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minister or envoy at Hanover, Copenhagen, and Berlin; and at the time of his appointment as arbitrator he was envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of Brazil at Paris. During the progress of the arbitration he was invested by his Emperor with the title of Viscount.

"This account of the personnel of the arbitration would be imperfect without the mention of the younger but estimable persons who constituted the staff of the formal representatives of the two governments, namely: on the part of the United States Mr. C. C. Beaman, as solicitor, and Messrs. Brooks Adams, John Davis, F. W. Hackett, W. F. Peddrick, and Edward T. Waite, as secretaries; and on the part of Great Britain, in the latter capacity or as translators, Messrs. Sanderson, Markheim, Villiers, Langley, and Hamilton."2 Mr. Beaman assisted Mr. Davis by arranging, under the latter's general direction, the evidence presented with the American case respecting the national and individual claims.3

Preliminaries.

On the 2d of December 1871 Mr. Davis arArrangement of the rived in Paris, where he found Lord Tenterden. On the 4th each of them, in his capacity as agent, addressed notes to the several arbitrators notifying them of the wish of his government that the conferences might begin on the 15th of December. On the 13th Mr. Davis and Lord Tenterden set out from Paris for Geneva in company with Mr. Adams and Sir Alexander Cockburn. On the way they discussed the organization of the tribunal and arranged the preliminaries.

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Cushing's Treaty of Washington, 85. "He possessed," said Mr. Cushing, courteous and attractive manners, intelligence disciplined by long experience of men and affairs, instinctive appreciation of principles and facts, and the ready expression of thought in apt language, but without the tendency to run into the path of debate or exposition which appeared in the acts of some of his collagues of the tribunal of arbitration.

"In comparing Mr. Staempfli, with his deep-brown complexion, his piercing dark eyes, his jet black hair, his quick but suppressed manner, and the Viscount of Itajubá, with his fair complexion and his air of gentleness and affability, one having no previous knowledge of their respective origins would certainly attribute that of the former to tropical and passionate America, and that of the latter to temperate and calm-blooded Europe."

2 Cushing's Treaty of Washington, 97.

3 Report of Mr. Davis, September 21, 1872, For. Rel. 1872, part 2, IV. 2; Mr. Davis to Mr. Fish, November 13, 1871, For. Rel. 1872, part 2, IV. 413. Mr. Beaman published in March, 1871, a volume entitled "The National and Private Alabama Claims and their Final and Amicable Settlement," in which he presented a basis of possible adjustment.

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Opening of the
Arbitration.

On the afternoon of the 15th of December the proceedings of the arbitration were begun by the informal examination of the powers of the arbitrators, which were found to be in due form. The scene of the meeting was the Hotel de Ville, which the cantonal government of Geneva had placed at the disposal of the tribunal. In the hall of this building, known as the "Salle des Conférences," the meetings of the arbitrators were held and the great questions submitted to them decided.

Count Sclopis as
President.

After the examination of the arbitrators' full powers, Mr. Adams said that as neither he nor Sir Alexander Cockburn could preside, it had been thought advisable to invite the gentleman next in rank, in the order named in the treaty, to preside over the meetings of the tribunal. Sir Alexander Cockburn seconded the proposal, not only, as he said, for the reason given by Mr. Adams, but also because Count Sclopis was one of the most illustrious jurists of Europe. Count Sclopis then took the chair, and in returning his thanks he expressed the belief that "the meeting of the tribunal indicated of itself the impression of new direction on the public policy of nations the most advanced in civilization, and the commencement of an epoch in which the spirit of moderation and the sentiment of equity were beginning to prevail over the tendency of old routines of arbitrary violence or culpable indifference. He signified regret that the pacific object of the congress of Paris had not been seconded by events in Europe. He congratulated the world that the statesmen who directed the destinies of Great Britain and the United States, with rare firmness of conviction and devotion to the interests of humanity, resisting all temptations of vulgar ambition, had magnanimously and courageously traversed in peace the difficulties which had divided them both before and since the conclusion of the treaty. He quoted approvingly the opinion expressed by Mr. Gladstone, on the one hand, and by President Washington, on the other, in commendation of the policy of peace, of justice, and of honor in the conduct of nations. And he proclaimed in behalf of his colleagues, as well as of himself, the purpose of the tribunal, acting sometimes with the large perception of statesmen, sometimes with the scrutinizing eye of judges, and always with a profound sentiment of equity and with absolute impartiality, thus to discharge its high duty of pacification as well as of justice to the two governments.”1

'Cushing's Treaty of Washington, 77.

Appointment of Secretary.

After the discourse of Count Sclopis, Mr. Alexander Favrot, of Berne, was named by Mr. Staempfli, on the request of the arbitra

tors, as secretary to the tribunal.

Presentation of
Cases.

