Appointment of Sec

retary.

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. 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

1 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

there existed, said the Case, an understanding between the British and French governments, with a view to secure a simultaneous and identical course of action on American questions. When the news of the bloodless attack upon Fort Sumter became known in Europe, Her Majesty's government apparently assumed that the time had come for the joint action which had previously been agreed upon; and without waiting to learn the purposes of the United States, it announced its intention to take the first step by recognizing the insurgents as belligerents. No complete official copy, declared the American Case, of the President's proclamation of blockade was received by the British Government before the afternoon of the 11th of May 1861, ten days after Lord Russell had decided to award the rights of belligerency on the ocean to the insurgents, eight days after the subject had been referred to the law officers of the Crown for their opinion, and five days after the decision of Her Majesty's government upon that opinion had been announced in the House of Commons. Mr. Adams arrived in London on the evening of the 13th of May, and in spite of Lord Russell's voluntary promise to Mr. Dallas, the Queen's proclamation of neutrality was issued on the morning of that day. It was, said the Case of the United States, a measure taken at a time when Her Majesty's government was by no means certain, as was shown by speeches in Parliament and diplomatic correspondence, that there was a war in the United States; and it was taken in full view, as shown by official documents, of the effect that it would have in promoting the secessionist movement. The United States, said the Case, had made this review with no purpose of questioning the sovereign right of Great Britain to determine for herself whether the facts at that time justified the recognition of the insurgents as belligerents, but because they had been forced to conclude, from all the circumstances, that Her Majesty's government, in acting upon such imperfect information as it possessed, and in counseling France to take the same course, "was actuated at that time by a conscious unfriendly purpose toward the United States."

Paris.

Nor did this precipitate and unfriendly act, The Declaration of said the Case of the United States, go forth alone. On the 6th of May 1861, five days before the receipt of the authentic copy of the President's proclamation, Lord John Russell instructed Lord Cowley, the British ambassador at Paris, to ascertain whether the imperial

government was disposed to make a joint endeavor with Her Majesty's government to obtain from each of the "belligerents" a formal recognition of the second and third articles of the Declaration of Paris. This proposition, which was concurred in by the imperial government, to open direct negotiations with the insurgents, was the second step in the joint action which had been agreed upon. Care was taken to prevent the knowledge of it from reaching the Government of the United States. On the 18th of May Lord Lyons, the British minister at Washington, was instructed to encourage the Government of the United States in any disposition which it might evince to recognize the Declaration of Paris in regard to privateering; but he was told that Her Majesty's government could not accept the renunciation of privateering on the part of the Government of the United States if it was coupled with the condition that Her Majesty's government should enforce its renunciation on the Confederate States, either by denying their right to issue letters of marque, or by interfering with the belligerent operations of vessels holding from them such letters of marque; and the instructions closed by directing Lord Lyons to take such means as he might judge most expedient to transmit to the British consul at Charleston or New Orleans a copy of a previous dispatch of the same day, in order that it might be communicated to Mr. Jefferson Davis at Montgomery. These instructions were not to be shown to Mr. Seward, but a copy was to be shown to Mr. Jefferson Davis. Such a use of the British legation at Washington for such a purpose was, said the Case, perhaps an act which the United States would have been justified in regarding as a cause of war. It was, to say the least, an abuse of diplomatic duties and a violation of the duties of a neutral.

On the 5th of July Lord Lyons sent a copy of his instructions to Mr. Bunch, the British consul at Charleston, and advised him not to go to Richmond, but to communicate through

The four rules of the Declaration of Paris, of 1856, are as follows: "1. Privateering is, and remains abolished.

"2. The neutral flag covers enemy's goods, with the exception of contraband of war.

"3. Neutral goods, with the exception of contraband of war, are not liable to capture under the enemy's flag.

"4. Blockades, in order to be binding, must be effective; that is to say, maintained by a force sufficient really to prevent access to the coast of the enemy."