Mr. Sumner had been with the President and his Cabinet the day before, to read important letters just received from Mr. Cobden and Mr. Bright; but he did not know the conclusion on the question. The few words in reply to Mr. Hale were in the spirit of peace, and as such were warmly welcomed by the public. The sympathy they awakened attests the prevailing interest. A leading citizen of Providence wrote: “Very many thanks for your mild rebuke of our friend Senator Hale, when he mounted the war-horse.†Another in Boston adopted the same vein: “For your wise words, after the war speech of Mr. Hale, you have my thanks, and the thanks of thousands who will never express to you their feelings. I know you will exert your great influence on the side of peace, and I rejoice that you have so much moral power in this matter.†Rev. George C. Beckwith, Corresponding Secretary of the American Peace Society, had promptly declared his trust: “It is a matter of special congratulation, that the helm of our Foreign Relations, so far as the Senate is concerned, is held at this juncture in hands so worthy of our confidence. We trust that you and your Committee will have all the wisdom and other qualities needed to meet the case now before us just as it ought to be.†A friend holding high office in Massachusetts augured new strength for Mr. Sumner in the battle with Slavery: “Your decisive speech,†he wrote, “will do much to raise you in the estimation of those who were alarmed by your Emancipation doctrines, and who begin to see that you are right in that, as well as other things.â€The confidence reposed had its responsibilities increased by his position as Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, and, when the surrender was announced, Mr. Sumner felt it a duty to do what he could in reconciling the people to his conclusion, especially as he was satisfied that the original taking of the Rebels could not be justified without adopting most obnoxious British precedents. Besides, reform in Maritime Law seemed to be involved in the discussion, and he was not without hope of contributing to this important result. Therefore he made an early occasion to address the Senate on the subject.In his speech Mr. Sumner brought into strong relief the early and long continued pretension of England to enter our ships and take our sailors without trial of any kind, as Captain Wilkes had entered the Trent and taken the Rebel agents. In presenting this point, he was determined not only by the London press, which adopted the original American objection to any such entry and taking, but also by the unpublished opinions of the law advisers of the Crown, which he had before him in manuscript.The capture of the Rebels was known in London on the evening of 27th November. But some time before, on an intimation that such an attempt might be made, the British Government had asked the opinion of the law officers on the questions involved in such an act. An answer was returned, bearing date 12th November, which was signed by the Queen’s Advocate-General, the Attorney-General, and the Solicitor-General. In this opinion it was stated: “The United States ship of war may put a prize crew on board the West India steamer and carry her off to a port of the United States for adjudication by a Prize Court there;but she would have no right to remove Messrs. Mason and Slidell and carry them off as prisoners, leaving the ship to pursue her voyage.†This opinion was supposed to have greater value because it was given sixteen days before anything on the subject had appeared inthe London press. Afterwards the case of the Trent was submitted to these law officers, and on the 28th of November they gave another opinion in accordance with the former, where they say: “From on board a merchant ship of a neutral power, pursuing a lawful and innocent voyage,certain individuals have been taken by force. They were not apparently officers in the military or naval service of the Confederate Government.†They conclude that Her Majesty’s Government “will be justified in requiring reparation for the international wrong which has been on this occasion committed.†In conformity with this opinion, Earl Russell, in his letter demanding the surrender, treated it simply as a forcible taking of “certain individuals†from an innocent British vessel at sea by an American ship of war, all of which had been too often done by British ships of war with innocent American vessels at sea.It will be observed that Earl Russell uses the most general language, without specification; but the contemporaneous press dwelt on the single point taken by the law officers. One of these is quoted in Mr. Sumner’s speech.In France, theRevue des Deux Mondeswrote, as if instructed from Downing Street:—“Englandconfines herselfto denying that an officer can erect himself into a judge in such a cause, the decision of which should belong only to a Court of Admiralty. Captain Wilkes,substituting himself arbitrarily for the judicial authority, alone competent to give a legal character to his prize, England can see in the act which he committed on the Trent only an act of violence, an outrage perpetrated against the British flag.â€[24]This single point found sudden favor in England. Nassau W. Senior, the eminent economist, in close relations with the British Cabinet, wrote to Mr. Sumner, under date of December 10: “We think that Captain Wilkescould not make himself judge in his own cause; that the utmost he could have done legally would have been to take the Trent into an Admiralty Court.†Here the able Englishman simply echoes the early and constant doctrine of our country; but others among his countrymen did the same.The intimate relations of Mr. Sumner with Mr. Cobden and Mr. Bright, already existing, were quickened during this anxious period, when these eminent English statesmen wrote constantly, full of friendship for our country and anxious always for peace. The perfect freedom of these communications may be judged by a passage in a letter of Mr. Cobden.“I write to you, of course, in confidence; and I write to you what I would not write to any other American,—nay, what it would be perhaps improper for any other Englishman than myself to utter to any other American but yourself. But we are, I think, both more of Christians and cosmopolitans than British or Yankee.â€Intervening time and death have removed the seal of confidence, opening what passed between them to the observation of history.Mr. Cobden occupied himself especially to obtain important reforms in International Law on the ocean. This was part of his scheme for disarmament; and here Mr. Sumner was a fellow-laborer. He was anxious that the attention suddenly directed to Maritime Rights should redound to the good of the Human Family. His programme was given in a letter dated December 5, and read by Mr. Sumner to President Lincoln and his Cabinet, while considering the British demand, on the forenoon of Christmas day. Mr. Cobden begins by quoting from the public letter of General Scott, then at Paris.“I am sure that the President and people of the United States would be but too happy to let these men go free, unnatural and unpardonable as their offences have been, if by it they could emancipate the commerce of the world. Greatly as it would be to our disadvantage, at this present crisis, to surrender any of these maritime privileges of belligerents which are sanctioned by the Laws of Nations, I feel that I take no responsibility in saying that the United States will be faithful to their traditional policy upon this subject, and to the spirit of their political institutions.â€He then proceeds:—“If I were in the position of your Government, I would act upon it, and thus, by a great strategic movement, turn the flank of the European powers,especially of the governing classes of England. I would propose to let Mason and Slidell go, and stipulate, at the same time, for a complete abandonment of the old code of Maritime Law as upheld by England and the European powers. I would propose that private property at sea should be exempt from capture by armed Government ships. On this condition I would give in my adhesion to the abolition of privateering. I would propose that neutral merchant vessels, in time of war, as in time of peace, should be exempt from search, visitation, or detention, by armed Government vessels, when on the ocean or high seas,—I mean when beyond that distance from the shore which removes them from the jurisdiction of any maritime state. I would propose to abolish blockades of purely commercial ports, excepting for articles contraband of war.