ing. I may admit, further, that the courts referred to the President's blockade proclamation, which preceded the Queen's neutrality proclamation, as one among the facts which proved that the controversy here was not a mere local insurrection, but had all the gravity, character, and consequences of a civil war.

But I must insist, on the other hand, first, that neither of the judicial utterances referred to asserts or admits that the President's blockade proclamation expressly and in form declared or recognized the existence of civil war, and, in the second place, that both of these judicial utterances unmistakably imply the contrary. The District Court of Columbia pronounced its opinion on the 17th of June, 1861. The Supreme Court of the United States withheld its opinion until the 10th of March, 1863. The capture which constituted the cause of action in the district court occurred on the 21st of May, 1861; the captures concerning which the Supreme Court of the United States adjudicated occurred on the 17th of May, 1861, the 20th of May, 1861, the 23d of June, 1861, and the 10th of July, 1861. The Queen's proclamation of neutrality had appeared before either court pronounced its opinion, and before either cause of action arose. British subjects were claimants in some, and other foreigners were claimants in others, of these litigations. Among the facts of which the Supreme Court took notice, and which they set forth as the grounds of their opinion, is the following:

"As soon as the news of the attack on Fort Sumter, and the organization of a government of the seceding states assuming to act as belligerents, could become known in Europe, to wit: on the 13th of May, 1861, the Queen of England issued her proclamation of neutrality, recognizing hostilities as existing between the government of the United States of America and certain states styling themselves the Confederate States of America. This was immediately followed by similar declarations or silent acquiescence by other nations."

This statement served to prepare the way for the proposition which became a chief basis in the decision of the Supreme Court, to wit: "After such an effectual recognition by the sovereign, the citizen of a foreign state is estopped to deny the existence of a war and its consequences as regards neutrals." It is thus seen that the decision of the Supreme Court, which Lord Stanley quotes in defence of the Queen's proclamation of neutrality, was based upon the proclamation itself, and thus the proclamation defended, and the defending opinion of the Supreme Court, reciprocate each other.

The District Court of Columbia is only an inferior local tribunal, whose unreviewed reasoning would not anywhere be deemed authoritative upon international questions. I might, therefore, bring my remarks upon the Queen's proclamation of neutrality to an end, but I desire to leave nothing unsaid that might tend to elucidate the subject. The issue between the United States and Great Britain, which is the subject of the present correspondence, is not upon the question whether a civil war has recently existed in the United States, nor is the issue upon that other question, namely, whether such a civil war was actually existing here at the date of the Queen's proclamation of neutrality. Certainly there is a stage when a civil commotion, although attended by armed force, is nevertheless in fact only a local insurrection, as it is also true that local insurrections often transcend municipal bounds, and become civil wars. It is always important, and generally difficult and perplexing, to recognize and definitely determine the transition stage with absolute precision. The disturbed nation suffers a serious loss of advantages if recognition is prematurely made. The insurrectionary party may suffer a serious loss if it be too long and unjustly withheld. Strangers who may be dealing with one or the other may be injuriously affected in either case. Now what is alleged on the part of the United States is that the Queen's procla mation, which by conceding belligerent privileges to the insurgents, lifted them up for the purposes of insurrection to an equality with the nation which they were attempting to overthrow, was premature because it was unnecessary, and that it was in its operation unfriendly because it was premature.

1

The discussion necessarily involves a history of that proclamation. On the 28th of February, 1861, the United States, in the customary manner of international conference, announced to Great Britain, as well as to other friendly nations, that certain United States citizens dwelling in South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas bad, in pretended state conventions, and in a so-called but unlawful congress, on paper, pronounced a secession or separation from the Federal government, and asserted themselves by the style of the Confederate States of America. The United States, for special reasons, warned her Majesty's government that seditious emissaries would endeavor to procure from Great Britain a recognition of the pretended Confederacy.

