EARL RUSSELL'S SCHEME DISCOVERED.

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States in the construction of the convention which our ministers had almost signed. The United States was to be bound by the Paris Declaration, but the Confederate States were to be regarded as a belligerent power. The latter were not to be bound by that declaration. They were to be free to grant letters of marque to privateers, and do all the acts prohibited to powers adhering to the Declaration of Paris.

Mr. Adams at once suspended action in the matter. It was practically at an end. He advised Mr. Seward of the new condition. Mr. Seward painfully felt this stinging slight put upon our government, all the more that he was not in a situation to resent it. In a letter to Mr. Adams, of Sept. 7, 1861, he said: "I am instructed by the President to say, that the proposed declaration is inadmissible. To admit such a new article would, for the first time in the history of the United States, be to permit foreign powers to take cognizance of and adjust its relations on assumed internal and purely domestic differences existing within our own country." "This broad consideration," said Mr. Seward, "supersedes any necessity for considering in what manner or in what degree the projected convention, if completed, either subject to the explanation proposed or not, would bear directly or indirectly on the internal differences which the British Government assume to be prevailing in the United States." Mr. Seward was not to be drawn into any convention which would in the remotest degree admit the existence of the Confederate States. On the other hand, England and France had each recognized the Confederacy as a belligerent power. These governments were acting conjointly in the proposed convention. France submitted, mutatis mutandis, the declaration of the British Government. Earl Russell delivered the letter to Mr. Adams on Aug. 19, 1861. M. Thouvenel delivered that of France to Mr. Dayton, the next day. Thus terminated the negotiations for the adhesion of the United States to the Declaration of Paris. How much the United States may be the loser by this failure, a war between two great powers, on the sea, will demonstrate.

Looking calmly over this correspondence, it does not appear that there was any weighty reason for requiring our acceptance of the additional declaration. Whether willing or unwilling, we were bound to accept the notice already given, that England and France, and other maritime powers, had recognized the Confederate States as belligerents. Had the government of the United States been one of the parties to the Paris congress, would that have had any effect on the belligerent rights of the Confederacy? Certainly not. The latter was not a party to any international compact. Hence, after its recognition as a belligerent, it had the right under the law of nations to carry on its war by every mode which that law permitted. It could, therefore, send out privateers, and no power that respected the law of nations would regard them as pirates. Whatever may have been our own disposition in respect to Confederate cruisers made no difference in a legal point of view, while they sailed under the ensign and commission of a recognized

belligerent power. Our authorities soon realized this stubborn fact. It is therefore a matter of regret that the negotiations for our adhesion to the principles of the Paris Declaration, which set forth time-honored American policy, should have failed by reason of England and France insisting on a declaration which had no real relation to the subject discussed, and which was regarded by our Executive as purposely offensive in its terms.

After all, it was a power greater, in respect to the United States, than England or France, or both together, with which our government had to deal; and that was the Confederacy itself. That power soon exhibited the ability to assert and maintain all the rights of a belligerent. This it would have done as well without as with the sanction of any foreign government. What we might justly complain of, was the hasty action of Her Britannic Majesty in proclaiming the neutrality of her government on May 13, 1861, before there was any substantial armament North or South. At that time, giving to the secession movement its largest effect, no foreign nation had any lawful right to regard it in any other light than as an attempt for disunion. We had not treated Great Britain in this manner on a like occasion. In the letter last quoted from, Mr. Seward said: "I do not think it can be regarded as disrespectful, if you should remind Lord Russell that when, in 1838, a civil war broke out in Canada, a part of the British dominions adjacent to the United States, the Congress of the United States passed, and the President executed, a law which effectually prevented any intervention against the government of Great Britain in those internal differences by American citizens, whatever might be their motives, real or pretended, whether of interest or sympathy. I send you a copy of that enactment. The British Government will judge for itself whether it is suggestive of any measures on the part of Great Britain that might tend to preserve the peace of the two countries, and through that way the peace of all nations." Had such a law been then enacted in Great Britain, the government of that nation would not have been called upon to settle the Geneva award, for the acts done or abetted by British subjects in violation of Her Majesty's proclaimed neutrality.