â€To these just and magnificent reforms Mr. Cobden returns in other letters, dwelling on the abolition of blockades, but pressing upon our country the duty of advancing all, and, in the ardor of appeal, exclaiming, “Take high ground with Europe for a complete sweep of the oldmaritime code, and then take your own time to deal with the Slave States,†and concluding another letter with the words, “Recollect how immensely you would gain in moral power by leading all Europe in the path of civilization. You owe it to yourselves and us.â€This correspondence reveals the anxiety of good Englishmen, and also the various reports by which the public mind was perplexed. In one letter Mr. Cobden writes: “Everybody tells me that war is inevitable; and yet I do not believe in war.†In another he mentions “an impression in high quarters that Mr. Seward wishes to quarrel with this country,†which he characterizes as “absurd enough.†In another he alludes to the joint resolution of thanks to Captain Wilkes, adopted by the House of Representatives, as “viewed here by our alarmist journals as almost a declaration of warâ€; and, after mentioning that “grave men, holding the highest post in your cultivated State of Massachusetts, compliment Captain Wilkes for having given an affront to the British lion,†he says, with point, “It makes it very hard for Bright and me to contend against the British-lion party in this country.â€Even in this peculiar atmosphere his clearness of perception did not fail, and Mr. Cobden saw the mistake of principle or policy involved in the “impressment†of the Rebel agents. In the postscript of a letter dated November 27, the very day when the taking was first known in London, he wrote: “We are rather unprepared to find you exercising in a strained manner the right of search,inasmuch as you have been supposed to be always the opponents of the practice.â€In the same vein his eloquent colleague, Mr. Bright, wrote, under date of December 5: “Our law officers are agreed and strong in their opinion of the illegality of the seizure of the commissioners;but I cannot make out how or where it exceeds the course taken by English ships of war before the War of 1812. But all the people here, of course, accept their opinion as conclusive on the law of the case.â€Thus directly from the opinions of the law officers, and also from various testimony, including the press, is it apparent that the special objection of England was founded on the forcible taking of “certain individuals†from a British vessel.Naturally, therefore, Mr. Sumner planted himself on the early American postulate, constantly maintained by us and constantly denied by England. In the able note already cited Mr. Dana sums up the result.“This celebrated case can be considered as having settled but one principle, and that had substantially ceased to be a disputed question: viz., that a public ship, though of a nation at war, cannot take persons out of a neutral vessel at sea, whatever may be the claim of her Government on thosepersons.â€[25]Mr. Seward was, therefore, right, when, in his communication to Lord Lyons, he announced the settlement of the case “upon principles confessedly American.â€[26]In similar spirit, Prince Gortschakoff, in behalf of the Russian Cabinet, congratulated our Republic upon “remaining faithful to the political principles which she has always maintained, even when those principles were turned against her, and abstaining from invoking in her turn the benefit of doctrines which she has always repudiated.â€[27]And Baron Ricasoli, speaking for the Italian Cabinet, would not believe that the Government at Washington “desired to change its character all at once, and become the champion of theories which history has shown to be calamitous, and which public opinion has condemned forever.â€[28]The correspondence “in relation to the recent removal of certain citizens of the United States from the British mail-steamer Trent,†including the letter of Earl Russell and the reply of Mr. Seward, and also the letter of M. Thouvenel, Minister of Foreign Affairs in France, was communicated to the Senate January 6, 1862. Its reference to the Committee on Foreign Relations was, on motion of Mr. Sumner, made the special order for January 9th, at one o’clock, when he made his speech.January 7th, two days before Mr. Sumner’s speech, the subject was discussed in the House of Representatives, and strong speeches were made against the surrender. Mr. Vallandigham, of Ohio, a leading Democrat, said:—“I avail myself of this, the earliest opportunity yet presented, to express my utter and strong condemnation, as one of the Representatives of the people, of the act of the Administration surrendering Mr. Mason and Mr. Slidell to the British Government.… In six days after the imperious and peremptory demand of Great Britain they were abjectly surrendered, upon the mere rumor of the approach of a hostile fleet; and thus, Sir, for the first time in our national history, have we strutted insolently into a quarrel without right and then basely crept out of it without honor; and thus, too, for the first time, has the American eagle been made to cower before the British lion.â€[29]Then again the same Democratic Proslavery orator said:—“I would prefer a war with England to the humiliation which we have tamely submitted to; and I venture the assertion that such a war would have called into the field five hundred thousand men who are not now there, and never will be without it, and have developed an energy and power in the United States which no country has exhibited in modern times, except France, in her great struggle in 1793.â€[30]In equal opposition to the British demand, Mr. B. F. Thomas, of Massachusetts, an able lawyer, said:—“The surrender is made, the thing done. In the presence of great duties we have no time for the luxury of grief. Complaint of the Government would be useless, if not groundless. It was too much to ask of it to take another war on its hands.… But we are not called upon, Mr. Speaker, to say that the demand was manly or just. It was unmanly and unjust. It was a demand which, in view of her history, of the rights she had always claimed and used as a belligerent power, of the principles which her greatest of jurists, Lord Stowell, had imbedded in the Law of Nations, England was fairly estopped to make.… When the matter is more carefully weighed, it will be seen and felt that no wrong was done to England,—that there was no wrong in the forbearance to exercise an extreme right,—no insult, for none was intended,—that our feeling, if any, leaned to virtue’s side, was a relaxation of the iron rigor of law from motives of humanity and Christian courtesy,—that, on the other hand, England has done to us a great wrong, in availing herself of our moment of weakness to make a demand, which, accompanied as it was by the ‘pomp and circumstance of war,’ was insolent in spirit and thoroughly unjust.… But the loss will ultimately be hers. She is treasuring up to herself wrath against the day of wrath. She has excited in the hearts of this people a deep and bitter sense of wrong, of injury inflicted at a moment when we could not respond. It is night with us now; but through the watches of the night, even, we shall be girding ourselves to strike the blow of righteous retribution.â€[31]In similar spirit, Mr. Wright, of Pennsylvania, said:—“Let England take them; if she has a mind to fête and toast them, let her do it,—it is none of our business; if England desires to make lions of Confederate Rebels, it is a mere matter of taste. If they have to be surrendered, then let them be surrendered under a protest, while we shall remember hereafter that there is a matter to be cancelled between the British Government and the United States of North America.â€[32]These utterances show elements in the atmosphere when Mr. Sumner spoke. With many there was grief mingled with indignation, while others who accepted the result felt a new burden added to the war. Something was needed as a rally.
