from one part of their dominions to the other must run. In 1854 they conferred upon the people of the British Possessions in North America the advantages of a free, full commercial intercourse with the United States for their products, without securing corresponding benefits in return. Thus a series of difficult questions, some of which might have led to war, had been peaceably arranged by negotiations, and the increasing intercourse of the two nations was constantly fostered by continuing acts of friendliness on the part of the Government of the United States. of the two governments in 1869, All the political relations of the United States with England, with the Friendly relations exception of the episode of the war of 1812, had been those of increasing amity and friendship, confirmed by a repeated yielding of extreme rights, rather than imperil the cordial [34] relations which the United States so much desired to maintain with their nearest neighbors, their best customers, and their blood relations. They had good right, therefore, to believe, and they did believe, that, by virtue of this friendly political understanding, and in consequence of the gradual and steady assimilation of the commercial interests and the financial policies of the two Governments, there was in Great Britain, in the summer of 1860, sympathy for the Government and affection for the people of the United States. They had equal reason to think that neither the British Government nor people would look with either ignorance or unconcern upon any disaster to them. Above all, they had at that time a right to feel confident that, in any controversy which might grow out of the unhappy existence of African slavery in certain of the Southern States, the British Government would not exercise its sovereign powers, questionably or unquestionably, in favor of the supporters of slavery. in 1860. On the 6th day of November, in that year, the jurisdiction of the GovThe United States ernment of the United States extended unquestioned over eighteen States from which African slavery was excluded;1 over fifteen States in which it was established by law;2 [35] and over a vast territory in which, under the then prevailing laws, persons with African blood in their veins could be held as slaves. This large unsettled or partially settled territory, as it might become peopled, was also liable to be divided into new States, which, as they entered the Union, might, as the law then stood, become "Slave States," thus giving the advocates of slavery an increased strength in the Congress of the nation, and more especially in the Senate, and a more absolute control of the National Government. Since the date named three new States, entitled to a representation of six Senators in the National Senate, have been admitted into the Union from this territory;3 and the remainder of the great dominions of the United States is now divided into ten incipient political organizations, known as Territories, which, with one exception, may at some future time become States.* 1 Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, California, Minnesota, Oregon. * Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Missouri, Arkansas, Florida, Texas. Nevada, Nebraska, Kansas. West Virginia was formed from a portion of the territory of Virginia, and for this reason does not come within the meaning of the text, though it became a State after the date mentioned. New Mexico, Utah, Washington, Dakota, Colorado, Arizona, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, District of Columbia. The territory known as the Indian Territory is without political organization, having neither Governor nor Delegate in Congress. It cannot be considered as coming within the meaning of the text. [36] *The general election for President of the United States, which took place on the 6th of November, 1860, was con- Election of Mr. ducted in strict conformity with the provisions of the Con- Lincoln. stitution and laws of the country, and resulted in the choice of Abraham Lincoln. The party which elected him was pledged in advance to maintain "that the normal condition of all the territory of the United States is that of freedom," and to "deny 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" is here used in the above-mentioned sense of an incipient political organization, which may at some future time become a State. Secession of South This decision of the people of the United States was resisted by some of the inhabitants of the States where slavery prevailed. The people of South Carolina, with an undoubted unanimity, Carolina. commenced the hostile movement. In the following month they proclaimed, through a State Convention, their purpose to secede from the Union, because the party about to come into power had "announced that the South shall be excluded from the common terri Of Alabama. tory."2 The State of Alabama, on the 11th of Janu[37]____ary, with * much less unanimity, (the vote in the Convention being 61 ayes to 39 nays,3) followed the example of South Carolina, giving as their reason that the election of Mr. 