In the same letter Mr. Seward announced our foreign policy in these words: "Regarding this negotiation at an end, the question arises, what, then, are to be the views and policy of the United States in regard to the rights of neutrals in maritime war in the present case? My previous dispatches leave no uncertainty on this point. We regard Great Britain as a friend. Her Majesty's flag, according to our traditional policy, covers enemy's goods, not contraband of war. Goods of Her Majesty's subjects, not contraband of war, are exempt from confiscation, though found under a neutral or disloyal flag. No depredations shall be committed by our naval forces or by those of any of our citizens, so far as we can prevent it, upon vessels or property of British subjects. Our blockade, being effective, must be respected." Mr. Seward never for a moment failed to speak for the union of all the states. North and

DANGEROUS PRECEDENTS FOR ENGLAND.

273 South, all the people were ever considered by him as American citizens, for whose conduct in regard to other nations the government of the United States would be responsible. In his efforts to prevent foreign recognition of the Confederacy, Mr. Seward's position was that of unswerving devotion to the Union. He would not be entrapped into any admission of the possibility of its disruption. His great law was the law of self-preservation. "In assuming this position," said he, "and the policy resulting from it, we have done as I think Great Britain herself must, and therefore would do, if a domestic insurrection should attempt to detach Ireland, or Scotland, or England from the United Kingdom, while she would hear no argument nor enter into any debate on the subject." This language he addressed to the British Government on July 21, 1861, through Mr. Adams, our minister, in transmitting him a copy of the act of Congress which had just been passed, authorizing the President to proclaim certain ports of the United States to be closed to trade. It had been intimated by Lord Russell to Mr. Adams, that the British Government would question our right to close these ports. There was at this time domestic trouble in the Republic of New Grenada. The government of that country had notified the British Government that five named ports of that republic had been closed to commerce. On the 27th of June, 1861, Mr. H. Berkly, M. P., rose in the House of Commons and asked the Secretary of State for foreign affairs whether Her Majesty's Government recognized the notification given. Lord John Russell replied as follows: "The opinion of Her Majesty's Government, after taking legal advice, is, that it is perfectly competent for the government of a country, in a state of tranquillity, to say which ports shall be open to trade and which shall be closed; but in the event of insurrection or civil war in that country, it is not competent for its government to close the ports that are de facto in the hands of the insurgents, as that would be an invasion of international law with regard to blockade. Admiral Milne, acting on instructions from Her Majesty's Government, has ordered the commanders of Her Majesty's ships not to recognize the closing of their ports." Mr. Seward gave the British Government to understand that his government would not " for a moment acquiesce in such a doctrine." We had a navy of not unequal strength with that of Great Britain, and, to quote Mr. Seward's enunciation of American policy, "Our blockade, being effective, must be respected." We were troubled no further with the blockade question. Although not bound by the Paris Declaration, we adhered to our own time-honored policy from which its rules were framed; and voluntarily abandoned advantages of which we might have availed ourselves on the ground of not being bound by them.

Throughout our unhappy domestic strife, Mr. Seward directed our foreign affairs in a spirit of moderation and patriotism. He displayed an ability not surpassed in the diplomacy of any time. In the bitterness of the strife incident to the recombining of our national elements during the reconstruction period, the services, the high patriotism, the untiring labors of this peerless.