Mr. Sumner had been with the President and his Cabinet the day before, to read important letters just received from Mr. Cobden and Mr. Bright; but he did not know the conclusion on the question. The few words in reply to Mr. Hale were in the spirit of peace, and as such were warmly welcomed by the public. The sympathy they awakened attests the prevailing interest. A leading citizen of Providence wrote: “Very many thanks for your mild rebuke of our friend Senator Hale, when he mounted the war-horse.†Another in Boston adopted the same vein: “For your wise words, after the war speech of Mr. Hale, you have my thanks, and the thanks of thousands who will never express to you their feelings. I know you will exert your great influence on the side of peace, and I rejoice that you have so much moral power in this matter.†Rev. George C. Beckwith, Corresponding Secretary of the American Peace Society, had promptly declared his trust: “It is a matter of special congratulation, that the helm of our Foreign Relations, so far as the Senate is concerned, is held at this juncture in hands so worthy of our confidence. We trust that you and your Committee will have all the wisdom and other qualities needed to meet the case now before us just as it ought to be.†A friend holding high office in Massachusetts augured new strength for Mr. Sumner in the battle with Slavery: “Your decisive speech,†he wrote, “will do much to raise you in the estimation of those who were alarmed by your Emancipation doctrines, and who begin to see that you are right in that, as well as other things.â€
The confidence reposed had its responsibilities increased by his position as Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, and, when the surrender was announced, Mr. Sumner felt it a duty to do what he could in reconciling the people to his conclusion, especially as he was satisfied that the original taking of the Rebels could not be justified without adopting most obnoxious British precedents. Besides, reform in Maritime Law seemed to be involved in the discussion, and he was not without hope of contributing to this important result. Therefore he made an early occasion to address the Senate on the subject.
In his speech Mr. Sumner brought into strong relief the early and long continued pretension of England to enter our ships and take our sailors without trial of any kind, as Captain Wilkes had entered the Trent and taken the Rebel agents. In presenting this point, he was determined not only by the London press, which adopted the original American objection to any such entry and taking, but also by the unpublished opinions of the law advisers of the Crown, which he had before him in manuscript.
The capture of the Rebels was known in London on the evening of 27th November. But some time before, on an intimation that such an attempt might be made, the British Government had asked the opinion of the law officers on the questions involved in such an act. An answer was returned, bearing date 12th November, which was signed by the Queen’s Advocate-General, the Attorney-General, and the Solicitor-General. In this opinion it was stated: “The United States ship of war may put a prize crew on board the West India steamer and carry her off to a port of the United States for adjudication by a Prize Court there;but she would have no right to remove Messrs. Mason and Slidell and carry them off as prisoners, leaving the ship to pursue her voyage.†This opinion was supposed to have greater value because it was given sixteen days before anything on the subject had appeared inthe London press. Afterwards the case of the Trent was submitted to these law officers, and on the 28th of November they gave another opinion in accordance with the former, where they say: “From on board a merchant ship of a neutral power, pursuing a lawful and innocent voyage,certain individuals have been taken by force. They were not apparently officers in the military or naval service of the Confederate Government.†They conclude that Her Majesty’s Government “will be justified in requiring reparation for the international wrong which has been on this occasion committed.†In conformity with this opinion, Earl Russell, in his letter demanding the surrender, treated it simply as a forcible taking of “certain individuals†from an innocent British vessel at sea by an American ship of war, all of which had been too often done by British ships of war with innocent American vessels at sea.
It will be observed that Earl Russell uses the most general language, without specification; but the contemporaneous press dwelt on the single point taken by the law officers. One of these is quoted in Mr. Sumner’s speech.
In France, theRevue des Deux Mondeswrote, as if instructed from Downing Street:—
“Englandconfines herselfto denying that an officer can erect himself into a judge in such a cause, the decision of which should belong only to a Court of Admiralty. Captain Wilkes,substituting himself arbitrarily for the judicial authority, alone competent to give a legal character to his prize, England can see in the act which he committed on the Trent only an act of violence, an outrage perpetrated against the British flag.â€[24]
“Englandconfines herselfto denying that an officer can erect himself into a judge in such a cause, the decision of which should belong only to a Court of Admiralty. Captain Wilkes,substituting himself arbitrarily for the judicial authority, alone competent to give a legal character to his prize, England can see in the act which he committed on the Trent only an act of violence, an outrage perpetrated against the British flag.â€[24]
This single point found sudden favor in England. Nassau W. Senior, the eminent economist, in close relations with the British Cabinet, wrote to Mr. Sumner, under date of December 10: “We think that Captain Wilkescould not make himself judge in his own cause; that the utmost he could have done legally would have been to take the Trent into an Admiralty Court.†Here the able Englishman simply echoes the early and constant doctrine of our country; but others among his countrymen did the same.
The intimate relations of Mr. Sumner with Mr. Cobden and Mr. Bright, already existing, were quickened during this anxious period, when these eminent English statesmen wrote constantly, full of friendship for our country and anxious always for peace. The perfect freedom of these communications may be judged by a passage in a letter of Mr. Cobden.
“I write to you, of course, in confidence; and I write to you what I would not write to any other American,—nay, what it would be perhaps improper for any other Englishman than myself to utter to any other American but yourself. But we are, I think, both more of Christians and cosmopolitans than British or Yankee.â€
“I write to you, of course, in confidence; and I write to you what I would not write to any other American,—nay, what it would be perhaps improper for any other Englishman than myself to utter to any other American but yourself. But we are, I think, both more of Christians and cosmopolitans than British or Yankee.â€
Intervening time and death have removed the seal of confidence, opening what passed between them to the observation of history.
Mr. Cobden occupied himself especially to obtain important reforms in International Law on the ocean. This was part of his scheme for disarmament; and here Mr. Sumner was a fellow-laborer. He was anxious that the attention suddenly directed to Maritime Rights should redound to the good of the Human Family. His programme was given in a letter dated December 5, and read by Mr. Sumner to President Lincoln and his Cabinet, while considering the British demand, on the forenoon of Christmas day. Mr. Cobden begins by quoting from the public letter of General Scott, then at Paris.