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."4 other States. The State of Georgia followed after a much greater struggle, in which the party in favor of remaining in the Union resisted to the Of Georgia and last, the final vote being 208 ayes to 89 nays.5 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. of slavery the cause On the 4th of February, 1861, representatives from some of the States which had attempted to go through the form of secession, Opposition to the and representatives from the State of North Carolina, which territorial limitation had not at that time attempted it, met at Montgomery, in of secession. the State of Alabama, for the purpose of organizing a provisional government, and having done so, elected Mr. Jefferson Davis as the Provis 6 ional President, and Mr. Alexander H. Stephens as the Provisional [38] Vice-President of the proposed *Confederation. In accepting this office, on the 18th of February, Mr. Jefferson Davis said: "We have vainly endeavored to secure tranquillity and obtain respect for the rights to which we were entitled," [i. e., the right to extend the domains of slavery.] "As a necessity, and not a choice, we have resorted to the remedy of separation." * "Our industrial pursuits have received no check; the cultivation of our fields progresses as heretofore; and even should we be involved in war, there would be no considerable diminution in the production of the staples which have constituted our exports, in which the commercial world has an interest scarcely less than our own. This common interest of producer and consumer can only be intercepted * Greeley's American Conflict, Vol. I, page 320. 6 Appleton's Annual Cyclopædia, 1861, Vol. 1, page 126. 7 Appleton's Annual Cyclopædia, 1861, page 613. by an exterior force, which should obstruct its transmission to foreign markets a course of conduct which would be detrimental to the manufacturing and commercial interests abroad.” Mr. Stephens spoke with still more explicitness. He said the "foundations [of the new government] are laid. Its corner-stone rests upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery-subordination to the superior race-is his natural and moral condition." A party in the South opposed secession. [39] *Having thus formally declared that the contemplated limitation of the territory within which negro slavery should be tolerated was the sole cause of the projected separation, and having appealed to the world to support them, the seceding States made efforts, which proved vain, to induce the other slave States to join them. No other States passed ordinances of seccession until after the fall of Fort Sumter. On the contrary, the people of the States of Tennessee2 and Missouri3 before that time voted by large majorities against secession; and in the States of North Carolina and Virginia conventions were called and were in session when some of the events hereinafter referred to took place; and these bodies were known to be opposed to the revolutionary movements in South Carolina and the six States bordering on the Gulf of Mexico. 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. They were attached to the Union, which had fostered and protected their interests, and they expressed no dissatisfaction, except with the proposed policy as to the extension of slavery, and *in many cases not even with that. Their feelings were forcibly [40] expressed by the distinguished Alexander II. Stephens, Provisional Vice-President of the Montgomery Government, in a speech made in the Convention in Georgia before that State passed the ordinance of secession, and about two months before he accepted office at Montgomery. He said, "This step [of secession] once taken can never be recalled; and all the baleful and withering consequences that must follow will rest on the Convention for all coming time. When we and our posterity shall see our lovely South desolated by the denon of war, which this act of yours will inevitably invite and call forth; when our green fields of waving harvest shall be trodden down by the murderous soldiery and fiery car of war sweeping over our land; our temples of justice laid in ashes; all the horrors and desolations of war upon us, who but this Convention will be held responsible for it, and who but him who shall have given his vote for this unwise and ill timed measure, as I honestly think and believe, shall be held to strict account for this suicidal act by the present generation, and probably cursed and execrated by posterity for all coming time, for the wide and desolating ruin that will inevitably follow this act you now propose to perpetrate? Pause, I entreat you, and consider for a moment what reasons you can give that will even satisfy yourselves in calmer moments; what reasons you can give to your fellow-sufferers in the calamity that it will bring upon us. What reasons can you give to the nations of the earth to justify it? They will be the calm and deliberate judges in the case, and what cause or overt act can you name or point to, on which to rest the plea of justification? What right has the North assailed? What Appleton's Annual Cyclopædia, 1861, page 129. 2 McPherson's History of the Rebellion, page 5. 3 Appleton's Annual Cyclopædia, 1861, page 478. + McPherson's History of the Rebellion, page 25. [41] interest of the South has been invaded? What justice has been denied? And what claim founded in justice and right has been withheld? Can either of you to-day name one governmental act of wrong, deliberately and purposely done by the Government of Washington, of which the South has a right to complain? I challenge the answer.” All the facts above referred to in this paper were patent to the whole world, were ostentatiously put forth by the insurgents, and were openly commented upon by the public press throughout the United States. It is, therefore, not unreasonable to presume that the British Government received from its representatives and agents in the United States full information concerning them as they took place. To suppose the contrary would be to ignore the well-known fidelity of those officers. [42] of Mr. Lincoln entered upon the duties of his office on the 4th of March, 1861. He found the little Army of the United States scat- Inauguration tered and disintegrated; the Navy sent to distant quarters Mr. Lincoln. of the globe; the Treasury bankrupt; the credit of the United States seriously injured by forced sales of Government securities; the public service demoralized; the various Departments of the Government filled with unfaithful clerks and officers, whose