statesman were forgotten or eclipsed by the events of that troublous era. Yet he was ever anxious to soften the asperities of the reconstruction period. He was generous to those who differed with him on political principles, while unyielding in his own tenets. To the author of this volume he was ever kind. He recalls with affectionate memory, in this connection, a speech delivered by Mr. Seward before an immense gathering of his neighbors in Corning Hall, Auburn, New-York, on the 31st of October, 1868. It was a deliberate speech, yet not devoid of clever humor. It had its effect not only in Auburn, but throughout the state. It gave to the author, who was then a candidate for Congressman-at-large for the State of New-York, a handsome percentage of votes beyond that given to others,—and notably large in Auburn. The question then was one of national reconciliation and magnanimity. Congress had been derelict in not receiving the states no longer belligerent. Mr. Seward had opposed force, and commended peaceful methods of persuasion and reason. He eulogized in that speech many of the Democratic leaders for their aid in carrying, and their loyalty in accepting, the amendment abolishing slavery. "I entertain," he said, "no ill-will toward the Democratic party or its leaders, and certainly have no uncharitable feelings toward that great constituency. On the other hand, I cherish a grateful appreciation of the patriotism, the magnanimity, the heroism of many of my fellow-citizens, with whom I have cheerfully labored and co-operated while they still retained their adhesion to the Democratic party. How could I distrust the loyalty or the virtue of Andrew Johnson, of General Hancock, of General McClellan, of Senator Hendricks, of Indiana, or his associate, Mr. Niblack, or of Mr. Cox, formerly of Ohio, to whom personally, more than any other member, is due the passage of the constitutional amendment in Congress abolishing African slavery?" This was great, and, to some extent, needed encomium at that time. Mr. Seward was a grand tribune of the people. He could proudly say that no state, nor any citizen, had by any act or word of his ever suffered disfranchisement or confiscation; nor, except for the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, had any one, through him, endured penalties or punishment after hostilities had ceased. He vindicated the Monroe doctrine in Mexico. He was a friend of the exile and emigrant. Praise and justice from him was pure gold. It was more to the writer. It was justification before his countrymen in the state of his adoption in a crucial test of all the liberalities of his political life.

To William H. Seward, the grandest man of his day, no national tribute has yet been paid. After a tour of the world, and after being received by all nations as the peer of any living statesman, he reposes in the sepulchre at Auburn, whose associations are as peaceful as the ways which led to it were stormful. But while the diplomatic correspondence of our Civil War shall remain in the archives of the Nation, that monument of his worth and greatness must far surpass in grandeur any memorial of bronze or marble that genius can conceive or art execute.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE TRENT AFFAIR.

THE CONFEDERATE COMMISSIONERS · THEIR AUTHORITY AND INSTRUCTIONS THEIR ARRIVAL IN HAVANA – INTRODUCTION TO THE CAPTAIN-GENERAL -CAPTAIN WILKES DECIDES TO ARREST THEM — THE TRENT BROUGHT TO -RESISTANCE TALKED OF - BRITISH INDIGNATION AND THREATS-CAPTAIN WILKES RELEASES THE TRENT-HIS MISTAKE THE PRISONERS AT FORT WARREN THE QUESTION IN CONGRESS—MR. VALLANDIGHAM'S PREDICTION - MR. COX'S REPLY-EARL RUSSELL'S NOTE― MR. SEWARD'S REPLY - THE ARREST JUSTIFIED — BELLIGERENT RIGHTS, AND DUTIES OF NEUTRALS – A DIPLOMATIC DUEL-EARL RUSSELL DISARMED-NO APOLOGY - A DINNER PARTY-THE RELEASE OF THE PRISONERS-AN AMERICAN VICTORY.

N October, 1861, John Slidell and James M. Mason were appointed commissioners or diplomatic agents of the Confederate States to England and France.

I

They were especially instructed by the Confederate Secretary of State, Mr. Hunter, to work for the recognition of the Confederacy as an independent power. As inducements to these governments, they were to represent-first, that a vast area of the South would be devoted to the production of cheap cotton; and second, that the development of the agricultural resources of the South under free trade would create a demand for the manufactures of England and France, larger and more profitable to all parties than would be possible under the commercial regulations of the United States.

The commissioners were to inform the governments to whom they were accredited that although the Confederacy, as then formed, included but eleven states, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri would undoubtedly attach themselves to its fortunes, after the close of the existing war. There would then be embraced in the Confederacy a great, populous, and growing empire. Its internal regulations would harmonize with the most liberal policies of commerce. The commissioners were to say that one of the conditions which would be insisted upon in any treaty of peace with the United States, would