“I am sure that the President and people of the United States would be but too happy to let these men go free, unnatural and unpardonable as their offences have been, if by it they could emancipate the commerce of the world. Greatly as it would be to our disadvantage, at this present crisis, to surrender any of these maritime privileges of belligerents which are sanctioned by the Laws of Nations, I feel that I take no responsibility in saying that the United States will be faithful to their traditional policy upon this subject, and to the spirit of their political institutions.â€
“I am sure that the President and people of the United States would be but too happy to let these men go free, unnatural and unpardonable as their offences have been, if by it they could emancipate the commerce of the world. Greatly as it would be to our disadvantage, at this present crisis, to surrender any of these maritime privileges of belligerents which are sanctioned by the Laws of Nations, I feel that I take no responsibility in saying that the United States will be faithful to their traditional policy upon this subject, and to the spirit of their political institutions.â€
He then proceeds:—
“If I were in the position of your Government, I would act upon it, and thus, by a great strategic movement, turn the flank of the European powers,especially of the governing classes of England. I would propose to let Mason and Slidell go, and stipulate, at the same time, for a complete abandonment of the old code of Maritime Law as upheld by England and the European powers. I would propose that private property at sea should be exempt from capture by armed Government ships. On this condition I would give in my adhesion to the abolition of privateering. I would propose that neutral merchant vessels, in time of war, as in time of peace, should be exempt from search, visitation, or detention, by armed Government vessels, when on the ocean or high seas,—I mean when beyond that distance from the shore which removes them from the jurisdiction of any maritime state. I would propose to abolish blockades of purely commercial ports, excepting for articles contraband of war.â€
“If I were in the position of your Government, I would act upon it, and thus, by a great strategic movement, turn the flank of the European powers,especially of the governing classes of England. I would propose to let Mason and Slidell go, and stipulate, at the same time, for a complete abandonment of the old code of Maritime Law as upheld by England and the European powers. I would propose that private property at sea should be exempt from capture by armed Government ships. On this condition I would give in my adhesion to the abolition of privateering. I would propose that neutral merchant vessels, in time of war, as in time of peace, should be exempt from search, visitation, or detention, by armed Government vessels, when on the ocean or high seas,—I mean when beyond that distance from the shore which removes them from the jurisdiction of any maritime state. I would propose to abolish blockades of purely commercial ports, excepting for articles contraband of war.â€
To these just and magnificent reforms Mr. Cobden returns in other letters, dwelling on the abolition of blockades, but pressing upon our country the duty of advancing all, and, in the ardor of appeal, exclaiming, “Take high ground with Europe for a complete sweep of the oldmaritime code, and then take your own time to deal with the Slave States,†and concluding another letter with the words, “Recollect how immensely you would gain in moral power by leading all Europe in the path of civilization. You owe it to yourselves and us.â€
This correspondence reveals the anxiety of good Englishmen, and also the various reports by which the public mind was perplexed. In one letter Mr. Cobden writes: “Everybody tells me that war is inevitable; and yet I do not believe in war.†In another he mentions “an impression in high quarters that Mr. Seward wishes to quarrel with this country,†which he characterizes as “absurd enough.†In another he alludes to the joint resolution of thanks to Captain Wilkes, adopted by the House of Representatives, as “viewed here by our alarmist journals as almost a declaration of warâ€; and, after mentioning that “grave men, holding the highest post in your cultivated State of Massachusetts, compliment Captain Wilkes for having given an affront to the British lion,†he says, with point, “It makes it very hard for Bright and me to contend against the British-lion party in this country.â€
Even in this peculiar atmosphere his clearness of perception did not fail, and Mr. Cobden saw the mistake of principle or policy involved in the “impressment†of the Rebel agents. In the postscript of a letter dated November 27, the very day when the taking was first known in London, he wrote: “We are rather unprepared to find you exercising in a strained manner the right of search,inasmuch as you have been supposed to be always the opponents of the practice.â€
In the same vein his eloquent colleague, Mr. Bright, wrote, under date of December 5: “Our law officers are agreed and strong in their opinion of the illegality of the seizure of the commissioners;but I cannot make out how or where it exceeds the course taken by English ships of war before the War of 1812. But all the people here, of course, accept their opinion as conclusive on the law of the case.â€
Thus directly from the opinions of the law officers, and also from various testimony, including the press, is it apparent that the special objection of England was founded on the forcible taking of “certain individuals†from a British vessel.
Naturally, therefore, Mr. Sumner planted himself on the early American postulate, constantly maintained by us and constantly denied by England. In the able note already cited Mr. Dana sums up the result.
“This celebrated case can be considered as having settled but one principle, and that had substantially ceased to be a disputed question: viz., that a public ship, though of a nation at war, cannot take persons out of a neutral vessel at sea, whatever may be the claim of her Government on thosepersons.â€[25]
“This celebrated case can be considered as having settled but one principle, and that had substantially ceased to be a disputed question: viz., that a public ship, though of a nation at war, cannot take persons out of a neutral vessel at sea, whatever may be the claim of her Government on thosepersons.â€[25]
Mr. Seward was, therefore, right, when, in his communication to Lord Lyons, he announced the settlement of the case “upon principles confessedly American.â€[26]In similar spirit, Prince Gortschakoff, in behalf of the Russian Cabinet, congratulated our Republic upon “remaining faithful to the political principles which she has always maintained, even when those principles were turned against her, and abstaining from invoking in her turn the benefit of doctrines which she has always repudiated.â€[27]And Baron Ricasoli, speaking for the Italian Cabinet, would not believe that the Government at Washington “desired to change its character all at once, and become the champion of theories which history has shown to be calamitous, and which public opinion has condemned forever.â€[28]
The correspondence “in relation to the recent removal of certain citizens of the United States from the British mail-steamer Trent,†including the letter of Earl Russell and the reply of Mr. Seward, and also the letter of M. Thouvenel, Minister of Foreign Affairs in France, was communicated to the Senate January 6, 1862. Its reference to the Committee on Foreign Relations was, on motion of Mr. Sumner, made the special order for January 9th, at one o’clock, when he made his speech.
January 7th, two days before Mr. Sumner’s speech, the subject was discussed in the House of Representatives, and strong speeches were made against the surrender. Mr. Vallandigham, of Ohio, a leading Democrat, said:—
“I avail myself of this, the earliest opportunity yet presented, to express my utter and strong condemnation, as one of the Representatives of the people, of the act of the Administration surrendering Mr. Mason and Mr. Slidell to the British Government.… In six days after the imperious and peremptory demand of Great Britain they were abjectly surrendered, upon the mere rumor of the approach of a hostile fleet; and thus, Sir, for the first time in our national history, have we strutted insolently into a quarrel without right and then basely crept out of it without honor; and thus, too, for the first time, has the American eagle been made to cower before the British lion.â€[29]
“I avail myself of this, the earliest opportunity yet presented, to express my utter and strong condemnation, as one of the Representatives of the people, of the act of the Administration surrendering Mr. Mason and Mr. Slidell to the British Government.… In six days after the imperious and peremptory demand of Great Britain they were abjectly surrendered, upon the mere rumor of the approach of a hostile fleet; and thus, Sir, for the first time in our national history, have we strutted insolently into a quarrel without right and then basely crept out of it without honor; and thus, too, for the first time, has the American eagle been made to cower before the British lion.â€[29]
Then again the same Democratic Proslavery orator said:—
“I would prefer a war with England to the humiliation which we have tamely submitted to; and I venture the assertion that such a war would have called into the field five hundred thousand men who are not now there, and never will be without it, and have developed an energy and power in the United States which no country has exhibited in modern times, except France, in her great struggle in 1793.â€[30]
“I would prefer a war with England to the humiliation which we have tamely submitted to; and I venture the assertion that such a war would have called into the field five hundred thousand men who are not now there, and never will be without it, and have developed an energy and power in the United States which no country has exhibited in modern times, except France, in her great struggle in 1793.â€[30]
In equal opposition to the British demand, Mr. B. F. Thomas, of Massachusetts, an able lawyer, said:—
“The surrender is made, the thing done. In the presence of great duties we have no time for the luxury of grief. Complaint of the Government would be useless, if not groundless. It was too much to ask of it to take another war on its hands.… But we are not called upon, Mr. Speaker, to say that the demand was manly or just. It was unmanly and unjust. It was a demand which, in view of her history, of the rights she had always claimed and used as a belligerent power, of the principles which her greatest of jurists, Lord Stowell, had imbedded in the Law of Nations, England was fairly estopped to make.… When the matter is more carefully weighed, it will be seen and felt that no wrong was done to England,—that there was no wrong in the forbearance to exercise an extreme right,—no insult, for none was intended,—that our feeling, if any, leaned to virtue’s side, was a relaxation of the iron rigor of law from motives of humanity and Christian courtesy,—that, on the other hand, England has done to us a great wrong, in availing herself of our moment of weakness to make a demand, which, accompanied as it was by the ‘pomp and circumstance of war,’ was insolent in spirit and thoroughly unjust.… But the loss will ultimately be hers. She is treasuring up to herself wrath against the day of wrath. She has excited in the hearts of this people a deep and bitter sense of wrong, of injury inflicted at a moment when we could not respond. It is night with us now; but through the watches of the night, even, we shall be girding ourselves to strike the blow of righteous retribution.â€[31]
“The surrender is made, the thing done. In the presence of great duties we have no time for the luxury of grief. Complaint of the Government would be useless, if not groundless. It was too much to ask of it to take another war on its hands.… But we are not called upon, Mr. Speaker, to say that the demand was manly or just. It was unmanly and unjust. It was a demand which, in view of her history, of the rights she had always claimed and used as a belligerent power, of the principles which her greatest of jurists, Lord Stowell, had imbedded in the Law of Nations, England was fairly estopped to make.… When the matter is more carefully weighed, it will be seen and felt that no wrong was done to England,—that there was no wrong in the forbearance to exercise an extreme right,—no insult, for none was intended,—that our feeling, if any, leaned to virtue’s side, was a relaxation of the iron rigor of law from motives of humanity and Christian courtesy,—that, on the other hand, England has done to us a great wrong, in availing herself of our moment of weakness to make a demand, which, accompanied as it was by the ‘pomp and circumstance of war,’ was insolent in spirit and thoroughly unjust.… But the loss will ultimately be hers. She is treasuring up to herself wrath against the day of wrath. She has excited in the hearts of this people a deep and bitter sense of wrong, of injury inflicted at a moment when we could not respond. It is night with us now; but through the watches of the night, even, we shall be girding ourselves to strike the blow of righteous retribution.â€[31]
In similar spirit, Mr. Wright, of Pennsylvania, said:—
“Let England take them; if she has a mind to fête and toast them, let her do it,—it is none of our business; if England desires to make lions of Confederate Rebels, it is a mere matter of taste. If they have to be surrendered, then let them be surrendered under a protest, while we shall remember hereafter that there is a matter to be cancelled between the British Government and the United States of North America.â€[32]
“Let England take them; if she has a mind to fête and toast them, let her do it,—it is none of our business; if England desires to make lions of Confederate Rebels, it is a mere matter of taste. If they have to be surrendered, then let them be surrendered under a protest, while we shall remember hereafter that there is a matter to be cancelled between the British Government and the United States of North America.â€[32]
These utterances show elements in the atmosphere when Mr. Sumner spoke. With many there was grief mingled with indignation, while others who accepted the result felt a new burden added to the war. Something was needed as a rally.
MR. PRESIDENT,—Every principle of International Law, when justly and authoritatively settled, is a safeguard of peace and a landmark of civilization. It constitutes part of that code which is the supreme law, above all municipal laws, binding the whole Commonwealth of Nations. Such a settlement may be by a general Congress of Nations, as at Munster, Vienna, or Paris; or it may be through the general accord of treaties; or it may be by a precedent established under such conspicuous circumstances, with all nations as assenting witnesses, that it becomes at once a commanding rule of international conduct. Especially is this the case, if disturbing pretensions, long maintained to the detriment of civilization, are practically renounced. Without congress or treaty, such a precedent is now established.
Surely it ought to be considered and understood in its true character. Undertaking to explain it, I shall speak for myself alone; but I shall speak frankly, according to the wise freedom of public debate, and the plain teachings of history on the question involved, trusting sincerely that what I utter may contribute something to elevate the honest patriotism of the country, and perhaps to secure that tranquil judgment under which this precedent will be the herald, if not theguardian, of international harmony.
Two old men and two younger associates, recently taken from the British mail packet Trent, on the high seas, by order of Captain Wilkes of the United States Navy, and afterwards detained in custody at Fort Warren, are liberated and placed at the disposition of the British Government. This is at the instance of that Government, made on the assumption that the original capture was an act of violence constituting an affront to the British flag, and a violation of International Law. This is a simple outline of the facts. To appreciate the value of the precedent, other matters must be brought into view.
These two old men were citizens of the United States, and for many years Senators. Arrogant, audacious, persistent, perfidious,—one was author of the Fugitive Slave Bill, and the other was chief author of the filibustering system which has disgraced our national name and disturbed our national peace. Occupying places of trust and power in the service of the country, they conspired against it, and at last the secret traitors and conspirators became open rebels. The present Rebellion, surpassing in proportions and in wickedness any rebellion in history, was from the beginning quickened and promoted by their untiring energies. That country to which they owed love, honor, and obedience, they betrayed and gave over to violence and outrage. Treason, conspiracy, and rebellion, each in succession, acted through them. The incalculable expenditures now tasking the national resources,—the untold derangement of affairs, not only at home, but abroad,—the levy of armies without example,—the devastation of extendedspaces of territory,—the plunder of peaceful ships on the ocean, and the slaughter of fellow-citizens on the murderous battle-field,—such are some of the consequences proceeding directly from them.
To carry forward still further the gigantic crime of which they were so large a part, these two old men, with their two younger associates, stole from Charleston on board a Rebel steamer, and, under cover of darkness and storm, running the surrounding blockade and avoiding the national cruisers, succeeded in reaching the neutral island of Cuba, where, with open display and the knowledge of the British consul, they embarked on board the British mail packet Trent, bound for St. Thomas, whence they were to embark for England, in which kingdom one of them was to play the part of Ambassador of the Rebellion, while the other was to play the same part in France. The original treason, conspiracy, and rebellion, of which they were so heinously guilty, were all continued on this voyage, which became a prolongation of the original crime, destined to still further excess through their ambassadorial pretensions, which it was hoped would array two great nations against the United States, and enlist them openly in support of an accursed Slaveholding Rebellion. While on their way, the pretended ambassadors were arrested by Captain Wilkes, of the United States steamer San Jacinto, an accomplished officer, already well known by scientific explorations, who on this occasion acted without instructions from his Government. If in this arrest he forgot for a moment the fixed policy of the Republic, which has been from the beginning like a frontlet between the eyes, and transcended the Law of Nations, as the United States havealways declared it, his apology will be found in the patriotic impulse by which he was inspired, and the British examples he could not forget. They were the enemies of his country, embodying in themselves the triple essence of worst enmity,—treason, conspiracy, and rebellion; and they bore a professed ambassadorial character, which, as he supposed, according to high British authority, rendered them liable to be stopped, while, as American citizens, they were liable to seizure by the National Government in strict conformity with long continued British practice. If, in the ardor of an honest nature, Captain Wilkes erred, he might well say,—
“Who can be wise, amazed, temperate and furious,Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man.The expedition of my violent loveOutran the pauser reason.…… Who could refrain,That had a heart to love, and in that heartCourage to make his love known?â€
“Who can be wise, amazed, temperate and furious,Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man.The expedition of my violent loveOutran the pauser reason.…… Who could refrain,That had a heart to love, and in that heartCourage to make his love known?â€
“Who can be wise, amazed, temperate and furious,
Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man.
The expedition of my violent love
Outran the pauser reason.…
… Who could refrain,
That had a heart to love, and in that heart
Courage to make his love known?â€
If this transaction be regarded exclusively in the light of British precedents, if we follow the seeming authority of the British Admiralty, speaking by its greatest voice, and especially if we accept the oft repeated example of British cruisers, upheld by the British Government against the oft repeated protests of the United States, we find little difficulty in vindicating it. The act becomes questionable only when brought to the touchstone of those liberal principles which from the earliest times the American Government has openly avowed and sought to advance, and other European nations have accepted with regard to the sea. Great Britain cannot complain, except by adopting those identical principles; and should weundertake to vindicate the act, it can be only by repudiating those identical principles. Our two cases will be reversed. In the struggle between Laertes and Hamlet, the combatants exchanged rapiers, so that Hamlet was armed with the rapier of Laertes, and Laertes with the rapier of Hamlet. And now, on this sensitive question, a similar exchange occurs. Great Britain is armed with American principles, while to us are left only those British pretensions which throughout our history have been constantly, deliberately, and solemnly rejected.
Earl Russell, in his despatch to Lord Lyons, communicated to Mr. Seward, contents himself by saying that “it appears that certain individuals have been forcibly taken from on board a British vessel, the ship of a neutral power,while such vessel was pursuing a lawful and innocent voyage,—an act of violence which was an affront to the British flag, and a violation of International Law.â€[33]Here is positive assertion that the ship, notoriously having on board the Rebel emissaries, was pursuing a lawful and innocent voyage; but there is no specification of the precise ground on which the act is regarded as a violation of International Law. Of course, it is not an affront; for an accident can never be an affront to an individual or to a nation.
But public report, authenticated by various authorities, English and Continental, forbids us to continue ignorant of the precise ground on which this act is presented as a violation of International Law. It is admitted that a United States man-of-war, meeting a British mail steamer beyond the territorial limits ofGreat Britain, may subject her to visitation and search; also that such man-of-war might put a prize crew on board the British steamer, and take her to a port of the United States for adjudication by a Prize Court there; but it is alleged that she would have no right to remove the individuals, not apparently officers in the military or naval service, and carry them off as prisoners, leaving the ship to pursue her voyage.[34]Under the circumstances, in the exercise of a belligerent right, the British steamer, with all on board, might have been captured and carried off; but, according to the British law officers, on whose professional opinion the British Cabinet acted, the whole proceeding was vitiated by failure to take the packet into port for condemnation. This failure is the occasion of much unprofessional objurgation; and we are emphatically and constantly reminded that the custody of the individuals in question could not be determined by a navy officer on his quarter-deck, so as to supersede the adjudication of a Prize Court. This is confidently stated by an English writer, assuming to put the case for his Government, as follows.
“It is not to the right of search that we object,but to the following seizure without process of law. What we deny isthe right of a naval officer to stand in place of a Prize Court, and adjudicate, sword in hand, with asic volo, sic jubeo, on the very deck which is a part of our territory.â€[35]
“It is not to the right of search that we object,but to the following seizure without process of law. What we deny isthe right of a naval officer to stand in place of a Prize Court, and adjudicate, sword in hand, with asic volo, sic jubeo, on the very deck which is a part of our territory.â€[35]
The same authority flourishes the same objection again.
“If Captain Wilkes and his irresponsible supporters imagine that we shall submit to thearbitrary, semi-barbarous practice, they will in a few days be undeceived; for our Government has instructed Lord Lyons to demand reparation for so wanton a breach of friendly relations.â€[36]
“If Captain Wilkes and his irresponsible supporters imagine that we shall submit to thearbitrary, semi-barbarous practice, they will in a few days be undeceived; for our Government has instructed Lord Lyons to demand reparation for so wanton a breach of friendly relations.â€[36]
Such declarations in an important journal, and in precise harmony with the opinions of the British law officers, seem semi-official in character.
Thus it appears that the present complaint of the British Government is not founded on any assumption by the American war steamer of the belligerent right of search,—nor on the ground that this right was exercised on a neutral vessel between two neutral ports,—nor that it was exercised on a mail steamer, sustained by subvention from the Crown, and officered in part from the royal navy,—nor that it was exercised in a case where the penalties of contraband could not attach; but it is founded simply and precisely on the idea that persons other than apparent officers in the military or naval service cannot be taken out of a neutral ship at the mere will of the officer exercising the right of search, and without any form of trial. Therefore the Law of Nations has been violated, and the conduct of Captain Wilkes must be disavowed, while men who are traitors, conspirators, and rebels, all in one, are allowed to go free.
Surely, that criminals, though dyed in guilt, should go free, is better than that the Law of Nations should be violated, especially in any rule by which war is restricted and the mood of peace is enlarged; for the Law of Nations cannot be violated without overturning the protection of the innocent as well as the guilty. On this general principle there can be no question. It isbut an illustration of that important maxim, recorded in the Latin of Fortescue, “Better that twenty guilty should escape than one innocent man should suffer,â€[37]with this difference, that in the present case four guilty ones escape, while the innocent everywhere on the sea obtain new security. And this security becomes more valuable as a triumph of civilization, when it is considered that it was long refused, even at the cannon’s mouth.
Remember, Sir, that the question in this controversy isstrictly a question of law,—precisely like a question of trespass between two neighbors. The British Cabinet began proceedings by taking the opinion of their law advisers, precisely as an individual begins proceedings in a suit at law by taking the opinion of his attorney. To make such a questiona case of war, or to suggest that war is a proper mode of deciding it, is simply to revive, on a gigantic scale, the exploded Ordeal by Battle, and to imitate those dark ages when such proceeding was openly declared to be the best and most honorable mode of deciding even an abstract point of law. “It was a matter of doubt and dispute,†says a mediæval historian, “whether the sons of a son ought to be reckoned among the children of the family, and succeed equally with their uncles, if their father happened to die while their grandfather was alive. An assembly was called to deliberate on this point, and it was the general opinion that it ought to be remitted to the examination and decision of judges. But the Emperor, following a better course, and desirous of dealing honorably with his people and nobles, appointed the matter to be decided by battle between two champions.â€[38]In similar spirit has it been latterly proposed, amidst the amazement of the civilized world, to withdraw the point of law, now raised by Great Britain, from peaceful adjudication, and submit it to Trial by Combat. The irrational anachronism becomes more flagrant from the inconsistency of the party making it; for it cannot be forgotten, that, in times past,on this identical point of law, Great Britain persistently held an opposite ground from that she now takes. Hereafter, in a happier moment, this exacting power may regret the swiftness with which she undertook to gird herself for unnatural combat, on a mere point of law, with a friendly nation already struggling against domestic enemies,—especially as impartial history must record that her heavy sword was to be thrown into the scale of Slavery.
The British complaint seems narrowed to a single point, although there are yet other points, on which, had the ship been carried into port for adjudication, controversy must have arisen. The four following have been presented in the case.
1. That the seizure of the Rebel emissaries, without taking the ship into port, was wrong,inasmuch as a navy officer is not entitled to substitute himself for a judicial tribunal.
2. That, had the ship been carried into port, it would not have been liable on account of the Rebel emissaries, inasmuch as neutral ships are free to carry all persons not apparently in the military or naval service of the enemy.
3. Are despatches contraband of war, so as to render the ship liable to seizure?
4. Are neutral ships, carrying despatches, liable to be stopped between two neutral ports?
These I shall consider in their order, giving special attention to the first, which is the pivot of the British complaint. If, in this discussion, I expose grievances which it were better to forget, be assured it is from no willingness to revive the buried animosities they once so justly aroused, but simply to exhibit the proud position which the United States early and constantly maintained.
A question of International Law should not be presented on any mereargumentum ad hominem. It would be of little value to show that Captain Wilkes was sustained by British authority and practice, if he were condemned by International Law as interpreted by his own country. It belongs to us now, nay, let it be our pride, at any cost of individual prepossession or transitory prejudice, to uphold that law in all its force, as it was often declared by the best men in our history, and illustrated by national acts; and let us seize the present occasion to consecrate its positive and unequivocal recognition. In exchange for the prisoners set free, we receive from Great Britain a practical assent, too long deferred, to a principle early propounded by our country, and standing forth on every page of our history. The same voice that asks for their liberation renounces in the same breath an odious pretension, for whole generations the scourge of peaceful commerce.
Great Britain, throughout her municipal history, has practically contributed to the establishment of freedom beyond all other nations. There are at least seven institutionsor principles which she has given to civilization: first, the trial by jury; secondly, the writ ofHabeas Corpus; thirdly, the freedom of the press; fourthly, bills of rights; fifthly, the representative system; sixthly, the rules and orders of debate, constituting Parliamentary Law; and, seventhly, the principle that the air is too pure for a slave to breathe,—long ago declared, and first made a conspicuous reality, by British law. No other nation can show such peaceful triumphs. But, while thus entitled to gratitude for glorious contributions to Municipal Law, we turn with dissent and sorrow from much which she has sought to fasten upon International Law. In municipal questions, Great Britain drew inspiration from her own native Common Law, instinct with freedom; but, especially in maritime questions arising under the Law of Nations, this power seems to have acted on that obnoxious principle of the Roman Law, positively discarded in municipal questions,Quod principi placuit legis vigorem habet, and too often, under this inspiration, imposed upon weaker nations her own arbitrary will. A prerogative of the English monarch, mentioned in very express and pompous terms by early writers, was “the Custody of the Sea,†and he is frequently styled “The Sovereign Lord and Proprietor of the Sea.†But beyond these titles, the time has been when she pretended to actual sovereignty over the seas surrounding the British Isles, as far as Cape Finisterre to the south, and Vanstaten in Norway to the north. Driven from this lordly pretension, other pretensions, less local, but hardly less offensive, were avowed. The boast of “Britannia rules the waves†was practically adopted by British Prize Courts, and universal maritime rights were subjected to the special exigenciesof British interests. In the consciousness of strength, and with an irresistible navy, this power has put chains upon the sea.
The commerce of the United States, as it began to whiten the ocean, was cruelly decimated. American ships and cargoes, while, in the language of Earl Russell, “pursuing a lawful and innocent voyage,†suffered from British Prize Courts more than from rock or tempest. Shipwreck was less frequent than confiscation, and, when it came, was easier to bear. But the loss of property stung less than the outrage of impressment, by which foreigners, under protection of the American flag, and also American citizens, without any form of trial, and at the mere mandate of a navy officer, who for the moment acted as a judicial tribunal, were dragged from the deck which should have been to them a sacred altar. This outrage, insolently vindicated by the municipal claim of Great Britain to the services of her subjects, was enforced arrogantly and perpetually on the high seas, where Municipal Law is silent and International Law alone prevails. The belligerent right of search, derived from International Law, and justly applicable to enemy property or contraband only, and not to men, was employed for this purpose, and the quarter-deck of every English cruiser became a floating judgment-seat. The leading organ of opinion in England, on the morning after the news that the Rebels had been taken from a British ship, thus confessed the precedents of British history:—
“Unwelcome as the truth may be, it is nevertheless a truth, that we have ourselves established a system of International Law which now tells against us. In high-handed and almost despotic manner, we have, in former days, claimedprivileges over neutrals which have at different times banded all the maritime powers of the world against us.We have insisted even upon stopping the ships of war of neutral nations and taking British subjects out of them.â€[39]
“Unwelcome as the truth may be, it is nevertheless a truth, that we have ourselves established a system of International Law which now tells against us. In high-handed and almost despotic manner, we have, in former days, claimedprivileges over neutrals which have at different times banded all the maritime powers of the world against us.We have insisted even upon stopping the ships of war of neutral nations and taking British subjects out of them.â€[39]
The practice began early and was continued constantly; nor did it discriminate among its victims. It is mentioned by Mr. Jefferson, and repeated by an excellent British writer on International Law, that two nephews of Washington, on their way home from Europe, were ravished from the protection of the American flag, without any judicial proceedings, and placed, as common seamen, under the ordinary discipline of British ships of war.[40]The victims were counted by thousands. Lord Castlereagh himself admitted, on the floor of the House of Commons, that an inquiry instituted by the British Government had discovered in the British fleet three thousand five hundred men claiming to be impressed Americans,—claiming only. But while unwilling to accept this large number as all Americans, his Lordship could not deny, “that, in the great extent of the British navy, there were sixteen or seventeen hundred individuals who were there contrary to the wishes of His Majesty’s Government, and who had some rational ground for demanding their liberation, on the ground of their being subjects of the United States,â€â€”which, I take it, is a pleonastic circumlocution to denote that at least sixteen hundred American citizens were originally kidnapped and stolen from American ships on the high seas, to undergo the servitude of the British navy: all of which can be readin the Parliamentary Debates.[41]At our Department of State upwards of six thousand cases were recorded, and it was estimated that at least as many more might have occurred, of which no information had been received.[42]Thus, according to official admission of the British minister, there was reason to believe that the quarter-deck of a British man-of-war had been made a floating judgment-seat three thousand five hundred times, while, according to the records of our own State Department, it had been made a floating judgment-seat six thousand times and upwards, and each time some citizen or other person was taken from the protection of the national flag without any form of trial whatever. If a pretension so intrinsically lawless could be sanctioned by precedent, Great Britain would have succeeded in interpolating it into the Law of Nations.
The numbers sacrificed have been often denied on the other side; but candid Englishmen have made admissions which are on record. The “Edinburgh Review,†at a moment when its authority was at its height, and truth prevailed above controversy, said:—
“The two lists made out in 1801 and 1812 of impressed Americans can be but a small part of the American case against us. From that fraction of their case we may, however, form some opinion on the extent to which freemen, who would be a scandal to their English ancestry, unless liberty was as dear as life, must have writhed under our practice of impressment. Prior to September, 1801, 1,132 native American sailors were set at liberty by the English Government, as having been wrongfully impressed. On the war with America in 1812, another division of 1,422 nativeAmericans, every one of them having been so taken, were transferred out of our men-of-war into our prisons. This is proved from English documents. Here are nearly two thousand six hundred sufferers, victims of a greater outrage than one free nation ever assumed the privilege of inflicting on another,—an outrage which no nation deserving the name of a nation, and solemnly bound to protect its meanest members, can be expected patiently to endure.â€[43]
“The two lists made out in 1801 and 1812 of impressed Americans can be but a small part of the American case against us. From that fraction of their case we may, however, form some opinion on the extent to which freemen, who would be a scandal to their English ancestry, unless liberty was as dear as life, must have writhed under our practice of impressment. Prior to September, 1801, 1,132 native American sailors were set at liberty by the English Government, as having been wrongfully impressed. On the war with America in 1812, another division of 1,422 nativeAmericans, every one of them having been so taken, were transferred out of our men-of-war into our prisons. This is proved from English documents. Here are nearly two thousand six hundred sufferers, victims of a greater outrage than one free nation ever assumed the privilege of inflicting on another,—an outrage which no nation deserving the name of a nation, and solemnly bound to protect its meanest members, can be expected patiently to endure.â€[43]
Such words by one of us might be treated as the exaltation of patriotic indignation. Here, it is history written by the other side.
Even assuming, that, according to frequent British allegation, the persons taken were British subjects and not American citizens, which would make the act identical with that of Captain Wilkes, this only presents in stronger relief the precise point now in issue. Whether the victims were American citizens or British subjects, there was in each case the same forcible entry of our ships and taking from our decks.
Protest, argument, negotiation, correspondence, and war itself—unhappily the last reason of republics, as of kings—were all employed by the United States in vain to procure renunciation of the intolerable pretension. The ablest papers in our diplomatic history are devoted to this purpose; and the only serious war in which we have been engaged, until summoned to subdue the Rebellion, was to overcome by arms this very tyranny, which would not yield to reason. Beginning in the last century, the correspondence is at length closed by the recent reply of Mr. Seward to Lord Lyons. The long continued occasion of conflict is now happily removed, and the pretension disappears forever,—totake its place among the barbaric curiosities of the past.
But I do not content myself with asserting the persistent opposition of the American Government. It belongs to the argument that I should exhibit this opposition, and the precise ground on which it was placed,—being identical with that now adopted by Great Britain. Here the testimony is complete. If you will kindly follow me, you shall see it from the beginning in the public life of our country, and in the authentic records of the National Government.
This British pretension aroused and startled the administration of Washington, and the pen of Mr. Jefferson, his Secretary of State, was enlisted against it. In a letter to Thomas Pinckney, Minister at London, dated June 11, 1792, he announced the American doctrine.
“The simplest rule will be, that the vessel being American shall be evidence that the seamen on board her are such.â€[44]
“The simplest rule will be, that the vessel being American shall be evidence that the seamen on board her are such.â€[44]
In another letter to the same minister, dated October 12, 1792, he calls attention to a case of special outrage.