Mr. Davis and Lord Tenterden then, with identic notes, presented the cases of their respective governments, and the tribunal "directed that the respective counter cases, additional documents, correspondence, and evidence called for or permitted by the fourth article of the treaty should be delivered to the secretary of the tribunal at the hall of the conference in the Hotel de Ville at Geneva, for the arbitrators and for the respective agents, on or before the 15th day of April next."1 On the 16th of December the tribunal met again, and adjourned till the 15th of the following June, unless sooner convened by the secretary.2 Writing confidentially to Mr. Fish after this adjournment, Mr. Davis said: "Thus far everything looks well. The arbitrators are evidently impressed with the gravity of the questions submitted to them, and approach the work with a desire and purpose of dealing justly with both parties. We can wish for nothing better than this."a

Case of the United
States.

Chapter on British
Unfriendliness.

The Case of the United States opened with an introductory chapter, in which the provisions of the treaty relating to the Alabama claims were set forth, together with the statements in the protocols of the joint high commission in regard to the negotiations. The second chapter was entitled, "The unfriendly course pursued by Great Britain toward the United States from the outbreak to the close of the insurrection." On the 6th of November 1860 Abraham Lincoln was, said the Case of the United States, elected President of the United States in strict conformity with the provisions of the Constitution and laws of the country, on a platform which declared "that the normal condition of all the territory of the United States" was "that of freedom," and which denied "the authority of Congress, of a Territorial legislature, or of any individuals, to give legal existence to slavery in any Territory of the United States," the word "Territory" being here used in the sense of an incipient

Protocol, For. Rel. 1872, part 2, IV. 16.

2 Id. 17.

3 December 16, 1871, MSS. Dent. of State.

political organization which might at some future time become. a State. Soon afterward the people of South Carolina, through a State convention, declared their purpose to secede from the Union on the ground that the party about to come into power had announced that the South should be "excluded from the common territory." The State of Alabama, on the 11th of January 1861, through a convention in which the vote stood 61 yeas to 39 nays, followed the example of South Carolina, giving as the reason that the election of President Lincoln "by a sectional party, avowedly hostile to the domestic institutions (i. e., slavery) of Alabama," was "a political wrong of an insulting and menacing character." The State of Georgia, after a much greater struggle, took the same course, the final vote being 208 yeas to 89 nays. Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas each framed an ordinance of secession from the Union before the 4th of February, in each case with more or less unanimity. On that day representatives from some of the States which had attempted to go through the form of secession, and representatives from the State of North Carolina, which had not at that time attempted it, met at Montgomery, in the State of Alabama, for the purpose of organizing a provisional government, and elected Jefferson Davis as the provisional president and Alexander II. Stephens as provisional vice-president of the proposed confederation. Jefferson Davis, in accepting this office, on the 18th of February made a speech in which the perpetuation of slavery was virtually admitted to be the cause of the secession movement; and Mr. Stephens explicitly declared that the "corner stone" of the new government rested upon "the great truth" that the negro was "not equal to the white man," and that slavery was "his natural and moral condition." No other State passed ordinances of sccession till after the fall of Fort Sumter. Before that time the people of Tennessee and Missouri voted by large majorities against secession; and in the States of North Carolina and Virginia conventions were called which were known to be opposed to the movement in South Carolina and the six States bordering on the Gulf of Mexico, and which were still in session when some of the events subsequently referred to took place. A large minority, if not a majority, of the people of the slave States known as Border States and of the mountainous parts of the six States known as the Gulf States did not desire separation. Their feelings were expressed in a speech 5627-36

made by Mr. Stephens in the Georgia convention, before that State passed the ordinance of secession and two months before he accepted office at Montgomery, in which he declared that the secession movement was without a "plea of justification," and challenged anyone to name "one governmental act of wrong, deliberately and purposely done by the government of Washington," of which the South had a right to complain." On the 9th of March, after the inauguration of President Lincoln, Mr. Dallas, then minister of the United States at London, was instructed to communicate to Lord Russell, Her Majesty's principal secretary of state for foreign affairs, the inaugural address of the President, and assure him that the President entertained full confidence in the speedy restoration of the harmony and unity of the government. On the 9th of April Mr. Dallas, complying with these instructions, pressed upon Lord Russell the importance of England and France abstaining, "at least for a considerable time, from doing what, by encouraging groundless hopes, would widen a breach still thought capable of being closed." Lord Russell replied that the coming of Mr. Adams, Mr. Dallas's successor, "would doubtless be regarded as the appropriate and natural occasion for finally discussing and determining the question." The attack on Fort Sumter, made by order of the government at Montgomery, ended in the surrender of the garrison on the 13th of April. On the 15th the President issued a proclamation, calling out the militia and convening an extra session of Congress on the 4th of the approaching July. On the 17th of April Mr. Jefferson Davis gave notice that letters of marque would be granted by the government at Montgomery. On the 19th President Lincoln issued a proclamation declaring that a blockade of the ports within the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas would be established for the purpose of collecting the revenue in the disturbed part of the country, and for the protection of the public peace, and of the lives and properties of quiet and orderly citizens, until Congress should assemble.

Recognition of Belligerency.

As the issuance of President Lincoln's proclamation of blockade on the 19th of April had repeatedly been asserted as the reason why Her Majesty's government was induced to confer upon the insurgents in the South the status of belligerents, the Case of the United States proceeded to argue that this assertion was erroneous. Before any armed collision had taken place

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