The United States protested against such a proceeding. Her Majesty's principal Secretary for Foreign Affairs, on the 22d of March, 1861, listened to the announcement thus made as one which he expected, and said that her Majesty's government had reached no definite conclusion as to a proper course of action. He observed that he had seen a private letter, from which he inferred that accredited ministers or commissioners, authorized to negotiate for recognition, would be shortly sent to Europe by the so-called secessionists. This answer plainly indicated a preparation for the very decision against which the United States protested. On the 9th of March thereafter, the President of the United States caused the before-mentioned motion and protest to be renewed, with the assurance to her Majesty's government that he then entertained a full confidence in a speedy restoration of the harmony and unity of the government, through judicious measures coöperating with a deliberate and loyal action of the American people. The President earnestly desired her Majesty's government not to intervene in any unfriendly way in the domestic concerns of this country. He distinctly stated further that he would take care in every case to render any possible injuries which foreigners might suffer as light as possible, and fully to indemnify them. In answer to this latter communication, her Majesty's government, on the 8th of April, 1861, said that the matter seemed not yet ripe for decision, one way or the other, and that this was all that at that moment they could say. They added, however, a statement that English opinion seemed to be tending towards the theory that a peaceful separation of the American Union might work beneficially for both groups of states, and might not injuriously affect the rest of the world. It was then made known that the subject was to be debated on that very day in the House of Commons, and that six days thereafter a motion for absolute recognition of the pretended Confederacy, otherwise called there a new nation, would be pressed in Parliament. When these facts became known to this government care was taken to reply that the answer of the Foreign Secretary of State was by no means satisfactory, and her Majesty's government was therefore advised that they were at liberty to choose whether they would retain the friendship of the United States by refusing all aid and comfort to their domestic enemies, or whether her Majesty's government would take the precarious benefits of a different course.

It was not long left in doubt in European circles which alternative. Great Britain would elect. Her Majesty's principal Secretary for Foreign Affairs having invited a conference on the 2d of May, announced to the United States Minister in London, Mr. Dallas, that three representatives of the so-called Southern Confederacy were then in that capital, and that he, Lord Russell, was willing to see them unofficially. He then made the important announcement that there already existed an understanding between her Majesty's government and that of France, which would lead both to take the same course as to recognition, whatever that course might be. The United States Minister, of course unprepared with instructions to meet these revelations, certainly unlooked for here, replied that his appointed successor, Mr. Adams, was then on his voyage, and might be expected within ten or fifteen days. The secretary acquiesced in the expediency of waiting for the coming of the new minister. The proposed movement in Parliament for recognition was, at the instance of the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, postponed.

When the President received an account of the last-mentioned interview, he then was unable, as the United States are yet unable, to perceive how it was thought by her Majesty's government entirely considerate in regard to the United States to consult and agree with France upon a question vital to the United States without affording them a bearing. Moreover, the United States were then unable, as they are yet unable, to perceive how it is justly considered by her Majesty's government any more lawful, just, or friendly to entertain traitors against the United States, with a view to business negotiations with them, unofficially and privately, than it is to entertain and negotiate with them officially and publicly. Be this as it may, Earl Russell's explanations revealed to the United States the fact that even thus early, before any effective military advantage had been gained by the insurgents, and even before any meditated blow had been given by this government in its own defence, the British government, Parliament, and people were entertaining privately, and not unkindly, debates with the insurgents and with a foreign power, which involved nothing less than a direct and speedy sanction of the rebellion in the United States, and a dissolution of the American Union. They were yet unwilling to believe that Great Britain would take such a course with unconcealed precipitancy. Mr. Adams, the new minister, in the mean

time had been charged with the duty of counteracting the appeals of the disunionists, and was prepared to answer every argument which they could advance, either on the score of British interest, or under the pretext of zeal for the freedom of trade, or for the freedom of men. The insurgent emissaries reached London on the 30th of April. The President's blockade proclamation, which was issued on the 13th of April, reached London on the 3d of May. On the 4th of May, only two days after the conference of Mr. Dallas with Lord Russell, he favored the insurgent emissaries with an unofficial interview. He patiently, it is not for us to say confidingly, heard them disclaim slavery as a principal cause of the incipient rebellion, while they alleged that its real cause was the high prices which the so-called South was obliged to pay for manufactured goods by way of protecting the so-called Northern manufacturers. They favored him with glowing statements of the South, and its exports valued by millions. He answered that, when the question of recognition should come to be formally discussed, inquiry must be made on two points: first, whether the body seeking recognition could maintain its position as an independent state; and, secondly, in what manner it was proposed to maintain relations with foreign states. After reviewing this conversation, is it to be wondered at that the traitors, when retiring from this interview, assured his lordship that they would rest in London in the hope that a recognition [of the sovereignty] of the Southern Confederacy would not long be delayed? Two days later, namely, on the 6th of May, the principal Secretary for Foreign Affairs announced in Parliament that the ministry had consulted the law officers of the Crown the attorney general and the solicitor general, and the Queen's advocate- and her Majesty's government had come to the opinion that the Southern Confederacy of America, according to the principles which seemed to them to be just principles, must be treated as a belligerent. The Queen's proclamation, which went half the way towards recognition of the so-called Southern Confederacy, was issued at London on the 15th of May, in the morning. Mr. Adams arrived there in the evening. He was officially received on the 16th. This is the history of the Queen's proclamation of neutrality. What I wrote concerning it in the despatch which Lord Stanley has reviewed is as follows: