in the records of privateering."

It would seem impossible that such a state of things could be the result of the impartial administration of an honest neutrality. It must be attributed to one of two causes;--either the municipal law of foreign countries was not sufficient to enable the governments to control the selfishness or the sentiment of their people,--to which the reply is obvious that the weakness and incompetence of municipal law cannot diminish or excuse international obligations: or it must have been due to a misconception of the obligations which international law imposes. How far there may have been a motive for this misconception, how far the wish was father to the thought of such misconstruction, it is perhaps needless now to inquire. The theory of international law maintained by the foreign Powers may be fairly stated in two propositions:--

1. That foreign Powers had the right, and in due regard to their own interests were bound, to recognize belligerency as a fact.

2. That belligerents once recognized, were equals and must be treated with the same perfect neutrality.

It is not necessary to deny these propositions, but simply to ascertain their real meaning. In its primary and simple application, the law of belligerency referred to two or more belligerents, equally independent. Its application to the case of insurgents against an established and recognized government is later, involves other and in some respects different considerations, and cannot even now be regarded as settled. To recognize an insurgent as a belligerent is not to recognize him as fully the equal of the government from which he secedes. This would be simply to recognize his independence. The limitation which international law places upon this recognition is stated in the English phrase, "the right to recognize belligerency as a fact;"--that is, to recognize the belligerent to the extent of his war capacity but no farther. The neutral cannot on this principle recognize in the belligerent the possession of any power which he does not actually possess, although in the progress of the contest such power may be developed.

The Southern Confederacy had an organized government and great armies. To that extent its power was a fact. But when foreign governments recognized in the insurgents the rights of ocean belligerency, they went beyond the fact. They were actually giving to the Confederacy a character which it did not possess and which it never acquired. For the Confederacy had not a ship or an open port. Whenever an insurgent power claims such right, it must be in condition to assume and discharge the obligation which such rights impose. When any power, insurgent or recognized, claims such right,--the right to fly its flag, to deal in hostility with the commerce of the world, to exercise dangerous privileges which may affect the interests and complicate the relations of other nations,--it must give to the world a guaranty that it is both able and willing to administer the system of maritime law under which it claims such rights and powers, by submitting its action to the regular and formal jurisdiction of Prize Courts. Strike the Prize Court out of modern maritime law and the whole system falls, and capture on the sea becomes pure barbarism,--distinguished from piracy only by the astuteness of a legal technicality. The Southern Confederacy could give no guaranty. Just as it undertook to naturalize foreign seamen upon the quarter-deck of its roving cruisers, so it undertook to administer a system of maritime law which precluded the most solemn and important of its provisions-- a judicial decision--and converted the humane and legal right of capture into an absolute and a ruthless decree of destruction. No neutral has the right to make or accept such an interpolation into the recognized and essential principles of the law of maritime warfare.

ENGLAND'S MALIGNANT NEUTRALITY.

The application of this so-called neutrality to both the so-called belligerents was not designed nor was it practicable. In referring to the obligation of the neutral to furnish no assistance to either of the belligerents, one of the oldest and most authoritative of international law writers says: "I do not say to give assistance equally but to give no assistance, for it would be absurd that a state should assist at the same time two enemies. And besides it would be impossible to do it with equality: the same things, the like number of troops, the like quantity of arms and munitions furnished under different circumstances are no longer equivalent succors." Assistance is not a theoretical idea; it is a plain, practical, unmistakable fact. When the United States had, at vast cost and by incredible effort, shut the Southern Confederacy from the sea and blockaded its ports against the entry of supplies, when that government had no resources within its territory by which it could put a ship upon the ocean, or break the blockade from within, then it was that England allowed Confederate officers to camp upon her soil, organize her labor, employ her machinery, use her ports, occupy her colonial stations, almost within sight of the blockaded coast, and to do this continuously, systematically, defiantly.

By these acts the British government gave the most valuable assistance to the South and actually engaged in defeating the military operations of the United States. There was no equivalent assistance which Great Britain could or did render to the United States. They might have rendered other assistance, but none which would compensate for this. Let it be supposed for one moment that Mexico had practiced, on the other side of the Rio Grande, the same sort of neutrality,--that she had lined the bank of the river with depots of military supplies; that she had allowed officers of the Confederate army to establish themselves and organize a complete system for the receipt of cotton and the delivery of merchandise on her territory; that her people had served as factors, intermediaries, and carriers,--would any reasonable interpretation of international law consider such conduct to be impartial neutrality? But illustration does not strengthen the argument. The naked statement of England's position is its worst condemnation. Her course, while ingeniously avoiding public responsibility, gave unceasing help to the Confederacy --as effective as if the intention had been proclaimed. The whole procedure was in disregard of international obligation and was the outgrowth of what M. Prevost-Paradol aptly charaterized as a "malignant neutrality."

It cannot be said in reply that the Governments of England and France were unable to restrain this demonstration of the sympathy, this exercise of the commercial enterprise of their people. For the time came when they did restrain it. As soon as it became evident that the Confederacy was growing weaker, that with all its marvelous display of courage and endurance it could not prevent the final success of the Union, there was no longer difficulty in arresting the building of the iron-clads on the Mersey; then the watchfulness of home and colonial authorities was quickened; then supplies were meted out scantily; then the dangers of a great slave empire began to impress Ministerial consciences, and the same Powers prepared to greet the triumph of the Union with well-feigned satisfaction. But even if this change had not occurred the condition of repressed hostility could not have lasted. It was war in disguise --not declared, only because the United-States Government could not afford to multiply its enemies, and England felt that there was still uncertainty enough in the result to caution her against assuming so great a risk. But the tension of the relation was aptly described by Mr. Seward in July, 1863, when he said,--

"If the law of Great Britain must be left without amendment and be construed by the government in conformity with the rulings of the chief Baron of the Exchequer [the _Alexandra_ case] then there will be left for the United States no alternative but to protect themselves and their commerce against armed cruisers proceeding from British ports as against the naval forces of a public enemy. . . . British ports, domestic as well as colonial, are now open under certain restrictions to the visits of piratical vessels, and not only furnish them coals, provisions, and repairs, but even receive their prisoners when the enemies of the United States come in to obtain such relief from voyages in which they have either burned ships they have captured, or have even manned and armed them as pirates and sent them abroad as auxiliaries in the work of destruction. Can it be an occasion for either surprise or complaint that if this condition of things is to remain and receive the deliberate sanction of the British Government, the navy of the United States will receive instructions to pursue these enemies into the ports which thus in violation of the law of nations and the obligations of neutrality become harbors for the pirates? The President very distinctly perceives the risks and hazards which a naval conflict thus maintained will bring to the commerce and even to the peace of the two countries. But he is obliged to consider that in the case supposed, the destruction of our commerce will probably amount to a naval war, waged by a portion at least of the British nation against the government and people of the United States--a war tolerated although not declared or avowed by the British Government. If through the necessary employment of all our means of national defense such a partial war shall become a general one between the two nations, the President thinks that the responsibility for that painful result will not fall upon the United States."

ENGLAND'S MALIGNANT NEUTRALITY.

The truth is that the so-called neutral policy of foreign Powers was the vicious application of obsolete analogies to the conditions of modern life. Because of the doctrine of belligerent recognition had in its origin referred to nations of well established, independent existence, the doctrine was now pushed forward to the extent of giving ocean belligerency to an insurgent which had in reality no maritime power whatever. It was an old and recognized principle that the commercial relations of the neutral should not be interfered with unless they worked positive injury to the belligerent. The new application made the interests of neutral commerce the supreme factor in determining how far belligerent rights should be respected. The ship-building and carrying-trade of England were to be maintained and encouraged at any cost to the belligerent. Under the old law, a belligerent had the right to purchase a ship and a cargo, or a neutral might run a blockade, taking all the risk of capture. By the new construction, power was to be given to a belligerent to transfer the entire administration of its naval service to foreign soil, and to create and equip a navy which issued from foreign waters, ready not for a dangerous journey to their own ports of delivery, but for the immediate demonstration of hostile purpose. No such absurd system can be found in the principles or precedents of international law; no such system would be permitted by the great powers of Europe if to-morrow they should engage in war.

The principle of this policy was essentially mercenary. It professed no moral sense. It might be perfectly indifferent to the high or the low issues which the contest between the belligerents involved; it was deaf to any thing which might be urged by justice of humanity or friendship; it was the cynical recognition of the truth of the old proverb that "It is an ill wind which blows good to no one." It was the same principle upon which England declares with audacious selfishness that she cannot sacrifice that portion of her Indian revenue which comes from the opium trade or the capital which is invested in its growth and manufacture, and that China must therefore take the poison which diseases and degrades her population. But selfish as is this market-policy, it is a policy of circumstance. It may be resisted with success or it may be abandoned because it cannot succeed. It creates bitterness; it leads to war; it may in its selfishness cause the destruction of a nation, but it does not necessarily imply a desire for that destruction. But there was in the foreign policy of Europe towards the United States during the civil war the manifestation of a spirit more intense in its hostility, more dangerous in its consequences. It was the spirit of enmity to the Union itself, and the emphatic demonstration of this feeling was the invasion of Mexico for the purpose of converting the republic by force into an empire. Louis Napoleon's enterprise was distinctly based on the utter destruction of the American Union.

The Declaration of Independence by the British Colonies in America was something more than the creation of a new sovereignty. It was the foundation of a new system both of internal government and foreign relation, a system not entirely isolated from the affairs of the Old World but independent of the dynastic complications and the territorial interests which controlled the political conflicts of Europe. At first, with its material resources undeveloped, its territorial extension limited and surrounded by the colonies of the great Powers, this principle although maintained as a conviction, could not manifest itself in action. But it showed itself in that abstinence from entangling alliances which would avoid the dangers of even a too friendly connection. In time our territory expanded. The colonies of foreign nations following our example became independent republics whose people had the same aspirations, whose governments were framed upon the same basis of popular right. The rapidity of communication, supplied by the railroad and the telegraph, facilitated and concentrated this political cohesion, and there had been formed from the borders of Canada to the Straits of Magellan a complete system of republics (to which Brazil can scarcely be considered an exception) professing the same political creed, having great commercial interests in common, and which with the extinction of some few jealousies, were justified in the anticipation of a prosperous and peaceful future. There was not an interest or an ambition of a single one of these republics which threatened an interest or an ambition of a single European power.

THE REPUBLICS OF AMERICA.

It needs no argument to show that the central element of the stability of this system of American republics was the strength of the Federal Union, its growth into a harmonious nationality, and its ability to prevent anywhere on the two continents the armed intervention of foreign Powers for the purpose of political domination. This strength was known and this resolution publicly declared, and it is safe to affirm that before 1861 or after 1865 not one nor all of the European Powers would have willingly challenged this policy. But the moment the strength of the Union seemed weakened, the moment that the leading Republic of this system found itself hampered and embarrassed by internal dissensions, all Europe --that Europe which upon the threatening of a Belgian fortress, or the invasion of a Swiss canton, or the loss of the key to a church in Jerusalem, would have written protocols, summoned conferences, and mustered armies--quietly acquiesced in as wanton, wicked, and foolish an aggression as ever Imperial folly devised. The same monarch who appealed with confidence to Heaven when he declared war to prevent a Hohenzollern from ascending the throne of Spain, appealed to the same Heaven with equal confidence and equal success when he declared war to force a Hapsburg upon the throne of Mexico.

The success of the establishment of a Foreign Empire in Mexico would have been fatal to all that the United States cherished, to all that it hoped peacefully to achieve. The scheme of invasion rested on the assumption of the dissolution of the Union and its division into two hostile governments; but aside from that possibility, it threatened the United States upon the most vital questions. It was at war with all our institutions and our habits of political life, for it would have introduced into a great country on this continent, capable of unlimited development, that curious and mischievous form of government, that perplexing mixture of absolutism and democracy,--imperial power supported by universal suffrage,-- which seems certain to produce aggression abroad and corruption at home, and which must have injuriously influenced the political growth of the Spanish-American Republics. Firmly seated in Mexico, it would have spread through Central America to the Isthmus, controlling all canal communications between the two oceans which were the boundaries of the Union, while its growth upon the Pacific Coast would have been in direct rivalry with the natural and increasing power of the United States. Commanding the Gulf of Mexico it would have controlled the whole commerce of the West- Indian islands and radically changed their future. Bound by dynastic connection, checked and directed by European influence, it could not have developed a national policy in harmony with neighboring States, but its existence and its necessary efforts at expansion would have made it not only a constant menace to American Republics but a source of endless war and confusion between the great Powers of the world. The policy signally failed. But surely European statesmen, without miraculous foresight, might have anticipated that its success would have been more dangerous than its defeat, and that the conservative strength of the Union might be even to them an influence of good and not of evil.

FORMER VIEWS OF LORD PALMERSTON.

In 1859 Lord Palmerston wrote to Lord John Russell: "It is plain that France aims through Spain at getting fortified points on each side of the Gut of Gibraltar which in the event of war between Spain and France on the one hand and England on the other would by a cross fire render that strait very difficult and dangerous to pass and thus virtually shut us out of the Mediterranean. . . . The French Minister of War or of marine said the other day that Algeria never would be safe till France possessed a port on the Atlantic coast of Africa. Against whom would such a port make Algeria safe? Evidently only against England, and how could such a port help France against England? Only by tending to shut us out of the Mediterranean." Later in the same year writing to the same colleague, he says, "Till lately I had strong confidence in the fair intentions of Napoleon towards England, but of late I have begun to feel great distrust and to suspect that his formerly declared intention of avenging Waterloo has only lain dormant and has not died away. He seems to have thought that he ought to lay his foundation by beating with our aid or with our concurrence or our neutrality, first Russia, then Austria, and by dealing with them generously to make them his friends in any subsequent quarrel with us. . . . Next he has been assiduously laboring to increase his naval means, evidently for offensive as well as for defensive purposes, and latterly great pains have been taken to raise throughout France and especially among the army and navy, hatred of England and a disparaging feeling of our military and naval means."

Is it not strange that, even with such apprehensions, the destruction of the Union was so welcome in England that it blinded the eyes of her statesmen and her people? They should surely have seen that the establishment of a Latin empire under the protection of France, in the heart of the Spanish-American Republics, would open a field far more dangerous to British interests than a combination for a French port in Africa, and that in pursuing his policy the wily Emperor was providing a throne for an Austrian archduke as a compensation for the loss of Lombardy. There was a time when Lord Palmerston himself held broader and juster views of what ought to be the relations between England and the United States. In 1848 he suggested to Lord John Russell a policy which looked to a complete unification of the interests of the two countries: "If as I hope," said His Lordship, "we shall succeed in altering our Navigation Laws, and if as a consequence Great Britain and the United States shall place their commercial marines upon a footing of mutual equality with the exception of the coasting-trade and some other special matters, might not such an arrangement afford us a good opportunity for endeavoring to carry in some degree into execution the wish which Mr. Fox entertained in 1783, when he wished to substitute close alliance in the place of sovereignty and dependence as the connecting link between the United States and Great Britain? A treaty for mutual defense would no longer be applicable to the condition of the two countries as independent Powers, but might they not with mutual advantage conclude a treaty containing something like the following conditions:--

"1. That in all cases of difference which may hereafter unfortunately arise between the contracting parties, they will in the first place have recourse to the mediation of some friendly Power, and that hostilities shall not begin between them until every endeavor to settle their difference by such means shall have proved fruitless.

"2. That if either of the two should at any time be at war with any other Power, no subject or citizen of the other contracting party shall be allowed to take out letters of marque from such Power under pain of being treated and dealt with as a pirate.

"3. That in such case of war between either of the two parties and a third Power, no subject or citizen of the other contracting party shall be allowed to enter into the service naval or military of such third Power.

"4. That in such case of war as aforesaid, neither of the contracting parties shall afford assistance to the enemies of the other by sea or by land, unless war should break out between the two contracting parties themselves after the failure of all endeavors to settle their differences in the manner specified in Article 1."

At the time Lord Palmerston expressed these opinions, we had just closed the Mexican war, with vast acquisition of territory and with a display of military power on distant fields of conquest which surprised European statesmen. Our maritime interests were almost equal to those of the United Kingdom, our prosperity was great, the prestige of the Nation was growing. In the thirteen intervening years between that date and the outbreak of the Southern Rebellion we had grown enormously in wealth, our Pacific possessions had shown an extraordinary production of precious metals, our population had increased more than ten millions. If an alliance with the United States was desirable for England in 1848, it was far more desirable in 1861, and Lord Palmerston being Prime Minister in the latter year, his power to propose and promote it was far greater. Is there any reason that will satisfactorily account for His Lordship's abandonment of this ideal relation of friendship between the two countries except that he saw a speedier way of adding to the power of England by conniving at the destruction of the Union? His change from the policy which he painted in 1848 to that which he acted in 1861 cannot be satisfactorily explained upon any other hypothesis than that he could not resist the temptation to cripple and humiliate the Great Republic.

FIXED POLICY OF THE UNITED STATES.

This brief history of the spirit rather than the events which characterized the foreign relations of the United States during the civil war, has been undertaken with no desire to revive the feelings of burning indignation which they provoked, or to prolong the discussion of the angry questions to which they gave rise. The relations of nations are not and should not be governed by sentiment. The interest and ambition of states, like those of men, will disturb the moral sense and incline to one side or the other the strict balance of impartial justice. New days bring new issues and old passions are unsafe counselors. Twenty years have gone by. England has paid the cost of her mistakes. The Republic of Mexico has seen the fame and the fortunes of the Emperors who sought her conquest sink suddenly--as into the pits which they themselves had digged for their victims--and the Republic of the United States has come out of her long and bitter struggle, so strong that never again will she afford the temptation or the opportunity for unfriendly governments to strike at her National life. Let the past be the past, but let it be the past with all the instruction and the warning of its experience.

The future safety of these continents rests upon the strength and the maintenance of the Union, for had dissolution been possible, events have shown with what small regard the interests or the honor of either of the belligerents would have been treated. It has been taught to the smaller republics that if this strength be shattered they will be the spoil of foreign arms and the dependent provinces again of foreign monarchs. When this contest was over, the day of immaturity had passed and the United States stood before the world a great and permanent Power. That Power can afford to bury all resentments. Tranquil at home, developing its inexhaustible resources with a rapidity and success unknown in history, bound in sincere friendship, and beyond the possibility of a hostile rivalry, with the other republics of the continents, standing midway between Asia and Europe, a Power on the Pacific as well as on the Atlantic, with no temptation to intermeddle in the questions which disturb the Old World, the Republic of the United States desires to live in amicable relation with all peoples, demanding only the abstinence of foreign intervention in the development of that policy which her political creed, her territorial extent, and the close and cordial neighborhood of kindred governments have made the essential rule of her National life.

[NOTE.--In the foregoing chapter the term "piratical" is used without qualification in referring to the Southern cruisers, because it is the word used in the quotations made. It undoubtedly represented the feeling of the country at that time, but in an impartial discussion of the events of the war the word cannot be used with propriety. Our own Courts have found themselves unable to sustain such a conclusion. Looking to the future it is better to rest our objections to the mode of maritime warfare adopted by the Confederacy upon a sound and enduring principle; viz., that the recognition of ocean belligerency, when the belligerent cannot give to his lawful exercise of maritime warfare the guaranty of a prize jurisdiction, is a violation of any just or reasonable system of international law. The Confederacy had the plea of necessity for its course, but the jurisdiction of England for aiding and abetting the practice has not yet been presented.]

[NOTE.--Her Britannic Majesty's principal ministers of State in 1861-2,--at the time of the correspondence touching the _Trent_ affair, referred to in the preceding chapter,--were as follows:--

_Premier_--Lord Palmerston.
_Lord High Chancellor_--Lord Westbury.
_Lord President of the Council_--Earl Granville.
_Lord Privy Seal_--The Duke of Argyll.
_Secretary for Foreign Affairs_--Lord John Russell.
_Secretary for the Colonies_--The Duke of Newcastle.
_Secretary for the Home Department_--Sir George Gray.
_Secretary of State for War_--Sir G. C. Lewis.
_Secretary of State for India_--Sir Charles Wood.
_Chancellor of the Exchequer_--Rt. Honorable W. E. Gladstone.
_Secretary for Ireland_--Rt. Honorable Edward Cardwell.
_Postmaster-General_--Lord Stanley of Alderney.
_President Board of Trade_--Rt. Honorable Charles Pelham Villiers.