sympathies were with the South, who had been placed in their positions for the purpose of par alyzing his administration. These facts, which were known to the world, must have attracted the attention of the observant Representative of Great Britain at Washington, and must have enabled him to make clear to his Government the reasons why the Cabinet at Washington must pause before asserting its rights by force. The British Gov his purposes. The new Government took an early opportunity to inform the British Government of its purposes. On the 9th of March, four days after the installment of Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Dallas, the ernment informed of Minister of the United States at London, was instructed [43] to communicate to Lord Russell the Inaugural Address of the President, and to assure him that the President entertained full confidence in the speedy restoration of the harmony and unity of the Government. He was further told that "the United States have had too many assurances and manifestations of the friendship and good will of Great Britain, to entertain any doubt that these considerations will have their just influence with the British Government, and will prevent that Government from yielding to solicitations to intervene in any unfriendly way in the domestic concerns of our country.” 2 Mr. Dallas, in complying with his instructions, (April 9, 1861,) pressed upon Lord Russel the importance of England and France alistaining, "at least for a considerable time, from doing what, by encouraging groundless hopes, would widen a breach still thought capa- Lord John Russell Ele of being closed." Lord Russell replied that the coming Mr. Adams's arrival of Mr. Adams (Mr. Dallas's successor) “would doubtless be before acting. regarded as the appropriate and natural occasion for finally discussing and determining the question." promises to wait The United States therefore had reasonable ground to believe, not only in view of the great moral interests of which they were the [44] exponents, and of the long-standing friendship between them*and Great Britain, but also in consequence of the voluntary promise of Lord Russell, that an opportunity would be afforded them to explain their views and purposes through their newly selected and specially trusted representative; and least of all had they cause to anticipate 1 Seward to Dallas, Vol. I, page 8. 2 Dallas to Seward, Vol. I, page 12. that a Government which they supposed to be in sympathy with their policy as to African slavery, would precipitate a decision as to the insurgents, which was so obviously injurious to the United States, as to almost appear to have been designedly so. Sumter. The delay upon which the Government of the United States relied to Surrender of Fort firmly secure the loyalty of the Border States, and their aid in inducing the peaceable return of the Gulf States, was interrupted by the attack upon Fort Sumter, made by order of the Government at Montgomery. This attack ended in the surrender of the garrison on the 13th of April. This was followed on the 15th of April by a Proclamation of the President, calling out the militia and convening an extra session of Congress on the 4th day of the next July. On the 17th of April, Mr. Jefferson Davis gave notice that letters of marque would be granted by the persons who had atissue letters of tempted to establish a *Government at Montgomery, by usurping the authority of the United States. The insurgents to marque. ade. Proclamation giv [45] On the 19th of April President Lincoln issued a Proclamation declaring that a blockade of the ports within the States of ing notice of block South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, LouObjects of that isiana, and Texas would be established for the purpose of proclamation. 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. That body was summoned to assemble on the fourth day of the following July. The full text of this Proclamation will be found in Vol. I, page 21. In the course of the discussion between the two Governments growing out of the war, it has been repeatedly asserted that Her Majesty's Government was induced to confer upon the insurgents in the South the status of belligerents, in consequence of the receipt of the news of the President's Proclamation of April 19. The United States are therefore forced to invite the patience of the Board of Arbitrators, while they establish, from conclusive proof, that Her Majesty's Government is mistaken in that respect. The joint action of Great Britain. [46] Before any armed collision had taken place, there existed an understanding between Her Majesty's *Government France invited by and the Government of the Emperor of the French, with a view to securing a simultaneous and identical course of action of the two Governments on American questions. It is within the power of the British Government to inform the Arbitrators when that understanding was reached. The fact that it had been agreed to by the two Governments was communicated to Mr. Dallas, by Lord John Russell, on the 1st day of May, 1861.3 There was nothing in the previous relations between Great Britain and the United States which made it necessary for Her Majesty's Government to seek the advice or to invite the support of the Emperor of the French in the crisis which was threatened. The United States are at a loss to conjecture what inducement could have prompted such an act, unless it may have been the perception on the part of Her Majesty's Government that it was in its nature not only unfriendly, but almost hostile to the United States. When the news of the bloodless attack upon Fort Sumter became known in Europe, Her Majesty's Government apparently assumed that 1 Vol. I, page 16. 2 Appleton's Annual Cyclopædia, 1861, page 137. 3 Mr. Dallas to Mr. Seward, May 2, 1861. Vol. I, p. 33, 34. |