The same Ministry, with unimportant changes, continued in power throughout the whole period of the Rebellion in the United States.]

ADDENDUM.

The Tenth chapter of this volume having been given to the press in advance of formal publication, many inquiries have been received in regard to the text of Judge Black's opinion of November 20, 1860, referred to on pp. 231, 232. The opinion was submitted to the President by Judge Black as Attorney-General. So much of the opinion as includes the points which are specially controverted and criticized is here given--about one-half of the entire document. It is as follows:--

. . . "I come now to the point in your letter which is probably of the greatest practical importance. By the Act of 1807 you may employ such parts of the land and naval forces as you may judge necessary for the purpose of causing the laws to be duly executed, in all cases where it is lawful to use the militia for the same purpose. By the Act of 1795 the militia may be called forth 'whenever the laws of the United States shall be opposed, or the execution thereof obstructed, in any State by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of Judicial proceedings, or by the power vested in the marshals.' This imposes upon the President the sole responsibility of deciding whether the exigency has arisen which requires the use of military force, and in proportion to the magnitude of that responsibility will be the care not to overstep the limits of his legal and just authority.

"The laws referred to in the Act of 1795 are manifestly those which are administered by the judges, and executed by the ministerial officers of the courts for the punishment of crime against the United States, for the protection of rights claimed under the Federal Constitution and laws, and for the enforcement of such obligations as come within the cognizance of the Federal Judiciary. To compel obedience to these laws, the courts have authority to punish all who obstruct their regular administration, and the marshals and their deputies have the same powers as sheriffs and their deputies in the several States in executing the laws of the States. These are the ordinary means provided for the execution of the laws; and the whole spirit of our system is opposed to the employment of any other, except in cases of extreme necessity arising out of great and unusual combinations against them. Their agency must continue to be used until their incapacity to cope with the power opposed to them shall be plainly demonstrated. It is only upon clear evidence to that effect that a military force can be called into the field. Even then its operations must be purely defensive. It can suppress only such combinations as are found directly opposing the laws and obstructing the execution thereof. It can do no more than what might and ought to be done by a civil posse, if a civil posse could be raised large enough to meet the same opposition. On such occasions, especially, the military power must be kept in strict subordination to the civil authority, since it is only in aid of the latter that the former can act at all.

"But what if the feeling in any State against the United States should become so universal that the Federal officers themselves (including judges, district attorneys, and marshals) would be reached by the same influences, and resign their places? Of course, the first step would be to appoint others in their stead, if others could be got to serve. But in such an event, it is more than probable that great difficulty would be found in filling the offices. We can easily conceive how it might become altogether impossible. We are therefore obliged to consider what can be done in case we have no courts to issue judicial process, and no ministerial officers to execute it. In that event troops would certainly be out of place, and their use wholly illegal. If they are sent to aid the courts and marshals, there must be courts and marshals to be aided. Without the exercise of those functions which belong exclusively to the civil service, the laws cannot be executed in any event, no matter what may be the physical strength which the Government has at its command. Under such circumstances, to send a military force into any State, with orders to act against the people, would be simply making war upon them.

"The existing laws put and keep the Federal Government strictly on the defensive. You can use force only to repel an assault on the public property and aid the Courts in the performance of their duty. If the means given you to collect the revenue and execute the other laws be insufficient for that purpose, Congress may extend and make them more effectual to those ends.

"If one of the States should declare her independence, your action cannot depend upon the righteousness of the cause upon which such declaration is based. Whether the retirement of the State from the Union be the exercise of a right reserved in the Constitution, or a revolutionary movement, it is certain that you have not in either case the authority to recognize her independence or to absolve her from her Federal obligations. Congress, or the other States in Convention assembled, must take such measures as may be necessary and proper. In such an event, I see no course for you but to go straight onward in the path you have hitherto trodden-- that is, execute the laws to the extent of the defensive means placed in your hands, and act generally upon the assumption that the present constitutional relations between the States and the Federal Government continue to exist, until a new code of things shall be established either by law or force.

"Whether Congress has the constitutional right to make war against one or more States, and require the Executive of the Federal Government to carry it on by means of force to be drawn from the other States, is a question for Congress itself to consider. It must be admitted that no such power is expressly given; nor are there any words in the Constitution which imply it. Among the powers enumerated in Article 1, Section 8, is that 'to declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and to make rules concerning captures on land and water.' This certainly means nothing more than the power to commence and carry on hostilities against the foreign enemies of the nation. Another clause in the same section gives Congress the power 'to provide for calling forth the militia,' and to use them within the limits of the State. But this power is so restricted by the words which immediately follow that it can be exercised only for one of the following purposes: 1. To execute the laws of the Union; that is, to aid the Federal officers in the performance of their regular duties. 2. To suppress insurrection against the State; but this is confined by Article 4, Section 4, to cases in which the State herself shall apply for assistance against her own people. 3. To repel the invasion of a State by enemies who come from abroad to assail her in her own territory. All these provisions are made to protect the States, not to authorize an attack by one part of the country upon another; to preserve the peace, and not to plunge them into civil war. Our forefathers do not seem to have thought that war was calculated 'to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.' There was undoubtedly a strong and universal conviction among the men who framed and ratified the Constitution, that military force would not only be useless, but pernicious, as a means of holding the States together.

"If it be true that war cannot be declared, nor a system of general hostilities carried on by the Central Government against a State, then it seems to follow that an attempt to do so would be _ipso facto_ an expulsion of such State from the Union. Being treated as an alien and an enemy, she would be compelled to act accordingly. And if Congress shall break up the present Union by unconstitutionally putting strife and enmity and armed hostility between different sections of the country, instead of the domestic tranquility which the Constitution was meant to insure, will not all the States be absolved from their Federal obligations? Is any portion of the people bound to contribute their money or their blood to carry on a contest like that?

"The right of the General Government to preserve itself in its whole constitutional vigor by repelling a direct and positive aggression upon its property or its officers cannot be denied. But this is a totally different thing from an offensive war to punish the people for the political misdeeds of their State Government, or to enforce an acknowledgment that the Government of the United States is supreme. The States are colleagues of one another, and if some of them shall conquer the rest, and hold them as subjugated provinces, it would totally destroy the whole theory upon which they are now connected.

"If this view of the subject be correct, as I think it is, then the Union must utterly perish at the moment when Congress shall arm one part of the people against another for any purpose beyond that of merely protecting the General Government in the exercise of its proper constitutional functions.

"I am, very respectfully, yours, etc.,

"J. S. BLACK."

ERRATUM.

In Chapter VIII., there is some inaccuracy in regard to the number of killed in the John Brown raid at Harper's Ferry. According to the official report of Colonel Robert E. Lee, U.S.A., who commanded the military force that relieved Harper's Ferry, the insurgents numbered in all nineteen men,--fourteen white, five colored. Of the white men, ten were killed; two, John Brown and Aaron C. Stevens, were badly wounded; Edwin Coppee, unhurt, was taken prisoner; John E. Cooke escaped. Of the colored men, two were killed, two taken prisoner, one unaccounted for.

THE APPENDICES.

The progress of the country, referred to so frequently in the text, is strikingly illustrated and verified by the facts contained in the several appendices which follow.

The appendices include a variety of subjects, and they have all been selected with the view of showing the progress and development of the Nation in the different fields of enterprise and human labor.

The tabular statements as to the population and wealth of the country will be found especially accurate and valuable. The statistics relating to Education and the Public Schools, to Agriculture, to Railways, to Immigration, to the Army, to Shipping, to the Coal and Iron Product, to National and State Banks, to the Circulation of Paper Money, to the price of Gold, and to the Public Debt, will be found full of interest.

Thanks are due and are cordially given to Mr. Joseph Nimmo, Jr., Chief of the Bureau of Statistics, and Mr. Charles W. Seaton, Superintendent of the Census, for valuable aid rendered in the preparation of the appendices.

For courtesies constantly extended, and for most intelligent and discriminating aid of various kinds, the sincerest acknowledgments are made to Mr. Ainsworth R. Spofford, the accomplished Librarian of Congress.